Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #32: I am Iron Man (a discussion of defense sets)

[SeraphimKensai]

Welcome back folks. This week we tackle defense, resistance, regeneration, resilience, etc. based armor sets.

 

What defensive powerset do your u enjoy playing the most? The least? Is there a particular defensive powerset that you feel compelled a overtuned? If that only on particular ATs? What about any that you perceive as undertuned? What about playing defensive based sets whether they use defense, resistance, regen, or some combination thereof that appeal to you the most? D you take taunt if available? How does each armor set stack up at various difficulty levels? What type of agro management do you focus on if any? What kind of experience do you have tanking whether as a tank or other melee based toon with an armor based powerset?  Solo? Small teams? Large teams? Leagues? How does your experience with such support your assertions regarding each defensive powerset? What defensive powerset synergies do you use with other powersets or pools?

 

 

As always thanks a ton.

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by SeraphimKensai

[JasperStone]

I really love Ice on a Tanker

One of my mains reborn from live is Mora Victory Ice/Ice/Ice

 

A great balance of mitigation like

Ice Patch(not a fan of the changes, but understand the need)

Taunting beast

More survivable than people think.

 

On Indom I had to a chance to lead a Hami once with Mora, and tanked Hami a few times with her. Yes, there was a support crew. 

But still a highlight for me.

[Snarky]

I play Invulnerability and Dark most often on Defense sets.  I use Hyperstrike's Invul templates.  I will not go into details, because everything I do there is pretty much plagiarism 

 

Dark.  Hmmm.  Many people on the boards F this up so bad it just makes me shake my head.  They do not take either / or both Stun and Fear Toggles.  For whatever reasons.  Shit decision.  Everybody that knows anything about Defense sets in CoH knows this: Defense is better than Resist is better than Heal.  Simple Math statement. Def > Res > Heal.  Dark is a Resists set, so should be in the 2nd tier, at best.  Built correctly this is not only an A tier set, but in most cases an S tier set.  I have Tanked Rom on a Master Ms Lib run using Dark successfully. So, why?  First.  DO NOT try to build Defense.  You have no Defense Debuff Resistance.  Build Resistance.  But you point out, didn't you say Resistance is less effective than Defense?  How does that work?  So... I tell you.  Dark stands Def > Res > Heal on it's head and then dances on it's feet.  Dark has non suppressing Stealth.  So you can brutalize 17 Longbow and their buddies in the next spawn a few feet away stand around, drink coffee, and idly wonder what is going on.  Dark's Stun, Fear, and To Hit debuffs provide a VERY strong "faux defense" to STOP attacks so you do not need Def, Res, or Heal.   This works on the trash.  On beasts like Rom and AVs?  You can get most of your armors at 100% Res easy.  This means they cannot be debuffed.  Res will cap at 90% but Res is it's own Res debuff Res.  100% works against everything but a few weird LB wardens with a special power.  You cannot get Energy to 100, but you can get it very high if you try.  Hard.  So you are mostly taking tiny damage from everything that does hit you.  Then Rom wallops you with ALL the energy damage.  But you got high (if not perfect) energy resistance... AND... the best heal in the game.  Hands down.  No contest.  Take you from 1% to 100%.  and it is up every few seconds.  Dark.  Not for everyone.  Expensive.  Tough to build right.  Tough to understand at first.  S class armor just waiting for you to try.  

Edited June 14, 2023 by Snarky

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

D you take taunt if available?

 

I take taunt on tanks, but only once I think I'm able to deal with all the damage that will bring down on my character.

No reason to start taunting and dying just because taunt can be the next pick.

So usually I'll end  up getting another defensive power or two once taunt becomes available before picking it.

 

8 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

What type of agro management do you focus on if any?

 

Taunt (with a Perfect Zinger chance for Psi damage, and probably 2 other from the set as able to slot - increasing range and recharge time), damage auras, SFX auras and as many multi-target attacks as possible.

 

8 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

What kind of experience do you have tanking whether as a tank or other melee based toon with an armor based powerset?

 

With tankers; Dark, Radiation, Electric, Stone, Invincibility, shield defense, super reflexes, willpower, fire.

I don't think I have a bio armor or ice tankers at this point.

 

I don't run tanks that often, but most recently dark, super reflexes, and fire.

 

8 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Solo? Small teams? Large teams? Leagues?

 

I don't solo tanks.

I'll help a small team or a Summer Blockbuster with a tank.

I usually try to be on a task force when running a tanker.

I only run in leagues during seasonal events or when there is a large group for a Giant Monster fight.

 

8 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

How does your experience with such support your assertions regarding each defensive powerset?

 

The power sets all work differently, so I have play differently with each set.

The main thing that stands out to the most is in the Dark armor set not inherently having knockback protection. I didn't remember that from live, but, wow, I really see it on Homecoming. Luckly, there are was to get knockback protection in other ways.

