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Just adding my little bit of a voice to this. Break Armour NEEDS to be removed from enemies. I've been doign PoE 2 and have not gotten into the late game yet and armour has felt worthless with anything other than Smith of Kitava backing it to be omni-protection. But even with the boosts from that, it doesn't matter if an enemy has break armour, because a single hit from them knocks out 90% of that armour and suddenly all of that defense I've been building for is invalidated.
As far as I'm aware there aren't any enemies in the game with "Ignores evasion" or "Bypasses Energy shield" (And if there are there really shouldn't be, don't make your enemies invalidate player builds), so why is it that people building armour (an already subpar defense stat) have an enemy modifier that specifically invalidates the defensive side of their build?
I know that I've not hit the endgame of this yet, but part of that is because I level two characters to roughly 40, first one went "Armour's really not protecting me enough from enemies, I need to make a build that can get more out of it", second one was Smith of Kitava and that felt good to play until I saw Break Armour instantly destroys almost my entire armour from a single hit and went "Welp, guess armours worthless" and am now running an energy shield character and have never felt tankier despite having no damage reduction.
TL;DR, am seconding that improvements need to be made to armour, it feels too weak without full on investment into it. But the single most important thing is remove armour break from enemies. No matter how good armour is made, having an enemy that invalidates it is going to just make players feel like you don't want them to use armour, and IF you don't want players using armour, don't put it in your game.
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Posted byCyanside#1914on Jan 20, 2026, 7:50:50 PM
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Jeez, this was the same thing people complained bout back in Dec 2024. How long is this game in beta? Maybe until 2028?
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Posted byLadyValkyrie1#3750on Jan 20, 2026, 7:58:16 PM
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Jeez, this was the same thing people complained bout back in Dec 2024. How long is this game in beta? Maybe until 2028?
Well do the math, 1 release every 3 months, 12/3 = 4, 4 releases a year, we're at season 4, game launched a year ago, so ya 8 more releases to go, 4 a year
2 more years untill we get a 1.0 that will still require major balancing and fixing especially with the scope of content they still have to work on, still missing what 4 classes? 4 core weapons with skills associated
Assassin, Gladiator, Marauder, Templar, Sword dagger axe and idk the last one I think its gon be a 1 handed crossbow but IDK
2 years we have to wait and probably another year ontop to get the game to a polished state, so ya, gg GGG
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Posted byJobama#9902on Jan 20, 2026, 8:03:15 PM
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Armour has some major problems in PoE2 right now:
1) Armour is too weak against larger attacks that shouldn't be 1 hitting tank invested characters.
2) Armour is the only 1 of the 3 defence stats that is worthless against elemental and chaos hits.
3) Armour doesn't mitigate nearly enough physical damage in general.
4) Armour break and overwhelm from enemies wielded against the player is crippling and dis-proportionally lethal.
5) Armour currently is lacking for keystone/spirit gem support and variance.
Armour in PoE1 had awkward, but functional solutions to most of the above problems:
1) The armour formula in PoE1 I believe is less diminished against higher damage inputs on top of additional physical damage reduction having no drop-off against larger hits.
2) There are modifiers that make a percentage of armour apply to non-physical damage from hits. Endurance charges also reduce elemental damage taken.
3) Sources of additional physical damage reduction and more armour are easily acquire-able and act as a force multiplier.
4) Overwhelm is a terrible reference unfortunately since it's also similar to armour break and painfully counters tank characters. PoE1 did it terribly too.
5) Armour keystones such as Imbalanced Guard and Divine Shield enabled more viable options for using armour, especially for hybrid defence builds.
While it would be better than keeping things as is, I don't believe copy pasting EVERY PoE1 armour related mechanic into PoE2 is the best way to go about this. PoE1 should still be referenced though and new more balanced variances should be smoothly implemented to lay an intuitive and clean groundwork for PoE2.
I HEAVILY suggest that instead of having a multitude of shopping list stats that armour builds need, the way armour itself mitigates damage should be changed so that players can simply focus on building more armour in the same way evasion and energy shield builds invest into defence.
By changing the way armour damage reduction is calculated and adding a few other tweaks most of the major issues can be resolved in a surprisingly efficient manner:
1) The formula for armour should be adjusted so the diminished effect against larger hits is not as severe. A simple change to the formula such as multiplying the damage taken variable to the power of ^0.75 or something similar would easily do the trick. A few more sources of additional physical damage reduction or more armour multipliers being added over EA development will also naturally give players more high end defensive options too.
2) Armour should innately defend against all damage types while still being most effective against physical damage. The damage reduction from armour should apply before resistances instead of after like it did in PoE1 so that it isn't influenced by maximum resistances. Having 35-50%(ish) of armour also apply to all non-physical hits calculated before other mitigation sources would be ideal. Passives like the "Heatproofing" notable could be changed to modifiers such as "defend with 20% more armour against elemental hits".
3) The above formula changes would ideally make armour functional as an independent defence that isn't reliant on other stats to do it's own job properly. Armour should be in a state where it's more convenient for average builds to seek more armour instead of chasing after scarce sources of additional physical damage reduction or damage taken conversion.
4) Just remove armour break and overwhelm from enemies for the love of melee... Limiting armour break so only a percentage of a player's armour can be broken would also do the trick.
5) The keystones Imbalanced Guard and Divine Shield from PoE1 should be reintroduced into PoE2 again either as keystones, spirit gems or even notables passives depending on how their values are balanced.
