Re-evaluating the Importance of Defense/Resistance Minimums for Grouping vs. Ability Usage in Task Forces

[Crysis]

On 2/17/2025 at 3:16 PM, Stormwalker said:

 

Yeah, this comes back to another point about defenses.

 

You don't need to have strong defenses against everything if you're not a melee.  You just have to defend against what you expect to be targeted by.

 

In a team, a blaster/defender/controller who expects to operate mostly from range (even if you are delivering some melee attacks via jousting) doesn't need strong melee defense.  They're not going to be close enough to the enemy for melee attacks to target them most of the time.  And they don't need a ton of AoE defense, either, though it's nice to have some.  The vast majority of attacks targeting these characters are going to be single-target ranged attacks, so what they mostly need is Ranged defense.   Some middling resists are nice as well to protect against being one-shotted if you somehow get unwanted attention from the AV.  Plus, if your teammates bring resist buffs, suddenly your middling resists become strong resists.

 

Someone will certainly think, "What about defense debuffs?  They won't have any resistance to those!"   That is true, but these characters should not have mass aggro so long as:

1.  They don't do something stupid, and
2.  The Tanker is doing his or her job.

Given that, mostly they're only going to have to deal with stray fire from a couple of enemies, which isn't going to be sufficient to provoke Defense Cascade Failure.  Especially when the enemy will have a hard time landing that first hit to begin with because of high defense.

 

Note that I said "high defense" and not "soft-capped defense".  If you don't ever solo, you probably don't need soft-capped defense on a ranged-primary character; you just shouldn't be taking that much fire to begin with.   Even 25% defense cuts down your incoming damage by more than half against enemies who don't have accuracy buffs.

 

I personally find that soft-capped ranged defense is not that hard to get on a Blaster - you can only use so many attacks in a practical chain, so you don't need to take all of them, so you have plenty of room for some defense powers. 

 

Defenders, though, are going to need to take most if not all of their primary to deliver the most benefit to a team - their role is more complex than damage and can't just be broken down to having enough powers to complete an effective attack chain.  As such, a defender may not be practically able to soft-cap ranged defense - and depending on what kind of Defender they are, they may have other tools that are more effective for their survival anyway.  I know that on my Rad/Rad defender I don't worry all that much about defense (it's nice to have *some*, but I'm not going out of my way for it)  because her massive To Hit and Damage debuffs plus Choking Cloud are plenty to keep her alive in most cases.

 

Controllers, I can't speak to in any detail.  I've never played one.  But I imagine that if I was playing a Controller, I would be counting more on my control to keep me alive rather than passive defenses.  Any defense I had would be there just to protect me from anything that leaked through.

 

Now, if you ARE a melee, you're going to face a lot of incoming fire.  Even if you don't have aggro (and you probably have some, at least on your primary target), you're going to get rolled against by every single AoE that gets chucked at the tank, because you're right there in the middle of things.   As such, I consider a strong defensive package a requirement for any melee AT.  Exactly what that "strong defensive package" consists of will vary from powerset to powerset.  /SR, /Energy Aura, /Shield all depend on soft-capped defenses.  WP is a mix of defense, resistances, regen, and max HP.  Invuln is resistances and defense, plus enough recharge to keep Dull Pain available at all times. 

 

Of course, exactly HOW strong each layer of your defense needs to be depends somewhat on your team.  If you know you're teaming with someone who provides defense buffs on a regular basis, you don't need to soft-cap, you just need to get close enough for the buffs to push you over the top.  If you know you're teaming with someone who provides resist buffs, the same goes for hard-capping resists.  If, like my Dark/Dark/Dark scrapper (who always duos with a friend's Kin/Psi defender), you know that you're going to have constant Recovery buffs, you can run with a build that is fairly end-negative and still be fine.

 

On the other hand, if you're teaming with randoms, you don't know what you're getting and it's best to be as self-sufficient as possible.  Remember: a dead scrapper does 0 DPS.

 

EDIT:  This reminds me of one other thing.  Willpower is not my favorite armor set for solo, but it's GREAT in teams.  Why?  Because whatever kind of buffs the team brings, Willpower can use it!

