Greetings fellow Exiles,

Over the last two weeks, I noticed quite a few people having trouble building proper defenses on their characters (especially on league start).

Many players were seeking out advice or wanted to switch their build or reroll into a tankier one, due to the league mechanic and the current state of the game. We also got a great influx of new players who play PoE for the first time this league, which are feeling a bit overwhelmed in early maps since PoE is quite brutal and unforgiving compared to other ARGPs on the market.

Also, there is this sentiment going around in the community that you basically "need" either Determination or Grace (or both), a solid amount of armour and/or a form of damage shift to even survive hits and have a comfortable play style without dying multiple times a map.

Well - I don't agree with this sentiment at all. PoE is a very complex game and can be quite overwhelming for newer and even somewhat experienced players, when it comes to certain mechanics. You can build tanky characters on league start with utterly trash gear if you want in this game!

That's why I wanted to discuss and show you something today:

How to build great defensive layering on the Shadow class, without using Determination/Grace, with super cheap gear everyone can afford and get at league start:

I specifically want to focus on the Shadow class this time, since it is sometimes perceived as one of the classes where you can't really make good use of armour and mostly struggle with physical defenses, as well as not being able to build a big life pool, since the class is located in the dex/int part of the tree; it also has no easy access to maximum resist scaling or impactful amounts of regen on the tree (spoilers: you don't need a big life pool, you just need multi-layered mitigation and good recovery)

I wanted to share 3 build templates, for all 3 shadow ascendancies, everyone can just copy 1:1 at league start and have a good time progressing the atlas with flat-out "trash gear" that only costs a couple of chaos at league start in SC trade (and later kill watchstone-bosses with some gear upgrades when you have farmed some currency) - later you just transition out of that to the build you want to play, once you got your basic gear and gems.

Please keep in mind: Those are aimed at inexperienced players who just want to start farming and progressing maps at league start without leveling gear available - those are pure leveling builds in "trash gear", no endgame builds templates - but maybe you want to take a look at the layering and use something for your own build projects in the future

###PoBs:

Saboteur: https://pobb.in/KOmAjE6oacZy

Trickster: https://pobb.in/qJ9HrHEiNJ5F

Assassin: https://pobb.in/vRPqHFbg5zg0

###Defense layering briefly explained:

Mitigation and Avoidance layers:

• Profane Proxy (Enfeeble): A very underrated low budget tech, which not only provides damage reduction but also lowers the enemies' accuracy drastically

• Dread Banner (Generosity): An old tech nobody seems to remember anymore since Defiance Banner got introduced to the game - that said, Dread Banner does more for evasion based characters then defiance banner usually if you do the math

• Arctic Armour: This thing got buffed a few patches ago, almost all builds have to stand still, while they attack an enemy (even if it is for a brief moment) - that is where Arctic armor becomes active and mitigation is needed the most; also, it grants freeze immunity, which is not easily available when you just reach maps

• Aspect of the Crab: Dirt cheap at league start to get with big impact on any evasion based character which does more against infrequent single big hits than a small amount of armour anytime.

• Cast When Damage Taken (Steelskin): Does not protect against oneshots but works great against successive big and medium hits which break through avoidance and recovery layers

• Wind Dancer: Whoever claimed this keystone is trash is out of their mind, sry. One of the most underrated defensive tools on evasion characters. That said, you need to make sure that you have a high chance to evade/avoid attacks, otherwise this keystone can backfire.

• Spell Suppression

• Decent amounts of evasion rating

• Ailment immunity or ways to deal with all common ailments

• Honorable mentions: Mistwall and The Ghastly Theater unique shields both work exceptionally well when paired with proper defensive layering on evasion characters (those are usually not that commonly available in the first few days of a league but get cheap quickly after that if you want to grab one and fit it in)

Recovery layers:

• life regeneration

• life gain on hit/kill/trap trigger

• Ghost Dance

• Life Flasks with independent flask charge recovery

• mana issues solved with lifetap

• *Elevore unique helmet: most underrated unique of the last patches I feel. People go mad on recovery on block shields, but they turn a blind eye to Elevore most of the time. Paired with 100% chance to suppress spell damage, this is an absolute monster which can make your character nearly immune to small successive spell hits

Since this is getting long already, I'll stop here - if there are any questions, I can answer them in the thread.

Maybe this little write-up can help someone out for their next league start, or at least can provoke some thought in the community when it comes to building cheap defenses.

If this content is appreciated and useful, let me know - maybe we can do more of this in the future if there is interest (for example endgame defensive layers, deep delving defensive layers etc.)