Does spell block stack with evasion / dodge? Mitigation tips for evasion shadow builds?

I'm making a melee lightning evasion assassin build.

So far a ton of people have mixed opinions on evasion. Some say their high hp chars die the same amount as their evasion build chars, that it just doesn't seem like it, because of the 1 shot verses slowly getting beat down. Meaning that they die equal amounts of times, that playstyle is the factor. While others say evasion isn't good enough, or that " heck even armor, with molten shell, & iron reflexes is better than most evasion builds " (idk if that's true either?)

Eitherway they seem to agree, that evasion builds have a hard time against end-game bosses that spam spells.

Thus mitigation.

So what's the best mitigation I should go for on the shadow tree? Should I even look into evasion + hp hybrid passive points? Or is adding hp not worth it since it's never gonna be too high anyways. Some say if your hp is 4k - 5k, that you should have 7k+ atleast (or something I'm no expert of endgame logic yet). Eitherway mitigation seems right. They also say that Kitsugi + Wind Dancer + Acrobat + Phase Acro = not good enough for spell casting endgame bosses?? idk if that's true.

Thus the question appears: Does spell block, stack with evasion / dodge?

Nobody in-game chat seems to know a god damn thing about this.

Also I heard evasion + regular block (not spell block) use to stack years ago? Than it got op & they nerfed it & now it doesn't stack? (like 1 registers before the other, & negates 1 of them? (Eitherway I'm sure evasion is good enough for regular-non-spell-attacks, so even if block + evasion, did work still, I probably wouldn't need it, right?)

So how about spell block + dodge / evasion then? stacks or not?

It's kinda dumb that hp + es, outshine armor + evasion for endgame bosses? that's limiting on the build defense potentials, they should buff armor + evasion for end game bosses if they aren't EQUALLY as useful.

It also seems most evasion builds went ranger, tho I want to play assassin, so far passive tree wise, it's not far of a stretch, literally next door. I get ranger gets a few starting evasion stuff, tho it's not much, their should be more shadow evader builds?

So if spell block, doesn't stack with dodge / evasion, what should I do to add mitigation, to not being 1 shot by endgame spellcasting bosses, on the shadow tree?

So it appears after having a long talk on chat about this.

That evasion DOES stack with block, it just registered evasion 1st, than block 2nd.

ALSO I foundout that " Acrobat " reduced spell block by 30% making other spell block passive skill additions, kinda pointless if you have acrobat.

That I'm going to have to add hp to my build to be able to handle being 2 shotted at least. Maybe I'll go for the hybrid hp + evasion passives.

Still I don't know if adding average amounts of hp, will help me clear the endgame spellcaster bosses. While still being mostly an evasion build with average hp (more than I previously was going for - hp wise, but still average overall hp)

& so far evasion doesn't sound like it needs block, as most don't seem to be getting 1 shotted by non-casters as much.

You might be better off seeking help in the Gameplay Help and Discussion thread but I'm happy to chip in some advice here. <and just after I hit reply the mods moved the thread to this location, so looks like you're in the right place now>

It might be helpful to define the meaning of stacking though. To me, stacking means that an item sits atop another item and increases the overall volume of that group of items.

Considering your question relating to block, evasion and dodge, while these are all Defence attributes, they are all entirely different so they do not stack. Sources of Evasion stack to increase evasion, sources of block stack to increase block chance, but block does not increase your evasion. It might seem like semantics but it's an important concept for PoE.

PoE is designed so that excessive investment into a single Defence attribute is not sufficient, certainly not any more. The challenge to be considered when it comes to evasion, dodge and block, is that eventually an attack will get through so you need to consider how to survive when that does happen. Consider, if you have 99% Evasion that means 1 in every 100 attacks is getting through. If you maxed block as well at 75/75 that still means 1 of every 4 attacks is getting through. How many times are you getting attacked in a single map these days?

For some players this means having a high health pool. For others they seek ways to reduce the damage when it does penetrate defences, so mechanisms like Fortify, Endurance charges, skill nodes that reduce crit damage or wearable items that make enemy attacks unlucky (meaning you get the lower of two damage rolls). Don't forget, you can use an amulet anointment to reach otherwise unattainable skill points on the tree

This league particularly you need to consider more carefully ailments. Shock is one of the more deadly as it increases damage taken and personally I find it near impossible to tell when my character has been afflicted due to the typical rainbow of effects on your average PoE field of view.

As for what path you should choose? I would recommend looking at similar builds and observe how they managed Defence. Did they stack Evasion and combined it with Chaos Inoculation going full ES? Did they just rely on Evasion and Dodge combined with specific uniques to reduce incoming damage? There's a number of ways to approach this but some might be difficult to achieve as they require a high level and set number of skill points, or very expensive gear.

This is also a particularly brutal league for players and GGG appear to be indulging their ludicrous fantasy that players dying is fun for the players. So no matter how you prepare your defences, prepare to die anyway. Good luck!

I agree with everything Aldora_the_Summoner said. You may walk away with a few more questions, but I highly recommend reading through the wiki on Receiving Damsge. Typically you want multiple layers because no single layer sufficiently protects against everything. There was a time when you could reach 100% Fortify, but those days are gone. All mitigation factors offer increasing returns but have caps on effectiveness.

The same is true for all mitigating damage factors. Health and ES both offer a linear scale and require some way to recover lost hp/ES.

0% resistance to 25% resistance = 25% less damage
25% to 50% = 33.33% less damage
50% to 75% = 50% less damage
75% to 76% nets you 4% less damage for the one resistance percentage

Thanks guys, very well written replies. Nothing more to say, tho learned a good amount. Hybrid lean, it is.