Melee Defense Sets: Resist & Defense

[Herotu]

There are two types of Defense sets:

 

Resist - where you reduce incoming damage. 

Defense - where you increase the chance to avoid incoming damage.

 

Both of these things are cool and all.

I just wondered how they work on a thematic level? How do you headcannonball them?

 

Here's what I could come up with.

RESIST:

Elect - 

Dark - 

Fire - 

Invulnerability - you get hit but your "invulnerability" means it does less damage. Makes sense.

Rad - 

WillPower - you reduce the damage through dulling the pain (hello invulnerability, can I have my power back please?)

Bio? - 

 

DEF:

Shield - the shield gets hit instead of you?

Stone  - you're inside a "shell", so although you get hit, "you" don't get hit?

Super Reflexes - ye, you avoid the damage. Perfecto.

 

[Erratic1]

Bio and Rad are hybrid sets. Arguably so too is Invulnerability.

 

Also looks like Energy Aura got left out. For that matter, Ninjitsu too.

Edited April 22 by Erratic1

[PoptartsNinja]

Defense is also "so tough the attack doesn't hurt" which is why it's in stone and invulnerability.

[Ukase]

I don't often try to have things make sense when playing this game. 

As for making sense of the Dark Armor, it's Dark. You don't really hit anything, you just kind of run into it with a glancing blow. Hard to see and all that. 

[Sovera]

Stone is the odd duck in my opinion. It screams resistance instead of deflecting attacks.

 

Or we play a Tanker and it does both. I have my build at 70% resistances, 76% with a second stack, 5% from Barrier puts it at 81%, and, if a third stack happens to come my way, 87% and change.

 

Who needs buffers anyway!

 

 

 

But back to the topic even the comics don't help much. Most heroes who are 'fire' or 'electricity' don't usually have invulnerability which makes their powers 100% defense based. Either they melt the bullets (perhaps we can see that as resisting if the attack is too big and they can't melt enough of it?) or they dodge the heck out of the attacks, or they get knocked out.

 

Some could be said to be pure defense if they turn into pure fire or electricity forms. Some/most firey ones also play with the concept of using thermals (ignoring physics and how hurricane like such thermals would have to be to have such an effect). My own Fire Tanks usually were based on the idea they flew using thermals and their resistance was about their auras being so hot that either bullets melted or someone wanting to punch them would pull back... Which makes a certain amount of sense as who plunges their hand into a fire?. Obviously invulnerable people! Which is how she actually got hurt in-game. Either hit from a blind side or hit a number enough of times to weaken the protection or be tough enough to ignore the fire.

 

 

Invulnerability does come in different flavours. We could argue Superman is so tough his resistance turns into defense as things just bounce off and rarely actually hurt him. The Hulk, on the other hand, tanks everything and gets stabbed, every once in a while even gets horribly mauled, or burned, or chunks of his body torn off which is more of a resistance thing.

 

And then there's variable invulnerability where Thor bothers to dodge bullets but also swims in the sun, or Wonder-woman tanks Superman blows and swims in lava but almost died from a regular gun, both of which could be said to be easily more deadly than bullets.

 

 

Dark is so esoteric we can make our headcanon. Is it dampening the blows? Is it draining the power from the blows? Who knows!

 

 

Willpower is pretty much a Spider-man thing. You're tougher than average (Spider-man tanks blows from Colossus or other super strong foes, but still gets shot through by regular bullets) but can withstand it part through grit and part from said tougher-than-average-skin-and-muscle-tissue to heal up again. Even though he doesn't have a 'real' healing factor like Wolverine he still heals broken bones in very few days. Very comic book like that works until the healing is overcome by more damage than it can recover from. Seems on point.

 

 

Super-Reflexes ought to be a mix of mild Flash (don't go demi-god because it doesn't work even in the comics) with seeing things in slow motion. Or danger sense. Spidey is the poster child for super-reflexes and could/should dance around everyone. Good luck hitting someone who can dodge bullets point blank with a punch that does NOT travel at the speed of even a small calibre bullet. But since the writers don't want him to easily win his opponents constantly hit the streak breaker.

[WumpusRat]

Thematically, a lot of it depends on the character, at least to me.

 

For instance, my shield/axe tanker is a D&D Fighter, so most of her defense would be blocking things with her shield, parrying, stuff bouncing off her armor (since she wears full plate), etc.

