GGG what's the point of having any stats in the game if they don't do anything?

"

Jixa87 wrote:

If someone is able to demonstrate how to achieve these values, it would be good to see the multitudes of ways to achieve these cap values.

Look up builds on PoE Ninja using Replica Dreamfeather.


They are pretty much doing the exact same thing across the board.
- lvl 26 Determ + Grace
- March of the Legion boots
- Iron Reflexes
- Aura effect
- Basalt flask with inc flask effect (for roughly 100% more multi combined with determ)
- Grasping Mails with uncapped fire/cold res increases armour. Formless Flame Helmet does the exact same thing
- inc armour from tree/jewels/ascendancy
- and some more tricks

They tend to end up with a few million armour and use that to scale defense as well as dmg from Replica Dreamfeather.
Cant utilize much of this for normal builds tho. This is pretty much only viable for one archetype and one way to build it

"

Orbaal wrote:

"

Jixa87 wrote:

If someone is able to demonstrate how to achieve these values, it would be good to see the multitudes of ways to achieve these cap values.

Look up builds on PoE Ninja using Replica Dreamfeather.


They are pretty much doing the exact same thing across the board.
- lvl 26 Determ + Grace
- March of the Legion boots
- Iron Reflexes
- Aura effect
- Basalt flask with inc flask effect (for roughly 100% more multi combined with determ)
- Grasping Mails with uncapped fire/cold res increases armour. Formless Flame Helmet does the exact same thing
- inc armour from tree/jewels/ascendancy
- and some more tricks

They tend to end up with a few million armour and use that to scale defense as well as dmg from Replica Dreamfeather.
Cant utilize much of this for normal builds tho. This is pretty much only viable for one archetype and one way to build it

That's how you get a million armor for damage stacking. For defensive purposes 100-200k is more than enough for everything including ushapers slam attack. I think my 200k armor jugg has like 80% pdr against uber shapers slam. Unbreakable + determination + brass dome + increased armor per second stationary is pretty much 100k already even with mild armor values on gear. Add 2 flasks and you have 200k. Champion can accomplish similar things. Other classes likely need iron reflexes with grace + determination to get this high.

"

sidtherat wrote:

these values are pathetic without 'tricks' and even if tricked, you are FAR BETTER of doing 'phys as ele'.

I wouldn't consider basic rpg character building as "tricks"....nor would I consider multipliers, stacking, connected auras, connected passives "tricks". These are core, basic PoE game principles that go into every build from the very first day anyone picks up the game. You aren't "gaming" the system, you are FOLLOWING the system. If you seriously think the average or even below average player is going to STOP at base values for everything...

I'll also repeat: it does not matter if there are "far better" options when the other options works perfectly fine and are incredibly straightforward and simple. If a person from day 1 playing PoE decides they want to make an armor character, slap on armor gear + armor passives + armor flask + determination (the LIKELY decision of a newbie giving the game even 10% of their brainpower), they end up with enough armor to survive almost anything t16s throw at them pre-heavy juicing, and they even probably will end up with enough to help with boss attacks except the biggest most telegraphed slams. Even the BASE armor values of the t1 armour bases multiplied by flasks and determination give you upwards of 50k+ armor before even factoring in the tree and guard skills.

I wouldn't call those numbers "fake" by any means.

With experience comes optimization, but BEFORE experience following the simplest most straightforward path the game lays out actually DOES result in success more often than not: provided you don't blindly flail about.

if you get full AR setup - aka all prefixes for +AR and %AR, you loose so much damage/other stuff that it is not even funny

rounded, top values:
3000 chest
2500 shield
1000 helmet
2000 all rest combined (very optimistic) (note, NOBODY uses gear as such)

8500 flat from gear, 2500 from determination
12500 with flask total

100% from passives (wasted points, nobody including people defending current state takes them)

50% determination

that totals to

37500 AR and enormous opportunity cost, well short of easy 50k

"

Even the BASE armor values of the t1 armour bases multiplied by flasks and determination give you upwards of 50k+ armor before even factoring in the tree and guard skills.

i presume you have never actually tried that, and thats a good thing.

