What's more important... DEF or RCHG

[ozob]

So I have been working on unconventional builds and struggling on some.  So for many builds there is a definite choice you have to make between defense and recharge.  For secondaries that don't have a +DEF power it's a real thing.

What do you usually chose and why?

Also what level of +DEF or +RES do you feel safe with?

[oedipus_tex]

This is a really build specific thing.

 

Generally, you want both.

 

Something to consider is that Recharge is not as widely available from other sources as Defense. For example, there is no +Recharge inspiration.

 

However, Recharge potentially penalizes proc rate. For that reason, it sometimes makes the most sense to grab Recharge from temporary sources (which don't penalize it) instead of permanent ones.

[Omega-202]

6 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

However, Recharge potentially penalizes proc rate. For that reason, it sometimes makes the most sense to grab Recharge from temporary sources (which don't penalize it) instead of permanent ones.

This isn't totally accurate and needs clarification. 

Permanent global recharge bonuses from IOs (set bonuses and Gamblers), outside buffs (speed boost, acc metabolism etc) and personal buffs, both temporary and permanent (hasten, mental training, siphon speed, Ageless incarnate) don't affect proc rate.

 

Recharge enhancements and Alpha slot bonuses (Agility for example) do affect proc rate.  I highly encourage that everyone read all of the research done in the Guides section thread.    

 

To answer OPs question, both is best, but recharge definitely has a point of diminishing returns, whereas defense just gets more and more effective until you hit the soft cap.  +5% recharge when you already have 120% global recharge is not that useful, but +5% defense when you're at 40% defense will literally double your durability, taking you from 10% chance to get hit to 5% chance.  

 

Also heavily depends on your power sets.  For example, a Kinetics controller definitely has less use for a ton of recharge bonuses because they are hitting diminishing returns after just hasten, siphon speed and a few Gamblers.  On the flip side, Power Boosted Foresight can get some builds to the soft cap without a ton of other defense bonuses, so a lot of defense bonuses isn't helping that build much.  

[Lost Ninja]

Accept that you're squishy. Defence is fine if can get it but an active defence in Holds/Sleeps/Stuns/Fears/Confuses is a far better "defence" than merely preventing a mob from hitting you. I'd happily have 300% recharge and zero defence (though it's not realistic due to needing defence powers to slot some of that recharge into) and permanently lock down the mobs, in effect 100% defence.

 

AV & GMs with their purple triangles are of course one reasons to have some defence because you cannot lock them down as easily (or perhaps at all depending on Primary), this is why you have a secondary, buff yourself or debuff them and even if they are able to function on their own they cannot hit you, cannot see, do any damage when they do hit you, fire off powers (zero end), move or regenerate (again depending on secondaries).

 

Ambushes are a pain though... 😉

 

Case in point: Doing the Yin TF, the ambush after Clamour re-spawned wiped the team (4x Fire/Rad at level), on the way back to the mission we levelled to 22 (IIRC) and got two each of the Rad toggle De-buffs (Enervating Field -Res -Damage, Radiation Infection -Def -ToHit). Dealt with the ambush by pulling most of it out of the reactor room. Then after dropping debuffs onto Clamour we all went afk for thirty minutes just to prove she had zero ability to beat us... well perhaps not but she was an absolute walk over. It's probably not a great example because running such closely match characters in a team is probably not what most people enjoy and until we hit 32 and got the Imps our speed wasn't actually great.

[Jolly Ogre]

11 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

Accept that you're squishy. Defence is fine if can get it but an active defence in Holds/Sleeps/Stuns/Fears/Confuses is a far better "defence" than merely preventing a mob from hitting you. I'd happily have 300% recharge and zero defence (though it's not realistic due to needing defence powers to slot some of that recharge into) and permanently lock down the mobs, in effect 100% defence.

