If you had to choose 1 aspect of toughness, is it defense based or resistance based?

[Heraclea]

Resistance, for one simple reason.  Adding a little bit of defense to a resistance armor set is IME a lot more beneficial than adding a little bit of resistance to a defense set.  You don't need to approach the softcap, or weaken your build chasing set bonuses.  Just adding small amounts of defense means that some attacks don't connect.  And that's enough.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Defense. It helps you avoid all those nasty debuffs out there. All the damres debuffs. All the end debuffs. All the tohit debuffs. Very few debuffs are autohit. If they can't hit you, they can't turn you into a puddle of red paste on the floor. SR for the win, yo.

[drbuzzard]

4 hours ago, BasherBot said:

mainly because BA has only 2 resistance powers and 1 defense power... where as it has 4 powers that heal or adsorb in some form. 

I suppose that's one way of looking at it. I'm a bit more concerned with final outcome. Of course a good bit of those numbers I get are from adding toughness and weave plus a bunch of set bonuses. 

[Doomguide2005]

4 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Defense. It helps you avoid all those nasty debuffs out there. All the damres debuffs. All the end debuffs. All the tohit debuffs. Very few debuffs are autohit. If they can't hit you, they can't turn you into a puddle of red paste on the floor. SR for the win, yo.

Combine this with extremely high DDR (as in even huge defdebuffs won't budge your def substantially) and sliding scale resistances of SR that mean, especially on a tank, that you will be at the resistance caps with lots of health left.  See Sir Myshkins' post above ... And most/much of it doesn't even require IO's to do (helps though 😃).

[drbuzzard]

I can see the arguments in favor of defense (Bill is correct certainly about not getting debuffed if it doesn't hit you), but many things just basically seem to ignore defense altogether if you pick the wrong enemies. Final Rommy in an ITF has a nasty auto-hit attack. Ruularu will lay the smackdown on any defense based character turning your defense into wet paper mache. Any baddies with rad defense debuffs don't have to hit, and will make your life really bad (Crey, BP). Resistance, OTOH, is pretty much just what it is. It inherently resists its own debuff (without any additional help- and a lot of defense sets have minimal DDR). Also it's a rarer thing, IMO, to see resistance debuffs, especially big enough ones stacking up to melt you. Personally I prefer my resistance based tanks. (I have both flavors, well most flavors really). I prefer to take my beating in a slow and controlled fashion rather than the BIG WINNER LOTTO bursts of pain you find in defense builds. Call it a matter of taste more than necessarily a performance thing. 

[tellania]

1. Depends if I can hit the cap on one or the other (e.g. 45% SL defense is better than a max of 50% resistance ...)

2. With IO's, I tend to favor defense, as IO bonuses make it MUCH easier to increase your survivability.   Lots of fire/cold resistance values, not as much on other types.   Also, pool powers make it easier to increase defense (combat jumping/weave/hover/maneuvers/stealth/unless potential/etc) than resistance (tough/rune of protection).

3.  With all things considered (not IO bonuses), I'd go resistance.   Another benefit of resistance: gives you time to hit your heals or pop chiklets to survive.  With pure defense, you either dont need it, or your dead before you can respond.

 

In short, IMHO, I'd prefer capped resistance to defenses (resists use its own resistance rating as resistance debuffing value  (90% resists = 90% -resist resistance ...)(sorry for the awkward wording.   With it, regen comes into play much better (heal the wounds as they occur, compared to defense, which is a massive bloody wound, and you need to wait a looong time to recover).   Also, resistance gives time to click inspirations or clicky heal powers.

 

In game terms, if I'm deficient in some form, its MUCH easier to cap defenses from the multitude of IO set bonuses (far easier than to cap resistance), and find cheaper options to cap it from a market point of view.

 

 

 

[Hyperstrike]

If we are talking Capped Resistance and 0.00% Defense vs Capped Defense and 0.00% Resistance?

I'd go Resistance.  As it's a steady, predictable damage reduction every time you're hit.
While Defense is VERY attractive, it's binary.  You're hit or you aren't.  If you have NOTHING underneath your Defenses, it stops becoming quite so attractive.
Even with Tank HP, it becomes a Brute/Scrapper type experience.

"I'm in my happy place!"
"I'm in my happy place!"
"I'm in my happy"*SMOOTCHING FLOOR!*

You're basically living at the whim of the RNG Gods.

Resistance, you die in a steady "This ain't gonna end well." scenario.
Defense, you're sitting there, blown into salsa, wondering "What happened?"


If we're talking mixed mitigation types...It becomes VERY situational.
 

Edited August 4, 2020 by Hyperstrike

[Infinitum]

57 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

I'd go Resistance.  As it's a steady, predictable damage reduction every time you're hit.
While Defense is VERY attractive, it's binary.  You're hit or you aren't.  If you have NOTHING underneath your Defenses, it stops becoming quite so attractive.
Even with Tank HP, it becomes a Brute/Scrapper type experience.

