Doomguide2005

So why change defense rather than resistance? Why in your thoughts is it better to try and enforce a defense of 40 (disregarding whether it's hard or soft for the moment) rather than make the resist cap 90% for all?

The hard cap (caps technically since it also varies by AT) exists. It might not be the value you wish it to be or think it should be but it does exist. Repeatedly claiming it doesn't weakens your credibility.

Yes it would create a buffer. The other important thing is the game apparently always checks your base resistance (i.e. the 85%). So it wouldn't check vs 85%, then against whatever would be left after you subtracted out the debuff from 85%, etc.. No cascade resistance failure.

See the HCwiki article on "Limits" the section about Debuff Resistances. It mentions how Damage Resistance resists both damage debuffs and resistance debuffs. Edit: There's another spot where it's mentioned but I haven't located it yet Edit2: It's in the Article titled Resistance (Mechanics) section about Resistance to Resistance Debuffs

It's more like if ddr went to 100% ... nothing would even scratch your defense not even the tiny 5% debuff maxed ddr let's in. If your energy damage resistance is say 100% or more via buffs and Melt Armor hit you for a -30% debuff ... 100% of that is resisted so Melt Armor would reduce your nrg damage resistance by 0.00% because its all resisted. And if you're a Scrapper your previous 75% capped energy resistance would remain at 75%. And that would be true even if 5 bosses in Relentless each hit you with a -30% resistance debuff within the same second. At least that's how I understood it in a recent thread. Edit: And @Parabolamakes an excellent point it has to be a resistable resistance debuff. Several of the attacks, in particular the Goldbrickers self destruct are unresistable. So no dropping a Thermal's shield on a capped Tanker and expecting to survive the 5 digit damage incoming.

@Gobbledegookone bit that I only became aware of recently favors Resist based mitigation. Namely damage Resistance is what resists Resistance debuffs (not new knowledge) but the Resistance caps are not the upper limit for resisting debuffs. A Scrapper with 100%+ damage resistance to Energy for example will still take 25% of incoming energy damage (capped at 75%) but when hit by multiple Melt Armors will be 100% immune to the debuffs. The Scrapper with, to pick a random number, 60% Energy Damage Resistance is going to get debuffed by those same Melt Armors and watch as his Relentless foes send his numbers rapidly downward. EDIT: In otherwords this whole topic is way too complex to make sweeping changes to defense without inviting complete disaster.

Yes you will not be Blinded while running Tactics (outside of maybe something created in AE that stacks silly amounts of perception debuffs). And yes I'd be real reluctant to not take Stalagmites. It's among the faster AoE stuns. Granted with no other stuns you'll only stun Bosses when 'Overpower' kicks in (20% chance) but all those minions and Lts are out of action. I'd also be looking to get Acid Arrow in relatively early. It does something relatively unique among debuff powers, it debuffs their resistance to being debuffed.

While replacing Clear Mind with Clarion is certainly an option I'd be wary if you plan on doing much content below 45. It would also depend a bit on your pool powers, specifically the presence or absence of Tactics. No Tactics or CM and Blind effects become a potential concern for the team. Combine these things with the fact CM is a 1-slot and done power and whatever takes its place needs to be well worth it (while exemping below 45th).

This is a game with petless MM builds, pool boy builds and the like. It also has multiple builds. If you want to try it out go for it. I would say it is a less than optimal choice but not that suboptimal. Note that while certainly ruins your Shadow Fall based stealth it does protect the user by generating a mag 3 Afraid ... a lot of the time will be spent slowly (real slowly if stacked atop Tar Patch) trying to run away from you. It will also reduce the damage to your aggro monkeys again because they're trying to flee. And Twilight's Grasp fires off around you so unless those Imps are flying too, healing them becomes more problematic.

Relentless is not going to be kind to anyone running with hard capped at 40 defenses which is what Brutal Justice is proposing. My response is solely directed at this idea. Currently a build regardless of its actual defense can get buffed to counter the buffs given to Relentless foes encouraging teaming and the value of support characters. Right now a casual player with teammates can get buffed a ton between Maneuvers, Barrier, Force Field, Cold, Fortitude, etc., etc.. and be successful because all those buffs can have an effect. Change that to a hard cap and well it's going to get a whole lot dicier regardless of how uber or casual the player/build is because 40 defense is a pretty low bar to achieve via ally buffs and largely not going to cut it vs a Relentless spawn and being a HARD cap can't be improved. To really deal with it you start needing to look at specific team makeups ... something I'd think is also not very casual friendly.

Not only is it optional but the big picture goal is not per se increasing the difficulty in and of itself but to do so in a manner which promotes both teaming and the roles played by support ATs.

Controllers and Empaths both love recharge. Healing Aura and Heal Other -> Preventative Medicine 6 slots in one and 5 slots either Doctored Wounds or Panacea in the other is generally my default. Absorb Pain -> I generally skip. Resurrect -> again I generally skip. If taken, especially on a Controller (no Vigilance discount) base slot only with Endred. Clear Mind -> base slot, slot pretty much anything. I often go 1 range to reach that one guy who's trying to solo another mob way over there. Fortitude -> huge variety of options for slotting and enhancement. I listed a whole bunch in a thread In the Defender forums that was basically about how to slot Fortitude. My favorite is 3 slots with 2 Membranes and 1 LotG def/increased global rchg. Max benefit for minimum slot investment. Recovery Aura -> generally either 2 or 3 slots with either 2 50+5 recharge or 1 rech + 2 Endmod/rech. Regeneration Aura -> 5 slots either Doctored Wounds or Panacea. Adrenaline Boost -> 5 slots either Doctored Wounds or Panacea. I'll leave the Grav side of things to someone with recent and more experience.

