Lets talk armor (the stat)

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Turbodevil a écrit :

In your example that mere 16% reduction is at least 20% more ehp.

Or you could have, y'know, traded in those armor nodes on just buying more HP nodes for 20% more HP out of the box that also works against elemental damage.

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Lord_Tao a écrit :

I would argue that lots of smaller hits taken at once are much more common than big hits, and evasion is better there as it reduces damage taken per second a lot more effectively.

Against many small hits ??? No it doesn't, this is the main situation where evasion is not great .....

Many small hits + couple of big ones in there and you can have the entropy making you taking all of the big hits, and you're screwed.
Evasion is great about evading the elemental part on attacks on top of the physical, but it does not work better than armor for many small hits, it's the complete other way around.


Fortify+Flasks enough for a melee ?
No .... just no, absolutely not, not at high level.

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aleksandor a écrit :

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Turbodevil a écrit :

In your example that mere 16% reduction is at least 20% more ehp.

Or you could have, y'know, traded in those armor nodes on just buying more HP nodes for 20% more HP out of the box that also works against elemental damage.

And no, you usually can't do that.

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Fruz a écrit :

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Lord_Tao a écrit :

I would argue that lots of smaller hits taken at once are much more common than big hits, and evasion is better there as it reduces damage taken per second a lot more effectively.

Against many small hits ??? No it doesn't, this is the main situation where evasion is not great .....

Many small hits + couple of big ones in there and you can have the entropy making you taking all of the big hits, and you're screwed.
Evasion is great about evading the elemental part on attacks on top of the physical, but it does not work better than armor for many small hits, it's the complete other way around.

Against many small hits 30-40% evasion is more damage reduction than 25% (considering flasks, endurance charges and fortify will be common to both scenarios)

If big hits are mixed up in there, and the order of attacks is assumed to be random, then you have as much chance of the algorithm evening out evasion to make that big hit auto hit or auto miss. It is a wash and what is left is an easy 30-40% damage reduction over time (with no one shot protection) vs 25% mitigation, but taking each and every one of those hits (assuming iron reflexes). In a mob scenario, the armour will probably be taking much more damage.

You are talking from pure suppositions, and it is flawed.
It does not matter if in a series of 6578643546978 hits it evens out, what matters is that scenari where you will take the big hits will happen, whereas armour will give you basically the same outcome every time.




And 30-40% evasion means nothing, it is all relative the monster level.
Versus many small hits, armour will be much more efficient.
If you have only 25% dmg reduction from armour against small hits ..... then that means that you have basically no armour, nothing significant, almost no investment.
That's not what we are talking about here.

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Fruz a écrit :

ES is a buffer.
Armour is mitigation.
Those mechanics have nothing to do with each other, comparing them is pointless.

Comparing them isn't pointless though, they're totally meant to be compared you have to choose between them as they come from the same source, more base armor means less base ES or EV, so the comparison isn't only good, but necessary all the time.

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Fruz a écrit :

Armour is good against physical damage, the difference between 10k and 0 armour in endgame is already really big, no need to invest too much of it, but it needs to go with other layers, like the rest :
- End charges alone don't do well
- Evasion alone don't do well
- block alone isn't that great ( altho a bit better I guess, with all the things that give spell block from block )

etc ...

Armour is pretty good, but stacking only armour is not enough, like the other forms of mitigations, basically.

The argument that stacking armor isn't enough, isn't the point though, the question is more should it be enough, and honestly I'm not sure, but currently stacking ES is enough while stacking of 'defenses' (as defined by the game armor/evasion/energy shield) isn't enough. Which basically means that ES is just a better choice, because it just works, and you can supplement energy shield with all the things you use to supplement armor, or evasion for that matter, and it works better, because ES is a bigger buffer than life.

I'm all for a game where one playstyle or build does much better against certain content and worse against other, but frankly it's not better or worse it's just as good or dead in the water.

