It's always been this way - a tank's true role

[Infinitum]

24 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

While they have resistance, they do not go far with them, unlike say the case with Invulnerability and defense. Or at least, I have no recollection of seeing Shield or SR wandering around with capped resistances unlike say Invulnerability and defenses.

 

With one stack of Might of the tanker you can have S/L capped on shield and the rest around 70% and that's going conservative fairly similar to how invul looks with a similar build. 

 

On SR I would need to look the numbers up in a sec, but they can get fairly high also. 

 

Either way neither are what you would consider pure defense builds. 

[SeraphimKensai]

On 5/16/2024 at 4:41 PM, Infinitum said:

I got this book back when I had aspirations to be the inventor of warp drive - this book was about cutting edge tech and future space travel tech (this was back in 1994). And there was a logo on a future spacecraft that said Ex Astra Ad Infinitum. 

Did you ever come up with a more pragmatic solution for the need of exotic material/dark matter for your Alcubierre drive?

[Infinitum]

1 minute ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Did you ever come up with a more pragmatic solution for the need of exotic material/dark matter for your Alcubierre drive?

Alas, no... 

 

I unfortunately discovered making cars fast and was distracted by drag racing for about 5 years and never went further than a bachelor's degree that I never did anything with. 

 

But I did learn how to be a really good mechanic, better people interaction, met my wife, and am a more well rounded geek ever since. 

 

Plus - those skills literally saved me 2k plus last week when I had to repair the sunroof mechanism in my truck.   Had to strip the interior down to the airbags and yank the whole assembly out to rebuild the track then reinstall.

 

Lifes funny where it takes you... And why 

[SeraphimKensai]

12 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Lifes funny where it takes you... And why 

That's an understatement. If I didn't meet my wife when I did, I would of likely took a job offer that would of had me working for a different government agency.

[Erratic1]

2 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Technically they can. Technically any DEF armor can run around with capped or near-capped resists when active clicks are considered. SR can just do it on it's own by losing a bit of HP.

 

I know you can get there with SR, just you have to be at an increasingly low amount of life. I have an SR/TW Tanker.

2 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

A Tank only needs to build about 55% RES before RoP/Melee/Barrier cycles and a couple applications of MotT puts them at 90%. This is how I run my Ice/EM.

 

Call that a personal limitation. I will not go so far as to say I will NEVER use RoP, but it would have to be thematic.

[Hyperstrike]

12 minutes ago, Erratic1 said:

 

I know you can get there with SR, just you have to be at an increasingly low amount of life. I have an SR/TW Tanker.

 

Call that a personal limitation. I will not go so far as to say I will NEVER use RoP, but it would have to be thematic.

To this and Spaghetti Betty's post, need to ask you a favor.

Do  two fingered pushups...balanced on knife-point.

[Erratic1]

3 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Either way neither are what you would consider pure defense builds. 

 

If having resistance at all makes an otherwise defensive set hybrid, are there any pure defensive sets? And conversely, is a resistance set required to have nothing whatsoever to do with resistance. If so, every armor set is hybrid except Fiery Aura and Electric Armor...and if you extend the axis of protection to include regeneration/healing then everything is hybrid.

 

That is why I have tended to look at a set being hybrid based on the necessity of working multiple axis to achieve basic functionality (e.g. Bio does not really work without bringing up Resistance and Defense value).

 

 

Edited May 18 by Erratic1

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

If having resistance at all makes an otherwise defensive set hybrid, are there any pure defensive sets? And conversely, is a resistance set required to have nothing whatsoever to do with resistance. If so, every armor set is hybrid except Fiery Aura and Electric Armor...and if you extend the axis of protection to include regeneration/healing then everything is hybrid.

 

That is why I have tended to look at a set being hybrid based on the necessity of working multiple axis to achieve basic functionality (e.g. Bio does not really work without bringing up Resistance and Defense value).

 

 

 

I would say there are no purely defensive sets anymore - because just taking a power on any of the sets I will mention below results in res, defense or both on one power. 

 

I would call any set inherantly possessing 3 factors a hybrid. 

 

1. Resistances - Shield SR and Invul all do

2. Defenses - Shield SR and invul all do. 

3. DDR - this is the game changer - yeah you can add defense to any set - but IMO it's only a defense set if it has DDR. 

 

Energy Aura, Stone, Ninjitsu, and Ice would also be included in the above IMO. 

 

You could also make the argument for Willpower - regen/res/def

Bio - regen/res/Def   - no ddr though but I think it still fits. 

 

So yeah, I'm not sure any defensive set is purely defensive anymore. 

 

Resistance sets are purely resistance - with Dark having a slight exception of defense in Cloak of Darkness - very limited and no ddr though. 

