Energy Armor - the Psi Conundrum

[Frosticus]

A lot of the armor sets have a weakness to Psi damage. 

But after you have scraped the bottom of the barrel and think it can't get any worse EA emerges.

 

EA - all psi attacks hit because it has no positional def and no psi def. Full psi damage is taken because it has no psi resistance. No +hp and only a weak heal on a long timer. It's only source of psi protection comes from energy drain and hide, so you may as well be naked. 

 

A LOT of players pretend this isn't an issue. 

When I asked on discord I got feedback about players getting through entire missions on elusive mind (60 sec of 7.5% psi res, 25% psi def, 600 sec recharge) or Rune of Protection (60 sec of 25% psi res, down for 120 sec), or Barrier (gives about 30 sec of great psi protection and 90 sec of being a pinata)

 

That all sounds great, but at the lowest point in this video I have 33% psi def and 25% psi res. You can see how that goes (Mother kills me in less than 10 seconds) so the above advice is definitely "ymmv". Like it or not, you are probably eating a steady diet of inspirations in psi heavy content.

 

Anyway, this is an overload build going pretty smoothly through +4x8 Seer Psi Mobs and also lvl 54 Malaise and lvl 54 Mother Mayhem.

In other words - a LOT of psi damage. I go through quite a few overload crashes. It is pretty easily mitigated by unleash potential, melee hybrid (zero end so doesn't detoggle) and ageless radial (zero end cost to activate after the crash). 

 

As always: no insp/temps/amps/lore pets. 

 

edit: I forgot to disable temps, so there are some mayhem buffs up. Sorry.

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Frosticus

[carroto]

3 hours ago, Frosticus said:

A LOT of players pretend this isn't an issue. 

 

This is at times quite frustrating for me.  There are people who love a certain set and if they perceive you to be criticizing it they will go hard into defensive mode to the exclusion of any semblance of reality.  You do you, play what you want, but you don't need to clog up my thread with your looniness.  I get it, you like the set and it can do no wrong and has no flaws in your eyes.  Sorry didn't mean to rant....

 

This seems to happen any time I say I don't like /EA or /Ice because of their gaping holes.  The most common refrain is that they are "easy" to plug with IOs, as if those slots couldn't be put to greatly effective use elsewhere, making a build without those holes that much more powerful...

 

Anyway it's fun to see some of the things you pull off with oddball builds.  I never looked at Overload to notice that it has high psi def.  Seems a bit surprising that it would get that given the reluctance the devs seem to have to granting it to some sets in any form.  It's nice that /EA has some answer, unlike /Ice.  Icy Bastion provides nothing but some regen, which lasts 30 seconds and won't save you in a psi-heavy environment.

 

I don't think I'd enjoy dealing with the Overload crash all the time but like I said, it's fun to see what's possible.

 

As an aside, and i don't mean this as a criticism, but in that other thread you said you fire AS as soon as it's up, but in that video it looks like you're waiting for a full stack of Assassin's Focus.

[Frosticus]

3 hours ago, carroto said:

I don't think I'd enjoy dealing with the Overload crash all the time but like I said, it's fun to see what's possible.

 

As an aside, and i don't mean this as a criticism, but in that other thread you said you fire AS as soon as it's up, but in that video it looks like you're waiting for a full stack of Assassin's Focus.

It is pretty easy to get thru. Just click unleash and melee core before it goes down. You will be fairly well protected

 

You are right about AS and I should have added a caveat. Fast ET has better dpa unless AS crits, so fast ET is priority on this build and ET recharges so fast. It is a bit more black and white on most other stalkers where the heavy hitter takes longer to cycle.

 

Other than that I will sometimes squeeze in bonesmasher before AS if I'm confident that both attacks were going to happen either way. I dont have the hide proc in AS on this build, or I might reverse that again haha.

 

Sometimes my brain turns off too and everything I planned for an encounter goes out the window and I start using total focus before placate, or buildup before placate haha. Doubly so if my health is in the red!

Edited October 13, 2023 by Frosticus

[Without_Pause]

This is the only mission I had to turn down soloing pre-level 50 on my EA Brute. I had very little issue with +2/x8 on the arc up to that point. A normal amount of Psy attacks is fine. It's stuff like this mission which overwhelms EA and other builds. 

[Frosticus]

11 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

This is the only mission I had to turn down soloing pre-level 50 on my EA Brute. I had very little issue with +2/x8 on the arc up to that point. A normal amount of Psy attacks is fine. It's stuff like this mission which overwhelms EA and other builds. 

Ya EA is pretty naked vs Psi and those seers don't seem to get knocked much, or want to come close to get pummelled.

You should run it again post 50. It is nice going back and beating on things that were troublesome earlier.

[SwitchFade]

Good show innoculating against the argument that it's not an issue! However, I'll still bring it up...

 

It's only an issue if you fight Psi all alone at max difficulty. Considering EA can do exactly that to EVERYTHING else ..

