How to bump up Life on a Shadow; survivability in general.

[OldMemes.biz]

I didn't follow a guide build, as I hate doing that. BUT now maybe I think I hit a snag.

Right now I am playing a Shadow who is Level 38, and currently has 370 DEX, 85 INT and 62 STR. STR is mostly from items, as I do not believe I took anything on my passive tree that increases STR.

My Evasion Rating, with all equipment and passive tree combined, is 2021 with 57% chance to evade attacks; this becomes 3145 rating with 65% chance when I activate my presently Level 5 Grace aura. Attack dodge is 40% and Spell dodge is 30%. Energy shield is a simple 20.

My life is 422, and that is with a 25% reduction from a unique amulet I am wearing (that has such good things on it for me that I felt the reduction was worth the hit). Without that amulet it is 545.

Now for the most part I do fine Standard Breach with this guy. However, some Breaches can wipe me out (also, I can't kill a bunch of Breach mobs fast enough to keep Breaches open more than maybe 30 seconds usually), and bosses past Act II have been a serious pain (I died countless times against Dominus before winning that one).

I have been told in Global that it's because of my Life. See, I had thought that having high evasion would compensate, being that you get hit less, just like armour reduces damage taken. But I have been told it doesn't really matter, and that Life still counts.

Now, my problem is, everything I wear and all my passives have been configured towards DEX and INT, with Evasion. the only reason my STR is even at 62 is from items where +STR happened accidentally. Looking around the Passive tree, to get to STR nodes, I have to go far from my Shadow friendly neighborhood.

I just finished Act III Normal difficulty; some Breaches are a pain and I basically had to just fail my way past Dominus. Before going in to Act IV what can I do? Or is this what it's like to be a Shadow (my Templar [STR and INT] and Warrior [mostly all STR and Armour] build do not have these problems)?

[Tanktyr]

You need a minimum of around 160-220 % life for basically every build no matter which one you do, defense is alot more necessary then damage in this game. I would suggest looking up some builds, see where and how they put their points, and adapt it to yours, or copy someone elses for the first few builds

[OldMemes.biz]

Yes but what can I do if I'd rather not scrap this Shadow and start a new one, or burn every single Regret Orb and saved up "undo" skill point (whatever they are called, I'm not in game right now)?

And when you say 160 to 220%, do you mean of base?

[Drake]

160% from tree is pretty standard even on a full spellcaster witch (supposing it's not a pure Energy shield CI build). First you need to understand how evasion works. First It's entropic, not random, for short (because the formula is a little more complicated) it means that if you stay in the same spot, getting hit and having a rating of 70% you will exactly get hit 3 times out of 10. The game will calculate and let you be hit on purpose if you get over the probability.
So when you get hit by mobs, if you get in the hit range and you get struck by a crit you'll get oneshot.
That why you need dodge (which is pure random) to take over evasion when it turns off.

So you need that pool of life to at least avoid getting OS by a stay hit.

With that, understand this, even without looking at guide, you tree is your defence, about 2/3 of the nodes you pick should be about your defence, glass canon or not, it's not about speccing, it's about not getting oneshot, it's pure survival, you can't kill stuff if they offscreen you (and in merciless, especially in maps, they do, in some cases you might not even know what killed you before returning to the map).

About life, the shadow has to go to other parts of the tree to get them (you don't have any choice), the first area would be the scion cluster at the center of the tree, that's the biggest and usually the one everyone takes, you should also pick every life node that is near the road from the start to you keystone (here acrobatics).

As a shadow you also have an easy access to some life leech and vaal pact, it's a very good mean of defence.

You'll also have to consider other means of damage mitigation, life enfeeble and temporal chains or arctic armor.

You also need to think about you offence, maybe try a safer build, like traps and mines for a first shadow build (it's safe and very powerful).

[Awesome!]

Originally posted by Results Atypical:

Yes but what can I do if I'd rather not scrap this Shadow and start a new one, or burn every single Regret Orb and saved up "undo" skill point (whatever they are called, I'm not in game right now)?

get life on every single piece of gear you can and start taking life nodes on the tree now

i have had <lvl 10 characters with over 400 life.

[Awesome!]

also take off the stupid carnage heart

[OldMemes.biz]

Originally posted by Awesome!:

also take off the stupid carnage heart

But I like the red mist :(

[Windrunner]

If you'd like to see how it should look if you're playing a shadow and grabbing only life clusters: www.poeurl.com/2tr
This is already 115% extra life with another flat 12 on top and some leech and life on kill, and only 54 skill points spent.
You probably should take more damage nodes as you're not playing hardcore.
Maybe you could link your char/tree so we can point you in the right direction?