 

AV & GMs with their purple triangles are of course one reasons to have some defence because you cannot lock them down as easily (or perhaps at all depending on Primary), this is why you have a secondary, buff yourself or debuff them and even if they are able to function on their own they cannot hit you, cannot see, do any damage when they do hit you, fire off powers (zero end), move or regenerate (again depending on secondaries).

 

Ambushes are a pain though... 😉

 

Case in point: Doing the Yin TF, the ambush after Clamour re-spawned wiped the team (4x Fire/Rad at level), on the way back to the mission we levelled to 22 (IIRC) and got two each of the Rad toggle De-buffs (Enervating Field -Res -Damage, Radiation Infection -Def -ToHit). Dealt with the ambush by pulling most of it out of the reactor room. Then after dropping debuffs onto Clamour we all went afk for thirty minutes just to prove she had zero ability to beat us... well perhaps not but she was an absolute walk over. It's probably not a great example because running such closely match characters in a team is probably not what most people enjoy and until we hit 32 and got the Imps our speed wasn't actually great.

Yeah Frads hit a different game after 32...it is like everything cons grey...lol

[The_Cheeseman]

It depends on several factors.

Does your build need a certain click power on "perma" (meaning, it recharges before its effects expire)? Examples would be Phantom Army for Illusion Controllers, or Hasten for just about anybody. If so, reaching the required level of recharge can be the most important aspect of your build (just look at the difference after achieving perma-dom for a Dominator: night and day).

Can you hit a certain recharge benchmark that will allow you to cut out a less optimal power from your attack rotation? If so, you can see a great DPS spike once you achieve that recharge value, but going higher may not provide much additional benefit.

How much defense do you already have? Defense gets more valuable the closer you get to the softcap (45%). If you only have 15% defense, adding an extra 5% really isn't going to make a noticeable difference in your survivability, and probably wouldn't be worth sacrificing recharge. However, if you are at 40%, adding the last 5% will literally double your effective HP, and is a HUGE advantage.

The opposite is true for recharge, the more of it you have, the less impactful adding more becomes. Therefore, depending on the needs of your build, it may not be worth stacking recharge to the highest possible value, and investing in better defense would be wiser.

My advice: your best bet is to try to hit the defense softcap (45%) in either ranged, melee, or smashing/lethal, depending on your individual needs, then pack-in as much recharge as possible to get your best powers up as often as you need them.

It should also be noted that, once you actually start browsing what sets are available to you, you may realize that there really aren't that many situations where you have to choose between recharge or defense.

[Lost Ninja]

9 hours ago, The_Cheeseman said:

It depends on several factors.

Does your build need a certain click power on "perma" (meaning, it recharges before its effects expire)? Examples would be Phantom Army for Illusion Controllers, or Hasten for just about anybody. If so, reaching the required level of recharge can be the most important aspect of your build (just look at the difference after achieving perma-dom for a Dominator: night and day).

Can you hit a certain recharge benchmark that will allow you to cut out a less optimal power from your attack rotation? If so, you can see a great DPS spike once you achieve that recharge value, but going higher may not provide much additional benefit.

How much defense do you already have? Defense gets more valuable the closer you get to the softcap (45%). If you only have 15% defense, adding an extra 5% really isn't going to make a noticeable difference in your survivability, and probably wouldn't be worth sacrificing recharge. However, if you are at 40%, adding the last 5% will literally double your effective HP, and is a HUGE advantage.

The opposite is true for recharge, the more of it you have, the less impactful adding more becomes. Therefore, depending on the needs of your build, it may not be worth stacking recharge to the highest possible value, and investing in better defense would be wiser.

My advice: your best bet is to try to hit the defense softcap (45%) in either ranged, melee, or smashing/lethal, depending on your individual needs, then pack-in as much recharge as possible to get your best powers up as often as you need them.

It should also be noted that, once you actually start browsing what sets are available to you, you may realize that there really aren't that many situations where you have to choose between recharge or defense.

