maneuvers or defense/resist needed on blasters?

[PhillyPhil26]

Hey guys,

So with all my toons i kinda focus on softcapping either defense or resistance. then getting as much of the other.

Then after that try to get recharge and damage.

I rebuilt my ice blaster today he went from 45% defense to 40%. But then after completing his build I realized the 40% is only with Afterburner on! DOH!

So without afterburner his defense goes down to like 30%.

On offense he has like 19% damage bonus.

So I did an AE mission set to +2x4 as well and did surprisingly well even against bosses and EB's.

So my question is are defense or resist capping really even needed on blasters unless your looking to be like an AV killer or solo task forces?

Feel like if i use him for teaming that somebody else will have the manuevers or leadership stuff to buff my defense little bit.

Also seems like most teams of 8 are so strong already that maybe soft-capping isn't as much needed.

 

[Gulbasaur]

3 minutes ago, PhillyPhil26 said:

So my question is are defense or resist capping really even needed on blasters unless your looking to be like an AV killer or solo task forces?

The "soft cap or don't bother" theory works better on paper than it does in practice. All defence helps you survive and you're right, everyone and their cow runs maneuvers at top levels. If you were trying to tank AVs or something, it'd be different, but for general day-to-day blasting you'll be fine.

 

There's a really good breakdown of it on Paragon Wiki here.

[Troo]

Blast or Die !!

 

it is as it should be

[Coyote]

3 hours ago, PhillyPhil26 said:

So my question is are defense or resist capping really even needed on blasters unless your looking to be like an AV killer or solo task forces?

 

It is for soloing AVs where I care about capping defenses. Otherwise, there are two things:

1) "killing AVs faster" isn't a real tactic to survive AVs. You need to survive for minutes in any case. Neither are "mez them" or "debuff them" (at least not for Blasters). However, these tactics DO work on other mobs. You CAN kill mobs fast enough in a spawn that even though they're damaging you, with the Sustain power up it's not a major thread. And you can mez (or knockdown) or debuff them as defenses.

2) In general, a lot of AV soloers who depend on soft-capped defenses without debuff resistance... will skip AVs who have major -Defense debuffs like Positron or Silver Mantis. But it's very limiting to try to skip all the mobs who either have +ToHit buffs or -Defense debuffs. I mean, there are so many of them... that you pretty much need a plan anyway for the situations when you're NOT going to be softcapped.

 

So, given that you can't depend on being soft-capped even if you start out that way, and that you can use damage/debuff/mez as actually effective tools in quickly shutting down incoming damage, it follows that defense for a Blaster is a good defensive option, but not necessarily the only effective one.

[Crysis]

It’s really not difficult to get softcapped DEF or near it on a Blaster with IO’s and at least Combat Jumping and an Epic shield.  Thunder strike for all ranged attacks and two BOTZ IO’s in fly/SS/SJ.  So no you don’t need maneuvers, but it does help.

 

Actually, with minor investments in the P2W temps and base amplifiers you can pretty much skip a lot of powers in HC.

[Gulbasaur]

13 hours ago, Coyote said:

Silver Mantis

Urgh... she is the one AV in normal content where I know I'll have to ask for help. She's two-shot me often enough for me to know better. 

[plainguy]

On 5/17/2020 at 3:58 PM, PhillyPhil26 said:

Hey guys,

So with all my toons i kinda focus on softcapping either defense or resistance. then getting as much of the other.

Then after that try to get recharge and damage.

I rebuilt my ice blaster today he went from 45% defense to 40%. But then after completing his build I realized the 40% is only with Afterburner on! DOH!

So without afterburner his defense goes down to like 30%.

On offense he has like 19% damage bonus.

So I did an AE mission set to +2x4 as well and did surprisingly well even against bosses and EB's.

So my question is are defense or resist capping really even needed on blasters unless your looking to be like an AV killer or solo task forces?

Feel like if i use him for teaming that somebody else will have the manuevers or leadership stuff to buff my defense little bit.

Also seems like most teams of 8 are so strong already that maybe soft-capping isn't as much needed.

 

You could be doing 3/8 on a Range cap Hover Blaster type build as an example. 

[Nemu]

You really start to see the benefits of defense when the numbers hit around 30%, the closer you are to softcap the better obviously.

 

It also depends on your mindset. If you are content sitting back shooting stuff letting other people manage aggro for you then defense is just a nice bonus. However if you are of the aggressive mindset and can't be bothered to wait for people to fidget around and decide who to go in and take the alpha after buffs are cast (I'm sure you've been on those teams especially in the 20-40 range) then you build a toon that can handle the alpha.

 

TL;DR if you are aggressive AF you build for softcap.