Toxic Defense

[Apparition]

Now that toxic defense is a thing as of Issue 27 (seriously, take a look at your combat attributes, it's there), what are some good sources of it?  I noticed that Shadow Fall, Hover, Dispersion Bubble, and Energy Cloak all grant it.  Has anyone noticed any enhancement sets that grant +toxic defense?

 

I imagine this would be a good way to at least partially close the toxic hole in some builds like Electric Armor.

[Greycat]

Not sure of any sets that do right offhand.

[Parabola]

It is? Interesting. I suppose it would make sense to pair up those precious few pure psi defence set bonuses so they also grant toxic defence.

 

Mind you I've always thought that psi/toxic is a bit of an oddball pairing on the res side. Smash/lethal; fine, both physical attacks. Fire/cold; also fine, both elemental. Nrg/neg; kind of still makes sense but more of a stretch. But psi/toxic? Mental attacks and toxic waste being resisted by the same thing? I can see why they paired them of course and I'm glad they did but it just seems odd to me.

[ZorkNemesis]

I don't really get why we need Toxic defense. Toxic resistance is pretty common (many self-heals offer it, as do a number of other defensive powers like Patron shields and even Deflection Bubble) and I feel like using positional defenses to avoid it worked fine.  I'm not saying it's a bad thing that Toxic defense exists now, it's just something I never really thought we needed.  Electric Armor seems like the only set that really has trouble with it, but given what that set offers it needs to have a weakness somewhere...

 

Another thought, how many sources of "pure" Toxic damage are there to defend against?  Beyond Vahzilok, Hydra, Devouring Earth and Halloween Zombies i'm not coming up with too many.  Most Toxic is delivered as a secondary effect like Spines or poison bites/weapons.

 

But as for the topic at hand, I'm pretty sure no IO sets offer it, since it didn't exist prior.  Anything that offers Def(All) works on it though, including Combat Jumping, Hover, Stealth, Weave Steadfast Protection/Gladiator's Armor, Field Operative, Shinobi, Hide, etc.  And as before, positionals still work for it; that Vahzilok spit still isn't going to hit you if your Ranged defense is good.

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by ZorkNemesis

[Gulbasaur]

1 hour ago, parabola said:

Mind you I've always thought that psi/toxic is a bit of an oddball pairing on the res side. Smash/lethal; fine, both physical attacks. Fire/cold; also fine, both elemental. Nrg/neg; kind of still makes sense but more of a stretch. But psi/toxic? Mental attacks and toxic waste being resisted by the same thing? I can see why they paired them of course and I'm glad they did but it just seems odd to me.

I think Psi damage was always meant to be "different", hence the non-positional psi attacks. There's also the slightly off fact that there are two clear effect sets for psi purple woowoo blasts and white rings -maybe they changed their mind? Maybe they made two sets independently? I suspect early on that psi damage was meant to be endgame/elite damage but I have nothing to confirm that. In early game powersets, psi resistance was one of the harder ones to build up.

 

I think toxic damage was originally untyped damage, but I could be wrong. Toxic resistance is also attached to a lot of early game heals, so it also worked differently to s/l/e/n/f/c damage.

 

Basically, they're "miscellaneous".

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I think Psi damage was always meant to be "different", hence the non-positional psi attacks. There's also the slightly off fact that there are two clear effect sets for psi purple woowoo blasts and white rings -maybe they changed their mind? Maybe they made two sets independently? I suspect early on that psi damage was meant to be endgame/elite damage but I have nothing to confirm that. In early game powersets, psi resistance was one of the harder ones to build up.

 

I think toxic damage was originally untyped damage, but I could be wrong. Toxic resistance is also attached to a lot of early game heals, so it also worked differently to s/l/e/n/f/c damage.

 

Basically, they're "miscellaneous".

One of the things I love about my Dark/Dark main Brute is laughing at Minds of Mayhem Incarnate Trial.  90% Psi Resistance.  It just keeps getting funnier...every...single...time.

[The_Warpact]

My toxic def is usually just to scroll by or in some instances /block....

[Outrider_01]

You can group Toxic/Psi damage as exotic, its very rare until you hit specific enemies and they just give it away;  Vahzolok for Toxic and Carnies with Psi.

[Apparition]

46 minutes ago, Outrider_01 said:

You can group Toxic/Psi damage as exotic, its very rare until you hit specific enemies and they just give it away;  Vahzolok for Toxic and Carnies with Psi.

 

Arachnos is a big one for toxic, and they're all over the place at level 40+ red side.

[Doomguide2005]

     Just be careful sometimes +Defense (All) isn't in fact "All".  See the HCwiki article about "Defense".

[KauaiJim]

11 hours ago, Outrider_01 said:

You can group Toxic/Psi damage as exotic

 

Yes, my ex-wife was exotic.  This explains much.  She did break through my defense, but my 'exotic' resistances held! 😘