Defense VS Resist?

[Hopeling]

Yes, a set that is capped to defense with higher resist obviously is tougher than one with lower resist. I don't have a problem with this claim.

Out of an /Elec and a /Shield built for durability, which one is tougher? The one with higher resists, right? Which means /Elec?

 

But this is a trick question. Both have capped S/L resist, and /Elec might have softcapped S/L defense, but the /Shield is softcapped to everything, and can have 95% DDR by stacking AD with Membranes. Does higher elemental resistance make you more or less durable than near-immunity to defense debuffs? I'd vote less, but it kind of depends on the situation; there's not an obvious winner overall.

 

"Resist sets can add defense, but defense sets can't add resist" is i23 thinking. It's not too hard to add ~30% S/L resist from IOs: 6% from the Scrapper's Strike 6pc, 5% from the pvp unique, 3% from the scaling resist unique gets you 14% before you even start counting regular sets. It's not as easy as building defense, sure, but it's substantial.

[Gone]

Yes, a set that is capped to defense with higher resist obviously is tougher than one with lower resist. I don't have a problem with this claim.

Out of an /Elec and a /Shield built for durability, which one is tougher? The one with higher resists, right? Which means /Elec?

 

But this is a trick question. Both have capped S/L resist, and /Elec might have softcapped S/L defense, but the /Shield is softcapped to everything, and can have 95% DDR by stacking AD with Membranes. Does higher elemental resistance make you more or less durable than near-immunity to defense debuffs? I'd vote less, but it kind of depends on the situation; there's not an obvious winner overall.

 

"Resist sets can add defense, but defense sets can't add resist" is i23 thinking. It's not too hard to add ~30% S/L resist from IOs: 6% from the Scrapper's Strike 6pc, 5% from the pvp unique, 3% from the scaling resist unique gets you 14% before you even start counting regular sets. It's not as easy as building defense, sure, but it's substantial.

 

Is shield defense an anomaly or is this true for all defense sets?

 

My Shield Defense stalker is 75% S/L and 45% Positional, I'm not arguing that it can't be done, but I'm curious just how far you'd have to push, say, Ice Armor to get anywhere close to cap S/L resists.

[MunkiLord]

I think what's really been shown here is defense > resists. If you have a defensive set, then you build for soft cap. If it is a resist set, then you build for as much defense as is reasonable/possible. Either way, more defense is the goal. If you have a defense set, more resist is nice but not as high a priority as the other way around.

 

There are various factors that can change some specifics, but in the end, more defense is what we're after. And while the top end attack chain may not be everyone's goal, more recharge helps you attack more and that is easier to achieve on a defensive set in general due to Luck of the Gambler. And killing enemies faster definitely helps one survive.

[Gone]

I think what's really been shown here is defense > resists. If you have a defensive set, then you build for soft cap. If it is a resist set, then you build for as much defense as is reasonable/possible. Either way, more defense is the goal. If you have a defense set, more resist is nice but not as high a priority as the other way around.

 

There are various factors that can change some specifics, but in the end, more defense is what we're after. And while the top end attack chain may not be everyone's goal, more recharge helps you attack more and that is easier to achieve on a defensive set in general due to Luck of the Gambler. And killing enemies faster definitely helps one survive.

 

It's not though.  More defense isn't more survivable than more resists AND defense.

[MunkiLord]

Yes, a set that is capped to defense with higher resist obviously is tougher than one with lower resist. I don't have a problem with this claim.

Out of an /Elec and a /Shield built for durability, which one is tougher? The one with higher resists, right? Which means /Elec?

 

But this is a trick question. Both have capped S/L resist, and /Elec might have softcapped S/L defense, but the /Shield is softcapped to everything, and can have 95% DDR by stacking AD with Membranes. Does higher elemental resistance make you more or less durable than near-immunity to defense debuffs? I'd vote less, but it kind of depends on the situation; there's not an obvious winner overall.

 

"Resist sets can add defense, but defense sets can't add resist" is i23 thinking. It's not too hard to add ~30% S/L resist from IOs: 6% from the Scrapper's Strike 6pc, 5% from the pvp unique, 3% from the scaling resist unique gets you 14% before you even start counting regular sets. It's not as easy as building defense, sure, but it's substantial.

 

Is shield defense an anomaly or is this true for all defense sets?

 

My Shield Defense stalker is 75% S/L and 45% Positional, I'm not arguing that it can't be done, but I'm curious just how far you'd have to push, say, Ice Armor to get anywhere close to cap S/L resists.

 

I got my Ice Armor Stalker to about 62-64% and that's as far as I was willing to take it since anymore meant I had to make sacrifices I wasn't willing to make when it came to either recharge or defense.

