Armor,evasion,or energy shield

[76561198101980799]

ok i have played the game for a little while now but i still need some help. Which is the best out the three and what do each of these three do? If you could help me figure out which is best armor, evasion, or energy shield. Thank you if you answered.

[brooklyncontrivance]

"Best" is entirely subjective, and I can make arguments for and against all three. So I'll settle for explaining the mechanics of all three.

Armor prevents you can taking a certain amount of the damage you would normall take. The tool tip on the character sheet displays this as a flat % amount, but this is incorrect. Armor is less effective against very heavy hitting attacks and you'll take a substantially higher amount of damage from them than you'd think from the tool tip. Where it shines is against trash mobs, who tend to hit you a lot (due to their numbers) but for much smaller amounts of damage with every hit. Stacking lots of armor and lots of life is generally considered the simplest (and one of the most effective) ways to play the game.

Evasion prevents you from being hit at all, as a flat percentage chance based on how high your evasion points are. It has a built in streak breaker component which prevents you from getting hit multiple times from the same source in succession.... or being missed a large number of times in a row, for that matter. Evasion is strong against heavy, slow hitters but weak against weaker but quicker attacks. When you do get hit, you take the full amount of damage -- which mean if you dodge 3 out of 4 attacks that would each one-shot you, the fourth one, the one that gets through, will one shot you. So you still need lots of life with evasion (arguably even more so than with armor). Evasion lends itself EXTREMELY well towards being combined with several keystones in the tree (Acrobatics, for an additional (seperate from evasion) 30-40% chance for an attack to miss; Ondar's Guile, which lets you essentially evade all projectile attacks, Mind Over Matter for a flat 30 percent damage mitigation, etc), as well as the Blind support gem.

Energy Shield is essentially a seperate pool of hit points, and when you are struck damage is taken off your energy shield points before being applied to your health. So as long as you have energy shield points remaining, you take no damage. It recharges slowly and the timer on the recharge resets every time you take damage, so it tends to drain quickly if you get hit a lot. It offers no mitigation of any kind when it's exhausted. It does have several keystones it synergizes well with (Chaos Innoculation makes you immune to chaos damage, at the cost of reducing your life total to 1 permanently. Ghost Reaver allows your life leach to be applied to ES instead of health, making it easier to keep it up during combat.)

[Boiledteabag]

I prefer to convert my evasion into armour then take the keystone that prevents me from being stunned but can never dodge, since i converted all my evasion into armour not being able to dodge is a fairly non-issue and all i get it immunity to stuns.

makes me a monster.
and double armour bonus from evasion gear+bonus effects+evasion only gear provides armour instead making it viable for me.

[BaronZlovon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkiTk5JuOGM

[MEDIC]

yes go with evasion you get more armour from it combine both keystones the dude above has,plus the GRACE aura and ur a human tank.....then couple that with some resists nodes.im on merciless scion 55,with 3500armour and 75% resists in all execpt poison...cant seem to get that on good gear..its at like 10%

[Fork_Q2]

It's usually best to mix at least two up if you can. I just happen to find pure evasion at higher difficulties is not as effective - you will come across enemies with extremely powerful attacks and your character will never be able to evade them all.

[TeraByte998]

i would go with a lot of armour but like brooklyncontrivance said its entirly on opinion

[Boiledteabag]

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

It's usually best to mix at least two up if you can. I just happen to find pure evasion at higher difficulties is not as effective - you will come across enemies with extremely powerful attacks and your character will never be able to evade them all.

Im a fan of the blodge combo, dodge+block+armour+engery sheild on sheild? best of all worlds.

but mainly dodge and block, thats a good combo.

[Fork_Q2]

Originally posted by YordleHunter:

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

It's usually best to mix at least two up if you can. I just happen to find pure evasion at higher difficulties is not as effective - you will come across enemies with extremely powerful attacks and your character will never be able to evade them all.

Im a fan of the blodge combo, dodge+block+armour+engery sheild on sheild? best of all worlds.

but mainly dodge and block, thats a good combo.

I hear dodge and block work very well, I think investing in energy shield as well might be spreading it a bit too thin (especially as brooklyncontrivance says, it is effectively another HP pool).

