I’m not the expert but pure evasion is meant to be unworkable.

I believe the tier list is

1. ES EV
2. AR ES
3. AR EV

And not really anyone doing a single source of protection, they’re all adding 80% block or huge life or 90% resistance or…

In my experience as a casual player Armour and evasion feel good when mapping, but Armour is pretty useless against big monster or boss hits

Pure evasion life build only works with Bulwork in my experience so that if there’s a big slam from a boss you can mitigate 30% and survive the hit, otherwise Sorcery Ward in Witch Hunter also help depending on your ascendancy but Gemling (max res) and tactician (200% armour value = Very good with BlackBraid) have their own way to deal with elemental damage also

I have tanked t4 Xesht slams and spells as a crossbow tactician. Need to for sure get scavenge plating and use abilities that break armor. Use gas grenade to shred armor and then can use another grenade to consume the armor break or just extend the duration on scavenge plating.

With armour and evasion you still need high base HP pull in general. Basically at least 100hp on most of your gear to push to at least 2.5k ~3k HP. Contrary to what other people say, armour is decent in mapping and small hit in general, but useless against big hit hence require higher base HP.

If you going full evasion Hyrri’s Ire is actually really good. It basically gives you a Acrobatics keystone with cooldown, good for bossing especially those big hits from pinnacle boss. Not so much for small hit. But if you fully spec into evasion you should be able to get >80% evade chance, those small hit shouldn’t matter that much anymore. You can get a cheap From Nothing jewel that range from Acrobatics to get Enhanced Reflexes notable and all the evasion node near that.

Edit: Typo

I’m feeling pretty darn tanky with like 13k armor, 20% armor applies to fire/cold/lightning, 78ish max resists, and 3500 life. I took the node that converts what little evasion i have to armor.

Pure evasion needs another buffer mechanic but whatever that is isn’t actually present in poe2 yet. You only really have two options. One, fractional mind over matter, and stacking mana - or two, converting incoming damage and then stacking resists. Both options complicate itemization a bit too much to really be “good”

But also armor isn’t particularly great in poe2.

im running armour evasion and sorcery ward on my witch hunter right now and feel pretty damn tanky, only 2k hp right now too