 

 

[Biff Pow]

Invulnerability is by far my favourite defensive set. I like its simplicity, four auto powers and three fire-and-forget toggles. This also kind of applies to Super Reflexes, which I would like more if there was anywhere to slot Resistance IOs.

 

The other great thing about Invulnerability is it's constantly getting buffed, and it's hilarious to see how much more of an unkillable monster you can create with each new update.

[0th Power]

I have always stayed away from defense sets.  It is tough to get them leveled up early on.  Resist sets are more survivable in the early game and regeneration is more fun, at least for me.  It is also easier to chase defense with IOs than resists.  I know there isn't going to be DDR, but even with cascading defense failure, I still have my resists and regeneration.  I do have a lv 50 SR tanker which almost impossible to kill in normal content.  If we're counting invulnerability as a defense set (I'd say hybrid set), I have one of those too.

[SeraphimKensai]

I've played all the armor sets at some point over the years. My first 50 was an invulnerability/axe tank named Assisted Suicide that dinged 50 at a cyber cafe in Kuwait before heading over to Iraq. These were the days of Perma Unstoppable and while we can't get that back armor sets in general work really well.

 

Invulnerability itself is in the best place it's ever been, and honestly over-tuned IMO given that it's traditional hole to psi was plugged.

 

Stone Armor is also in a really great place given it's changes over the last couple of years.

 

Energy Aura is insanely good especially on a stalker. Rad Armor might be my favorite armor set due to proc bombing ground zero and radiation therapy (I just wish I could do a nofx option). I really like Dark Armor a lot despite it's high endurance cost, once you build around that the set just works and gets some amazing resilience despite not having something akin to Dull Pain.

 

Fiery Aura sadly I've relegated over the last decade or so to farming, albeit a fun em/fa pvp brute back when cov launched. I should make a FA non farming tank and see how resilient I can make it with a barrier, melee, rune rotation and 100% slow res.

 

My old spines/regen was historically one of my favorite toons back when regen was whatever doesn't one shot you doesn't matter. At this point it's probably best on a Sentinel (and I like my AR/Regen Jesus concept toon), but I have a savage/regen brute that I tried to make as resilient as I could and it was tolerable but not very impressive. I still would like to see regen on a tanker, but I don't like a taunt aura on integration.

 

 

[Veracor]

Bio is okay I guess.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I wish there were a way to A. make resistance-based sets more relevant and B. make defense debuff resistance less relevant.

[Spaghetti Betty]

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

What defensive powerset do your u enjoy playing the most?

Lately it's been Rad Armor.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

The least?

Invuln! I know it's good but it's so boring. I like my armor sets to have some interactivity to them.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

Is there a particular defensive powerset that you feel compelled a overtuned? If that only on particular ATs?

Well, the most common offenders are Rad and Bio, but we know why. One set I could argue is overtuned in the wrong direction now is Fiery Aura. The extra Max HP and regen has made it extremely tanky and a lopsided tradeoff for the Burn fix, to the point where I usually don't consider it for offense as much as a hybrid-Regen tank with some offense built in. Another one I feel gets overlooked as overtuned is Energy Aura, though it's overtunedness (yes I made up a word) is directly proportionate to it's skill ceiling.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

What about any that you perceive as undertuned?

I genuinely feel every armor set has everything it needs to perform at a high level. Yes, including Regen. Could there be tweaks to some? Sure. But none of them are really struggling, per se.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

What about playing defensive based sets whether they use defense, resistance, regen, or some combination thereof that appeal to you the most?

My thought process is pretty simple. If I wanna play something safe, I'll pick a DEF-based powerset. If I feel like living on the edge and offense minded, I'm reaching for a RES-based powerset. They typically have more options to boost sustainability whereas DEF powersets are more inclined to never be in danger in the first place.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

D you take taunt if available?

Only on Tanks! Broots are for brooting and Scrappers exist.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

How does each armor set stack up at various difficulty levels?

As you skew the difficulty up (including Advanced Difficulty), RES-based powersets start to pull ahead based on how consistent their protection is. Capped RES and some solid HpS is more reliable since DEF and Absorb buffs are more readily available in quantitative amounts at a high level (Cold, FF, Nature, Barrier). Can that be flipped on its head? Sure. My SR/DM Tank turns into a 4* god with a Thermal and Nature present. In the end, every armor set can be made godlike with the right support backing it.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

What type of agro management do you focus on if any?

Besides damage? Well, I guess Taunt. It is the best crowd control in the game, after all.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

What kind of experience do you have tanking whether as a tank or other melee based toon with an armor based powerset?  Solo? Small teams? Large teams? Leagues?

I tend to stay away from League-sized Tanking because I just don't want to. I'm more inclined to much more personal gameplay experiences. I love love love small team Tanking. My most fun times in the game are running a Tank in teams of 4 or smaller.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

How does your experience with such support your assertions regarding each defensive powerset?

