If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
In the long run, hit points is better. Once you've played the end game, we can have this discussion again and it will be more productive.
If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
While Spawnbroker's "lul play endgame" response was a bit unnecessary. What he MEANS to say is that it adds 40 HP to your BASE health, which gets multiplied by every life % passive you've picked up.
If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
In the long run, hit points is better. Once you've played the end game, we can have this discussion again and it will be more productive.
This is a little gross. No one has played end game. No one has experienced Merciless A3 (well, maybe some people have...), so it's impossible for anyone to say they have played end game.
Yes, some people have played upper levels and seen Merciless level drops.
Yes, some people devoted lots of time to examining the metrics of level 70+ content.
But, all of that is anecdotal to the reality of Merciless act 3.
Let's nip this attitude of "I played to 80 in closed beta, so I know everything" in the bud, and treat each other nicely. Anecdotal evidence is fine, just remember that's all it is.
If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
In the long run, hit points is better. Once you've played the end game, we can have this discussion again and it will be more productive.
woah bro, I don't want any trouble, I ain't about that life. All you had to say is you had a level 80 char in beta and have seen the fruits of your labor and I would of been happy to back down. I'll go back to dragging my feet through normal difficulty now, like the plebeian I am.
Minerva_SC on
"If a cherry pie filled cape is wrong, I don't want to be right.
I'm dead serious."
The flip-side to the argument is that resistances are effective hp against all elemental effects. It's slightly greater than +8% ehp against them. I'll take it.
Naturally, the game enforces a negative ehp penalty against you in higher difficulties where elements are concerned. Your ehp is set to 62.5% that of normal with zero resistances.
("100%/1.6", where "1.6" is the damage multiplier and the "100%" expresses your current ehp before resistance calculations)
In my case especially, hp is mostly just an emergency buffer against death or chaos damage. My energy shield benefits more directly from resists. But even without an ES, I'd rather be overprepared for elemental damage, as physical attacks are less worrisome for boss monsters (e.g. Merveil, Fidelitis, Vaal Oversoul, Piety, etcetera).
If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
In the long run, hit points is better. Once you've played the end game, we can have this discussion again and it will be more productive.
This is a little gross. No one has played end game. No one has experienced Merciless A3 (well, maybe some people have...), so it's impossible for anyone to say they have played end game.
Yes, some people have played upper levels and seen Merciless level drops.
Yes, some people devoted lots of time to examining the metrics of level 70+ content.
But, all of that is anecdotal to the reality of Merciless act 3.
Let's nip this attitude of "I played to 80 in closed beta, so I know everything" in the bud, and treat each other nicely. Anecdotal evidence is fine, just remember that's all it is.
If you want to play for fun go back to WoW!
I might have to start using that snippet from one of the PoE forumites as my new default response to people being hardcore in the extreme.
It makes me laugh every time, then cry a little on the inside.
If you're softcore, it doesn't really matter and you can take the point.
In hardcore, +40 max hp is a lot and I don't know a single person who doesn't take it.
40 hp that deep in act 2 isn't really all THAT much, and it's much easier to gain hp from skill nodes than it is for resist. 40 hp might seem like the best thing to take at that time, but 8% to all resists is by far the best to have in the long run.
And these D/C's are starting to take their toll on me. I'm going through the cave in act 2 to get the all flame on my HC archer I'm pain stakingly making my way through as to not run into a mob of flicker striking assholes who will instagib me. I get to the boss then....DC. alright...log back in...DC. log in...DC. Fuck it, fuck you path of Exile, I'll play something else.
I'm sorry, but 40 hp is much better than you think it is. Resists are terrible because you can very easily max your resists through gear alone. 40 hp will always be useful well into the late game.
Edit: Take a look at how high resistance mods can roll on gear, and rares can have up to three of these on them. Trust me, you will have zero problems maxing your resists in the late game, even with the -60 from merciless. Suffix mods
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
In the long run, hit points is better. Once you've played the end game, we can have this discussion again and it will be more productive.
This is a little gross. No one has played end game. No one has experienced Merciless A3 (well, maybe some people have...), so it's impossible for anyone to say they have played end game.
Yes, some people have played upper levels and seen Merciless level drops.
Yes, some people devoted lots of time to examining the metrics of level 70+ content.
But, all of that is anecdotal to the reality of Merciless act 3.
Let's nip this attitude of "I played to 80 in closed beta, so I know everything" in the bud, and treat each other nicely. Anecdotal evidence is fine, just remember that's all it is.
