Endurance/Frenzy/Power CHARGEs

Well, ralakesh will get nuked from orbit next league that is pretty much a given. I don't understand how that shit made it out of development in the first place, it's blatantly obviously broken. But yeah, even without that duelist can conviniently scale both if he wants to. Can even slap on arns to further push damage if the endurance charges aren't needed.

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XCodesLIVE wrote:

...and then said Duelist turns those Frenzy charges into Endurance charges, too. All while being next to the Endurance/Frenzy charge cluster. *Then* throw Ralakesh onto *that*...

which means what exactly, and how is that in any way related to this conversation at all?

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Endurance charge stacking has it's use cases even without the ralakesh/arns interaction for double dipping.
For one, it's a way to cover physical damage on transcendence builds like Quin did with his 7/7 uber killer build. There is also tec slam of cataclysm either used raw or via generals cry to fuel a mega nuke skill. BS Nebuloch has already been mentioned.

I would assume tec slam general's cry/totems will not survive nerf hammer. Why? I don't think, that it is intended behavior. Why? If it was, why the hell would you ruin self cast tec slam? Why would they not buff base tec slam, which is absolute joke for years. It is not like self cast tec slam would be turbo broken in base/trans version compared to the general's cry trans version , so there is no reason it would be losing ALL charges after one cast, but maybe like 3 charges per cast. Self cast tec slam of cataclysm is still doable via the jugg node, but it is a/ not reliable for each hit b/ just weaker than gen/totem version

The quin build exactly falls into the 2 exceptions I laid out in first or second post -> stacking them on jugg for defensive purposes


-- NOT reply to you --
You guys are missing the point of this whole convo -> stacking endurance charges feels bad(point/gear vise), because they are far inferior to the other charges. It would not be the case if phys to ele conversion is not in the game. Main problem lies in the part of the skill tree, that can actually stack them. It is weak. Why?
- Armor is not as good as phys taken as.
- Max res is not good due to the game being balanced around suppression and everything in end game has ele pen, which ruins stacking max res.
- Life regen is the only decent defensive layer, but it only shines on jugg.
- Block is almost not an option since majority of builds use two handers.
- Fortify is great(not in deeper delve due stack generation issues), but given boss fight design, it is not reliable without wurm flasks aka runs out before end of the phase.
My whole point of endu charges giving -% less damage taken was to give some GOOD defensive layer to part of tree, which does have NONE or give it damage to buff weak builds.


One cannot have game balanced around PHYSICAL damage conversions and suppression and expect outdated defensive layers to keep up with that.

I don't dispute loreweave - transcendence - ed - jugg combo. It is great, but core mechanic should not be balanced around existence of a broken combo. The broken combo should be balanced around the CORE mechanics.

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Sameen_Shaw wrote:

You guys are missing the point of this whole convo -> stacking endurance charges feels bad(point/gear vise), because they are far inferior to the other charges. It would not be the case if phys to ele conversion is not in the game. Main problem lies in the part of the skill tree, that can actually stack them. It is weak. Why?
- Armor is not as good as phys taken as.
- Max res is not good due to the game being balanced around suppression and everything in end game has ele pen, which ruins stacking max res.
- Life regen is the only decent defensive layer, but it only shines on jugg.
- Block is almost not an option since majority of builds use two handers.
- Fortify is great(not in deeper delve due stack generation issues), but given boss fight design, it is not reliable without wurm flasks aka runs out before end of the phase.

It takes a lot of phys taken as to make actual physical mitigation a non-issue, and besides your first two points are frankly contradicting each other. Yes, Overwhelm exists and that really punishes high armor builds, but the wrong kind of ele pen punishes phys taken as just as much. Endurance Charges also still interact really, really well with Armor, especially after the defense buffs a few patches ago.

I think the problem isn't that the defenses listed are bad, it's that they take too many points to assemble while Shadows and Rangers just grab Spell Suppression and a Leech cluster and they're done compared to Endurance Charges, Armor, Regen, Max Res... There are a lot of approaches that could potentially help with that like a Block rework, maybe moving the Armor/+Max Res cluster to a better location, maybe adding a cluster that applies a little armor to Elemental damage so Juggernauts don't have all the fun? Lots of options.

