How to combat cascading defense failure?

[Werner]

5 minutes ago, Nemu said:

Very few people practice the art of moving in this game. I see most people play city of statues and play with the same amount of intelligence that mob AI has. They stand still and either defeat the mob or get defeated.

Scrapperlock 🙂

[Doomrider]

22 hours ago, Nemu said:

 

Very few people practice the art of moving in this game. I see most people play city of statues and play with the same amount of intelligence that mob AI has. They stand still and either defeat the mob or get defeated.

 

Monitor your defenses, hop out of combat when you take a hit, duck behind a corner, kite, while you are doing all that you buy yourself time to using inspirations/godmode, wait for soft controls to recharge, or simply retreat. You stay still you are just going to get debuffed quicker and die quicker.

 

Worried about long animation times rooting you? Joust.

 

Getting debuffed? Move.

I know some people may take this as a l2p issue or git gud statement, but I gotta agree with Nemu here. Fight, tactfully. Indoor maps, you can pull to corners and break line of sight if your getting overwhelmed. I see plenty of people run into the middle of mobs, especially with defense secondaries, and do nothing but go through their rotation and then faceplant.

- Use inspirations. The faster you down enemies the more you have, but you get zero new inspirations if you hoard them and never use them or only use them sparingly.
- Build for layered mitigation. Any combination of defense, resists, regen/absorb/heals, soft controls, hard controls rather than putting all your eggs into any one of those baskets. 
- Familiarize yourself with troublesome targets; those who will debuff or mez you into oblivion, and get used to defeating those first.
- Monitor your bars and know when you've bitten off more than you can chew. 
- Use situational awareness, especially when it comes to engaging the alpha. Make sure when you position yourself, you aren't at risk of aggroing adjacent groups. Obviously this doesn't always work when your on pugs, but solo or in small team settings it can make a big difference.
 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Doomrider

[Werner]

21 minutes ago, Doomrider said:

I know some people may take this as a l2p issue or git gud statement, but I gotta agree with Nemu here. Fight, tactfully. Indoor maps, you can pull to corners and break line of sight if your getting overwhelmed. I see plenty of people run into the middle of mobs, especially with defense secondaries, and do nothing but go through their rotation and then faceplant.

The most efficient way for a melee AT to dispatch a group is typically from the middle of that group. Yes, if you can't take the aggro and are going to die, by all means do something. Take some inspirations. Take a temporary tactical retreat. Kite. Joust. Do something. But finding a way to stand in the middle and destroy all that's around you without dying is efficient, is tactical. Build for that situation, and go to town. Am I going to look like a statue? Like I'm no smarter than the AI? Until I start running around to kill the ranged attackers, yeah.

 

And yes, I'll die occasionally. If you aren't dying now and then, crank up the difficulty. The things that kill me often kill me quite fast, and it takes reaction time to deal with them. But if I can't hit Barrier in time to survive, jumping out of combat probably wouldn't have saved me either. I'd have been just as dead.

 

Very different logic for ranged ATs. I moved all over the place on my old Blaster, because I could move while still attacking at full speed. I don't have that luxury on a melee character. Moving costs me DPS, so I'm not moving until I'm forced to move.

[Nemu]

Sure, not going to argue that logic, if you can survive then melee is the best place to be. Overwhelming offense is another strategy to survive. But when things start to go downhill you bring all your cards to the table and in this thread only one person mentioned moving, which demonstrates how little people value this simple yet effective tactic.

[Werner]

4 minutes ago, Nemu said:

But when things start to go downhill you bring all your cards to the table and in this thread only one person mentioned moving, which demonstrates how little people value this simple yet effective tactic.

Good point. And particularly in the context of this thread of "what do I do if I'm suffering cascading defense failure", movement can definitely be a good answer.

[Nemu]

Hmm read the whole thread again and a few people mentioned moving in passing so that's that. I regret nothing, however 😁

[Call Me Awesome]

2 hours ago, Werner said:

Yes, if you can't take the aggro and are going to die, by all means do something. Take some inspirations. Take a temporary tactical retreat. Kite. Joust. Do something. But finding a way to stand in the middle and destroy all that's around you without dying is efficient, is tactical

That's partially why all my characters pick up Combat Jumping, it allows you great mobility and the ability to get out of melee for a second and hit a heal, eat an insp or whatever and then right back in to beating the bad guy's face in.  Of course it also provides a place to put a Kismet +To Hit and maybe another LotG +recharge.

[Werner]

4 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

That's partially why all my characters pick up Combat Jumping, it allows you great mobility and the ability to get out of melee for a second and hit a heal, eat an insp or whatever and then right back in to beating the bad guy's face in.  Of course it also provides a place to put a Kismet +To Hit and maybe another LotG +recharge.

Yep. All mine have Combat Jumping or Hover. On my main, I have Kismet, Luck of the Gambler, and some Shield Walls in Combat Jumping.

[NEW DAWN]

I usually like a side of control or a kill order.

 

[Doomguide2005]

2000+ is pretty much insane for sure.

 

I'm not so sure SR is really a one trick pony especially with IO's involved as much as standing strongly on a different leg of the tripod of defense, resistance, health/regen.  DDR rocks and pretty much eliminates cascade, but To Buffs (for the foes ... DE I'm looking at you) become that much more serious, much like a heavily resist based set gets torn apart by say Wailers prior to IO's.  IO's though allow me to greatly increase my regen and health.  And now there's the scaling resist as well hp increase IO's to make her even less of a one trick pony.  My scrapper's build roughly doubles her regen going from the teens to 32/sec while increasing her health to over 2200 before any Incarnate considerations.

 

Well have to run for now.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Doomguide2005
Typo, fun to run 🤪 and otherwise cleaning it up

[Gobbledigook]

90%+DDR is achievable on my Shield tanker with double stacked Active Defence. If the DDR is same for Tanker and Scrapper then that is quite easily achievable.

 

You don't need ageless to get this figure. 

 

I would think a Scrapper could build high defence but you won't have the Tankers resists, inherent and from their ATO.

 

I build for Slow Resistance also as stacked slows will kill you fast and stop you fighting back also.

Edited March 24, 2020 by Gobbledegook

[Doomguide2005]

6 hours ago, Gobbledegook said:

90%+DDR is achievable on my Shield tanker with double stacked Active Defence. If the DDR is same for Tanker and Scrapper then that is quite easily achievable.

 

You don't need ageless to get this figure. 

 

I would think a Scrapper could build high defence but you won't have the Tankers resists, inherent and from their ATO.

 

I build for Slow Resistance also as stacked slows will kill you fast and stop you fighting back also.

Quite true if your defense is Shield. But the OP didn't specify in his OP what set(s) he was talking about and only later mentioned his character was an Arachnos Widow.  Frankly I don't recall if any of the Veats have DDR in any amount, it's been 7+ years since I played mine.  I am fairly certain none of them have anywhere near SR levels worth though.

[Gobbledigook]

On 3/25/2020 at 6:16 AM, Doomguide2005 said:

Quite true if your defense is Shield. But the OP didn't specify in his OP what set(s) he was talking about and only later mentioned his character was an Arachnos Widow.  Frankly I don't recall if any of the Veats have DDR in any amount, it's been 7+ years since I played mine.  I am fairly certain none of them have anywhere near SR levels worth though.

Yes i just presumed it was a Scrapper as it is in the Scrapper forum.

 

Shield defence is one set that offers good DDR. Other than those with inherent DDR in sets, ageless is the only way i know to boost DDR.