If you want to play for fun go back to WoW!
I might have to start using that snippet from one of the PoE forumites as my new default response to people being hardcore in the extreme.
It makes me laugh every time, then cry a little on the inside.
Is this a dig at me? Are you implying I was saying anything like that second quote?
Just curious here, it's not clear what you're going for in quoting me.
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
Spawnbroker on
Steam: Spawnbroker
0
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Are the servers down currently?
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Oh and most importantly about attack speed, which I didn't mention but should have, is that you look interested in scoring critical hits.
The faster you attack, the more likely one of those attacks is a crit. Crits scale off of attack speed.
I dig it; one of the major reasons I'm doing crits is that crits scale multiplicatively with every other source of damage except possibly elemental damage, as I don't know how/if they get multiplied in crits.
As for Iron Reflexes, I do think I want to try a combo evasion/armor build at first and see exactly how squishy it is, since they too stack multiplicatively. I understand the established view is that this is not as good as Iron Reflexes, but if I hate it and I'm constantly dying then I'll get Iron Reflexes. It is, as you say, close by where I am already, and I'll grab Unwavering Stance in that case too. But I want to give evasion a shot, as much for the fluff as otherwise.
Thanks for the feedback, though! Do you think 110% or so +life is enough? I know this is a hard question given the things I just said about the other defensive decisions I've made.
EDIT: Oh, and how do you feel about block? 2% just doesn't seem like a very efficient use of a skill point, and block's one of those things that is better as you have more points, so probably should either decide almost entirely yes or no, with a couple big exceptions.
Invictus on
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Unless I messed up the calculations, EHP versus elemental gets much higher the more of it you stack.
Yeah, this should be obvious. Consider 0% resist against an attack that does 100 damage. 8% resists moves you from taking 100 damage to taking 92 damage. That's an 8% (of the larger number) reduction. Now consider 60% resist against that same attack. 8% resists move you from taking 40 damage to taking 32 damage, a 20% reduction.
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Unless I messed up the calculations, EHP versus elemental gets much higher the more of it you stack.
Yeah, this should be obvious. Consider 0% resist against an attack that does 100 damage. 8% resists moves you from taking 100 damage to taking 92 damage. That's an 8% (of the larger number) reduction. Now consider 60% resist against that same attack. 8% resists move you from taking 40 damage to taking 32 damage, a 20% reduction.
I think you're trying to imply a linear relationship. That's not it at all.
You gain more ehp per each successive point of resistance than you had before.
At 8% resistance you take 92 points out of every 100.
At 40% resistance you take 60 points out of every 100.
You would think that you'd have 108% effective health at 8% and 160% effective health at 60% resistance. But that's not it at all.
Quite the contrary your effective hp goes from 108.7% to 166.7%.
At 75% your effective hit points spikes to 400%.
Yeah, fair enough; I did not mean to be implying a linear relationship. Your claim, as I understood it, was that each successive point of elemental resistance is more valuable than the one before it. Increasing marginal utility, if you like. I just gave a quick example showing that 8% resistance is more valuable if you have 60% resistance than if you had 0% resistance, which is one of the things your graph already showed.
This is one reason, among many, that single items with high +resistance are awesome.
Invictus on
Generalísimo de Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
Unless I messed up the calculations, EHP versus elemental gets much higher the more of it you stack.
Yeah, this should be obvious. Consider 0% resist against an attack that does 100 damage. 8% resists moves you from taking 100 damage to taking 92 damage. That's an 8% (of the larger number) reduction. Now consider 60% resist against that same attack. 8% resists move you from taking 40 damage to taking 32 damage, a 20% reduction.
Technically that's an 8% reduction because you're subtracting 8 damage from the 100 base damage.
If we assume Joe Glassjaw has 100 hit points, then:
100/100 = 1 hit KO
100/40 = 2.5 times more hits before death
100/32= 3.125 more hits before death
Joe Glassjaw has more than tripled his effective hp at 68% resist.
EDIT: Okay, nevermind, I see what you're saying. You're saying that each incremental increase has better reduction than before. Still I hope this post is instructive in explaining the concept of effective hp.
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Yes it will. As a funny side note, any nodes that affect energy shield recharge rate will NOT affect your mana pool in the same way if you have Eldritch Battery.
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
On the Battery question:
To my understanding, most (if not all) of the conversion keystones work like this: First perform all modifiers to a given stat, be it gear, buffs or other keystones, then convert. So I think it should increase your mana, yes, but only by the amount that your energy shield would otherwise have increased! Have not played for some time (where in the closed beta), but I don't see why they would have changed this.