I'd agree with this in general across all ATs, but specifically for a controller, what is better 45% Defence or 100% "Defence"?

 

If the mob cannot attack you through being held (or in similar mez) the fact that your actual Defence is lower than 45% is immaterial. The controller AT was designed prior to IO Sets, it's supposed to use it's controls and buff/debuff mechanic to replace other ATs real defence/resists. Before inventions I doubt you could get close to either the resist or defence cap without extremely gimped builds (taking extra armour in PP/PPP) or using external buffs. So your mitigation was never designed to be soft capped defence. I'd further argue that with such a low health pool higher resists are more useful than defence anyway. 

[The_Cheeseman]

14 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

I'd agree with this in general across all ATs, but specifically for a controller, what is better 45% Defence or 100% "Defence"?

 

If the mob cannot attack you through being held (or in similar mez) the fact that your actual Defence is lower than 45% is immaterial. The controller AT was designed prior to IO Sets, it's supposed to use it's controls and buff/debuff mechanic to replace other ATs real defence/resists. Before inventions I doubt you could get close to either the resist or defence cap without extremely gimped builds (taking extra armour in PP/PPP) or using external buffs. So your mitigation was never designed to be soft capped defence. I'd further argue that with such a low health pool higher resists are more useful than defence anyway. 

Well, yes, obviously Controllers were around before IO sets, and IOs changed the game massively. But there's been years and years of new content developed with IOs in mind, especially incarnate content, so I don't really think that point is all that relevant. The OP was asking about the current meta, not 2005.

You are absolutely correct that controllers are meant to use active defenses in the form of controls to lockdown foes to that they don't get attacked in the first place. That's obviously the entire point of the AT. However, it's equally obvious that, in practice, this doesn't always go as planned, and having softcapped defenses is a HUGE advantage when a fight goes south and you're taking fire while desperately trying to stabilize. It's also often the case that teams simply move too fast to lockdown every MOB in every spawn before engaging. Heck, I often have trouble activating a control power before all the minions and lts. are already vaporized. In such situations, it's nice to have some form of passive defense to protect you from stray hits or the final death throes of MOBs the scrapper is about to KO.

There is no situation in which resistances are superior to defense for controllers. The resist cap for controllers is 75%, which means you can only reduce damage down to 25% of normal. On the other hand, softcapped defense will reduce incoming damage by between 95% (minions) and 90% (+4 AVs). That means softcapped defense is nearly five times as effective as capped resistances. That's before you consider the fact that it's much easier (read: actually possible) to softcap defense on any Controller build, while IO sets tend to give far less resistance in comparison.

Edited September 26, 2019 by The_Cheeseman
Typo

[Coyote]

13 hours ago, The_Cheeseman said:

That means softcapped defense is nearly five times as effective as capped resistances.

 

And that's just for damage. Resistance doesn't mitigate incoming mezzes or debuffs at all.

[Lost Ninja]

16 hours ago, The_Cheeseman said:

Well, yes, obviously Controllers were around before IO sets, and IOs changed the game massively. But there's been years and years of new content developed with IOs in mind, especially incarnate content, so I don't really think that point is all that relevant. The OP was asking about the current meta, not 2005.

You are absolutely correct that controllers are meant to use active defenses in the form of controls to lockdown foes to that they don't get attacked in the first place. That's obviously the entire point of the AT. However, it's equally obvious that, in practice, this doesn't always go as planned, and having softcapped defenses is a HUGE advantage when a fight goes south and you're taking fire while desperately trying to stabilize. It's also often the case that teams simply move too fast to lockdown every MOB in every spawn before engaging. Heck, I often have trouble activating a control power before all the minions and lts. are already vaporized. In such situations, it's nice to have some form of passive defense to protect you from stray hits or the final death throes of MOBs the scrapper is about to KO.