My Summon Witch is currently rocking out on Energy Shield alone (summons are my real defence), but will probably need to branch out to either evasion or amour to survive. Come to think of it, how does ES and amour work together - does having high armour deduct damage from energy shield as well as health?

[Kartoffelsuppe]

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

Come to think of it, how does ES and amour work together - does having high armour deduct damage from energy shield as well as health?

There is a few things you need to keep in mind, armour only reduces incoming physical damage & not elemental damage or damage over time, also chaos damage bypasses energy shield.

Energy shield acts as a second hp pool, armour should reduce damage taken on es.
(though I couldn't find anybody stating it clearly somewhere, thats why I said "should")


If you want to read more about mechanics, go here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707/page/1

[Fork_Q2]

Originally posted by lolibus:

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

Come to think of it, how does ES and amour work together - does having high armour deduct damage from energy shield as well as health?

armour should reduce damage taken on es.
(though I couldn't find anybody stating it clearly somewhere, thats why I said "should")

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707/page/1

I knew about the rest, elemental and chaos damage alike, it's the quoted was the thing I was after; I assumed "yes" as well from a gameplay point of view.

There does not appear to be a definite answer on the link either, nor the Wikia page for ES. Guess I have to keep huntin' for an answer.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Energy_shield

[brooklyncontrivance]

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

I hear dodge and block work very well

They, together with the Mind Over Matter keystone, are frankly the best defenses in the game,

Invest enough points in block nodes and 3 out of every 4 attacks won't hit you, right off the top. That makes it singlehandedly the best defensive mechanic in the game. Achieving it means spending a LOT of skill points on it though, as well as giving up a lot of potential damage by not being able to wield a 2 hand weapon. Unlike what Krip said in his video posted above, the block animation only plays if you block an attack that would stun you - and if you have a large life pool, not many attacks would stun you. On the other hand, the Cast On Stun support gem IS triggered when the blocking animation is triggered. I'll leave you to think about the implications of what you can do with that.

Acrobatics requires an investment of five skill points to gain a flat 40% dodge (evade essentially, but as a second different mechanic from regular evade) which is on par with going full evade in most builds in the end game. The downside is you take a -50% penalty to armor and energy shield, so it's really best used with evasion. But think about it, five skill points grants you comparable levels of protection as two or three times that number spent on evade nodes (again, speaking end game. Earlier you'll get more bang for your buck with evasion nodes). Investing a sixth point in the acrobatics nodes gets you spell dodge, which lets you evade spells 30% of the time for just one more skill point.

Mind Over Matter requires investing ONE skill point, and in return 30% of damage you take comes out of your mana pool instead of your HP/ES. With a big enough mana pool and enough mana regen, it's like having a constantly active 7.5 endurance charges. Unlike armor, it doesn't have it's percentage reduction reduced when you take the big hits either.

Now, add in the Blind support gem or the smoke mine skill and you have the next best defensive mechanic in the game. Blinded enemies have their chance to hit you reduced by 75%. A lot of folks underestimate how powerful this is, and a lot fail to realize that the worst thing about Unwavering Stance - the node that prevents you from ever being stunned - is that it makes it impossible for you to evade an attack, which makes the Blind effect worthless.

In my opinion, a layered defense in POE is the best defense.

[Fork_Q2]

Originally posted by brooklyncontrivance:

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

I hear dodge and block work very well

They, together with the Mind Over Matter keystone, are frankly the best defenses in the game,

Invest enough points in block nodes and 3 out of every 4 attacks won't hit you, right off the top. That makes it singlehandedly the best defensive mechanic in the game. Achieving it means spending a LOT of skill points on it though, as well as giving up a lot of potential damage by not being able to wield a 2 hand weapon. Unlike what Krip said in his video posted above, the block animation only plays if you block an attack that would stun you - and if you have a large life pool, not many attacks would stun you. On the other hand, the Cast On Stun support gem IS triggered when the blocking animation is triggered. I'll leave you to think about the implications of what you can do with that.