[Gone]

Yes, a set that is capped to defense with higher resist obviously is tougher than one with lower resist. I don't have a problem with this claim.

Out of an /Elec and a /Shield built for durability, which one is tougher? The one with higher resists, right? Which means /Elec?

 

But this is a trick question. Both have capped S/L resist, and /Elec might have softcapped S/L defense, but the /Shield is softcapped to everything, and can have 95% DDR by stacking AD with Membranes. Does higher elemental resistance make you more or less durable than near-immunity to defense debuffs? I'd vote less, but it kind of depends on the situation; there's not an obvious winner overall.

 

"Resist sets can add defense, but defense sets can't add resist" is i23 thinking. It's not too hard to add ~30% S/L resist from IOs: 6% from the Scrapper's Strike 6pc, 5% from the pvp unique, 3% from the scaling resist unique gets you 14% before you even start counting regular sets. It's not as easy as building defense, sure, but it's substantial.

 

Is shield defense an anomaly or is this true for all defense sets?

 

My Shield Defense stalker is 75% S/L and 45% Positional, I'm not arguing that it can't be done, but I'm curious just how far you'd have to push, say, Ice Armor to get anywhere close to cap S/L resists.

 

I got my Ice Armor Stalker to about 62-64% and that's as far as I was willing to take it since anymore meant I had to make sacrifices I wasn't willing to make when it came to either recharge or defense.

 

While also softcapping all of your typed defenses? (Save for Psi obviously)

[MunkiLord]

I think what's really been shown here is defense > resists. If you have a defensive set, then you build for soft cap. If it is a resist set, then you build for as much defense as is reasonable/possible. Either way, more defense is the goal. If you have a defense set, more resist is nice but not as high a priority as the other way around.

 

There are various factors that can change some specifics, but in the end, more defense is what we're after. And while the top end attack chain may not be everyone's goal, more recharge helps you attack more and that is easier to achieve on a defensive set in general due to Luck of the Gambler. And killing enemies faster definitely helps one survive.

 

It's not though.  More defense isn't more survivable than more resists AND defense.

 

Duh. But whether it's a pure defensive set like SR, a mixed set like Shield, or a Resist set like Electric, more defense will help you more than more resist. Soft capping defense is a higher priority than capping resists in most case.

[Hopeling]

Is shield defense an anomaly or is this true for all defense sets?

It's an anomaly in that it has a resist component in one of its powers (11.25% base in Deflection). /EA has a couple percent less from Dampening Field. /Ice and /Nin and /SR have none, so the same setup will get them to about 55% (plus the scaling resist IO, and /SR's own scaling resists).

 

In other words, even a pure defense set can now have more S/L resist than /WP did before i24, which was enough resistance to consider it one of its defining features.

[MunkiLord]

Yes, a set that is capped to defense with higher resist obviously is tougher than one with lower resist. I don't have a problem with this claim.

Out of an /Elec and a /Shield built for durability, which one is tougher? The one with higher resists, right? Which means /Elec?

 

But this is a trick question. Both have capped S/L resist, and /Elec might have softcapped S/L defense, but the /Shield is softcapped to everything, and can have 95% DDR by stacking AD with Membranes. Does higher elemental resistance make you more or less durable than near-immunity to defense debuffs? I'd vote less, but it kind of depends on the situation; there's not an obvious winner overall.

 

"Resist sets can add defense, but defense sets can't add resist" is i23 thinking. It's not too hard to add ~30% S/L resist from IOs: 6% from the Scrapper's Strike 6pc, 5% from the pvp unique, 3% from the scaling resist unique gets you 14% before you even start counting regular sets. It's not as easy as building defense, sure, but it's substantial.

 

Is shield defense an anomaly or is this true for all defense sets?

 

My Shield Defense stalker is 75% S/L and 45% Positional, I'm not arguing that it can't be done, but I'm curious just how far you'd have to push, say, Ice Armor to get anywhere close to cap S/L resists.

 

I got my Ice Armor Stalker to about 62-64% and that's as far as I was willing to take it since anymore meant I had to make sacrifices I wasn't willing to make when it came to either recharge or defense.

 

While also softcapping all of your typed defenses? (Save for Psi obviously)

 

Not quite there yet. I was working on it, then got distracted by a buddy and I making two Time defenders to run together. That's my current project.

 

edit: Also my Stalker has serious endurance problems, so there might be significant changes when I get back to working on it.

[Gone]

I think what's really been shown here is defense > resists. If you have a defensive set, then you build for soft cap. If it is a resist set, then you build for as much defense as is reasonable/possible. Either way, more defense is the goal. If you have a defense set, more resist is nice but not as high a priority as the other way around.