There is no situation in which resistances are superior to defense for controllers. The resist cap for controllers is 75%, which means you can only reduce damage down to 25% of normal. On the other hand, softcapped defense will reduce incoming damage by between 95% (minions) and 90% (+4 AVs). That means softcapped defense is nearly five times as effective as capped resistances. That's before you consider the fact that it's much easier (read: actually possible) to softcap defense on any Controller build, while IO sets tend to give far less resistance in comparison.

I have never understood why people say that 45% defence reduces the incoming damage by any amount. It reduces the chance that you'll be hit. The damage that does get through will hit you at full power and you don't a huge health pool to soak it with. And I acknowledge that unexpected events are a risk (ambushes especially) but with the exception of a few highly passive secondaries (eg: Sonic & FF) recharge overall for a controller is more beneficial than defence. Obviously we're not going to agree on this which is fine, the OP gets the benefit of both our experiences.

[The_Cheeseman]

Perhaps it would be easier to illustrate with a different metaphor. Think of it this way: your character is being attacked. Your HP is limited, so there is a finite amount of time that you will be able to survive before you are defeated. Increasing your defense, resistances, regen, and such will extend that amount of time before you are killed (TtK or Time to Kill). In the case of dominators, having softcapped defenses will extend that period of time by up to five times as long as capped resistances, while also potentially saving you from mez effects.

[macskull]

11 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

I have never understood why people say that 45% defence reduces the incoming damage by any amount. It reduces the chance that you'll be hit. The damage that does get through will hit you at full power and you don't a huge health pool to soak it with. And I acknowledge that unexpected events are a risk (ambushes especially) but with the exception of a few highly passive secondaries (eg: Sonic & FF) recharge overall for a controller is more beneficial than defence. Obviously we're not going to agree on this which is fine, the OP gets the benefit of both our experiences.

Let's look at two scenarios, one where a Controller is at the defense softcap (45%), and another where the same Controller has no defense but is at the resistance hard cap (75%).

 

Scenario 1: An even-con minion has a 50% chance to hit. With 45% defense, that even-con minion now has a 5% chance to hit, which is the lowest possible chance anything can have to hit, ever. Let's assume that this Controller is surrounded by 100 minions who all attack at the same time with attacks that deal 100 damage. In this scenario, you will get hit 5 times for a total of 500 damage.

 

Scenario 2: An even-con minion has a 50% chance to hit, which is not reduced at all because in this scenario our Controller has no defense. If the same minions fire off the same 100-damage attack 100 times, they'll hit you 50 times. Ignoring resistance that is 5000 damage. However, with 75% resistance, our Controller will actually take 25% of that damage, or 1250 damage.

 

In other words, the defense-based character takes 40% of the damage the resistance-based character took over the course of those 100 attacks (and the amount of damage the resistance-based character took is above a level 50 Controller's base HP which means in the absense of any +hp that Controller is dead). While it is true that each of the 5 hits on the defense-based character hit harder, the likelihood of a series of hard-hitting attacks landing within a small enough window to kill that character outright before the player has a chance to react (get healed, use their own heal, pop greens, whatever) is pretty small.

 

EDIT: Basically the only time defense and resistance provide equal survivability at their respective hard/soft caps is if you're on an AT with a 90% resistance cap (so... Tankers and Brutes).

Edited September 28, 2019 by macskull

[Lost Ninja]

4 hours ago, macskull said:

Let's look at two scenarios, one where a Controller is at the defense softcap (45%), and another where the same Controller has no defense but is at the resistance hard cap (75%).

 

Scenario 1: An even-con minion has a 50% chance to hit. With 45% defense, that even-con minion now has a 5% chance to hit, which is the lowest possible chance anything can have to hit, ever. Let's assume that this Controller is surrounded by 100 minions who all attack at the same time with attacks that deal 100 damage. In this scenario, you will get hit 5 times for a total of 500 damage.