Acrobatics requires an investment of five skill points to gain a flat 40% dodge (evade essentially, but as a second different mechanic from regular evade) which is on par with going full evade in most builds in the end game. The downside is you take a -50% penalty to armor and energy shield, so it's really best used with evasion. But think about it, five skill points grants you comparable levels of protection as two or three times that number spent on evade nodes (again, speaking end game. Earlier you'll get more bang for your buck with evasion nodes). Investing a sixth point in the acrobatics nodes gets you spell dodge, which lets you evade spells 30% of the time for just one more skill point.

Mind Over Matter requires investing ONE skill point, and in return 30% of damage you take comes out of your mana pool instead of your HP/ES. With a big enough mana pool and enough mana regen, it's like having a constantly active 7.5 endurance charges. Unlike armor, it doesn't have it's percentage reduction reduced when you take the big hits either.

Now, add in the Blind support gem or the smoke mine skill and you have the next best defensive mechanic in the game. Blinded enemies have their chance to hit you reduced by 75%. A lot of folks underestimate how powerful this is, and a lot fail to realize that the worst thing about Unwavering Stance - the node that prevents you from ever being stunned - is that it makes it impossible for you to evade an attack, which makes the Blind effect worthless.

In my opinion, a layered defense in POE is the best defense.

Any tips for a Summoner Witch? I invested some points in ES related passive skills, but think I need to branch out to either evasion or armor (but not both).

[brooklyncontrivance]

Originally posted by Fork_Q:

Any tips for a Summoner Witch? I invested some points in ES related passive skills, but think I need to branch out to either evasion or armor (but not both).

There are a lot of good nodes in the northwest end of the tree above the templar area that are helpful for a lot of summoners (aura boosts, good life nodes, +20 resist all if carrying a shield and two clusters of minion nodes), including two nodes where each point gives +armor and +energy shield. The final skillpoints in each circle also include +8 resist all on top of all that. Good grabs if you want to go hybrid armor/ES and if you're in that part of the tree.

If you want to go evasion/ES go to the northeast end of the tree, near the shadow start. There aren't as many good node clusters here for a summoner, but there are two nodes that each give +evasion and +energy shield (and the final points also give +resist all). It also puts you near acrobatics, but you might have a hard time squeezing out enough points to stretch that far if you've grabbed all the minion nodes around the tree.

If it helps any, here's my armor/energy shield summoner tree. Full out summons + auras to support them. I've only gotten her to act II merciless so far, but so far she's my easiest character to play.

(long link, you might have to copy and paste it)
http://poebuilder.com/#character/AAAAAgMABLMGSQdjCPQQlxFQEZYTbBRNFy8ZhRmKGjgabBqPHNwdqiSqJLAo-iqYL28xiDbpOtg74TyOQ2NEBEZxR7dNuU3YT31VxlXVVdZWLVcrV8lY9VqRZOdmnmqsa9ttGW-ecH1wu3FNc1N5A3qqfRh-WX_GgFaApIFvgseDCYVghgKG0YhAi3qMdo9GkDOQVZMnms-boZu1na6dxJ48ogCio6aspwinK6eEqH2qxKx_sHe0DLcxuJO_l8AawFTB88M6yT3KSsy8z2XQ0NP72QvZE-GI4vfjauq66-7sOOyK8B_yHvba99f56PqA-tL7Cf5J

[Fork_Q2]

Thank you for your tips! This is very helpful, especially about evasion.

I think I already have a good chunk of the northwest nodes (the aura and the two clusers of minion nodes), while I was tempted to continue picking up the templar nodes, I'm more tempted by evasion in the east of the tree (I've decided to go with Chaos Innoculation eventually, rendering +health worthless).

Should have enough points to get to acrobatics me thinks - if Mind Over Matter wasn't so far off, I would have picked that.

[ironclad defender]

my character (lvl 50 on cruel) has an evasion of 64%, 40% dodge 30% spell dodge and double chance to evade physical projectiles. That being said, I have an immensely difficult time fighting peity and her warped lightning ball. This is due to the fact that i can evade or dodge most physical attacks, but have a very difficult time with magic attacks, as they aren't covered by evade. If you go with evade I would suggest the 30% damage reduction, or very high elemental resistance, which gets harder as you go up the difficulty levels (i.e creul has a -20% elemental damage penalty, and merciless has -60%).