Buffing armour will never fix it, here's why...
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No amount of buffing of armor will ever have it reach parity with other defensive layers for one simple reason: and that reason is Armour Break. If anyone doesn't know what the Armour Break affix on monsters does, Armour Break is an affix that magic packs and rare pack monsters can have that makes it so any hit done to you (even if you block the attack), sets your armour to ZERO. No, it doesn't lower your armour value gradually, it is a binary effect that will always fully break your armour, no matter how much you have.
Encountering this affix on packs is very common also, I'd imagine someone running a map will get at least 1 or 2 packs with this effect and there is really no counterplay unless you are also stacking evasion. I don't want to compare to the lowest common denominator, because i don't think nerfing other defensive layers makes armour somewhat better either. This single affix also invalidates however many points a player has invested into armour being a defensive layer for them, this could be dozens if they are deep enough into armour. Imagine having an affix on a monster that reads 'On hit, subtracts 30 skill points on the passive tree from player', this is also another side effect of this affix. IMO, This fact is alone is a good enough reason to skip the pure armour nodes all together, as there is a possibility that one binary effect could invalidate all of them, essentially de-leveling your character 15 to 30 levels, lol. The only other affixes I can think of that monsters have that somewhat invalidate defenses is the Accurate affix, which does what it says and makes monsters have more accuracy which makes evasion less effective, but that doesn't invalidate evasion like the Armour Break affix does on enemy monsters. This one affix in my opinion is killing armour more than anything right now. Any thoughts on this? Last edited by Nonsec23#1498 on Jan 27, 2025, 5:43:01 PM Last bumped on Jan 27, 2025, 8:29:58 PM
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Man.
In POE you just one-shot the screen (and preferably few screen away) to oblivion, before they one-shot you to oblivion. IT IS THE ONLY RULE THIS GAME EVER HAD. Even armor stackers were not stacking armor for defense, but to kill stuff more effectively... What armor break, what affixes, what skill points are you talking about? You HAVE TO one-shot everything. We have been playing high tier juiced maps with +crit chance, mult, extra damage, ignore resistances, curses etc etc etc... How do you think we survive this? With taking hits in the face? Hell no. Screw that movie man. Just kill everything, before it hits you. Otherwise block or dodge it. For god sake - do not try to face tank it. |
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If the 'Breaks Armor' mod works as described, then yeah. Absolutely an issue, and a valid point. I'm not doubting you, just have not done any research into it myself. Definitely feels like that's not intended behavior, and critters should be eroding armor slowly. I'd also maybe put a lower bound on how much player armor the average critter can break, like once you've lost half your armor to 'Breaks Armor' the value can't fall lower.
"Monsters are Accurate" does really blow for Evasion characters, but it's not a hard stop the way this is described as. Especially since broken armor was made to last way longer and there's no way for a PC to clear it once it happens to them. Ugh. |
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" I'm talking about the affix that magic pack monsters and rare packs get, I described it's effect in my post. It is a binary effect that on hit, removes ALL of your armour, invalidating it completely and making you as squishy as possible when it comes to physical damage. Killing everything before it kills you is really not a great gameplay loop, defenses should feel like they somewhat mitigate you from instantly dying, at least when you're not fighting bosses. |
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" What is the point of all this? Please elaborate. If you are taking hits from critters, this means, you are not clearing. And if you are not clearing, then you are under fire from OTHER sources of damage. Including intended (or not) one-shot mechanics. Why are you even considering that armor break being changed (or even removed from the game) will have any measurable effect? |
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" My proposition wouldn't that it should be removed, just changed to lower your armour value, make it a binary effect and setting your armour value to zero. My point is, the reality of playing the game is that you will eventually run into a Breaks Armour pack, and for the armour stackers that lets say play a more up close style or just due to bad RNG...will get hit a few times while their armour is zero and get sent back to the Miller or lose exp, etc. The point is, the affix is way too punishing to a defensive layer that already needs all of the help it can get. |
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" And this is what they do! They are indeed used to prevent instant death. To give you a time to click this one button, that will wipe clean everything around you. |
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" Because not everybody drinks the dumb Streamer Memer kool-aid that insists that all deaths are always bogus instant one-shots and the only way to play the game is to make a character with absolutely zero defense that can only survive if it nukes the screen before anything on it has a chance to react. That's a stupid self-fulfilling prophecy that only Streamer Groupies take seriously. And frankly, even if that is your stance, it doesn't mean that "Breaks Armor" mods on monsters has any business completely removing a primary defensive layer like armor. Nothing should reduce armor to 0 without being a telegraphed boss strike or some other visible mechanic you can try and outplay or interact with. the behavior is unacceptable regardless of your opinion of the value of the defensive layer in question. The guy's playing armor; right now the only characters that tend to do that are Warriors that wade into melee with slow mace skills. They're going to take hits. Why pretend like they're playing wrong by not being a Blaster Master Must-Go-Faster Spark build when that's clearly not the intent. Knoggidoff. |
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" There is no such thing as "CLOSE STYLE" in POE. You either one-shot the screen with HUGE AOE. Or you do not play this game. It is that simple. This has been the case for more than a decade. Nothing will change this. Warrior and mace skills are marketing trick. A joke. A way to lure you guys into playing this game. Hype fodder. A scam. All the footage, all this talk about "slow" and "tactical" gameplay - nothing but joke. And so many of you guys got fooled... I kind of feel bad for you... But the same - you should have known better not to trust those lies. POE is what it always been. A single digit makes no difference. |
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I have a post covering armour break along with all of the other major issues armour has along with how to fix them if anyone is interested:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3667538 My solution to armour break was to remove it too :^) |
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