• Defense buffs?  Great, my "decent" S/L defense just got soft-capped and now I'm a monster with soft-capped S/L defense AND hard-capped S/L resist!
• Resist buffs?  Also great, because my fair-to-middling E/N/F/C resists are now quite formidable
• Recharge buffs?  Well, it doesn't help my defense any, but I can trim the fat from my attack chain and do better DPS.  Since it's hard to build Willpower for recharge without sacrificing too much durability, this is very helpful.
• Healing/regen buffs?  Sure!  WP is a "mitigate part of the damage and heal the rest" set, so more healing never hurts.
• Recovery buffs?  Ok, WP has a hard time making use of this one.  It's got lots of recovery.  Though it'd still be helpful to mitigate any incoming end drains or recovery debuffs.

 

I think you are being overly broad in your recommendations here.

 

Case in point: Defenders built for OFFENSE.  Poison/anything is a great example.  You really only need 4 powers from your primary for an offensive build.  And even those need minimal slotting, some only the native first slot.  My Poison/Fire Defender still manages to eek out softcapped DEF for both melee and ranged.  And she solo's +4/x8 perfectly safe and fine, and is equally effective on a team because -damage output is the best 'debuff' in the game.-

 

Same for my Marine/DP Defender.  

 

Just because you play a defender AT doesn't mean you have play support roles.  I've seen Brutes play better Support roles than many Defenders just by holding aggro.  

 

My point still stands, and you've somewhat made the same here.  It's always best to be as "self sufficient" as possible, unless you are rolling an AT to play a certain role on a specific team makeup 24/7.  And in this game, self-sufficiency means "I don't need anyone to heal me,"  "I don't need status protection from outside," and most definitely "I can fend for myself with enough DPS to bring down my foes before they can hurt me."  That means almost universally build for softcapped DEF and max DPS.  Regardless of AT.  Some builds will certainly find this more challenging to do than others, and I've always felt that's the real "difficulty slider" in this game.  But if you can achieve softcapped DEF and max DPS, you are highly self sufficient.  Not invulnerable, but quite competent by yourself, on a dedicated team or on a PUG.  

 

Remember: DEF softcaps are fixed in this game regardless of class.  RES softcaps vary by AT.  Some AT's are easier to softcap DEF or RES but you avoid 100% of damage, debuffs, etc that whiff you because of +DEF.  And damage is damage, whether its 100 points coming from a proc, a Controller or a Blaster.  Doesn't matter how you apply damage...it's all the same.  

[Stormwalker]

On 2/25/2025 at 9:16 AM, Crysis said:

 

I think you are being overly broad in your recommendations here.

 

Case in point: Defenders built for OFFENSE.  Poison/anything is a great example.  You really only need 4 powers from your primary for an offensive build.  And even those need minimal slotting, some only the native first slot.  My Poison/Fire Defender still manages to eek out softcapped DEF for both melee and ranged.  And she solo's +4/x8 perfectly safe and fine, and is equally effective on a team because -damage output is the best 'debuff' in the game.-

 

Same for my Marine/DP Defender.  

 

Just because you play a defender AT doesn't mean you have play support roles.  I've seen Brutes play better Support roles than many Defenders just by holding aggro.  

 

My point still stands, and you've somewhat made the same here.  It's always best to be as "self sufficient" as possible, unless you are rolling an AT to play a certain role on a specific team makeup 24/7.  And in this game, self-sufficiency means "I don't need anyone to heal me,"  "I don't need status protection from outside," and most definitely "I can fend for myself with enough DPS to bring down my foes before they can hurt me."  That means almost universally build for softcapped DEF and max DPS.  Regardless of AT.  Some builds will certainly find this more challenging to do than others, and I've always felt that's the real "difficulty slider" in this game.  But if you can achieve softcapped DEF and max DPS, you are highly self sufficient.  Not invulnerable, but quite competent by yourself, on a dedicated team or on a PUG.  

 

Remember: DEF softcaps are fixed in this game regardless of class.  RES softcaps vary by AT.  Some AT's are easier to softcap DEF or RES but you avoid 100% of damage, debuffs, etc that whiff you because of +DEF.  And damage is damage, whether its 100 points coming from a proc, a Controller or a Blaster.  Doesn't matter how you apply damage...it's all the same.  

