Making a solution for endurance charge stealing, for the average slow and sturdy build enjoyer.

Dear GGG and fellow community members,

I am an enjoyer of slow but absurdly tanky builds, and have been enjoying Path of Exile's content for a while now on my own slow pace.

Three leagues ago I took an interest in the skill gem Boneshatter and have been smitten by it, how it builds stacks, how it deals damage to my character and how it interacts with Mantra of Flames.
It tickles my niche perfectly and so I have spend more hours than I'd like to admit on creating a perfect build for it, so far I'm satisfied with the result of the build.
But as a character that relies heavily on endurance charges to survive it pains me greatly that there are sources that completely remove all these endurance charges in a single hit, this modifier is found in multiple instances, such as;
Maps (scour+alc is a solution here, unless corrupted, then it's just bricked).
Simulacrum (when mobs have a chance to remove all charges it is immediatly over).
Archnemesis' Draught Bringer (removes all charges on hit).
Delve zone modifier (these zones are just bricked).

As a Marauder with the Juggernaut ascendancy that encourages the use of endurance charges, it is quite frustrating to have a chance to instantly die when I encounter one of these sources.

So I have thought a long time about abandoning the build I have made and perfected for three leagues, but I just can't abandon it without trying to fix this issue for myself and other slow but steady, endurance charge relying build lovers.

So here is my proposal for a Unique item that would fix this issue, for the few people who care about it and would like to see this band-aid like fix.

A Unique pair of boots with the following stats;
armor based boots (I'm thinking Titan Greaves)
Level requirement: 68+
Unique Implicit: none
Unique Modifier: 150-200 life
Unique Modifier: +1 Maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: Endurance Charges cannot be stolen or removed while at maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: You cannot be knocked back while at maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: 20% less movement speed

I do not have a solid name for these glorious boots, but was thinking of "The Master's Journey".

As flavour text I was thinking about a mentor teaching a student to "slowly endure harsh lessons, because experience and hard work will never betray you".

Let me know what you think about something like this, it will most likely be shunned for its slow nature, but I think it would really add something for the slow and steady characters.

Have you ever thought about stacking "phys damage taken as ele"? Especially with melding of flesh this can make you close to phys immune without any endurance charges.

With the new sublime vision jewel you can get close or completly convert all damage exept chaos to fire. You could use the belt that converts endurence to (i think the name was) brutality charges to compensate for the loss of damage because you cant use any other aura.

would be nice if GGG added uniques that give a lot of power at the cost of clear speed.

"

kevino140 wrote:

A Unique pair of boots with the following stats;
armor based boots (I'm thinking Titan Greaves)
Level requirement: 68+
Unique Implicit: none
Unique Modifier: 150-200 life
Unique Modifier: +1 Maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: Endurance Charges cannot be stolen or removed while at maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: You cannot be knocked back while at maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: 20% less movement speed

considering how obsessed with speed people are those boots could probably give +2 or even 3 to max endurance charge and still not be popular XD.

Endurance charges are nice and all but if you are playing Boneshatter, you should be depending on a huge pile of armour (which doesn't get stolen) to protect you, not just endurance charges. Endurance charges were incredibly strong before they reworked armour but after the rework, they kind of pale in comparison to a healthy amount of armour.

For the charges themselves, two things you can do:

1) Get Minimum Endurance charges. You can get 1 each on rings and amulets (crafting bench suffix) and one on the passive tree (Disciple of the Unyielding) for a total of 4. Minimum charges cannot be stolen or removed by enemies.

2) Manually use Immortal Call right before fighting something that swipes your charges (or just before wading into anything sketchy honestly). Immortal Call will eat up to 5 endurance charges (note it cannot eat minimum charges, so make sure you have charges beyond the minimum ones) and return a really strong defensive buff for a decent duration (number of charges eaten determines duration). You'll effectively have a lot more mitigation than the up to 5 charges was giving you while the buff is up.

Hey Zerber,
Thanks alot for the reply!

