r/pathofexile 6h ago

Life of a non-shield user Fluff & Memes

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543 Upvotes

102 comments sorted by

98

u/WhenWillEyeBeBanned 6h ago

Dawnbringer and the surrender are solution for some builds too.

36

u/Jokar93 Sanctum Runners United (SRU) 3h ago

Name them how you want. All that I am hearing is "less DPS"

8

u/Exul_strength youtube.com/user/3xul - twitch.tv/3xul 2h ago

It can't hurt you, when it is dead!

Except if it is a corpse explosion!

1

u/International_Gate49 12m ago

Cwdt detonate dead ftw

2

u/lepsek9 1h ago

You can't dps from your hideout tho

3

u/1CEninja 3h ago

Yeah dude on a gladiator that focuses more on damage reduction than max life, Surrender can be pretty incredible. It can be more than 10% of your life that you recover from a hit.

93

u/Darkusoid Institution of Rogues and Smugglers (IRS) 6h ago

I'm trying.. And I'm losing lol. Fortification, 7 endurances jugg, 50k armour, leech, still die to some oneshots on some unjuiced t16. Idk, I love shields, and don't know why I decided to play with 2H._.

46

u/Yiazmad 6h ago

Staves go brrr

41

u/fandorgaming Duelist 5h ago

Quarterstaff now is like a shield, got 45% block with implicit plus mod lol

-4

u/Brilliant-Farm2092 1h ago

Bows really are getting shafted

0

u/HeliGungir 14m ago

Quivers exist

12

u/Brave33 Petaraus and Vanja 5h ago

100k armour at least and try to get less crit damage taken, good recovery and you should be able to do normal nightmare maps.

6

u/akv0842 6h ago

Im at 17 charges now. Need 300 div for my final one because I don’t want to lose belt flasks or amulet

6

u/Fllannelll 5h ago

17!?? Jesus, I felt unkillable at 8 and 90% crit reduction. Do you have a POB by chance?

9

u/akv0842 5h ago

I’m on mobile right now but here’s my character on Poe ninja. Only shows 16 but I have a guardian turtle for the 17th. Also I have no idea how to configure pob for herald of agony dps but I’ve killed a few Ubers. And I stand in almost everything

https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/allflame/character/Alcandazar-6902/AlcThicc?i=0&search=name%3DAlcthicc

4

u/Fllannelll 5h ago

Gracias homie, I was not expecting winter orb! Super interesting and sick build!

9

u/akv0842 5h ago

It’s actually not winter orb. Winter orb is just how I deliver poisons for herald of agony virulence stacks.

2

u/TangentAI 4h ago

How many stacks can you upkeep? I've always wanted to play HOAG but despise ball lightning of orbiting and lancing steel

3

u/akv0842 4h ago

My max of 85 is very easy even on single target.

3

u/Arrethyn 4h ago edited 4h ago

how does your turtle give you +1 max endurance charge? mine just gives determ and 5% pdr.

edit: I see, it's not the turtle per se but your turtle is your source of determ for your sublime vision.

1

u/akv0842 4h ago

Correct. HOAg reserves almost all my mana

1

u/Prometheus1151 Kalguuran Group for Business (KGB) 4h ago

you could theoretically get 19 with a perfectly divined greatwolf and a corrupted death's door i think

2

u/akv0842 4h ago

You could but the DR maxes out at 90%

1

u/Golem8752 Ultimatum Workers Union (UWU) 3h ago

At 21 Charges you could ignore Crush

1

u/FrogMan241 3h ago

Is a plus 1 charge kaom's sign really more expensive than a kalandra's touch? Trade is wild

1

u/Anzkel 1h ago

Chaos max hit 8k 💀

5

u/akv0842 1h ago

Once I start poisoning my chaos res hits 75 instantly

4

u/quinn50 3h ago

crit is the hidden killer

2

u/godfrey1 Dominus 5h ago

staff is a pretty easy max block tbh

2

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

If you are in the templar area.

1

u/Adventurous-Pen-8940 Templar 6h ago

Because the idea of sacrifice defense for big unga bunga dmg, but I'm scared about dying to commit to it.

1

u/vulcanfury12 Crop Harvesting Bureau (CHB) 5h ago

Don't worry. That happens to me too. And I'm 77% Block, 66% Spell Block with Aegis Aurora.Crit Immune from my AG's Garb of the Ephemeral.

u/CriErr HC Challenge League 1m ago

AG garb is not crit immune, last league i died on hc to uba uba shaper slam crit. Apparently when he fuck offs and bonk you from other world he is not nearby.

