Is ES really too strong?

When you go CI,
1)Your stun threshold and freeze threshold becomes 1, meaning you'll get stunned and frozen very easily.
2)ES regen takes 4 seconds to kick in when and only if you don't take any damage on that 4 seconds.
3)ES or the upper part of the tree has no Evasion/Armor/Block nodes near it, meaning, if you start as Sorc or witch and wanted some other defensive layers, you either have to travel far left and I mean all the way to the left to have access to block nodes and just a few of them and one node on that tree has a "25% reduced global defense" which will hit your ES. For evasion, there are some few nodes middle right and the rest are all the way to the right side of the tree.
4)CI has no potion unless you path to Eternal Youth.

Now with all these on top of my head, if you want your "ES" to be a good defensive layer, you need to invest your points to offset the downside of CI and it will take a lot of points to do so.

Now, just as an example, do you think, if Sorc/Witch and Warrior were to change tree starting position, do you think ES will still be OP when Warriors are using it? or will they complain that ES takes too long to regen or near impossible to regen since they take damage all the time?

Objectively speaking, ES is strong for bossing which you can to a degree, endure that 4 seconds to have your ES recharge and another few seconds to let it recharge to full unless you can delete the boss in a few seconds. Outside of bossing, if you get hit often, ES, as it is now, is kinda terrible because of its 4 second recharge when not taking any damage not to mention if you are doing a burning ground mod or if mobs ignite on hit.

I am not using grim feast and have 5.5k ES and have invested to faster start of energy regen and a bit of ES recharge rate and I can still die very easily if I don't pay attention. ES in conjunction with grim feast might be potently good but I think ES itself isn't that "OP" as others claim it to be, comparing ES to life is where ES is OP in my opinion but that might change when GGG revise the armor formula for POE 2.

Now if ES is really too OP, try doing Simulacrum 4 with a CI character and let me know how it feels.

> ES, as it is now, is kinda terrible

ES is right now the absolutely best defense layer.

Armour sucks in comparison, it works on almost nothing that ES will protect you from.

MoM sucks even with EB, there are no ways on the tree to scale mana, even reaching 3k mana is a grand achievement.

ES can trivially reach 10k ES pure, and 20k with Grim Feast.
Life builds would only typically have 1/4th of that max, excluding one specific case.

There are people playing T16 maps with negative resists using ES builds.

Every single meta caster build is playing ES.

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Shajirr#2980 wrote:

> ES, as it is now, is kinda terrible

ES is right now the absolutely best defense layer.

Armour sucks in comparison, it works on almost nothing that ES will protect you from.

MoM sucks even with EB, there are no ways on the tree to scale mana.

ES can trivially reach 10k ES pure, and 20k with Grim Feast.
Life builds would only typically have 1/4th of that max, excluding one specific case.

There are people playing T16 maps with negative resists using ES builds.

Every single meta caster build is playing ES.

Really? Because from what I've seen, only summoners actually reach 8-9k ES but from what I see, they do not invest in faster ES recovery or ES regen since they use grim feast. Reaching 10k ES is gonna cost a lot of currency and I already pointed out that ES is one of the good defensive layer for bossing. Every caster meta does not have that much ES in my opinion from what I've seen and others discard ES and go pure mana since making ES feels good cost a lot currency and skill points. But then again, this is from a very limited amount of build views and from my own experience so my post/comment might seem very narrow in someone else's eyes.

ES is strong, and maybe ES node +15% should be a bit less (mean 10% or something)
grim feast is an issue, the overcap make no sense.

the biggest issue, armor make no sense how it work now.

btw i play ci-mom-eb without grimfeast have 5.5k es 5k mana and 300% faster start so take 1s to es start.
small hit in pack and burning are always an issu, but it's normal.

for life build less pool but can leech and regenerate all the time.

the prob actually is armor sucks, life should have a easy way to have more pool ( around 5k) .

and a thing for mitigate elem hit a bit more than Es build , i don't check in poe 2, but in poe 1 there a couple of +x% max res between warrior and duelist start.
or armor could mitigate a part for elem dmg.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

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Shajirr#2980 wrote:

> ES, as it is now, is kinda terrible

ES is right now the absolutely best defense layer.

Armour sucks in comparison, it works on almost nothing that ES will protect you from.

MoM sucks even with EB, there are no ways on the tree to scale mana.

ES can trivially reach 10k ES pure, and 20k with Grim Feast.
Life builds would only typically have 1/4th of that max, excluding one specific case.

There are people playing T16 maps with negative resists using ES builds.

Every single meta caster build is playing ES.