 

To quote myself:  "As such, a defender may not be practically able to soft-cap ranged defense".  That's not a recommendation.  It's simply a statement that, depending on a defender's build, soft-capped defense may not be feasible.   Which is to say, I'm making an argument against applying a generic recommendation (i.e. "you should have soft-capped ranged defense" to Defenders - my specific point there is that Defenders are complex enough that one generic recommendation can't possibly apply to all of them!

 

[Crysis]

17 hours ago, Stormwalker said:

 

To quote myself:  "As such, a defender may not be practically able to soft-cap ranged defense".  That's not a recommendation.  It's simply a statement that, depending on a defender's build, soft-capped defense may not be feasible.   Which is to say, I'm making an argument against applying a generic recommendation (i.e. "you should have soft-capped ranged defense" to Defenders - my specific point there is that Defenders are complex enough that one generic recommendation can't possibly apply to all of them!

 

We will have to agree to disagree.  It’s trivially easy to softcap any AT for defense -and- maximize DPS at the same time.  Anyone arguing otherwise just frankly doesn’t know how to min/max a build.  And that’s the beauty of this 20 year old game.  You can be as “useless” a petless Mastermind and still play on teams that max your damage and your defense for you.  Self sufficiency should be every players target but the power sets are meant to cover the holes who just flat out don’t get it.

[Stormwalker]

19 minutes ago, Crysis said:

We will have to agree to disagree.  It’s trivially easy to softcap any AT for defense -and- maximize DPS at the same time.  Anyone arguing otherwise just frankly doesn’t know how to min/max a build.  And that’s the beauty of this 20 year old game.  You can be as “useless” a petless Mastermind and still play on teams that max your damage and your defense for you.  Self sufficiency should be every players target but the power sets are meant to cover the holes who just flat out don’t get it.

 

There are a lot of other people who have participated in this thread who will argue that count with you a lot more effectively than I can, because I generally do build my characters to be self-sufficient insofar as their concept allows them to be.  But I do it that way because I solo 90+% of the time, so I have to do it that way.  But the folks who are out there running 4* hard modes in dedicated teams do things differently, and it works for them, so I am sure not going to tell them that they are doing it wrong.

 

And even I will let certain aspects of self-sufficiency slide when I know I will have certain buffs at all times.  For example, I have a Dark/Dark scrapper who I play in basically a permanent duo with a friend's Kin/Psi defender.  That character's build is significantly endurance-negative.  I could fix that, but I have no need to fix it, because that character will always have Recovery buffs, so slotting for more recovery or endurance discount on him would be a waste of slots he can put to better use elsewhere.

 

Simply put, there is no single "this is always the right way" to do it.  Everything depends on how you play the game, and who you play the game with.

[arcane]

2 hours ago, Crysis said:

It’s trivially easy to softcap any AT for defense -and- maximize DPS at the same time. 

I regret to inform you that your DPS is not at all “maximized” if you’re soft capping defense. Just kind of how objective reality works

[Maelwys]

5 hours ago, Crysis said:

It’s trivially easy to softcap any AT for defense -and- maximize DPS at the same time.  Anyone arguing otherwise just frankly doesn’t know how to min/max a build.  

 

Any power selections you use on things like Maneuvers or Weave aren't being used on powers like Assault or Enflame or procbombed Weaken Resolve or Patron pool AoEs.

 

Any enhancement slots you use for chasing +Def Set bonuses aren't being used on damage procs and global recharge.

 

Any Incarnate Slots you use for Barrier and Support aren't being used for Ageless or Assault.

 

Everything is a balancing act.

 

Min/Maxing a build typically isn't about trying to push one thing as far as it can possibly go (aside from in the Pylon epeen measuring threads) let alone two things simultaneously... it's about attempting to maximise overall performance whilst minimising the inevitable compromises/inefficiencies.