If anything, it compounds my beliefs further. Having only 1 or 2 teammates forces you to analyze the situation much more and pay attention to how their powers influence your gameplay.

 

On 6/14/2023 at 1:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

What defensive powerset synergies do you use with other powersets or pools?

If I'm looking for a particularly safe combo, my go to pairing is usually Ice Melee. It may be a damage monster now, but it has always been the picturesque example of how a melee set can add to survivability thanks to Ice Patch and Freezing Touch (and to a lesser extent the sleep in Frozen Aura). Rune is also one of my go to choices for DEF sets that can utilize the extra burst mitigation.

[Nyghtmaire]

On 6/14/2023 at 4:56 PM, Snarky said:

Dark is a Resists set, so should be in the 2nd tier, at best.

 I love your posts and your snark, but gotta disagree. Dark Armor is a blended set, high focus on resistance but with a decent floor of defense with a monster heal. It provides players with many pathways to build their (broadly defined) defenses. I agree strongly that recharge and accuracy are key if not primary concerns for any dark armor character (along with endurance reduction, but generally I think the complaints are overblown and often premised on poor planning).
 

The direction one takes is very dependent on the partnered power set. Katana/dark scrappers have been a THING for a while, blending resistances with significant melee defense. Dark/dark begs for defense buffing (32-35) to work in conjunction with -ToHit debuffs. Dark/dark Stalkers get more mileage out of Cloak of Fear (stacking with the fear splash from assassin’s strike), while a stone/dark brute can stack stuns with Oppressive Gloom. There are numerous ways to build and hidden gems in the myriad combinations. 
 

If anything, the modern game begs for slow resistance for dark armor. And thank goodness 2 powers on the armor can take winter sets for a total of 30% to build from. Wish Cloak of Fear gave some slow resistance (it fits in theme), but this armor set provides a ridiculous amount of protection already that I can’t see that happening.

 

The only thing it inexplicably lacks is KB protection. If the devs ever subject it to a pass, I hope they add this in somewhere similar to what they FiDi to /Fire.

 

Ovwrall, I prefer the resist sets to other options. Dark (!!!), radiation (!!), fire (!!), and electricity (!) just -*feel*- right compared to the defense sets. No knock to those that prefer otherwise, just pure, unadulterated opinion. Almost ineffable. I like to push at the higher difficulty levels. Defense buffs are easy to come by and inspirations seem to give more bang for your buck when eating candy. Always feels like I’m *playing* the game rather than just shooting (or punching) fish on a barrel. 

[lemming]

On 6/14/2023 at 11:31 AM, SeraphimKensai said:

Welcome back folks. This week we tackle defense, resistance, regeneration, resilience, etc. based armor sets.

 

How does your experience with such support your assertions regarding each defensive powerset? What defensive powerset synergies do you use with other powersets or pools?

What defensive powerset do your u enjoy playing the most? And the least?

Depends on mood, easier to find the ones I don't have much experience with: Dark, Super Reflex, and Stone; though revisiting a Dark tank soonish

Regen annoys me in that it has potential, and it's hard to use (outside of Sentinel).   Click Mez protection are probably my least favorite

Inv, WP, and Bio are my favorites for different reasons, but I have been doing the others for tests.

 

Is there a particular defensive powerset that you feel compelled a overtuned?

Not particularly.  Depends on what you're fighting I find.  Inv, WP, and Bio.   I hear Rad is overtuned. 😄

 

What about any that you perceive as undertuned?

Regen needs help.  Tricky part is making it more useful without just making it WP or Bio.   (Though Sentinel Regen is at the appropriate level for it)

 

What about playing defensive based sets whether they use defense, resistance, regen, or some combination thereof that appeal to you the most?

Anything that gets your regen rate higher than your losing health is good.

 

D you take taunt if available?
Every time for tanks, usually with brutes, sometimes with scrappers.   The cooler the animation, the more likely.  Also depends on if I have a power slot to burn.

 

How does each armor set stack up at various difficulty levels?

One thing I like about WP & Regen is that endurance is not a big of a deal.

 

What type of agro management do you focus on if any?

Depends on the AT, but with a tank, I'll be more proactive about pulling them over.  Case by case on the others.

 

What kind of experience do you have tanking whether as a tank or other melee based toon with an armor based powerset? 

Enough to really get myself in trouble.

 

Solo? Small teams? Large teams? Leagues?

Yes.

 

I try to get myself at a good level in regards to not need too much support, but that support then can push my melee char into doing more.

 

 

 

[twozerofoxtrot]

Usually I find Fire Blast to be the best defensive set but it's so overtuned that it feels unfair, so I opt for something more balanced like Bio or Rad.

[Player2]

I kind of like Radiation Armor, but the visuals are annoying.  Can we not have invisible radiation?