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Lord_Tao a écrit :

I agree that a larger extended health pool is always better, but is it needed at such a relatively high cost to get that level of armour?

Entirely depends on build you are playing. In absolute terms ES > all, simply because GGG decided to arm all bosses with elemental damage, one shots and DoTs too because screw you armour and evasion users.

But if you wanted to play Juggernaut, Champion, you were near Iron reflexes but wanted that Unwavring Stance or picked up abyssus or high armour unique shield / body then investing in armour will help you a lot.

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Fruz a écrit :

You are talking from pure suppositions, and it is flawed.
It does not matter if in a series of 6578643546978 hits it evens out, what matters is that scenari where you will take the big hits will happen, whereas armour will give you basically the same outcome every time.




And 30-40% evasion means nothing, it is all relative the monster level.
Versus many small hits, armour will be much more efficient.
If you have only 25% dmg reduction from armour against small hits ..... then that means that you have basically no armour, nothing significant, almost no investment.
That's not what we are talking about here.

I am talking tool tip above level 80. Even with an accurate monster, there are always smoke clouds as well.

True. It depends what idea you have in your head about small hits. If everything there is pure physical then armour is better. I am thinking more overall where there are a lot of elemental damage attacks out there. maps also add elemental damage as well which probably gives the edge to evasion.


I guess what I am saying is: armour is more eHP for one or two shots, and evasion (averaged out across all of the content) is more eHP for less investment. That then beggs the question: IS 6K life pool with 20% phys reduction from flask, with endurance charges enough to not be one shot from pretty much all content? (save for the telegraphed big hits that you should always avoid)

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j33bus a écrit :

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Fruz a écrit :

ES is a buffer.
Armour is mitigation.
Those mechanics have nothing to do with each other, comparing them is pointless.

Comparing them isn't pointless though, they're totally meant to be compared you have to choose between them as they come from the same source, more base armor means less base ES or EV, so the comparison isn't only good, but necessary all the time.

No it isn't, it isn't at all.

Saying "Let's compare ES and Armour, Es is better because it protects against everything whereas armour ..." is silly because you can have both, one is a buffer and the other is a form of mitigation.
There is absolutely no point in saying "ES is fine on its own, but armour ... armour alone does nothing, it needs life with it !" well .... no kidding ?!
They do not serve the same direct purpose ( they keep you alive at the end, or not, but not in the same way at all ).


Comparing armour pieces and debating the amount of armour or ES that those give is however a completely different discussion.

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Lord_Tao a écrit :

I guess what I am saying is: armour is more eHP for one or two shots, and evasion (averaged out across all of the content) is more eHP for less investment. That then beggs the question: IS 6K life pool with 20% phys reduction from flask, with endurance charges enough to not be one shot from pretty much all content? (save for the telegraphed big hits that you should always avoid)

Ok, let's be clear about one thing first :
Those "one shot" from pretty much all content are a huge lie, it's ridiculous.
You do not just get one shot unless you make a mistake, or from a BS mechanic like volatile blood in couple of scenari where the stars align ( I have yet to die from volatile I think, but I don't doubt that it does happen ).

6K is fine until very late, btw, if you have couple of layers on top of it.
6k with 0 armour and no evasion either ?
That is dangerous.
Pure evasion as a melee means that you're going to die eventually ( I'm not talking the "one shot once in a while because evasion" silly kind of thing that you can read a lot on the forums, that .... no ).
Evasion is fine if you have a correct amount of it, unless Niche builds ( QotF for example ).
Armour is about the same actually, but armour does feel safer, maybe because the areas of the tree giving armour have more defensive tools with them though.

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Fruz a écrit :

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Lord_Tao a écrit :

I guess what I am saying is: armour is more eHP for one or two shots, and evasion (averaged out across all of the content) is more eHP for less investment. That then beggs the question: IS 6K life pool with 20% phys reduction from flask, with endurance charges enough to not be one shot from pretty much all content? (save for the telegraphed big hits that you should always avoid)

Ok, let's be clear about one thing first :
Those "one shot" from pretty much all content are a huge lie, it's ridiculous.
You do not just get one shot unless you make a mistake, or from a BS mechanic like volatile blood in couple of scenari where the stars align ( I have yet to die from volatile I think, but I don't doubt that it does happen ).

