ELE LIGHTNING STRIKE - ALL T16s, Shaper, Uber Atziri, HOGM, Chayula, Elder

gotta say this is strong indeed, but I can't find it funny at all
anyway really good explanations sir

Just finished reading the entire thread. I was really hoping for the evasion vs armor debate to continue until some sort of conclusion was agreed upon. Instead, the discussion was kind of abandoned with both sides sticking to their initial beliefs. It probably should not go ignored that even if one in fifty attacks normally hits you, it's literally only a matter of time before an exceptionally high damage attacks kills you IF you don't have enough life. Or even a few big hits instead of one massive hit. It may take a long time before you get unlucky enough for it, but really it's literally only a matter of time and luck. That really bothers me about this build. One person playing smart might never die with this build, while 2 others doing the same, with really bad luck, and possibly a bit of lag, might die twice in a week. Let's be 100% honest (don't just defend your build), death is a mathematical inevitability in the long run, with evasion and less life than the game's biggest hit: playing for enough hours, months, years, even a lucky person will eventually have a moment of terrible luck somewhere in 500,000 attacks received. It could happen in the first 5000 attacks or in the last 5000 or anywhere in between.

I have a relative lack of experience with PoE (stopped playing in closed beta, returned recently only having played one char >70) so I can't really say if Determination really is enough to keep you from being one or two-shot. It will depend on how much life you have. It would be good to know exactly how much life is needed after determination so you *always* have more life than peak damage taken, and whether or not this build can provide that, and how. More life passives are needed, I expect. (It doesn't help that dexterity doesn't add %life, unlike strength.) I'd like to see what the passive build would look like after that, and if it would still have enough damage.

I am not convinced that evasion is what makes this build good, specifically. I mean you are using awesome gear with blind with fast attack speed and determination and max blocking...and optionally dodge, what do you expect? If you had used armor instead of evasion (with iron reflexes or otherwise) I have a gut feeling that you would not have been any weaker than you are now. Maybe stronger even. It's all the other stuff that makes the difference because the evasion only stops *half* of the attacks so at least the other half of you living to tell the tale, is coming from all those other things. I'd argue that those things are more important than the choice of armor type. With enough good gear, links and gems you can make any armor type look great.

Can I make a suggestion here? Try using the same main gems and tactics, but with armor instead of evasion, change the passives build to accomodate that, picking the most optimal path (gaining life and damage through strength at the marauder side, may need to grab the attack speed near duelist/scion) or simply iron reflexes and see how that character compares to your current one.

In terms of gear, it would take me literally 5 years to get it all, because I don't get to play nearly as much as the OP appears to have done being able to afford all that. Any plans do to a completely poor noob's version of the build? (Poor to the point that I have about 3 alchs, one or two low level uniques and I lack the gems that are not as common as the others.) Is this even possible or is it just suicide?

FYI, I play sc not hc, but I try never to die just as if I was playing hc...and I prefer to build characters accordingly. I just don't want the pain of a desync death after having invested so much time gearing and leveling a character. To me, any char that dies a non desync death is still a failure. I hope that explains "where I'm coming from".

Thank you very much for sharing your build with us in such detail.

Edit:

A point about using both armor and evasion:
Most players tend to avoid hybrid armor+evasion builds, preferring to stack one type of armor, usually armor not evasion. But assuming one grabs only "armour and evasion" nodes not single type nodes (wastes too many passive points), wearing a mix of both types of gear might be better than most people think, because if you just stack armor (or evasion) you end up with big diminishing returns with the damage mitigation percentage (or evade %) dropping as your character levels up if you cannot further improve the stats on your gear. I understand the argument that with a bit of both types: "You'll still get hit most of the time, and for most of the damage so it won't work" and I disagree with it. 25% evasion + 25% mitigation is not much different from 50% evasion or 50% mitigation, assuming that you have enough life to not get one shot. Both result in roughly the same life reduction. Example: 4 hits of 1000 damage each: 50% mitigation results in 4x500=2000 total life reduction. Compared to 25% eva/25% mitigation: 3x750=2250. That's only a 12,5% difference. I say "only", because diminishing returns make it so that it's more difficult to keep one at 50% than it is to keep both at 25%. (I think.) Hence in this example you might get them to exceed 25%, with the same overall investment that you would have needed to keep just one at 50%. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Being a hybrid has certain gear flexibility benefits as well. I've never actually tried it properly. I did some testing at low-ish level and found that the most effective at that point was definitely a combination of the two, there was a clear and definite sweet spot at "enough evasion to make a noticeable difference" and armor in all the remaining slots. Stacking just one type or the other was actually less effective in my very brief testing, because of diminishing returns. The higher the percentage armor or evasion is that you already have, the harder it will be to add just 1 more percent. So why not make them work together? Am I missing something?

