Which is better? Resist or Defense?

[Xandyr]

Hey all.

 

   I'm one of those that thinks the more Defense you/Pets have, the better off you'll be. Having said that, given how BG Mode works, it kinda seems that you might be a little better off by getting as much Resistance as possible. Obviously, Defense would still be important so you/pets don't get hit. However, for when those hits do land, being able to split up the damage among 6 pets + yourself, then Resisting that damage seems like a plan to focus on.

 

   If that's the case, to me at least, it seems like Pain,EA,and Nature would be the best routes to go.

 

Pain

 AoE and ST Heal

 +Resistance

 PBAoE +Regen

 

EA

 +Resist

 Chain Heal

 Chain Absorb

 

Nature

 Cone Heal

 PBAoE Absorb

+ Resist (with a small +Regen)

AoE Heal Over Time

 

 Has anyone ever built an MM that focused on BG Mode and Resists/Heals? Or Defense still King?

[Uun]

It depends on your primary and whether your henchman are built for resist or defense. Sets that are resist based should be paired with a secondary that buffs resistance. Sets that are defense based should be paired with a secondary that buff defenses. Robots are largely defense based. Demons, Mercs, Necro and Thugs are largely resist based. Beasts and Ninja have a mix of both.

[tidge]

Personally:

1. Defense, for the MM and the Henchmen, then
2. Resistance, but aside from slotting choices, I don't go out of my way to grant henchmen more resistance, and
3. I don't like actively trying to heal henchmen.

If the primary contains a mechanism for the henchmen to heal themselves, or the primary/secondary contains some sort of AoE heal that I'd be casting anyway... sure that's a thing. But otherwise the henchmen are there to serve the MM, not the other way around. I find that if I get too focused on the henchmen, and not the enemy, I have taken my eyes off the ball.

 

Once I have the first two covered, and even if there isn't a great quasi-passive heal, I can still occasionally drag green inspirations onto the henchmen, or use team insps.

[PeregrineFalcon]

Defense is king for MMs, and Force Field is the king of Defense.

 

Pain, EA, and Nature are great if you want to support other characters on your team, but your henchman are a little on the squishy side and will often die before you can heal them. With Force Field your Henchmen will generally survive long enough for you to heal them with Aid Other, or Inspirations, or whatever.

 

Basically if you want your Henchmen to seldom die choose the Force Field secondary. Or, you can do what everyone else does. Pick another secondary and then, when they get tired of constantly resummoning their Henchmen, start a thread on the forums complaining about how squishy MM Henchmen are.

[Hyperstrike]

1 hour ago, Xandyr said:

Hey all.

 

   I'm one of those that thinks the more Defense you/Pets have, the better off you'll be. Having said that, given how BG Mode works, it kinda seems that you might be a little better off by getting as much Resistance as possible. Obviously, Defense would still be important so you/pets don't get hit. However, for when those hits do land, being able to split up the damage among 6 pets + yourself, then Resisting that damage seems like a plan to focus on.

 

   If that's the case, to me at least, it seems like Pain,EA,and Nature would be the best routes to go.

 

Pain

 AoE and ST Heal

 +Resistance

 PBAoE +Regen

 

EA

 +Resist

 Chain Heal

 Chain Absorb

 

Nature

 Cone Heal

 PBAoE Absorb

+ Resist (with a small +Regen)

AoE Heal Over Time

 

 Has anyone ever built an MM that focused on BG Mode and Resists/Heals? Or Defense still King?

There is no "better"

Defense is basically "All or nothing".
If they can overcome your numbers, it's "All"
If they cannot, it's "nothing"

Resist just says "Take a specific amount of the overall damage"

So if you have 40% resist, and take 100 poiints of damage, you make 40% go away and only take 60 damage.
In both cases, you can still take damage, it just makes dropping dead take LONGER.

IDEALLY, you want lots of BOTH.

If you're NORMALLY a "squishy", Defense tends to return more value in the long run.  However, you can still be subjected to "drop dead" and cascading defense failures.

