What is the point of building defenses?

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Draegnarrr wrote:

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Nubatron wrote:

I mostly agree with this take. HC seems to be more of a test of patience than skill. HC players that take chances and hit 100 certainly exist, but it feels more common that they just never take risk.

Source: check out achievements (not challenges; achievements) for the HC players that come into threads and say stupid things like "softcore problems" or "laughs in HC". Before anyone jumps on this "Source", it's a joke (mostly).

Some of us take risks still you just take them when you feel ready to do so, and the reason you can do that is because defences do infact work if you put the work into them.

That isn't to say we don't play cautious too because we do but really HC is about knowing where your characters at vs the content you are currently trying to do, you use skill and patience both to get there.

There is no way you could get 40 challenges done if defences didn't work but it is truly difficult to cover every type of encounter. I've done all the other challenges but I still can't finish a Simulacrum you just need so much defence vs mass trash its a very niche thing.

So really think its a bad take on it to say 100 in HC SSF makes this irrelevant, whether they dodge content or not the very intent of rolling modded shit is to increase the difficulty, if you never died it wouldn't be harder would it? That isn't defences not working thats the modifier system doing its job properly. People forget but there was a time when running corrupted 8 mods was rare as fuck for most builds now its the norm lmao

Yup, 100% agree. I'm not saying no one ever takes risks. I play HC after I finish my 40 and I've lost count how many times I've lost a character to taking risks just to push the threshold.

Defenses definitely work. agreed. People just tend to think about their defenses in a very shallow way, when this game requires layers of mitigations with no holes if you want to avoid dying occasionally.

Yeah exactly, its really hard to cover every damage/encounter type, as Its intended to be I think.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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walfrat wrote:

What is very... tricky for me is when I actally run mods like "add %phys dmg as <elem> dmg" either in maps of from eldircht altars. There are some boss that are pure caster => 0 dmg increased ez game GG ololololol, and there are others that I could facetank that suddenly become extremely dangerous (ex : droxx in maven challenge throw randomly his punch slow attacks while your busy with Veritania ice spike and those poison snakes). This feel like pur bullshit in terme of balance.

what you are coming up against here is the problem that you have very strong defences against a particular specialised form of damage delivered in a particular way, but you have wide holes in your defence setup that have not been plugged by other layers of defence.


peo0ple talk about layering defences, but just having multiple layers isnt necessarily enough, its about having layers that work together to fill each others gaps.

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Thanks for the return, my post was already plenty long so I didn't want to add more, neither i'm seeking a way to fix my build here, but I will answer to some of the remark down there :
- I'm a maraudeur with two handed weapons => no shield as you said.
- I use plain armor stuff, so yes I don't have evasion, it is quite fine against mobs that use attacks, however I'm definitively weaker against spells, but I can't have suppress spell damage on my gear and I already took all node to get +3/4% to max res, and fortify so when I look at my tree I don't have much more options. There are eventually some uniques, but I they have some drawback or deprivate me on some stuff that would make me the need to change others pieces to be able to use them (ex fortification converted to suppress spell damage from a unique amulet).
- Without determination I fall at 20k armour pretty much. Yes because my 45k armour are without using pots so with dedicated pots I can effectively go way higher.
- With 50k deter : 10k molten shell, 20k armour + 20k evasion => 4k molten shell (unless I run another guard skill for this setup).
- When I said jumping in mobs, the case I had in mind was those damn fire skeleton with their triple fireball, so evasion useless, raw elemental damage combined to multiple projectile while going on melee on them, without mods I don't die, I just frequently lose 80-90% of my life in a split of a second which give me a scare every time :D

The reason my build is like that is to balance between mapping and bossing, I definitively don't need 45k armor to map, however against raw physical bosses and also strong boss that have partial physical damage, it is a huge boost in survivability, and since I'm a melee, if I can tank a slam, it's more uptime dps. Because of this I don't use any stuff like "on kill" because there basically wasted slots against bosses. Of course I don't mind adapting a bit my setup for bossing, but I want to enjoy my build on the different content provided by PoE (I don't mind excluding deep delving and uber bosses from it) and since I grind by myself, I don't feel like going for 2 full build, and yes my gear setup is not finished I'm already aware of that.

Currently the only thing I really swap are my belts : Bear girdle from Harvest and immortal flesh (lots of regen). My gear is basically at a point that, except if I get a specific unique, I needed some huge craft investment to get something that make a difference (I am currently going forward 300+ delves to farm santified fossils).

The problem is that I see some case, the famous pools of the dead that remove life regen, where I already know that my effort will be 200% useless against them, which is a huge frustration. "Build mega layered defense, *put shitty and hard to see pools that negate all layered defenses*".

And yes I really have a huge hatred against this specific mechanic, I'm here to play a hack and slash, not a game that require the accuracy of a RPGMaker based ultra hard mario, I'm not here for that, like most of the players that have also played d2 where you didn't had this kind of shits.

Unlike quite some players I don't mind mechanics, I didn't mind syndicate unlike lots of players because I always had some chaos defs, I always try to build some decent layers of defense. It is just that I don't like minions buiild.

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yamface wrote:

oh please. people complaining about not being tanky always half ass their defenses, thats what it comes down to.

poe is a game where if you half ass anything, it feels like 0. if you cheap out on damage investment, you do zdps, likewise if you cheap out on defenses you feel no different than going glass cannon

already see people in this thread talking about how they put in so much effort but they start naming basic shit like fortify.. molten shell, max resists, etc. these defense layers cost almost nothing to slap on your build. and i bet if you look at their gear, their gloves will have fully maxed out dps mods but not a single defense mod, not even a life roll.

