Life vs energy shield question

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Jyrlep#4788 wrote:

I swapped from Witch Infernalist (pure minions) to Abyssal Lich basically just to grab CI, and yeah - ES + CI + MoM is an absolutely unhinged combo.

Since the switch I've died exactly once, and that was 100% self-inflicted. I did the classic "I am the main character" move, dove into a pack the size of a small country, and got stunlocked until my keyboard learned new swear words.

Right now I'm sitting on about 9k ES and only ~1.5k mana, but since the mana is basically just my emergency "life" buffer, it still feels fine. The point is, ES + CI + MoM turns a lot of the game into "how hard can I troll myself before I finally fall over", and most of the time the answer is "harder than it should be".

That said, it's not literally god mode unless you also do the boring adult stuff. Capped res is mandatory, and having 30%+ phys reduction from armour (or whatever your mitigation setup is) matters a lot, because otherwise some random juiced mob is still going to hand you a surprise one-shot through all your fancy blue-bar philosophy.

Is there any chance you can post a picture of your passive tree and item set? I'm very curious about your build and what lvl you are.

I'm working on a Lich build right now and looking forward to hopefully dying less.

Starting to realize focusing on damage output is not viable in endgame, its kind of sad how much of a downside there is to it.

Especially if my game has a latency spike during multiplayer I cant pause through it and die, losing XP is brutal so I need something for solo climbing.

It seems like MoM is the icing on the cake that can take it over the edge.

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Vihhura#2853 wrote:

I know it early acces but realy????, energy shield guys are runig wit 27k shield and I seen one warrior with 6k life, armour is terible all life node removed but there is tens of shield nodes everyware , like where is logic here ?

ES is more like a form of defense as it is supposed to be an alternative to life. We can easily stack more armour and defenses as we can with ES.

Are the other defenses better? Not really.
Are they more easily acquired? Not really.

Why is it that GGG is so in love with ES? Who knows.

There is plenty of things we could make to balance it, but it also would make ES builds itself rather difficult to build up which would give any ES class on the skill tree a toll they should have to balance the game. But GGG doesn't want it like that, since ES is supposed to be a endgame thing.

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TwitchGLHFsport#2155 wrote:

I think ES and CI is far from OP, I think it is actually a sacrifice to get CI and is very niche to minimize risk against the Abyss mobs + others.

I was actually having better sustain with Evasion/Armor/ES on my sorceress compared to max shield.

Even while maxing shield, I feel a lot more vulnerable with CI vs standard mobs.

This perception is based on a weird sense.

How much more or less ES did you reach with CI instead of Evasion, armour and ES.

If you were already at around the same, you kinda destroyed your EHP by sacrificing armour and or Evasion for "more" ES. But if you were able to double your ES and stacked some faster start of ES recharge you should overall feel better.

Cause there is a certain amount on which you normally should get less and less one shots and sustain is not a problem on ES at all except you dealing with barrages of damage/DoT damage.

Latter can easily be denied by merely getting some ES to ailment threshold nodes. like 4 - 5k ailment threshold makes you close to burning ground immune in T15/16 maps, just as example.

30% of ES on a 14k ES build provides you with that amount already and only requires 1 node in the entire tree "shimmering mirage". You'd get another 20% for the smaller nodes on the way to it.

So 50% of ES as extra ailment threshold. 7k.... enemies need to deny half your EHP to get to ignite, shock, freeze you in 1 swoop.


And then again. CI not only makes you not have to care for chaos resistance, it also allows you to deny the requirement for life on all your gear.
So you can deny 2 normally heavily required modifiers from your gear and get other useful stuff from it
And getting immune to bleed and poison in the same corner. Talking about not being OP... it is far to OP at the moment.

True, Shimmering mirage being right next to CI is wild hahaha

I want to focus on fire resistance so my shield doesn't melt, Also want to get cold resistance so I can dominate those ice mage abyssal rare mobs.

I was considering going to the druid side and grabbing the armor/max ES too, then getting some armor boots and an armor belt.

Do you think that MoM is the part of the CI ES build that can make CI OP?