[Maelwys]

13 hours ago, Infinitum said:

 

I would say there are no purely defensive sets anymore - because just taking a power on any of the sets I will mention below results in res, defense or both on one power. 

 

I would call any set inherantly possessing 3 factors a hybrid. 

 

1. Resistances - Shield SR and Invul all do

2. Defenses - Shield SR and invul all do. 

3. DDR - this is the game changer - yeah you can add defense to any set - but IMO it's only a defense set if it has DDR. 

INV and Ice both have almost as much DDR as Shield these days.
It's 56.23% (Shield) vs 50% (INV) vs 51.9% (Ice).
SR is the extreme outlier: 77.85% DDR without Elude, 121+ (capped at 95) with.

WP gets ~21.6% and Stone gets 34.6% without Granite running. [EDIT - 51.9%. Forgot Rooted!]
Dark, Elec, Rad and Bio all get nothing.

So INV is actually in not too bad a spot survivability-wise these days - it just does bugger all to buff your offense besides a smidge of +ToHit.
 

Edited May 18 by Maelwys

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

INV and Ice both have almost as much DDR as Shield these days.
It's 56.23% (Shield) vs 50% (INV) vs 51.9% (Ice).
SR is the extreme outlier: 77.85% DDR without Elude, 121+ (capped at 95) with.

WP gets ~21.6% and Stone gets 34.6% without Granite running.
Dark, Elec, Rad and Bio all get nothing.

So INV is actually in not too bad a spot survivability-wise these days - it just does bugger all to buff your offense besides a smidge of +ToHit.

 

Mids says 51% for Stone. Without Granite.

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, Maelwys said:

INV and Ice both have almost as much DDR as Shield these days.
It's 56.23% (Shield) vs 50% (INV) vs 51.9% (Ice).
SR is the extreme outlier: 77.85% DDR without Elude, 121+ (capped at 95) with.

WP gets ~21.6% and Stone gets 34.6% without Granite running.
Dark, Elec, Rad and Bio all get nothing.

So INV is actually in not too bad a spot survivability-wise these days - it just does bugger all to buff your offense besides a smidge of +ToHit.

 

For Shield with one stack of Active Defense - its a click power

 

with 2 stacks of Active Defense - there is about a 20-30 second gap usually for this but its not noticeable.

 

SR - always capped

 

Like I said earlier these two do not get a dull pain type power like Invul - so that goes a long way towards equalizing this DDR deficit Invul has - but Shield and SR (rightfully so because of the absence of a self heal/HP Boost) experience less hiccups to the defense fluctuating - still happens, but all depends on how high you build the defense.

 

[Infinitum]

This is how the SR Shield and Invul compare by the numbers - my builds

 

Invul - with 10 in Invincibility - and one stack of Might of the Tanker

 

Shield - one stack of Might of the Tanker

 

SR - one stack of Might of the Tanker/Agile Dodge and Luck set to 0 Sliding Scale Res

 

SR - one stack of Might of the Tanker/Agile Dodge and Luck set to 50% Sliding Scale Res

 

SR - one stack of Might of the Tanker/Agile Dodge and Luck set to 100% Sliding Scale Res

 

SR never gets that low on my tanker - the 100% slider value - normally under extreme duress it is in between the 50% and the 100% and fluctuates - it looks very scary but is super safe at that point.

 

All of the above is so close in performance it splits hairs - and Invul is right there but there are larger fluctuations due to the DDR - but it has the slightly higher res - and also dull pain which equalizes the situation quickly and stabilizes as any heavy enemy group has to chew through a greater HP/Res wall.

Edited May 18 by Infinitum

[Infinitum]

Here are a few Screenshots from my Res Tankers - all very good also.

 

Electric Armor

 

Dark Armor

 

Radiation Armor

 

And Fiery Aura

 

I know they don't get DDR but I have built each one to have Softcapped+ Melee defense to help absorb the alpha and any effects that might come with it.

 

[tidge]

35 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

I know they don't get DDR but I have built each one to have Softcapped+ Melee defense to help absorb the alpha and any effects that might come with it.

 

I always find myself reaching for MOAR melee positional Defense on Tankers, for reasons like

• I can always move into melee range
• melee secondary attacks
• punchvoke
• I can (almost) always Taunt enemies to come into melee range

Often any given scrum gets to the point where it looks like all melee all the time, but part of me wonders if Melee positional defense is really helping me absorb alpha strikes.... it seems like so many enemies will do some sort of ranged attack as part of their alpha. I can't argue that melee defenses don't work, it is more that (especially while leveling up) those various ranged attacks seem to stand out... especially the ones that apply -Defense debuffs.