Hi Roenie, thanks for reading the guide and posting. I ended up writing a reply that has turned out to be quite long, but hopefully you can bear with me:


Armor and evasion - this has been brought up many times and has been debated many times in the main forums. The thing about armor vs. evasion is that they are both good in certain situations, but they both also have weaknesses so it depends on your playstyle and what you prefer. If you were comparing 2 characters with the SAME health pool except one used armor and the other used evasion, then here are some of the differences I can think of:

- Evasion does not do well when surrounded by many mobs (as your evasion entropy counter is shared by all the surrounding mobs), but it excels in 1v1. Armor performs much better when fighting huge mobs than evasion, but less so in 1v1
- Armor does not do well against big hits, whereas evasion performs better. As the game gets harder and harder and mob damage gets higher - it becomes more ideal to avoid that damage than to try and tank it. You would need to stack exponentially more and more armor to mitigate the damage as it gets larger and larger
- Armor performs better against physical spells like EK and Bear Trap, whereas evasion does not because it does not apply to spells
- Evasion does better against elemental attack damage (i.e. maps with x% increased in elemental damage), whereas armor does not because their armor does not apply to the elemental damage
- There are also other things that come into play like crits/stuns/elemental ailments (shock/freeze/etc).


I think overall the game is more tilted towards armor being better than evasion due to all the different skills and items you can use that benefit an armor build much more than an evasion build in terms of survivability.


Evasion really benefits (more than armor) from two things: Enfeeble, and Blind. Armor builds however have a lot of very nice skills/items that it can benefit from, much more than evasion such as: Molten Shell, Arctic Armor, Aegis Aurora, Iron Reflexes (there is no opposite of Iron Reflexes to convert armor to evasion, and so armor builds can use both Grace + Determination, Jade + Granite flasks to buff their armor, whereas evasion builds and can just use Grace and a Jade flask to boost evasion).


The best armor melee builds are those that: stack a lot of armor on gear and passives, stack a good amount of life, get max block and high spell block, get decent energy shield, and then use Aegis Aurora shield. There are many guides like this. If I were to convert to Iron Reflexes and run this build with armor - I would have to use Aegis Aurora to make it even better (as I can capitalize on my armor and high block), I would then have to drop my Rathpith Globe so my spell block would go down. I could still get to 56% spell block using Rainbowstrides and Lazhwar - however it would be inferior to most Aegis builds that grab the spell block node by the Templar to get around 65% spell block. You could argue that I would have more ES from the close Nullification nodes - but the other builds that go by the Templar also have access to Body & Soul and Faith & Steel to boost their ES. I would probably also have less life because my gear, and starting at the Ranger (vs. Templar/Marauder/Duelist) will give me access to less life. You could then say maybe run a hybrid armor/evasion build - however this would be weaker than going pure armor (and starting at Templar/Marauder/Duelist) or pure evasion (and starting at Shadow/Ranger/Duelist). It would also weaken the utility of combining Aegis Aurora and armor. You mention that there is a sweet spot between having both armor and evasion - the problem is a hybrid armor/evasion build will likely not have high enough armor to handle very large hits and your evasion will not be high enough to make a big difference when facing monsters with higher accuracy - you aren't really concerned about regular mobs in the end game, it is mostly the bosses and so having a high amount of either evasion OR armor is more ideal than trying to average the two, I believe. I could also be wrong on this so if anyone has actually tried a hybrid evasion/armor build into end game it would be great to hear how it worked out.


