Strongest Defensive Devotions?

The ghoul is a really commonly seen one, but how would you rank the other devotions in terms how much they can increase your resilience?

  • Light of Empyrion
  • Stone Form (needs shield)
  • Nature’s Guardians
  • Phoenix Fire

It’s also a matter of what build/playstyle you do.

I find Light of Empyrion and Stone Form to be a must have for my s&b Warlord.

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Greatly depends. There’s no ranking.

But the one universal go-to is Solemn Watcher (aka the Tower). Fire/aether builds like to take Phoenix. Behemoth is popular for health regen builds but honestly it sux arse. Pet builds like to take Nature’s Guardian and Tree of Life (as opposed to Mogdrogen or Dying God). Physical shield builds naturally take all defensive devotions including Menhir. Bottom 3 nodes of Menhir, however, are sometimes taken on non-shield builds as well. Empyrion, as mentioned above, is imo kickass but rarely fits in any devotion plan unless it’s physical builds, usually soldiers who already have damage redux. Still gives most resistances of all devotions. Using it on hardcore Octavius despite having the redux from War Cry.

BTW Ghoul is a must have for almost all builds using weapon damage.

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If you want go defensive, choose primordial/order devotions, such as Ishtaak, Empyrion, Menhir. Reduced damage doesnt stack, so if you have another stable source (Aura of Censure, Soulfire, etc), you dont need it. Naturally you get Obelisk of Menhir here as well.
You can look on my lightning AAR build as an example of that.
Do note that RR is a must-have anyways, and not every build can allow spending so much points on those devotions.

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@bog Does First of Vire stack with Empyrion’s Light?

%Reduced damage for same element doesnt stack. Same as “reduced resistance”, etc.

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Sailor’s guide, empty throne, bat, ghoul <-- top tier defensive devotions

Crab is top notch too

But as @ya1 said, it all depends on what you need.

For example, a caster with low armor is not going to benefit as much as say a Sword-'n-board warlord from obelisk’s 10% armor node.

Similarly, a warlord isn’t going to benefit as much from ghoul or crab compared to a TSS caster with 50% CDR.

Which is why the “best” defensive devotions provide very universal/generic stats (e.g. solemn watcher), though these devotions may not be the best for a spec.

Case and point - for a binder, aeon’s hour glass is without question the best defensive devotions, though the defensive stats offered by aeon’s might seem less than obelisk.

@BOG: Did you ever manage a naked clear with your aar spec?

@medea_fleecestealer: Should this be shifted to “gameplay discussion?”

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Yeah, fits better there spanks. Done.

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What makes you think it cant do it with BiS gear?
It’s just not worth it. Too risky and there is no point not to use few buffs,
Furthermore, i play with self-found gear, and i bet the number of builds who can do it SSF is VERY small (if any). I still cant get 2-nd Glyph of the Storm Witch in 50+ hours played…

It’s like a catalyst to the cooldown based defense you already have. I have a couple of melee builds which only survive because of supercharged cooldown of the defensive procs.

Edit: example: you have Blast Shield, Mirror and Ghoul with, say, 10% CDR and Aoen. BS activates (4 sec), tap Mirror (3 sec), Ghoul activates (5 sec), proc Aeon, 4 sec of vulnerability, BS activates (4 sec), 2 sec of vulnerability, Mirror is ready (3 sec), proc Aeon, Ghoul is ready (5 sec) = 30 sec time frame with basically 24 sec of immortality in a good scenario.

There are different types of defenses different devotions provides, so depends on the nature of the build. But Ghoul is perhaps the most universal one.

  • Bat, great way to sustain builds, especially it you convert the damage. Very good for casters without weapon damage. Wendigo provides sustain too.

  • Absorb. There devotions can be very good, if you can stack multiple sources of absorb from gear, skills and devotions. Also cooldown reduction can help you there. Best one is Ishtak, but also the most expensive one. Cheaper but reliable are Turtle and Phoenix. Crab provides barrier type proc. For shields, you want Menhir.

  • Healing devotions. Giants blood synergies well with health regeneration. Tree of life is great but affinity makes it less desirable, unless you play pets or caster in SR. Chariot and Dryad have application too.

  • Misc. Constellations with physical resistance, armor, DA, Empyrion provides damage reduction . Also Aeon can reset your cooldowns including Ghoul. So top tier devotion.

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Dude…why are you being so defensive?

I was honest-to-god just curious… :confused:

And isn’t it already equipped with BiS’d gear? It should be quite impossible to beat some of the items that you have.

@yuri_yuri: I also just want to quickly mention the importance of CC-res and its relation to positioning.

In essence, you can’t get killed if you don’t get hit.

Mutators can fuck with your HP. Enemies can debuff your DA. Kymon and maiden will melt your armor.

But with sufficient CC-res, positioning is something you can always control.

Which is why I think empty throne + sailor’s guide are the best defensive devotions in general.

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Do you really want to call lvl 32 offhand, boots & weapon with useless prefix BiS? Even my pants, despite having 2 kinda strong green mods, still arent BiS (i dont need that much stun res anyway).

Slow res is very important. And not just for positioning, but for DPS too. Getting a full 40% AS/CS slow screws DPS…

Why not just craft a spellshock tome in the meantime? It’ll be so much better than the current offhand imo. :confused:

It’s not like you’re lifestealing sufficiently to stay alive in harder waves anyway, hence the need for armor

Do you realize this build’s lifesteal relies solely on offhand? And it’s good enough to facetank any sane foe.

I can’t tell if you’re being condescending, but I shall brush past that…

Having played the a lightning AAR MH, yes. I know the offhand is what is providing you sustain.

I don’t want to get into the whole debate about how you’ve locked yourself in a vicious cycle where a lack of damage if forcing you to get more defence to stay alive, which impedes your damage output, etc. etc.

All I’m doing is leaving a suggestion.

Try it, leave it - doesn’t matter to me

With barriers like turtle and crab, is there a time limit on how long they’re up? Or do they last indefinitely until they absorb the listed damage?

If the crab procs while you still have a shield from the crab does the second proc stack its hp with the first or does it replace the old shield with the new one?

Depends. Turtle, Crab and Phoenix are different barriers. Turtle is total damage absorption which comes after all other defensive layers. If it’s exausted it drops. Phoenix provides flat absorption during the period it’s active. Flat absorb stacks and negate completely all the small ticks and Dots dealt by trash mobs. Not sure what was the tool tip for Crab. I suspect it have some small damage absorb which have limit. After the damage it’s absorbed, it’s refreshed after the cool down expires. If it’s activated in combat and it’s not used completely, should be up until your next fight, just like Turtle.

Crab functions like turtle, but only for the listed damage types.

What I’m uncertain about is how the damage absorption plays out when you have different bubbles up at the same time.

I would guess that the first barrier to pop up is the first one to get depleted

It really depends on your build as to which devotions are the strongest defensively.

I’ve created several 2H Melee tanks that can’t be killed by putting 20 points in blue and 10 points in yellow.

For 45 devotion points you can take:

  • lizard

  • sailor’s guide

  • eel

  • lion

  • dryad

  • tortoise

  • solemn watcher

  • tree of life

  • ishtak, the spring maiden

  • light of empyrion

And you will still have 10 points left over to spend wherever. 8 points if you max out tree of life.