Edited May 18 by tidge
fixed negative!

[Sovera]

36 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

I always find myself reaching for MOAR melee positional Defense on Tankers, for reasons like

• I can always move into melee range
• melee secondary attacks
• punchvoke
• I can (almost) always Taunt enemies to come into melee range

Often any given scrum gets to the point where it looks like all melee all the time, but part of me wonders if Melee positional defense is really helping me absorb alpha strikes.... it seems like so many enemies will do some sort of ranged attack as part of their alpha. I can't argue that melee defenses don't work, it is more that (especially while leveling up) those various ranged attacks seem to stand out... especially the ones that apply -Defense debuffs.

 

If you're building for melee you're automatically building for S/L as well. So if those ranged attacks have a S or L component it's helping.

[Maelwys]

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

 

For Shield with one stack of Active Defense - its a click power

I knew you can stack Active Defence a few times; but that value for Battle Agility is interesting. Judging by CoD ; Battle Agility only gives 17.3% rather than 27.25%
(Looks like it's missing the "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag... so is possibly getting buffed depending on slotting/external effects. Do you happen to have ~57.5% worth of Defense enhancements slotted in it?)
 

Edited May 18 by Maelwys

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

I knew you can stack Active Defence a few times; but that value for Battle Agility is interesting. Judging by CoD ; Battle Agility only gives 17.3% rather than 27.25%
(Looks like it's missing the "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag... so is possibly getting buffed depending on slotting/external effects. Do you happen to have ~57.5% worth of Defense enhancements slotted in it?)
 

 

Without looking - I am pretty sure it has a whole set of Shield Wall in it. 

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Quote

I knew you can stack Active Defence a few times; but that value for Battle Agility is interesting. Judging by CoD ; Battle Agility only gives 17.3% rather than 27.25%
(Looks like it's missing the "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag... so is possibly getting buffed depending on slotting/external effects. Do you happen to have ~57.5% worth of Defense enhancements slotted in it?

Without looking - I am pretty sure it has a whole set of Shield Wall in it. 

Aye, that explains it then.

6-slotted Shield Wall (assuming you've not +5'ed them) would give 57.52% worth of Defense enhancement slotting.
(Base+Slotting)*BaseValue=BuffedValue
(1+0.5752)*0.173=0.2725096
Which gives us the 27.52% DDR figure that you're actually seeing in-game for Battle Agility.

Because Battle Agility is missing the "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag (the "Yellow Padlock" symbol in CoD, see below examples) any Defense% you slot in the power itself is also boosting the DDR it's granting.







It looks like across all the defensive powersets, SR and Shield are the only ones that possess DDR-enhancing powers which don't have this "Ignore Enhancements and other Boosts" flag set; and which therefore have DDR which is "boostable" via simply slotting regular +Defense% enhancements.
In Shield's case, it's just Battle Agility.
In SR's case, it's all the powers except for Practiced Brawler.

This seems rather unfair and inconsistent given the similar powers available to the other powersets... and given CoH's spaghetti codebase I very much suspect that this is likely not intentional (I'm aware of numerous cases where the similar flag "Does not scale with enemy level" is missing + bugged on self-healing abilities in Rad and Bio Armor...)

I would suggest filing a bug report... but they may decide to "add the missing flags" rather than "remove the superfluous ones" resulting in a nerf to SD and SR rather than a boost to the other sets. Even if SR is still so far ahead of the rest of the pack that it likely wouldn't really notice.
 

Edited May 18 by Maelwys

[Haijinx]

I think the OP is playing the I'm leveling up so... and seeing that as the whole game ...

 

Meanwhile.. several posters are playing the The game starts at 50 ... some mention exemplar some don't... and are seeing that as the whole game ...

 

This leads to a pretty big disconnect.

[Infinitum]

20 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

This seems rather unfair and inconsistent given the similar powers available to the other powersets...

 

Have to disagree here because each of the other powersets have a self heal/HP buff, endurance boost/defense click etc. Which is 3 tiers of mitigation in most cases - Bio has all 4

Shield and SR only have the defense and resistance categories to work with so it wouldn't make sense to not give them the ability to come close to capping DDR or capping it in SR case.   Naturally they should be the best at it and have the best ways to protect it.  

 

It's not like they are extreme outliers - invul is only ever so slightly behind them - because it has dull pain and slightly higher resistances to mitigate incoming damage. 

[Maelwys]

38 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

This leads to a pretty big disconnect.

There is certainly a huge disconnect between the OP and the bulk of the posters in this thread, I'll give you that...

