Understanding Armor in Path of Exile 2

Time: 2025-01-19 by mmojugg Game: Path of Exile 2 Guide Tags: POE2 Armor

Path of Exile 2 has ushered in a new era of gameplay, but with it comes the challenge of understanding and adapting to its defensive mechanics, particularly armour. In this comprehensive guide, we'll dissect how armour works in PoE2, why it may not be the go-to defence it was in PoE1, and explore alternative strategies for players looking to survive the game's harsher environment.

Armour Mechanics: Then and Now

Similarities to PoE1:

The basic armour formula in PoE2 retains the structure from PoE1, where the effectiveness of armour decreases with the size of the physical hit received. This means that while armour can be excellent against small, frequent hits, it's almost useless against the massive damage of endgame bosses.

Formula and Practicality:

Armour formula: Armour mitigates physical damage based on a formula where effectiveness decreases as damage increases. For example, with 20,000 armour against a 5,000 damage hit, you could only mitigate about 44% of that damage, which is far from ideal for surviving one-shot mechanics.

Challenges with armour in PoE2

High-damage bosses:

The game's design relies heavily on bosses that deal significant damage in a single hit, which armour cannot effectively mitigate. This results in players feeling underwhelmed by their armour investment, especially in higher level content.

Armour Investment vs. Reward:

Investing heavily in armour requires significant passive points and gear optimisation. The return on this investment is minimal against the game's toughest challenges due to mechanics like Overwhelm, where even high armour cannot prevent significant damage.

Compare with other defences:

Energy Shield: Items such as Ghost Reaver allow players to effectively triple their Health pool, making Energy Shield a far more viable defence than armour for surviving high damage.

Physical Damage Conversion: Items such as Cloak of Flame allow players to convert physical damage into elemental damage, which can be mitigated more efficiently with resistances, often with no investment compared to stacking armour.

The real-world impact on builds

Build viability:

Life-based, armour-stacking characters are struggling in PoE2, especially on maps above tier 10. The reliance on dodging or other defensive mechanics becomes paramount, making armoured builds less effective.

Skill point efficiency:

Armour requires a large number of skill points to reach viable levels for endgame content, points that could be better spent on Health, Energy Shield, or other defensive layers such as blocking or dodging.

Game balance and player experience:

The current state of armour creates a bias where players naturally gravitate towards energy shield or conversion mechanics, reducing build diversity and making the game less appealing to those who prefer traditional melee or armour-based characters.

Possible solutions and future expectations

Re-evaluate armour mechanics:

GGG may need to re-evaluate how armour interacts with damage, especially large hits, perhaps by introducing new mechanics or buffs to make armour more appealing or effective.

Balance defensive options:

Introducing or improving mechanics that work in conjunction with armour, similar to how Determination Aura works in PoE1, could give players more strategic options without making armour the sole focus.

Community feedback:

Players have been vocal about the issues with armour, and it's expected that GGG will address them in future patches to restore balance and encourage diverse build creation.

Alternative defence strategies in PoE2

Energy shield with conversion:

Combining Energy Shield with items that convert physical damage into other types of damage (chaos, fire) can significantly increase survivability without the pitfalls of armour.

Block and Evasion:

Investing in blocking, especially active blocking, can mitigate small hits, while evasion can help against all types of damage, providing a more rounded defence.

Hybrid Defence:

Mixing and matching different layers of defence (armour, evasion, energy shield) may not be optimal for each layer individually, but can create a robust defence against different damage scenarios.

Thanks for Reading

Armour in Path of Exile 2 is a cautionary tale of how a well-intentioned mechanic can be rendered almost obsolete by the challenges of game design. While it retains some utility against minor threats, its effectiveness against significant sources of damage is ridiculously low. This has led to a shift in player strategy away from traditional tank builds towards more innovative or previously underused defensive mechanics.