Best defensive stat for Merc?

[DELAMAIN]

Pure evasion or armor+evasion
I will use Ward ascendancy skill so its -50% armor abd evasion .

I heard that armor needs to be a TON to be somewhere playable...

I feels like pure evasion is better
But Merc theme is armor+evade and gear looks more badass)

[DarkFenix]

If you're nerfing your armour/evasion by 50%, forget about stacking armour. Go pure evasion and hit the Beastial Skin node in the dex area, it gives +100% evasion to your chest piece, so it'll compensate for a lot of that -50%.

[Kai]

Originally posted by DELAMAIN:

Pure evasion or armor+evasion
I will use Ward ascendancy skill so its -50% armor abd evasion .

I heard that armor needs to be a TON to be somewhere playable...

I feels like pure evasion is better
But Merc theme is armor+evade and gear looks more badass)

Go for Evasion+EnergyShield.

Trust me, energy shield gets a lot of uses as a buffer for damage.

[Arngrim]

Armor is kinda useless atm. Some is ok for mitigating small hits from mobs but other than that evasion, block and ES stacking is better.

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

I tried a full Evasion ES build, but honestly, skipping armor is a mistake. I am WAYYY tankier with 40% armor and 60% evasion (1.3k hp and 400 ES) than I was with 75% Evasion 10% armor with same hp/es. Armor makes a HUGE difference.

[p00se2]

Originally posted by Kai:

Trust me, energy shield gets a lot of uses as a buffer for damage.

this



grim feast spirit skill lets you overstack to double amount from collecting orbs you get from
killing enemies


i used to run 10k armor 1.7k life

now i run 3.7k armor 1.8k life and 1369 ES (2700 with grim feast ) and im alot more tanky just because ES absorbs alot of damage before your life pool gets eaten

[DELAMAIN]

Originally posted by p00se2:

Originally posted by Kai:

Trust me, energy shield gets a lot of uses as a buffer for damage.

this



grim feast spirit skill lets you overstack to double amount from collecting orbs you get from
killing enemies


i used to run 10k armor 1.7k life

now i run 3.7k armor 1.8k life and 1369 ES (2700 with grim feast ) and im alot more tanky just because ES absorbs alot of damage before your life pool gets eaten

Enerhy shield is going to be nerfed next patch

[DELAMAIN]

Originally posted by DarkFenix:

If you're nerfing your armour/evasion by 50%, forget about stacking armour. Go pure evasion and hit the Beastial Skin node in the dex area, it gives +100% evasion to your chest piece, so it'll compensate for a lot of that -50%.

Thats what i was thinking about.

[DELAMAIN]

Originally posted by Kai:

Originally posted by DELAMAIN:

Pure evasion or armor+evasion
I will use Ward ascendancy skill so its -50% armor abd evasion .

I heard that armor needs to be a TON to be somewhere playable...

I feels like pure evasion is better
But Merc theme is armor+evade and gear looks more badass)

Go for Evasion+EnergyShield.

Trust me, energy shield gets a lot of uses as a buffer for damage.

You cant really do it with merc.
And es will ne fixed next patch

[DELAMAIN]

Originally posted by xXBulletJusticeXx:

I tried a full Evasion ES build, but honestly, skipping armor is a mistake. I am WAYYY tankier with 40% armor and 60% evasion (1.3k hp and 400 ES) than I was with 75% Evasion 10% armor with same hp/es. Armor makes a HUGE difference.

Most ppl say armor stacking is bad and will be changed by devs. Due to formulas.
Most ppl say evasion tho

[Michael]

Armor is only useful for mitigating small hits from trash mobs. It won't help you when you actually need it. The harder something hits, the smaller a % armor mitigates. It's a placebo stat.

[DELAMAIN]

Originally posted by Michael:

Armor is only useful for mitigating small hits from trash mobs. It won't help you when you actually need it. The harder something hits, the smaller a % armor mitigates. It's a placebo stat.

Exactly.

But by that logic mb not so bad to have like 60+ evasion and some armor for small trash tho. For more relaxing.
Kinda have gear armor+evade and focusing on evasion in tree.
Damn i want my Merc to look like Merc and not like rogue in evasion gear lol

[xXBulletJusticeXx]

Originally posted by DELAMAIN:

Originally posted by xXBulletJusticeXx:

I tried a full Evasion ES build, but honestly, skipping armor is a mistake. I am WAYYY tankier with 40% armor and 60% evasion (1.3k hp and 400 ES) than I was with 75% Evasion 10% armor with same hp/es. Armor makes a HUGE difference.

Most ppl say armor stacking is bad and will be changed by devs. Due to formulas.
Most ppl say evasion tho

Yes, because a lot of the people that are stacking only armor want 80% armor to be able to tank an insta kill hit from a boss... which it shouldn't. There are specific skills designed to allow you to tank such hits, but the majority of gameplay should be focused on mitigating the smaller mobs and AOE attacks that you failed to dodge.

Having a better spread of defenses (35-50% armour, 40-60 evasion, and at least 50% resistances) is far better than stacking just armour or just evasion, unless you have a keystone ability/passive/unique that revolves around one or the other.

Would be nice if there was better display of exactly what the stats are doing, for theory crafters sake.

[LastTourniquet]

Honestly? Energy Shield + CI (chaos innoculation) is probably still the best defensive option for Merc even if your on the completely opposite side of the tree from it. It's just really hard to beat becoming completely immune to a specific type of damage while also having 2-3x bigger pool of health.

But if you don''t want to retool your entire build to fit ES/CI, Evasion is better than Armor. If you can comfortably fit it into your build Block is also very useful.