 

Aside from that, generally I play Invulnerability with a few each of Willpower, Super Reflexes, and Shield Defense... plus a couple Bio Armor, and even a Dark Armor brute and Regeneration sentinel.

[furniturepolish]

Super Reflexes is my favorite set in the game because of Elude. Getting your butt kicked, saying "Let's see you beat me up now!" and doing a triple backflip in place from a standing position. As a super power. It works, too. You do the triple backflip and every enemy, out of awed respect, don't hit you for 3 minutes.

[Player2]

11 hours ago, furniturepolish said:

Super Reflexes is my favorite set in the game because of Elude. Getting your butt kicked, saying "Let's see you beat me up now!" and doing a triple backflip in place from a standing position. As a super power. It works, too. You do the triple backflip and every enemy, out of awed respect, don't hit you for 3 minutes.

3 backflips, 3 minutes...  They should have tied the number of backflips to the duration somehow, maybe animate it with 2 and 4 backflips as well and give it a random chance to sometimes to more or less, then your duration could be anywhere from 2 minutes to 4 minutes (10% chance of either) or the standard 3 minutes (80% chance).

[Sailboat]

14 hours ago, furniturepolish said:

Super Reflexes is my favorite set in the game because of Elude. Getting your butt kicked, saying "Let's see you beat me up now!" and doing a triple backflip in place from a standing position. As a super power. It works, too. You do the triple backflip and every enemy, out of awed respect, don't hit you for 3 minutes.

 

Back in the day I was playing an SR Scrapper with Elude.  There was another one on the team, a stranger, not someone I had met before.

 

The team started to collapse during one especially crazy fight.  Several players went down.  More adds poured into the room.

 

I hit Elude and my Scrapper and the other SR Scrap both did the Elude flip in *perfect synchronization*, followed immediately by both doing the Practiced Brawler animation.

 

It was an ineffably cool moment.  🙂

Edited June 20, 2023 by Sailboat

[JasperStone]

I am also going to add Kheldians.

 

I have played primarily my PeaceBringer, but also have a Warshade. Also a Crab, but that character is on my to do list to flesh out a bit more.

 

In TriForm highly durable in Dwarf, more so when I go with Biform: Human/Dwarf. 

 

Edited June 20, 2023 by JasperStone

[Go0gleplex]

I tend towards Radiation and Electric since I solo and they have some minor self-heal and a couple other nice benefits. I use fire and dark on occasion as well. Not a fan of the other sets as I don't feel they protect against as much, including Invulnerable which seems anything but after having played the set before the massive nerf-fest back in the day. 

[drbuzzard]

On 6/14/2023 at 12:31 PM, SeraphimKensai said:

Welcome back folks. This week we tackle defense, resistance, regeneration, resilience, etc. based armor sets.

 

What defensive powerset do your u enjoy playing the most? The least? Is there a particular defensive powerset that you feel compelled a overtuned? If that only on particular ATs? What about any that you perceive as undertuned? What about playing defensive based sets whether they use defense, resistance, regen, or some combination thereof that appeal to you the most? D you take taunt if available? How does each armor set stack up at various difficulty levels? What type of agro management do you focus on if any? What kind of experience do you have tanking whether as a tank or other melee based toon with an armor based powerset?  Solo? Small teams? Large teams? Leagues? How does your experience with such support your assertions regarding each defensive powerset? What defensive powerset synergies do you use with other powersets or pools?

 

 

As always thanks a ton.

 

 

I'll comment on the questions by AT ( I favor sentinels, stalkers, and tanks). 

 

like most- On sentinels I favor SR, on stalkers, I favor energy aura, and on tanks, I quite like electric armor, but you need to make a careful build since the heal is a bit slow. Pair it with a secondary which heals and it works well. 

 

Least- sentinels- ice armor is crap, stalkers- regen or a resistance set. Most dislike regen since it's just not great and you lose the endurance power. Tanks- just looking at the numbers makes me skip ice armor. I've played the rest just fine. 

 

Overtuned? You want me to nerf call? Nah. Pass. 

Undertuned- ice armor on sentinels, heck probably ice armor in general. Regen is a hot mess anywhere but sentinels. I rather wish the click status protection sets had an alternative like on sentinel SR. 

 

On sentinels or stalkers I like defense based sets. The 75% resistance caps for the ATs make them a bit soft at the extremes, and I tend to push my luck. I don't mind resistance as much on sentinels since I can stay back a lot easier and distance avoids the AOEs. Defense amounts to 90% mitigation so I go with that. On tanks I like resistance sets because they can get to 90%. Of course I understand the def>res>heal mantra, but teams are very quick to hand out def, and rare to hand out resistance, so if you have a resistance tank, you'll likely end up a resistance+defense tank on good teams. Sentinels have a good version of regeneration which is fun to play, but they are not aggro magnets. On a more aggro focused even sentinel regen would possibly be too soft. Regen on everything else is far too much of a click fest to interest me. I know my reaction time wouldn't be up to optimal play. WP is OK for the regen rate, but against the things which focus on its defense, it is very weak since it has no DDR. 

