Effective Defense for Melee builds - discussion

This is the first time I am attempting to make a viable melee character in HC League. Don't have much experience with doing maps and late game stuff as a melee char. What I am really worried about is the lack of defense. At this moment I am running 2H Mace Ice crash, but I plan to change into Ground Slam supported by Multistrike. The question is how to not die? I am already taking so much damage and I am doing just low maps. Now I have to invest into upgrading, but I am not sure what approach should i take.

What is the best way to not die as a melee char? Let's list the ways of defense.

1)Armor - How much should one focus on getting high armor value? How much is considered enough for high lvl maps?

2)Resistances - Nothing else than 75 all resists is acceptable. Should I aim for more than 75, is it a big difference to have 76?

3)Life - This is straight forward the more the better scenario. How much do you consider good/safe amount?

4)Regeneration - I don't have much experience with the life regeneration chars. Is life regen good in 2.0. So far i run just a little regen to be fine while running Blood rage. The main problem I see here is that you can still get killed instantly no matter how much regen you have - so prevent instakill is better defense than having high regen.

5)Leech - Don't plan on going leech at this moment as it was heavily nerfed and seems underwhelming. Also does not prevent Instant kill.

6)Block - Block is obviously a very good way to prevent damage. However it is not valid for a 2H character. Feel free to discuss anyways.

7)Passive skill nodes - What are the important defensive nodes?
Unwavering stance: is a must for melee char to not get stunned
Iron Reflexes: Is it effective to take iron reflexes even if I have all armor gear?

8)Skills - Discuss the best defensive skills for a HC character. I will list what i use at the moment.
CWDT: Molten shell + Immortal call + increased duration.
Aura/passive skills Arctic Armor, Determination / Grace (plan to use these)
Fortify: Fortify only linked with leap slam + faster attacks. Usually leap onto the edge of the pack of mobs to get fortify.
Enduring cry - I have to cast this manually. Usually after I leap + fortify, I also use enduring cry and then start attacking. The problem here is that when immortal call is activated, it consumes all charges and as I am getting hit a lot (melee) - it happens very often sooner than i can recast enduring cry.

This is just some basic description. I am at work and don't have much time to go deep into each issue. Please feel free to discuss and any good advice regarding defense is appreciated.

Here's my take, playing a very defensive 2h Cycloner in Warbands:

Armor: It's pretty good these days. The problem with armor has traditionally been that you have to really stack it to see any kind of benefit from it, but they've buffed it to the point where you can see some decent benefits if you use it as a layer to other defensive options. It still makes a reasonable difference even if you're just casually utilizing armor (e.g. 2-3k after modifiers).

Resistances: Not everybody can stack resistances, but if you can get triple purity going, that's 20% less elemental damage taken, at the cost of taking up most or all of your aura slots. Another option is to go permanent surgeon's flask, but again that's rather build-specific. As long as you're stacking other defenses, 75% resistances won't kill you.

Life: Still remains the most broadly useful defensive option, but beware of diminishing returns when chasing life nodes. If you're spending four points for 16% increased maximum life, in the end that might only actually give you around 2-5% more effective HP. Sure it's one of the few ways a build stuck with 75% elemental resists can reduce elemental damage, but at the same time those four points could be doing so much more work for you by, say, picking up Skittering Runes to buff your Enfeeble (especially against bosses) or reaching to the dual-curse cluster to enable the Enfeeble-Temp Chains super combo.

Regeneration: To be honest stacking it is not as useful as it might seem. 8-10% seems to be the Goldilocks zone for builds that want to really utilize it (excluding special builds like RF). All it really does though is make small hits feel like nothing. It can be really helpful for managing life flasks--your flasks are always full when you do run into something dangerous for example. It can also help against boss fights that allow you to disengage by running away when your life is at half, waiting four or five seconds, and coming back in with a full globe. Overall I see it as less of a defensive strategy and more as a way to reduce flask pressure. It's useful, but not worth reaching too much to stack when you already have a bunch.

Leech: Heavily nerfed for casual users, but actually seen a bit of a buff to those who spec into it. If you spend the passive points on it (and obviously choose skills that synergize with the new leech mechanics), you can easily keep a constant 33% life regeneration going, even against single targets. Sure it won't save you against one-shot kills, but if you're layering leech on top of other defenses to prevent one-shots, it'll grant some rather insane protection against two-shot kills.

Block: I don't usually go block but it's still a very viable option if you spec into it.

Now for a couple of suggestions that you didn't list:

FLASKS! You should totally think about flasks for defense. My standard setup is two quicksilvers for speedy movement, and I found life SO much easier when I ensure one of them is a curse-immune flasks. That's 6 seconds of curse immunity for 20 charges, plenty of time to kill that Flameblast exile while laughing at his flameblasts which you fully resist, or to take out those vulnerability miscreations while the titty bitches plink away for next to no damage. This is what I use, though obviously if you're going perma-surgeon's all you have to make sure is that one of your elemental flasks has warding on it:


Those who have been browsing around this forum might see me spamming the same setup on every single thread, so sorry to you guys. But this setup is REALLY good and nobody seems to be catching on. Of course I'm talking about CURSES! This is my setup:

The 20q curse on hit is important, as it gives 10% increased curse effect. Combine that with Skittering Runes on the tree and that's 30% effect total. Monsters deal 40% less damage. Anything that's not a boss, including Rogue Exiles and Beyond uniques hit like wet noodles after getting hit by the curse, especially if I have a warding flask up to ignore any curses they apply to me. Bosses have curse resistance, which this reduces additively. So while Enfeeble doesn't work as well on the bosses, getting 30% curse effectiveness does prevent your curses from having virtually no effect. Assuming bosses have 70% curse resistance (it might even be 80%), a level 20 Enfeeble would be reduced down to 9% less damage with zero curse effectiveness, but with 30% effectiveness it's only reduced to 18% less damage.