37000 AR is not enough. and you took one aura, one flask, quite a few useless passives and enormous gear debt to get there. 3000 AR chest is very expensive, 2500 with good things is not cheap. you lost lots of flat life, +curse, phys as ele, maybe even +gems for gloves/helm/boots for your aura setups. you went all f.. in and got all jack sh..

thanks to AR formula, 37000 is just not enough (blocking like 3000 out of 10000 phys hit. where will that remaining 7000 go into?)

T1 rolls on every piece (and even mandatory aura and few passives) should give you safety, comparable to what T1 ES rolls give for CI character. sadly - they dont, and that is a big problem, because actually getting T1 AR rolls has a VERY steep opportunity cost

meanwhile Lightning Coil + Determination, no passives, no max res, no nothing

the same 10000 hit

~3300 AR from aura alone

3750 gone thanks to conversion

5000 phys hit vs 3300 AR -> around 450 phys reduction

so around 4100 damage mitigated. one item, one aura is better than ALL T1 AR setup with aura, flask and passives. *slow clap*

people should really try math so they can see how shit current AR formula is, just how worthless and expensive (wow, just like melee) at the same time it is

i really wonder why people still try and defend it (i hope they actually do what they say and use this setups, judging by poe.ninja they dont but hey, maybe im mistaken)

You might want to check the armor formula again. To mitigate 33% of damage you need 2.5 times the armor. At 5 times the armor it's 50% mitigation. Your 3k hit prevented from 10k aka 30% prevented would be too low even with 25k armor, nevermind 37,5k. You'll likely mitigate 4k+ with those values.

That said, nobody here is really arguing for using pure rare gear with 2 armor prefixes on it. It's a dumb idea and has little to do with how good armor is because it's like the worst way to make an armor build. You can get plenty of armor even without wasting prefixes on it nevermind t1 prefixes. There are also lot's of unique armors aside from LC with lot's of defensive benefits AND high armor that can be used. Your entire argument is just completely besides the point AND uses wrong numbers.

i work with what wiki states, so i might be wrong. the formula might be dated (theyve changed it from factor of '10' to current '5', it might be ommited somewhere)

my point is:

AR setup i listed is garbage despite investing actually a whole lot. but once you use ES or EV gear in the same scenario - it suddenly is a different story

so it is not the problem of 'rare items are bad idea' but 'rare AR items are bad idea'. and this is something new players (and many experienced players) dont understand and spring the noob trap

AR formula with rapidly diminishing returns, low base and mob power creep makes any multiplier (Determination) mandatory. the same formula actually encourages 'phys as ele' because conversion happens BEFORE AR is applied, not after.

it ends up when all the 'aux' mechanics completely eclipse AR proper making it a dead weight while at the same time allowing for 1m AR rating and seemingly balancing the game around people having 100k+

it is a mess. and it is always AR that suffers from this mess. coincidentally it is the same passive tree area that GGG forgot 5 years ago

Your AR setup is garbage because you threw opportunity cost completely out of the window while "investing". There are good and bad ways of getting certain stats in this game, and no that isn't bad design, in order for choices to matter there NEED to be bad choices.

Rather than using a 3k rare armor, just use brass dome. +1k armor, +5 all max res and crit immunity. That change alone makes LC look at whole lot worse.

There are also plenty of options to get more than just 100% increased armor with little investment. The mastery for 20% increase per second stationary up to 100%, the warcry cluster notable with up to 100% increase per warcry power for 8 seconds, inexorable cluster which provides free endurance charges on top, flask suffix for 60% increased etc. You can get twice the armor value from your example by scaling armor related stats (aka not via aura effect and shit) with much less investment and lower opportunity cost giving an entirely different picture at the end of it.

Yes, using armor prefixes on rare gear isn't something you should do when min maxing but that says little to nothing about armor as a whole. It's just you picking one horrible setup and judging an entire mechanic based on it.

