Should I slot Hover?

[drgantz]

I  usually put 3-4 slots in Hover for defense.  I recently read that Hover isn't very good for defense.

Is Hover worth slotting?

[Apparition]

Not really.  Slot one flight speed/endurance reduction IO (as Hover actually debuffs your flight speed if you don’t slot it for flight speed), and one Luck of the Gambler 7.5% global recharge IO, and call it a day.

[Nemu]

I'd slot it 2 blessing of zyphyr for the flight speed and range defense, and an LoTG 7.5. Kismet +acc and winter 20% slow resist proc  if your build calls for it.

[Doomguide2005]

It's not a terribly effective place to slot for defense.  The base is 2.5% on a defender (using defender AT mods) which means, iirc, you could get around 3.75% before ED really gets going (meaning you've gained +1.25% defense for those slots).  So you're probably better off in most cases slotting special defense IOs and or the Universal Travel sets and specials.  Sometimes like with the LotG (def/increased recharge) they'll also include as an aspect defense enhancement in the IO.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Clarity

[Uun]

21 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The base is 2.5% on a defender

On a blaster, Hover is 1.75% defense. 

[Shred Monkey]

There's a lot of really good options in the defense IO set bonuses and antiques to help with +recharge, +resists and +acc... etc.    But don't discount slotting for defense.  If I'm building soft-capped defenses (and personally, I always am), I use everything I can to get there... then you can strip things back if I find I'm over 45%.

[Hyperstrike]

It's a good place for a +GlobalRecharge, or a Knockback Resist, or a Slow Resist.  Or even a Stealth IO.

Unless you're planning a "HoverBlaster" playstyle, it's not a terribly great place to slot Defense.  But every bit can help.
If you ARE planning to HoverBlast, then just shorten that to "Every Bit Can Help".

[Nemu]

2 slots blessing of zephyr will do more than 2 defense slots in hover for a hover blasting build, and when I see people take hover I always assume they are going the hover blasting route.

 

I'd only throw defense slots aside from LoTG 7.5 into hover as a very last resort and usually only when I'm trying to softcap multiple vectors/damage types. For hover blasting builds there are plenty of better investments to get to that ranged softcap if that's the goal.

[Doomguide2005]

5 hours ago, Uun said:

On a blaster, Hover is 1.75% defense. 

Yes I deliberately picked an AT with the highest AT mod.  I could have picked Tank as well.  Either way that's going to be the best case as far as net gain in defense afaik.  All other ATs will gain even less benefit.  But as others are pointing out it really comes down to the needs and goals of the build/builder.

[Onlyasandwich]

As @Nemu said, 2 slot zephyr and lotg standard.

 

I use hover in combat and want some speed, so prefer to slot the zephyr -kb elsewhere like flight. 

 

I usually pick hover early in my build and pile on any unique defense ios that aren't going into sets. Kismet and one or both of the damage resist ios commonly. 

 

Most of my builds follow the same philosophy here with either hover or combat jumping.

[ZorkNemesis]

I hardly ever slot mine.  I usually slap a LotG Recharge and call it a day.  Typically my Hover Blasters also have Fly so I put the BotZ there instead and put a flight speed IO into Swift.  If I put any extra slots into Hover, it's because I need a place to put Shield Wall and Reactive Defenses procs.  

[Yomo Kimyata]

I'm generally a leaper rather than a flier, but I tend to slot hover the same way I would slot Combat Jumping.  My default slotting is Shield Wall proc, Reactive Defenses proc, then maybe Kismet Accuracy and LotG recharge.

[Rokkeb]

On 2/19/2021 at 11:25 AM, drgantz said:

I  usually put 3-4 slots in Hover for defense.  I recently read that Hover isn't very good for defense.

Is Hover worth slotting?

I like a speed/endurance combo from one of the flight sets, + I will max slot it depending on how many mules I want to fit in a build. Will usually have Gamblerds Recharge, PvP Unique, maybe Kismet accuracy. Just depends on if I need easy slots to put more global mules. 

[Hjarki]

It depends.

 

A single Defense IO in Hover yields +0.45 universal defense. On a melee build, you could argue that this is worth +1.35 total defense since it covers three categories of interest for you. On a Blaster, you're ignoring many of the defense categories for a few.

 

If you're a standard Hover-Blaster, you only care about one of those categories: Ranged. So it's only worth +0.45 Ranged Defense to you.

 

Spending two slots on BotZ would ned you +0.625 Ranged Defense per slot, so it's better to slot it up for speed.

 

On a SLER Blapper, you care about two categories of defense: S/L and E/N/R. So it would be worth +0.9 overall defense to you. But two slot BoTZ would still only be worth +0.625 Ranged Defense per slot (I'm assuming the first slot is LotG since most Blasters don't have piles of defensive mules just lying around for LotG).

 

However, BotZ isn't actually all that great in Hover. It's fantastic when you're dumping it into Super Speed or a similar power because you otherwise wouldn't slot that power at all - so you're getting that +1.25 Ranged Defense for only one slot (since the first slot is free).

 

Let's compare against a really strong set: Basilisk's Gaze.

 

With 4 slots (3 more than the free slot), you get +1.25 Ranged Def and +7.5% Recharge. Recharge costs about twice as much in IO set bonuses than defense (the best recharge is 10%; the best defense is 5%). So for your 3 slot investment, you're getting +1.25 Ranged Def + 7.5 / 2 equivalent 'defense' = +5 'equivalent defense'. That's +1.67 'equivalent defense' per slot you invested.

 

This, of course, assumes you need recharge in your build - which I view as a safe assumption with a Blaster.

 

In most cases, you'll find it's more efficient to mule extra offensive powers that you may not use much of the time (such as an epic pool Hold) than it is to try to eek every last bit of performance out of your toggles. Tough/Weave will generally be the only defensive toggles (from standard pools) that most Blasters would bother slotting for extra effect.

[JasonZZ]

On 2/19/2021 at 1:25 PM, drgantz said:

I  usually put 3-4 slots in Hover for defense.  I recently read that Hover isn't very good for defense.

Is Hover worth slotting?

It's not worth slotting for defense as such. It does make a nice place to put your defense globals (like LOTG +recharge or the Shield Wall +res one), though. And as others have already said, it's good to slot flight speed and a bit of end redux into it; you can't get it to pre-ED fast-as-Fly levels anymore, but it's still pretty good.

[kelika2]

2 fly and IO mules, lotg 7.5, glad +resist all, etc