PvP Questions from a Beginner to Veterans

Hello Guys!

I'm very interested in PoE and the PvP in this Game, but as a new Player, a lot of stuff can be quite overwhelming.
I've read through different threads here and in Reddit, some of them older, some of them relatively new and now i have a lot of questions.
Maybe some of the PoE Veterans can help me out.

Are Max Block Builds still useful?
I've read about the changes and the reduction of Block that comes with one of the Gems and i am wondering if Max Block is still worth the investment it takes.

Is Evasion useful?
How common are builds that use Resolute Technique, because nullifying all evasion makes it pretty obsolete, i guess?

How good are physical damage builds?
A lot of players talk about Elemental Resistances, Penetration and CI Builds because of Chaos Damage, and i am wondering of physical damage is a valid form of damage in PvP.

Is high Elemental Resistance/Armor worth it?
Talking about Elemental Resistances and such, is it still worth it to invest in Resistances ar having high amounts of armor?

Are Bleeds a good form to deliver damage?
Talents like Master Surgeon, items that make you immune to bleeding and all that stuff make the impression on me, that making a build relying on bleed, doesn't seem to be a good idea.

How good is Leech in PvP?
I've read about the 20% Cap on Leech, and i assume, with Vaal Pact, this is not a thing, because you get healed instantly, is that correct? But with skills and items that can make players immune to leech, how useful is it?

Life Regeneration and/or Leech?
Is Life Regeneration better than Leech? Seems like there is no counter to passive life Regeneration, but i assume it does heal for a lot less and it looks like with skills, you won't be able to get it higher than 10 to 12 percent of Max HP.

I ask all these questions, because i would like to build/play a melee character with high survivability, and Max Block/Resistances/Leech/Reg would seem to be the right way to do it, but watching a lot of PoE PvP, the game looks more like a Teleport/Instant AoE/One-Shot kind of game at the moment.
I hope someone can give me a hand on these questions.

leech is useless unless you are using a vinktar and you are having very high expensive gear and light damage attacks.

max block builds are good but you can do only good vs non pvp players. we know how to deal with them.

evasion is great, it works better in pvp than pve. but nowadays attack based builds are not the strongest ones, there are 'secondary damage abuse' meta is going on. for example, EA, fireball, herald of thunder etc.

physical damage builds are good but elemental builds can scale the damage better. even though people are thinking new ele penetration formula would help pvp to get more balanced, that's something i dont agree with. phys damage can be scaled very well too. if you go phys damage, phys + poison is the way for sure.

armor is useless in pvp. almost.

life regeneration is king in pvp, but you must check scolds + zerphi and/or zerphi + fevered mind interactions. these are the best defense options in pvp, actually in pve too but since we dont like to share our knowledge out of pvp circle its now known in pve. check them out, if you cant find any explanations i'll explain you with short sentences.

bleed is useless, we have death's door. forget it.

melee is not in a bad spot at the moment, used to be totally useless at last patch. you need starforge (at least) and brass dome to be able to have a proper pvp build. EQ is the way.

poe pvp has broken mechanics there is no thing can be called as 'survivability'

"

GarakanOne wrote:

Hello Guys!

I'm very interested in PoE and the PvP in this Game, but as a new Player, a lot of stuff can be quite overwhelming.
I've read through different threads here and in Reddit, some of them older, some of them relatively new and now i have a lot of questions.
Maybe some of the PoE Veterans can help me out.

Are Max Block Builds still useful?
I've read about the changes and the reduction of Block that comes with one of the Gems and i am wondering if Max Block is still worth the investment it takes.

Is Evasion useful?
How common are builds that use Resolute Technique, because nullifying all evasion makes it pretty obsolete, i guess?

How good are physical damage builds?
A lot of players talk about Elemental Resistances, Penetration and CI Builds because of Chaos Damage, and i am wondering of physical damage is a valid form of damage in PvP.

Is high Elemental Resistance/Armor worth it?
Talking about Elemental Resistances and such, is it still worth it to invest in Resistances ar having high amounts of armor?

Are Bleeds a good form to deliver damage?
Talents like Master Surgeon, items that make you immune to bleeding and all that stuff make the impression on me, that making a build relying on bleed, doesn't seem to be a good idea.

How good is Leech in PvP?
I've read about the 20% Cap on Leech, and i assume, with Vaal Pact, this is not a thing, because you get healed instantly, is that correct? But with skills and items that can make players immune to leech, how useful is it?

Life Regeneration and/or Leech?
Is Life Regeneration better than Leech? Seems like there is no counter to passive life Regeneration, but i assume it does heal for a lot less and it looks like with skills, you won't be able to get it higher than 10 to 12 percent of Max HP.

