Why I think that armour will always be better than evasion for a Hardcore character

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Pathological wrote:

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Strill wrote:

That's my point. If armour can mitigate attacks that are more powerful than any attack has a reason to be, then there's no situation where evasion has the advantage.

Did you actually look at the tables at all? The point that has been made from page 1 in this thread, and through the 20-odd pages in the other thread is that armor CAN'T mitigate attacks more powerful than any attack has a reason to be in all situations. No matter the build, there is always an inflection point where evasion becomes infinitely better, which then flicks back to armor later.

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Another good point. Melee builds already invest the overwhelming majority of their points into survivability anyway, only to do a pittance of damage. Why not just forego all semblance of doing damage and be a tank that can actually be useful to a group?

Why do you think melee do a pittance of damage? Furthermore, why do you think you need to be able to face tank 15k hits to be "useful" to the group?

Ultimately, we are talking about different things here. You are talking about the extreme, perfectly build character with 100% defensive nodes, all the right gear, and so forth. Almost by definition, not everyone has access to the resources and time to build this character, nor can it be done on every build. On builds that cannot afford the points to go full armor-specced, such as pretty much all witch builds, most shadow builds, many templar builds (especially caster templars), or for builds that can't feasibly reach all endurance charges and armor nodes, meaning most witches, shadows or rangers, armor stacking with iron reflexes will be considerably less strong than with all of the above.

I guess the TL;DR is that I don't really get what your point is. Most builds in the game can't afford to stack defenses to that degree, and most players will never have the resources to reach those heights. Being capable of tanking the highest theoretical damage possible with the most extreme defensive gear and spec is only theoretically interesting, and not particularly pertinent, in my opinion. Honestly, how many people do you see running around with 9 endurance charges?

I'm playing a caster and have 73% physical reduction on damage in a group situation (which is the only one that matters in endgame, I don't see any point in running maps solo). I still can't see how evasion could be better in any situation but I'm talking from IR point of view which is overpowered beyond belief imo. Regular armor is shit, I'll agree with that.

Anyway, my point mainly is that you don't need over top gear, just IR, Grace, Determination and conduited endurance character and you'll be way more durable than any evasion build I can think of. Even with only IR and Grace you're getting really big values of armor.

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Pathological wrote:

There is one thing we can say for certain right now:
Evasion ALWAYS has a chance to save you, regardless of how hard the mob hits.
Armor has SOME incoming damage values where it will DEFINITELY save you, and SOME values where it definitely WON'T save you.

Both are significantly RNG based.

I wish the idea of evasion remaining a decent % chance when the damage has increased so much that it reduces armour effectiveness would stop being spread around.
If the mob in question deals high damage, and has a high attack rating, due to the evasion formula his high attack will make you evade less.

Evasion suffers as much from heavy hitters as armour does. You mitigate less, and evade less.






Additionally, if you have 7 endurance charges and 50% armour mitigation, you need 7 end charges and 77% chance to evade if you want to take the same amount of damage overall. Keep in mind evasion users find it tough to grab end charges.
With only 3 end charges you need 83% to match 50% armour and 35% endurance.


Biggest reason to take armor is that endurance charges are overpowered. Armour has far better synergy with end charges not only on a mathematical scale but on the passive node grid too since bonus end charge nodes are by armour

Finally you need lots of elemental resist whether you have armour or evasion. At 75% resist the amount of damage you avoid by being able to evade elements or dodge spells is actually fairly small. Eg 20% chance to dodge spells when you have 75% resist is only actually 5% of the max dmg less on average.

Btw, ranger with max evasion, iron reflex, leather and steel, then west into armour nodes, hp nodes and endurance charge nodes is insane and surprisingly efficient usage of passive points since they all chain into each other nicely. Dps suffers though...

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fadeawayyx wrote:

Btw, ranger with max evasion, iron reflex, leather and steel, then west into armour nodes, hp nodes and endurance charge nodes is insane and surprisingly efficient usage of passive points since they all chain into each other nicely. Dps suffers though...

If you go for strenght and Iron Grip too, you can boost hp and damage at the same time.

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anubite wrote:

--> http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/89113

Evasion >= Armor.

SO please explain why during CB and still now, IR reflexes is pretty much considered a must have for survival builds?? IF evasion is so effective why does barely anybody use it??

I hear alot of theorycrafting (which almost never assumes multiple attackers btw) but have yet to see actual evidence of effective endgame builds which use pure evasion without IR... please by all means prove me wrong, post a vid, a link, whatever. But until then actual REAL evidence of popular builds (right back into CB) and peoples first hand experience tells a very different story to the theorycrafting.

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RodHull wrote:

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anubite wrote:

--> http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/89113

Evasion >= Armor.

SO please explain why during CB and still now, IR reflexes is pretty much considered a must have for survival builds?? IF evasion is so effective why does barely anybody use it??

