Path of Exile is a free-to-play action role-playing game developed and published by Grinding Gear Games. The game takes place in a dark and gritty fantasy world, where players take on the role of exiles who must fight to survive against various dangerous enemies and creatures.
And having a good defense is only the key to survival in the Path of Exile. It's essential to have a solid defense strategy, which greatly impacts your overall gameplay experience and plays a vital role in conquering all levels of the game. This guide will discuss how you can get the best defense against your foes.
The Importance of Defense in Path of Exile
Defense is an essential aspect of Path of Exile gameplay; how long you live in the game depends upon your defense. Unlike some other action RPGs, simply stacking damage and losing your guard will not work in PoE.
A good defense setup will help keep you alive against the many threats you'll face in Path of Exile, whether hordes of monsters or powerful bosses. A strong defense also enables you to stay in combat longer, dealing more damage in the long run.
Getting A Solid Defense
Having a solid defense requires a combination of various factors, such as maximizing your health pool, acquiring resistance against elemental damage types, and choosing the right base defenses for your character. Additionally, you can use several active and passive defense skills to avoid or mitigate incoming damage.
Building a good defense doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing damage output, as a balance between offense and defense is key to success. You must understand how various defenses can emphasize a change in your play style.
A solid defense is very important in Path of Exile and the only key to survival. A good defense setup can create a huge difference between victory and defeat, especially if you are on higher levels.
Understand The Basics of Life and Death in PoE
If you want to survive in the Path of Exile, you should follow these basic terms of the game.
Health Pool
The health pool is the total amount of life your character has. This represents the amount of damage you can take before dying. Your health pool can be increased through various means. Such as investing in life nodes on the passive skill tree, using gear with life bonuses, and utilizing certain ascendancy classes, unique items, flasks, and keystones that offer life bonuses or regeneration.
You can slightly increase your life in a few ways,
● +12 Life per Character Level
● Increased Life" modifiers on your passive tree
● +5 Life per 10 Strength
● +Maximum Life" modifiers on your gear
Resistances
Resistances are a strong component of a character's defense that protects the player from taking elemental damage. There are 3 types of elemental damage in the PoE, fire, cold, and lightning. Resistances are numerical values representing how much incoming elemental damage is reduced by a percentage.
A resistance of 75% means that incoming elemental damage of that type is reduced by 75%, effectively taking only 25% of the incoming damage. If a character has a negative resistance, they will take increased damage from that elemental damage.
Ailments
Ailments are adverse status effects that can be inflicted on characters and enemies in many different ways. These ailments can make it more challenging to fight or move and can be a significant obstacle to progress in the game.
There are five primary ailments in Path of Exile:
● Ignite: Ignite inflicts fire damage over time, which can be particularly dangerous if the character cannot move quickly or deal with fire damage.
● Chill: Chill slows down movement speed and attack speed, making it harder to avoid enemy attacks or deal damage.
● Freeze: Freeze is a more extreme version of Chill that completely immobilizes the character. This can be very dangerous if enemies are nearby.
● Shock: Shock increases the amount of damage the character takes, making it easier for enemies to deal damage.
● Poison: Poison inflicts chaos damage over time, which can be particularly dangerous if the character does not have a way to remove the effect quickly.
Understanding Life: How to Maximize Your Health Pool
Life is a vital component of your defense in Path of Exile. Maximizing your health pool can greatly increase your survivability and help you withstand the toughest encounters. Here are some tips on how to optimize your life pool
1. Invest in Life Nodes on the Passive Skill Tree
Life nodes are an important investment in Path of Exile as they increase the amount of maximum life that a character has, which in turn increases survivability. Investing in life nodes is highly recommended for all builds, as it provides a solid foundation for character survivability.
2. Use Life-Boosting Gear
Your gear can significantly impact your life pool. Look for items with life bonuses, and prioritize those with high maximum life rolls. Consider using gear with +% maximum life modifiers to increase your health pool further.
3. Choose Your Ascendancy Wisely
Ascendancy classes offer unique passive skills that can enhance your character's strengths. Some classes, like the Juggernaut, offer increased life regeneration or maximum life bonuses to help you survive.
4. Utilize Flasks
Flasks are an essential component of survival in Path of Exile. Life flasks can instantly heal a portion of your life pool. Unique flasks like the Divine Life Flask or the Eternal Life Flask can provide significant life recovery.
5. Consider Keystones
Certain keystones can significantly enhance your life pool. For example, the Mind Over Matter keystone causes a portion of damage taken to be subtracted from your mana pool instead of your life pool, effectively increasing your total health pool.
Conclusion
In this guide, we have discussed how you can maximize your health pool to survive the different monster waves in the game. Increasing health and maintaining it in PoE is not easy. So we have given you a straightforward guide. You can go through the article to learn more about it.