[MoonSheep]

14 hours ago, Crysis said:

We will have to agree to disagree.  It’s trivially easy to softcap any AT for defense -and- maximize DPS at the same time.  Anyone arguing otherwise just frankly doesn’t know how to min/max a build.  And that’s the beauty of this 20 year old game.  You can be as “useless” a petless Mastermind and still play on teams that max your damage and your defense for you.  Self sufficiency should be every players target but the power sets are meant to cover the holes who just flat out don’t get it.

 

i just use 2 purple insps and then dish out my procced attacks, strongly slotted debuffs and large selection of offensive powers 

 

it would be inefficient to waste slots and power choices on something which can be replicated for a few thousand inf after typing /ah before each mission

 

people ignore the P2W buffs available, ease of access to the market and ability to email yourself cheap T3 insps and ultimates in modern CoH and still build alts like it’s 2009 when you couldn’t quickly get all the personal survival tools you need

 

the game has moved on and so has the concept of min/max

Edited Friday at 04:42 PM by MoonSheep

[Captain Fabulous]

[Seed22]

It's fascinating to watch people cling to archaic forms of minmaxing as if they understand the concept as it is today.

 

45% def waa never minmaxing on ATs with no DDR. It was, as most advice on the forums is with builds, misinformation that got perpetuated over and over again as to become a norm that should have never hapoened.

 

I admit to falling for this misinformation myself when the relaunch happened in '19. 

 

But you have to look at the bigger picture. In a team, you will be buffed out the whazoo with so many stats that your pursuit of 45% will have been meaningless, and left you with oodles of lost DPS. All the while my procc'd 4* Cold/Ice fender will be shredding mobs while you pluck away at a boss for 5 minutes, because I chose to observe the current minmax meta; procs and damage with def being covered by the team.

 

Some will try and argue they can pump out comparable damage with the 45% def toon to a procced out meta build in a team setting; you can't.  Minmaxed proc builds obliterate 45% def builds in every single way possible with attack chains hitting for 400+. And thats on the low end before factoring in native damage and AT modifiers.

 

My point being, the forums needs to catch up with and understand the current meta before trying to comment on and change the definition of proper minmax in relation to CoH.

 

*Its also not meta to 45% def cap solo. Insp will cover any and all def you can want while ALSO pumping damage and acc. 

Edited Saturday at 12:55 PM by Seed22

[aethereal]

So like, here's the thing:

 

If you're doing an 8 person team with high level characters on normal (non-hard-mode) content, yes, agreed, building defense/resistance isn't very necessary.  And sure, I guess, if you proc out your attacks maybe each spawn will go from taking 3.2 seconds to 2.7 seconds.

 

But non-hard-mode grouped, high level content is very easy.  Honestly I don't really get why this would be your build target.  Anything you do will be Just Fine.  I just can't really see who will be bothered to care if you are less than perfectly optimized for faceroll content.

 

Hard Mode was designed specifically to devalue defense, and as far as I can tell succeeded.  If hard mode is your build target, that makes plenty of sense.

[Nemu]

Building for defense is fine for the casual meta comprised of the leveling content from 1-50. There are plenty of people that PUG and exemp, where they don't always get on teams with optimal support and fighting mobs above their means. A few softcap builds can carry those types of teams, whether you achieve softcap through inspirations, team support or set bonuses. But as most people are casual players there is a lot of appeal in reducing the complexity of the playstyle required to maintain softcap. Plus the idea that they can hold their own without assistance is the feeling of "super" most people would want to chase in a superhero game no?

 

Building for defense is not suited for Hardmode meta where 1) survival comes from teammate support and rotating barriers and 2) mobs are DPS checks that favor proc builds aided by team damage boosts 3) specific team compositions are preferred to plug the holes in survival and amplify damage

 

Hardmode meta is super narrow considering the player base and the content available that cater to that scene. Plus casual players can always use a second build for that content.

 

What I can't endorse are the builds that drank the tanker cool-aid and over build for survival. Past a certain point building for survival has diminishing returns when balanced against building for offense. This is more egregious in those builds that chase tiny increments of resistance like 5 slotting mule powers for just 3.75% resistance to S/L. Besides ignoring offense, such builds also blatantly overlook any synergies that exist in the primary/secondary/pools for survival and opt to blindly chase only def +resist.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, Nemu said:

What I can't endorse are the builds that drank the tanker cool-aid and over build for survival. Past a certain point building for survival has diminishing returns when balanced against building for offense. This is more egregious in those builds that chase tiny increments of resistance like 5 slotting mule powers for just 3.75% resistance to S/L. Besides ignoring offense, such builds also blatantly overlook any synergies that exist in the primary/secondary/pools for survival and opt to blindly chase only def +resist.

