Help with damage taken

I'm not a hardcore player, i often play PoE from time to time, always following a guide or whatever...
This time i've decided to try and 'learn' more the skill tree but, well, you know... So i think i've made a mess in my ranger setup.
When it comes to damage done, not a problem, i kill mobs and some bosses easy. SOME bosses. As for damage taken... Sometimes i get oneshotted before i can do anything, mostly by magic and/or ranged attacks, sometimes by rare or unique monster rushing towards me. When i switch to the 'scourge dimenson or whatever its called' is a sh** show, 2 seconds and death.
How can i boost my defenses??? I've put some points on elemental resistance and i know my gear is crap but i can farm/buy new armor and stuff. I'm not looking for a hulking-living-weapon of mass destruction-godlike character, i just wanna do some 'soft' mapping until the new league (when i'll look for a guide again).

Is armour a thing? I've switched from a 500 armour breast plate to a 1000, felt like nothing changed!

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xBERSERKRx wrote:

Is armour a thing? I've switched from a 500 armour breast plate to a 1000, felt like nothing changed!

1000 is nothing, 10K has some value

I would just focus on getting more life while capping your elemental resistances now.

You can ignore Scourge zone for now till you get stronger.

Your tree is far from optimal ...
You usually don´t pick whole cluster but just notable (keystone) and move on.
You have very low life on gear and tree.
You can buy much better items for a few alchemy orbs or 1-2 chaos.

If you want to learn more about passives and interactions try to download Path of building comunity fork tool and plan your build(s) there.

It will save you lots of time.

In PoE defense is all about layers. A successful buld focuses on multiple points.

Resistance
You have the basic resistance, and a minimum of 75% elemental is mandatory. Very few builds utilize niche mechanics and don't have this, but ignore all that until you really know what you are doing. You also should have a minimum of 0% chaos resistance for much of the sid content, but you can get by without for general mapping. Additional physical damage reduction functions similar to resistance, but armour has it's own unique interaction.


Health Pool
The most basic form of his is life. Derby Shield and mana when applicable can increase this number. Do not skimp as PoE is very unforgiving to glass canons.

Mitigation
Dodge, evade, block, spell suppression, etc all play an important roll. A player with 75% block only takes 25% of overall damage. Less damage taken from sources like fortification are also extremely important. Furthermore, guard skills can be a life saver.

Recovery
If you take damage, you need touickly recover the lost points. There are many ways to do this dependant on what defense received damage.

Thank you all for replying. I ended up deleting that char and starting a new different one. Happens.