Understanding the Power of Salon Shield in Gaming

The shield offers powerful block advantages but requires additional defense layers to ensure survival.

### Understanding the Power of the "Saloon" Shield in Path of Exile
* 🛡️  The "Saloon" shield is gaining popularity in Path of Exile for its tankiness, but its true strength lies in **block chance and life gain on block**.
* 📊  The shield's unique modifier "**Chance to Block is Lucky**" effectively doubles block chance and picks the higher number, resulting in **high block values** (up to **85% for attacks** and **75% for spells**).
* ⚔️  It triggers a socketed elemental spell on block with a **25-second cooldown**, allowing for various defensive or offensive spell setups like **Molten Shell, Sigil of Power, and Flame Wall**.
* 💭  The shield should be viewed as an **avoidance layer**, not a **mitigation layer**, and needs to be combined with other defensive mechanisms like **armor, resistance, and recovery**.
* 🩹  Life gain on block is a key mechanic, with the shield itself providing **50 flat life gain on block**, and additional sources like passive skills and unique items can further boost this (e.g., **Anvil, Yoke of Suffering**).
* 🛡️  Combining the shield with the Soul of the Brine King Pantheon prevents stun lock situations, a common issue for **block-based characters**.
* 💥  The shield's limitations include **inability to block damage over time effects and certain boss attacks**, so it's not a **one-stop solution for all types of incoming damage**.
* 🎯  The shield is particularly effective for mapping and general content, but may struggle in endgame boss fights with **heavy damage over time mechanics**.

how's it everyone this is local and in today's video. I'm going to be talking about the shield that is all the rage. You're probably watching this wondering how. Why am I not dying? How is this build so tanky? It's a warden. It's supposed to die. Well, I'm going to be going over that in today's video, talking about of course Salon. This Shield is what a lot of people have been using to get tanky. However, I think there is a part of it that is slightly misunderstood by a lot of people because they don't really think of it the right way. If you look in any po that's using Salon, often what you'll see is an ehp that's sitting around 500,000, even pushing up to a million or 2 million. But this isn't truly representative of what this Shield does. So let's just look at the shield and why it's so good. So firstly, the line in question, chance to block is lucky. This PS your block chance twice and picks the

highest number. So, essentially, it just gives you a massive, massive increase to your block chance. There is a formula for this, but the easy way to do it is just put it in your PO, and that does the formula. So, on my build, I believe we're sitting at about 85% chance to block and 75% chance to block spell damage, and that turns into what you are seeing here. Now, another layer of this is the line at the bottom: trigger a socketed Elemental spell on block with a 25-second cooldown. Now, with that, we can use all sorts of gems. It depends on your build. Later on in the video, I will go over some of the various gems that we can talk about. For mine, I've been using flame wall, sigil power, and molten shell. So, these three, whenever I block (which is constantly), are getting procced. So, I always have my molten shell up, always getting my sigil power procs, always getting my flame wall. Like I said, there's other ones you can use, but these are the ones I've found are best for the

time being. So, how do you avoid getting baited by this Shield? The first thing you need to do is change your mindset. Right block needs to be thought of as an avoidance layer, not as a mitigation layer. An avoidance layer, similar to evasion. If you have a build that purely relies on evasion, eventually entropy catches up to you and an attack slips through and hits you. And if you don't have the mitigation, the armor to absorb that hit, well, you're just going to die. So, this is something that needs to be put in conjunction with other layers of Defense. If you just use this, then something will slip through and kill you eventually. Another thing to remember is that not everything can be blocked. Spells. Some spells can be blocked. A lot of attacks and hits can be blocked. However, things like damage over time cannot be blocked. There's also some boss attacks that cannot be blocked. Things like the Exar, the one where he does the big Slam at the end of his bold phase. Same with Exar where he charges up and then explodes. There's

some things that cannot be blocked. So, this isn't pure immortality. If you are not equipped to handle damage over time, this will not save you. If you do not have other mitigation layers in the form of, let's say, armor or Fizz taken as or Max res, well then again, you're not going to survive. This is just one piece; however, it is an incredibly powerful piece of avoidance. Now, another thing that is really strong with salon and the massive chance is life gain on block, flat life gained on block. And this is where you're seeing my life pool, even when I do get blocked and take damage, my life keeps shooting back up. Well, that is coming from various mods. So, firstly, I'm using the Anvil. Later on, I will be using Yoke of Suffering. But this has increased chance of block. It also has 48 life gain when you block. This is a top roll. So, every time I block, I'm getting 48 life. However, I've also anointed Testudo, which is a thing on the tree down here over

here to studo, which grants us recover 30 life when you block. So, that's 78 life when I block. And then there's also one with the shield, recover 50 life when you block. So, every time I block, I'm gaining well over 100 life, and I'm blocking constantly. So, testudo, really, really good with this, as well as other forms of life gain on block. Now, another important thing to remember if you are going to go with soul of the Brian King, pretty important because of the Top Line. You cannot be stunned if you've been stunned or blocked a stunning hit in the past 2 seconds. So, blocks, sometimes you do get a free Block, but if you take a hit that would have stunned you, but you block it, you do have a block recovery animation. So, this is an easy way to prevent ever getting into that block recovery animation. Another way you can do it is just be immune to stuns. However, you can also just have a very high block recovery or stun recovery modifier. You can do this. There are some tattoos that