 

Scenario 2: An even-con minion has a 50% chance to hit, which is not reduced at all because in this scenario our Controller has no defense. If the same minions fire off the same 100-damage attack 100 times, they'll hit you 50 times. Ignoring resistance that is 5000 damage. However, with 75% resistance, our Controller will actually take 25% of that damage, or 1250 damage.

 

In other words, the defense-based character takes 40% of the damage the resistance-based character took over the course of those 100 attacks (and the amount of damage the resistance-based character took is above a level 50 Controller's base HP which means in the absense of any +hp that Controller is dead). While it is true that each of the 5 hits on the defense-based character hit harder, the likelihood of a series of hard-hitting attacks landing within a small enough window to kill that character outright before the player has a chance to react (get healed, use their own heal, pop greens, whatever) is pretty small.

 

EDIT: Basically the only time defense and resistance provide equal survivability at their respective hard/soft caps is if you're on an AT with a 90% resistance cap (so... Tankers and Brutes).

Hit point cap at 50 for controllers is (unless it's changed drastically) 1606.4, so in either scenario you die. Hell it's touch and go if a def capped (0 res) scrapper would survive that scenario. (On the test server with nothing slotted at 50 you're about 1220.82HP, Mids suggests that with an IO build picking as many +HP sets as I can I still can't hit that cap. I didn't look at using Incarnate buffs.)

 

From a pure maths standpoint you of course are right. However if it's a real world scenario how do you get more than the aggro cap  to actually attack you? So 17 of those even con minions are able to beat on you. And only one (if aggro and targeting caps from ParagonWiki remain correct) isn't debuffed or mezzed. In this scenario that one minion is unlikely to kill me. Put me in an impossible situation and I'll die, put me in something that could actually happen and I almost certainly won't die.

 

Real world if I'm just standing there letting things beat on me I'm dead and as I don't play a mathematical simulation I'll continue to prefer recharge bonuses over res or def, and res over def.

Edited September 28, 2019 by Lost Ninja

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

Hit point cap at 50 for controllers is (unless it's changed drastically) 1606.4, so in either scenario you die. Hell it's touch and go if a def capped (0 res) scrapper would survive that scenario. (On the test server with nothing slotted at 50 you're about 1220.82HP, Mids suggests that with an IO build picking as many +HP sets as I can I still can't hit that cap. I didn't look at using Incarnate buffs.)

I'm not sure where you're getting that from but in my hypothetical scenarios if you were at the HP cap you would not have died in either scenario. If you were at base HP with no bonuses (1017) you would have died on the resistance-based character and survived with over half your HP left on the defense-based one. Even if your resistance-based character had the extra 20% HP from the passive accolade bonuses they still would've died. Regarding hitting the HP cap, it is very much possible but not at all necessary for PvE builds.

2 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

From a pure maths standpoint you of course are right. However if it's a real world scenario how do you get more than the aggro cap  to actually attack you? So 17 of those even con minions are able to beat on you. And only one (if aggro and targeting caps from ParagonWiki remain correct) isn't debuffed or mezzed. In this scenario that one minion is unlikely to kill me. Put me in an impossible situation and I'll die, put me in something that could actually happen and I almost certainly won't die.

My scenario was designed to be an easy-to-understand demonstration of the math behind resistance and defense and why defense is almost always the better option until you reach the breakpoint of 45%. It doesn't matter if there are five enemies, or seventeen, or any other number attacking me, and it doesn't matter if they're doing 50 damage, or 100 damage, or 500 damage, the point was that the resistance-based character will always take more damage than the defense-based one when you look at it over a given period of time. It is true that defense is left up a bit to luck and the streakbreaker, but 1) the number of times you'll get insta-killed because two heavy hitters land quickly is very small and 2) you're probably killing things so fast that streakbreaker will never matter.

2 hours ago, Lost Ninja said:

Real world if I'm just standing there letting things beat on me I'm dead and as I don't play a mathematical simulation I'll continue to prefer recharge bonuses over res or def, and res over def.