I can see that you have tried to forgo the problem by turning physical damage to elemental damage, but this creates a few problems for my particular juggernaut build.
The damage my character takes at 300 stacks of Boneshatter (BS) equals 71400 physical damage, this damage is taken 22 times per second (let's say 0.05 sec/71400 phys damage). This is heavily reduced by 90% phys reduction via 10 endurance charges (4% base, 1% ascendancy, 2% enduring cry) for 70% phys. reduction, a Watcher's Eye jewel (WE) with 8% additional physical damage reduction while affected by determination, a shield with 8% additional physical damage reduction and a glorious vanity jewel that gives automation studies (a corrupted notable) with 4% phys reduction for 90% reduced physical damage taken, this is without armour ofcourse.
I use dopperganger's guise with 40% less phys taken as body armour aswell.
This means that 71400 phys dmg X 0.1 (phys reduction) X 0.95 (Unbreakable from ascendancy jugg) X 0.71 (29 fortify) X 0.87 (arctic armor) X 0.6 (Doppelganger) X 0.75 (new Forbidden jewels Indomitable Resolve) = 1885 phys. damage taken.
This means that 71400 - 1885 = 69515 phys dmg is prevented, which brings me to the issue this brings, taking almost 2k dmg every 0.05 seconds is alot.

But the Unbreakable notable from jugg gives us 1.5% phys dmg prevented in the past 10 seconds is regenerated as life per second.
With this we can offset the damage we get from the skill itself and survive.
converting this to elemental damage means that we take more damage if we push our max. ele. res. to 90% than we would with physical, and we would lose all healing.

I did know of the option to convert phys damage, but it was not worth considering because of the benefits of taking phys damage.

Furtermore does this not resolve the issue for endurance stacking builds that are slow, which was the point of the boots and this thread.

"

Zerber wrote:

Have you ever thought about stacking "phys damage taken as ele"? Especially with melding of flesh this can make you close to phys immune without any endurance charges.

With the new sublime vision jewel you can get close or completly convert all damage exept chaos to fire. You could use the belt that converts endurence to (i think the name was) brutality charges to compensate for the loss of damage because you cant use any other aura.

"

caboom wrote:

would be nice if GGG added uniques that give a lot of power at the cost of clear speed.

"

kevino140 wrote:

A Unique pair of boots with the following stats;
armor based boots (I'm thinking Titan Greaves)
Level requirement: 68+
Unique Implicit: none
Unique Modifier: 150-200 life
Unique Modifier: +1 Maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: Endurance Charges cannot be stolen or removed while at maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: You cannot be knocked back while at maximum Endurance Charges
Unique Modifier: 20% less movement speed

considering how obsessed with speed people are those boots could probably give +2 or even 3 to max endurance charge and still not be popular XD.

Hey Caboom :D
Thanks for the reply <3
I was considering putting in the line of 1% or 2% less damage taken per Endurance Charge, but I wanted more feedback on the initial idea for a slow Endurance build.
Extra Endurance Charges after just one would just make it overtuned. alas.

"

TemjinGold wrote:

Endurance charges are nice and all but if you are playing Boneshatter, you should be depending on a huge pile of armour (which doesn't get stolen) to protect you, not just endurance charges. Endurance charges were incredibly strong before they reworked armour but after the rework, they kind of pale in comparison to a healthy amount of armour.

For the charges themselves, two things you can do:

1) Get Minimum Endurance charges. You can get 1 each on rings and amulets (crafting bench suffix) and one on the passive tree (Disciple of the Unyielding) for a total of 4. Minimum charges cannot be stolen or removed by enemies.

2) Manually use Immortal Call right before fighting something that swipes your charges (or just before wading into anything sketchy honestly). Immortal Call will eat up to 5 endurance charges (note it cannot eat minimum charges, so make sure you have charges beyond the minimum ones) and return a really strong defensive buff for a decent duration (number of charges eaten determines duration). You'll effectively have a lot more mitigation than the up to 5 charges was giving you while the buff is up.

Dear TemjinGold,
Armor provides very little mitigation for the sheer number of damage we take, my build can easily take 100,000 phys. damage per hit (0.05 ish seconds per attack)
This would mean that, for 90% reduction, we would need 4,500,000 armour. This is quite a tall order and by no means possible.
also my build works with 10 endurance charges, and 4 won't get close to the dmg reduction it needs to stay alive.
This is from another reply of my own, it is a breakdown of dmg reduction without armour, because at these hights of damage armour will simply not help alot in reducing damage.

