Whats the point of so many defensive layers..

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artxev#6334 wrote:

I think the question is not why there are so many defensive layers, but why am I forced to almost build all of them to survive endgame content?

That's just a hyperbole. You can safely do T17s and ubers with just armor and resists as your only defensive layers. You just need enough of both. Heck, resists alone will suffice if you just go for Coil and friends to deal with physical damage. Mindlessly halfassing a dozen different layers into your build will just make it worse and get you killed.

It's not that easy to get decent max resist without Melding of the Flesh or being a Chieftain though.

If you are bottom left of the tree aka the area that is supposed to use max res then you get +8 max res from the tree alone. +2 from a rare body armor implicit and you have 85% which i'd consider pretty decent already. You can also get more from jewels, clusters, flasks and other gear pieces. I'd say there are plenty of ways to get high res if you want to. It's obviously harder for shadows who are at the opposite end of the tree but they have other layers available they can use so it's not really an issue.

there are sooo many bs mods that will kill 'just armour and max res' builds in t16.5/17 it is not even funny

and the best solution to that is to play one of the few setups that somehow dodge most of this bullshit. then T17 are free money

otherwise you just give them to your T5 map runners and get frags that way and stick to T16.5 that you can craft more to your strengths


some defences are just bad (regular ES recharge), some are very, very strong (suppression), most are killed with one map mod (-max res, less block, no/reduced regen, charge steal on non Ralakesh). only few are sure picks - Fortify cannot be taken away from you in any way (yet :) )

at some point of the content power curve it is so absurdly overtuned that the plain old 'buffer + recovery' is the only way - thus the strength of 20k ES builds


(max res is 'easy' on a left side shield build: shield can give you +2(3?), chest gives you +1 from implicit, +1 from block max res node and +2 from node near resolute technique +1/2 from accidental stuff on other passives/jewels (roll +2 max ele res now)

problem with max res is -20max res + map mod effect kills you the moment you enter the map

If -20 max res kills your build then roll over it? I mean it's not like those build bricking mods don't annoy the hell out of me but saying defensive layers aren't worth taking because of them is absurd. Rolling them over is annoying but you have to roll over a bunch of nonsense anyway with T17 one or two extra mods aren't that big of a deal at this point.

oh i do

but i just feed T17 to my mappers to get frags - it works like 8/10 times. sure it costs gold and replacing mappers is annoying AF, but still prefer to do it this way

the 'dodge the build bricking bullshit roulette' is just so annoying

T16.5 share the same crap pool but at least the mobs are 'normal' not some TIE Fighters joining the sword combat

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artxev#6334 wrote:

I think the question is not why there are so many defensive layers, but why am I forced to almost build all of them to survive endgame content?

If you invest in 2 solid layers, your can handle most of the content. Armor/Block. Evade/Sup. ES/ES Regen/Recover. Various types of leech + Regen. Mageblood + Potions. Armour/Evade. Damage to mana. Life/ES on block. CWDT or Automation.

Lots of options. Some ascendancies have huge defense built in. Makes it interesting.

You don't need to lay massive amounts of defense types unless you're stacking your atlas with tons of difficulty + and then running 16.5/17 maps or challenging pinnacle bosses or going for deep delve.

And those are trophy content, which you should have to invest in to realize.

I literally have a Flicker-strike oni-garoshi warden with no defense other than a very paltry amount of armor. All damage. T-1-16 I can do what I like. I'll die almost every map, but I'll full clear it. And I'll clear Toxic in in about 1:45.

Just leech and blazing speed. That's literally her defense. Unless you count cast on death portal as a defensive layer.

If you want to take on Uber bosses or a max quanty/difficulty atlas, then you'll have to make a beastly character with lots and lots of defense.

But as I said, anything above campaign through T-16 is trophy content that should be gated.

You, folks, forgot the most valuable defense layer in this game. It’s your DAMAGE! The things cannot one shot you if you one shot them earlier.

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myBabySteps#9632 wrote:

You, folks, forgot the most valuable defense layer in this game. It’s your DAMAGE! The things cannot one shot you if you one shot them earlier.

Exaactly, why bother spending hours trying to get 20 things on a checklist when all you need is one thing: 200 million dps.

I wanted to test new defense layer technology this league. It was maxing cold res to 90; taking lightning and fire damage as cold damage; but then to push it past that by using chill reflection through "the fulcrum" staff with elementalist's enhanced chill and on top of that use bone chill support gem which states "enemies take increased cold damage", apparently that also gets reflected and reversed by winterweave ring. So tldr this setup should have resulted in:

-90% cold res;
-all fire and lightning damage taken as cold (purity ice sublime vision and watchers eye, and enhanced taste of hate);
-chilled enemies do 20% less damage (elementalist node);
-i take 40% reduced cold damage (reversed reflected bonechill);
-then add to that cinderswallow flask which pushes 40% to 50%.
-enemies are slowed by chill by 40%;


All this should work like 96% ele res + 40% slow.

But i dont think you can make good cold elementalist build using the fulcrum, soooo...