Given a long enough time frame, yes, you would die on either character if you just stood there and did nothing. You'd probably die faster on the resistance-based one though. The beauty of this game is you can build it however you want, and you're not wrong for focusing on recharge (hell, most of my builds back on live were the same way). However, at the end of the day if you've got a build with permahasten and some resistance and a build with permahasten, some resistance, and softcapped smash/lethal defense, the second build is going to be more survivable especially in more aggressive playstyles.

 

It's also worth pointing out that defense is much easier to obtain in meaningful amounts from pool powers and set bonuses when compared to resistance.

 

EDIT: Another thing you haven't even considered with resistance vs defense is debuffs and mez. With defense, you can sort of shrug most of them off because they won't hit you. That's not the case with resistance.

Edited September 28, 2019 by macskull

[Lost Ninja]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

I'm not sure where you're getting that from but in my hypothetical scenarios if you were at the HP cap you would not have died in either scenario. If you were at base HP with no bonuses (1017) you would have died on the resistance-based character and survived with over half your HP left on the defense-based one. Even if your resistance-based character had the extra 20% HP from the passive accolade bonuses they still would've died. Regarding hitting the HP cap, it is very much possible but not at all necessary for PvE builds.

No you're quite right I misread what you said and was looking at five attacks of 500 damage each.

[ozob]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:04 PM, The_Cheeseman said:

It should also be noted that, once you actually start browsing what sets are available to you, you may realize that there really aren't that many situations where you have to choose between recharge or defense.

I appreciate all of the replies that have been given and you had a lot of really good advice that I didn't quote.

 

But this I do disagree with.

Examples:
A healing power - I could take preventative medicine or go with Numinias.  One gives me 8.75% recharge the other 3.75% Ranged.

 

Example 2:
Do I go with a purple set or a set that gives defense?  This occurs in most sets because purps have pretty standard bonuses.

Those types of choices and the fact that Controllers without a +DEF power typically make this choice all the time. It's why I was asking in the first place.

[oedipus_tex]

The one area where Resistance handily defeats Defense is with auto-hit damage. However, auto-hit damage is rare in this game and not generally worth building around.

 

I'm not very familiar with PVP, but in that scenario you might be more likely to encounter it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The_Cheeseman]

4 hours ago, ozob said:

I appreciate all of the replies that have been given and you had a lot of really good advice that I didn't quote.

 

But this I do disagree with.

Examples:
A healing power - I could take preventative medicine or go with Numinias.  One gives me 8.75% recharge the other 3.75% Ranged.

 

Example 2:
Do I go with a purple set or a set that gives defense?  This occurs in most sets because purps have pretty standard bonuses.

Those types of choices and the fact that Controllers without a +DEF power typically make this choice all the time. It's why I was asking in the first place.

In the context of your build as a whole, I believe such choices will generally be obvious. Assuming your build goal is softcapped defense and as much recharge as possible, it's just a simple calculation of which sets will maximize your returns on both. In short, your question won't usually be, "Should I put a defense set or a recharge set in this power" but rather, "Which combination of powers and sets will result in fulfilling my build goals of 45% defense and maximized recharge?" In other words, you will never have a binary choice for what set to use in any given power, because you will have planned your total build around including certain sets, and the proper powers to slot those sets, from the beginning. In the case of say, a heal power, you would know whether you need to slot defense or recharge in that power based on how much defense you are able to get from all the other powers/sets in your build. If you still need more defense to reach the softcap, you slot the defense set. If you don't, you slot recharge. It isn't really a choice.

[macskull]

4 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

The one area where Resistance handily defeats Defense is with auto-hit damage. However, auto-hit damage is rare in this game and not generally worth building around.

 

I'm not very familiar with PVP, but in that scenario you might be more likely to encounter it.

IIRC there aren't any autohit damage attacks in PvP but PvP diminishing returns makes building for resistance or defense on most ATs worthless.