Let's start by talking about the Eternal Damnation Agate amulet which drops from the floor 4 Sanctum boss (Lvl 80+) and can be acquired once you have a sanctum farming build (e.g EA or SRS).

Eternal DamnationRequires Level 52+(16–24) to Strength and Intelligence+(40–70) to maximum Mana(-13–13)% to Chaos Resistance**-5% to all maximum ResistancesGain additional Elemental Damage Reduction equal to half your Chaos Resistance**

-5% to all maximum resistances is a terrible modifier, but as most of have already figured out, it can be ignored using the unique body armour Loreweave which sets maximum resistances to 78% or by raising maximum resistances e.g. Brass dome. Loreweave is easily crafted by vendoring 60 unique rings and has a good mix of stats (life, mana, ES, armour, elemental damage, physical damage to attacks, attributes, rarity and crit chance).

Gain additional Elemental Damage Reduction equal to half your Chaos Resistance is one of the only sources of elemental damage reduction in the game and the only source of elemental damage reduction that applies to damage over time. As far as we know, elemental damage reduction behaves identically to physical damage reduction, in that it lessens elemental damage taken up to a cap of 90%, although 45 (90% chaos resistance) is the most you can achieve with Eternal damnation alone . If you're using a Loreweave (78% max res) you're getting 39% extra elemental damage reduction, which is equivalent to 86.5% max elemental resistance, increasing your effective hp against elemental damage by 1.63x. This is worthwhile on all classes as a cheaper alternative to stacking maximum elemental resistances, but on Juggernaut it is especially good due to having another source of elemental damage reduction (Unbreakable) which stacks additively.

Other sources of elemental damage reduction:

There are only two other sources of elemental damage reduction: The Timeless jewel keystone Transcendence and the Juggernaut Ascendancy notable Unbreakable. In the same way armour is converted into physical damage reduction, with Unbreakable/Transcendence armour is converted into elemental damage reduction based on the damage of the incoming hit (after resistances), which is additive with other sources of elemental damage reduction. With sufficient armour, elemental damage reduction can reach 90%, but this usually only happens for very small hits or in armour stacking builds. Transcendence comes with a lot of complications which I discuss in another section below, but since this guide is about Juggernaut I will focus mostly on the Unbreakable notable hereon.

Why is Eternal Damnation so good on Juggernaut? We've established that with a Loreweave and capped resistances, Eternal damnation increases eHP against elemental damage by 1.63x, but with Unbreakable it's more complicated. I have graphed the effective hp multiplier vs elemental hit damage for different armour levels with unbreakable and loreweave below:

UB = Unbreakable, EHP = Effective Hitpoints. Lines represent different armour values, 0 armour/No unbreakable (black), unbreakable with 25k armour (orange), unbreakable with 50k armour (green), unbreakable with 100k armour (blue). Effective HP multiplier is how many times larger your effective hitpool is against hits of that amount.

Key points from graph:

1. For small elemental hits (<1k), the 90% cap is reached with Unbreakable so there is little to no benefit from Eternal damnation ~1x .
2. In the best case scenario, when the elemental damage reduction from unbreakable is exactly 51% (51 + 39% = 90%), eHP is increased by as much 4.90x, represented by peaks in the graph.
3. As damage tends toward infinity, the effective hp multiplier will tend toward 1.63x, or an elemental damage reduction of 39%. Meaning Eternal damnation is no worse for Unbreakable builds even for very high damage hits (e.g. boss nukes).

In other words, except for very small hits, Eternal damnation is as good or better with unbreakable than without and can provide as much as 4.9x as much EHP for the best case scenario.

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So what is the optimal amount of Armour with Unbreakable?