 

I take taunt on tanks mostly because teams will often complain if you don't have it even if you're holding aggro just fine. It is good for grabbing stragglers. I don't much take it on brutes (and I'm not really talking brutes since I don't play mine much). 

 

I have tanked pretty much everything short of being the Hammi HP sponge, having done solo, small teams, big teams, league, and relentless. One of the reasons I favor resistance is that the game has a lot of ways around defense that happens in high end content. I've mentioned before electric armor is nice because it allows you to cap resistance to everything except toxic (with alpha), and if you throw in dark melee, siphon life is up enough for enough healing to keep you alive through some rough stuff. I imagine radiation melee's radiation siphon would work for this as well, but I don't much care for the set. 

Edited June 20, 2023 by drbuzzard

[rolandgrey]

I like to put the different sets in tiers. 

 

Tier 1 is for ease of use and comfort in most situations.

Willpower, Invulnerability, Bio Armor, Stone Armor and Electric Armor definitely fit in Tier 1.  Most of them have a nice blend of Resistance and Defense. 

 

Willpower practically speaks for itself.  Resistance to everything, Defense to everything, boosted Regeneration, a Recovery power, a self rez, and a "You Can't Beat Me" power.  Probably its only downside is that its Aggro Aura causes enemies to have a -ToHit, which was theoretically supposed to be the inverse of Invulnerability's Invincibility (which boosts Defense for the enemies around you), but there's a severe difference between stacking your own defense and reducing each individual enemy's ToHit.  At least Rise to the Challenge ALSO boosts your Regeneration.  The only other problem with Willpower is that it's kind of dull.  Visually uninteresting, even more if you turn off it's FX, and no damage auras.  Still, if you want to feel like Batman, this is the one.  Its "ultimate" power is Strength of Will, which massively boosts your Resistance and Recovery.  The boosted Recovery is a bit of an odd duck for the power, though, as you lose a significant chunk of Endurance when the power crashes.

 

Invulnerability catches a lot of flack, but I think it's only because for a long time it just didn't work as intended, and when it was fixed, a lot of players who invested heavily into making it work were angry that their efforts were now detrimental.  Back in the early, EARLY days, this power apparently used to lock you into place when you activated the Mez Res (Unyielding), which apparently is the basis of Ajax's story (he was completely invulnerable, so long as he was standing still or some such thing), but it was quickly learned that was a frustrating way to play this game.  The version of Unyielding that existed after that made the Invulnerable character easier to hit, almost like turning your character into a bullet magnet.  Players solved this by cramming Invincibility with Defense enhancements and staying surrounded by enemies.  Then Enhancement Diversification was implemented, which severely diminished those returns, the developers revealed there was always a 5% chance to be hit (which NPCs tend to hit a lot more than you would think), and later Invulnerability was tweaked again.  It was exhausting watching the drama unfold.  However, I rather enjoy Invulnerability, especially since Homecoming added some Psi resistance into it.  It's a weird set, in that it needs almost every power to function at peak performance, but once you've got all the resistances and the defenses solidly slotted out, you're damn hard to kill.  You don't even need to plan it out, you can just take the powers you want as they come and slot them with basic enhancements or IOs as you can afford them, and the set functions just fine.  Probably its only real drawback now is that it lacks an endurance mitigator.  Also, it's ultimate power, Unstoppable, is probably the most dangerous to use.  You better be sure you can win the fight before you pop this, because while it lives up to its name while it's running, it wipes you out when it's done with probably the harshest crash of all the ultimates.  You lose most of your health, all of your endurance and you can't recover endurance for a time.  A kid could kick you in the shin and you'd faceplant.

 

Bio Armor is almost too much.  It has TWO attack auras, one of which is reducing the enemy's Resistance.  It can heal itself, it can improve its Regeneration and Resistance, it can give the character temporary hitpoints, it has a Reneration AND Recovery power (depending on how high your health is).  Pretty much the only thing it's missing is a self rez.  I also like its "Are you more Defensive, Damaging or Efficient?" mechanic, which probably is what should have been implemented in Tankers as a whole (or maybe that's just me).

 

Stone Armor was once the be-all, end-all in terms of resilience.  Its Defense is high, its Resistance is high, it has solid Regeneration and the taunt aura damages and slows.  Its drawback was that it was so damn slow when the Mez Res (Rooted) was active.  Homecoming has removed this debility, and reorganized and tweaked the set.  Now, Crystal Armor has a boost to Recovery.  I'm not too keen on Brimstone Armor being moved to near the end of the set's progression, though.  That's Fire and Ice resistance, and we encounter those WAY earlier than Psychic damage, and in much greater quantity.  It doesn't make sense that it's next to the last thing we unlock, especially when other sets unlock Fire and Ice Resistance much earlier.  Finally, there's Granite Armor.  People freaking love this power.  Unless your enemies are using psychic attacks, Granite Armor can take almost any hit, even from Lord Recluse.  However, Granite Armor is still very, VERY slow.  Scrapper and Sentinel versions of Stone Armor get Geode, which is like Ice Armor's Hibernate.  I'm not really fan of that.