I also have a similar longer post about resistances and how they really need a straight forward overhaul:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3629096
...and a post covering evasion
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3694268
...and blocking:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3716443
at current state of game, i have reverted to CI as a melee build lol. 9k es and 7k armour is pretty comfortable right now. i can tank several boss hits from queen of filth slam and that ape red attack. indeed i have tried a 4k life build with 14k armour and its not that much better and have to invest so much into chaos resist, life regen, and life.
if you want better survivability as a melee build, its highly recommended to pick up a shield, max block, get 8% physical damage reduction and + max chaos resist on that shield
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Posted bypangzibiggie#7979on Jan 21, 2026, 1:30:21 AM
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Armour has some major problems in PoE2 right now:
1) Armour is too weak against larger attacks that shouldn't be 1 hitting tank invested characters.
2) Armour is the only 1 of the 3 defence stats that is worthless against elemental and chaos hits.
3) Armour doesn't mitigate nearly enough physical damage in general.
4) Armour break and overwhelm from enemies wielded against the player is crippling and dis-proportionally lethal.
5) Armour currently is lacking for keystone/spirit gem support and variance.
Armour in PoE1 had awkward, but functional solutions to most of the above problems:
1) The armour formula in PoE1 I believe is less diminished against higher damage inputs on top of additional physical damage reduction having no drop-off against larger hits.
2) There are modifiers that make a percentage of armour apply to non-physical damage from hits. Endurance charges also reduce elemental damage taken.
3) Sources of additional physical damage reduction and more armour are easily acquire-able and act as a force multiplier.
4) Overwhelm is a terrible reference unfortunately since it's also similar to armour break and painfully counters tank characters. PoE1 did it terribly too.
5) Armour keystones such as Imbalanced Guard and Divine Shield enabled more viable options for using armour, especially for hybrid defence builds.
While it would be better than keeping things as is, I don't believe copy pasting EVERY PoE1 armour related mechanic into PoE2 is the best way to go about this. PoE1 should still be referenced though and new more balanced variances should be smoothly implemented to lay an intuitive and clean groundwork for PoE2.
I HEAVILY suggest that instead of having a multitude of shopping list stats that armour builds need, the way armour itself mitigates damage should be changed so that players can simply focus on building more armour in the same way evasion and energy shield builds invest into defence.
By changing the way armour damage reduction is calculated and adding a few other tweaks most of the major issues can be resolved in a surprisingly efficient manner:
1) The formula for armour should be adjusted so the diminished effect against larger hits is not as severe. A simple change to the formula such as multiplying the damage taken variable to the power of ^0.75 or something similar would easily do the trick. A few more sources of additional physical damage reduction or more armour multipliers being added over EA development will also naturally give players more high end defensive options too.
2) Armour should innately defend against all damage types while still being most effective against physical damage. The damage reduction from armour should apply before resistances instead of after like it did in PoE1 so that it isn't influenced by maximum resistances. Having 35-50%(ish) of armour also apply to all non-physical hits calculated before other mitigation sources would be ideal. Passives like the "Heatproofing" notable could be changed to modifiers such as "defend with 20% more armour against elemental hits".
3) The above formula changes would ideally make armour functional as an independent defence that isn't reliant on other stats to do it's own job properly. Armour should be in a state where it's more convenient for average builds to seek more armour instead of chasing after scarce sources of additional physical damage reduction or damage taken conversion.
4) Just remove armour break and overwhelm from enemies for the love of melee... Limiting armour break so only a percentage of a player's armour can be broken would also do the trick.
5) The keystones Imbalanced Guard and Divine Shield from PoE1 should be reintroduced into PoE2 again either as keystones, spirit gems or even notables passives depending on how their values are balanced.
I also have a similar longer post about resistances and how they really need a straight forward overhaul:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3629096
...and a post covering evasion
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3694268
...and blocking:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3716443
at current state of game, i have reverted to CI as a melee build lol. 9k es and 7k armour is pretty comfortable right now. i can tank several boss hits from queen of filth slam and that ape red attack. indeed i have tried a 4k life build with 14k armour and its not that much better and have to invest so much into chaos resist, life regen, and life.
if you want better survivability as a melee build, its highly recommended to pick up a shield, max block, get 8% physical damage reduction and + max chaos resist on that shield
Yea ofcourse.... But what about Gemling Legionnaire with 2,5k life and no ES? Balance is shit abd build diversity is a fairytale...
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Posted byPoutsamol#5656on Jan 21, 2026, 1:52:18 AM
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Armour does not need any work done to it.
The changes that were added with armour to elemental has put this defense where it needs to be.
Mash the clean
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Posted byMashgesture#2912on Jan 21, 2026, 2:55:28 AM
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Armor is fine, the problem is Life. Life needs to be back on tree. Not a "+% to life and -% to attack speed" but proper, goood only positive life nodes.
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Posted byMadSheo#0280on Jan 21, 2026, 3:05:41 AM
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Jeez, this was the same thing people complained bout back in Dec 2024. How long is this game in beta? Maybe until 2028?
1. was barely a thing to begin with, but the armour equation buff helped it a lot. Also boss damages have been nerfed overall. So it's even less of an issue now.
2. fix'd for elemental, fix'd for chaos for some builds. Chaos damage has never been very large to begin with and chaos damage thresholds are anyway tuned to do double damage to ES. Chaos isn't a problem for life+armour builds in general.
3. see 1
4. kinda; variance isn't great, that's true enough.
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Posted bytzaeru#0912on Jan 21, 2026, 3:55:02 AM
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