Hey everyone, today we're going to talk about defensive layers and how to stop dying in Path of Exile 2 (POE 2). For those who may remember my previous series in POE 1 where I focused on the hardcore solo self-found (SSF) mentality, I plan to revisit some of those concepts and apply them to POE 2.

I've been playing POE 2 in softcore solo self-found (SSF) mode to get a better understanding of how the game works POE 2 Currency Orbs, and now I'm back in hardcore SSF mode. After my experience in POE 1, I find that I've been able to adjust more easily to defensive mechanics in POE 2, and today, I want to share some of the strategies that have worked for me. To be clear, I'm not claiming to be a pro gamer or an expert in all things POE, but I've developed a solid foundation of understanding defensive mechanics and how they play out in both POE 1 and POE 2. Let's dive in!

The Strength of Evasion in POE 2

Let's kick things off with one of the most important defensive layers in POE 2: Evasion. In POE 1, evasion had its limits. The higher your chance to evade, the more effective it was, but there was always the risk of not evading at all, and then you would take full damage from the hit. In POE 2, though, evasion has received a significant boost, particularly when combined with other defensive layers. The key takeaway here is that evasion is stronger when you stack it with other defenses.

The big change in POE 2 is that evasion now works against spells, which wasn't the case in POE 1. In POE 1, we had to rely on spell suppression to reduce the damage from spells, which was mandatory for every evasion-based build. However, in POE 2, evasion can dodge even spell hits, making it a much stronger defensive layer across the board.

One of the standout features for evasion builds in POE 2 is Acrobatics, a keystone that allows you to dodge all hits, including boss hits and on-death effects. This drastically improves your survival potential. Acrobatics works well in the endgame, and while it does reduce your evasion rating, the payoff is well worth it.

Enhancing Evasion with Wind Dancer and Other Support Gems

To maximize the effectiveness of evasion, you need to pair it with additional layers of defense. Wind Dancer is one such gem that works wonders. This spirit gem increases your evasion rating per stack (up to three stacks). Each stack provides between 15% to 19% more evasion based on the gem's level. So, at maximum level, you can gain up to 60% additional evasion! This is a huge increase that can drastically improve your survivability.

Wind Dancer has another fantastic perk. It allows you to apply Blind to enemies when you use it in combination with the Blind support gem. Blind reduces enemies' accuracy, which means they'll miss you more often, enhancing your evasion even further. Additionally, Wind Dancer can be used with Windwave support, which knocks back enemies when you're stunned. This can give you the space you need to recover and escape dangerous situations, especially in crowded boss fights or when you're surrounded.

Combining Evasion with Recovery

While evasion can keep you from taking damage, recovery is crucial to staying alive in the long run. POE 2 doesn't make it easy to recover health and energy shield, but there are a few strategies that can make all the difference.

One example is Grim Feast, a game-changing mechanic for energy shield builds. When you kill a pack of enemies, Grim Feast grants you a 50% chance to create a Remnant, which can recover about 200 energy shield. This is incredibly powerful for evasion-based energy shield builds, as it provides instant recovery. When combined with overflowing energy shield, you can essentially double your effective energy shield pool, making you much harder to kill.

Another great item for hybrid builds (life and energy shield) is the Aerie's Disdain helmet. This unique helmet causes you to take 20% to 25% of damage through your energy shield before your life pool is affected. At first glance, this might seem counterintuitive, but when combined with Grim Feast or other recovery sources, it's extremely powerful. This item gives you a huge buffer for absorbing damage while simultaneously allowing you to recover energy shield and life more effectively.

The Power of Block in POE 2

While evasion is fantastic, block is another incredibly strong defense in POE 2. Block works similarly to evasion, where you have a chance to completely block incoming damage. However, unlike evasion, block can be 100% effective when using a shield and is directional, meaning you need to be facing the attack to block it.

One unique shield that stands out is The Wailing Wall. This shield is the only item in POE 2 that allows you to block all incoming damage, even unblockable hits like those from bosses. This is an incredible advantage, making it one of the most coveted shields for block-based builds.

Additionally, Lucky Block (via the Spen shield) is one of the most broken interactions in the game. Lucky Block increases the chances that a block will either deal more damage or reduce damage taken based on a random roll. This increases your overall mitigation and recovery, providing significant defensive benefits. If you manage to combine Lucky Block with a high block chance, you can get insane amounts of recovery and effectively nullify large portions of incoming damage.

Armor's Weakness and the Problem with Physical Mitigation

Let's take a moment to discuss armor, another traditional defensive mechanic. Unfortunately, armor feels significantly weaker in POE 2 than in POE 1. Even with recent buffs, armor just doesn't compare to the effectiveness of evasion and block, particularly because you're often getting hit by a variety of sources, including projectiles and area-of-effect (AoE) attacks. While armor does help mitigate physical damage, you need to combine it with significant recovery to be effective. Otherwise, you'll just get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming hits.

A particular issue with armor is that it can be broken by monsters, leaving you with virtually no physical mitigation. This makes armor feel unreliable and difficult to scale, especially for late-game content.

However, there is hope for armor builds if you focus on reducing skill effect duration. If you stack nodes that reduce skill effect duration, you can turn skills like Earthquake into incredibly fast recovery mechanics. Pairing this with Time of Need will provide massive recovery and make you immune to curses and elemental ailments. This is an excellent strategy for hybrid armor builds and is arguably stronger than life regeneration.

Elemental Resistance and Hybrid Builds

One of the biggest advantages of evasion-based builds is that you don't have to heavily invest in maximum elemental resistances. Since you're evading hits more often, you can get away with having lower resistances compared to armor builds, which need to invest heavily in them.

However, maximum elemental resistances are exponential. The difference between 87% and 90% resistance is significant, and builds that can hit 90% resistances (especially for fire resistance) are incredibly tanky. Some unique items, like the Cloak of Flame body armor, provide a 40% conversion of physical damage to fire damage, which helps with elemental mitigation.

Unique Items to Boost Your Defenses

As we've seen, there are several unique items in POE 2 that can enhance your defenses, including Hollow Hask, which gives additional physical damage reduction, and Ghost, a body armor that grants 50% of your life as energy shield, which works wonders for hybrid builds.

Doran's Prototype is another powerful item that converts your armor into a defense against lightning damage, further boosting your survivability. However, armor in general is still lackluster in POE 2, especially when compared to the effectiveness of evasion and block.

Conclusion: Energy Shield-Based Builds Reign Supreme

After exploring all these different defensive layers, one conclusion is clear: energy shield-based builds are currently the strongest and most reliable option for surviving in POE 2. With massive scaling potential and recovery mechanics like Grim Feast, energy shield builds have an overwhelming advantage, especially when you factor in chaos inoculation, which makes you immune to chaos damage.

That said, life-based builds still have their place, especially when you focus on scaling maximum elemental resistances and recovery mechanics like life regeneration and Time of Need.

Ultimately, understanding how these defensive layers interact is key to surviving in POE 2. Whether you're going for evasion cheap POE 2 Divine Orbs, block, or armor, combining these defenses with recovery will make all the difference in your longevity.

Thanks for watching!  See you in the next one—cheers!