The reason lies in game mechanics, and i confirmed it personally.
First, Armour works before physical resist. Second, armour is a flat absorbtion. Third, physical resist can be easily screwed by enemy debuffs (-40 all resist, hello, now your physical res is not 20%, but -20% - and on top of that you can get specific physical resist debuff from guys like Bloodlord Thalonis, etc).
Let’s do some math. Let’s say, we have an enemy, who hits for 5k physical damage. I have 3.3k armour, 21% damage absorb from Maiven’s Sphere and 270 flat absorb from Inquisitor Seal. Let’s say, i have -30% physical res (due to -40% all res debuff). That translates into (5000-3300) * 1.3 * 0.79 - 270 = 1475 damage. Now, imagine i’d get 20% physical res (that’s quite a solid amount) (5000-3300) * 1.1 * 0.79 - 270 = 1207 damage. And with +400 extra armour (which is easier to get, btw) (5000-3700) * 1.3 * 0.79 - 270 = 1065 damage. As you see, armour clearly wins there.
In the game, most enemies hit for less than 5k physical damage. Therefore, armour proves to be very efficient VS them.
And the last reason - physical res is tightly tied to specific gear (usually - for physical builds). You cant really “choose” to get it - rather, your build/gear chooses it for you. As you may guess, most non-physical gear doesnt have any physical res on it. And since physical res (just like any other res) gets good only at high values, there is no point to deliberately invest into it.
BTW, about gear - if you dont have Light’s Defender Helm yet, and have good enough energy regen, you can use Ascended Casque MI helm - it has +12% armour bonus.
Thanks for explaining, it really made sense. Also am a complete newbie, so currently have just one character (a vitality cabbalist) who has completed veteran vanilla and is going to AoM, am trying to get her to get to elite and get revered in a few factions to get reputation writs for my next char in mind a mage hunter AAR, so really don’t have any gear saved up…, plus as a veteran from other APRG, I love the feeling of characters getting self found gear, makes building really a nice feel
Hi, I’m pretty new to the game, and I’m having trouble with the devotion path. Green crossroad+quill+purple crossroad= 4 purple affinity and 4 green. Rowan’s Crown requires 4 purple and 6 green. Is there maybe a typo in the devotion leveling?
Edit: The change that I made was adding Scholar’s Light after Quill
Hi there, ran into a few issues while prepping to follow your build:
I tried to simulate your build with grim tools build calculator and am not able to get Rhowan’s crwn, do we need to get some other constellation in between Quill and Rhowan’s crown ?
Yesterday I levelled a oathkeeper to level 32 or something (wanted to always see the various skills it has so that I could choose a build in future related to it), please don’t take any offense when I say that I didn’t find even one “of insight item” the entire time, I was also checking any vendor I find when trying to sell my stuff. Does some vendor has a high chance of selling them around arkovia or devil’s crossing , and does one has to repeat the vendor reset trick a tin of times to get them ? Should one delay to transition to AAR if one doens’t find them ? Sorry I understand these are all definitely subjective, but am a sort of OCD pre planner person, would really like your opinion/
Similar to 1, when trying to simulate skill point allocation while levelling, I always get lost at 3 places, whether to go for AAR or Disintegration when and how much, second when to respec out Caliddor’s tempest fully and third when to transition to Inquisitor and get the seal etc, it would help a lot for pre planners like me, when you post some more level breakpoint(like 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90 and 100) grimtool links.
Also the section for the farming runs is excellent, appreciate it a ton. Also if am sounding too pushy or annoying, I apologise, am just trying to give opinions from a complete beginner’s perspective.
Indeed, a typo, i forgot to add Hawk. Fixed it now.
That feels kinda wierd to me, when i was leveling my Mage Hunter, i got ~5 “of insight” items till level 32. I dont really think i was so lucky… After all, you get lots of green items dropped nowadays. IF you dont get any, try checking vendor a bit. Or farming Sister Crimson - cultists there drop a lot of gear, especially heroes and Sister Crimson herself.
First, level up AAR as your energy regen allows. Then, put remaining points into Arcanist mastery and Mental Alacrity. When you maxed them, put points into Disintegration (you can even remove some points from mental alacrity and AAR for that, especially - from AAR, if lacking energy regen). How many points put into AAR - depends on your current energy regen (= you gear).
I dont have time to post breakpoints now, but i think iwill do it today. Keep in mind, though, it wont be set in stone anyways, as it depends on your gear.
Respect out of CT at 32 level.
But for casters physical resistance it’s very important. Armor basically negates and soaks all small hits, but the big physical hits are the one that can penetrate through your seal and kill you. So physical resistance is irreplaceable and is more important than armor. Of course it’s good to have them both
So you want to claim, that for melee it isnt? Isnt that a bit silly?
Physical resistance is not so good VS big hit as you think. If i wanted to withstand big hits, i’d eather just increased my total HP pool. It’s far easier to obtain and works VS any damage, not just physical.
A multitude of small hits is what kills in most cases (from my perspective, at least).
Anyway, getting decent physical resistance along with res overcaps is impossible for non-physical builds. You might want to stack physical res, but you cant do it anyways. Even if you get an extra +20% physical res somehow, it wont make a major difference.
And as shown in my Crucible and SR videos, my build doesnt really need more physical res…
By the way, maybe I missed it, but I didn’t notice anything in the guide about the breakdown of attribute points in this build
Should we just pour everything into Physique, or should we save some points for Spirit and Cunning? And if so, are there any breakpoints for Spirit and Cunning to watch for? (i.e. "You need at least X in Y stat to use very important piece of gear Z.)
Yes, this build is still very newbie friendly and still super strong. It got a little nerfed with AAR scaling reduced etc at later stages but with latest patch monster resistances were also reduces so it’s compensated as well. You can safely use this build and destroy the game.
Still decent, but there might be better class combination options for DPS there, as Oathkeeper mastery now has lightning RR too. Though i made my build for decent tankiness, not just beating clearing time records.
As a starter/levelling build, it still has a blast. Get a scepter and a shard as early as possible, clad yourself in “of insight” gear, and slice through everything like a hot knife (AAR) through a butter (your enemies).
, plus as a veteran from other APRG, I love the feeling of characters getting self found gear, makes building really a nice feel