With Resistance, you'll still have problems with accepting damage inflicted, especially if you have heavy Resist debuffs stacking on you as well.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

[tidge]

27 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

...when they get tired of constantly resummoning their Henchmen, start a thread on the forums complaining about how squishy MM Henchmen are.

 

Occasionally, when I am standing within 10 feet of a GM/AV and find myself resummonning henchmen, I wonder if this is what people are doing before they complain about squishy henchmen.

[PeregrineFalcon]

12 minutes ago, tidge said:

Occasionally, when I am standing within 10 feet of a GM/AV and find myself resummonning henchmen, I wonder if this is what people are doing before they complain about squishy henchmen.

Maybe, but that's generally not what's said IIRC.

 

Although they also generally move the goal posts in these threads so many times that it's difficult to remember. So yeah, maybe.

[Crysis]

I’ve played almost every combination of MM’s to 50, most to T4 incarnates.

 

My opinion?  Defense is your primary goal, due largely to the native “resistance” effect of Bodyguard mode.  I always softcap my MM to either a positional or typed defense level and strive to do likewise for my henchmen, although don’t neglect that many MM secondaries offer -ToHit debuffs that can be almost as effective as +Defense slotting for them.

 

The reason I’ve found that +Def works best is simply due to the level shifts.  Once you start getting your T1’s blown away your BG effective +Res drops quickly, creating cascading failures.  Thus, as much +DEF as you can muster is the only real way to keep them alive to contribute to the +RES effect of full henchmen BG.  And since they are such significantly lower level than what you are fighting once you hit the 40’s, their native diminished HP and damage resistance gets crucified quickly under fire. 

 

Enough +DEF can also help you avoid needing a pet heal power.  I run a lot of /Storm and /Cold MM’s and never take the heal, because +DEF is enough to keep them from taking significant damage in the first place.

 

+RES slotting for me is only a strategy if I simply am overflowing with +RES powers already, or playing Demons which are +RES to begin with.

[StrikerFox]

Let's calculate def vs res in BG mode. Say the MM has 1000 HP and being hit for 200 damage...

With softcap def (0 res), the MM would get hit an average of once every 20 attacks. In BG, 200 damage would split, 50 damage to the MM (Pets would take 25 damage each). It would take an average of 400 attacks for the MM to fall (On average, 380 of the attacks missing).

With +75% res (0 def), the MM would get hit an average of 50% of the time. Instead of 200 damage, it would be 50 damage and of that, the MM would take 12.5 damage (Pets would take 6.25 damage each). The MM would need to get hit 80 times to fall and with 50% hit/miss, it would take an average of 160 attacks to defeat the MM.

+75% res is around the same as +37.5% def (+45 def is equivalent to +90% res which MMs can't get). As for the pets, at lvl 50+1, T1 pets have around 575 hp, T2 pets has 769 hp and T3 has 964 hp.

With softcap def and 0 res, 200 damage, pets taking 25, The T1 pets absorb 23 BG hits. T2 pets can take 31. T3 can take 39 hits in BG. All pets will live past the MM since the MM can only take 20 hits before dying.

With the MM having +75% res and 0 def, 50 damage per hit, pets taking 6.25 damage, the T1 pets could absorb 92 BG hits. T2 can take 123 hits and T3 can take 154 BG hits. They will all live past the MM as well since the MM can only take 80 hits in BG mode.

But all that ignores heals, regen, buffs, debuffs, weaker BG from fallen pets etc. 

Softcap defense on an MM is considerably better since they are capped at +75% res. Defense or resistance are good on pet since their res is capped at +90% res. Though if you're not opposed to using inspirations, it takes considerably less purple inspira to hit softcap than it takes orange inspira to hit 75%/90% res. Someone can probably tell me if I'm wrong or way off on the numbers. I believe BG damage that pet takes ignores their resistances but I could be totally mistaken.

[kelika2]

Defense, or defense and -tohit.

while my thermal and sonic masterminds are tolerable, its still an uphill battle.  one little knockback and my pets take forever to stand up or sometimes 90% resist isnt enough for low hp pets and incoming damage