Stop spreading the Evasion vs Armor fallacy

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LogoOnPoE написал:

On topic, would someone be interested in doing a comparison how Armor/Evasion hybrid defense stacks up with various amounts of incoming hits and damage per hit? I might look into it once i get home.

I worked up a full mathematical model for hybrid EV/AR defense. It has the potential to be the strongest defense in the game for melee, if you incorporate enough recovery options into your build. Especially after the most recent armour changes. But, there are plenty of ways to screw it up, and in the past my model didn't exactly speak the truth. Before it felt very flimsy; right now it seems to work pretty well. Specifics:

I'm assuming duelist.

A) You need a high total Leather and Steel bonus (104% possible now).
B) You need life, though in this particular case moderate life is okay. I plan my builds around 160% or so, trimming back to 124% as my gear improves.
C) You need recovery; it's very central. Passives and gear to improve your flasks, the right flasks, leech, life on hit, regen. Rejuvenation totem is VERY strong in a high defense build.
D) You need some kind of defensive ability, for when you meet that situation your defenses aren't good against. I lug around enfeeble as a switch for my offensive curse. Others choose other options. With other builds I really like conversion trap, but here enfeeble is sufficient (note: enfeeble lowers damage AND accuracy rating; it's strongest in a hybrid defense build; I recommend it).
E) Now, you have to choose if you will "armour focus" or "evasion focus"

Option 1) Evasion focus: Run grace, build east to arrow dodging. This gets you Alchemist as well, which plays in nicely. Crystal skin too, if you fancy that. Your goal for gear is %defense/+evasion/+life; you should be able to reach and maintain 40% or higher chance to evade. Not a perfect arrow dodging, but still very strong.

Option 2) Armour focus: Run determination, stay in the western areas and pick up the two steel skins there. Now you're at 206% armour rating. That's INSANE. Your goal for gear is %defense/+armour/+life.

Consider this case: 5 endurance charges, with 206% increased armour rating. The A/D ratio to keep reduction capped at 90% is only 3.7 with iron skin flasks. That is, you only need to wear 3.7 base armour per point damage coming your way to get MAX reduction. With 5 endurance. That's insanely good. You also have in the range of 25% chance to evade. I also have 31% block - starting to look capable.

Max budget for base armour, wearing hybrid gear without a shield, is around 6,000. With a granite, 10k. That is, you could tank a hit for 2700 damage and reduce 90%, with godly gear. Throw on two Kaoms and that ratio drops to 2.4; tankable damage becomes 4k. without enfeeble. Enfeeble makes those reduction figures achievable with merely decent gear.

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So, I've made two "cases" for hybrid defense. Without grace+arrow dodging, focusing evasion doesn't make sense. Without getting an insanely high %IAR score and running determination, focusing armour doesn't make sense (and here you're limited to a mana build). That is, without either specific setup you're better building towards mid and westward into the marauder start area, where life/regen builds have all their shiny toys.

And there will still be lots of people that will tell me that this just doesn't work. But, I'm actually making it work this time. Those changes to gear scaling, and the re-balancing of the acts, seems to have added strength to this defense system somehow.

So likely the best situation is to have a lot of life and a good mix of armour and evasion?

For my duelist, best bet is to take all the life around, go for the two evasion and armour clusters (104% total), get arrow dodging and then my offensive stuff.

Long term, I could aim for the middle and marauder areas for more life, regen and resists.

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Deimar написал:

So likely the best situation is to have a lot of life and a good mix of armour and evasion?

For my duelist, best bet is to take all the life around, go for the two evasion and armour clusters (104% total), get arrow dodging and then my offensive stuff.

Like I said, if you're going for arrow dodging, the thing that makes MOST sense is to seek evasion mods diligently, and run grace. Specifically NOT a "good mix" because you're rewarded best for stacking evasion rating.

But make sure you have endurance in your build somehow. Otherwise you're better off without armour rating at all but just evasion.

Thanks for linking the mechanics thread, I was looking for it a while ago and I couldn't find it!

Anyone who is curious and wants to make up their own mind can just go have a look at the thread.

My own understand is that :
1) You're not going to be hit twice in a row due to how evasion works
2) The higher damage you're hit with, the lower % of it will be mitigated by armour.
3) If you're one shot through your evasion, you'd likely be one shot through your armor as well because your health pool is too small.
4) Armour and evasion are better at different things but both are pretty useful in general.
5) In general most people would probably be better off with armour, because they'd take less damage from white mobs, but they'd still end up dying to hard hitting mobs if they don't watch out.

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Zakaluka написал:

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RodHull написал:

Pure evasion is not viable endgame - period

Hm, something tells me you've never had a 70+ A/PA in endgame maps. It plays extremely well in most situations, with a few corner-case weaknesses. Armour builds have at least as many severe weaknesses as we do (spit vipers for AR vs charge rhoas for evade).

I know, I've done both, through the very late endgame.

So now, be frank: have you actually stuck with A/PA through 70+? Or do you make this claim having dumped the system much earlier?

If your answer is "yes, I built through endgame" - what were your main mechanisms for recovery? What kinds of defensive controls did you use? Pretty central things there that could take some blame. Recovery and control are central, and doing them inadequately would make the build feel flawed.

I had a 67 lvl ranger using evasion and 64 lvl marauder going full armour. Until I gimped the marauder after a wipe by respeccing him his survival was alsmost guaranteed, even if it took a while killing stuff sometimes. But the ranger was extremely squishy.

Sorry but going pure evasion without IR you will get hit at some point and endgame mobs (at least when I played) hit so hard it was near impossible to outheal them or have enough life to survive a ranged volley. You also have to consider the plethora of cheesy teleport attack mobs who often target you off screen before you even know they are there, a group of flickerstrike magic mobs would almost guarantee death.

Sorry but I would love to see how you pure evasion non IR build actually played solo, I just cant see how it would work unless they seriously toned down endgame difficulty from when I played.

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Zakaluka написал:

Snip

Thanks for a very nice post. It seems, while it is possible to run hybrid, certain keystones still make you lean one way or another. WTB a keystone specifically for hybrids :) Something like reduces your max chance to evade and max damage reduction to 40% (or so), but gives some nice survival bonus.

im a bit confused as to why this is still confused, ten minutes on the mechanics thread makes this entire conversation pointless, go read it, heres the link for the lazy

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707

Basic algebra is all you need to figure out this math, no reason to argue about what can be calculated

just be glad they dont use quarternions. Fuckers are a pain in the ass the decode in any useful way.

Yea stop spreading the fallace.

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tramshed написал:

im a bit confused as to why this is still confused, ten minutes on the mechanics thread makes this entire conversation pointless, go read it, heres the link for the lazy

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707

Basic algebra is all you need to figure out this math, no reason to argue about what can be calculated

None of the math is in question, whats in question is how viable those forms of pure defense are in the endgame. Yes its easy to see evasion can be effective, as can DR, but how that plays out in game against high level mobs is another matter.