Of course, if a node is on the way to something else interesting, the worst you can loose is one respec point, and that is not very much.
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
On the Battery question:
To my understanding, most (if not all) of the conversion keystones work like this: First perform all modifiers to a given stat, be it gear, buffs or other keystones, then convert. So I think it should increase your mana, yes, but only by the amount that your energy shield would otherwise have increased! Have not played for some time (where in the closed beta), but I don't see why they would have changed this.
Of course, if a node is on the way to something else interesting, the worst you can loose is one respec point, and that is not very much.
It's mostly a question because my build has a terrible mana problem. So if I start picking up these evasion nodes that I was slightly on the fence about, and they also increase my mana by non-insignificant amounts...it might start to help resolve the issues I'm having. Really I'm just looking for excuses to get mana, and was hoping to find that excuse closer than the int tree.
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Yes it will. As a funny side note, any nodes that affect energy shield recharge rate will NOT affect your mana pool in the same way if you have Eldritch Battery.
Which sucks so much. I can see why, but it's unfortunate. It would really help though.
A couple of n00b questions that I couldn't find the answers to in the Wiki:
Is it worth identifying items at low levels that you know you won't be using? Seems to not be.
I decided to try a pet witch for my first character; is the exploding pet skill basically mandatory? And do I want to go out of my way for the "your shield benefits your pets" skill (also seems like it would be good)?
0
scherbchenAsgard (it is dead)Registered Userregular
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
On the Battery question:
To my understanding, most (if not all) of the conversion keystones work like this: First perform all modifiers to a given stat, be it gear, buffs or other keystones, then convert. So I think it should increase your mana, yes, but only by the amount that your energy shield would otherwise have increased! Have not played for some time (where in the closed beta), but I don't see why they would have changed this.
Of course, if a node is on the way to something else interesting, the worst you can loose is one respec point, and that is not very much.
It's mostly a question because my build has a terrible mana problem. So if I start picking up these evasion nodes that I was slightly on the fence about, and they also increase my mana by non-insignificant amounts...it might start to help resolve the issues I'm having. Really I'm just looking for excuses to get mana, and was hoping to find that excuse closer than the int tree.
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Yes it will. As a funny side note, any nodes that affect energy shield recharge rate will NOT affect your mana pool in the same way if you have Eldritch Battery.
Which sucks so much. I can see why, but it's unfortunate. It would really help though.
Something that might be an alternative is a blood magic support gem for something that drains heavily on the mana if you are stacking health, but are building far from the keystone. It's not as efficient as the keystone, but still good in some situations.
A couple of n00b questions that I couldn't find the answers to in the Wiki:
Is it worth identifying items at low levels that you know you won't be using? Seems to not be.
I decided to try a pet witch for my first character; is the exploding pet skill basically mandatory? And do I want to go out of my way for the "your shield benefits your pets" skill (also seems like it would be good)?
I took minion witch to act 1 merciless and I respecced out of the aegis (shield goes to pets) skill after about 15 levels. maybe I was being to offensive with my witch but I got hit hard a lot and the bonuses from the shield that goe to pets seemed very minor. ES is negligible because those suckers are always in fight so it never recharges. reflect damage is ok for a bit as is all resistances but I wasn't a fan. as soon as those zopmbies clear the 3.5k hitpoint mark and explode for 1k+ fire damage 40 reflected melee damage isn't spectacular.
on that note I do like exploding pets. spamming exploding skeletons is a great way to kill tough elites and act bosses.
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
On the Battery question:
To my understanding, most (if not all) of the conversion keystones work like this: First perform all modifiers to a given stat, be it gear, buffs or other keystones, then convert. So I think it should increase your mana, yes, but only by the amount that your energy shield would otherwise have increased! Have not played for some time (where in the closed beta), but I don't see why they would have changed this.
Of course, if a node is on the way to something else interesting, the worst you can loose is one respec point, and that is not very much.
It's mostly a question because my build has a terrible mana problem. So if I start picking up these evasion nodes that I was slightly on the fence about, and they also increase my mana by non-insignificant amounts...it might start to help resolve the issues I'm having. Really I'm just looking for excuses to get mana, and was hoping to find that excuse closer than the int tree.
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Yes it will. As a funny side note, any nodes that affect energy shield recharge rate will NOT affect your mana pool in the same way if you have Eldritch Battery.