Really? Because from what I've seen, only summoners actually reach 8-9k ES but from what I see, they do not invest in faster ES recovery or ES regen since they use grim feast. Reaching 10k ES is gonna cost a lot of currency and I already pointed out that ES is one of the good defensive layer for bossing. Every caster meta does not have that much ES in my opinion from what I've seen and others discard ES and go pure mana since making ES feels good cost a lot currency and skill points. But then again, this is from a very limited amount of build views and from my own experience so my post/comment might seem very narrow in someone else's eyes.

ES is the best current defensive layer and far outscales every other defensive layer in the game, if you're thinking otherwise you're deluded sorry. Armour absolutely sucks in comparison and so does evasion and mind over matter unless you're playing a gemling. Even with a gemling you'll struggle to hit 6k without investment.

No life nodes on tree, no mana nodes on tree really. ES is just OOO es here, es there, es absolutely everywhere. It's not hard to scale in the slightest and getting that ES back is pathetically easy. I've played all defensive layers in the game so far and theirs nothing to compare ES to in the slightest. It needs a nerf or other defensive layers need a massive buff.

As for stun threshold, easily fixed, freeze threshold, easily fixed.

If people are running negative resistances and just stacking ES this is an obvious problem and needs fixing.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

1)Your stun threshold and freeze threshold becomes 1, meaning you'll get stunned and frozen very easily.

Just take the passive node "asceticism". 40% of your stunthreshold is based on ES now instead of life. Combine that with 10-20k ES, which meas you get stunthreshold based on 3-6k ES. Problem solved.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

2)ES regen takes 4 seconds to kick in when and only if you don't take any damage on that 4 seconds.

There are alot of notes that make "faster start of ES recharging". Furthermore, PoE2 is slower then PoE1, giving players more time to find time to regenerate ES.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

3)ES or the upper part of the tree has no Evasion/Armor/Block nodes near it, meaning, if you start as Sorc or witch and wanted some other defensive layers, you either have to travel far left and I mean all the way to the left to have access to block nodes and just a few of them and one node on that tree has a "25% reduced global defense" which will hit your ES. For evasion, there are some few nodes middle right and the rest are all the way to the right side of the tree.

This is not a real argument, because it's true for all classes. Every class has access to 1-2 defensive options, depending on where you start. Warrior, Witch and Ranger all start at location with very good access to only one defensive option. The other classes are in between 2 options, but have a harder time to mainly focus on one specific defensive layer. A warrior and ranger will have problems getting ES. Armor only protects you against physical attacks, evasion can give you trouble IF you get hit, because there is no damage mitigation at all and it doesn't work on area of effect attacks. But ES simply protects you from any damage scource, except chaos, which you can either negate with chaos resistance or simply by using chaos inuculation, which makes you immune to the one and only weakness. That's like giving warrior a node that makes him immune to elemental damage, but removes mana and skills cost life now. People would just go full armor/life leech and could completely ignore elemental resistances on gear, opening up alot of modifier slots for more damage. It would be broken.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

4)CI has no potion unless you path to Eternal Youth.

On the other side, ES has a build in ultra fast recharge that is not limited by flasks, while life has no regeneration at all if you didn't invest in some life reg. And well, yes, then there is also the option to go for eternal youth. ES has so many options to counter its weaknesses, while armor/evasion don't have all these options.

And lets not forget, that someone who uses ES without chaos inoculation STILL has tons of life through gear and can use life flasks. But these life flasks only get important when ES drops down to zero, which rarely happens with 10-20k ES.

Ah and witch/sorcerers also have access to mind over matter, another strong defensive layer. ES protects your mana, mana protects your life. This way, you can achieve a life pool of over 30k and still do big ranged damage. Show me any other class who can get so tanky right now.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

Now with all these on top of my head, if you want your "ES" to be a good defensive layer, you need to invest your points to offset the downside of CI and it will take a lot of points to do so.

And there are other great (damage) nodes on the way to CI. So no points wasted to go this route.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

Now, just as an example, do you think, if Sorc/Witch and Warrior were to change tree starting position, do you think ES will still be OP when Warriors are using it? or will they complain that ES takes too long to regen or near impossible to regen since they take damage all the time?

This wouldn't work, because warriors need STR to equip maces. But you need INT to equip ES gear. You would have had to put alot of attributes only your equipment to have enough for both. Another problem is, that the ascendencies of warrior are focused on melee builds. What should a warrior do with all these spell- and minion- related nodes?

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

Objectively speaking, ES is strong for bossing which you can to a degree, endure that 4 seconds to have your ES recharge and another few seconds to let it recharge to full unless you can delete the boss in a few seconds. Outside of bossing, if you get hit often, ES, as it is now, is kinda terrible because of its 4 second recharge when not taking any damage not to mention if you are doing a burning ground mod or if mobs ignite on hit.

