Erratic1

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

As my original labor of love character is an SS/Bio Brute, just imagine how much I'm looking forward to the changes. 😳 Right now I am crafting on Test to see about rebuilding him as SS/Willpower.

I could complain that theoretically either choice between Rage and UM should be viable and it looks like Rage is going to be the unwanted sibling by just about everyone, but I was never one to stack Rage and am there mostly for the animations and effects while wanting reasonable damage output. Though I have to admit that as much as I've never wanted to make an SS Tanker, I am wondering just how absurd I could get following the suggestion upthread to overstack Resistance so the crash is meaningless and go for the gusto. Or....Energy Aura! Just like on resistance sets, Tankers get a boost on defense values from their primary (though Entropic Aura does not seem to be boosted in Mid's and City of Data has not been updated to include Energy Aura for Tankers). And a Tanker wants to be in the midst of foes, so keeping Entropic Aura saturated should not be a problem. Toss in some Force Feedbacks in the various KB powers and I am pretty the world of perma-Hasten and double stacked Rage should not be an issue...nor Endurance since you have Energy Drain (though you should be able to swing perma-Energize, which is probably better for not needing to bother juicing up periodically). Yeah, only 50%ish DDR, but things on their butt from your KDs don't get to attack as often.

One scenario where Resistance sets come up ahead and its, "Soooo Unfaaaaaair!!!" while meanwhile most of the time it's the resistance sets being blinded, confused, sapped*, immobilized, etc. One wonders if resistance sets are so great, why the people complaining aren't playing them. *Have to admit, Electrical Armor does laugh at sappers, so there is that at least.

I do read entire posts. I call out what I am responding to by quoting it. DONT ASSSUME EVERYONE POSTS USING YOUR STYLE!

You have made some sort of poor assumption about what people are saying. It can be a significant penalty--depends on where you start. Going from 90% resistance to 70% resistance means you take 200% more damage. Going from 50% to 30% means you take 40% more damage. The same principle applies to Defense reduction. As I have already stated TWICE BEFORE, it depends on where you start. And sure, people can build their def characters with 0% resistance if they want to. I don't do that because resistance is a better deal for defense based characters than defense is for resistance based characters given the frequency of defense debuffs versus resistance debuffs. And many defense sets come with some amount of resistance in the mix, so they are wandering around at 0% resistance. SR gets a scaling resistance buff based on how much life has been lost, which many (if not most) augment with the Reactive Defenses: Scaling Resist Damage IO. As equitable as Resistance sets getting smacked by every status effect which Defense sets shrug off because they don't get hit? Oh, but on this there needs to be equity.

You didn't math right. 1000 damage hit against 90% resistance means you take 100 damage, but against 70% resistance means 300 gets through, and 300 is 200% more than 100. The same principle that applies to defense being reduced applies to resistance being reduced.

And now your resistance is lowered too, making you even less likely to survive.

If you do not get certain benefits without being in a particular form, isn't that giving incentive to swap? I build my SS/Bio Brute around being in Efficient form, but admit I am one of the weird rare people who did not feel stances being there meant swapping all the time.

I did not take the question as rhetorical and tried to answer it from a perspective of how attacks from stealth work. As for not breaking Stealth, that seems silly ala, "OMG! Something just pummeled everyone in the office, leaving broken bones and bruises on everyone! Oh well, back to work."

I think the notion is that attacks from stealth deal critical damage. Obviously, there is nothing written in the fabric of the universe that says there cannot be exceptions, but the question would be why make an exception. I do have one Stalker (that I rarely play at this point) who is EM/Shield, but I do not overly care too much if Shield Charge crits or not. Still, why would it not crit?

Check your Recycle Bin. That is where it sticks the character folder. You can just restore it. Should probably note, it deletes the character folder from wherever it thinks it is, as mine was not stored in the same place as the Mid's files.

So if your defensive set provides an absorption shield, does it need to take a too? Part of the joy of combining primary and secondary sets are the synergies to be had. Apparently we only need one primary and one secondary with a dozen special effects choices...to be fair and balanced.

Meanwhile the resistance set user has been sapped, detogglex, and is dead....or slowed to inability to fight or escape and whittled to death....or blinded as oppose to having the attack miss.

As if most defense sets do not have some level of DDR. Do resistance sets get some level of status protection as a general rule?

