Invulnerable: Debuff Defense resistance

[Paragon Vanguard]

On Invuln we have defense debuff resistance on resist physical damage. Unless I am missing something, which is highly possible, that is kind of useless on a resistance build. The only power that has defense is based on how many in mele range and it isn't really a big factor in my experience (again, if I am wrong I don't mind someone politely pointing out why). Since it is "invulnerable" wouldn't that be better served in boosting another resistance? I know this is mostly a smashing and lethal resistance builds (which with new patch has become less and less useful) but adding a little bit more resistance to something else would be nice. Anyway, just some feedback to maybe consider.  🙂

[Rudra]

What resist would you apply it to? It is my understanding that the character's damage resist including any beyond the cap also resists damage resist debuffs for that damage resistance. So what resistance are you thinking?

[Doomguide2005]

     I've not played Invulnerability so take that for what it's worth but being missed (i.e. defense) is like having 100% resistance in terms of damage taken (against all types at that) and further it's total protection against any debuff or mez or anything that requires hitting you first.  Further your resistance to damage resistance debuffs is your resistance to that damage type so it's sort of like asking to increase your resistances to all damage types ... which right now you can push to 100% which although beyond the resist damage cap does still add to your resistance to debuffs to that type.  

[Paragon Vanguard]

Probably a low level Psych, nothing pushing it to cap but something. Small fire and cold even. Triggers the same with the defense, when in melee range? It does not have a damage resistance debuff resistance, however, I would not apply that, as it's resistance is pretty high already. It could be something to discuss, but with lethal and smashing easily capped, it would make for a difficult sell. 

[Paragon Vanguard]

I don't want my point missed, its that defense debuff resistance is unnecessary in my opinion. It is discussion, so someone may have a different opinion. Not claiming to be an expert. If anyone can enlighten me as to the benefit of defense debuff resistance I am open to it. I am no expert. 

[Doomguide2005]

1 minute ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

Probably a low level Psych, nothing pushing it to cap but something. Small fire and cold even. Triggers the same with the defense, when in melee range? It does not have a damage resistance debuff resistance, however, I would not apply that, as it's resistance is pretty high already. It could be something to discuss, but with lethal and smashing easily capped, it would make for a difficult sell. 

As I stated while you were posting your resistance to resistance debuffs is your damage resistance.  To have greater resistance to debuffs without effecting your damage resistance would require coding a separate buff beyond your damage resistance.   Unless i misundetand you.

[Doomguide2005]

     The value in defense debuff resistance (DDR) is it lessens the amount of defense lost reducing the risk and or how rapidly you can enter a cascade failure where the foes will quickly reach a to hit of 95%.  Resistance to damage resistance debuffs (RDR) is always against your full value.  Push your RDR to 100% and you'll never have your damage resistance lowered as that cap is 100% while DDR caps at 95% and defense debuffs apply against the current value i.e. whatever is left after the previous defense debuffs are applied.  The best mitigation is going to be a capped defense backed by capped DDR layered on top of capped damage resistance with capped RDR.  Manage that and you will be truly Invulnerable (and the amount of healing/passive regeneration you'll need will be at minimum)

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

41 minutes ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

I don't want my point missed, its that defense debuff resistance is unnecessary in my opinion. It is discussion, so someone may have a different opinion. Not claiming to be an expert. If anyone can enlighten me as to the benefit of defense debuff resistance I am open to it. I am no expert. 

 

Defense debuff resistance is important enough that you can find in short order many many many posts asking for more defense debuff resistance in both sets that have it and sets that don't.

[Doomguide2005]

     DDR is extremely valuable to characters with large amounts of defense, particularly against higher level foes with defense debuffs.  Outside of a couple armor sets (Shield, SR) no sets wouldn't greatly benefit from higher DDR.  If your Invuln can aggro a swarm of +4 Cimerorans then just stand there for 10 minutes (or even several minutes) reading the newspaper and survive then you have 'enough' DDR (or something anyway 🤪).

[Hyperstrike]

3 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

I don't want my point missed, its that defense debuff resistance is unnecessary in my opinion. It is discussion, so someone may have a different opinion. Not claiming to be an expert. If anyone can enlighten me as to the benefit of defense debuff resistance I am open to it. I am no expert. 

Three words.

Cascading

Defense

Failure

Without DDR, high-defense characters basically become glass cannons waiting to happen.

Yes, if they ALSO have high Resist that takes a while.
But if you are in combat and suddenly your defense goes from a floored 5% chance to hit to YOU GET A HIT!  AND YOU GET A HIT! AND YOU GET A HIT!  YOU ALL GET A HIT!  It's a setup for WILD swings in performance and efficacy.

This is why, on builds with no native defense (and no DDR), I generally caution people to treat it like ablative armor (the way Absorb shields are treated).

Without that DDR, the ability to build high meaningful defense is crippled.  As late game starts chucking debuffs hot and heavy.  Additionally we start seeing increasing amounts of incoming damage from things OTHER than S&L.

And, having done the "Piss 'em off and stand there" maneuver testing before.  Yeah.  It's pretty damn neat.

[BlackHearted]

6 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

On Invuln we have defense debuff resistance on resist physical damage. Unless I am missing something, which is highly possible, that is kind of useless on a resistance build. The only power that has defense is based on how many in mele range and it isn't really a big factor in my experience (again, if I am wrong I don't mind someone politely pointing out why). Since it is "invulnerable" wouldn't that be better served in boosting another resistance? I know this is mostly a smashing and lethal resistance builds (which with new patch has become less and less useful) but adding a little bit more resistance to something else would be nice. Anyway, just some feedback to maybe consider.  🙂

It can seem a little counterintuitive at first but if you look at a modern invun build you're actually rocking a pretty decent amount of defense, maintaining that defense even through debuffs is a big part of being able to tank in the game. Currently it is possible to cap resistances to every dmg type on an invun tank.. so i don't really think that set needs an increase in any resistance area... but the DDR is most certainly useful and not just superfluous due to the armor having high resistances.

