My defenses are definitely lacking somewhere, I keep dying in places where I feel like I shouldn’t (mostly bosses that are below my current level).
I know there’s tons of defensive layers in this game - which ones should I focus on getting? I know of the first couple, but unsure what to do after that:
75% on all resistances (I have this)
as much +health and %health as I can (most of my idols are this)
??? After these 2 I have no idea which ones I should try and get
Crit avoidance 100% (or reduced damage from crit over 90%)
Damage Reduction (including Armor)
Resists capped to 75%
Endurance (if relevant)
Dodge (if relevant)
Obviously some builds will prioritise different but the above is my rule of thumb.
Capping resists is over-rated in LE, at least compared to other defensive layers. You can actually get away with ignoring several of them and swapping in resist-specific gear as needed (usually only on bosses). I do that all the time at fairly high corruptions, and it’s fine.
Not having crit avoidance at 100% is going to get you killed far more randomly and more often in late endgame than low resists ever will.ombined
Thank you. Where can I find Damage Reduction? I have not seen this affix yet (either on item or as shard). Is that a unique/set-only affix? Or maybe a passive in my skill tree I missed?
Yes Damage Reduction is typically a mastery-centric thing or on a few items (e.g Titan Heart chest). Anything saying “x% less damage taken from blah” and so on. You cannot really seek it out. I just listed it as is typically the most powerful form of survivability you can get after CHP / crit.
EDIT: Just realised I forgot Armour. Don’t neglect good old Armour. It is essentially Damage Reduction - so it can go there in the list. Armor is DR for all damage types, so is very very very good (works at 70% efficiency for non-physical damage).
First health passive at the start of the runemaster tree has about 8% on inflicting chill, shock or ignite. IMO you’d probably have a difficult time not inflicting one of those.
But generate the runes for Cold, Fire, Cold, and then hover your mouse over the rune box thing just above your skill bar - the combo makes a 30% reduction shield. I had permanent uptime on it and felt invincible for a very long time.
Endurance really is only worthwhile and useful if you are a Health Build.
I hate being that guy, but how you use the term effective health is incorrect.
Effective Health is the amount of health you have if you calculate your health pool (and Ward if applicable) and all your defensive layers into a single number.
So e.g. With 100 Health and 20% damage reduction you have eHP of 125.
(your 100 health can absorb 125 damage basically)
I got my first character ever (Hardcore Solo Found) to level 85, pretty much on the back of the shield alone. I think I used maybe 3 health potions after level 20 lol.
What killed me was really not enough movement speed. Sounds weird maybe, but not being able to move fast enough out of a telegraphed AOE sucks. Knowing its coming and trying to get out of the ring… haha. Doesn’t help that I flame rushed into a pillar corner just before the AOE
Passives:
“Sphere of Protection” (as long as you’re igniting, shocking or chilling enemies which you should be)
“Mental Catalysis” if you’re using a Catalyst.
Spellblade’s “Arcane Shielding” if you’re using melee attacks.
Thank you for the responses, some good stuff in here.
I am pure fire so I will have perma-ignite on everything. I have 3 points in here currently but I will bump it up to 8 ASAP.
This however will be an issue, I would have to make some significant changes to my build to incorporate cold. Hopefully my build is still viable without having cold for this invocation.
Hm ok, I was under the impression that Runemaster basically never used shields in any of their builds, so I have filtered them out since I was level 5-6, but if it’s better than a catalyst I can be on the lookout for one.
I am using one but don’t have this skill specced, so I will change that as well.
Sorry, by ‘shield’, I meant the cold, fire, cold invocation. It’s called Royenm Shield or something.
EDIT:
My primary skill was flame reave, and looking out for fire damage mostly on gear. But I was looking for crit, and ignoring ignite/dot. Inflicting it anyway as you basically cant avoid pathing through it on skill trees.
Here’s what I had, just in case gives you ideas:
Passive skill trees:
Frost Claw - converted to fire, all mana generation and mana efficiency, cast on retaliate and attack
Flame Reave - all +Width/+Range, and 4/5 on mana efficiency, max on spell damage to attack node
Runic Invocation - max mana refund, lock invocation to first three skills (immutable order), arcane battery (which triggers on attack despite what it says). Spell cascade
Enchant Weapon - auto cast, +fire damage
Flame Rush - convert to cold, runic invocation on use, max range, max mana efficiency
Ability bar (in order):
Snap Freeze
Enchant Weapon
Flame Rush
Runic Invocation
Right Click - Flame Reave
How it works - Frost Claw goes off on attack despite not being on your ability bar, it basically just generates mana on attack.
First three abilities (Snap Freeze, Enchant Weapon, Flame Rush converted to cold) generate Cold, Fire, Cold runes by their placement - I never manually used the first two.
Flame Rush triggers runic invocation, which is locked to only the one invocation and thus casts the 30% damage reduction shield.
Attacking with flame reave generates the three runes: cold, fire, cold, because runic invocation is locked with immutable order.
manual cast of runic invocation also casts the shield, but triggers snap freeze and flame reave as well. I’d use it sometimes, even though flame rush cast the shield… but sometimes just using flame rush to get around without attacking to generate runes, so manual cast, plus auto snap freeze interrupts some annoying attacks.
Runemasters are commonly generating a ton of Ward from simply having passives in the Runemaster tree:
Arcane Focus - Ward on cast
Edict of the Scion - Ward on AoE skill use
Jagged Veil - Ward on Crit
Celestial Doom - Ward on hit vs. Bosses
Many Mage skills also have ways to generate Ward, but some are way better at it than the others
With certain skill and passive combinations, you can easily reach 10 000+ Ward while in combat.
If you aren’t generating that much, or if you don’t want to use these high Ward generating things for some reasons, there are alternatives too, like Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros which generates Ward from staying at high Health (usually via Damage Leech), or Exsanguinous + Last Steps of the Living combo (the so-called “low life” build) which generates Ward by having low Health instead.
If your build incorporates melee attacks, then Spellblade tree might be an option too, as it offers 10-16% Damage Reduction from Arcane Shield and Shattered Aegis passives.
As for other defensive layers, Armor is the most commonly used one, as it is easiest to stack. However, don’t let the current meta sway you from using Shields (item) and Blocking, as those work just fine on the Mage.
Channeling builds (another off-meta pick) can use Telf’un’s Mirage to utilize Dodge.
Endurance is best utilized on builds that use Fractured Crown unique, which completely disables Ward. However, the “Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health”, a Mage-exclusive affix on Helmets and Body Armor - more than makes up for the lack of Ward.