Thats why my top 2 are Invul and Shield, you can come close to capping res on both with might of the tanker and rotating one with the shield and melee core, and on invul just might of the tanker gets you close to capped.

 

Then you have the softcapped defenses on both and you are pretty much unkillable.

[Hyperstrike]

I don't count Destiny and Hybrid powers.  Any more than I count non-perma clickies like Rune of Protection or Unstoppable.

It's far easier to make qualitative decisions based on the build's steady-state performance.
This is also why I say that Stone is the Gold Standard for durability.
You can actually cap Defenses AND Resists on Stone in Granite (Psi-hole excepted). WITHOUT Incarnates.
 

[CaptainLupis]

On 8/3/2020 at 12:33 AM, Werner said:

Resistance. A Super Reflexes Tank without any resists, including the scaling resists, will get killed by the RNG. A Radiation Tank without any defense should still be solid and predictable, if a bit vulnerable to status effects.

It is. My Rad/claws tank is built purely for res and recharge, the only def it has is from combat jumping and any def set bonuses are purely coincidental to getting more res or recharge.

 

I decided on a whim, after having a blast getting my claws/rad brute to 50, to not take any defence on this one and see how it coped. So far at 43 it has been all but unkillable, which I admit surprised me as I normally try and layer on as much def as I can get (the brute has 30%+ to all on top of its res).

 

You are right about the status effects though, I was in a mish the other night with +4x8 CoT, multiple succubi and death mages were a pain, damn near perma confuse and my tohit was floored. They still couldn't kill the tank though. Wish I could have squeezed in tactics sooner, as that would have helped, but that won't be until 47. Other than that though it has been pretty plain sailing so far.

[Sir Myshkin]

On 8/2/2020 at 6:33 PM, Werner said:

A Radiation Tank without any defense should still be solid and predictable, if a bit vulnerable to status effects.

!(@#@%*#^$()FEAR!*@&^#$!#)!@))_$ 🤬😠

 

is not disgruntled by this mez hole at all /s

[Hyperstrike]

On 8/2/2020 at 6:33 PM, Werner said:

Resistance. A Super Reflexes Tank without any resists, including the scaling resists, will get killed by the RNG. A Radiation Tank without any defense should still be solid and predictable, if a bit vulnerable to status effects.

I dunno that we should start looking at specific sets.

Because we start dealing with secondary effects (Healing/regen boosts, etc) which skew the comparison.

I'd look at it solely as "Big hunk of Resist" vs "Big hunk of Defense".

[Hedgefund]

I'm going to answer "which would you choose to maximize your chance to survive an encounter?" not "who has the most lifetime damage mitigation?"  
 

The reason I'm answering "most likely to survive encounter" is that in a game where you get attacked thousands of times in a session, there will be streaks.  So conceptually, would I rather walk away from every encounter with 80% HP (please note this number is solely FOR EXAMPLE so no need to tell me how your res based tank finishes all encounters with full health), surviving every time, or walk away from most encounters taking fewer hits but sometimes succumbing to the whims of the RNG.

 

So I'll take Res, to "bend, never break".

 

 

[Infinitum]

11 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

I don't count Destiny and Hybrid powers.  Any more than I count non-perma clickies like Rune of Protection or Unstoppable.

It's far easier to make qualitative decisions based on the build's steady-state performance.
This is also why I say that Stone is the Gold Standard for durability.
You can actually cap Defenses AND Resists on Stone in Granite (Psi-hole excepted). WITHOUT Incarnates.
 

Not taking into account a rotation that increases durability by a good measure - is easy to obtain - and has no noticeable crash - is simply overlooking a whole lotta mitigation at your disposal that you really dont need ultimately but is there if you did, but if you wanna be a godlike- ya know?  You kinda should count that.

 

Im only talking about melee core and one with the shield - both function similarly - and I'm pretty sure in rotation they are perma on shield. - ita close if its not.

 

I wouldnt count a destiny or something like unstoppable either - mainly because unstoppable isnt really unstoppable if you crash or fase anything pay.  You really never should pick unstoppable unless to mule.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

Yeah checked my numbers for every 6 min up in rotation you have 2 min down then its back into the rotation.

 

If you are into something that you would need more of 6 min of that kind of buff... lol you are in over your head anyway, but there isnt anything like that in the game anyway.

[Infinitum]

So basically you have 2 min of this...

 

 

 

Then 2 min of this.

 

 

Then 2 min of the first one again. - then you have a 2 min gap.

 

And also neither of these take into account Might of the Tanker proccing more than once - which it does quite frequently.

 

Normally you are at this..

 

 

And its more than enough under 99% of the game.

[Infinitum]

So breaking it down - If i had to pick Resistance or Defense I would pick Resistance, and I would pick Dark because of this...

 

 

Rad would be Second Place with resistance sets at this...

 

 

Almost forgot Electric Armor coming in at 3rd

 

 

Then fire a distant Fourth - its just not nearly as strong, but still decent.

