How to survive as a warrior in high lvl maps?

So let me preface: I am dual wielding 2H maces and I do not want to run around with a shield.

Currently my stats are: 3.2k life, 10.5k armor, 90% ele res, 75% chaos res, I also use the "armor applies to chaos res" node on the Smith ascendency. I use "Scavanged plating" and "Time of need" spirit skills to bolster my armor in battle and give me that extra healing oompf. I also have some "recoup life equal to dmg taken" which saves my life in fights for the most part.
All this in my mind is pretty much maxed out. Sure I could have some more hp or more armor, but not that significant. Damagewise I am golden too, so no problems there.

Yet still, I am struggling on lvl81/82 maps with surviving. The maps don't even need to be crazy juiced or anything. Eating two volatile plant orbs? It's GG. Eating the quills of a pack of those red porcupines? It's GG.
If I dare to go into a map with -10% max elemental resistance or 25% reduced elemental resitances I just get straight up one-shot by some ranged white mobs with elemental attacks. Half the suffixes I can't do because it's a death sentence.

So I am wondering. What am I supposed to do here? I can't double my health, or my armor (which is in a terribly bad state anyway), or further increase my resistances. The only thing left is to use a shield and block chance, but I don't want to be forced into a playstyle I don't want to play.

How are you surviving, fellow 2H mace dual wielders?

You don't generally want to be in melee range if you don't have a shield. Two weapons is general a totem build so you are sacrificing defense for range with two weapons. If you are using two weapons and not totems, then you are taking a difficult path.

Your life is too low. Every little bit prevents more and more one-shots. You never know when 100 more life would have prevented a one-shot. 4k is not that hard. Life quality using catalysts on rings and amulets helps.

The armor applies to chaos is not very popular. The plus life and plus strength from armor are very popular.

Anything purple, you pretty much will always have to avoid.

Hmm, okay, thanks for the tips. Yeah, I don't play totem. I play leap slam + boneshatter - which keeps me alive very nicely with life on kill and recoup life from damage receive and if it is boss time or high single target time I go ham with my armor break + autoattacks + boneshatter (which works pretty decently with my relatively high attack speed and stun build-up and increased effect of armor break - like I said no issues with dmg output).

I haven't used catalysts yet since I was farming delirium and ritual and kinda ignored breach so far.
I also do use the bonus strenght and health ascendencies. I feel like the chaos one works pretty decently on the purple stuff except the orbs which are just massively overtuned. (the floor one in ritual as well as the rotating one from strongboxes barely do dmg to me)

I was also considering the amulet anointment that lets you defend with 200% armor against enemies further away than 6m. I don't know tho how it works with projectiles. Is there always a physical damage component to it? And if so does the reduction then also apply to the elemental damage (I know it does if it is poison or bleed)

So I guess life stacking it is then. Thanks again.

Ima main titan with leap slam build.
Was dualwielding also, yet the fact that i catch every single projectile midfly to target was leading to very deathdoor situations. Taking angles etc wasnt helping match.
Switch to shield with 70% block chance etc, rebuild a tree abit and let the Boss DPS button go on second set with dual wield, keeping the map clearing for single weapon.
And it worked very well. Im still oneshoting entire screen with 1 hit, so whats the reason to have more dmg\weapons for clearing?

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Slart1bartfast#0332 wrote:

Yet still, I am struggling on lvl81/82 maps with surviving. The maps don't even need to be crazy juiced or anything. Eating two volatile plant orbs? It's GG. Eating the quills of a pack of those red porcupines? It's GG.
If I dare to go into a map with -10% max elemental resistance or 25% reduced elemental resitances I just get straight up one-shot by some ranged white mobs with elemental attacks. Half the suffixes I can't do because it's a death sentence.

Firstly, those elemental resist mods on maps are widely unbalanced. If you are doing a 90% max resist build, -10% max resist mean 100% more dmg, and 25% elemental pen mean 250% more dmg. That is insane and there is not recommendation better than avoid those mods.

About "eating volatiles", if you increase your maximum life in a way that you can survive 3 of them usually, a Omen of Resurgence would save you from that, as you would have to reach low life before dying, so it would kick you back into full life and save the day. You would have to increase your maximum life though.

Now, to know how you could increase your maximum life, it is hard to say without seeing the actual thing. But yeah, I guess that is the main thing to do. 3k seems to low for melee endgame. I'm playing with 4k life (with shield, but my block is low) and it feels kinda safe.

Also, people are sleeping on life leech in this game. Although it last shorter than poe1, it doesn't have a cap, so you can reach large amount of life/s with that. Specially if you pick "Fast Metabolism" (overleech). With this, even if you take dmg, your life will kick back to full fastly. I don't know your build if leech is a viable choice though.

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Slart1bartfast#0332 wrote:

3.2k life, 10.5k armor, 90% ele res, 75% chaos res

Block and Evasion. Swap one piece of Gear for Evasion, you can get Rings with flat Evasion, Amulet with %inc Evasion and path towards Mercenary/Duelist to get some hybrid nodes. Aim towards 2-3k Evasion. You can path from the start of Warrior to the start or Mercenary, thats around 12 points of actual investment for 124% inc Armour and Evasion plus 50% more conditional Evasion.

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Slart1bartfast#0332 wrote:

I do not want to run around with a shield.

"I want to be tanky but play as a squishy" Is what iam reading. Block is the main defense layer given to your Class. Maybe you come to the conclussion that Dual Wielding 2h Maces doesnt fit the playstyle you are looking for.

i cant say any thing about warrior...

i dont hate my self enough to play it.

besides, all defenssive atributes in thisgame are shit, armor all res and evassion are pure garbage. and passive tree lacks of life and max life points, so you cant hold dmg as it should be.

this is bad developing.

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DEvil27#6183 wrote:

3k seems to low for melee endgame. I'm playing with 4k life (with shield, but my block is low) and it feels kinda safe.

I have 5k life, 75% block and all resist above 75% on my titan and it does feel pretty tanky. Going from 4k to 5k on life and 50% to 75% on block made a big difference in how safe I feel. But still I feel safer with my lich with a lot less effort.

Thanks for the tips guys. Yeah, I get that the dual wielding is kinda dumb, but it's about the rpg element lol.

I was thinking that getting an astramentis (which is not gonna happen in SSF) and using the "unnatural resilience" anointment on it would essentially solve all my problem. That would probably free like 10-15 skill points for me which I could put into something else.

Anyway, maybe I give the shield a chance.

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FanaticGuru#2780 wrote:

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DEvil27#6183 wrote:

3k seems to low for melee endgame. I'm playing with 4k life (with shield, but my block is low) and it feels kinda safe.

I have 5k life, 75% block and all resist above 75% on my titan and it does feel pretty tanky. Going from 4k to 5k on life and 50% to 75% on block made a big difference in how safe I feel. But still I feel safer with my lich with a lot less effort.

Sure, on a Titan, go for 5k. I had this around this amount on my Titan before it died. Regardless, 4k is a good start for SC I guess.

It wasn't my purpose to talk about my build so I didn't make it clear, but I'm a Smith of Kitava with 89/90/90/78 resist. It feels fine at 4k life with that build. After all, I'm doing well on HC with it. I don't know if you also got 90% resist, but it is usually expensive to do on a Titan.