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Sameen_Shaw wrote:

You guys are missing the point of this whole convo -> stacking endurance charges feels bad(point/gear vise), because they are far inferior to the other charges. It would not be the case if phys to ele conversion is not in the game. Main problem lies in the part of the skill tree, that can actually stack them. It is weak. Why?
- Armor is not as good as phys taken as.
- Max res is not good due to the game being balanced around suppression and everything in end game has ele pen, which ruins stacking max res.
- Life regen is the only decent defensive layer, but it only shines on jugg.
- Block is almost not an option since majority of builds use two handers.
- Fortify is great(not in deeper delve due stack generation issues), but given boss fight design, it is not reliable without wurm flasks aka runs out before end of the phase.
My whole point of endu charges giving -% less damage taken was to give some GOOD defensive layer to part of tree, which does have NONE or give it damage to buff weak builds.


One cannot have game balanced around PHYSICAL damage conversions and suppression and expect outdated defensive layers to keep up with that.

Disagree with a few things:

1) Endurance charges gives FLAT physical reduction. This stat is, at its lowest value (assuming max resists), 25% better than ANY phys taken as roll you have. Plus it doesn't risk double dipping against overwhelm AND pierce. I don't really understand why you keep equating the two...there are VERY very few builds out there running around with anything close 100% physical damage taken as x element. Any flat phys reduction you can get is HUGE.

2) Spell suppression is such an odd thing to bring into this argument. It doesn't really have anything to do with Endurance Charges = bad. Max spell suppression and you still take 50% damage, most of that being elemental protected by your resistances. The physical attacks and physical spells are still hitting you like a truck. Plus, damn near half the builds in the game DON'T max suppression in the first place. So that's really a moot point.

3) Life Regen is NOT defense, shouldn't even be brought up into this conversation. Has nothing to do with endurance charges per se, except in the very specific juggernaut case. Same with Block...these are entirely separate mechanics and do not make flat physical reduction any more or less "strong" as a defense.

4) Max resist is not strong....this is just a wrong statement. Overcapping is pretty standard to deal with elemental weakness curse and sources of pen. Any chance you can get extra resistances is almost ALWAYS a good thing. Plus, you seem to be under the impression that the pierce monsters have is way stronger than it actually is....And then there's also dealing with altar side effects that reduce your resistances by 50% at times. If you can overcap to deal with that, its a huge bonus. If you are THAT afraid of pierce, why even bother building resistances up in the first place? Any amount of additional resistances you can have, assuming pierce knocks you below your max, is going to offer increasingly large % amounts of protection.



And this whole argument of comparing Endurance Charges to the other two charges is flawed right at the start, as I mentioned in my first response. Frenzy charges standout as being always powerful (that isn't being disputed). Power charges, on the other hand, are just as (if not more-so) useless when viewed for certain builds. Endurance charges are ALWAYS useful, like frenzy charges, except they just aren't as "powerful"

But even THAT statement irks me to write because.....endurance charges are a DEFENSIVE mechanic that you are trying to compare to an OFFENSIVE mechanic. How can you possibly say one is "weaker" than another when they offer completely diametrically opposed stats?

And then, even more basic, why does it REALLY matter if one charge is less stackable than another? It's pretty standard that people prefer offense over defense, and like to see their damage go higher and would just rather get the bare minimum defense to survive. That is just normal arpg stuff. Endurance charges are defensive and really SHOULDN'T be turned offensive just because there is less of a desire to stack them.

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Sameen_Shaw wrote:

- Armor is not as good as phys taken as.

I'll just comment on this part because most other things were already addressed by others. You VASTLY underestimate armor and your statement here is questionable at best. If it's your goal to tank uber shapers slam attack with as little phys defense investment as possible then phys taken as is better in regards to phys mitigation but that's pretty much it.

It's difficult to get in large percentages and even if you actually manage to get it to 100% you'll still take 25% damage from every hit, even those where armor would provide 90% already making you much weaker against volleys of small hits. Also worth noting that an uber shaper slam would still do ~6k damage even with 100% phys taken as and 75 res so even in an unrealistic ideal case scenario your oh so amazing defense setup doesn't cut it against that. To make this work you'd have to combine phys taken as with max res, which according to you is another bad defensive layer.

Lastly, armor isn't just useful to mitigate physical hits. Between unbreakable (which is available to all marauder ascendancies), Fourth Vow and Transcendence there is a multitude of ways to greatly benefit from armor when up against elemental and/or chaos damage on top of the phys damage mitigation. This type of armor application to elemental/chaos damage also has great synergy with damage taken as other element mods by the way. Splitting a big hit into 2 portions via damage taken as means that your armor then applies to those hits individually. So instead of having to cover for 20k damage with your armor, it's applied in full to two 10k damage hit's which obviously increases armor mitigation efficiency several times over.

If you think evasion + SS from right side of the tree is a "great defense" then frankly you've never played a build with good defense. There are way more powerful setups in the game and max res and/or armor play large roles in all of them. Even the powerful PF setups all utilize either one of them or both despite being right sided.