Pretty much all the Task Forces for Task Force Commander end squaring off against as AV. Numina's being the exception ending vs a Monster. Personally my Claws/SR went through a big chunk of Maria's arc.

Grrrroooooooaaaaaaan! 👏

You want to drop the defense hard cap for scrappers to 40% as I recall. If so that pretty much invalidates a the new challenge settings. A Scrapper with hard capped defense of 40 would almost certainly get rapidly and thoroughly obliterated on Relentless settings. Lots of rapid napkin math so if someone spots a mistake please say so. Inner clamp -> 80 - 40 = 40 Some of those foes have additional to hit bonuses as well. That 40 defense is fixed as it's the hard cap so you could put them on a team with a Cold, a Force Field and an Empath and their shield (+defense) buffs are largely useless. Yay big step forward there on promoting teaming and support roles. Outer clamp -> 40 × 1.4 × 1.3 (assuming boss) = 72.8 final hit chance. Have fun with those Melt Armor's splattering around you. Mind the Tanker and Brute have (err had) hard capped defenses only 5 points higher (i.e. they are getting hit well over half the time). It'll take slightly longer but 45 hard cap is also pretty much death as well for Tankers and Brutes. God help the support characters as they are going to get wiped even faster if attacked. Many of the AV are basically not going to miss as they have both +30 to base hit and its the Praetorian base of 59 (i.e. 96 - 40 = 56. 56×1.4×1.5 = waaay over the clamp of 95) Relentless is only reasonable when the hard caps allow for team/support buffs to actually contribute to raise defenses to help counter the base to hit boost the foes gain on the higher difficulties. Basically they need to be soft with respect to defense not hard. It's pretty clear to me, both the OG Live Devs and the HC team are looking at increasing the foes to hit (typically base to hit, but also via buffs) as the go to for countering player soft cap defense. They are very unlikely to directly nerf player defense though I wouldn't rule out a nasty potent defense debuff. Heck that's what Melt Armor is especially with the purple patch making it nastier yet.

Yes always has been always will be.

This and even if it's truly the best beast you could build for your goals and eyes the game isn't static. And along come new enhancements and various power and other changes. Now it needs a tweak or three to be The "perfect" build again. My main, a Claws/SR scrapper, has undergone a large number of respecs since her start in i3 and even more builds exist solely in Mids'. Currently she awaits my return post computer death and more rebuilding via Mids to account for several new uniques since her last build. Looking to see if or how close to the scrapper health/hit point max I can get an SR scrapper (last seen at just over 2100 health).

A +100% damage buff will tend to make the difference all other things not withstanding. -->Corruptor damage cap vs Defender. I'd bet both teams tend to cap damage at size 8. It would certainly take very little effort to do so. Repeat Offenders on Live once did an "Olympics" style event between their various Defender SG's running a series of TF. The only thing I recall was the Empaths of Green Machine had a rough time. No regen debuffs and no /Sonic's on a 5-man team spelled disaster.

I've done the first often (or at least no attempt was made to gain serious defense), but no Hover or Combat Jumping or ... unless you're speaking of only from Primary and Secondary sets. Edit: Cause you can pry CJ+Hurdle from my Cold dead hands 🤪

Not necessarily if the set bonuses are good for the overall build. Might not be ideal but worthless doesn't always follow either. Really depends on the build as a whole. May want to start a thread posting up your build for comment and suggestion. Fortunately respecs are readily available so if the consensus is in fact oops changing things up is a ready option.

Yes it is a proc 120 which is why you typically see it placed in Health. It will also work 'continuously' in a toggle power (and for about ~120 sec after the toggle shuts off). Likewise it provides the +recovery for 120 sec after the power it's in is clicked. It's also worth noting it works like set bonus so the power it's slotted in does not need to be active but it will stop working if the level of the IO is more than 3 under your exemplar level (so attune or use the level 20 version).

Makes me wonder about something like Earth/FF. Good chunk of what makes Earth/Storm and Hurricane effective is the large area Repel to basically keep them out while you deal with them.

@BrawlinFor some numbers and other thoughts see some of the responses in a post in the 'Archtypes' forum (07/16/2021) entitled: "Has anyone done any homework on what is needed to kill Romulus or the ITF bosses in general solo?"

Yes it very much matters what the rules are. To start with what's the base to hit. If it's still 75% and PvE based most of the defense builds are already in trouble as the soft cap goes from 45% to 70%. That's brutal for most of our builds. That's a lot like being able to solo vs Relentless level foes in Dr. Aeon and definitely makes me rethink how well my Claws/SR would fare if that's the case. On the otherhand strictly speaking owing to a dead computer I've only got 2 (3?, been long enough I'm not sure) level 50 characters on HC compared to 100+ on Live and the most IO'd and Incarnated character is the Claws/SR. Don't think the other 50's have much chance especially if they don't team up (Emp/Fire and perhaps an Earth/Storm). Teamed they might manage to survive long enough to mez her, maybe, if the Emp/Fire can steer clear and keep the Earth/Storm upright. Are inspirations useable or off the table?

There were other ways as well before incarnates came along though at this point I don't recall what the were. Personal choice but I wanted her badges to be earned as naturally as possible. Of course it was kind of crazy watching someone enter Rest, then pop 20 breakfree, overcoming Rest's immobilize, enter the lava pools on Tyrant's? map and be able to survive because of Rest's health regeneration boost (silly way to farm damage taken).