Which sucks so much. I can see why, but it's unfortunate. It would really help though.
Something that might be an alternative is a blood magic support gem for something that drains heavily on the mana if you are stacking health, but are building far from the keystone. It's not as efficient as the keystone, but still good in some situations.
Oh, I already plan on using blood magic for a few things. It's just a very mana intensive build, more so than I initially thought. Still working out the kinks.
I'm not trying to say I'm better at the game than anyone. But I do have knowledge of the end-game mechanics and itemization, and that's why I take the 40 hit points. If you want to ignore that or argue with me, that's fine, but I prefer you do it from a perspective of knowledge of the end game, since that is what this discussion is about.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
On the Battery question:
To my understanding, most (if not all) of the conversion keystones work like this: First perform all modifiers to a given stat, be it gear, buffs or other keystones, then convert. So I think it should increase your mana, yes, but only by the amount that your energy shield would otherwise have increased! Have not played for some time (where in the closed beta), but I don't see why they would have changed this.
Of course, if a node is on the way to something else interesting, the worst you can loose is one respec point, and that is not very much.
It's mostly a question because my build has a terrible mana problem. So if I start picking up these evasion nodes that I was slightly on the fence about, and they also increase my mana by non-insignificant amounts...it might start to help resolve the issues I'm having. Really I'm just looking for excuses to get mana, and was hoping to find that excuse closer than the int tree.
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Yes it will. As a funny side note, any nodes that affect energy shield recharge rate will NOT affect your mana pool in the same way if you have Eldritch Battery.
Which sucks so much. I can see why, but it's unfortunate. It would really help though.
Something that might be an alternative is a blood magic support gem for something that drains heavily on the mana if you are stacking health, but are building far from the keystone. It's not as efficient as the keystone, but still good in some situations.
Oh, I already plan on using blood magic for a few things. It's just a very mana intensive build, more so than I initially thought. Still working out the kinks.
I'm sure wou will get it sorted out, I know I'm going to have to work on mine as well, been quite agile since I played in the beta.
A couple of n00b questions that I couldn't find the answers to in the Wiki:
Is it worth identifying items at low levels that you know you won't be using? Seems to not be.
I decided to try a pet witch for my first character; is the exploding pet skill basically mandatory? And do I want to go out of my way for the "your shield benefits your pets" skill (also seems like it would be good)?
I took minion witch to act 1 merciless and I respecced out of the aegis (shield goes to pets) skill after about 15 levels. maybe I was being to offensive with my witch but I got hit hard a lot and the bonuses from the shield that goe to pets seemed very minor. ES is negligible because those suckers are always in fight so it never recharges. reflect damage is ok for a bit as is all resistances but I wasn't a fan. as soon as those zopmbies clear the 3.5k hitpoint mark and explode for 1k+ fire damage 40 reflected melee damage isn't spectacular.
on that note I do like exploding pets. spamming exploding skeletons is a great way to kill tough elites and act bosses.
So, did you end up going blast-y, or with auras?
The high-end hex stuff is right next to the exploding minions, so is that at all effective?
A couple of n00b questions that I couldn't find the answers to in the Wiki:
Is it worth identifying items at low levels that you know you won't be using? Seems to not be.
I decided to try a pet witch for my first character; is the exploding pet skill basically mandatory? And do I want to go out of my way for the "your shield benefits your pets" skill (also seems like it would be good)?
The Keystones are supposed to be trade-offs as a general rule of thumb. (It doesn't always work that way in practice.) It's usually a matter of figuring out what the trade-offs are and that's just a matter of intuition and judgment.
The exploding minion thing occurs at 30%, so it's a question of whether you want to lost that 30% of hp on every minion and then be forced to resummon them. It's a dps trade-off, and mind, it's fire damage, so you won't get the same mileage against fire resists unless you hook yourself up with a Fire Penetration gem. Your minions already do physical damage, but they might not clear mobs as fast if they weren't AOE suicide bombers.
The shield trade-off is a good one in my opinion, since you're wanting to specialize in pets and not just dabble in them. You can dump a lot of bodies between you and your enemies, so really, you won't personally need the shield.
Posts
and in the long run, you will have thousands of hp and shield. 40 hp, while useful, will diminish greatly in the long run, while 8% resist will always be useful? Easy to get on gear? That's great! You can substitute that resist gear for more dps.
I'm dead serious."
I'm dead serious."
Oh and most importantly about attack speed, which I didn't mention but should have, is that you look interested in scoring critical hits.
