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

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

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?  

 

Unsure to be honest, but here's a fun post on the topic:

 

Sooo, Longbow?

[Werner]

4 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

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

Maybe for leveling, but I don’t remember it being bad. Plenty of ways to deal with it with incarnate powers and IOs. He has sustainable endurance in fights, 86.5% endurance drain and recovery debuff resistance, and Conserve Power in reserve for emergencies. I think I’ve used it two or three times total, and it probably didn’t count as an emergency, just being overcautious. I consider endurance to be a strength of Dark Armor in the end game, not a weakness. He’s also only died twice ever. Once on a +4x8 enemies buffed no inspirations solo MoITF attempt when I tried to charge through the cysts, once on a no-inspiration AE 801.2. It’s a pretty new character, level 90 something, and I’m sure he’ll die again, but it takes effort to get killed. Almost died charging through 801.1 no inspirations, but in a fortunate coincidence of timing was saved by a level up. It’s my only Tanker on live, so I don’t have much to compare him to other than by numbers and theorycraft. I think Invuln/MA would be tougher at the cost of some damage output, but haven’t tested. On beta I’ve been testing the Shield/MA I mentioned, and I’ve killed him twice already, but I’m still experimenting, so I’ve not concluded that he’s weaker. His hit points definitely move more slowly. My Dark has higher resists, but is subject to defense debuffs. When he’s suffering from 100% defense debuffs, his hit points sometimes move fast, and it’s a matter of hoping Dark Regeneration recharges in time. But I guess they’re moving fast on enemies buffed (+125% damage taken) and 801.x (evil) and level 54 Anti-Matter (targets my weaknesses). Most things I never touch Dark Regen, Barrier, Conserve Power, or inspirations. I really, really like playing him. I would prefer something “immune” to defense debuffs, which is why I’m fiddling with high-defense Invuln and Shield, but then I’m comparatively weak to endurance drains and recovery debuffs. One of the Shield’s testing deaths was draining out and detoggling while Conserve Power was running, though I was admittedly a little late hitting it. With more experience I’d have recognized the danger and hit it earlier, and probably killed them before they killed me. Or I could have run, or used inspirations, but I consider either of those almost as bad as dying. 😉

Edited August 7, 2020 by Werner

[Werner]

3 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

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?  

 

I’m only specifically remembering IDF seers, Anti-Matter, and AE 801.x, but I know there are others. Monitor resistance and you’ll see it now and then. Definitely not as widespread as defense debuffs, though.

[aethereal]

Longbow does resist debuffs.

[Shred Monkey]

26 minutes ago, Werner said:

I’m only specifically remembering IDF seers, Anti-Matter, and AE 801.x, but I know there are others. Monitor resistance and you’ll see it now and then. Definitely not as widespread as defense debuffs, though.

Yeah.. I monitor 4 of the resistance stats.  They're all cap'd without fighting, so the tanker proc must be putting over cap by more than I'm being debuffed because I never see it.  I fight longbow all the time in tip missions and haven't noticed a debuff.

 

By far the most dangerous thing I face is defense debuffs.  My melee and smash/lethal are at soft cap'd defense, so if defense debuffs come into play and drop me to -50 defense that can increase the incoming damage by over 10x (<5-11 hitrolls needed to <95 hitrolls needed).  Generally either energize or rebirth give me the regen to handle those moments until I kill the debuffer.  I use my justice incarnate power to eliminate a bunch of incoming damage as another option.   I tried ageless for the debuff resists, and it works against defense debuffs.  But since Rebirth basically covers the same threats plus helps with other threats like enemies with +tohit, I run that instead.

 

(this is all on my elec/db tank, btw) 

[Haijinx]

37 minutes ago, aethereal said:

Longbow does resist debuffs.

Doesn't Resistance act as its own Resistance Debuff Reduction though?

[Werner]

6 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

They're all cap'd without fighting, so the tanker proc must be putting over cap by more than I'm being debuffed because I never see it.

Yeah, I think that makes you basically immune to resistance debuffs the same way an overcapped SR is basically immune to defense debuffs.

[Werner]

3 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Doesn't Resistance act as its own Resistance Debuff Reduction though?

Yes

[aethereal]

1 hour ago, Haijinx said:

Doesn't Resistance act as its own Resistance Debuff Reduction though?

Yes, so you don't have the catastrophic fall down the increasing-returns curve that defense has at softcap.  A 10% resist debuff means you take 10% more incoming damage, not like 100% more (ie, it moves you from 90% resists to 89% resist, not from 90% resist to 80% resist, if you're right at the 90% cap).

 

That said, there are big resist debuffs out there.  If you're a tanker who has survivability vastly in excess of what is challenged by ordinary content, you may never really notice resist debuffs.  But if your damage mitigation is well-tuned to the damage that's incoming, you'll certainly notice it when resist debuffs come in.

[ninja surprise]

Defense, so I can click a glowie without clearing the room. 😎

[Greentea]

Resistance all the way. DDR exists everywhere, and -resists is rare. It's easy to build defenses via different sources, but not resistances.

[SwitchFade]

The answer is 🥧.

 

Always 🥧.

[SwitchFade]

On 8/7/2020 at 8:37 AM, Haijinx said:

Doesn't Resistance act as its own Resistance Debuff Reduction though?

Resistance resists resistable resistance debuffs.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, SwitchFade said:

Resistance resists resistable resistance debuffs.

Resistance resists resistible resistance reductions.

Resistance resists resistible resistance reductions.

Resistance resists resistible resistance reductions.

Resistance resists resistible resistance reductions.

Resistance resists resistible resistance reductions.

 

By the seashore ... 

 

[Hedgefund]

To answer the question "who does resist debuffs" check out the Wailers in St. Martial.  Hardcase, for one, is a contact that gives you plenty of them.

 

If you want to experience what it's like to get sonic attacks stacked, by all means check them out.  

 

First volley - "oh that's not too bad"

Second volley - "uh oh"

Third - "should I hit rez to hosp or base?"

[Sovera]

Assuming that they are still alive to do it. Or not hitting their head on defense against S/L 😆 I'm assuming sonic has a smash component in there.

[ninja surprise]

Another data point for OP's question: defense is a lot cheaper to cap than resist. 

As a casual builder I've been preferring defense to soft cap early and cheap and then any good drops and inf are icing on top.

[Doomguide2005]

On 8/17/2020 at 12:23 PM, Sovera said:

Assuming that they are still alive to do it. Or not hitting their head on defense against S/L 😆 I'm assuming sonic has a smash component in there.

AFAIK yes Wailers would be smash/energy.  I can still remember watching Brutes rather than Tanks (in the RO Network) encountering them (albeit pre IO's) and getting absolutely destroyed.  But they were new foes ... and no IOs or Incarnate stuff involved. 

Edited August 23, 2020 by Doomguide2005