Isn't Armor (Determination) plus Evasion (Grace) better than Iron Reflexes?

IR + Grace is most powerful the less armor and evasion you wear. If you are gearing with armor, IR doesn't add much and Grace is probably best run for evasion in this case.

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BackwoodsS wrote:

IR + Grace is most powerful the less armor and evasion you wear. If you are gearing with armor, IR doesn't add much and Grace is probably best run for evasion in this case.

Unless you're doing some weird build which tries to stack ES as well as those two, any normal build will end up getting either armor or evasion or both (hybrid gear or a mix of armor and evasion pieces) just to get the sockets to put gems in. This system would work best if they stack armor on gear rather than evasion so perhaps not right for those who need to use lots of green gems, but otherwise it should work.

I would say it depends on the build, block change, etc.

Base lvl 20 grace gives 2016. Add in some aura passives and inner force and your around 3850 (2016 * 1.91)

With one of my characters they have 216 % increased armor and 178% increased evasion (+40% from dexterity bonus)

Base armor = 1100
Base Evasion = 100
Determination is lvl 20 with aura passives so (0.51 * 1.91 = 97% armor increase)

No Iron reflexes

Total armor = 1100 * (1 + 2.16) * 1.97 = 6847 armor
Total Evasion = (100 + 3850) * (1 + 1.78 + 0.4) = 12561 evasion

Iron reflexes
Total armor = (1100 + 100 + 3850) * ( 1 + 2.16 + 1.78) * 1.97 = 49145 armor


This is a chase for a character with very low base armor (due to MF and ES gear) but still wants to be able to take a hit. Personally I'd take the 49k armor over the 7k armor and 12k evasion.

Another note with endurance charges my tooltip reads 90% reduction. Without it reads 78. Even if I was taking a 5000 damage hit 49145.59 / (49145.59 + (12 * 5000)) = 45% reduction then 4 endurance charges = 61% reduction for a 5k hit.


If you are focused on Armor and Evasion items don't get iron reflexes. If you don't have any any armor or evasion Iron + Grace + Determination is probably best.


Edit: Made it easier to not read it all.

In general I'd agree. But every item mod or passive you end up dedicating to evasion or armor is another stat that could've went into life or damage or something. IR is nice because you can get a ton of armor for a fairly small investment.

I think evasion and armour is better than converting all to armour.

I think the keystone is misunderstood. There are only certain builds under which it makes sense to take it, such as when your evasion is useless or you benefit from lots of armor:

-Unwavering
-Aegis Aurora

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kompaniet wrote:

I think evasion and armour is better than converting all to armour.

Same here.

I usually take IR early on, but drop it once I stacked enough armor. I still take Grace, but for the Eavsion.
Overall I feel tankier once I drop IR.

If you speak about "pure" Evasion vs. "pure" Armor (meaning: yes, you may take block/dodge/lightningcoil/..., but: your Armor (or Evasion) rating has to be close to zero), Armor seems to be superior in some situations, where you get simply destroyed as an Evasion user. Armor is also useless in some situations where Evasion is not, but these situations are maybe not as "deadly".


But no one is forcing you to specialize, it is actually pretty easy to get both Armor and Evasion up (focus a bit more on Evasion on Gear, let Dex and Grace do their work, and take some %armor passives and a Granite flask to boost the armor rating).

the only thing evasion has is the Ondars Guile. this removes a lot of potential damage from equation - so much that when people get cursed with projectile weakness they suddenly almost-die

other than that physical spells simply force players to take 'augmentations' - AA, Spell Block, granites, spell dodge etc - evangelists in +dmg map > evasion

ofc youll avoid some hits, soften up some more but these that connect shall hurt and hurt a lot

fun stuff: if you take all these 'augmentations' you can just as well remove all evasion from your character as these 'augmentations' just work better

oh, and lightning coil. amazing value.

the reason some builds tend to run IR + grace + determ, or just IR + Grace (probably more common) is that it's a really efficient way to gain a lot of armor

why is armor more important than evasion for some builds?

because of leech. getting hit and taking damage is no big deal. you just leech it back. it's getting hit really hard (generally 1-shot) that is bad.

if losing armor for evasion means that you go into 1-shot threshold for mobs you encounter decently often with various map mods, it's not a fair trade. sure, you can dodge/evade some of it, but it will mean you inevitably die when you don't evade/dodge.

assuming you have strong leech/attack spd, it's more important to ramp up your mitigation (either through good armor or something like lightning coil -- maybe run endu charges as well), than it is to get some evasion. the goal is simply to not die in 1 hit, even if you do get hit.

this isn't true for all builds, just defensively lean builds.

if your build is more defensively oriented overall, grace + IR is not a good option as you will get more out of just naturally scaling both your armor and evasion.

Acrobatics + block + lightning coil + lvl 1 cwdt enduring cry/enfeeble + lvl 12 cwdt increased duration immortal call. If your gems are blue, sub in MoM or cloak of defiance.

armor does nothing against spells, while spell block and dodge are fairly straightforward to work into a melee build. armor is penalized by acrobatics, while evasion (with all its flaws) still works at 100%.

I mainly don't like unwavering stance because it's in the ass end of the passive tree. Few builds can grab it without spending 4+ points. Unless you absolutely need that 5% less mana resesrved node, it's just such a waste to go there.