 

 I don't nit-pick posted builds' defense/resistance slotting, but I silently shake my head in disbelief at 5-slotting Luck of the Gambler, which is common enough (in posts) that I've seen some builds that make that choice more than once in the same build. I find this to be somewhat shocking on Tankers/Brutes that do that instead of adding one (or more!) Power Transfer %Heal to the build. It also seems weird (to me) that a build that adds extra slots to get one (or more) +3.75 S/L resistance bonus could usually get more Toxic/Psi (or Slow) resistance instead by making alternate choices with those slots.

 

While I never chased uber-values of  S/L resistance on any character, the original argument for doing this was IMO made significantly weaker when homecoming changed the way damage types/defenses worked.

 

[codyecho]

I want to thank everyone for the time and consideration for the replies to my question.

 

1) If anyone is interested (for the fun of the exercise) in perhaps switching gears and sharing what a great team of mixed ATs would look like where def/res minmax could be a secondary consideration - having a bubble and a sonic on the team would seem to soft cap the entire group without any 'wasted slotting for def'.

 

2) IMO much of the enhancement slotting 'bloat/waste' is the result of the enhancement set design. I don't know how much freedom the current Devs have in adjusting the enchantment set bonuses but perhaps the solution might be to increase set bonus diversification, i.e. primary and secondaries power enhancements more potent for def/res buffs.

 

I desire joy and happiness for you and yours.

[tidge]

1 minute ago, codyecho said:

2) IMO much of the enhancement slotting 'bloat/waste' is the result of the enhancement set design. I don't know how much freedom the current Devs have in adjusting the enchantment set bonuses but perhaps the solution might be to increase set bonus diversification, i.e. primary and secondaries power enhancements more potent for def/res buffs.

 

This takeaway confuses me, was the message received that it should be easier to get more resistance and defense bonuses for less effort?

[battlewraith]

If you're going to be popping inspirations like tic-tacs, you could build however you want. Same thing if you're expecting to be on a team that will be buffing your dmg and/or defenses. 

I build for survivability in a solo +4/+8 so I typically invest in def. The damage I leave on the table doesn't matter in the team content I do. Occasionally it's helpful if an AV gets pissed off at my squishy and part of the team is dead or distracted. Generally speaking if you're teamed with people that have invested in their builds one way or another, it doesn't matter at all.

[codyecho]

48 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

This takeaway confuses me, was the message received that it should be easier to get more resistance and defense bonuses for less effort?

 

not 'less effort' but more choice where the def/res can be obtained.

 

Let me express this a different way: If placing enhancements in a power can't be done in a vacuum without the consideration of survival - no wonder so many players get it 'wrong'.

 

I understand that slotting powers in-and-of-itself is a minigame due to the sheer number of variables involved (team vs solo - melee vs ranged AT - content being ran - ect), however I am only suggesting players have more flexibility in how they achieve certain soft caps for survivability without sacrificing the slots for procs or + dam/ +acc/ +power effect bonus -based on which sets give what bonus.

 

Please ask for more clarification if I am not expressing my opinion clearly.

 

[arcane]

34 minutes ago, codyecho said:

 

not 'less effort' but more choice where the def/res can be obtained.

 

Let me express this a different way: If placing enhancements in a power can't be done in a vacuum without the consideration of survival - no wonder so many players get it 'wrong'.

 

I understand that slotting powers in-and-of-itself is a minigame due to the sheer number of variables involved (team vs solo - melee vs ranged AT - content being ran - ect), however I am only suggesting players have more flexibility in how they achieve certain soft caps for survivability without sacrificing the slots for procs or + dam/ +acc/ +power effect bonus -based on which sets give what bonus.

 

Please ask for more clarification if I am not expressing my opinion clearly.

