Witchest witch defenses

Hah, is that the community’s favourite phrase of the week? I’m seeing it repeated a lot, and responding to “I’m not here to convince you” with “strange hill to die on” is a bit silly.

Nobody’s dying on a hill here. I mean, I would consider insisting that something can’t be defending if it’s mitigating, and can’t be mitigating if it’s absorbing, to be a bad hill to die on, but I’m sure you wouldn’t accept that you’re doing so, so why not do others the same courtesy. It’s not like it’s an actual argument you’d be neglecting; it’s just a way to make things personal.

Unless discourtesy is the point, of course. But that would surely not be the case.

By all means. We are here to discuss. Inherently, a discussion is not about winning, a discussion has a purpose: to discover the truth.

You incorrectly assumed that jsuslak313 said that ES isn't a defense. What he said is that ES acts much more likely as a secondary life pool. Game wiki concurs. You went on a very lengthy ramble on how ES is a defense, when neither of us disputed it. Then i, very obviously, made it clear what ES is, a secondary defense that acts as an additional hit pool. Game Wiki concurs. Then you disagreed and said "my position" is "absorption" and "mitigation" is wrong. I show you the Wiki, clearly stating that you are the one that is wrong. You further say you "don't see the logic" and that "it was alredy addressed". Which get us to now, the "hill you want to die on".

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

It's also, I would argue, not correct. ES mitigates 100% of the damage applied to it

That's an interpretation you made, but that's not correct.

Damage mitigation:
Cannot take X damage prevents damage that wasn't already removed before the damage taken as step.
Immunities prevent damage entirely, such as Shade Form or

Chaos Inoculation
.
Damage avoidance offers a chance to prevent damage entirely, for example with Elusive or

Glitterdisc
.[8][9]
Resistance mitigates elemental and chaos damage.
Damage reduction mitigates damage types it exists for. By default, 'damage reduction' only exists against physical damage, gained from armour and sources of #% additional Physical Damage Reduction such as endurance charges.[10]
Damage reduction may exist for non-physical damage through mechanics like

Transcendence
,

Unbreakable
,

Eternal Damnation
, or

The Fourth Vow
. This occurs after resistances,[11] and is independent per damage type.[12]

Nothing here even remotely addresses ES, because ES doesn't mitigates anything. For the final time:

"

Energy shield is a form of defence that acts as an additional hit point pool on top of life.

.

That's all ES is. A secondary hit pool.

I'm not being discourteous, if anything, i'm trying my best to make you understand that ES takes damage, not mitigates it.

But if that is truly "the hill you wish to die upon", you won't see me wasting one more word to describe something that seems understood by everyone.


Except you.

"

AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

You incorrectly assumed that jsuslak313 said that ES isn't a defense.

Mate.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

Eh....I disagree with this. For the purposes of PoE, ES is absolutely a secondary lifepool and NOT a defense.

Come on.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

the three main lifepools are ES, Life, and Mana. NONE of these things act as "defense" in any way

Be sensible.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

Gus is right too, in that the game itself describes ES as a defense. HOWEVER, it does not function as a defense

Showing off how thoroughly you're not reading the things you're responding to just shows how much you're wasting your time, let alone mine.

nvm gus said it already.

I think i might try perma vaal discipline build, it doesnt seem to be too straining, it takes up a ring, 3 to 4 medium clusters and a traitor keystone. Thou im not sure where to go from there or how to make use of this big constant recovery, would be nice if rf would work on ci..

"

Andrius319 wrote:

I think i might try perma vaal discipline build, it doesnt seem to be too straining, it takes up a ring, 3 to 4 medium clusters and a traitor keystone. Thou im not sure where to go from there or how to make use of this big constant recovery, would be nice if rf would work on ci..

vaal discipline does the stronger version of Wicked Ward (it is on the tree)
and before you invest into that play with ES Recharge - because it does not work the way you think (you cannot keep it constantly up, it stops after some time). you need to invest heavily into faster ES recharge start stat - and this might prove expensive if you aim for endgame

unless you craft your gear, expect to pay a premium: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Necropolis/33OQnpPS5

oh and the Soul Catcher has a line people tend to ignore - cannot gain mana during effect. that means Lifetap in every link, and in general is unpleasant to build around on an ES character

Some time before i had an idea on combining vaal discipline with wicked ward by making vaal discipline as short lasting as possible to to trigger wicked ward and have short soul gain prevention, but yes, i had bumped into that wall where wicked ward needs to stop to retrigger, so it was a dead plan.

This time im thinking on 100% vaal discipline uptime (with soul ripper flask). Vaal discipline wording is a bit different from wicked ward "Your and nearby allies' Energy Shield Recharges are not delayed by Damage", so i guess it should work all the time, but not 100% sure.

One more interesting thing that vaal discipline doesnt need wicked ward, which leaves base es recharge at 33%, that coupled with blight well results in 99% es per second.

Well i hope i wont fall on my face while building this xD

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

"

zzang wrote:

This try of a separation does not make sense sorry. In that sense life mitigates damage same way ES does.

I don’t see the logic there. ES can mitigate damage to life, because it is not life: ES can be used up without reducing life. Life cannot mitigate damage to life in the same way, because if life takes the damage…then damage to life clearly wasn’t mitigated.

Either way, you don’t need to apologise for disagreeing.

Its a bit crazy that this is still going nevertheless just want to point out i was not questioning the incohesive ingame definition of "Defence".

I was questioning the wishy washy philosophy behind the definition of it. Whatever words you use its not mitigation as Evasion is clearly avoidance but considered Defence. But resistances are mitigating and not avoiding but not considered Defence. Technically everything that helps to not reach 0 life could be considered a "Defence" in that sense.

im just gonna do a quick post, that vaal discipline build ended in a failure.
There were two things which made it fail:

1) skill effect duration increasing soul prevention duration. For some reason i've misread ring (triumvirate authority) mod a bit differently and imagined that it wont affect soul prevention time.

2) vaal skills cannot be chain used by continuously holding keyboard button, each vaal skill start must be initiated with a new click. This breaks any possible automation (in unset ring).

it may still be possible to get always ready/up other vaal skill due to their different durations and soul prevention durations, but they arent that good to put this kind of effort.

"

Andrius319 wrote:

im just gonna do a quick post, that vaal discipline build ended in a failure.
There were two things which made it fail:

1) skill effect duration increasing soul prevention duration. For some reason i've misread ring (triumvirate authority) mod a bit differently and imagined that it wont affect soul prevention time.

2) vaal skills cannot be chain used by continuously holding keyboard button, each vaal skill start must be initiated with a new click. This breaks any possible automation (in unset ring).

it may still be possible to get always ready/up other vaal skill due to their different durations and soul prevention durations, but they arent that good to put this kind of effort.

re 1) check Dreamcore's (YT guy) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTis0tZldKQ he explores this mechanic IN DEPTH. most probably you know this already but I myself though I understood vaal skills and it turned out his explanation cleared something for me. maybe it is salvageable.

have you tried if Wicked Ward/VDiscipline stack in any way?