 

EA is so potent in all otherr areas that this is it's balance, and that's ok. So, I don't think people are pretending it's not an issue, we see it and accept it because of how OP EA is in all other areas. All my stalkers are EA and I can do absolutely absurd things with them.

 

EA is just fine as is, I vote.

Edited October 13, 2023 by SwitchFade

[Frosticus]

Hey I get it. I like /EA, that's why I'm showcasing it. If I'm anything, I'm objective about the strengths and weaknesses of the builds/combos I'm playing no matter how much I enjoy them.

Honestly, there is little in this game that can't be countered by teaming and/or lowering the difficulty, but that doesn't feel very super to me most of the time. I like teaming for big stuff, but by and large I don't love it in this game since the proliferation of incarnates and rare IO's, but that is a different converstation.

 

/EA has 3 primary weaknesses. Psi, Toxic, and significant def debuffs.

How you overcome them, or if you even do, is going to be up to each player.

 

All I've been showing with the last couple posts for my /ea stalker is:

1. The advantages of placate - which is still often auto-skipped without consideration

2. How to incorporate the best t9 in the game in to your build and the advantages and disadvantages of doing so.

 

/EA crushes run of the mill content, how it handles more obscure stuff is my interest.

 

Next up I'll be demonstrating /EA vs mobs with significant tohit buffs, which is really going to highlight #1 & #2.

Most def builds get a bit squirrely in that situation. If that is something your build can already handle, then hopefully you get some entertainment value at the very least. 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Since the changes to defense I too have found my EA dying quite easily to non-council foes. 

I think my mistake was pairing it with psi melee, so many endgame foes resist is a lot &

many endgame foes either debuff or have esoteric damage that I cannot resist.

which equates to me doing very little damage to them while they do loads to me.

on the plus side EA sure looks nice

 

[SwitchFade]

2 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

Since the changes to defense I too have found my EA dying quite easily to non-council foes. 

I think my mistake was pairing it with psi melee, so many endgame foes resist is a lot &

many endgame foes either debuff or have esoteric damage that I cannot resist.

which equates to me doing very little damage to them while they do loads to me.

on the plus side EA sure looks nice

 

Uh, EA can hit 55+% to s/l/e/n/f/c so the only holes is psi and toxic.

 

The s/l def change didn't affect EA, it plays exactly the same, unless you relied on s/l, which is not what EA is. if you min/max EA on a stalker that means out of hide you hit the def noted above, 55+% easily.

 

I still face tank all the same MOBs I did before.

[Frosticus]

You 'might' see a tiny difference against mobs that use dark melee like vampires...maybe

Or Nictus Romulus for his melee attacks

 

A lot of posted EA builds fall a bit short on neg energy def and the above changes mean attacks like smite/shadowpunch/shadowmaul, or Nictus Romulus' melee attacks, only check negative/melee now.

 

But I definitely agree that EA still excels where it excels and has the same struggles it had before. 

 

 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

I really really wanted EA to work, so I tried a respec and lo and behold discovered the problem.

 

Disrupt. A unique power that only stalkers get with EA which works very similarly to Oppressive Gloom (Dark Armor set)

Once I took this ability I stopped faceplanting constantly

Anyone know why stalkers get this unique skill for EA that no other AT gets? 

I know that some stalker abilities are modified but this is a totally unique power specifically for the stalkers EA. 

gonna try the placate thing on my next stalker.

[Without_Pause]

I never took it on my EA Stalker, but then I've never been faceplanting constantly on any EA I have run. I can casually solo +3/x8 on a couple of my /EA builds which I have tried to do so. Sure, some maps will give it fits, but those are few and far in-between, and pretty much any armor is going to have its Achilles heel. 

[Frosticus]

4 hours ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

I really really wanted EA to work, so I tried a respec and lo and behold discovered the problem.

 

Disrupt. A unique power that only stalkers get with EA which works very similarly to Oppressive Gloom (Dark Armor set)

Once I took this ability I stopped faceplanting constantly

Anyone know why stalkers get this unique skill for EA that no other AT gets? 

I know that some stalker abilities are modified but this is a totally unique power specifically for the stalkers EA. 

gonna try the placate thing on my next stalker.

 

I had eyeballed fault+disrupt on a penciled out stone/ea stalker. Add in placate and that is a lot of control. Maybe enough to get you through some more difficult encounters.

I tried it on my em/ea, but tbh it didn't seem to affect very many targets. Not enough to allow me to work through the type of mobs that were giving me issues. IMO /ea is so good against your average enemy that it doesn't benefit a great deal from disrupt and disrupt isn't enough for the mobs that /ea struggles against. Leveling may be a different story of course and I could see it being valuable there.

 

For me the only solution came from the t9, now I can sail through psi mobs, nems, DE, romans, etc. Rularuu can still give me fits if there are a lot of specific bosses, so I have to approach them a bit more carefully. I can't think of a mob type that I worry about now, even less so if I remember I have an inspiration tray. 

[Saiyajinzoningen]

@Frosticus

 

Works Great, especially paired with EM. stuns galore