You should have bet i guess, you would have lose.

As I said my gear is not finished, but you're welcome to tell me where I did put dps mods on my gear (except 2hand weapons) because I haven't A SINGLE ONE . I have only RES (including chaos)/LIFE/ARMOUR on everything I could. Oh right I have a +5% elem dmg on attack skills on a not so lucky exalt, but I'm a full physical so I hope you will be gracious enough to forgive me.


The shits you mention is what GGG provided me on str build, like leap slam instead of a mouvement skill that teleport you and thus avoiding anything you could fly over. I don't have stuff like dodging or supress spell damage on my tree, ascendancy, or mods for strgear.

I could also take the opposite stance where when you seek builds you would found build that aren 't playable unless you have a top 0.1% budget (no minions build plz). "Hey you have a problem with t12 map, let me link you a build with the unique jewel from sirus, the two unique jewel from Eater of the world and Searing exarch, and a triple watcher mods". Sure bro *clap* *clap*.

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Yeah exactly, its really hard to cover every damage/encounter type, as Its intended to be I think.

The problem is not the fact that it's hard to cover everything, it's just that you have an obligation towards some stuff (freeze/chill) that really make you unable to cover the rest. Unless I do specific boss, I just can't get out of the freeze pantheon, like a LOOOT of people, because having % reduced effect in freeze doesn't work, it's 100% or die.

And for HCFSSF, last time I checked a youtube video about running lvl 100 first, it was a race between necromancers ? So do I really need to make a comment on the matter ?

Finally I always have seen melee getting nerfed to the ground when I actually see minion build actually get buffed ! With added elements res by default ! With specific piece of gear to get even more stuff ! They basically want you to play 50 minions/traps/projectiles/totems build that just transform your game in a fucking vomiting fireworks that I just can't bear to see.

Note while I'm playing currently a melee, I also play ranged, I actually want to farm some extra step on my marauder and I will go back to my archer or witch.
A lot of players don't want, or just can't keep up with the whole BS that is that at least half of the gems/gear and easily a quarter of tree nodes are useless and it changes every fucking updates, except from some meta build that are still there since they existed (hello necromancer).

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Nubatron wrote:

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RitualMurder wrote:

i have a 97 RF inquis, legacy melding, aegis etc i just got giga fucked by a harbinger in a map

this game is a silly ass joke when it comes to defense even when ur tanky ur not really tanky

no altars, no extra shit, im doing witnessed guardians for maven farming
just giga fucked by a regular harb in my map

non sensical bs

The most obvious hole in your defense is your chaos resistance. The game has a way of finding the weakest link. Aegis/Melding isn't perfect either. It is just a relatively cheap way to build defenses effectively. Also, are you using the traitor with 0 empty flask slots? That's strange.

Sorry if I missed something, it was a very quick look.

Either way, your build isn't immortal, but it's good enough to avoid dying most of the time if you're careful. I have a nagging suspicion that you're not being careful.

i have no keystone in range of my timeless so no im not use the traitor, i just use the jewel to get the dex i need for gems chaos res is as high as i could get it for now 38 isnt terrible but untill i roll a ring with curse on hit and chaos res im stuck where i am i even have 2 small cluster with chaos res

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walfrat wrote:

You should have bet i guess, you would have lose.

They wouldn't have done your gear perfectly gets the point across, its got obvious stuff considered mandatory and that's it.

I'm not trying to give you shit here but it is a perfect representation of the problem, you think what you've got in justifies some degree of tankiness, we think its the bare basics and doesn't count at all. There is a knowledge gap there and until you want to learn whats missing and start filling it in you'll always think you can't be tanky.

I'd list all the encounter types this setup would struggle against but its easier to say all of them, it'd be OK on bosses if you are mechanically skilled and dodge appropriately.

Like you said, 5way for lvl100 to get rid of stress of losing xp.
Then just lots of dps and kill stuff before it kills you.
You getting killed maybe at times but in my case I'm ok with it as long i keep blasting before that.

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gageris wrote:

If you get rekt by a single mob 3 times in a row in a T12 unmoded map and just lose 2hours of exp progress in 20secs?

I sometimes see these people with 8000 deaths, having all the magebloods, ashes and etc., I want to vomit..

Is this the gameplay to pursue - play a glass cannon with portal-cast on death and just buy level100 via 5way boosting?

For example - why amour is useless stat for big stats? Why tooltip shows you that it reduces dmg by x%, when in reality it reduces 0 damage when the hit is big enough?

PoE is an amazing game for me, I enjoy most of it, but stuff like this is annoying, really annoying. A single 3deaths in 20secs just took out whole will of mine to play for at least good month. While I was enjoying my slow journey in SSF, I felt that these deaths were completely unfair. And I don't like to be robbed like this. Up to this point (level93, 2 pinnacle bosses killed) I had 9 deaths in total, and in this single map without any dmg mods I died 5times..

you have 2 characters, totem hiero that has next to no defences and seismic sabo that doesnt have any defences and not capped supress, do tell me how are you expecting to not die without building defences

I don't think your defenses are very good if you're getting killed on white T 12 maps...

...they work great if you invest in layering them.