[2.4] Why Life/ES hybrids are so strong yet noone knows that - Frost Blades example

I dont see what ascendancy points to go and how your getting ur endurance charges/frenzy charges.

Or what bandits to go or what skill links to use if 4link 5link 6link.

This is not a build guide - but an idea showcase. These details were not relevant to the point i was making.

I may do a build guide in the future but at this time i have no plans for it.

If someone's looking for a build guide, here's a good one by TryToReave. It goes Claw Reave using Ghost Reaver with claws' implicit LGoH to sustain both life and ES, also enabling the use of Melee Phys on Full Life (lol first time that gem has ever been used). It gets the ES via heavy investment into Shield Defence nodes, through which it also gains a hefty chunk of Armour by getting an armour/ES shield.

I did a 78% block/sblock take on that build this league as Gladiator using this tree along with Essentia Sanguis (cheapo okay-ish weapon), Bringer of Rain, and Cyclone and it was highly satisfactory. I had 6k EHP with enfeeble, 6k armour, 6k eva (more if you account for enfeeble), blind, and block as defenses, being naturally safe with cyclone. I think I got one-shot by a Residence Dominus punch once and that was just about the only time I died. Facetank Orchard. Facetank Jungle Valley. And so on. The damage was low-ish but honestly better than I was expecting with my crappy weapon; I barely invested into the build at all.
I used this shield which I got for like 20c or something.


Long story short, yeah, BIG ups to the life/ES hybrid builds, especially with Eva. With eva you barely get hit and ES has time to recharge, and the ES takes care of eva's weakness to one-shots. It's pretty good!

bumping this thread in light of recent 'buff life on the right side of the tree' initiative - initiative that i consider cheap and lazy way of getting away with building glass and ignoring how the game is supposed to work. forcing one meta build (pure life) on a side of the tree that SCREAMS 'play hybrid, it is good for you'

recent video, my first 2.4 run of Poorjoy's (with an izaro farming link setup so ive lost a lot of crowd control dps). went in blind and my recording software lags for the first few seconds

https://youtu.be/p64zM2KxCUs

Well yeah, it kinda works. Just not everyone's taste I guess. I've tried to play chars like this in the past but only really liked it on my crit Explosive Arrow char where you use Soul Strike and get like 0.75s recharge delay which sorta feels instant.

Playing in hardcore, I just can't afford to not have any leech. You can't plan for every situation in advance, especially not in big groups and with server lag, or at least I can't.

Looking at your poorjoy's video doesn't seem to convince a whole lot of people either. I mean the damage is kinda low, and you are kiting a lot. :( With leech one could facetank most of that content, which is why everyone is using it, despite the fact that leech as a general concept has been nerfed to hell, when compared to the "early days".

However I do agree that HP/ES hybrids are undervalued, which is why I am going to play one in the next league. Can't get that big a buffer at the start of a new league cheaper or more easily :)

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therealjcool wrote:

Looking at your poorjoy's video doesn't seem to convince a whole lot of people either. I mean the damage is kinda low, and you are kiting a lot. :(

Well, the affixes of this unique maps are quite impacting (140-160% more life / damages).


Recently, i did +/- my first build attempt (Assassin Crit Dagger Blade Flurry) that i'll play in the Breach league. I always played life based, so i planned to do that again. Then i did a life/es tree but i thought : "ES gear is already expensive, getting life in addition to all the other stuff (ES, res) ? Yeah.. nope.". Last, i did a CI tree but all considered, life is just the cheaper (and with the gems setup i chose i couldn't go pure ES gear). It's even more true at the beginning of a league.

Overall, i like the idea of going hybrid more than going CI because i never liked to lose either my pool of life or mana (that's why i never played Blood Magic either).
But you've a lot less to consider on your stuff going life. Mandatory affixes i see is :

• Life based : Life and 2 resistances.
• Hybrid life/es : Pure/hybrid ES armor with ES affixes, life, resistances (and especially chaos otherwise your ES is less profitable).
• ES (CI) : Ideally pure ES armor with ES affixes and resistances.

So yeah, i'll see. So far i always end up with ~5k-5k5 life, so getting a combined pool of life/es of 9k+ would be nice. But since you're seeking more on the items you'll equip, it seems strange to cost less. Essence league is ending anyway so no way to get some price samples.

key to hybrid gear is GREED (not the essence, just the human trait)

you can have 2 types of hybrid life gear

- two high defense values but no life
- one high defense value + life roll

due to obvious reasons (CI) the first one is more expensive. it means that second type - with life roll - can be found for PEANUTS. life roll is useless for CI (well, almost as it increases the stun threshold slightly) and people wont use items with life (even if the item in general is very good) as CI.

second issue is that some item filter makers remove hybrid bases from their filters. just remove them. while for a hybrid armour to be good you do not really need TOP base. even lvl59 hybrid armour with T1 rolls is a very good item. but you wont ever find this stuff as everyone and their dog run some form of pre-made item filter.

as for the build itself:

- yes, damage is low. it was a single target setup that i use for uber lab farming. the weapon is Hyaons Fury and it was set up with Frenzy in main link and i only did a gem swap. i can re-record something with proper setup if needs be

- yes i kite a lot and cannot facetank with leech. but i find this style fun. and besides - there are very little dangers that i really NEED to avoid. Poorjoys is a VERY dangerous map for some builds (esp ones that cannot simply kill everything before it has time to react). most bosses, maps up to t16 etc are really not a problem. stuff that is dangerous is ignite. this build relies on ES recharge and you just have to use anti-ignite flask (plus burning ground is suddenly a dangerous map mod)

The only thing i see here as drawback why not going just ci you get more EHP as lifebased or Hybrid, immune to chaos, probably harder to gear in early leagues, but easier gear for if the market is a couple of days old (you only need to worry about resist & es rather then life es and resist, proven that is the go to choice for surviving where other builds struggle and need to run around and dodge to just facetank and ingore incomming dmg.

Usualy you can have succsess with all kinds of variations
Life
Life/ES hybrid
ES

The only thing that make here a difference is do you wanna run around or just stay on top of the enemy and blow him with just simply outsurviving his dmg output.

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2) "Split 'hp buffer' sucks because you cannot leech to both of them at the same time and thus it doesnt work". Half truth. You surely cannot leech to both, however you can LGoH to life and leech to ES - if you need to. Ive toyed with this idea and found it absolutely unnecessary. What makes this 'theory' even better is the fact that my character - when ES is gone - STILL has more HP than most Shadows that claim it doesnt work.

Did not read all of it yet but the issue with hybrid is that you only leech on a single pool so vs continuous damage you really only have one of your buffers active. Where this is crucial is vs guardians and high level maps with rippy map mods. Chaos damage is now stronger than in the past. Most shadows have barely 4,000 life? What?


The current meta is all about getting a big life buffer and face leeching because defenses suck and trying to play the game skillfully is only going to work some of the times. Sure you have 9.000 total EHP but you only leech on half of it and in some situations its closer to 4000.

For the purposes of running sub T12 maps I think hybrid is absolutely fine but so is every other form of buffer and defense. The game is masterfully well balanced until you do T12+ maps with hard map mods.