1. I love fortify and endurance charges (7) on melee. So I don't stress about armor to much on lower to mid maps. Usually rocking around 5-6k static, and a granite. For later maps this may not be ideal but haven't got there yet in 2.0. In the past, 10-15k static armor.

2. With fortify, 75 seems fine but I always swap my granite for res for hard hitting ele bosses.

3. Starting maps probably 4.5. Mid maps more like 5.5 and later maps 6+

4. I like regen. 400 is nice but more is better imo. It is not traditionaly valued to much but i have found it to save my slow ass response time ass on many occasions.

5. Seems underwhelming to me as well but certainly doesn't hurt.

6. I love 2h so yah. Block is still quite powerful regardless of my preference.

7. US is useless to life/armor melee imo. Get high life and some stun recovery. IR is only good if you want to convert evasion.

8. Fortify, cwdt enfeable, cwdt molten. I haven't used IC on a life/armor based melee in... Years?

Armor : 14k armor without determination or flasks is a good start (300% from tree 4500 from gear). But armor is not enough, you will need to couple it with endurance charges (the more the best). The way it works is : you get hit for XXX, armor will reduce that hit of (armor/(armor +(10*XXXhit)) = x%, then you add to this x% number your flat reduction from endurances charges, golem and tree. So as you can see, if you have 30% reduction from armor for a given hit, and 32% from endurances + golem, you get 62% physical reduction. I suggest running determination, its a HUGE buff and it is well worth it. With flask you will get 40k-50k armor and will be able to facetank nearly all the content.

Resistances : 75 all res is mandatory. Going from 75 to 76 will reduce your elemental damage of 1-((100-76)/(100-25)) = 1/25 = 4%, its like a free golem for elemental resistance. Worth it if it is in your way.

Life = 180% is safe, after this number (or around this number, depends on the build) you should focus on an other defense.

Regeneration Life regen is very good. Most of the time you will not focus on it beeing your primary source of life, because to do so you must have a build that invest nearly only in life without losing damage. But you need some, so you can for exemple sustain blood rage and avoid ending in a situation where you slowly lose hp due to the need of kitting.

Leech go life gain on hit if your skill mechanic can capitalise on it. If not, forget about leech, it sucks atm.

Block Its a very good defense, but it costs too much to specialise in it. I would avoid wasting points on block, unless it is on your way. Get block from nearby points but dont travel only for block. Get it from jewels and tempest shield. Good defense, but should not be your primary line of defense (it should be armour and resistances). If you have 35-40 block, you are already in a good spot.

Passives skills nodes Will entirely depend on your build.
Unwavering stance is a good talent, but there are some situation where it is not worth it. Most of the time you do not take it because you are either too far on the tree, or would lose too much evasion. And some skills provide immunity to stun, like cyclone.
Iron reflexes is in a weird spot. Player used to use grace + iron reflex, but with the aura reservation changes, its not worth anymore. Anyway, if you go full armor, you should not get hybrid gear, it is not worth it because its not possible to have both armor and evasion high roll + life (would be 4 prefixes). Maybe you will find some builds that can make iron reflexes worth it, but I don't have any argument in mind. Why go evasion if you can go armor? maybe because you need to start ranger/shadow and still want armour, then again it will depend on the build.

Skills
Molten Shell The more armour you have, the less Molten Shell is good. Because if you have high armor you will absorbe so much damage from your base armor that it will last only one attack. And if you want to make it worth the gem slot, you need a high level Molten Shell, thus a high level CwDT. Not possible to have high uptime.
Immortal Call It got so much nerfed that it is not worth losing your 6 endurances charges for a 5 second immunity. I would not use it in a trigger gem, but only if manually casted. THen you need quality + faster casting.
Fortify Nearly mandatory for melee, put in main skill or in movement skill
Enduring Cry Mandatory for all build.

In your CWDT I would suggest :

- Golem
- Enfeeble
- Tempest Shield

Other options :
- Molten Shell (bad if you are armor based already)
- Phase run (very good if you get surounded)
- Any other curse that would benefit you
- I don't know :D

Thanks everyone for your advices. I am busy now but I will get back to discuss some of the points.

Lightning coil is quite mandatory for melee in 2.0, hard hits still pass through even tons of armor rating.

using these three combinations & blind + chain + tempest shield is really really recommendable

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tm10067 wrote:

Lightning coil is quite mandatory for melee in 2.0, hard hits still pass through even tons of armor rating.

There is nothing mandatory in melee. Lightning coil is a very good mitigation option.