Firstly we need a reference for damage we'd like to mitigate fully. While it would be nice to have 90% reduction against a double god-touched molten minotaur slam or an uber boss slam, it's either too rare to expect or easily avoidable. Instead I'll use non-slam effects within non-uber pinnacle boss fights as a reference as these are common enough, can potentially hit multiple times and do more damage than you would expect in regular T16 mapping:

|Eater of Worlds|Disintegrate Beam|Deals 6171 to 18513 Lightning Damage| |:-|:-|:-| |Eater of Worlds|Tentacle Slam|75% of Physical Damage Converted to Lightning DamageDeals 100% more Attack Damage Base Damage: 5849| |Searing Exarch|Fire Wall|Deals 7571 to 11356 Fire Damage| |Searing Exarch|Moving Flame Wall|Deals 8755 to 13133 Fire Damage| |Searing Exarch|Boss dash Slam|Deals 50% more Attack Damage50% of Physical Damage Converted to Fire Damage Base Damage: 5069| |Elder|Doom Projectile|Deals 5266 to 7899 Cold Damage| |Elder|Doom Projectile Spell|Deals 7914 to 11871 Cold Damage| |Shaper|Accelerating Projectiles|Deals 5984 to 8976 Cold Damage Penetrates 40% Cold Resistance| |Shaper|Bullet hell|Deals 5984 to 8976 Cold Damage Penetrates 25% Cold Resistance| |Maven|Maven Projectile|Deals 3086 to 9257 Lightning Damage| |Maven|Super Fire Projectile|Deals 13165 to 19747 Fire Damage Penetrates 30% Fire Resistance| |Maven|Cannon Cold Projectile|Deals 3949 to 5924 Cold Damage Penetrates 15% Cold Resistance|

*Taken from POEDB, I didn't include Sirius as the mixed conversion and low damage per hits makes it very easy to get 90% reduction on all but mazeblast. I also included a few that could be considered "slams" but don't fit the technical definition.

Almost all repeatable damage falls within the 5-13k damage range, with the few exceptions being one-offs like the Super fire projectile from maven and disintegrate beam from EoW or penetration skills which are less dangerous for loreweave builds. If we assume an average hit of ~9k among repeatable boss mechanics, then the optimal armour value with Unbreakable, Loreweave and Eternal Damnation is approximately 130k.

Now if you don't plan to tank such mechanics your recommended armour value will be lower than this, but to demonstrate how easy this is to achieve on Juggernaut my friend TheTrashking has prepared a lvl 98 HC Sanctum build prepared earlier using Loreweave + Eternal Damnation (see below).

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Why Unflinching is perfect for this build:

I'm not going to make a table for this because there aren't that many pure physical attacks, but almost all physical damage is 5k and lower, even pinnacle boss default attacks are ~5k. If we want to achieve 90% physical damage reduction purely from armour we would need 225k in total which would require a lot of investment. This is where the Juggernaut ascendancy notable Unflinching shines as the most reliable source of endurance charges anywhere. While normally considered underpowered it satisfies two important conditions:

1. Endurance charge sustain as "Gain endurance charges every second if you've been hit recently" is in my opinion the easiest way to sustain endurance charges in boss fights or in mapping without having to use enduring cry.
2. Rapid Endurance charge generation from the 30% endurance charges when hit. Occasionally you'll run out of endurance charges and have to confront a large pack of deadly mobs. Having the ability to generate 5 endurance charges immediately from packs can be a lifesaver if there are powerful rares inside.

While there are other ways of generating endurance charges, none are so reliable as unflinching, and the effect of having ~5 endurance charges is that the 90% physical damage reduction against 5k hits can be achieved with only 58k armour, which requires far less investment.

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Proof of Concept build: Lvl 99 HC Sanctum Explosive Arrow Juggernaut (SSF Viable)

Poe.ninja: https://poe.ninja/challengehc/builds/char/TheTrashKing/PessimisticJuggalo

POB: https://pastebin.com/Ls4dYzgM

~130k Armour with flasks up, 5.3k Life, 6.3 mil DoT DPS, 5 endurance charges

Core Uniques: Devouring Diadem, Loreweave, Eternal Damnation. All three can be target farmed (We've had two Eternal Damnations drop so far from Lycia)

Recommended Uniques: Energised armour for that sweet AR/ES spot near the templar start. Dyadian Dawn for DPS or Immortal flesh for more defences. Polaric Devastation is a nice dps boost but not necessary as is rain of splinters. It's basically the same as EA champ but stacking armour as the primary defensive mechanic.