Yes, it is like playing a piano organ, requiring both hands and feet to finely manipulate 3 click powers, 2 with default 90 second timers and one with 270 seconds. You'll barely be able to squeeze any other activity in. It is woefully click heavy, unlike Radiation Armor, Fiery Aura, other powersets with more click powers on shorter timers. People act like Bio, which has stances, means stance dancing to a hip-hop beat. One can build around a stance and only change it in particularly challenging circumstances.

I was able to put down Protean solo, but boy was it work (at appropriate level). More painful than other choices, but it was not utterly horrible. Edit: Though, that was on a Tanker. Brute would be dealing more damage but also taking more. Think the Brute would have been better off.

WTF?!?!? NO!!!!! !!!DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR CHARACTER!!! The discussion may make it seem like the only choice is knockback or no knockback, but the issue is much more responsible/incidental knockback vs playing a scatter bomb. I have Energy Blast using characters (Seismic too). I play on teams. I do not get grief over it. Meteor is the one and only, potentially scatters things (if it doesn't kill them) which is acceptable in the game (well, other than Singularity but that is not an attack so much as an environmental effect). Meteor is just too enjoyable, especially when dropped in a small room full of foes. Why is it acceptable? Because the animation of the growing shadow of doom is just that cool. Go forth and Chicxulub the stuffing out of things!

As Spinning Strike has a KB component, it is a good place to stick the Force Feedback proc generally, and even better if your secondary boosts Recharge. Admittedly done on a Tanker, no good reason you cannot flash the same Recharge on a Brute:

It seems to me that so long as you are continuously attacking, it is a pretty decent set. But that means you play an extremely hectic way.

Guessing you meant you avoid typed defenses. Yeah, Bio is a special case.

Got a Stone/SR Scrapper I ran up to 50 and frankly, I do not find SR to be all that. But then, people rave over Rad Armor too and I find it lackluster, so it might just be me. As much as I do like Ninjitsu and generally love Energy Aura (even if I would never pair it with EM due to my obsession with mixed themed powersets), were I building it, I would almost certainly lean towards Shield. That all said, you have a lot of really solid options for pairing with EM. Oh, and Bio...I don't allow myself do play Bio any more as Bio is so good it is just too easy of a choice.

Sounds like the argument is being made one does not need Regeneration Debuff Resistance (for reasons or if you build in certain ways). As the purpose of Regeneration is healing damage faster than it is coming in, that then suggest there is some reachable effective Regeneration value which is sufficient to always live. So what is this value? Resistance and Defense are mostly about increasing your effective Regeneration value--you take less damage over time and so your regeneration outpaces incoming damage. RDR is an offset to effects which directly lower your resistance. Is the game dripping in regeneration debuffs? Cant say I've ever truly noticed them, but as noted, no other powerset other than Regeneration is so focused on Regeneration by which to notice. You might as well ask a Resistance based character what their experience is as goes Defense debuffs--they don't care about such. But people always pooh-pooh the notion of Resistance based characters layering Defense because it can be stripped EVEN IF MOST THINGS IN THE GAME DON'T STRIP IT and so in most cases it would improve survivability and they would be no worse off (assuming they hadn't traded Resistance for Defense) for having the extra Defense. If you are content with not maxing your RDR, that is of course your choice. I am not sure why, even if the times it makes a difference is only 1 time in 1000, some seem to think it is problematic for others to address that 1 time, especially not when most builds are not short on power slots and the power in question does more than provide RDR.

It has no Debuff resistance but relies for that on only two damage types, with resistance, healing, the ability to shift into Defensive stance, -=*AND*=- the ability to increases its Regeneration, which is an inherent offset to Regeneration being debuffed. As for experience being killed due to regen debuffs, no I don't...I try to avoid that by taking what I can to keep from dying. Isn't that the point? 😛

Healing is something Bio does on top of its regen AND resistance AND defense before we even get into its stance dancing allowing it to shift to be more protected at need. Again, sappers do not come up often, but when they do, you would really like to be resistant. Defense debuff does not come up regularly either and yet.... Nor have I said Regen is useless if you don't take every bit of Regen Debuff Resistance. I prefer to minimize potential problems, particularly to the point where I don't have to think about them. Others have different thresholds for dealing with such things, and that is fine.