The reason Aegis makes an armor build so powerful is because it replenishes your ES by 4% of your armor every time you block/spell block. If you ran a high armor build with 15K+ armor then every time you block you will gain 600+ free ES. If you are running an end game build that can reach 40K+ with granites etc. - you will gain 1,600+ ES every time you Block! There is no item in the game that can benefit an evasion build like Aegis does for armor builds.


Also - look at the trigger gems released. The Cast When Damage Taken gem is more beneficial to an armor build (because they are continuously taking damage) vs. an evasion build (which avoids damage).


I really hope that evasion can get some attention from GGG, and they can make it more appealing by: i) introducing new items/uniques that benefit evasion builds, ii) introducing new gems, or iii) changing the evasion mechanics. The main problem however is BALANCE and evasion builds could very easily become overpowered. One example was combining the old Enfeeble gem with the Enhance gem on an evasion build, which is why Enfeeble was nerfed when Enhance was released. Also, if an Aegis-type shield was made for evasion builds - then evasion could also easily become overpowered.


If GGG changed the evasion entropy mechanic such that you have different evasion counters for each mob attacking you - I think that could also make a high evasion build overpowered. I do like the current entropy system because it is surprisingly predictable (contrary to popular thinking that evasion is subject to getting you killed by RNG). I'm not saying I can predict when I will get hit, I'm saying that after having played this character for quite a while, I have found that fights with my evasion character have a certain rhythm/tempo, such that after some time in a fight I have a very strong feeling for when the next hit is about to come. This may sound like BS to you, but it is something I have noticed having played this evasion character for many many hours, especially once I removed Dodge. Sometimes the rhythm gets messed up: you cannot notice a Dodge/Block, spells are used against you, new mobs enter/leave the system, your Enfeeble expires, your Blind expires, etc. I am essentially using Block as an "indicator" for when my evasion is breached and the counter is "reset" so if you can figure out the time/count between your successive Blocks/hit - you have a good indication for how many hits you are guaranteed to avoid before your evasion fails. One example of this is my Level 78 Dominus fight on the 2nd form - I managed to cast Enfeeble to reduce damage just before I took a very large hit: new mobs had been entering the system and I felt that I had been avoiding too many hits already without blocking so my evasion counter I felt was getting very close to passing 100. Again you may think this is nonsense, but it is something I have noticed through playing this build.


When people describe this build as exciting to play - I think part of it is what I just mentioned above, and another part is that it feels awesome when you can take on a boss or group of mobs and take 0 damage. However if you are paranoid about dieing - then a pure armor tank build where you get a lot of life, and use Aegis, would be more ideal for you. You could also build a true evasion-based tank - stack life, maybe use things like Lightning Coil/Mind Over Matter, and combine with your Endurance Charges and Immortal Call. DPS will likely be low, but that is the tradeoff.


I REALLY hope that more evasion-based uniques are released into the game. The best unique I can think of for an evasion build is Bringer of Rain - but if you look at the stats you will see that this item was meant for an Iron Reflexes build that does not take Unwavering Stances.


I think that as the game gets progressively harder and more bosses are introduced with higher damage - this is when evasion builds will start to shine. One example is Dominus' smash (especially the map versions) - this is a physical attack that deals a ton of damage with some elemental damage, however it will miss an evasion-based character much frequently than an armor-based character. If it does land - both characters would likely be one shot, but at least the evasion character would survive that smash in many more situations than an armor character.


If you are really worried about damage mitigation with this build, I give some recommendations in the guide:
- The key thing is that the hits you take are few and far between and there are ways to mitigate the damage, namely: using Enfeeble, Endurance Charges (get the Endurance Charge by the Duelist and from merciless Oak), use Immortal Call on trigger for physical damage, and maybe have a high level Immortal Call you cast manually
- Getting capped resistances for spell damage
- If your life pool is large enough and your life regen fast enough, you become very hard to kill

"

Roenie wrote:

I can't really say if Determination really is enough to keep you from being one or two-shot.

Whoops, I meant Endurance charges.