 

Electric Armor stands out from the others, though, because it is a Resistance Only set, but it also has a LOT of fun secondary resistances that other Resistance sets don't have and makes it handy for dealing with all those enemies that are extra annoying.  Enemies slowing you?  Not when you have Electric Armor.  Enemies draining your endurance?  Not when you have Electric Armor.  Recharge slowed?  Not when you have Electric Armor.  Just about anything that could annoy you about an enemy group, Electric Armor ignores it.  On top of that, its self heal power also gives you an endurance discount.  It's just great.  Its ultimate turns you into a being of electricity, boosting your Resistance.  Its crash is similar to Invulnerability's Unstoppable, but with an added boost of blasting out an EMP that (notionally) keeps enemies from attacking you for a time.

 

You could probably include the Arachnos Soldier defensive sets in here, too.  Lots of defense, Mez Resistance, Resistance itself readily available, Arachnos Soldiers were a breath of fresh air compared to the other epic archetype.

 

Tier 2 is for sets that are good, but need the player to pay a bit more attention.

Fiery Aura, Dark Armor, Shield Defense, Radiation Armor, Energy Aura, and Ice Armor settle into this tier for me. 

 

Fiery Aura isn't very tough.  Two resistance toggles, one for Smashing/Lethal, and one for everything else and Mez Res.  No knockback protection.  Its self heal recharges quickly, but its Endurance Drain power doesn't.  It doesn't even have an "I AM UNBEATABLE!" power.  Why use this set?  Because you want to HURT the enemy.  Blazing Aura, is fun, but Burn is where the damage is.  Gather enemies around a corner and set them ablaze.  Even with Homecoming's changes to the power, you can still roast enemies easily.  Phoenix Rising picks you back up and blasts enemies all over the place.

 

Dark Armor is like Fiery Aura, it's not very tough.  Also, if you're running with all of its toggles, you will drain your endurance quick.  However, it's stealthy and intimidating.  It also has a couple decent pick-me-ups in Dark Regeneration and Soul Transfer.  Soul Transfer is like a personal version of Howling Twilight, so it rezes you and stuns everybody around you, very handy (just make sure there's at least one enemy around you when you activate it).  Like Fiery Aura, though, it lacks an "I Win, You Lose!" power.

 

Shield Defense would normally fit into Tier 1, except it has pretty bad endurance issues and that clicky Mez Resistance.  You'll be in the middle of an attack chain and suddenly you're Held, so now you need to either wait for the power to recharge or for it to activate.  I don't like clicky Mez Res.  Shield Defense and Super Reflexes both use this, and it doesn't make any sense.  It just interferes with the action, and if your character is a weapon wielder (like a shield character would most likely be), it forces redraw.  Anyway...  So, for a long time, I didn't realize Deflection was a Defense AND Resistance power.  The defenses of the set are similar to Super Reflexes, in that it's vector defense as opposed to damage type defense (so Melee, Ranged, AOE instead of Smashing, Lethal, Fire, Cold, Energy, etc.).  The aggro aura is a fun one, as Against All Odds boosts your character's damage, turning even Tankers into hard-hitting monsters.  One With the Shield, the set's ultimate, boosts your Resistances.  You're not invincible, but you're a lot tougher, and as a result it's crash is just endurance and isn't as harsh as most other ultimates.

 

Radiation Armor is also not very tough. It makes up for it with multiple self heals, some damage inflicted against the enemy and an ultimate power that not only makes you tougher, but also boosts your damage output.  On top of that, the ultimate power doesn't have a huge shutdown of your Health or Endurance (the drawback is that it doesn't last as long, though).  I get a kick out of Ground Zero, though, where you literally nuke your enemies (it also heals your allies somehow).

 

Energy Aura is a solid Defense set, but it's basically the inverse of Dark Armor (Energy and Defense instead of Negative and Resistance) to the same result.  It even has a Stealth power.  However, instead of a Fear power, it has an endurance drain power, much like Ice Armor (and on Brutes and Scrappers, Energy Drain also boosts Defense, just like Energy Absorption!).  However, once the enemy slips past your defense, you're gonna feel it.  Still, if you want your character feeling like a Yaut'Ja from Predator, this is definitely the set for you.  The ultimate power, Overload is probably one of the best ultimates with a crash, in that it boosts your Defense AND your Resistance, and when it crashes it only tanks your Endurance.