I'm not sure 'leveling-up' vs 'life-begins-at-50' is quite where to point the finger though.
There has been a historical reluctance by the OP to learn or even engage in conversation with well-meaning and helpful replies; and it got to the point where at least one of their threads was preemptively locked by a GM "before it becomes another crap-show like half the other threads [the OP] creates."

I think it's probably safe to assume that most of the more vocal posters in this thread (myself included) have levelled an awful, awful lot of different alts; and that if we didn't enjoy playing arcs of different levels then the game would probably get boring for a lot of us very quickly... and so we're keenly aware that there are things that you can do whilst levelling up to vastly smooth things along (I know I'm not the only one here who regularly pauses EXP gain just so that I can complete more story arcs within each particular level tier!). 
However skipping all of the powers from your offensive powerset aside from Taunt and ignoring that IOs exist is quite probably the opposite of that.
 

Edited May 18 by Maelwys

[Maelwys]

8 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Quote

This seems rather unfair and inconsistent given the similar powers available to the other powersets...

Have to disagree here because each of the other powersets have a self heal/HP buff, endurance boost/defense click etc. 

I didn't mean it was unfair and inconsistent that SD/SR have more DDR than the others - I meant that it's unfair and inconsistent that one self-buffing power in a Defensive Tanker powerset ("Battle Agility") can slot Enhancements to boost DDR beyond the base rate and another self-buffing power in a Defensive Tanker powerset (let's pick on "Tough Hide" from INV) can't.

The exclusion flags in the game's code should be kept consistent across the same sorts of powers otherwise you end up with a mess like this and this (never mind all that business with us being able to Power Boost FF Bubbles and Farsight but not Cold Bubbles or Fade because of the "Ignores External Strength Boosts" flag - but at least they've recognized and disclosed the rationale for that one!)

[Infinitum]

3 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

I didn't mean it was unfair and inconsistent that SD/SR have more DDR than the others - I meant that it's unfair and inconsistent that one self-buffing power in a Defensive Tanker powerset ("Battle Agility") can slot Enhancements to boost DDR beyond the base rate and another self-buffing power in a Defensive Tanker powerset (let's pick on "Tough Hide" from INV) can't.

 

Changing it one way or another would result in invul being slightly OP if added there or shield and SR being underpowered if it was removed. 

 

None of that would make sense given how close the performance is currently. 

 

As I said earlier Invul has one extra tier in dull pain - so chalk it up to that for consistency sake. 

[Maelwys]

2 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

 

Changing it one way or another would result in invul being slightly OP if added there or shield and SR being underpowered if it was removed. 

 

None of that would make sense given how close the performance is currently. 

 

As I said earlier Invul has one extra tier in dull pain - so chalk it up to that for consistency sake. 

Individual powersets being OP or non-OP has no dog in the fight here, it's a coding consistency issue which produces weird and unpredictable effects on in-game power performance and can mislead anyone who is unaware of very specific differences in the powers code.

Take two powers from within SD as an example - why should DDR differ in Battle Agility but not in Grant Cover depending on the power's enhancement slotting?
That's inconsistent code and it results in confusing behavior for the end user when working with the affected powers.

To pull an example out of my ass: someone could choose to mule globals in Grant Cover or Tough Hide and still have maximum DDR; but not do the same for Battle Agility or for any of the passives in SR. And what about if a SD or SR user pops RADIAL Clarion - since that's a Boost effect that would likely affect their DDR as well.
I doubt it is intentional that we can do that sort of thing for some of these powers but not others.

If the devs want SR and SD to have more DDR than the rest, fantastic.
Just make it all static. Or make it all volatile.
But for Faathim's sake please PICK one and STICK with it... 

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

[Infinitum]

13 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

Individual powersets being OP or non-OP has no dog in the fight here, it's a coding consistency issue which produces weird and unpredictable effects on in-game power performance and can mislead anyone who is unaware of very specific differences in the powers code.

Take two powers from within SD as an example - why should DDR differ in Battle Agility but not in Grant Cover depending on the power's enhancement slotting?
That's inconsistent code and it results in confusing behavior for the end user when working with the affected powers.

To pull an example out of my ass: someone could choose to mule globals in Grant Cover or Tough Hide and still have maximum DDR; but not do the same for Battle Agility or for any of the passives in SR. And what about if a SD or SR user pops RADIAL Clarion - since that's a Boost effect that would likely affect their DDR as well.
I doubt it is intentional that we can do that sort of thing for some of these powers but not others.

If the devs want SR and SD to have more DDR than the rest, fantastic.
Just make it all static. Or make it all volatile.
But for Faathim's sake please PICK one and STICK with it... 

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

 

Well, I'm going to stick with none of that matters enough to lose sleep over - because all sets involved are working well without any outlier level variances.