Fortification is Busted

4L with Perforate, Fist of War, Impale, and Fortify.

Even with 40% increased fortification from hits on the tree, using a 2h axe with big slams I'm getting maybe 1-10 fortification maximum against rare and unique mobs.

It's at a point where you either sacrifice 8 passive skill points including travel nodes to get fortify, or you just have to play champion and that's it.

I really hope base fortification granted from hits will be increased by at least 100% next league. Cheers & ty for reading!

I don't know how physically stong your axe is, but that may play the biggest part in your getting little fortify, since your hits are just not strong enough.

The issue is that making fortify easier to aquire from hits, puts us in the old, weird scenario where shield bash grants fortify, which gives spellcaster a defense layer that they thematically (Since GGG reworked fortify because of that) shouldn't aquire

Come to think of it... you don't really have a 4L... You have a conditional 3L at best.

Impale doesn't actually up your physical prowess at all, since it doesn't give you added bonuses on each hit, but deal reflected damage onto the enemy that is impaled.

Fist of War isn't up all the time, so on the fist of war hit you may get 5 fortification, while without, you basically have a 2L, and fortify doesn't give you a big chunk of more multiplier compared to others.

I'd advise to drop impale support for brutality for the time being. It's a better link with champion (Due to extra phys damage per impale if you specc into it) or in the 5th / 6th slot otherwise.

Hope this kinda helped :,)

fortification is a bad design. It also punish melee and even avoid bleed/poison builds using it.

Poor Viper Strike, GGG abandon you, they even refuse you to use fortify.

GGG cant balance, they can only nerf into ground.

OP's actual numbers aren't relevant, Fortify is significantly worse in every way to prior to their changes. The only objective they achieved is casters stopped using it, which could have been achieved by removing it entirely to get to the same result.

I was gonna post that you can now get to 30 stacks but i'd forgotten they removed fortify effect off everything at the same time so that was actually a reduction to.

Infact i'd go as far as to say that fortify is the 2nd worst rework they've ever done, just behind the animation changes for strike skills. Both of these would significantly improve the game to just be reverted.

Can't understand how did they balance the game.

If you want to avoid spell/minions builds using fortify, you can just add an affix on the gem, such as "fortify gained by this support gem cause you deal 50% less spell damage and your minions deal 50% less damage." (and do the same thing on Vigilant Strike)

Ironically, they had done similar things on some gems, for example, the poor viper strike,

"30% Less Attack Speed if Dual Wielding"