Clearer Defensive Layers

For many years I have tried to understand and comprehend the myriad of defensive layers available in Path of Exile. Some more effective than others, not all available to every build. I enjoy a good build guide, but there effectiveness varies depending on the build creator. If you follow a streamers build guide, they can be outside the casual players price budget. The guides typically invest heavily on what skills you'll be using with little to no information regarding EHP. You'd love to be able to clear all content or even specific content on your character so understanding the limitations on the build you've chosen is important.
Example: Picking a glass cannon for heist, not ideal unless you're reflexes are like a cat! Compared to picking a glass cannon for a single boss fight.

My feedback is, there needs to be cleared "Acheive these combinations of defensive layers for good survivability"
Having a list of what these actually are, so you know how you are progressing towards them and when you haven't hit them the player can understand why they are using 6x portals to clear a t10 white map.

Example; Im playing a slayer, with leech investment, 90% phys damage reduction, max 80 elemental res.
That's not enough to survive t16 content.

Another example; Im playing a pathfinder, with max evasion, 100% spell suppression, 50% chance to block attack & spell damage, 50% phys to lightning, 82% max lightning res, purity of elements (ailment immunity)
That's not enough to survive t17 content.

Well, what is? Am I just playing the game wrong? is my character not good?
It makes you feel like you've wasted all your currency on a character and followed the wrong build guide to have a good experience.
The alternative, is you follow another build guide and your tank is insane, life regen, armour, max res, you can't die but it's a struggle to clear content, it's slow.

It can feel like your punished for going too far in either direction, you need to settle for something in the middle.
I don't get to engage much with the league content because my characters are all garbage, they either don't do damage enough to kill bosses or constantly die to be able to have a fun experience of the league.

tl;dr - depending on the build guide you follow, you might like the look of how it plays, but your capability of the build guide is unknown until you realise what you can and cant afford.
your ability to align with the build guide will impact your overall experience of the league.
Last bumped on Aug 16, 2024, 9:25:41 AM
The short answer is that there shouldn't be multiple things that are redundant and ultimately reduce the same type of damage.

*Spell suppression should not exist. Resistances should simply be stronger and max res nodes should be spread throughout the tree.
*Percentage physical reduction modifiers and endurance charges should not exist. Armor should simply be better against ALL levels of hits (not just small hits) and armor nodes should be spread throughout the tree.
*Damage intake conversion should not exist. Make armor and resistances and blocking more powerful and available throughout the tree.

If you introduce defensive layers A, B, C, D, and E to counter physical damage, and make it realistically impossible to simultaneously achieve those layers to good levels, and then REQUIRE those layers for any sustained damage intake survival, then you get the obvious abomination we are at now. Therefore, you must remove layers, and buff what remains.

After these issues are settled the devs can then turn their attention on the simple damage output of things against you which is waaaaaaaaaay too high in most situations. Then the game will be more about "how much damage can I take?" instead of the absurd current state of "I can't be hit by anything and if I see the enemy I'm already dead." That isn't an ARPG anymore.
Last edited by mnieradko on Apr 21, 2024, 9:20:02 PM
While i can see your point, figuring out those kinds of things is the job of the players, not of the devs. They just give you the tools, you need to figure out how to use those tools to get the results you want. If you aren't into this kind of thing then POE is honestly not a game for you. There are other alternatives with less complex itemization and lower difficulty you should opt for.

If you follow a good build guide then it should have this kind of information included, if it doesn't it's likely not a good guide.

Also, what level of defensive layers you want/need heavily depends on how you play. You can dodge like 90% of incoming damage if you stutter step at all times so people who are used to doing that will be satisfied with much less defense than people who don't.
There are also people who don't want to die at all while others see 6 portals as a defensive layer.
It also depends on the content you run and how much juice you are using. Like there are builds that are super tanky for mapping but squishy against bosses and vice versa. There is no objective answer to the question what defenses you need, it's heavily subjective.

It's something you have to find out via experimenting at the end of the day, nobody will be able to tell you that.
that s the way the game is balanced unfortunately.
one of the defensive in the game is knowledge, and by knowledge i mean there are stuff you are not supposed to do or you ll die. simple as that. like certain mobs if you see them you need to fuck off.

and also, aura bots.
game is a mess atm. get that defiance amulet - probably helps a ton, but being forced into it, is just bad.

doing the surrender or aegis would also work, but again being forced is just bad design... or lack of it.

