Defenses/Resists

[Xandyr]

Hello all and thank you in advance for your time!

   I don't usually play Blasters, but I'm thinking it's time for me to delve into it. I know I should build for recharge, damage, and end recovery, but what else? Should I try to add as much Defense and Resists from Set Bonuses? What about Regeneration? If so, what's a pretty good number to strive for?

 Thanks!

[Coyote]

1: No Recovery, your Sustain power will help more that way than set bonuses. Maybe +MaxEnd.

2: Recharge and Ranged Defense are your general best bets, over Damage even.

3: For set bonuses, you have to decide first whether your Epic pool will have a Smash/Lethal DEFENSE or a RESIST component. If it's Resist, go for Resist bonuses (but, still Ranged Defense is more important). If it's S/L Defense, then go for Defense bonuses for S/L, but you can still go for Resist for other damage types.

4: Regeneration is less important than Defense, but it also come earlier in set bonuses, so many times you can get some of it incidentally as part of other bonuses.

[Lockpick]

I would say defense, recharge, and recovery are the key attributes to boost.  You will get damage from slotting your attacks.  On Blasters I typically try to soft-cap either Ranged or S/L defense and in most instances have been able to soft-cap both.  I then build for recharge to lower Hasten and I will look for opportunities to add in recovery.  In some instances I may try to build for resistance, but not very often.

[Xandyr]

I'm leveling an Energy/Dev blaster and trying to figure out how to soft cap ranged. Guess it's back to the Mids Reborn drawing board!

[Shred Monkey]

20 hours ago, Xandyr said:

I'm leveling an Energy/Dev blaster and trying to figure out how to soft cap ranged. Guess it's back to the Mids Reborn drawing board!

Thunderstrikes in ranged attacks, mako's bite in melee attacks (even if it's just a set mule... it's not uncommon for me to slot brawl for this).  Check the winter and ATO sets... I remember there's a +5 range defense set bonus, but I don't remember which one has it.   Also, don't forget the two +3 defense to all IOs. (Steadfast protection and Gladiator's Armor... both typically slotted in tough).

 

6 slotting guassian's in targetting drone might be an option, too if you have room.  It's 2.5 defense to all positions, which includes ranged and you'll benefit from the endurance and tohit enhancements in a power that will be running 24/7.

 

You can't run both stealth and your sustain power at the same time, so ignore that pool... go with combat jumping and/or maneuvers with weave.

 

[Kaballah]

I put a higher priority on capping s/l resist than a defense, and if you're exclusively teaming with your blaster imo the defense you'd be better off stacking is AOE, unless you are regularly doing without tank/brute and/or CC.

[Novacat]

Regen and Recovery primarily come from your Sustain power (for most sets that's your level 20). While there's a few variations on the theme, in general that's 225% Regen and 50% Recovery, half of the regen being enhanceable (that's still more than 2.5 times Health enhanceable). Stacks with Health and Stamina, too.

For Devices it's as you already know Field Operative: that 1.75% defense may be pathetic but every little bit helps.

Try slotting this into it later on: Numina's Health/Recovery and Healmod, Performance Shifter's +Endproc and Endmod, and Luck of the Gambler's Def/Globalrecharge. Then put Panacea's Proc and Healmod (for another 2pc) in Health. Not counting the procs you'll already be at 209% Recovery and 462% regen, with stealth, 7.5% global recharge improvement, and 2% to all defenses.

 

Overall, you CAN try to shoot for softcap of defense of 2-3 defenses (Ranged positional being the main one) but the last few % can really, really eat into your slotting (that is to say, negatively affect the other parts). I'm more comfortable shooting for around 35%+ ranged and maybe 24%+ AoE instead (solo toggled; not counting emergency clickies, Barrier, teammates or purple inspirations), which is plenty hardy for a "squishy". I view anything beyond that as a bonus, but won't go to lengths to try and go above.

 

Many of your protections also come in the form of soft control. Stealth + smoke grenades mean you decide where and when the fight should even start, and it turns out 'when' is blowing off their legs with explosives. That mild -ToHit may not be much but in the end it all adds up. So does knockback; things flying onto their rears aren't shooting you. Things thrown out of the room and needing ten seconds to get back aren't shooting you. It's not "a hold", but damn if half the targets being on their rears isn't a good alternative!

 

Also: Strongly consider the globals from the defense and resistance sets; tough and stuff like 'body armor' can better be seen for you as 'mules' especially for those amazing +3% def special IOs, but never forget that dead things can't hurt you more.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Novacat

[Kaballah]

The really blatant IO uniques are:

- Gladiator's Armor +3% all def

- Steadfast Protection +3% all def

- Shield Wall +5% all resist

- Reactive Defenses "scaling resist bonus"

- Unbreakable Guard +7.5% life

Practically all of my characters slot all of these regardless of their AT, they're just really strong as Novacat says

 

Blessing of the Zephyr 4 pt KB protection for characters that don't have it built into their primary/secondary sets

 

 

[Doomguide2005]

To Kaballah's list I would add Kismet +6% "accuracy" (which is actually +6% to hit).  It's really hard to have too much To Hit bonus.

[Novacat]

Handy but not necessary for everyone in this AT (amazing for everyone else though)

For example if you're Energy/Devices as the OP, Targeting Drone virtually takes care of all your Quick-Snipe damage needs in just a to-hit and to-hit/endurance. 

Others might prefer to forego that part of the bonus in exchange for other improvements to their build; Tactical Arrow gets +Acc, which while not to-hit comes on their Sustain anyways and will amply supplement the IOs and set-bonuses you're sticking everywhere to bring your accuracies into the 140%+ range all over. Slots in defense powers may be a bit more limited.

 

Anyone doing 5/6 piece sets in an effort to up their defenses and resists is going to be overwhelmingly overflowing with accuracy. The extra quick-snipe damage is quite nice, but that may be all it does.

[Hyperstrike]

The HP on Blasters is generally too low to make stacking Resists DELIBERATELY worth it.

Defense is a lot more useful because of it's binary (all or nothing) nature.

[Haijinx]

Defense is superior to resist for Blasters due to the Status Protection Issue. 

 

With Defense if it works the mezz doesn't land.  Your Toggles stay up, life is good. 

 

With Resist all the mezzes hit you.   Your Toggles suppress ... life is ungood. 

 

This is why I always got Mace APP for Scorpion Shield on Blasters.