New players aren't goint to buy rare chest pieces with 2x t1 armor prefixes. They'll pick up what they find work with that and end up with like 20k armor which is plenty for normal t16 content that new players are expected to do. If they can't survive a shaper slam with that alone they can just dodge it, not that hard. You are talking about high end minmaxing here and then bring in new players who are entirely unrelated to that.

Also, you say ES and evasion are different, but are they? Do people run 2x tier 1 evasion mods on their rare chests rather than extra curse and phys taken as? I doubt it.
As for ES, most ES builds these days get their ES via "tricks" even more than armor builds do. LL builds have to use shavs or ivory tower with shav builds usuallly having like 6k ES.
CI builds often go for Incandescent heart over vaal regalia because it's just so much better defensively and the majority of the rest are int stackers or people in standard with legacy gear.

Man...every single sentence and you completely ignore the fact that armor WORKS just fine if you build for it.

You talk of traps, of bait, of tricks, of poor cost effectiveness, etc. Throw in any buzz word you want, it does not matter! I'm not sure you realize how your whole assessment is completely flawed from the very beginning of your argument. Perhaps I was wrong about base value items and how much armor you end up with....so what? No one is running around with just that anyway, even a complete noob.

Newer players DON'T CARE about optimization. Newer players DON'T CARE about the "best" option. Newer players DON'T CARE that some other way is going to be better for half the cost. All that matters is whether or not is makes a functional difference doing exactly what your gut instinct on day 1 is to do...and it DOES. It makes a MASSIVE difference to stack armour for protection. It makes a MASSIVE difference to get all armor bases, focus on armor-related skills and things, even learning the prefixes and suffixes on armor bases. And you completely ignore ALL of that as fake, useless, and "trickery". It's as bad as the original OP is....

I could play cyclone physical, or I could play lightning arrow as my first skill choice. One outperforms the other in every conceivable way. But you know what? If I chose cyclone because I wanted to play cyclone, it does not matter that lightning arrow is "better".

This whole mentality of "there's only one way to do it and everything else is pure garbage" is just so completely wrong. There are inequalities, but that doesn't automatically make the "worse" option useless.

Plus, your argument hinges on comparing one defense to another when my argument focuses on comparing defense in general compared to NOTHING which is the whole point of this thread. The title and complaint is "What's the point of...stats....if they don't do anything?". Well, all these "fake" stats you tout do a heck of a lot.

i replied to someone who said:

"

Even the BASE armor values of the t1 armour bases multiplied by flasks and determination give you upwards of 50k+ armor before even factoring in the tree and guard skills.

and

"

'll also repeat: it does not matter if there are "far better" options when the other options works perfectly fine and are incredibly straightforward and simple. If a person from day 1 playing PoE decides they want to make an armor character, slap on armor gear + armor passives + armor flask + determination (the LIKELY decision of a newbie giving the game even 10% of their brainpower), they end up with enough armor to survive almost anything t16s throw at them pre-heavy juicing, and they even probably will end up with enough to help with boss attacks except the biggest most telegraphed slams.

which turned out to be completely false. i presume that people actually believe statements like this and simply never verify them (because they use better mechanics and have little to no experience with actual AR. who plays melee anyways)

he asked for base armour values - aka no T1 rolls :) i was generous and actually added them.

as if EV gear works - yep, ive made 1h Lightning Strike of Arcing with 2*T1 EV + 1curse Zodiac (15% life mastery), and 1/2*T1 EV gloves/helmet/boots, EV rings (for mastery) + Grace and i got to EV rating that ACTUALLY made me safe in endgame. no need for any further boosts, tricks and stuff, just rare EV bases (for mandatory suppress ofc and masteries).


Brass Dome is a great chest, sure. but it costs you like 500+ life due to no life roll, no life from STR and no 15% mastery. it is a tradeoff worth taking but only for +5 max res and if you can get (and afford) good corruption

"

sidtherat wrote:

which turned out to be completely false. i presume that people actually believe statements like this and simply never verify them (because they use better mechanics and have little to no experience with actual AR. who plays melee anyways)

This is just an inadequate, unhelpful, and wrong assessment of the game. You jumped on my "bare minimum" example as proof that it doesn't work. No one does the bare minimum.