To be fair...we are now branching a bit far from the initial point which was:

endurance charge stacking is crap compared to power/frenzy.

Main issue with the point: you focus on Endurance charges not having an offensive aspect and how that makes them imbalanced when compared to frenzy or power charges. I mean.....sure?? Does that also mean physical reduction is imbalanced with physical damage because it offers no offense? Because that's what this comment means.

Secondary issue: resists vs elemental reduction. At some point, stacking resists on many builds becomes pretty much useless. I totally agree. BUT you ignore the fact that: stacking crit chance is useless on non crit builds or maxed crit builds. Stacking attack speed via frenzy charges can damn near BREAK builds that rely on a specific speed or a slower speed. ALL the charges have aspects that are "useless" to some. HOWEVER, I still agree with you that it would make more thematic sense for the endurance charge to offer 1/2% ele reduction instead of resistances. Fits the theme of flat reduction, and makes them slightly more useful to more builds.

Third issue: Charge stacking HAS to be balanced. Why? People stack offensive charges because they are trying to get as high dps as possible. But functionally in-game, whats the REAL difference between 40 million damage with 4 charges, and 50 million damage with 10 charges? Similarly yet in the opposite direction, people do NOT try to push defenses beyond the bare minimum and so endurance charges fill the gaps until they cease to be useful. There's no reason to keep stacking physical reduction and overcapped resists if....you never die. I don't really see taht as any sort of problem with their design.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

1) Endurance charges gives FLAT physical reduction. This stat is, at its lowest value (assuming max resists), 25% better than ANY phys taken as roll you have. Plus it doesn't risk double dipping against overwhelm AND pierce. I don't really understand why you keep equating the two...there are VERY very few builds out there running around with anything close 100% physical damage taken as x element. Any flat phys reduction you can get is HUGE.

2) Spell suppression is such an odd thing to bring into this argument. It doesn't really have anything to do with Endurance Charges = bad. Max spell suppression and you still take 50% damage, most of that being elemental protected by your resistances. The physical attacks and physical spells are still hitting you like a truck. Plus, damn near half the builds in the game DON'T max suppression in the first place. So that's really a moot point.

3) Life Regen is NOT defense, shouldn't even be brought up into this conversation. Has nothing to do with endurance charges per se, except in the very specific juggernaut case. Same with Block...these are entirely separate mechanics and do not make flat physical reduction any more or less "strong" as a defense.

4) Max resist is not strong....this is just a wrong statement. Overcapping is pretty standard to deal with elemental weakness curse and sources of pen. Any chance you can get extra resistances is almost ALWAYS a good thing. Plus, you seem to be under the impression that the pierce monsters have is way stronger than it actually is....And then there's also dealing with altar side effects that reduce your resistances by 50% at times. If you can overcap to deal with that, its a huge bonus. If you are THAT afraid of pierce, why even bother building resistances up in the first place? Any amount of additional resistances you can have, assuming pierce knocks you below your max, is going to offer increasingly large % amounts of protection.
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1a/ I dont equate them. I compare them as the strong ways how to deal with big phys hits. Armor unless you are armor stacking(1-8mil armor) is not gonna cut it for hard hits. Yeah sure you can run in maps with 50k armor and 3 endu charges and you will be most likely fine. This league many people benefit from having 3 endu charges all the time. I can already tell the ralakesh nerf will make people mald about phys hits next league, because even builds which would not have any have at least 3 perma this league.

1b/ I HAVE to address "very very few builds run anything close to 100% phys convert" - quite literally it is way way more people than endurance charge stackers. Almost every pathfinder(one of the most played ascendancies) goes Lcoil(50%) + Dawnbreaker(20%) + helmet(korell craft 8% + implicit 6+%) and you can sprinkle on top of that - taste of hate/corrupted dawnbreaker/watchers eye. Look into ANY deep-ish delve build and it is abusing conversions far far more than endurance charges and it all comes down to A strength of the layer and B to "cheapness" when it comes to investment, because you dont have to invest any skillpoints.

2 + 4/ Spell suppression is brought into the discussion for very simple reason. It is mandatory and game is balanced around it. Why do you think ppl do not go ubers with just 90% max res? Ubers have PEN and overcapping your resist by even 100 will NOT help against that, if that was the case everybody would rather overcap resists + spec life nodes than go across half of the tree for spell suppresion + 82-85% max res.

4/ due to what I wrote above. Max res is very weak defensive layer, when you consider it in isolation. You HAVE to combine it with other tools, that dont get destroyed by monster pen. I am specifically saying PEN not CURSES/EXPOSURE. From your comment you confused those together.

