Es balance overhaul is absolutely necessary

there is an enormous gap between es and other defensive options such as life armour and evasion
this gap is at a level that cannot be bridged by player effort
this applies not only to poe1 but also to poe2

the core issue is that the intuitive defensive resources are es and life
however es can stack defensive layers far more easily
and on top of that it can even gain complete immunity to chaos damage

even if you stack tier 1 chaos resistance on four gear suffixes
it is still impossible to reach 75 chaos resistance
so what exactly is ci giving up

and even if you somehow reach 75
is 75 resistance versus complete immunity really reasonable

if life were not fixed at 1
do you honestly think ci users would start taking life on item prefixes

keystones are meant to be powerful
but they are supposed to come with proportional penalties
in reality ci has almost no meaningful downside

this problem is not limited to ci
es related keystones exist on a completely different axis compared to armour and evasion

look at armour and evasion keystones
if they are not related to es
they are almost all trash

because of this gap
there is even a contradiction where determination and grace synergize better with ci+es builds
combinations like divine shield + ghost dance are a clear example

i am not arguing that these are simply too strong
they can be extremely powerful in very specific situations
but look at these imbalanced guard arrow dancing acrobatics
they are frankly embarrassing to compare

iron reflexes? is little more than a niche option for armour stackers
and for the vast majority of builds
it does not meaningfully influence defensive choices at all

this is why bow builds are effectively dead
and why armour based classes often do not even use determination
i genuinely do not understand why es has been favored like this for so long

my proposal is simple
if it is too difficult to fundamentally rework armour and evasion mechanics
then give them clear and intuitive rewards instead

for example
determination could grant increased life
or elemental damage reduction scaling with armour percentage

roll back generic life increases and physical damage reduction from auras or passive nodes
make flat defensive values rarer but significantly stronger

then stacking high armour or evasion on defensive gear would actually provide meaningful benefits

is a chest with 111 armour and 111 evasion really equivalent in value to a chest with 111 es

i am not asking for perfect equality
but the extreme disparity we have right now is clearly wrong

i really hope the next league gives this serious attention
if changing the mechanics is too difficult
then strong and intuitive rewards must be added instead

CI is only used by 22% of characters on SC keepers league.
This is less than in Mercs where it reached about 35%.

ES values in POE1 aren't so unbalanced as in POE2.

I agree chaos res should be buffed and made on par with other ele res.

Perhaps nerf Alira res reward to 12% but include chaos res there.

ES is one of the best and worst d-like innovation.

its interesting but can be hard to balance.