I ask all these questions, because i would like to build/play a melee character with high survivability, and Max Block/Resistances/Leech/Reg would seem to be the right way to do it, but watching a lot of PoE PvP, the game looks more like a Teleport/Instant AoE/One-Shot kind of game at the moment.
I hope someone can give me a hand on these questions.

Here's advice to a beginner from a not-beginner!

Max Block builds can kinda be useful, but it's debatable. They're useful against SOME builds, but with block pen on weapons and the gem, you're in for a world of hurt if you try to use block as your only form of defense. Secondary damage from skills like Explosive Arrow or Herald of Thunder also bypass block.

Can't say from experience, but I don't even know if it's useful in PVE lmao

Personally wouldn't know (I'm 90% caster in this game)

Armor is largely useless in PVP from what I understand, since most people are elemental damage, rather than pure physical. And elemental resistances are a must! There's large sources of elemental penetration in the game, but it's still useful to have.

Bleeding is a good form of damage to have, yes. It's useful against ES users and block builds, since you cannot block DoT.

Can't say from experience how good leech would be, but there's a good amount of players in PVP, mostly melee builds, who use the Bloodless node, meaning you can't leech life from them.

Life Regen can be largely countered by Frost Bomb degen and lots of fast hits/DoT


I can't help you with the melee build thing, but others around here could PROBABLY help pick up the slack. Well, assuming this thread doesn't turn into another argument over broken mechanics and shit.

Rup and Rlowe made good answers so I'll just add a few things :

Do NOT make a build relying only on something who can be fully countered by an item like freeze, bleed, chaos damage/poison, stun,ect... You can mix up those effect but don't rely only on one.

Mobility is key, manual dodging is the best defense in the game.

Do NOT take pvp too seriously like some people on this forum, it's an absolute mess who's getting slightly better over time but it just push inintelligent players to copy paste and RMT builds based on broken mechanisms (mostly secondary damages) to keep winning and satisfy their ego (wich is still utterly retarded in a game where literally 20 players are interested in pvp, congratulation you are the king of 20 players). So just play for fun and try to cope with everything else.

Also yes it's a One Shot fest wich is a great occasion for me to use my favorite devs quote once again,

"

GarakanOne wrote:

Hello Guys!

I'm very interested in PoE and the PvP in this Game, but as a new Player, a lot of stuff can be quite overwhelming.
I've read through different threads here and in Reddit, some of them older, some of them relatively new and now i have a lot of questions.
Maybe some of the PoE Veterans can help me out.

Are Max Block Builds still useful?
I've read about the changes and the reduction of Block that comes with one of the Gems and i am wondering if Max Block is still worth the investment it takes.

Is Evasion useful?
How common are builds that use Resolute Technique, because nullifying all evasion makes it pretty obsolete, i guess?

How good are physical damage builds?
A lot of players talk about Elemental Resistances, Penetration and CI Builds because of Chaos Damage, and i am wondering of physical damage is a valid form of damage in PvP.

Is high Elemental Resistance/Armor worth it?
Talking about Elemental Resistances and such, is it still worth it to invest in Resistances ar having high amounts of armor?

Are Bleeds a good form to deliver damage?
Talents like Master Surgeon, items that make you immune to bleeding and all that stuff make the impression on me, that making a build relying on bleed, doesn't seem to be a good idea.

How good is Leech in PvP?
I've read about the 20% Cap on Leech, and i assume, with Vaal Pact, this is not a thing, because you get healed instantly, is that correct? But with skills and items that can make players immune to leech, how useful is it?

Life Regeneration and/or Leech?
Is Life Regeneration better than Leech? Seems like there is no counter to passive life Regeneration, but i assume it does heal for a lot less and it looks like with skills, you won't be able to get it higher than 10 to 12 percent of Max HP.

I ask all these questions, because i would like to build/play a melee character with high survivability, and Max Block/Resistances/Leech/Reg would seem to be the right way to do it, but watching a lot of PoE PvP, the game looks more like a Teleport/Instant AoE/One-Shot kind of game at the moment.
I hope someone can give me a hand on these questions.

Block is fine. Don't be scared of the gem, consider it a sacrifice for someone to "counter" you partially. Especially since block nodes are now hybrid damage/block it's not a total loss to invest in them.

Evasion is ultimately the only good defense in PvP when comparing armor versus evasion. The numbers you need for armor to mitigate anything are unrealistic and basically its shit. Don't be scared of Resolute Technique users, don't let that sway your opinion on evasion. You need it to survive many attack based criticals. It's entirely useless versus spells though and that's where block comes into play. You actually don't want to have all your eggs in one basket anyways. If it were me I'd focus on evasion + acrobatics and phase acrobatics. 40/30 attack and spell dodge for 7 points versus a huge investment toward block...also doesn't require swapping shields/amulets for spell block. This depends on what class you start and ascendancy you choose though. Duelist actually has great block ascendancy options.

