Hello, everyone. Today we’ll be going over some defensive layers that are very strong in Path of Exile. The first thing I want to mention is that these are only core components of a defensive layer strategy should be used in conjunction with other defensive layers to achieve a Powerhouse of mitigation.

Recharging POE 3.24 Currency in the game can make defensive components more powerful.

Now let’s go over the basic defensive components.

First, that are the strongest,in my opinion. And after we’ll look at some items and some defensive setups.

Spell Suppression

Spell Suppression is a core defensive layer because if we achieve 100% Suppression. We effectively are taking 50% less Spell damage. This is a common defensive layer, primarily effective when bossing. Because most of the damage dealt by bosses is Spells. 50% Spell prevention is a baseline which is achieved by having 100% Spell Suppression.

But this can be raised by some of the following.

There’s Ascendant Trickster notable. There’s Spellbreaker from the Trickster Ascendency, Inveterate and Spell Suppression Mastery. There are other ways but these were the ones that I found were the most impactful and accessible.

Armor

The number two is Armor. Armor is more effective when mitigating multiple small hits rather than one big hit. Ideally, though, you want 90% physical damage reduction from Armor which is the maximum. However, this mod doesn’t include things like Endurance charges giving you additional physical damage reduction and also the mod on a chest piece.

An Armor becomes more effective when physical damage is converted to an element. Because essentially you’re taking less physical damage. As a side note, if you’re a new player, Armor is extremely important in the campaign. Since there are many enemies that do physical damage, including big bad Kitava.

Physical Damage Taken As

Either an element or chaos damage is one of the best physical damage mitigation components in the entire game. Aside from additional physical damage reduction, both of these, though, can be used together as well to get a lot of mitigation. And it’s very strong because as stated previously. This makes your Armor way stronger.

There are many items that can achieve this feat: Helmet, Chest piece, a Vaal on a shield, Passive Tree, a Taste of Hate, Dawnbreaker Lightning Coil, Cloak of Flame and Lethal Pride.

There are others, but these are just the most common. Now keep in mind that the more physical damage you have taken around 75% plus as an element, the less you’re going to rely on Armor and more on maximum Elemental resistances to mitigate the incoming converted damage. An Ascendency that really shines with converting all physical damage to an element is Chieftain since we get 90% all maximum resistances.

Another Ascendency that’s a good example of physical damage taken as, is a Trickster or an Occultist. So typically you go to Chaos Inoculation with these Ascendancies. And what you want to do is get physical damage taken as chaos damage on either a Corruption for your shield or your Helmet. And basically what happens is you void that damage, you don’t have to take it at all because with chaos inoculation we are immune to chaos damage.

Maximum Elemental Resistances

Maximum Elemental Resistances are capped at 75% traditionally in Path of Exile. However, there are many sources in the game now. To raise those base values, any build can strive for 80% resistances comfortably and with the new flask changes in 3.24. It’s much more accessible. All Elemental flasks now have 5% to their respective maximum resistance and this can be scaled by a percentage increased flask effect.

Using all these flasks is not a good way but you can use them respectively for encounters with each Element. Like Searing Exarch for Ruby, Shaper for Sapphire and Eater of Worlds for Topaz.

Flasks

Having the correct flasks for your build with the right modifiers is one of the most core defensive layers in Path of Exile. This is evident in the use of the Mageblood, unique that almost all top end builds will use.

For example, if you play a creep-based build, you may want to opt for the mod percent chance to gain a flask charge when you deal a Critical Strike. And if you get hit frequently, you can opt for the gain number of charges when you’re hit by an enemy mod. These are just some ways to help sustain those flasks and make sure you don’t run out of charges.

Fourth Vow + Glorious Vanity

So now that we’ve covered some defensive components. Let’s look at items that synergize well with each other. The first defensive setup is Fourth Vow and Glorious Vanity Jewel. Glorious Vanity needs to be under the influence of Xibaqua to change any Keystone on the passive Tree in its proximity to Divine flesh. The Fourth Vow is a fairly new unique in Path of Exile as of Sanctum League.

It has a modifier which applies 100% of your Armor to chaos damage taken as from hits. Now notice how I said 100%. I’m using this in reference to the unbreakable modifier from Juggernaut Ascendency. That states only 8% of Armor is used against Elemental hits. This is insane because we can apply 100% of Armor instead of 8%. Juggernaut is already noticeably tanky with the unbreakable node.

So Fourth Vow is basically unbreakable, but better. We then use Divine Flesh to convert half of our Elemental damage to chaos damage and give us 80% total chaos resistance as a baseline. We can increase this further with items like Saffell’s frame or the small Cluster Jewel for chaos resistance with the born of chaos notable. Multiple of these can be used to try to achieve 90% chaos resistance.

If you want, normally though, Fourth Vaal is used against 80% chaos resistance for a considerable tanky boost. Another thing that Fourth Vaal really excels in is Elemental penetration. Shifting Elemental damage works very well against this.

An example would be Shaper boss. The idea here is that 50% of Elemental damage is shifted to chaos and that damage cannot be penetrated. Effectively reducing the amount of penetration damage we take by 50%.

Incandescent Heart + Glorious Vanity

It’s the Incandescent heart and Divine Flesh combination. The interaction we’re looking for is the extra 25% Elemental damage converted to chaos damage from chest piece. This is additive with Divine Flesh, providing us a total of 75% Elemental damage converted to chaos damage. Incandescent Heart can be used with Armor and energy Shield Mastery to provide 10% of Armor applies to chaos damage taken as from hits.

To further help with mitigation, this setup is more reliant on maximum chaos resistance being higher than Fourth Vaal setup. And this setup works better for Elemental penetration.

Eternal Damnation + Loreweave

The last combination I want to talk about is Eternal Damnation Amulet with Loreweave body Armor. Personally, I think just using Eternal Damnation by itself is an impressive defensive layer since getting back to 75% maximum resistance is not that hard. Loreweave states that your Elemental resistances are 76 to 78% overriding the negative downside to Eternal Damnation.

This means that we have heightened resistances instead of the 70% new baseline that would be provided by using Eternal Damnation. This combination was very popular during Sanctum League when Eternal Damnation was introduced.

Transcendence Keystone

Lastly, another component that can be added into the setup is Transcendence Keystone. That’s provided by a Militant Faith Jewel under the influence of Max Auras. Transcendence has minus 15 to all maximum resistances which can be overridden by Loreweaves effect. Another key component of transcendence is that physical damage is no longer mitigated by Armor.

It is instead mitigated towards Elemental damage. In order to use Transcendence you will need many sources of physical damage taken as. It’s very common for this setup to use a Lightning Coil or a Dawnbreaker. Another interaction with Transcendence is you can use Endurance charges to make up the loss of physical damage reduction. This is an example where I mentioned before that using physical damage taken as an additional physical damage reduction work really well together.

Aegis Aurora

There’s one honorable mention that I would like to talk about. And that is Aegis Aurora Shield. The interaction we’re interested in is recover energy Shield equal to 2% of your Armor when you block. The plus 5 to maximum Cold Resistance is also a really good mod.

The cap on the block is 75% but with investment can reach 90%. This can also be used in conjunction with Transcendence and enough physical damage taken as to provide a massive amount of mitigation and recovery.

You can also combine this with 20 life gained on block through the Block Mastery for even more recovery. Even without pushing for 90% block chance, this is still a considerable amount of mitigation and recovery if you have 75% block chance for both attack and Spells.

I hope you learned something. That’s all my suggestions.