give you increased stun and block recovery. Also, tudo gives us increased block recovery, but a very simple way is to just go with the soul of the BR King. That way, you're not going to get Block locked, but we can just keep running through this map, and fortunately, there's nothing doing massive damage over time, so we are fine for now. So, in terms of my mitigation layer, the thing that is behind this, you need to, I think, Rage Fire had a good analogy where he said you need to think of your defenses as like an onion, and each layer is a layer that gets peeled off. So, our initial layer is this block layer. So, most of the time, we're going to be blocking, but then once things get through that layer, I am stacking armor on my build. So, I will do a full update on this build for people who are wondering. I've decided to go with Iron Reflexes, which converts all of our evasion rating to armor. Now, evasion rating is similar to block in that it's an avoidance flare. It

doesn't reduce damage that you do take, but it prevents you from taking certain types of damage entirely. But because we have this powerful avoidance layer with Salon, what we can do is then just instead convert all our evasion to armor, which then beefs up that mitigation layer. You can see we're sitting at about 86,000 armor with our Bolton shell that is just constantly going off because of the shield, and the little flame walls actually managing to kill stuff now for the sake of clarity. Let's run to the boss room, kill the boss, and that boss does have some dots and things that are a bit of a problem. I'm still busy working out how to exactly solve the passive recovery layer. We have plenty of active recovery in the form of block and leech, but passive recovery things like life regeneration I'm currently trying to solve with a life flask. I also do want to go with Sol of AR arakali to avoid some damage over time, but I'm playing a private league, so getting all the things I need is a bit easier said.

than done. Other people have done testing with forbidden flame, forbidden flesh, master surgeon, and then using a life FL to essentially create like a pseudo life recovery where you just spam that life floss constantly. But again, PL, I don't necessarily have access to it, so I've gone with an eternal life loss, which I can kind of just spam constantly. Let me actually just hit stuff so that I can get through. Okay, now you're going to see where the weaknesses of the builds come in. Anytime we encounter some kind of dot, well, you'll see. So you will know. I'm going to try just stand still. Inevitable. All right, now she's got her other phase. I will bathe this world in blood. This is where we might get wrecked. Now you see, 'cause there's these little ground doy things there, as you can see. So there, there, there are holes to Salon. It's not going to. Whenever there's something that cannot be blocked and some kind of damage over time effect, that's really going to hit.

through also remember things like spell suppression are very important. We might as well finish this boss off, but yeah, doesn't make you immortal, but it's certainly a massive avoidance layer that does help quite significantly. Means that you're not going to be dying constantly. I know a lot of people absolutely despise playing squishy builds, me too. I don't mind dying occasionally in SS, well, in softcore, but in, I don't know, dying all the time. Let's see how much we can do by just being lazy and standing still. Will pain, so we're also getting more of a less damage taken from our Sigil of power. Once that reaches four stages, we get, we get, I think, 16% less damage taken. Also with arctic armor, we're getting less damage taken while stationary from hits again, but overall pretty comfy, feeling pretty good. This isn't going to look great on things like uber shaper, Uber Elder, things that have lots of dots, but give it a shot. I'll pop my pop in the description. I'll also link the theory.

crafting guide that I put together for this version of the build, but I will also then produce a finalized version once I've tested everything and put it out. Might take a little bit of time because, again, PL takes a bit of time to get stuff done. Let me know what you think. Have you been using the shield? Are you making sure to pair it with other things? Let me know which gems you are putting in here. There's so many cool things you can put in, like frost bomb, hydrosphere. I think tornado also works. Smite, if you're using other gems, you can go with something like orb of storms. If you're going with oath of spring to really stack up those shocks, so many cool options. Brilliant shield, very overpowered. GG, there's no way this thing lasts up until next League either. That was going to become like a tier zero unique. So yep, hope you enjoyed the video. Have a wonderful day. Catch you in the next one. Bye-bye. Divine power, divine power. It's Ron in Exile. You're making me

Infinite EHP - The Most Broken Item in PoE: Svalinn

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The Shield's unique mechanics provide a massive increase to block chance, with some players achieving up to 85% block chance and 75% for spell damage.

It also triggers socketed elemental spells on block, allowing for continuous procs of skills like molten shell and flame wall.

However, it's important to use the Shield in conjunction with other layers of defense, as not everything can be blocked and some attacks will eventually slip through.

The Power of Block and Life Gain in Survival

Blocking damage is not a foolproof method for immortality, as it requires additional mitigation layers like armor or max res.

Life gain on block is a crucial factor, with various mods providing significant life recovery each time a block occurs.

The Soul of the Brine King offers a unique advantage by preventing stuns after blocking a hit, while high block recovery modifiers can further enhance survival.

The strategy involves using increased stun and block recovery, with the Soul of the BR King as a key element to avoid block lock.

The defense is structured like an onion, with the initial layer being block, followed by stacking armor through Iron Reflexes.

The build aims for a powerful avoidance layer with evasion, converting it to armor for better damage mitigation, while also incorporating active and passive recovery methods.

Building a Life Recovery Strategy in Gaming

The player is experimenting with different life recovery methods, using an eternal life loss to spam healing.

They encounter challenges with damage over time effects and spell suppression, which can be detrimental to squishy builds.

The player's strategy includes using Sigil of Power and Arctic Armor for damage reduction while stationary, aiming for a balance between being lazy and effective in combat.

The guide will be finalized after testing, as the process takes time.

The shield offers various pairing options with gems like frost bomb, hydrosphere, and tornado.

The brilliant shield is considered overpowered and is expected to become a tier zero unique item.