For my invuln/ss tanker, she's basically just "nigh-invulnerable(tm)". Stuff bounces off of her without doing any damage. 

The staff/sr scrapper is a Monk, so her not getting hit is literally just her shifting out of the way of an attack, or using Evasion to "hide behind the air" and avoid aoe damage. 🙂

One of my dark armor characters is a girl who is followed around by countless spirits. They just like her and want to protect her. So her damage mitigation and defense is the spirits absorbing the brunt of the damage for her sake.

Another dark armor character is a D&D Warlock, so her resilience is simply healing the damage after it's done, so quickly that it heals as soon as it's inflicted, though it's still painful (her patron doesn't mind her suffering PAIN, just not lasting damage).

 

Could go on, but generally the concept of the character dictates to me how their defenses "work" from a story perspective.

[Snarky]

Dark is a resist set.  That uses game mechanics for defense instead of regular "defense"

 

Non suppressing stealth.  Less folks see you.  less folks attack you.  Defense

 

Stun Arua.  stunned folks do not attack you.  Defense

 

Fear Aura.  Feared opponents attack you way less.  Defense

 

To hit debuffs.  lowering your opponents chances of hitting.  Defense.

 

Then the best heal in the game.  Nothing else comes close to that heal.  

[biostem]

Think of it more in terms of "did you take any damage?".  From there, you can rationalize things however you want.

 

For instance, with shield defense, said shield could be absorbing the damage before it gets to your character, it could be deflecting it, (again before it gets to you), with the other resists depicting how even the damage that gets through or passed the shield is still reduced in magnitude, or maybe just the training & conditioning necessary to properly wield the shield has also toughened you beyond a normal person...

[Erratic1]

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

Willpower is pretty much a Spider-man thing. You're tougher than average (Spider-man tanks blows from Colossus or other super strong foes, but still gets shot through by regular bullets) but can withstand it part through grit and part from said tougher-than-average-skin-and-muscle-tissue to heal up again. Even though he doesn't have a 'real' healing factor like Wolverine he still heals broken bones in very few days.

 

And here I would have put Spiderman down for Super Reflexes since with his spider-sense he is able to dodge most attacks. Most attackers cannot land hits on him. 

[Bopper]

3 hours ago, Herotu said:

There are two types of Defense sets:

 

Resist - where you reduce incoming damage. 

Defense - where you increase the chance to avoid incoming damage

Regeneration isn't even invited to the party... poor regen. It was their birthday party. I guess someone else can open up their gift. It was a nerf bat.

[Sovera]

27 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

And here I would have put Spiderman down for Super Reflexes since with his spider-sense he is able to dodge most attacks. Most attackers cannot land hits on him. 

 

He fits both. I did put him for Super-Reflexes.

[Trickshooter]

When it comes to Stone and Invulnerability, their resistance I consider "you're too tough to feel that attack" and their defense I consider like "the bullets just bounce right off" sorta deal. Probably similar with Ice (who was forgotten about by the OP, RUDE).

 

The defense part is kind of explained by the defense combat messages, right? Some sets say "Deflected!" (Ice, Shield, Invuln, Stone), some say "Dodged!" (SR or Nin), and then purple insps say "Avoided!" (which I assume is some kind of probability alteration happening?).

[MonteCarla]

Resistance sets I always imagine attacks are hitting my character and bouncing off or getting absorbed.

My Elec Brute was made of energy like Marvel's Wonder Man. My last Fire Tanker had a force field that evaporates bullets as they hit as well as having a hard energy shield if you punched her.

 

Defence sets, I'll head-cannon as either attacks hit and do nothing, or dodging.

My Energy Aura Sentinel had a "magnetic cocoon" from her armor. My /SR catgirl Stalker was just very fast and hard to hit like Spidey.

My Shield Scrapper had a shield and was acrobatic and good at dodging, so a bit of both. 

 

Even with squishies where I build for defence via Weave, Manouvers and IOs: some of them are good evasive fliers like Angel from X-Men or acrobatic like Gambit (so attacks miss), some have a force field like Green Lantern or medium level invulnerability (so attacks bounce off).

( More than once I've built a solar-powered Superman type Blaster who's invulnerability is down, and grows back over time due to our planet's "stupid weak sun" 🙂 )

 

The idea of toughness making attacks miss goes back to original D&D, where wearing Plate Mail armor made you harder to hit rather than softening blows that do land. Its an odd decision, but it does kind of work still, which Is why I guess its still around in games.