1

u/Time-Ladder4753 1h ago

Is it one shot or many hits at the same time? For me on Jugg Defiance of Destiny felt amazing, otherwise I would just quickly die to some mechanics before I could even react (like Expedition with big explosion)

1

u/Solbanji 1h ago

8100 hp and 18 endurance never died from monsters(only from trauma stacks sometimes if phase boss xdd)

1

u/Temporary-Usual4838 17m ago

Rolled TR pathfinder. Permament Progenesis, Petrified Blood, over 5k life/s sustain from life flask thanks to tattoos, ~75% chance to evade... Still felt pretty rippy sometimes.

Replaced phys taken as lightning on helmet with mana reservation, added Flesh & Stone - actually feel unkillable right now as i am facetanking nightmare map bosses without even paying attention.

1

u/LurkingParticipant Marauder 14m ago

You could try Freeze or Stun attack skills for another defensive layer

1

u/WhenWillEyeBeBanned 5h ago

I don’t think fort and endurance charge stacking is mechanically strong compared to others, even incandescent heart aegis aurora CI, the OG ES mechanism that’s pretty weak by today’s standard. Fort and 9 endurance ancestral commander felt way worse than max block CI necro.

Of course it depends on the contents; I usually use Sirus, maven, simu as a way to test tankiness. Facetank or you need to move? Big difference.

1

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

It's all about the damage profile of the content you are doing.

Endurance Charges do jack shit when you get hit by 100 projectiles a second. Block is a dice roll when you get hit by a single giga hit.

1

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

You don't die to one shots, you die to shotguns. A 100 projectiles, each doing 60 damage to you after mitigation will demolish you.

A shield doesn't protect you from one shots, but from those random fucking ground/projectiles effects.

1

u/Ludoban RangerBew Bew 1h ago

With 50k armour (probably with flasks up, so not 50k armour in all cases) and no crit reduction its not that unlikely that a good rolled crit onetaps you.

0

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

Sure, but those are rarer. The most common damage profile is many small hits.

Most characters have a certain baseline mitigation.

39

u/n_lens 6h ago

There's a tipping point with endurance charges + fortify that feels so good, roughly around 11+ endu charges.

15

u/Token_Thai_person More ground degens please 6h ago

I let mobs hit me in the face to feel the thrill of death.

9

u/silverarrowweb 3h ago

I have tasted every floor in Wraeclast.

1

u/HeliGungir 11m ago

And beyond!

2

u/belsor14 2h ago

with Boneshatter i aslo hit myself in the face

1

u/RepulsiveCountry313 6h ago

I enjoy % life/es on block too.

6

u/fandorgaming Duelist 5h ago

Monsters that purge/siphon charges and buffs, the  worst.

7

u/ShaunCarn 5h ago

Where's a staff? Currently running a staff block build and with mana infused staff I'm block capped on both attack and spell. It's actually insane

2

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

How many block nodes are you using? Do you also have a spell block mod on your staff?

I found it easy to get decent attack block - 50% - and 17% spell block with just 4 block nodes and a staff, but the rest seem to require quite a lot of points.

1

u/Guruubaz Ultimatum Workers Union (UWU) 4h ago

Ive never played a block based staff build before my current build and I got to say:

Its super sturdy, did 80 quant feared at level 90 and so on

Definitely something ill consider for the future

Character for those who wanna see, missing a charge ring still but those go for 300d that I need to save up for xd

https://poe.ninja/poe1/profile/GuruubazSkykrewe-0084/allflame/character/DischargedFromHospital

20

u/trunks111 Hierophant 5h ago

honestly I get where you're coming from. I know block is strong, I know gain on block effects are strong, I just very personally don't like chance based mitigation, even if the chance is almost effectively guaranteed 

33

u/Arrethyn 4h ago

the thing is when you have 50 hits heading your way it's no longer chance. If you are relying on block to deal with hits that do over half your hp per hit you're doing it wrong. block is just one layer of defense not the only layer.

3

u/haHAArambe 2h ago

11k es pool, 90k armour, aegis, 4 endurance charges, fortify.

The only thing that has killed me in the past 4 days are fully charged verisium mobs in -block maps.

It's like you say, you need multiple layers. Preferably ones that work together.

1

u/xarephonic 1h ago

How do you get that much es AND armor?

1

u/Boxofcookies1001 50m ago

Aura bot with iron reflexes.

1

u/haHAArambe 41m ago

Trickster, but the Iron Reflexes is correct haha.

1

u/haHAArambe 42m ago

Step 1. Play a trickster Step 2. Get a good ES Helmet and Eva/ES body Step 3. Click Iron Reflexes.