Physical builds are fine in PvP. Don't be scared to get bleed on hit or utilize poison. It doesn't matter if items exist that "counter" these things. They have to prove to you in a match they are using them first. Physical builds also have half to full elemental conversion options now a days so if you needed to break your damage up you easily can. Cast when damage taken Immortal call and Enduring cry is no longer a thing either, making physical builds automatically more effective then they were in the past for a brief period. Plus again, armor is shit, most people are still lacking chaos resists and others are too stupid to dispel or not run while bleeding...remember that.

Even though the PvP formula is skewed in favor of elemental based attacks at the moment even after they implemented many many ways to penetrate resists and ramp this type of damage up....Physical builds are still viable. This is just one of those things you'll discover when you PvP around here, a lot of the decisions made are pretty moronic.

You want your resists capped off at 75% and then some. Elemental penetration will ignore your cap but you still need it to avoid going negative so easily. Other things like curses and EE need to be considered as well. 125-150% is a pretty decent place to be.

Leech is another one of those things you don't know if it'll work from match to match. I wouldn't depend on it but if you had some passively off the tree or on your gear it's fine, because they'll be instances where you can actually leech off people.

Life regen is not king in PvP. Frost bomb cripples it pretty hard and getting 10%++++ is going out of your way. Have some but don't depend on it, as Frost bomb will hinder it and most hits are so stupidly broken at the moment you'll never get the chance to regen anyways.

Starforge is a decent weapon but it has short comings. You're basically pigeon holing yourself toward 1 damage type and if this game ever reached the point where it required a brain or out playing your opponent that'd be counter productive. Earthquake and Lacerate are the best melee skills at the moment because they haven't been tweaked by GGG with damage reductions in PvP and they hit multiple times and from great range.

You want to play melee, be prepared to adapt.

Other then that what IceDeal said about not taking it so serious is 100% on point. There isn't a lot of us but there's even fewer that just play what they want and actually theory craft builds, regardless of how flavor of the month or broken something is currently. The rest will just be whoring whatever micro dick build they've constructed out of ignored imbalanced aspects of the game...not even hard either, they just copy and paste what they see. It's like building an action figure out of your own shit you just fished out of the toilet. Stick a bow on it, maybe a withering jar, pathfinder ascendancy a few enchantments ...or a wand I dunno, real genius stuff involved.

Just don't continually sink your currency into your character expecting to counter everything at once. Have another option offhand, like a bow or traps or just another set up that allows you to stall out a round if you need to. You'll go broke and insane if you tried to build a solid character in this game that legitimately did well versus everything...especially when you're facing a ton of neglected crap. You can make a great character if you understand the game, keep with it and don't change it if you get 1 shot by something stupid.

"

MullaXul wrote:

Other then that what IceDeal said about not taking it so serious is 100% on point. There isn't a lot of us but there's even fewer that just play what they want and actually theory craft builds, regardless of how flavor of the month or broken something is currently. The rest will just be whoring whatever micro dick build they've constructed out of ignored imbalanced aspects of the game...not even hard either, they just copy and paste what they see. It's like building an action figure out of your own shit you just fished out of the toilet. Stick a bow on it, maybe a withering jar, pathfinder ascendancy a few enchantments ...or a wand I dunno, real genius stuff involved.

Just don't continually sink your currency into your character expecting to counter everything at once. Have another option offhand, like a bow or traps or just another set up that allows you to stall out a round if you need to. You'll go broke and insane if you tried to build a solid character in this game that legitimately did well versus everything...especially when you're facing a ton of neglected crap. You can make a great character if you understand the game, keep with it and don't change it if you get 1 shot by something stupid.

Basically, the best way to do your build is for the sake of doing something you like, and doing it well enough that it can compete in PVP. Do it for the sake of your BUILD, not for the sake of just dominating PVP. It's what's gotten my Icestorm character so far in PVP, and I've loved it! If you really like what your build is about, then go into PVP and figure out how to do it, only better. That is something only experience can really give you, no matter what advice people can give you; figure out what works best for your playstyle and what's more fun for you to do.

The second paragraph is also very much on-point. Roughly a third of my inventory is just gem swapouts that I'll use if I feel I need to counter someone; high cold resist? Better use cold to fire! Trapper/someone running away/someone hard to get? Replace Controlled Destruction with Greater AOE! Shit like that, you know? My weapon swapouts are dualies (two wands) with block pen crafted onto them, to deal with those pesky Aegis/reflect builds.
My other interpretation of that last paragraph is basically don't spend an extravagant amount of currency on shit on one character for the sole purpose of trying to counter every possible thing! Be reasonable about it. It's alright to spend currency on something as a solid counter, but what I think he means is mostly spend currency on gear that's overall better, both for you and for your build.