Wow, that was quite a read. I learnt a thing or two.
Thanks for your informative response.

"

The problem is a hybrid armor/evasion build will likely not have high enough armor to handle very large hits and your evasion will not be high enough to make a big difference when facing monsters with higher accuracy - you aren't really concerned about regular mobs in the end game, it is mostly the bosses.

I see, big problem with heavy accurate hitters. You're probably right. Bad idea.

"

Evasion does not do well when surrounded by many mobs (as your evasion entropy counter is shared by all the surrounding mobs), but it excels in 1v1.

Melee characters come into contact with larger groups of monsters more often, so to me it would make sense to go with armor on a melee character to be able to facetank groups more easily. And stack life for the big hits, just like you'd have to when using evasion. If I was going to stack ES instead of life, then I'd use blind and go with evasion because like ranged, ES suggests that you don't facetank bigger groups of mobs. Also, ES recharges while the mobs miss.

is this still working at endgame content (70+ maps) if i'm using the new Soul Taker?

"

Roenie wrote:

Melee characters come into contact with larger groups of monsters more often, so to me it would make sense to go with armor on a melee character to be able to facetank groups more effectively.

The thing is that in end game - many builds have no problems with regular groups of mobs. Groups of mobs only become a real danger for evasion when you are fighting a boss that has a lot of mobs with them. Again, this is not really common and I have only seen this in the Jungle Valley map boss room that has a TON of mobs all trying to hit you. Similarly, extremely fast hitting bosses, especially the new cyclone bosses, are also counters to evasion builds.

About 1 shot situations - I have already given examples of high damage I have taken with this build and have explained many times how to reduce the damage. If you are really worried about dying - stack a lot of life (this is applicable for any life build) and don't try and solo 76+ map bosses with hard mods. If you still believe you will be one-shot with this build, that is fine and maybe it is not suitable for your playing style. If you are looking for true tank builds - check out Dragon's Infernal Blow Marauder or LendoKaar's 1H + Shield Duelist.

if you are afraid of dying, you need this

Nice build.
I am building something similar myself.

Why are you using BoR?
I feel it is suboptimal. You lack a LOT of defences.
BoR has 900 evasion. A helm and chest can easily get to 3000 evasion. Also more resists.
BoR has an effective 7 link for a non-US character. You are using Double + Splash. So you are in fact using a 6L because 1 gem slot is wasted on Spash.
If I use Reave on a 6L Chest I get the same effect.

Bottom line, the only advantage BoR has over helm + chest is +15% block chance.

Oh and it also is expensive as $#@%.

"

nebunelux wrote:

Nice build.
I am building something similar myself.

Why are you using BoR?
I feel it is suboptimal. You lack a LOT of defences.
BoR has 900 evasion. A helm and chest can easily get to 3000 evasion. Also more resists.
BoR has an effective 7 link for a non-US character. You are using Double + Splash. So you are in fact using a 6L because 1 gem slot is wasted on Spash.
If I use Reave on a 6L Chest I get the same effect.

Bottom line, the only advantage BoR has over helm + chest is +15% block chance.

Oh and it also is expensive as $#@%.

Thanks for post. BoR has the 15% Block and Blind - which is great for this build. Without the 15% Block - it would be extremely hard to get to maximum block without spending A LOT of points on the tree because the Block clusters are few and far between. If you use a 6L chest and a helm instead of Bringer of Rain - yes you will get better resistances and more evasion, but you will have to apply Blind manually using either a Flame Totem, Smoke Mine, or sacrifice a socket in your 6L. There are many skills you can use with the build such as Reave - I think some people are using it but I found that it was hard to maintain the AOE stacks especially if you need to curse/cast Enfeeble during fights.

When I made this build back in August Bringer of Rain was around 3ex - 5ex. Now the price is much higher, but it is still cheaper than an end game 6L evasion or ev/es chest which go for 30ex+ easily.

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feuerbach wrote:

is this still working at endgame content (70+ maps) if i'm using the new Soul Taker?

id like to know the same...would u prefer a "high dps rare" with mind drinker or the new soul taker without mind drinker and more points to improve the axe dps?