Do you build for psi resist?

[Unclemarty]

I'm curious to know if and how people are building for psi resist. Many sets have a "psi hole" in their resistance profile, but I find In my own builds I think of psi resist as a luxury that I often can't get to. I find I run out of slots prioritizing other things like defense, S/L resist, E/N resist or even global recharge; however, I'm worried that I might be overlooking psi resist too much.

 

• Do you slot impervious armor + psi resist in all your resistance powers? Do you chase set bonuses with psi resist?
• What primaries  is it worth it to chase psi resist?
• Is there content in the game that validates psi resist as a worthy build goal at the potential cost of other things? Some niche enemy groups have a lot of psi attacks but overall it seems like an uncommon damage type.
• If building for hard mode content or facing AVs, is psi present enough to build for it?
• I placed this in the Tanker section but I think it's also a valid question for brutes, scrappers, or anyone else that takes a lot of hits. Do you build for psi resist in other AT?

[Biff Pow]

Not anymore, since they added Psi resistance to Invulnerability.

[nihilii]

I almost never build for psi resist. There's just so much to chase and so very few slots! It's just not worth the attention.

 

Especially as psi resist doesn't come as an useful externality to other attributes. i.e., you can snatch 6% E/N as a side effect of slotting 3 Gauntleted Fist for the great enhancement values, that's useful. But six-slotting a resistance power with Impervium Armor to get +10.5% PSI, when typically resistance powers do fine with 2 +5 IOs? Mehh.

[Uun]

Since Fire Armor has no psi resists, I added 3 Impervium/Aegis psi resist IOs and picked up some more from incidental set bonuses and Shield Wall for a total of 34%. My Dark tank is capped to psi through normal slotting and my SR tank has 32% from incidental set bonuses.

[ZemX]

I've mostly been stuck on Rad Armor lately and for them I do build psi resist, because I am generally building for all resists.  A while back I decided to stop trying to angle for defense in my slotting.  It was so easily stripped because RadA doesn't have DDR.  In cases where I wasn't being hit by massive defense debuffs, I didn't need the defense.  In cases where I was, I might as well build stuff that will still be with me while I'm defense floored.   As a result, I've got plenty of room to have a set of Impervium and then sprinkly additional copies of its proc in other powers along with Aegis's proc.   

 

Not sure how "niche" it is.  Guess it depends what content you like to run.  It seems fairly common in Praetorian-adjacent content.  Carnies.  Arachnos Forunatas. etc.

 

For sets that don't have any, I'd say some is better than none but also agree, especially on sets that DO have good defense, that solidifying defense is a higher priority.

[Hjarki]

I tend to classify the damage types as follows:

• Smashing, Lethal, Energy. These are all high damage (want to heavily resist) and very common (want a high defense against).
• Fire, Toxic. This are high damage, often environmental but not particularly common. So you primarily want to resist this rather than defend against it.
• Cold, Dark, Psionic. These are low damage and not particularly common. They also come with crippling debuffs so you primarily want to defend against them. If you can't build decent Defense against them, you can pair minor amounts of resist with massive amounts of Slow/Recharge/Hit debuff resistance.

So if I'm in a situation where I don't have particularly good Psionic Defense, I worry less about slotting all those Psi Resist uniques than I do piling on 100% (or nearly so) slow/recharge resistance.

[Spaghetti Betty]

I don't particularly care for it, no. There are very few instances in the game where there's such a massive amount of incoming psi damage that not building protection towards it is a detriment, and even those instances come at a point where tactics, Incarnates, etc. can be used to overcome rather than trading slots for more built-in protection.

[Thraxen]

I did on my stone tank just to see if I could hard cap it. Most of the time no thought  

[tidge]

Simple answer: No.

 

Slightly complicated answer: If I want a Tanker build that can more-or-less focus on surviving whatever, and I don't lean too hard into trying to hit (with click powers) as many enemies as possible (with attacks, not Taunt) I have a couple of builds that invest slots into powers such that I can boost Psi Resistance via Enhancements. This is me wanting to provide a Tanker that is better at being a classic Tanker such that teammates have to worry about my Tanker over a slightly wider range of content.

 

In the complicated thinking: My opinion in this case is that it is almost certainly going to be more obvious to teammates that the Tanker is crumpling to certain enemies than it would be that the Tanker is doing more %damage to some enemies or has slightly faster recharge times on some attacks. Again for me, this varies a LOT between my characters.

[BrandX]

Depends on the Tank.

 

Reactive Defense and Shield Wall will give you +8% Resist to base (RD giving more as you get damaged).  Getting 6.7% from the Tanker ATO.  5 piece of Might of the Tanker (Which gives you the +Resist Proc) gives another 6% Psi Resist.

 

Bound to get a little more past that point thru other set bonuses.  I won't generally try to slot the 6% Psi Resist IOs unless I have the spare slots.

[Heatstroke]

Nope never.   

 

one of my favorite CoH Stories from back on "live". Me and one or two SG mates on a PuG. They are doing Mother Mayhem. I join with my Inv/Nrg tank. One guy starts saying oh man we are going to need another tank My SG mate is like nah we'll be fine. So we get to Mother Mayhem and I'm doing my tank thing.. she starts taking my health down and then hit me for something like 1000-1500HP and my health bar drops below half.. 

 

Same guy is like.. see I told you we should have gotten another tank.. 

 

My SG mate says.. " wait for it " 

 

Boom my health is all the way back up... 

 

Other dude is like.. wait what happened.. 

 

Im like.. Three words buddy.. Perma Dull Pain..

 

so after we take her down I explain to him

Dude.. I hit Dull Pain before the fight started.. I had like 3300 HP when the fight started.  Even with her big attack she cant kill me before Dull pain comes back up again... 

 

I never build for Psi resists.. but for most of my tanks.. good luck killing em... 

[Frosticus]

Psychic clockwork king can nuke for about 4400 pts of psi damage at +3. Huge bonus base acc, I think his tohit floor is ~14%.

 

Not sure I'd build just for that but it is funny seeing the one shot prevention code in action

 

[Psiphon]

Psi is one of the reasons that I prefer sets with positional defence, such as Shield. Psi is typed ranged so it’s very easy to cap defence to all positions which will include psi damage. Carnies don't bother me on my Shield/x tankers.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Psiphon

[tidge]

On 8/19/2023 at 7:58 PM, Heatstroke said:

Im like.. Three words buddy.. Perma Dull Pain..

 

so after we take her down I explain to him

 

Dull Pain is a power my Invulnerability Tank has (and has "perma") yet almost never uses (after having leveled up). It may be the only early-pick, 6-slotted power in my roster. Every once in a while there is some exemplared content where I find myself using it, depending on the PUG. While leveling, I do use it more regularly.

 

I completely agree that in certain high-level content it gets put on auto, for the reasons described. I find that certain content requires juggling it with the Incarnate Rebirth!

[Heatstroke]

9 hours ago, tidge said:

 

Dull Pain is a power my Invulnerability Tank has (and has "perma") yet almost never uses (after having leveled up). It may be the only early-pick, 6-slotted power in my roster. Every once in a while there is some exemplared content where I find myself using it, depending on the PUG. While leveling, I do use it more regularly.

 

I completely agree that in certain high-level content it gets put on auto, for the reasons described. I find that certain content requires juggling it with the Incarnate Rebirth!

 

 

 

[Captain Fabulous]

I did on my nigh-unkillable Invul/SS Tank, but otherwise, no.

[SwitchFade]

My main tank is INV. Min/maxed, there's no psi hole, it's above 80%.

 

The procs, set bonuses are enough to fill the gap without trying.