[Black Zot]

Doesn't matter how high your resists are, if your defense gets floored by debuffs you're going to die.  Period.  Resists alone do not and cannot keep a character on his feet under sustained attack.  Especially with the aggro changes potentially multiplying the incoming damage you're up against.

 

EVERYONE needs DDR.  No exceptions.

[arcane]

Yeah removing DDR from anything that currently has it is a pretty huge deal and a sizable nerf. This is just a misunderstanding of the game mechanics, no big deal.

[Uun]

Invulnerability is a hybrid set, not a resistance set. You're vastly underestimating the amount of defense the set provides. On a tank, fully slotted Invincibility with 10 foes in range would provide 23.4% defense to S/L/F/C/E/N. Tough Hide adds another 7.8% for a total of 31.2%. Also, both RPD and Tough Hide have 25% defense debuff resistance (50% total).

[Psyonico]

I'll second what everyone has said.

 

Resistance automatically resists resistance debuffs

 

Invulnerability is a hybrid defense/resistance set

 

DDR is not overrated on invulnerable (or any other set for that matter)

 

And one more thing... Even if none of the above were true, the simple fact that invulnerability is already a top-tier set means it shouldn't be "buffed"

[Luminara]

14 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

The only power that has defense

 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/power.html?power=tanker_defense.invulnerability.tough_hide&at=tanker

 

14 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

is based on how many in mele range

 

Is Invincibility the only source of Defense available to Invuln/* and */Invuln characters?  Do Defense buffs from other players fail to work on them?  Are they locked out of powers like Combat Jumping, Stealth and Weave?  Permanently laboring under the burden of Luck inspirations being disabled?

 

If the answer is no (which it is), then DDR benefits Invuln beyond simply keeping Invincibility's Defense from being completely nullified.  That DDR applies to all sources of Defense the character is using, which makes all of those sources of Defense more effective, more efficient and more reliable.  This is especially important now that critters well beyond the aggro cap can attack an aggro-saturated character and potentially stack significantly greater amounts of -Def on him/her.

 

14 hours ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

and it isn't really a big factor in my experience

 

~23.5% (tanker value after slotting)/17.5% (scrapper/brute value after slotting)+Def to Lethal/Smashing/Fire/Cold/Energy/Negative isn't "a big factor"?  Could you clarify why you don't consider a Defense buff that sizeable to be important?

[Major_Decoy]

Back before Issue Four, there was a sizable contingent that used to ask to get rid of all defensive powers in Invulnerability, they wanted it to be a pure resistance set. And one of the test builds that made Unyielding Stance Unyielding had something like -50% defense instead of the intended -5%. And I don't recall anyone asking for Invulnerability to be a pure resistance set after that.

[Paragon Vanguard]

7 hours ago, Luminara said:

Is Invincibility the only source of Defense available to Invuln/* and */Invuln characters?  Do Defense buffs from other players fail to work on them?  Are they locked out of powers like Combat Jumping, Stealth and Weave?  Permanently laboring under the burden of Luck inspirations being disabled?

No tank is locked out of that, nor any other set, so this is a moot point, and kind of cheeky and self amusing. No one makes a build based off of other's ability to add to (add whatever). I would not BASE a tanker build on whether a teammate can add to my defense, or how many purples I have to take. I was enquiring for actual discussion and meaningful input. My apologies if you were trying to help and simply failed, but I didn't ask any of those questions so not sure where that came from. 

[Luminara]

5 minutes ago, Paragon Vanguard said:

I didn't ask any of those questions

 

[Paragon Vanguard]

3 hours ago, Major_Decoy said:

Back before Issue Four, there was a sizable contingent that used to ask to get rid of all defensive powers in Invulnerability, they wanted it to be a pure resistance set. And one of the test builds that made Unyielding Stance Unyielding had something like -50% defense instead of the intended -5%. And I don't recall anyone asking for Invulnerability to be a pure resistance set after that.

Yeah, I tested it after reading this. The defense isn't bad. With it fully slotted I am getting 17.33% defense with 6 mobs around me. 10 can contribute so it would be a little higher. I am guessing 20% added. Which is good if the build was aimed towards defense, and maybe its still great all things considered, as I pointed out, I am a novice on tricking out my builds to maximize them. Just seems I am lacking in some resistance that a small boost would help. Again...could be wrong. 

[Paragon Vanguard]

11 hours ago, Uun said:

Invulnerability is a hybrid set, not a resistance set. You're vastly underestimating the amount of defense the set provides. On a tank, fully slotted Invincibility with 10 foes in range would provide 23.4% defense to S/L/F/C/E/N. Tough Hide adds another 7.8% for a total of 31.2%. Also, both RPD and Tough Hide have 25% defense debuff resistance (50% total).

Yeah, so that is what I am missing on it. Did some checking after you and some others replied, and thank you for the clarification. Still have a little left to do on this build, but that shoots me in the right direction. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Paragon Vanguard

[Psyonico]

Something else to consider, regular mobs have a base 50% chance to hit with a floor of 5%.  This means that you need 45% defense to floor regular enemy chance to hit.  Knowing that, even your 17.33% defense gets your a fair amount of the way there.