The damage my character takes at 300 stacks of Boneshatter (BS) equals 71400 physical damage, this damage is taken 22 times per second (let's say 0.05 sec/71400 phys damage). This is heavily reduced by 90% phys reduction via 10 endurance charges (4% base, 1% ascendancy, 2% enduring cry) for 70% phys. reduction, a Watcher's Eye jewel (WE) with 8% additional physical damage reduction while affected by determination, a shield with 8% additional physical damage reduction and a glorious vanity jewel that gives automation studies (a corrupted notable) with 4% phys reduction for 90% reduced physical damage taken, this is without armour ofcourse.
I use dopperganger's guise with 40% less phys taken as body armour aswell.
This means that 71400 phys dmg X 0.1 (phys reduction) X 0.95 (Unbreakable from ascendancy jugg) X 0.71 (29 fortify) X 0.87 (arctic armor) X 0.6 (Doppelganger) X 0.75 (new Forbidden jewels Indomitable Resolve) = 1885 phys. damage taken.
This means that 71400 - 1885 = 69515 phys dmg is prevented, which brings me to the issue this brings, taking almost 2k dmg every 0.05 seconds is alot.
But the Unbreakable notable from jugg gives us 1.5% phys dmg prevented in the past 10 seconds is regenerated as life per second.
With this we can offset the damage we get from the skill itself and survive.

I also do not use Immortal Call in my build, I used to until I noticed that I was oneshotting myself at high stacks after using it.
because it removes five Endurance Charges it creates a big dmg reduction gap, this 35% reduction loss equals a 350% taken increase from 90% dmg reduction for a brief moment.
In this moment the next best hit form Boneshatter will instantly kill your character :).

But i'm working towards a fix for the forceful loss of Endurance Charges, not a way around them.

Thanks for the input!!!

I took a look at your character and see your problem--you are going full on attack speed and relying on ramping up stacks for damage. The problem is that you are using a 20/20 Boneshatter when you should be using an 8/20 gem. Your damage is coming from stacks and Mantra of Flames, not the piddly bit of extra damage from leveling your gem up to 20. There is an obscenely large difference in self-damage here for an extremely small amount of difference in damage output.

Another use for endurance charges is to mitigate damage from physical damage over time, which completely bypasses armor.

"

TemjinGold wrote:

I took a look at your character and see your problem--you are going full on attack speed and relying on ramping up stacks for damage. The problem is that you are using a 20/20 Boneshatter when you should be using an 8/20 gem. Your damage is coming from stacks and Mantra of Flames, not the piddly bit of extra damage from leveling your gem up to 20. There is an obscenely large difference in self-damage here for an extremely small amount of difference in damage output.

Dear TemjinGold,
Thank you for putting in the time to take a look at my build!
It is a good suggestion, and here is why I use a lvl 20 gem instead of a lvl 8.
PoB is not able to handle mantra of flames, so if we put the line "Adds 1200 to 3600 fire damage to attacks" in the configuration tab we can account for the added 300 stacks of trauma.
changing the skill gem to lvl 8 from lvl 20 changes a few things;
phys. damage taken when trauma is gained 238 -> 75
effectiveness of added damage 250 -> 218
more damage per trauma 4% -> 3%
the damage disparity between the levels is actually pretty big, if we take lvl 8 as the "base" of the gem and 20 as the "new" with 300 stacks we get this.
1 * (250/218) (effect of added damage) * (4/3) (more dmg per trauma) = 1.53 times more damage, this means we deal 53% more damage with a lvl 20 gem instead of a lvl 8 gem.
furthermore is the damage taken lower in a lvl 8 gem compared to a lvl 20 gem.
75/238 = 31.5% of the dmg taken.
But damage taken is as physical so we also only get 31.5% of the healing from the Unbreakable ascendancy talent, which we use to keep our recovery high.

The damage we take from the lvl 20 gem oneshot's my character without endurance charges, but so wil a lvl 8 gem.
So lowering the gem's level will only decrease our dmg output by 33% and healing recieved by 70%.