 

Ice Armor, I'll admit, could fit into Tier 1, because its defenses are solid, it has a nice debuff aura that slows enemies down, an attack aura, and an endurance drain, but it winds up in the second tier in my opinion because it winds up with a hefty endurance management issue for the bulk of its run.  Even with the endurance drain power, the ice armor character still has severe endurance issues until they can either slot in some IO sets to mitigate it or they've got the high level basic IOs to deal with the endurance issues through raw numbers.  Ice Armor's ultimate is one of the strangest.  Hibernate encases you in ice and makes you nearly impossible to hit or damage.  It's basically Rest in the middle of a fight, though, so you're not really contributing to the fight anymore.

 

Ninjitsu fits in here, too.  A bit of a rare powerset to see, as right now only Sentinels, Scrappers and Stalkers can use it.  It's like blending Super Reflexes with Regeneration along with some dirty tricks.  It's got the same vector defenses, some Resistance to all damage, a Self Heal clicky, a Self Recovery clicky, caltrops, blinding dust, boosted mobility and its ultimate is basically the same as Super Reflex's Elude, with the same Endurance crash.

 

 

Tier 3 sets need a lot of investment from the player.

Super Reflexes and Regeneration go here.  Yes, I know there are people who swear these sets are amazing.  I happen to AGREE.  However, I have had to put way more effort into my Super Reflexes and Regeneration characters than I ever needed to put into any other sets. 

 

Regeneration is about as tough as a wet paper bag, and all that regen isn't going to help you when the enemies are hitting you constantly for near-full damage.  It's funny in a comic book or a movie when the bad guys shoot the hero down, but then he gets up from the bloody pool to kick their asses when they aren't looking.  It's not so funny to try it in a video game, where the enemies aren't so surprised when you get up in their midst and start shooting at you again before you can even get your few auras up and running.  Pool powers don't provide enough defense, really the only helpful power I've found has been Tough, prompting me to build for Healing, Resistance and Recharge, in that order.  Healing also boosts Regeneration, Resistance helps mitigate the damage, giving you more time to click the two healing clickies in the set and Recharge gets those clickies ready for the next fight faster.  Regeneration's ultimate power, Moment of Glory, is probably one of the most heavily debated powers in the game.  You can still see its old version in the Paragon Protectors, where it drops your Health and Endurance to minimum levels, but ramps your Defense and Resistance to "No, you can't hit me and no, you can't hurt me" levels.  At least, that was the idea.  It works just fine on the PPs, but on PCs?  Not so much.  So, the Paragon Devs "fixed" it...  Now it's a generic Defense and Resistance boost, with its only saving grace that it has no crash at the end of it.  Whoo.  At least it isn't nearly killing us from the get-go anymore.

 

Super Reflexes costs more endurance than it needs to.  I don't know what the philosophy is behind this set, but it's flawed.  Run one of the auras and it's okay.  Run two and you immediately start seeing endurance issues.  Run three, and some builds can barely get through a fight.  May whatever gods you pray to help you if you try to incorporate any other toggles into the build, such as Tough to mitigate the damage you'll STILL be taking.  On top of that, the Mez Res is a clicky, which doesn't make any sense.  Otherwise, the defenses are great, because they're vectors rather than damage types.  You'll dodge a bullet as easily as you will a fireball or a psychic bolt ("If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a saw blade!")  The set's ultimate power, Elude is effective enough...  Except it's just more Defense in a set that's nothing BUT Defense, and no matter how high your Defense is, the enemies have a 5% chance of hitting you anyway.  On top of that, back in the Paragon days, a game breaker pointed out to me that it doesn't take much to soft cap Super Reflex's Defense, so getting Elude is really a waste of a power choice that crashes your endurance when it's done.

 

Tier 4 is Kheldian.  Kheldians need work, not the least of which is figuring out how to fit a Mez Resistance into the sets.  As it is, they're practically outshone entirely by Sentinels, especially since now everybody is vulnerable to Quantum Array Guns (at least, QAGs actually inflict real damage on the average character now), and Kheldians are the only ones attracting their attention.  Practically anything you could want in a resistance set is available to a Peacebringer or Warshade (except Mez Resistance), along with a smattering of other abilities.  However, they're not very good at it.  One thing that always bothered me about Kheldians was the idea that they had this special damage type that wiped them out, but bullets were hurting them as much as they hurt a Fiery Aura Scrapper.  Peacebringer's self heals recharge slowly and aren't that effective (most other sets' self heals include secondary effects, too, where PBs just get some hitpoints back to rapidly deplete again).  On top of that, one of the main draws of the Kheldians is the shape changing...  Which cuts off access to whole swaths of powers when you use them.  It's a good idea that was poorly implemented and here we are, almost twenty years later and these are still some of the rarest characters to encounter in the game because it's such a slog to play them.

 

So...  There's my diatribe.  I play a lot of melee characters, to the point where I'm having trouble figuring out new combinations to try (I made a Dual Blades/Bio Armor Scrapper recently, and realized I already made that combo...  on a Brute; I also have a Beam Rifle/Radiation Corrupter and a Radiation/Beam Rifle Defender, much to my grumbling).

