Help me with my build?

PoB:
https://pobb.in/j8pHbUv2s_ns


I am a Vaal Flameblast build, relying on Soul Ripper + The Traitor to always be able to produce blasts.

The build does well. Until randomly it doesn't. Which, I suppose is kind of innate to PoE, huh... But, still, curious if I can mitigate some of this by improving the build. However, I don't know what else I can even squeeze in!

I have 10,002 Energy Shield, and the stage 5 hit of my blast does 528k average hit. (Probably dealing about 1.7 mil over the course of all 5 blasts from a single cast. This is against a "Guardian/Pinnacle" boss.)




I randomly get 1-shot by the dumbest things. A group of white skeleton archers 1-tapped me from offscreen last night, and I rage logged for the night. (Jk, I played a few more maps, but I mentally checked out LOL.) And I fail a lot of in-map Blight encounters because of the Oops All Bosses atlas node for Blights, where they are just so incredibly tanky, they just bulldoze into the Pump, despite all the CC and damage I can throw out.

I always feel like trying to play a "balance" build in PoE is fake advertisement. PoE acts like you can "do whatever you want," but in reality, you either play a 500m ranged DPS glass cannon, or you play a 500m EHP Marauder. There's no in-between, or else you just end up with terrible numbers on both ends.




That's how I feel, from all my PoE experience of trying balanced. But... if you guys have ideas on how I could improve my build, I'm all ears!

No armour, no spell suppression, no flasks, no evasion.

You can remove some ES nodes, go to Instinct and pick up the "Spell Suppression is Lucky" mastery.

"

Latze#2058 wrote:

No armour, no spell suppression, no flasks, no evasion.

You can remove some ES nodes, go to Instinct and pick up the "Spell Suppression is Lucky" mastery.

Armor doesn't affect Energy Shield.

I'm honestly also not interested in spell suppression, as elemental damage isn't really an issue.

I also don't get hit often, so evasion doesn't seem like the pick... The concern is things randomly one-shotting me. Evasion doesn't counter that. I'm wondering if there's actual notable damage reduction to be using (or damage boosts to be using).



Flasks... I mean, same thing, there's a reason I have 1 flask. Thanks for trying to help, but I'm not sure you read anything :/



I did pick up that unique Vaal sceptre that gives me all 3 charge types when I use a Vaal skill, so this will actually help a little bit for both offense and defense. Gonna see how this plays out. (The offense should definitely go much better, at the very least, and hopefully 3x Endurance charges also helps defense a bit.)

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

if you guys have ideas on how I could improve my build, I'm all ears!

Get better gear. Min-max your gear, you dont even have eldritch implicits. Looks like your gear missed out on the latest power creep stages.

Also: In Settlers and Necro Settlers league you can put 'Shepherd of Souls' on a rare wand or get the 100% reduced Vaal gain prevention on a dagger. You could create (recombine strong also) and RIP gear from HC to Standard also.

For Blight: You are "supposed" to use towers. One of your ring enchants is near useless for that (25% inc dam one).

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

I have 10,002 Energy Shield,

You get instagibbed if you dont have anything else. This is expected.

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

I always feel like trying to play a "balance" build in PoE is fake advertisement.

Game is not balanced properly.

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

PoE acts like you can "do whatever you want," but in reality,

If you min-max properly you can actually do that to a large degree. Power creep has gone very far.

"

ShadyC#1006 wrote:

you either play a 500m ranged DPS glass cannon, or you play a 500m EHP Marauder. There's no in-between, or else you just end up with terrible numbers on both ends.

The easy in-between is to make builds that scale both defense and offense off the same thing. Look Ephemereal Edge, Rathpith etc.


For defenses your example with the archers clearly shows that evasion would help. See here for defenses list:

"

0. Game Knowledge
1. Movement and positioning. Dont get hit by big things. Dont get group-mobbed. This is the most important defensive layer for most mapping builds. It has player and build components.
2. Elemental resists, should be overcapped. How much depends: If you have the curses cant lower them then 25% overcap are good for mapping.
3. Buffer: You need enough life/ES/whatever. How much depends on the other things. You also need to be able to recover it.
4. Something against phys stuff. Like Armour. With good buffer 10k armour may be enough for mapping. With less buffer (most SC mapping builds) you need more.
5. Attack Avoidance: Evasion or block. Block is unreliable though.
6. Something against bleed and corrupted blood. If you dont have a permanent solution then bleed can easily stealth kill leading to "random" deaths.
7. Chaos resist. How much depends on buffer size.
8. Ele ailment reduction or better immunity.
9. Spell Suppression. Or spell block. Or some Aegis skill or some such. Or more max resist + phys mit.
10. Crit damage reduction.
11. Curse effect reduction. This ranks higher if you do not have immunity to resist lowering curses and are not sufficiently overcapped.