The faster you attack, the more likely one of those attacks is a crit. Crits scale off of attack speed.
In the long run, hit points is better. Once you've played the end game, we can have this discussion again and it will be more productive.
While Spawnbroker's "lul play endgame" response was a bit unnecessary. What he MEANS to say is that it adds 40 HP to your BASE health, which gets multiplied by every life % passive you've picked up.
Because otherwise that'd seem to make +HP gear kinda pointless at a glance.
This is a little gross. No one has played end game. No one has experienced Merciless A3 (well, maybe some people have...), so it's impossible for anyone to say they have played end game.
Yes, some people have played upper levels and seen Merciless level drops.
Yes, some people devoted lots of time to examining the metrics of level 70+ content.
But, all of that is anecdotal to the reality of Merciless act 3.
Let's nip this attitude of "I played to 80 in closed beta, so I know everything" in the bud, and treat each other nicely. Anecdotal evidence is fine, just remember that's all it is.
The server crashed and now I'm in <ERROR>League.
woah bro, I don't want any trouble, I ain't about that life. All you had to say is you had a level 80 char in beta and have seen the fruits of your labor and I would of been happy to back down. I'll go back to dragging my feet through normal difficulty now, like the plebeian I am.
I'm dead serious."
Naturally, the game enforces a negative ehp penalty against you in higher difficulties where elements are concerned. Your ehp is set to 62.5% that of normal with zero resistances.
("100%/1.6", where "1.6" is the damage multiplier and the "100%" expresses your current ehp before resistance calculations)
In my case especially, hp is mostly just an emergency buffer against death or chaos damage. My energy shield benefits more directly from resists. But even without an ES, I'd rather be overprepared for elemental damage, as physical attacks are less worrisome for boss monsters (e.g. Merveil, Fidelitis, Vaal Oversoul, Piety, etcetera).
I might have to start using that snippet from one of the PoE forumites as my new default response to people being hardcore in the extreme.
It makes me laugh every time, then cry a little on the inside.
Is this a dig at me? Are you implying I was saying anything like that second quote?
Just curious here, it's not clear what you're going for in quoting me.
I'm quoting you to point out that goosey things like 'we're more leet/hardcore than you therefore you're 100% wrong' is almost as bad as that quote.
Edit: And to those saying that closed beta players have not experienced the end game because we haven't seen merciless act 3 yet, that's false. The end game is not merciless act 3, it's maps. Maps existed and were run in closed beta by everyone. The itemization and maps haven't changed between closed and open beta.
Look, I'm not trying to get into arguments here. But in a game about min-maxing, there are clear right answers and wrong answers. The 8% elemental resist will probably be fine for leveling and serve you well. But once you hit end game it will become useless. The 40 hit points will always be useful and will always scale with effective hp. The resists will not. I don't know how else to say it.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
I dig it; one of the major reasons I'm doing crits is that crits scale multiplicatively with every other source of damage except possibly elemental damage, as I don't know how/if they get multiplied in crits.
As for Iron Reflexes, I do think I want to try a combo evasion/armor build at first and see exactly how squishy it is, since they too stack multiplicatively. I understand the established view is that this is not as good as Iron Reflexes, but if I hate it and I'm constantly dying then I'll get Iron Reflexes. It is, as you say, close by where I am already, and I'll grab Unwavering Stance in that case too. But I want to give evasion a shot, as much for the fluff as otherwise.
Thanks for the feedback, though! Do you think 110% or so +life is enough? I know this is a hard question given the things I just said about the other defensive decisions I've made.
EDIT: Oh, and how do you feel about block? 2% just doesn't seem like a very efficient use of a skill point, and block's one of those things that is better as you have more points, so probably should either decide almost entirely yes or no, with a couple big exceptions.
Unless I messed up the calculations, EHP versus elemental gets much higher the more of it you stack.
Yeah, this should be obvious. Consider 0% resist against an attack that does 100 damage. 8% resists moves you from taking 100 damage to taking 92 damage. That's an 8% (of the larger number) reduction. Now consider 60% resist against that same attack. 8% resists move you from taking 40 damage to taking 32 damage, a 20% reduction.
This is fine, this is understandable and non-derogatory. I wasn't saying "poo on you" or that I wasn't listening. I actually agree with you based on your argument. I intend on getting the HP on my new character, because of what you posit. I was just saying: It's not ok to sit there and say "you wouldn't understand, you haven't really played the game". It's inflammatory, and goosey. And once that attitude infects a thread, it seems to never leave.