Defences: with flasks and endurance charges up, 97.8% effective maximum resistance against all elemental hits below 9k (before resistances). 90% physical reduction against all physical hits below 11.4k. 86.5% maximum resistances against elemental DoT and 792 regen.

Pantheons:Major: Lunaris, but you can choose whatever

Minor: Definitely Ralakesh, main weakness of this build is Physical DoT.

Mods to avoid: Above all avoid Overwhelm physical damage reduction as this is your primary defensive mechanic, also avoid anything that reduces your armour.

Build mechanics: It's basically the same as EA champion but much tankier for mapping. I would recommend watching one of Zizaran's many EA builds as he was the main inspiration for going this skill.

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Build Template (if you want to go another skill):

EA is probably the best fit for this league, but the defences require low enough investment that there are a lot of different builds you can go. If you intend to go juggernaut with a different skill here are my recommendations:

Mandatory:

Loreweave, Eternal Damnation with capped res (must cap chaos res)

&gt;50k Armour, preferably >100k with pots up, this isn't that hard with Grace+ Determination and iron reflexes.

Unbreakable and Unflinching from the Juggernaut Ascendancy

Strongly recommend:

Energised armour as it's the most efficient way to get armour on the passive skill tree

Devouring Diadem as you can easily run a 50% aura divine blessing and use mana expensive skills, especially with the mastery "Increases and reductions to armour apply at 20% to ES recharge"

Things you do not need:SPELL SUPPRESSION. I am tired of seeing spell suppression on juggernauts when they could be running loreweave or Brass dome. Spell suppression is good on AR+EV classes like champion because their defences against spells are lacking. Juggernaut is the opposite, most spells are elemental and your effective resistance to most elemental hits is 97.8%. You should be far more concerned with physical attacks with overwhelm which is even more dangerous this league (30%). If you want an extra layer of defence go block or evasion, don't go spell suppression unless you're a boss farmer.

Neat trick with Loreweave:

Loreweave is the best body armour is to corrupt because it's easy to craft and you can control the ilvl. Most of the +1-2 modifiers are between ilvl 25 and 44, with a ~1/10 chance of getting a +1 or +2 for most builds.

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Timeless Jewels:

Divine flesh. I see a lot of people touting the Divine flesh + Eternal Damnation combo. This is a terrible idea for two reasons

1. Eternal damnation has -5% maximum chaos resistance included in it, the most important stat for Divine flesh builds
2. Even if you somehow get to 90% max chaos resistance, you're getting 45% elemental damage reduction instead of the 39% reduction you have with loreweave, and it only applies to half your elemental damage.

Transcendence: Let me be clear, you can make the tankiest build in the game with Eternal damnation, loreweave and Transcendence, but it also requires a LOT of investment:

1. With Armour no longer applying physical damage, you will need to either go the Physical to elemental conversion path with Chieftain/Pathfinder or the physical damage reduction stacking path with Juggernaut or Elementalist. For the former you'll need a dawnbreaker, which precludes 2H weapon builds, a 2 implicit watcher's a 16-18% helm and a constantly taste of hate. For the latter you'll need ~10 endurance charges and 3 grand spectrums for 9 minimum endurance charges in HC because magic mobs can roll "remove all charges". You'll need a synthesis or kaom's ring, investment in warcry duration and cooldown recovery and corrupted boots and all the endurance charge nodes on the tree.
2. With this combo and 100k armour you can tank any boss nuke without molten shell, but because of the 90% cap your defences are almost identical in regular mapping. If you don't want to tank boss nukes it's much easier to go juggernaut.

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Conclusion:

I firmly believe that Eternal Damnation + Loreweave on Juggernaut is the most efficient defensive template in the game and far superior to Champion for regular mapping. The core items are farmable in SSF and can be used for a variety of builds from EA to RF, to poison SRS. No Spell suppression required either!

Thanks to TheTrashking for running the build and getting to 99 in HC. Feel free to use this content in any form of media you'd like