Electric Armor and Defense

[Hero Star]

I have an Electric/Electric tank that has weave(luck of the gambler set) and maneuvers(mostly for shield wall, reactive defenses etc) and has 22-25% defense to everything. Basically capped res to all dmg. I notice on that tank when fighting mobs with -def debuff I go into the negatives. Is it even worth having defense on Electric?

 

I'm leveling up a Electric/SS and am making a build in mids. I'll be capped to all damage(except Neg and toxic) and Might of the Tanker in LF should help with -res mobs, and have around 10% defense to everything(not intentionally). Will I notice a difference in survival?

Edited November 12, 2020 by Hero Star

[DSorrow]

Based on my experience with a TW/Elec Brute, capped Resistances will do the heavy lifting of your survival. My build has S/L Def in the low 30s, mostly from incidental bonuses, CJ and Weave, and I honestly can't tell if it actually helps me. Most of the enemies that don't debuff Def couldn't hurt me through capped Resistances and Energize and the ones that can usually demolish my Defense. I guess the only circumstance where it does help me is if I'm in a team that can provide me with another ~30% Def: enough to push me well past the soft cap, but not enough on its own. And even then, the difference is obviously there only against some of the nastier enemy groups.

[Hero Star]

10 minutes ago, DSorrow said:

Based on my experience with a TW/Elec Brute, capped Resistances will do the heavy lifting of your survival. My build has S/L Def in the low 30s, mostly from incidental bonuses, CJ and Weave, and I honestly can't tell if it actually helps me. Most of the enemies that don't debuff Def couldn't hurt me through capped Resistances and Energize and the ones that can usually demolish my Defense. I guess the only circumstance where it does help me is if I'm in a team that can provide me with another ~30% Def: enough to push me well past the soft cap, but not enough on its own. And even then, the difference is obviously there only against some of the nastier enemy groups.

Yeah and not having defense debuff resistance in Electric it's like what's the point. I dont really feel like posting the build, but if I dont take weave/maneuvers I'll have better endurance(SS seems End heavier than EleM, especially with Rage) and add a better attack to my chain.

Edited November 12, 2020 by Hero Star

[Warboss]

The general thought is that w/o DDR there's no need for Defense on Resistance built Tanks (the defense gets stripped away too easily). But, on live I ran an Electric/Fire as my main Tank for a long time. I think he had 45%+ to Melee and probably 20-30% Def against most other things. Here I'm currently testing an Elect Armor/Elect Melee Tank that has almost no Def and is pretty much capped to all except Toxic (I'd don't recall his Tox Resist). This may be a strictly memory vs reality vs game mechanics/math issue, but I swear my Tanker from live was more survivable (could be the 2ndry coming into play too Fire vs Elect). I'm slowing working on a second build to try out. So I'm afraid I don't have any solid info to contribute, but I am looking for an answer to this question too. I'll post my conclusions when I get to them. Until then I look forward to hearing from other Tankers as well.

 

I'm not sure what level your Tank is but some of the Incarnate abilities can really help cover holes in the build or speed up how fast mobs go down (dead mobs are the best damage mitigation).

[ironjoe]

Getting 45% S/L and Melee isn't too difficult. It depends on the amount of defense debuff there is and what team buffs you have going on. Here is one way to get it as an example.

 

Edit: I originally had flight crammed in there an noticed I didn't swap those IOs in Lightening Reflexes and Swift. Obiously swap those for run IOs, Also Stamina might not have the best proc there... I would have to check but otherwise survival numbers are pretty good.

 

Iron Joe - Tanker (Electric-Electric).mxd

Edited November 14, 2020 by ironjoe
Add comment and flagged as edit.