 

 

However my top two would be these #1 is Invul at this.

 

 

Give invincibility a saturation and that turns to this.

 

 

Then A very very close second is this - Shield at #2

 

 

Willpower is middling around here somewhere because of this...

 

 

Then Willpower can do this with saturated RttC

 

 

Its just hard to beat the hybrid sets because they do both really really well. - even SR is a borderline Hybrid set because of the scaling resist - so there really isnt a true defense only tank set out there to classify this with.

 

Overall ranking based on my experiences.

 

1. Invul

2. Shield

3. Dark

4. Rad

5. Willpower

6. Electric

7. Fire

 

I dont have nor have ever played SR or Bio so i didnt rank them.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Infinitum

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Not taking into account a rotation that increases durability by a good measure - is easy to obtain - and has no noticeable crash - is simply overlooking a whole lotta mitigation at your disposal that you really dont need ultimately but is there if you did, but if you wanna be a godlike- ya know?  You kinda should count that.

 

Right.  But it has NOTHING to do with the innate toughness of a given armor set.

That's like going "I'm a god with my pocket Bubbler and pocket Kin!"

 

[Infinitum]

31 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

 

Right.  But it has NOTHING to do with the innate toughness of a given armor set.

That's like going "I'm a god with my pocket Bubbler and pocket Kin!"

 

One with the shield is actually a part of Shield, so again even if you just had that one it would make you stronger for 2 minutes with a crash thats so mild it can hardly be called a crash.

 

Everything you add to your build has everything to do with the toughness of your build, you cant separate the two once you are decked out and fully incarnated.

 

Alpha slot and Hybrid slots are very important and IMO shouldnt be overlooked because of how they operate - especially how you can rotate Melee core with OwtS.

 

Combined it gives you 6 minutes of near capped resistances on a hybrid set that - probably would be capped if MotT is max procd - that also gives you incarnate softcap to everything but ranged which is at 52% without hover and 55% with hover - so again even without it Shield is still as strong as my Invul with perhaps the only edge the invul going towards it having slightly more resists and also dull pain.

 

What does innate toughness mean, unslotted too? - that would be the most accurate definition. see once you go down that road, it really loses meaning anyway - cause who really plays that way?

[Werner]

7 hours ago, Infinitum said:

1. Invul

2. Shield

3. Dark

I'm playing my Dark/MA almost exclusively these days. But I probably spend as much time in Mids trying to come up with an Invuln/MA or Shield/MA build to best it in terms of overall package and how I like to play. Built a Shield/MA on beta over the weekend, but have done very little testing of it yet. Anyway, very similar numbers to what you showed, other than having significantly higher defense from Storm Kick. 3115 hit points is nice too, but of course Invuln beats even that.

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by Werner

[Infinitum]

50 minutes ago, Werner said:

I'm playing my Dark/MA almost exclusively these days. But I probably spend as much time in Mids trying to come up with an Invuln/MA or Shield/MA build to best it in terms of overall package and how I like to play. Built a Shield/MA on beta over the weekend, but have done very little testing of it yet. Anyway, very similar numbers to what you showed, other than having significantly higher defense from Storm Kick. 3115 hit points is nice too, but of course Invuln beats even that.

 

That's a good build! I love those sets that boost defense.

[Shred Monkey]

On 8/3/2020 at 3:08 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

Defense. It helps you avoid all those nasty debuffs out there. All the damres debuffs. All the end debuffs. All the tohit debuffs. Very few debuffs are autohit. If they can't hit you, they can't turn you into a puddle of red paste on the floor. SR for the win, yo.

I've been running +4x8s with my tank on anything I can find that seems hard.  I honestly don't remember seeing any resist debuffs.  Who actually does resist debuffs?  

 

[Shred Monkey]

On 8/4/2020 at 8:30 PM, Werner said:

I'm playing my Dark/MA almost exclusively these days.

I've been looking at that combo.  Haven't rolled anything up yet, but I like it.  The endurance use has me scared.

[BZRKR]

On 8/4/2020 at 2:07 AM, Sir Myshkin said:

!(@#@%*#^$()FEAR!*@&^#$!#)!@))_$ 🤬😠

 

is not disgruntled by this mez hole at all /s

Heh. At least we can always make a break free because Radiation doesn't need many inspirations 🙂

 

More on topic:

Do absorb shields count as Resistance, or as its own category?

[Haijinx]

On 8/3/2020 at 4:02 PM, Heraclea said:

Resistance, for one simple reason.  Adding a little bit of defense to a resistance armor set is IME a lot more beneficial than adding a little bit of resistance to a defense set.  You don't need to approach the softcap, or weaken your build chasing set bonuses.  Just adding small amounts of defense means that some attacks don't connect.  And that's enough.

Everyone and their brother's sister's cousin takes maneuvers these days.  

 

So a lot of the time you are getting +20-30% to def from the team before any support figures in.