 

Examples would be good because I don’t know what you’re suggesting 

[tidge]

18 minutes ago, codyecho said:

Let me express this a different way: If placing enhancements in a power can't be done in a vacuum without the consideration of survival - no wonder so many players get it 'wrong'.

 

I understand that slotting powers in-and-of-itself is a minigame due to the sheer number of variables involved (team vs solo - melee vs ranged AT - content being ran - ect), however I am only suggesting players have more flexibility in how they achieve certain soft caps for survivability without sacrificing the slots for procs or + dam/ +acc/ +power effect bonus -based on which sets give what bonus.

 

Writing only for myself (and definitely not @Nemu ) players can pursue whatever set bonuses they want. I don't think players who pursue +3.75% S/L bonuses are getting it 'wrong', as it is clear they want those bonuses. My personal opinion is that putting 2+ more slots into a power (that may or may not be used, except as a mule) is often a poor return-on-investment for 'surviving' or quality-of-life considerations.

 

The Defense/Resistance discussion is complicated, in my perception, often these types of builds look like (to me) they are not just from the days of Live, but from the days of Live when folks still hadn't completely embraced Enhancement Diversification. It is also very hard to have a conversation about "surviving" content because there is such a wide variety of it at all levels.

 

Folks can look at a my build suggestions and point out what they see as inefficient or poorly considered, and they do! That isn't going to stop me from boosting Damage pieces in a 5-or-6-slotted Purple set just to get the tiniest more DPA, or continue to pursue/achieve perma-Domination without Hasten, or argue against folks recommending single-target %damage attacks on Masterminds with a full suite of Henchmen, or whatever.

[Stormwalker]

5 hours ago, Seed22 said:

*Its also not meta to 45% def cap solo. Insp will cover any and all def you can want while ALSO pumping damage and acc. 

 

I'll agree with much of what you said in the team evironment.  Solo, I strongly prefer NOT to be dependent on having specific types of inspirations in my tray.  It's bad enough having to convert insps to Break Frees on a blaster.  I prefer to be able to use whatever insps I happen to have in my tray at any given time, not to be constantly converting to purples to maintain my desired level of defense.

 

That said, I'll admit that something like this is more a question of suiting one's preferred playstyle than of what is meta.  Soft-capping defenses (which defenses I soft-cap depending on AT and powersets) enables me to play the game the way I want to play it.

 

Also, in solo play, I'm going to disagree somewhat about soft-cap defenses on characters without DDR.  It *does* still make a difference in many situations.  My energy/energy/force blaster gets mezzed VASTLY less often in solo play thanshe did before I soft-capped her ranged defense.  This alone made soft-capping her ranged defense worthwhile, to say nothing of the reduction in damage taken.  While I am not going to pretend her damage output is the same as it would be on a team-focused hyper-offensive build (obviously, it isn't), it is still pretty respectable, and she is much, much more survivable than she was before.  I am able to play her on higher difficulty settings than I was before, and I die much less than I did before.

 

In solo play, my experience has been that building for defense softcaps (when they are reasonably attainable, that is) is still very beneficial.

 

If anything, my long term plans (once I am wealthy enough in game, which I am not at present) is to have a solo build and a team build for each character, enabling me to get the best of both worlds.

 

Of course, that is assuming that the combination of PPM procs and global recharge doesn't get nerfed at some point (which is something that has always been a consideration, though the proliferation of hard mode conent makes it seem less likely to me than I once thought), which would push the meta back toward defenses anyway.

 

 

[Stormwalker]

4 hours ago, Nemu said:

What I can't endorse are the builds that drank the tanker cool-aid and over build for survival. Past a certain point building for survival has diminishing returns when balanced against building offense. This is more egregious in those builds that chase tiny increments of resistance like 5 slotting mule powers for just 3.75% resistance to S/L. Besides ignoring offense, such builds also blatantly overlook any synergies that exist in the primary/secondary/pools for survival and opt to blindly chase only def +resist.

 

This comment raises a really valid point which reminds me of the build you gave me for my energy/energy/force blaster a couple of years ago.

