Bastion of Honour farming or how I reworked my build into a 2 hander

The gap between Bastion of Honour, and the next defensive shield is so large that once I sat down and looked at the math involved in getting my corruption up to ungodly levels, I did more digging into the target farm echos, there I learned about the trap nature and Bastions double roll BS. Taking a look at my character and the struggles I encounter in lower then ideal levels of corruption, I found it easier to skip it entirely. Given its such a massive boost in survival not having it is pretty much pushing me out of the corruption game entirely, so I have very little incentive to farm for another character or to push monoliths, So I guess thats it I finished the end-game? I have more time to farm then your average player but aint nobody got time for that.meme

Welcome to the forum…

Sure Bastion is a BiS shield… but it just got a much needed nerf to bring it back down to earth… Unless you are specifically building a shield/block based char, then its less appealing… and honestly if you are not building a block character then you dont need it anyway…

Sure its hard to get - it should be considering its power - but its not impossible… I have 4 Bastions now, one from Rune of Ascen and the rest from Mono drops… All of them from below 300 corruption runs… if I recall, one came from a shield reward echo and the rest random.

Pushing Corruption is entirely up to you… There is no measuring stick involved here, its an infinitely scaling repeatable system to keep the die-hards farming while the rest of the game content is developed and added … There is nothing that says you have to get 200, 300, 500, 1000 corruption before your are “finished” - you can chose when a character is good enough for you… My personal goal for characters is completing all empowered monos and thats done… if I think I can push for more, then I try for 300 - purely because that is the point at which everything in the game can drop (no spoilers here)…

My best char is currently farming 375 corruption, and doesnt use a Bastion… In fact, none of my builds that use Bastion have been able to get as high…

1 Like

I currently have only one. I got it during the campaign, in the map The Oasis. I know this is very rare, but it shows that corruption is just added chance.

Perhaps, however given the gap between Bastion and 2nd place is there really an option?
What I mean to say is its not like people, as a lot of people are hunting for Bastion, are demanding perfect rolled LP4 Bastions. Having said that for a lot of builds having one is the difference between engaging with corruption above the 100 base of empowered.

Just had my first drop from a mono end chest around 130 corruption. It is just very rare like Orian’s Eye.

To me personally, all those threads about Bastion (and other items) really make me want to have trading in the game. Not because I need a Bastion but because I’m a real hoarder in ARPGs and I want to trade (or sometimes give away) some of my items. Like I got 2 Bastions and 2 Orians Eye which I don’t use but there is nothing besides selling them that I could do. And I would much rather trade them or give them away than selling them. I usually want to keep 1 of every unique/set item but the rest I’m currently just hoarding. My stash looks like a mess but who cares. At least let someone else profit from my drops if I don’t use those items. Now if we could shatter uniques/set items… :smirk: but even then I would probably prefer to trade them or give them away.

1 Like

Here is the Tea,

A lot of people conflate rarity with power. However I feel like that is saying the “super rare chase” items are Stasis Prison from PoE. An item so rare its not even listed on the market, however the difference is Stasis is complete trash. Where as the chase items in LE tend to be build around or flat out required for pushing corruption.

A good example is the Poison/Bleed Flurry build still uses Bastion, yes even the dual wield mastery uses Bastion. Why? well its powerful sure, you get an entire layer of defense all in one item, but that does not really answer the question does it? Its more about how chase that layer of defense is. Resistances and armor are the easy way to layer some basic defense, everyone can do this. Whats next? Crit Avoidance is the next one and its also pretty easy and cheap to get. Keep going, Dodge is really only obtainable if you have the build in skill support so we have to set that aside for the moment. That leaves block, and given how block works and the required investment to reach the same levels without a bastion you are left with no real good option.

So we have the basic settled, perhaps you could use it as an argument that bastion needs more nerfs and I find this argument eternal. I would rather see more items in general find a use then nerf the top 1%. Moving on, in my view its more about the investment requirement of the defensive layer itself, like I said above, once you get the basics in place you do not have a lot of options to increase your survival leaving you with a paradox of sorts.

Sacrifice your affix slots to get that layer, leaving you overall in a much reduced offensive state. Or push through and play LE like it is a hit less speedrun because you are likely going to get one tapped when pushing higher corruption.

TLDR: Bastion is not a chase item in the standard sense, its just another layer of requirement to meaningfully engage in higher content. More so when your class does not have access to the other esoteric forms of defense like dodge/ward/movement.

2 Likes

Well written :clap:

1 Like

I guess Endurance gets no love. You could use a good rare Mountain Shield and be potentially better defended. Bastion’s bonus block chance only works on nearby enemies. Then you still take damage from blocked attacks so you need to invest in block effectiveness. Then block does nothing against DoTs. Endurance works against all damage (Hits and DoTs)

Going to be 100% real with you, I simply forgot about Endurance. I did go and check my character though and I found that I had far more endurance then I expected given that its not on my list of things to build into. More so it tends to have more value on paper then in practice, when you roll in with capped resistances, very high armor, 100% crit avoid and still take a one tap.

I am not a math wizard, but I did toy around with the various simulators and sliders on Tunklab and despite a very fair radius for Bastions block its about a 29-32% block effectiveness, that is simply hard to compete with for a single item.

Looking at a build shield and focusing on block, the fair comparison, you would need Ironglass: 35% block 400-620 Effectiveness. Stack Tier 6 Block and Effectiveness and you are still going to get one tapped because 50-53 block rate.

Edit: looking at the numbers again a perfectly rolled Ironglass with both perfect Tier 6 block affects. has 3% more block and 8% more DR when compared with a 50% roll on Arrowguard quiver and Arrowguard can roll with LP. Just for some perspective, same slot and Glancing blow vs block but the principle holds.

Block is like dodge it needs a “critical mass” to be effective.

1 Like

I guess the “nearby” is a lot easier to manage when it matters, on bosses.

“Nearby” is most of the screen so while, yes, it’s always in effect v bosses, it’s pretty easy to manage v trash.

Bastion can roll with lp as well (but good luck with that due to its rarity).

You rather want buffs for 99% of all items instead of nerfs for 1% of them? That is both inefficient and uneconomical. And it would increase the risk of ending up with power creep sooner or later. While that would require another complete balance overhaul to make the content harder to bring it in line with the new found player power.

Who said buffs? I said a use. There is a subtle but important difference. Having said that allow me to assuage your fears about power creep. As much as people say they do not like it, overall power creep sells games and increases player metrics. Its like saying I don’t like food I don’t want to get fat. Well you need to eat, and with a bit of planning you can avoid getting fat.

Just let me bask in the idea you put forth, finding a use or even “creeping the power” of underused ignored uniques will effect the new player and require a complete balance overhaul? Sure jan.

Which I consider to be a buff, not necessarily in numbers but in providing a new mechanic that is more powerful than the old one in order to warrant a use in their current environment.

I never said anything about fear, I simply pointed out a possible consequence (no matter the likeliness). Please don’t twist my words. Besides, your statement brings us into argumentum ad hominem/tu quoque, cum hoc ergo propter hoc, red herring, straw man and all sorts of other spurious argument territory. So, this is basically a dead end.

None of that was said or even implied by me. Also, there’s no need to bring this on a personal level and become disrespectful. I’m not a native speaker but all sources that explain the meaning of “sure jan” seem to indicate that you’re accusing me of being a liar.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.