3/ life regen is defensive layer - it is not mitigation, but recovery


Why did I even list these specific things unrelated to endurance charges? Have you looked at the skill tree? I named every available layer from skill tree in bottom left side of the tree -> marauder quadrant. Why? I wanted to demonstrate, that every defensive layer from there has major flaws in end game.
Those builds that have these poor choices have to go into:
1/ ED + loreweave + transcendence + endurance charges + jugg
2/ fourthvow + divine flesh + max res(not all the way to 90)
3/ 82-85% max res and path to duelist for suppress + craft all hybrid armor evasion bases with T1 suppression
4/ 90% max res + armor stack with unbreakable

Which is why I appretiate, that you agree with me on the 1-2% reduced elemental damage taken per charge would be better. It would not completely solve end game, but it would give you avenue to get into one of the 4 defensive combos above smoothly.

while it may be popular among pathfinders (75% of them, wow), LCoil is used by only 8% of all builds on PoE ninja. A pretty accurate representation of the overall playerbase NOT doing 100% conversion, considering it is "nearly" impossible WITHOUT lcoil.

Not once have I built a character with 100% suppression....its mandatory is it? How did I survive and thrive for the last few years without it...hmmmmm.


Also I hate to break it to you, but ALL defenses have "major flaws" in them at the endgame....that is absolutely by design. You aren't MEANT to mitigate all damage EVER. GGG has been taking great strides to make that more and more true. But that's why your argument is even more faulty.

Furthermore, EVERY defensive "layer" is completely and utterly useless on its own. To say that max resists is "weaker" than any other defense because, in isolation, it doesn't do much is pretty ridiculous.

Quick Comparison: 85% fire resistance = you resist 85% of incoming fire damage
100% spell suppression (hit by fire spell) = you resist 50% of incoming fire damage.

Hmmm.....interesting! The MANDATORY defense is WEAKER than overcapped resistances? And thats only if it was a spell dealing the fire damage too!

@OP: you have a very flawed and narrow view of defenses that is greatly hurting your ability to argue this point....its clear you have spent WAY more of your time doing spell suppression and full conversion than....anything else.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

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Sameen_Shaw wrote:

- Armor is not as good as phys taken as.

I'll just comment on this part because most other things were already addressed by others. You VASTLY underestimate armor and your statement here is questionable at best. If it's your goal to tank uber shapers slam attack with as little phys defense investment as possible then phys taken as is better in regards to phys mitigation but that's pretty much it.

It's difficult to get in large percentages and even if you actually manage to get it to 100% you'll still take 25% damage from every hit, even those where armor would provide 90% already making you much weaker against volleys of small hits. Also worth noting that an uber shaper slam would still do ~6k damage even with 100% phys taken as and 75 res so even in an unrealistic ideal case scenario your oh so amazing defense setup doesn't cut it against that. To make this work you'd have to combine phys taken as with max res, which according to you is another bad defensive layer.

Lastly, armor isn't just useful to mitigate physical hits. Between unbreakable (which is available to all marauder ascendancies), Fourth Vow and Transcendence there is a multitude of ways to greatly benefit from armor when up against elemental and/or chaos damage on top of the phys damage mitigation. This type of armor application to elemental/chaos damage also has great synergy with damage taken as other element mods by the way. Splitting a big hit into 2 portions via damage taken as means that your armor then applies to those hits individually. So instead of having to cover for 20k damage with your armor, it's applied in full to two 10k damage hit's which obviously increases armor mitigation efficiency several times over.

If you think evasion + SS from right side of the tree is a "great defense" then frankly you've never played a build with good defense. There are way more powerful setups in the game and max res and/or armor play large roles in all of them. Even the powerful PF setups all utilize either one of them or both despite being right sided.

My dude you are cherry picking. My list of of defensive layers was discribing them in isolation not combined together. I can do the same 100% phys convert on uber shaper slam(default config in pob - no max roll, no max crit) is 5995 damage received, which given armor alone is equals to ~370k armor. You can pick your poison what is easier to accomplish. I would say it is irrelevant to compare them like this, since 1 can get scaled further by max res and second with endurance charges and other sources of additional physical damage reduction. The best place to look at scaled defensive layers is delve. Pathfinder is GOATED ascendancy for the reasons already mentioned - get massive phys conversion, run perma ruby/topaz/sapphire, supress and get 3 endu charges and sprinkle in some max res. I will not comment on "Valley of small hits", which is 100% valid case, but that gets even more complicated how to deal with that aka Avoidance and Recovery.