Armor or Evasion?

I've been playing PoE since open beta began, I love it, great game, bought stash tabs. I'm not a real big ARPG guy though. I have played D1, D2, Titan Quest IT, Torchlight 1 & 2, but I mainly play classic Western RPG's from the Wizardry series to Might and Magic, Elderscrolls and more recently Dark Souls. I am not the best at calculating stats and theory crafting, yet I enjoy it casually. I am curious to know what the community thinks about Evasion vs. Armor, taking the Iron Reflexes node etc. What is the optimal choice in your opinion?

Thanks in advance everyone!

Bumblestiltskins

Evasion is equally effective against many small hits as it is against fewer large hits. Armor is very effective against many small hits, but very ineffective against fewer large hits. Evasion also reduces your chance to be critically hit (using a system similar to older Dungeons and Dragons editions -- roll once to hit, roll again to confirm crit). Armor's ineffectiveness against big hits can be shored up using Granite Flasks. Many people prefer Armor due to the perception that Evasion is random. Evasion uses an entropy counter, however, so while the first strike against you is randomly determined, every following strike will follow a predictable pattern based on your evasion rating and the monster's accuracy rating. For example, if a monster has a 25% chance to hit you and hits on the first strike, its following three swings will miss every time.


I prefer Evasion + HP Stacking, personally. Evasion is much easier to get to very high percentages of avoidance than Armor. On the other hand, it doesn't have a dedicated flask like Armor Does (Granite Flasks), though you can get flasks with a mod that increases Evasion rating for their active duration.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that many people choose IR so they can have all of one defensive stat (Armor) while still using hybrid Armor/Evasion gear for their socket color weightings. There's no equivalent option for Evasion, since Acrobatics just removes your armor and energy shield rather than converting some portion of it. This makes getting those Red/Green color combos a bit more challenging for an Evasion stacker.

Hey thanks Tykero for the response it's much appreciated.

There is no clear argument for one or the other due to the mechanics being rather different than in most other games.

As it was explained above armor is very effective against mobs that don't hit hard but you can't tank bosses at higher difficulties since they hit so hard that your armor has no effect.

My suggestion, skip iron reflexes it's overrated.

Thanks ReZar for the info!

I personally like to use both. Why limit your self to 1? If you take iron reflexes, You better make sure your ranged with good LoH, because you will be taking 95% of all hits thrown at you. or you can make sure you always have endurance charges up.

IMO, the best defense you can have in this game is armor/eva with a sheild. every attack has to roll twice for both sheild and evasion before they can hit you, and getting rid of a whole entire attack is way better than any damage reduction armor will give you. hell, combines with armor, if they do hit you, it gets some of the dmg reduced. For spells, you can even use the amulet Stone of Lazhwar and get some chances to block spells. I have done all this personally and it is pretty damn good defense.

Evasion is also really nice with ES, with fewer hits taken you get a much higher chance of regenerating the shield.

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bhavv a écrit :

Evasion is also really nice with ES, with fewer hits taken you get a much higher chance of regenerating the shield.

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I am going with a 1H sword and shield shadow, using a mix of evasion/armor and evasion/es armor types. I may not have as much evasion/armor/es as someone who focuses on a single one, but as long as I don't get completely boxed in by mobs (and even if I do, as long as I'm not lagged/desynced, I can use whirling blades to get out) then I have several ES regen timer reduction nodes that let my ES start to regenerate fairly quickly. It's not abnormal for me to engage in melee, take a few hits, whirling blades away and then pop a movement speed flask and run for a few more seconds until ES fills, all while the mobs are futilely trying to chase me down. Once I'm back at full, I re-engage at will and whittle the mobs down. Often while running to get ES to regen I attempt to toss fire traps between me and the mobs to keep pressure on them and keep any of the mobs with energy shields from being able to regen theirs while I regen mine.

Bumplstiltskins hahah