Look at Defense protection gaps

[MsSmart]

Hi:

 

    I have noticed that when I play some of my sentinel, stalkers, and brutes that I tend to be some what less capable or survivable in some builds than others, and took a good look at those builds though MIDs to try to understand the problem.

 

    What I noticed is that there are 2 basic forms of defense, these being: Positional or Type

 

     Positional (Melee, Range, AOE) that are gained though particular secondaries power sets, are fine across the board of attacks.

 

     The problem is with the "type" defense, (Smash/lethal, Fire/Cold, Energy/Negative, and Psionic/Toxic) that are gained through a particular set of secondary power sets. The observation is these power sets gives lip service or all together ignores Psionic and Toxic type attacks, and since they do not get much for positional defenses; these classes have a tremendous protective gap. Small wonder when doing Positron folks get creamed by the toxic vomit, since they have virtually no defense to help avoid the attack, same goes with Rickti Psi Attacks, and the Hydra Toxic attacks which is greatly employed in APEX (sewers) and the cause of many players' alts demise.

 

      So  my suggestion or request is to add Psionic and Toxic defense type attacks to the standard defenses of the secondary defensive power sets, to give a sense of balance to these builds. Please note, that some sets do provide toxic defense, but the amount of protection is virtually half of the protection garnered from other defensive powers within the set. Perhaps in the sets that gives Fire/Cold could also provide Toxic in the same magnitude; and the sets that provides Energy/Negative also provide Psionic in the same magnitude. At the end, they will still be handicapped because there are too few IO Sets that gives you any defense against Toxic and Psionic; but at least the gap is not as brutal.

 

     It also would be polite, to make sure all attacks are paired with positional and type attacks, there are several attacks particularly toxic and psionic that does not have related positional attributes, which in theory they should. Not sure what the justification was, if any,  for this omission; which leaves positional defensive types wide open to these forms of attacks.

 

 

     Perhaps some of the much more experienced players, could advise me on how to make my builds less susceptible to this odd mechanic? Any constructive and practical advise is greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

Sue

[FupDup]

Psionic weaknesses are generally deliberate because psi's whole thing is that most targets don't have protection against it. You can see this in armor set descriptions in the character creator. 

 

Toxic, however, is a bit weirder. Originally the game didn't even have specific typed toxic defenses at all, toxic attacks only used positions (ranged, melee, AOE) but the HC team added it later. After this addition, there are still some powers that lack toxic defense.

 

Also noteworthy is that there are no IO set bonuses for toxic defense, but there are bonuses for psi defense. Since psi and toxic are bundled together for resistance bonuses, I think that all existing psi defense bonuses should also get toxic defense for consistency and because they're currently a bit niche in use (if you're not starting with a high psi def value on an armor set like Stone or something then the bonuses aren't going to help much). 

 

Toxic kinda feels like the "new Psi" in the sense that it's harder to build for using IO's (can only grab resists, usually in 6-slot bonuses, while Psi has typed defenses and two different single-slot pieces for resists). 

Edited December 19, 2023 by FupDup

[Psyonico]

I agree that toxic defense should be added to set bonuses with psi defense.  There are also still some powers that say they grant defense(all) but don't grant toxic defense.  This should be looked at as well.

[Uun]

It's largely by design. If you look at the armor sets with typed defense (including hybrid sets), some have toxic and/or psi protection and some don't. Some have had it added over the years. In many cases, the amount of toxic/psi protection is less than other damage types.

 

Bio: has toxic resistance and psi defense

Energy: has toxic and psi resistance plus toxic and psi defense in T9

Ice: has toxic resistance but no psi protection

Invulnerability: has toxic and psi resistance as well as toxic and psi defense

Stone: has toxic resistance and psi defense

Willpower: has psi resistance and defense but no toxic protection

 

You should also be aware that sets with positional defense still have holes to some psi attacks. Mind Control and Illusion attacks (used by Rikti, Council, Carnies) have no positional vectors and M/R/A defense don't work against them.