6K is fine until very late, btw, if you have couple of layers on top of it.
6k with 0 armour and no evasion either ?
That is dangerous.
Pure evasion as a melee means that you're going to die eventually ( I'm not talking the "one shot once in a while because evasion" silly kind of thing that you can read a lot on the forums, that .... no ).
Evasion is fine if you have a correct amount of it, unless Niche builds ( QotF for example ).
Armour is about the same actually, but armour does feel safer, maybe because the areas of the tree giving armour have more defensive tools with them though.

I meant immune to all or almost all one shots in the game (deals 6k+). All one shot content, not trying to imply that all the content one shots.

Armour does give an advantage, but my point is that evasion seems to do better, for cheaper. More skill points into other things.

If I did a marauder though I would definitely enjoy going armour, not because they pretty much have to, but for all the added bonuses on those armour nodes.

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Fruz a écrit :

ES is a buffer.
Armour is mitigation.
Those mechanics have nothing to do with each other, comparing them is pointless.

As long as GGG will think this way, armour will be useless. Because there IS a point in comparing them - there are ES gear pieces and armour gear pieces. I dont ask comparing ES to dodge, because those come from completely different sources. But Armour, Evasion and ES are intended to come from pretty much from same source - your gear. So comparing them is completely valid.

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Fruz a écrit :

Armour is good against physical damage, the difference between 10k and 0 armour in endgame is already really big, no need to invest too much of it, but it needs to go with other layers, like the rest :

Armour is good against physical damage, but physical damage itself isnt so threatening in endgame to justify armour stacking. Not to mention, armour is really good only against small hits, and there are many other mechanics that are good VS small hits as well.

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Fruz a écrit :

- End charges alone don't do well
- Evasion alone don't do well
- block alone isn't that great ( altho a bit better I guess, with all the things that give spell block from block )

etc ...

Armour is pretty good, but stacking only armour is not enough, like the other forms of mitigations, basically.

Endurance charges are good on their own. I've played a Slayer with 7 endurance charges and 0 armour, and i felt well-protected against physical damage. I've done Uber lab Izaro with very hard combinations and Darkshrines, without need of armour. And no, i didnt used LC or ToH, and my HP was around 6500.
Evasion is even worse than armour, often. It is RNG-based (even though it's pseudo), and (unlike armour) it has severe diminishing returns, so stacking more than ~10k evasion is kinda pointless for defensive purposes (not to mention it works only VS attacks). But pure Evasion gives access to Dodge, and that's what saves it. Evasion alone sucks badly, but Dodge provides decent avoidance on top of that, and can be scaled up to 75% with some investments. You can also have decent spelldodge, very useful thing cause evasin doesnt work VS spells at all (and armour doesnt for 90% of spells - cause most arent physical).
Block alone is good, if you dont have to give up too much for it. But block isnt limited to life, ES build can get block just as easily, and have massive avoidance with massive HP pool. Again, block is good mostly due to spell block, that works against spells.

Why should i stack armour, if i can survive just as good without stacking it? To get even more protection VS physical, that isnt killer anyway? And there is another problem - it's really hard to stack elemental damage mitigation in PoE. Overcapping resists requires massive investments for quite small benefits, going Pathfinder makes invesments into armour pointless cause just 1 granite flask provides more armour than all your gear and passives together. Many other defensive mechanics like ES, MoM, Fortify, block/dodge work just as good against any damage type, so stacking them to survive elemental damage automatically ensures your survival VS physical damage as well. And things like Endurance Charges at least dont requires massive investments for many builds, just spend ~7-10 skill points and you have that physical protection along with overcapped resists.