 

I tend to surprise people when they encounter my characters running any of these sets.  I don't use the ultimate powers in most of them.  Radiation Armor is probably the only one I use, and that's because it does more than just boost my defense and resistance and it doesn't have the crash.  It's like any other Click Buff in that respect.  The other ultimate powers?  I feel like they're crutches.  I still remember the incredulous chatter when I informed a team on a Statesman/Ms. Liberty TF when I told them I didn't have Granite on my Stone Tanker.  We still won, shaking the players out of their "There's only one way to do this!" mentality, and that's one of the reasons why I still avoid the ultimate powers of most of these sets.  I feel the ultimate powers in these sets are a crutch.  With a proper team, you don't even really need them.  But, I understand people still like them, so I don't judge. 

Edited June 20, 2023 by rolandgrey

[Clave Dark 5]

I've come to the conclusion that I don't "like" playing these sets, because one generally doesn't PLAY them.  They just sit there and run in the background (outside of a click heal or something) leaving you free to do the fun, the pewpewpew.  But... I find often that I start getting bored of that because that's all I can do.  This is one reason I really like Doms, they have melee, ranged, holds, weird effects, pets.  They're the whole game on one toon.  I felt the same way about trying to play a Kin, and those other effects even sort of interrupt the pewpewpew so I felt like I was sort of clicking into the void (yes I know Kins bring a lot to a group, mathmatically, this is just what it felt like to me).

[cranebump]

I okay a lot of blasters. If I defend myself, how do you expect me to faceplant?:-)

[Tankshock]

19 hours ago, rolandgrey said:

Quote

Invulnerability catches a lot of flack, but I think it's only because for a long time it just didn't work as intended, and when it was fixed, a lot of players who invested heavily into making it work were angry that their efforts were now detrimental.  Back in the early, EARLY days, this power apparently used to lock you into place when you activated the Mez Res (Unyielding), which apparently is the basis of Ajax's story (he was completely invulnerable, so long as he was standing still or some such thing), but it was quickly learned that was a frustrating way to play this game.  The version of Unyielding that existed after that made the Invulnerable character easier to hit, almost like turning your character into a bullet magnet.  Players solved this by cramming Invincibility with Defense enhancements and staying surrounded by enemies.

 

Quote

Back in the day story about Unyielding:  My Invuln was sidekicking (which made you meaningfully weaker back then) and the whole team went down.  They were talking about quitting when someone said "Hey, Tank's still up".  My mentor stayed and everyone else went to the hospital, then came back and arrested all the mobs while I just stood there getting punched by like 30 bad guys, because tanks did no damage.  Took about 10 minutes and everyone called it a win.  In the current meta, that would be a major failure and everyone would be grumbling about the time wasted.  Myself included  😉

 

 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Tankshock

[Tankshock]

The tricky part about answering this is that there are a decent number of meaningful variables.  I think the 2 biggest are the attack set pairing and whether you include incarnate.  Alpha and Destiny can close holes in pretty much any set.  Dark melee can take care of healing and still be very effective.  MA can top off defense for the resist sets.  I don't think it's realistic to look at sets "in a vacuum", because that's not how they are played in the game.  Likewise, no skimping on IOs, doing so is another unnecessary variable in the current game.

That said, I want a set that does it all.  Soft-capped defense, high as possible resist, decent healing, and debuff resistance.  The sets that I feel comfortable playing at an uber level are Stone, Bio, Rad, and Shield.  Invuln and Electric might be in here, but they just feel a notch lower to me.  Invuln might be nerf bat prejudice, but all of the above add something offensive and can get virtually the same defense.

Stone, Bio, and Shield are silly easy to make awesome.  Shield doesn't have the resists, but its DDR is the best.  The click debuff resist is meaninglessly easy, since it lasts 2 minutes and is up in half that.  Double stacking it also makes the DDR uber, which is important.  Arguably the most offensive of the 3. 

 

Bio is nice because switching to Defensive is what the Tier 9s should be for every set.  You can be uber in Offensive mode, then sacrifice a little offense to save your butt in emergencies.

 

Radiation might need MA to be uber, but it is really top tier with it.  Soft-capped defense except for AOE (and then only Cold, Toxic, or Psi).  Capped resists in everything except Cold, Psi and Negative (close).  Solid regen, plus Rad Therapy.  High end AOE damage and ST.  2 good AOE to cover MA's hole.  Just let me turn off those damn f/x...

 

Tanks do enough damage (and everyone else is so tough) that Taunt is an unnecessary loss of dps.  If you have decent AOE damage, you're already aggroing everything you need to aggro.  Most teams don't stay on one spawn anyway, and all the aggro mgmt in the world doesn't matter when they hit another group 60' away.  Some might frown on it but those who know, know.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Tankshock