I'm also all for taking off the amulet but if you like it, stick to it. I still remember farming merc lake with 700 es+ci myself because I liked my sh itty uniques too much fun times :p

[OldMemes.biz]

Originally posted by Finn ◕ ◡ ◕:

If you'd like to see how it should look if you're playing a shadow and grabbing only life clusters: www.poeurl.com/2tr
This is already 115% extra life with another flat 12 on top and some leech and life on kill, and only 54 skill points spent.
You probably should take more damage nodes as you're not playing hardcore.
Maybe you could link your char/tree so we can point you in the right direction?

I'm also all for taking off the amulet but if you like it, stick to it. I still remember farming merc lake with 700 es+ci myself because I liked my sh itty uniques too much :8bitheart: fun times :p

I like the amulet because the + to all stats are added twice and both at nice values on top of having another DEX boost to boot.

I'll link in a moment.



LINK:

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYAAQW1D6sQexa_G8gi6jBxMHw2PTpCRnFLeFFHVvpfsGBDaoxtbG49b55_K4MJhMWNv5u1otmooqr4sNi1SL46voDB2MM6yBTKSs_d1CPbGt2o53To1vGK9W8=



Doesn't show the passive tree gems though.

[Awesome!]

on the plus side, you have a decent amount of life in easy reach

[OldMemes.biz]

Originally posted by Awesome!:

on the plus side, you have a decent amount of life in easy reach

Ahh yes I see that now. I just noticed where I can search and highlight paths on the passive tree link. Awesome stuff.

[Awesome!]

i like to use http://poeplanner.com/ because it lets you search and also shows your cumulative stat increases on the side so you can see at a glance that you have 120% life and 400% spell dmg or whatever

[Nakos]

Hmm... I've got a level 39 Shadow, lets compare stats ....

I've just entered act 4 normal, I've got ... 708 life, and none of my gear includes +life.

STR=64, INT=91, DEX=187

Evasion = 1352, estimated chance to evade = 48%.
Energy Shield = 165

My current tree looks like this: http://poeplanner.com/AAQAAFsGAAArsNii2cgU9W9qjBa_5oHLvXX9hG_UQrVIdoLIDLTRD6ski8M6ieDmWJMfSRMi6rEw2mSPT-jWzerrFJsmMgGyGc9653TbGhB7vjrrYxEvKwpd8jY9VYUAAAAAAA==

My goal with the character is a ranged build focusing on poison. I haven't decided on what I want to use as my primary delivery method, currently I'm using Lightning Arrow (supported by LMP, Void Manipulation and Poison (when possible, I'm going to replace LMP with GMP)).

I've tried Caustic Arrow, but I'm less happy with the generalized targeting requirements. I'm also considering Split Arrow and possibly Ice Shot as primary delivery methods.

Currently I'm running Herald of Ice, but no actual Auras.

I've got a secondary attack set up with Frenzy, supported by Assassin's Mark, Curse on Hit and LMP (also to be replaced with GMP).

So far the character has moderately good survival, although some Breaches are still too over populated. I'm not sure I like how the character plays, as it feels sluggish compared to the Rangers I tend to prefer, but on the other hand, this character managed to one-shot Dominus (both phases), something I've never managed to pull off with a Ranger.

(My long term goals for this character include something along these lines: http://poeplanner.com/AAQAANsGAABrsNii2cgU9W9qjBa_5oHLvXX9hG_UQrVIdoLIDLTRD6ski8M6ieDmWJMfSRMi6rEw2mSPT-jWzerrFJsmMgGyGc9653TbGhB7vjrrYxEvKwpd8jY9VYWlywzyYqxsjJ2qG8jP3fGK44QN0WNDwJynNAMeH0EmlWHiVUuMNonTcFIqCw5ItzAUCRNtJogRlgcelS7w1UlRj_pcQFS9Fe2Wi9W5h8unm3WezxVtbOywjAu5fBmKlwbEoqfU_sihpOHbBiN7FJS4G635Y1T-veaVzO0_m7WExQAAAAAA)

[OldMemes.biz]

I think perhaps I may have overindulged on DEX. Probably should have got slightly more strength earlier on with some energy shield. My over 300 DEX at this point might be overkill.

[Drake]

Sorry, I didn't actually read everything like I should, when you talked about dex and all I thought you were talking about a general evasion build. But if you're talking about stat as stat, you're making a big mistake.
In poe stat are only useful as equipment checks (unless you are doing a pure stat build which requires a specific build and equipment, especially uniques), never put points in dex, int, str past what you need. Always pick real increasz nodes, like if you have thz choice between 20 dex and 20% increased evasion, pick evasion. The stat gain is very minimal compared to what increase nodes can give.

[Must4Die]

do you really want to play with life? ES>Life 16.000 ES easy > 4.000/5000 life