"
feral_nature wrote:
game is a mess atm. get that defiance amulet - probably helps a ton, but being forced into it, is just bad.

doing the surrender or aegis would also work, but again being forced is just bad design... or lack of it.



You need none of those to make a proper char.
Dys an sohm
Rohs an kyn
Sahl djahs afah
Mah morn narr
at some point GGG needs to take a break and clear the mess created by introducing an overwhelming amount of mechanics that give or take do the same thing

we got armor, flat phys damage reduction, % phys damage reduction and phys damage conversion. They are all ment to reduce incoming damage from phys damage being the only diference some are better suited for big hits while other are better for smaller hits.

and then the cherry of the cake is we can obtain more armor from other sources than what we can get from wearing heavy armor.

is not about making the game easier, It's about clearing the bloat and making the mechanics easy to understand.
self found league fan

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/324242/page/1

Last edited by caboom on Apr 22, 2024, 7:54:31 AM
All of these suggestions are terrible.

Only having one way to mitigate any given kind of damage is the exact opposite of good game design because it pigeonholes every single build into the same thing.

If armor were the only way to reduce incoming physical damage, it literally means you can't ever make a character that wears evasion or energy shield items because more than half of the enemies in the game deal primarily physical damage.

If anything, we need more redundant systems because there's currently not an alternative to spell suppression..
"
Coconutdoggy wrote:
"
feral_nature wrote:
game is a mess atm. get that defiance amulet - probably helps a ton, but being forced into it, is just bad.

doing the surrender or aegis would also work, but again being forced is just bad design... or lack of it.



You need none of those to make a proper char.


werent you the one bragging about playing with imperial group?
"
Jixa87 wrote:
For many years I have tried to understand and comprehend the myriad of defensive layers available in Path of Exile. Some more effective than others, not all available to every build. I enjoy a good build guide, but there effectiveness varies depending on the build creator. If you follow a streamers build guide, they can be outside the casual players price budget. The guides typically invest heavily on what skills you'll be using with little to no information regarding EHP. You'd love to be able to clear all content or even specific content on your character so understanding the limitations on the build you've chosen is important.
Example: Picking a glass cannon for heist, not ideal unless you're reflexes are like a cat! Compared to picking a glass cannon for a single boss fight.

My feedback is, there needs to be cleared "Acheive these combinations of defensive layers for good survivability"
Having a list of what these actually are, so you know how you are progressing towards them and when you haven't hit them the player can understand why they are using 6x portals to clear a t10 white map.

Example; Im playing a slayer, with leech investment, 90% phys damage reduction, max 80 elemental res.
That's not enough to survive t16 content.

Another example; Im playing a pathfinder, with max evasion, 100% spell suppression, 50% chance to block attack & spell damage, 50% phys to lightning, 82% max lightning res, purity of elements (ailment immunity)
That's not enough to survive t17 content.

Well, what is? Am I just playing the game wrong? is my character not good?
It makes you feel like you've wasted all your currency on a character and followed the wrong build guide to have a good experience.
The alternative, is you follow another build guide and your tank is insane, life regen, armour, max res, you can't die but it's a struggle to clear content, it's slow.

It can feel like your punished for going too far in either direction, you need to settle for something in the middle.
I don't get to engage much with the league content because my characters are all garbage, they either don't do damage enough to kill bosses or constantly die to be able to have a fun experience of the league.

tl;dr - depending on the build guide you follow, you might like the look of how it plays, but your capability of the build guide is unknown until you realise what you can and cant afford.
your ability to align with the build guide will impact your overall experience of the league.


Its not you, neither your char, you are "expected" to play a fotm build sadly, you can easily adjust your char to be able to survive T16's, T17's and the bosses there just ignore all your invested defences, so this is why some people play builds with frontloaded damage (srs, mines, traps) and once the boss get active he is deleted, so aka easy, its silly, like you could very likely do T17 bosses on a 5 link with hexblast mines atm.
What annoys me the most is that these people think they are very good at the game :D but they just netdeck'ed a fotm build, so if you want to make creative builds dont expect to do T17+ content well.

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