I hear alot of theorycrafting (which almost never assumes multiple attackers btw) but have yet to see actual evidence of effective endgame builds which use pure evasion without IR... please by all means prove me wrong, post a vid, a link, whatever. But until then actual REAL evidence of popular builds (right back into CB) and peoples first hand experience tells a very different story to the theorycrafting.

Probably a similar reason why everyone is going wand templar and EK.

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aantsi wrote:

I'm playing a caster and have 73% physical reduction on damage in a group situation (which is the only one that matters in endgame, I don't see any point in running maps solo). I still can't see how evasion could be better in any situation but I'm talking from IR point of view which is overpowered beyond belief imo. Regular armor is shit, I'll agree with that.

Anyway, my point mainly is that you don't need over top gear, just IR, Grace, Determination and conduited endurance character and you'll be way more durable than any evasion build I can think of. Even with only IR and Grace you're getting really big values of armor.

You don't have 73% mitigation against anything that matters. Read the thread, look at the tables I posted above. At certain incoming damage values (which we don't know), evasion is unquestionably better.

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I wish the idea of evasion remaining a decent % chance when the damage has increased so much that it reduces armour effectiveness would stop being spread around.
If the mob in question deals high damage, and has a high attack rating, due to the evasion formula his high attack will make you evade less.

Evasion suffers as much from heavy hitters as armour does. You mitigate less, and evade less.

Since we don't know monster accuracy values, there is absolutely no way to know that. However, that entirely misses the point, and also shows that you don't understand WHY evasion is better in some cases than armor. Even if evasion was reduced to 1% by a monster that devalues your attacks to death to the same degree for an armor build as for an evasion build, evasion is still better in that case than armor is because armor is literally worthless if it doesn't save you an extra hit to death. Overall mitigation means very little in the comparison of a hardcore character's overall survival.

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Additionally, if you have 7 endurance charges and 50% armour mitigation, you need 7 end charges and 77% chance to evade if you want to take the same amount of damage overall. Keep in mind evasion users find it tough to grab end charges.
With only 3 end charges you need 83% to match 50% armour and 35% endurance.

See above. Overall damage means nothing - you don't die from 1000 cuts in PoE, unless you fall asleep in your chair. You die from getting 1 or 2 shot the vast majority of the time. Everything else, you can run away from. Again, read the tables on the previous page. The cells that show "evasion" on them mean that being hit for that amount of damage, armor does literally nothing to save you that stacking evasion wouldn't have done, and also doesn't get the chance to evade. If your taken damage range falls within those cells, armor was useless for you.

To put it in a very, very simple example, lets say you have 20HP.
The ONLY goal you have is to live through burst damage.

In an armor build, you take 7 points of damage per hit. You must get hit 3 times to die. You have a 5% base chance to evade, leaving you with a 0% chance to die in 2 attacks or less, an 85% chance to die in 3 hits.
In an evasion build, you take 9 points of damage per hit. You must get hit 3 times to die. You have a 10% chance to evade, just 5% more than the armor build. You STILL have a 0% chance to die in 2 attacks or less. You have 73% chance to die in 3 hits (12% less likely than the armor build).

In this particular scenario, armor was effectively worth nothing for survival, while even a small amount of evasion took you from a 15% chance to live, to a 27% chance to live. 5% evasion increased your chance to live by approximately 55%.

Now, how relevant is this to real world applications? Very. If you can go full on armor AND hp AND be garunteed to always have up full endurance stacks AND a granite flask, do it. It is by far the strongest defense if ALL of these factors are in play.

On the other hand, if you have 25k flasked armor instead of 35k, or if you have only 4 or 5 endurance charges instead of 7 or 8, or if you think you might take a 1shot or 2shot and not have a granite up (lets face it, if you expected a 1shot you wouldn't be in the situation), or if you have less than 5k health... chances are that for atleast half, and increasingly more the more of the above factors are in play, for atleast half of the damage ranges that we would actually be worried about dieing to, evasion will save you more than armor will.

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RodHull wrote:

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anubite wrote:

--> http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/89113

Evasion >= Armor.

SO please explain why during CB and still now, IR reflexes is pretty much considered a must have for survival builds?? IF evasion is so effective why does barely anybody use it??

I hear alot of theorycrafting (which almost never assumes multiple attackers btw) but have yet to see actual evidence of effective endgame builds which use pure evasion without IR... please by all means prove me wrong, post a vid, a link, whatever. But until then actual REAL evidence of popular builds (right back into CB) and peoples first hand experience tells a very different story to the theorycrafting.

IR builds are very strong. GGG has already mentioned their intention to adjust it at some point. But most people are sheep, and follow popular builds because it's easier to follow than to lead. There are PLENTY of effective, popular evasion builds, too. Armor has a reputation from almost all other games of being the "dependable" choice, while evasion is the choice of the rng - it just isn't applicable in the same way in this game. The only way to remove the rng aspect of armor in this game is to know the damage ranges of every hit you take, on the fly, and change between armor and evasion on the fly - it can't be done that way.

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Pathological wrote:

Since we don't know monster accuracy values, there is absolutely no way to know that.