For the armor evasion and ES build i wasn't using CI, for lightning sorc. it was just the item config. It's a glass cannon build but I swapped my 850 ES body armor for a unique body armor with all 3. The stats are probably better but it has significantly less ES. Pure ES seems really fragile if there isn't something else stacked onto it.

There are a lot of nodes that can give ES some sustain, on the way to CI. The question is if this type of build turns out to be a tickle cannon or can actually kill mobs effectively.

lightning nodes are pretty big compared to chaos nodes, I think by the time i reach lvl 80 I can have a good balance between damage and defense with a chaos witch.

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TwitchGLHFsport#2155 wrote:

True, Shimmering mirage being right next to CI is wild hahaha

I want to focus on fire resistance so my shield doesn't melt, Also want to get cold resistance so I can dominate those ice mage abyssal rare mobs.

I was considering going to the druid side and grabbing the armor/max ES too, then getting some armor boots and an armor belt.

Do you think that MoM is the part of the CI ES build that can make CI OP?

For the armor evasion and ES build i wasn't using CI, for lightning sorc. it was just the item config. It's a glass cannon build but I swapped my 850 ES body armor for a unique body armor with all 3. The stats are probably better but it has significantly less ES. Pure ES seems really fragile if there isn't something else stacked onto it.

There are a lot of nodes that can give ES some sustain, on the way to CI. The question is if this type of build turns out to be a tickle cannon or can actually kill mobs effectively.

Try to quote me if you expect an answer :3

any character has 75% resistances at some point. Ailment threshold of 6 - 7 k makes you mostly immune to all ailments out there.

Dunno I'd rather stick to evasion / ES combo to avoid hits completely as to reduce their damage if you stacking ES.


"Pure ES seems really fragile"

It can be if your ES amount is low and have no recovery on it that can make up for the loss of it.

The reason why people get into faster start of ES on tree, to make the recovery start immediately after getting damaged or they go for either insta flask recovery through that unique belt or leech, which is a bit complicated but doable and in the long run prolly one of the best methods to sustain ES.

If it is a tickle cannon you prolly want armour, too, if you can delete stuff so that you can quarantee like 1 or 2 seconds break before getting another hit and combine it with the spirit gem "convalesence" you pretty much cannot die with enough ES Pool, especially if you rather stick with Evasion as with armour.

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Ondrugs#1147 wrote:

"Pure ES seems really fragile"

It can be if your ES amount is low and have no recovery on it that can make up for the loss of it.

well armor stacks on top of Energy Shield doesn't it? so it makes sense to get both.

*update*
playing with max defense is definitely playing the game on easy mode.
considering the bosses 1 shot abilities do flat damage and not % max HP damage.

The bosses are literally there to discriminate against squishy builds.


In my playthrough with Max ES & Chaos Witch rn.
The difference is ridiculous and I feel like i'm doing more damage than my lightning sorc with max damage build.

I think more defensive stats in general make the game easier.

well like sorc with 1.5k HP and 5k ES feels tanky enough and very good but warrior with 3k hp and 30k Armour feels way more squishy. So what that means is, like 3k ES is better than 30k armour. How do i get 3k ES? easy, put like 3 points into ES. How do i get 30k Armour? Easy, put like 300 Points into Armour. I mean, GGG PLEASE do something, anything will do.

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The bosses are literally there to discriminate against squishy builds.

And some have a way lower "squishy" ceiling than others.

Guess we'll die.

Yeah I'm looking at the passive tree and comparing it to my Witch.

Witch & Lich ascendency does have a lot of max ES % utility.
The gap in defenses makes my lightning sorc seem made of paper mache.
I think partly because lightning nodes are so big.

But compared to the warrior side of the passive tree, there is barely anything to increase max life %. It would be essential to get the Prism Guard node and get a ton of resistances and armor to compensate for it.

There are a lot of nodes for life regen, life leach and flask recovery, but with the amount of 1 shot potential in endgame, max life would be better.

that said, I have-
6.4k ES
1.3k Life
2.2k armour

and I'm still getting 1 shot or 1 bursted by some of the rares on fully juiced maps t15.