ES builds are the only ones that actually can tank bosses/mobs for a certain amount of time. Other classes just get one-shotted very often and have to dodge way more stuff. When my life as a warrior gets low, I have to dodge and use my life flask. Ofc I could also try to get some life leech in, but for that I need to attack, leaving me vulnerable with low life. ES users can just dodge, wait, recharge ES and safe their life flasks for crucial moments. And lets not forget that ES users usually play ranged builds (minions, spells, triggers) and are therefore in a more convinient position anyway to recharge ES.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

I am not using grim feast and have 5.5k ES and have invested to faster start of energy regen and a bit of ES recharge rate and I can still die very easily if I don't pay attention. ES in conjunction with grim feast might be potently good but I think ES itself isn't that "OP" as others claim it to be, comparing ES to life is where ES is OP in my opinion but that might change when GGG revise the armor formula for POE 2.

Oh, I didn't even think of grim feast. Another good option that makes ES even better. Lets not forget that grim feast lets you overflow ES right now (and probably will get nerfed), meaning you can have get more ES then your actual maximum.

See here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oO3nVjOtTA

Take a look at this guy. He's not even close of having 20k ES (has 5k) and still manages to get through quite easily. Now imagine he having 20k ES.

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iMirageX#4580 wrote:

Now if ES is really too OP, try doing Simulacrum 4 with a CI character and let me know how it feels.

And now try to to Simulacrum with any other non ES class. You will probably experience, that it's even worse.

On your 4 points.

1. You can get your stun and your freeze thresholds to scale off of your ES

2. There are more than plenty of ways to speed up ES recharge and it isnt the only method to recover your ES.

3. It has kindof become meta for even classes not in the upper part of the tree to play ES now

4. Kinda solved in question nr2



Heres my take on it, its not ES itself that is busted, yes the values are going a little bit too high because the ES nodes on the skill tree are giving rather high amounts of ES.

But the MAIN problem is grim feast, it is the reason why even warriors are stacking ES now. To allow to overflow ES to double max value is a bit silly.

I am playing a lifebased character right now and i just bouht an ES helmet and not even a good one just 1ex item, added grim feast. All of a sudden i went from no ES to 1k ES. If i applied this to a few more gearpieces mainly my chestpiece to play with a 1k ev and 400es chest i would probably have a 3k ES buffer on a non ES character. This is the part that is just busted due to grim feast and everyone seems to be switching to this now.

Long story short yes ES is that busted but not in the way that you are comparing it.

Personally, I don't think ES itself is really ready to be judged just yet. First, the compounding issues, like 100% overcapping, the uniques that let people who give up their shields get an ES again, that sort of stuff needs to be dealt with. And second, armour and evasion need work. The former in particular is pretty meh. Just the underlying life related issues need to be addressed, for the sake of armour and evasion, who need that extra layer.

Once those two things are done, then ES itself can be more appropriately judged.

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Grauthrim#2960 wrote:

ES is the best current defensive layer and far outscales every other defensive layer in the game, if you're thinking otherwise you're deluded sorry. Armour absolutely sucks in comparison and so does evasion and mind over matter unless you're playing a gemling. Even with a gemling you'll struggle to hit 6k without investment.

No life nodes on tree, no mana nodes on tree really. ES is just OOO es here, es there, es absolutely everywhere. It's not hard to scale in the slightest and getting that ES back is pathetically easy. I've played all defensive layers in the game so far and theirs nothing to compare ES to in the slightest. It needs a nerf or other defensive layers need a massive buff.

As for stun threshold, easily fixed, freeze threshold, easily fixed.

If people are running negative resistances and just stacking ES this is an obvious problem and needs fixing.

You have a point in ES being everywhere.

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Grauthrim#2960 wrote:

As for stun threshold, easily fixed, freeze threshold, easily fixed.

As for these, I have 72% ES as additional stun threshold. That's 5 points on the tree and more than half of my jewels had stun threshold which could have been other stats. As for the freeze, sure charm might save you for now but when if they overhaul charm, you are either locked on using a freeze charm or get it from a unique and I think only 1 unique provides freeze and chill immunity on the top of my head and is expensive. For the anoint part, that's an even more sacrifice compared to the other examples.

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Grauthrim#2960 wrote:

If people are running negative resistances and just stacking ES this is an obvious problem and needs fixing.

I don't see every build but I kinda find this hard to believe since when doing the "enemies penetrate x amount of resist" it already hurts while doing it with 75% res, I mean what more with a negative resist?

1) ES is nowhere close to strong, everything else is just useless.
2) mana as EHP > all.