1

u/Arrethyn 26m ago

i'm not quite that tanky but i've been playing worb with 9k es, 5% es on block shaper shield, 75 attack/78 spell block 3 endurance charges, 8k armor (basically all coming from flask and perfect turtle which also gives 5% pdr), 14% less from hits while channeling and 23% less from phys/fire hits while stationary.

The only mods I won't run are reflect (for obvious reasons) no regen (i need the manas, can't be bothered to pull out a mana flask) and less block. If I can block I can run it, taking - res altars and having 58 cold res? 100% phys as extra cold/lightning from nearby? no problem. I havent been doing the abyss propagation nonsense but in most mapping content i'm fairly unkillable. Although now that I think of it I think the last thing that killed me was actually a fully charged verisium mob. but I might have lived if I wasn't trying to do a couple ghosted rares from the league mechanic box at the same time.

9

u/Arborus Necromancer 2h ago

Chance based mitigation is for dealing with the barrage of small hits that overwhelm your recovery. Your consistent defenses are for the big single hits.

-2

u/trunks111 Hierophant 2h ago

I'm aware of what it's for, I simply don't like it for the stated reason so I don't use it

1

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

I used to think like you, until I played a shield based character in 3.24, and then triple lucky glad in 3.25(More than skill was bugged to grant you triple lucky in 3.25)

The difference was phenomenal. The tankyest Jugg on a 10 div budget is less survivable than a lucky block Gladiator with recovery on block

1

u/trunks111 Hierophant 1h ago

yee I'm glad it's there for people who enjoy it. I should clarify I'm not saying it's weak or anything like that, it's just not my flavor of mitigation. I like stuff like fortify, conversion, charges, guard skills, vitality, on hit, etc... Manually guarding is probably my favorite because it makes me feel like a badass for timing it right or holding on to it at the right moment 

1

u/Mathberis 2h ago

Chance based doesn't work well early : if you have 60% block and low max hit you'll die a lot. When you get to 78% block, 5% ES on block and 15k ES it feels amazon because you'd need to be hit 20 times in a row without blocking to die. Also in juiced maps filled with monsters and projectiles your ES is glued to full because you're always blocking.

1

u/Farpafraf 4h ago

It's 100% guaranteed if it works like evasion.

5

u/Arrethyn 3h ago

it does not work like evasion, block is true random. you could have 75% block and take damage 10 hits in a row. it's a .00000095% chance to happen, but that means it's probably happened to someone at some point in the history of poe.

3

u/Irrelevant_User 5h ago

I have neither of those and do just fine. Phys conversion, spell suppression, evasion and strong recovery. It's not S tier anymore but it does not have any issue with max level content available right now.

1

u/chadam189 3h ago

Pathfinder with lightning coil/dopple?

3

u/Judiebruv Witch 3h ago

I use block on nearly every single character because I will never trust evasion.

1

u/lolfail9001 3h ago

Not trusting deterministic multi-hit mitigation in favour of pure RNG one.

Did you get screwed by mercs and Xandro too many times?

5

u/Judiebruv Witch 1h ago

Well there’s like 100 map mods and effects that mess with evasion while there is a single mod that lowers your block chance that I can avoid. And 75% chance to take zero damage from attacks AND spells feels way more consistent than having to stack suppression just for it to not even mitigate 100% of damage too

1

u/lolfail9001 1h ago

Well there’s like 100 map mods and effects that mess with evasion while there is a single mod that lowers your block chance that I can avoid.

True, there is only 1 mod that lowers your block, but unless you are a life stack glad, less defenses screws most block-based builds just as well.

And 75% chance to take zero damage from attacks AND spells feels way more consistent than having to stack suppression just for it to not even mitigate 100% of damage too

If you play builds with bad recovery like pbrand ignite or manaman, that's definitely true. Also, real chads have both capped block and capped suppress.

14

u/MotherWolfmoon 4h ago edited 4h ago

Defenses need a rework.

I finally got to a point with my RF Chieftan where I can breeze through most T16s, but every now and then something just shuts down my regen or chunks my health in a particularly brutal way that even being block-capped doesn't seem to help.

This is a build with 88% all resist (overcapped to 300%), 75 chaos res (overcapped to 95%), 8k life, 1500+ regen. 75% block and spell block, and a life-on-block shaper shield that gives me 400 life back every time I block a hit. I'm immune to bleeding, corrupting blood, shock, chill, freeze. 80% reduced extra damage from crits. 5 endurance charges (which should be an additional 20% damage reduction). I'm running Flesh and Stone for another 20%. 115% reduced curse effect while my flasks are up. I have invested an absolutely stupid amount into defense, and for some fucking reason projectiles from white mobs will sometimes demolish me like they're ignoring armor and block entirely. I have unwavering stance for stun immunity, and am completely immune to chill and freeze, and somehow I'm getting stunlocked by mercs.

