Rad Armor vs Invuln

[Saikochoro]

2 minutes ago, StriderIV said:

These are amazing, thanks Sai! I’ll tell you what, those are some impressive resists you are able to get out of that second shield/dm build. Crazy! I also think you’re right about that Inv/DM... unkillable. Especially when you start factoring in the -tohit. 

No problem. It’s fun seeing the crazy numbers you can get on tankers. I actually had never played them on live and have always had a damage oriented focus even on the tankers I have made this far. But I then I starting thinking about pushing the survivability on my tankers to really make them earn their name. 
 

Plus, I liked my concept for the inv/dark melee tanker being the personification of dark insatiable magic incased in the hard steel of a blade. After I finished the costume in the character creator I knew I was going to like the inv/dm.

[Gulbasaur]

On 3/24/2021 at 4:48 PM, StriderIV said:

- Little DDR, so those defenses you do have can crack easier.

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but my experience is that the absorb shield more than makes up for it. The meta can be a bit focussed on defence and defence debuff, but being able to summon a thousand hit points out of nowhere is pretty helpful. I'd also add that most teams at top levels are drowning in defence buffs so it's much less of a problem in game than on paper.

 

It's more "regen with resists" than "invuln with heals" in how it plays,

[Parabola]

17 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but my experience is that the absorb shield more than makes up for it. The meta can be a bit focussed on defence and defence debuff, but being able to summon a thousand hit points out of nowhere is pretty helpful. I'd also add that most teams at top levels are drowning in defence buffs so it's much less of a problem in game than on paper.

 

It's more "regen with resists" than "invuln with heals" in how it plays,

Yeah this. I much prefer rad over invuln. Defence debuff is often discussed as if it is the only problem defence has to deal with. Auto hit damage is a thing and more commonly there are enemies such as devouring earth, nemesis and rularuu that can stack to-hit buffs on themselves to the point that defence can become meaningless.

 

That's why I always go to resistance/heal sets if I'm looking to do really irritating content and so far rad is the best I've found for that. The trick is to build for recharge and resists rather than trying to add defence when there is no support for it. Also as you are going to get hit by everything you need to focus on debuff resistances too. Focused accuracy, ageless radial and solid slow resists from winter sets are a must.

[Heraclea]

3 hours ago, parabola said:

Yeah this. I much prefer rad over invuln. Defence debuff is often discussed as if it is the only problem defence has to deal with. Auto hit damage is a thing and more commonly there are enemies such as devouring earth, nemesis and rularuu that can stack to-hit buffs on themselves to the point that defence can become meaningless.

 

That's why I always go to resistance/heal sets if I'm looking to do really irritating content and so far rad is the best I've found for that. The trick is to build for recharge and resists rather than trying to add defence when there is no support for it. Also as you are going to get hit by everything you need to focus on debuff resistances too. Focused accuracy, ageless radial and solid slow resists from winter sets are a must.

IME, adding a bit of defense to resist based sets is much more worthwhile than adding resist to defense based sets.  Even 5% defense stops a fair amount of incoming damage cold.  And if it is debuffed away, you aren't missing much.   5% resistance shaves a tiny bit off the damage numbers, and if you're playing that close to the redzone you probably aren't going to make it anyways.  Defense is for scrappers, who don't benefit as much from resist based sets but aren't any harder to build for defense than brutes are. 

 

The Kismet Accuracy button (actually To-Hit) is also worth having for debuff resistance. 

[Sovera]

In my own experience (but please take this with a grain of salt since what I am about to say is subjective and not math) heals and shields don't help (much) against DDR.

 

Strider above mentions how 'so many heals won't be overkill' and that's one thing I've experienced myself: when the DDR nation attacks heals don't do enough. Or much.

 

Speaking strictly as as Tanker I can quote my usual ITF experience: I jump in, I start killing things fast as Fire Armor does. But, if for whatever reason, I take too long, or get some unlucky misses, or don't have BU up, or a second group joins, then I will go from being at most-of-my-defense and 100% HP to -30% -40% defense and my HP plummeting in seconds.