1. Look at character Defense tab.
2. Write down Evasion rating
3. Write down Evasion chance
4. Plug into Evasion formula
5. Find Monster Accuracy
6. ?????
7. PROFIT

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Pathological wrote:

IR builds are very strong. GGG has already mentioned their intention to adjust it at some point. But most people are sheep, and follow popular builds because it's easier to follow than to lead. There are PLENTY of effective, popular evasion builds, too. Armor has a reputation from almost all other games of being the "dependable" choice, while evasion is the choice of the rng - it just isn't applicable in the same way in this game. The only way to remove the rng aspect of armor in this game is to know the damage ranges of every hit you take, on the fly, and change between armor and evasion on the fly - it can't be done that way.

It's got jack all to do with that. I made my character intending to go armor/eva, and switched to IR because it gave me 3-4 times the effective life. Having 15,000 armour is a hell of a lot better than 3,000 armour and 8,000 evasion.

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Strill wrote:

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Pathological wrote:

Since we don't know monster accuracy values, there is absolutely no way to know that.

1. Look at character Defense tab.
2. Write down Evasion rating
3. Write down Evasion chance
4. Plug into Evasion formula
5. Find Monster Accuracy
6. ?????
7. PROFIT

This gives you whatever number GGG defines as average accuracy for monsters of a specific level. It tells you nothing of accuracy bonuses blue or yellow or orange monsters get, and that effect is compounded by accuracy auras.

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It's got jack all to do with that. I made my character intending to go armor/eva, and switched to IR because it gave me 3-4 times the effective life. Having 15,000 armour is a hell of a lot better than 3,000 armour and 8,000 evasion.

3-4 times the effective life? Where did you learn math?

Let me give you some data points with your above armor values (3000 vs. 15000).

If you have 5000 health, being hit for 5000 damage, with 3000 armor and no endurance charges, you have an effective hp of 5250.
If you have 5000 health, being hit for 5000 damage, with 15000 armor and no endurance charges, you have an effective hp of 6250 - an effective HP gain of 16%.

If you have 5000 health, being hit for 5000 damage, with 3000 armor and 6 endurance charges, you have an effective hp of 7664.23.
If you have 5000 health, being hit for 5000 damage, with 15000 armor and 6 endurance charges, you have an effective hp of 10000 - an effective HP gain of 23.4%.

With a granite flask with 4000 armor and 100% armor mod:
If you have 5000 health, being hit for 5000 damage, with 3000 armor and 6 endurance charges, you have an effective hp of 9815.11.
If you have 5000 health, being hit for 5000 damage, with 15000 armor and 6 endurance charges, you have an effective hp of 15707.22 - an effective HP gain of 37.5%.

For you to gain "3-4 times the effective life", you need to be taking hits so small as to be insignificant risks to your actual death.


Again I repeat, look at the tables I posted on page 6, or go to the spreadsheet I posted and put in your own stats. It's not a matter of opinion; there are points of incoming damage where evasion will have a chance to save your life and with armor you would have died. In your example of 15000 armor vs 3000 armor, the turning point for evasion to first be better than armor at 5000hp (which you won't reach until mid 80s unless you are a marauder) is an incoming damage value of 6600 raw physical damage. That is with a 100% armor mod granite flask up, and with 6 endurance charges up - again, are you so sure you will have these up when you get 1shot?

Anyway, the argument is cyclical now. We have mathematically proved the survival value of evasion even against stacking armor, and proved that armor does not always increase expected survival more than evasion. This is particularly true of builds that don't stack armor to the exclusion of all other stats, and to builds that can't maintain high uptime on granite flasks and high numbers of endurance charges. Nothing more really needs to be said.

To be honest I think we are both correct.
What I am saying is that with infinite hp and over infinite time - armour and endurance will mitigate more damage than evasion.

Those two factors are not true however.

What we need to figure out is this:
Which defense mitigates best against small damage that will not kill you?
Answer: Who the hell cares? It's not going to kill me. It doesn't need to be amazing. It just needs to have not been ignored in the passive tree.

Which defense mitigates best against damage that WILL kill me?
At 1600hp, if I reduce a 1000 atk by 20% to 800, I can take 2 hits.
If have no armour but some evasion, I can still take 2 hits before dying, but I have a chance to dodge one of them.


If I have 4000hp and I get hit for 6000... armour/endurance (-20%/-30%) may reduce that to 3000 damage taken. I can take 2 hits.
If I have the same amount of dodge as armor (25%), overall I will take 4500 per attack on average. But the point remains that one failed dodge will kill me. That could happen on the first attack or the 4th attack.

Like I said, the main question is 'what will stop me dying vs big attacks' if we know we can survive low atk / low dmg attacks. The answer to that question seems to be based largely around your hp, the damage taken, the atk rating of the attacker. Only 1 of which we can really identify.#


What you're trying to get at on an extreme scale is if I only have 10hp but have 50% armor and 35% endurance, a 100 damage atk will kill me, but if I had some dodge I would have had a chance.