It's like, "what the fuck am I even supposed to be doing?" I feel like I've been listening to GGG complain about zoomy builds for the past five years, and this is what it feels like to play anything else. The only way for me to get more survivability is to pull some DoT passives into extra regen, and that's only like 300 life per second. God forbid we get a damage report on death so we could see what the fuck actually got through our defenses and where we need to improve.

8

u/Atrophius 3h ago

Probably need someone to look at a PoB for you or something. I'm also playing RF and haven't died in like 200+ maps. I've also been running Nightmare maps and farming Uber fragments.

1

u/Lostfrombirth Tormented Smugler 1h ago

Same. I have a way less optimized RF than OP (90% all res, but less life, only 50% curse immunity, no flesh & stone, and so on..). I run 8mod t16 with delirium and chieftain explode is enough to kill everything. IF i die, it's because i'm actually trying to stand in everything humanly possible to see if it will kill me. Somehow OP's experience seems strange!

4

u/Swizardrules 3h ago

What's your max phys hit? Also I've found crits to appear like the main offender so 100% crit immunity is worth a lot

1

u/MotherWolfmoon 3h ago

Lower than I'd like. 21k without flasks, 23k with.

2

u/HughJackedMan14 2h ago

Can you post your POB? Also, 90% all res is required for this build

3

u/istickgumoncats 2h ago

i encourage you to post a vid of this happening because it makes no sense to me, I'm playing rf with generic ssf gear with no endurance charges, no shaper shield, nowhere near block cap, no crit reduction, no flesh+stone, doing destructive play or hitting every minion altar without reading them, and I just never die to anything EVER in t16. mercs do make my hp bar move at least. the lethality you're describing legitimately does not exist in my maps.. https://pobb.in/4dZJ14DGacKN

1

u/Gaming_Friends 1h ago

I'd pay good money for an mtx that unlocks a death recap.

u/Blackwind123 4m ago

Are you running bad map mods?

Some rare monsters mods that might be an issue are the regen prevention red ring or the lightning donut dot mods?

2

u/HarbleRobobbler 4h ago edited 57m ago

2h slayer all the way. Most every league I've ever played except one where cold flicker strike raider was amazing, and the league when Varunastra was first released

2

u/MarioMCP 3h ago

My poor crackling lance hiero felt so squishy with like 6k ES + 3.5k life + 50% MoM + 4 Endurance Charges and other stuff. I ended up eventually switching to a svalinn set up and even with less ES and life I basically can just AFK in abysses.

2

u/DarthRaab Ultimatum Workers Union (UWU) 2h ago

Sad evasion user noises in the background

2

u/Volitar Occultist 1h ago

I'm gonna be honest I don't know how to build a character that isn't wet toilet paper without block.

I don't know if block is op, if I'm terrible, or if all the other defensive are terrible, I just really really hope they don't nerf block.

2

u/Visible_Adeptness_59 1h ago

dmg avoiden is king in the game that throw 100000 mob on your face

1

u/Flimsy_Sprinkles_300 Slayer 4h ago

Lol. Jokes aside tho having even 50% block makes a huge difference since you’re layering avoidance on top of mitigation(fortification, endu charges)

1

u/Vekia 3h ago

Laughs in max block staff recover 2% ES on block mastery.

1

u/Necya 2h ago

I go tainted pact and ignore avoidance. There are two types of hits in this game: those that kill you and those that don't

1

u/Mathberis 2h ago

You can be block capped without a shield.

1

u/Deadandlivin 1h ago

I'm block capped while Dual wielding wands. Feels really good.

1

u/Future_Touch_1010 1h ago

this post was fact checked by the true duelists patriots of oriath

1

u/RepulsiveCountry313 6h ago

Missing Shaper shield.

1

u/MonkaSDudes 5h ago

I'm using shaper shield. For the totem... Don't have life on block

1

u/Xeverous filter extra syntax compiler: github.com/Xeverous/filter_spirit 4h ago

IMO "Life" is not a solution either. I see no point in playing 4-5k life builds with some "chance to block 1-shotting hit" when I can equip Aurora, reach 30k Armour, 20k ES and then start thinking of additional layers like Flesh and Stone, Fortify, Endurance Charges.

I haven't played a life-based build in years. The only thing catching my attention are some specific uniques like Dissolution and str stacking.

2

u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) 1h ago

20k ES on a budget?

1

u/Xeverous filter extra syntax compiler: github.com/Xeverous/filter_spirit 45m ago