That's all I was saying @Spawnbroker. Let's not talk down to each other, let's explain how we got the superior information. Honestly, I don't even know where it came up. I just saw it and felt the need to say something.
Build discussion:
I have Eldritch Battery on my dude. If I pick up nodes that increase my energy shield, will it instead increase my mana? This makes sense to me, I just wanted to ask around before trying.
Yeah, fair enough; I did not mean to be implying a linear relationship. Your claim, as I understood it, was that each successive point of elemental resistance is more valuable than the one before it. Increasing marginal utility, if you like. I just gave a quick example showing that 8% resistance is more valuable if you have 60% resistance than if you had 0% resistance, which is one of the things your graph already showed.
This is one reason, among many, that single items with high +resistance are awesome.
Technically that's an 8% reduction because you're subtracting 8 damage from the 100 base damage.
If we assume Joe Glassjaw has 100 hit points, then:
100/100 = 1 hit KO
100/40 = 2.5 times more hits before death
100/32= 3.125 more hits before death
Joe Glassjaw has more than tripled his effective hp at 68% resist.
EDIT: Okay, nevermind, I see what you're saying. You're saying that each incremental increase has better reduction than before. Still I hope this post is instructive in explaining the concept of effective hp.
Yes it will. As a funny side note, any nodes that affect energy shield recharge rate will NOT affect your mana pool in the same way if you have Eldritch Battery.
On the Battery question:
To my understanding, most (if not all) of the conversion keystones work like this: First perform all modifiers to a given stat, be it gear, buffs or other keystones, then convert. So I think it should increase your mana, yes, but only by the amount that your energy shield would otherwise have increased! Have not played for some time (where in the closed beta), but I don't see why they would have changed this.
Of course, if a node is on the way to something else interesting, the worst you can loose is one respec point, and that is not very much.
LoL EU West nickname: Irridan
It's popular in builds where you want to run every aura ever.
It's mostly a question because my build has a terrible mana problem. So if I start picking up these evasion nodes that I was slightly on the fence about, and they also increase my mana by non-insignificant amounts...it might start to help resolve the issues I'm having. Really I'm just looking for excuses to get mana, and was hoping to find that excuse closer than the int tree.
It seems I have.
Which sucks so much. I can see why, but it's unfortunate. It would really help though.
Is it worth identifying items at low levels that you know you won't be using? Seems to not be.
I decided to try a pet witch for my first character; is the exploding pet skill basically mandatory? And do I want to go out of my way for the "your shield benefits your pets" skill (also seems like it would be good)?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Something that might be an alternative is a blood magic support gem for something that drains heavily on the mana if you are stacking health, but are building far from the keystone. It's not as efficient as the keystone, but still good in some situations.
LoL EU West nickname: Irridan
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I took minion witch to act 1 merciless and I respecced out of the aegis (shield goes to pets) skill after about 15 levels. maybe I was being to offensive with my witch but I got hit hard a lot and the bonuses from the shield that goe to pets seemed very minor. ES is negligible because those suckers are always in fight so it never recharges. reflect damage is ok for a bit as is all resistances but I wasn't a fan. as soon as those zopmbies clear the 3.5k hitpoint mark and explode for 1k+ fire damage 40 reflected melee damage isn't spectacular.
on that note I do like exploding pets. spamming exploding skeletons is a great way to kill tough elites and act bosses.
Oh, I already plan on using blood magic for a few things. It's just a very mana intensive build, more so than I initially thought. Still working out the kinks.
I'm sure wou will get it sorted out, I know I'm going to have to work on mine as well, been quite agile since I played in the beta.
LoL EU West nickname: Irridan
The high-end hex stuff is right next to the exploding minions, so is that at all effective?
The Keystones are supposed to be trade-offs as a general rule of thumb. (It doesn't always work that way in practice.) It's usually a matter of figuring out what the trade-offs are and that's just a matter of intuition and judgment.
The exploding minion thing occurs at 30%, so it's a question of whether you want to lost that 30% of hp on every minion and then be forced to resummon them. It's a dps trade-off, and mind, it's fire damage, so you won't get the same mileage against fire resists unless you hook yourself up with a Fire Penetration gem. Your minions already do physical damage, but they might not clear mobs as fast if they weren't AOE suicide bombers.
The shield trade-off is a good one in my opinion, since you're wanting to specialize in pets and not just dabble in them. You can dump a lot of bodies between you and your enemies, so really, you won't personally need the shield.