 

I had put together a ranged soft-cap build on my own, but it was not a great build (which I knew, but I didn't really know back then how to make it better).  You gave me a much better build (which I am still using, with a few modifications), which achieved my build goals (including the ones I hadn't achieved in my build) with fewer compromises while also adding in some important things (like slow resistance and immobilize protection) which I didn't fully grasp the importance of (I confess, with my main up to that point having been a Claws/SR scrapper, I was very spoiled by SR's innate 40% slow resist and didn't realize just how important slow resist actually is).  Also, your build included some offensive considerations I simply hadn't thought of due to my inexperience with blasters.

 

I spent a lot of time studying that build and how you accomplished so many different things with it, and from that I realized my experience (mostly with scrappers) had given me an overly narrow view of how to build for survivability goals.  I was, essentially, building for defense first and then trying to fit in everything else.  What I learned from your build was how to build for defense alongside my other build goals - resulting in much more unified builds with many fewer wasted set bonuses and a more well-rounded character overall.

 

Building for defense or resistance in and of itself isn't a problem (unless you're running hard modes, in which case it might be, but as you noted, the hard mode meta is its own thing), but building for defense or resistance to the exclusion of other important attributes is a problem.

 

In every case, there is a balance to be struck.  You need to know the content you're planning to run, and the team (or lack of team) you're planning to run it with, and you need to understand your own playstyle.  From this you determine your build goals.  Then, to achieve those goals effectively, you need to understand your AT and the powersets you are running, and the synergies you can leverage to that end.

[Nemu]

3 hours ago, codyecho said:

not 'less effort' but more choice where the def/res can be obtained.

There's plenty of choices. 

The fact that you see invuln tankers running around 80+ resists to most damage types is a testament to the choices available to the player. 

The fact that I can make a Rad/SS with very little +resist bonuses but a hecking lot of recharge and procs is a testament to the choices available to the player. 

The fact that I can run an Ice/TA blaster with loads of procs and can still hit 30% ish range and aoe defenses while maintaining the neccessary attributes need for a proc build (+acc, +rech and end management) is a testament to the choices available to the player.

 

The point is that some people take a very myopic approach to making builds that focus exclusively on hard survival stats, and they miss the forest for the trees when it comes to leveraging their toolkit and exploiting synergies that can make their overall build more effective.

[Glacier Peak]

I find it boring to play a character that can't be defeated, but also can't defeat anyone. I find it exciting to play a character that is an absolute glass cannon. With all the options available to players to build a character however, if it's not fun then why play the character. 

[Stormwalker]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

I find it boring to play a character that can't be defeated, but also can't defeat anyone. I find it exciting to play a character that is an absolute glass cannon. With all the options available to players to build a character however, if it's not fun then why play the character. 

 

I can't say I've ever had a character who couldn't be defeated.

 

My Claws/SR scrapper is very survivable, but I once through a combination of recklessness (attacking a double spawn on x8) and poor situational awareness (not realizing there were patrols in the mission which consisted of two Master Illusionists) ended up fighting 7 Carnie bosses (3x Dark Ring Mistress, 4x Master Illusionist) at once.  I did not survive that, though it was quite a wild ride trying.  I only lasted as long as I did because of Shockwave's huge cone keeping large portions of the spawn on the ground as much as possible.

 

Even when I was testing my Inv/SS Tanker build on Brainstorm, she wasn't completely invincible.  She was, by far, the most durable character I've ever built, but just running Carnie missions at +4/x8 was enough to produce situations that absolutely could kill her if I was not on my game.

 

So... actually being unkillable is not something I've ever attained.

 

But I do agree with your ultimate point - if it's not fun, why do it?  And this is one reason why I... don't really care what is actually "the meta".  What I care about is what allows me to do the things I have fun doing.  While most of my characters are optimized to the extent that their concepts allow (which in some cases is not actually all that much, and in some cases is a lot), they're optimized to my playstyle more than to a single standard of "this is what is best".

 

And if you're not running the very most difficult content in the game, that's what I recommend everyone do.  Build your character in the way that suits the way you play the game.

 

What's fun for me is taking the concept character I dreamed up and seeing how far I can make that character go while remaining true to their concept.  So that's what I do.

[Octogoat]

My takeaway from this thread is that a lot of people have their own way of playing. Which is good, we aren't a hive mind yet.