 

At this point two things can happen:

1) - I have already killed most things. My health is in the yellow, my defense is in the reds, my heal is recharging, but there are only three or four mobs left. I let my natural regen take the wheel and continue pounding the last of the enemies. With so few I'm safe as they don't hit fast enough for the debuffs not to expire and my heal recharges fast anyway.

2) - I have -not- killed most things. Perhaps I jumped in without BU to help me kill fast or another group joined in, or enough lucky hits went through right at the start and debuffed me hard. Regardless of the why I'm surrounded by enemies, my HP is in the yellow, my defense is in the red. In this scenario more heals or a shield don't help. In the time it takes to animate the heal while debuffed into the reds and surrounded by enough enemies still hitting and keep the debuffs up I will have that recovered HP dropped before the animation has ended.

 

In the second scenario it does not mean I'm going to dead (it would if stubbornly girdling my loins and refusing to budge). I immediately take up into the air out of reach, wait for my heal, maybe use Barrier to recover my defense or just wait until the debuffs ended. More heals would serve me no purpose since jumping back in the second scenario (too many enemies still alive, defense in the red) would just have my HP smeared again until the debuffs expired.

 

A shield is just a preventive heal, but when we are taking 95% of the hits it gets eaten.

 

 

Now, this is an extreme case. As I said in the past I tank the ITF just fine. I just plunge first when it's the towers and that means I'm at agro cap for a good while until the towers are cleaned. But I'm also in a team that is helping with the killing so mobs are crumpling. When I mention this it's just to say that X armor set is better than Y powerset can boil down a lot to spreadsheets but when we are actually playing the game everything works out fine to 97% of the game.

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Heraclea said:

IME, adding a bit of defense to resist based sets is much more worthwhile than adding resist to defense based sets.

 

I feel absolutely no shame at adding Scaling Resist to my SR tanker. No shame whatsoever. 😛

[Erratic1]

13 minutes ago, Sovera said:

In my own experience (but please take this with a grain of salt since what I am about to say is subjective and not math) heals and shields don't help (much) against DDR.

 

Strider above mentions how 'so many heals won't be overkill' and that's one thing I've experienced myself: when the DDR nation attacks heals don't do enough. Or much.

 

A shield is just a preventive heal, but when we are taking 95% of the hits it gets eaten.

 

Probably need to factor in the statement about Heals/Absorb was...

• ...about Radiation Armor primarily ("sets" does open it to other powerset, true)
• ...in relation to Invulnerability

Radiation Armor is going to be debuffing the To-Hit of anything nearby. So it is really resistances, heal/absorption, and screw with your ability to hit me up close. 

 

However I may be misreading because I am reading the use of "heal" in the statement to primarily refer to Absorb as the distinction was being drawn between Rad and Inv and in particular there was the comment about having a thousand extra hp. Healing and Absorption are functionally identical in a lot of way--hp to be burned through subject to your resistances/defenses--but the ability to have them in place without taking action is meaningful (though as you note, if they are being chewed threw quickly enough that meaning can drop to nothing).

[StriderIV]

4 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

Probably need to factor in the statement about Heals/Absorb was...

• ...about Radiation Armor primarily ("sets" does open it to other powerset, true)
• ...in relation to Invulnerability

Radiation Armor is going to be debuffing the To-Hit of anything nearby. So it is really resistances, heal/absorption, and screw with your ability to hit me up close. 

 

However I may be misreading because I am reading the use of "heal" in the statement to primarily refer to Absorb as the distinction was being drawn between Rad and Inv and in particular there was the comment about having a thousand extra hp. Healing and Absorption are functionally identical in a lot of way--hp to be burned through subject to your resistances/defenses--but the ability to have them in place without taking action is meaningful (though as you note, if they are being chewed threw quickly enough that meaning can drop to nothing).

I didn't factor in the -ToHit for Rad Armor, definitely a thing to consider.