 

There are various factors that can change some specifics, but in the end, more defense is what we're after. And while the top end attack chain may not be everyone's goal, more recharge helps you attack more and that is easier to achieve on a defensive set in general due to Luck of the Gambler. And killing enemies faster definitely helps one survive.

 

It's not though.  More defense isn't more survivable than more resists AND defense.

 

Duh. But whether it's a pure defensive set like SR, a mixed set like Shield, or a Resist set like Electric, more defense will help you more than more resist. Soft capping defense is a higher priority than capping resists in most case.

 

Duh, okay, I'm done someone's 'duh'd' me.  You're right, I'm wrong, /thread duh.

[MunkiLord]

In all fairness, you said something really obvious. Of course both defense and resist is better than just defense(or just resist). I'm not arguing against that.

[Gone]

In all fairness, you said something really obvious. Of course both defense and resist is better than just defense(or just resist). I'm not arguing against that.

 

Okay, you're right, I'm wrong, good luck to you.

[MunkiLord]

In all fairness, you said something really obvious. Of course both defense and resist is better than just defense(or just resist). I'm not arguing against that.

 

Okay, you're right, I'm wrong, good luck to you.

 

More people should feel this way. +1 influence

[Sir Myshkin]

...But whether it's a pure defensive set like SR, a mixed set like Shield, or a Resist set like Electric, more defense will help you more than more resist. Soft capping defense is a higher priority than capping resists in most case.

 

I think too many people are forgetting that certain sets like SR and Shield are getting pretty decent DDR, which is something you cannot build for on a Resist based toon. There are enough enemy groups out there that cause defense debuffs, and they will SHRED your unprotected defense within just one successful hit.

 

The rule of thumb to me, whenever I power-crunch/mix-max/OP/whatever-you-want-to-call-it a build is "Make the set do what it was designed to do, to 100%, and then break it." Cap the primary form of protection, pack in the Recharge to maximize attack performance, add in the alternative form of protection in whatever means possible while not lessening the first two stages, look for any opportunities to sprinkle in additional damage, and then at the very end make sure I didn't do anything stupid.

 

This game inherently weights Defense far greater than anything else. I worked with another number-cruncher back on Live with an algorithm designed to test structured survivability based on the metrics laid out in the game mechanics. It played against the odds of getting hit, damage type, damage positional, raw value of the damage, time to kill a player, and how much ramp was required to get there. The method was designed to brute-force kill a player until they were definitively dead, and a character with defense as a primary form of protection would always initially score better than a resist-only character, but in both cases the numbers would never be that high. It was only until layering the two would significant values turn out. The highest scores always came from Resist based builds that maximized Defense based solutions.

 

If I could get a Resist based toon to their cap, and then apply at least 45% S/L defense, and then balance Melee to meet that same value, they would come out at the top of the ranking capacity every single time. The better that resist set could heal, and the better its more exotic protections were, the better it would turn out there as well. Typically Dark Armor was the best. Electric Armor has a lot of decent versatility that it comes close, but still lacks capacity on some of its resist values comparatively. Shield can get a lot of reasonable value depending on how much a player can pack into S/L, but Ranged and AoE damage positions have a much smaller contribution overall in the game, so sets with more resist coverage can balance, or potentially still exceed such a comp. Absorb mechanics weren't a thing back then either, and those would really mess with the scheme of things because they're kind of like soft-resistances, or free hits, maybe pseudo-defense, and something like that as in Bio Armor would make that a pretty strong beast, plus it plays into packing some added regen. I still believe Dark Armor is the king of armor sets due to its aggro-management utilities, but Bio Armor is probably right there with it for its alternative offensive solutions.

 

Incidentally, which is somewhat amusing in contrast to this whole argument, is the fact that the one set that has the most explosive capacity in this game is Regeneration. Getting defense caps is one thing, spiking those defense caps is another, getting sustainable, or consistent forms of Resistance in with them is even better. Kind of makes me think of the line from the A-Team movie (remake): "Give me a minute, I'm good, give me an hour, I'm great, give me six months? I'm unbeatable."

 

"Give me resistance, I'm good, give me defense, I'm great, give me Instant Healing? I'm unbeatable."

 

So for what it's worth, the math has in fact been done, and defense is king in this game, but in a mixed-reality, a strong resistance set will consistently out-perform it when it too packs in certain equivalent defensive strategies, but it is a tentative and fragile lead that can easily crumble against the wrong enemy group. So which is better is determined by whether IO sets/bonuses are in the equation. Without IO's/Bonuses: Defense Armors, with IO's/Bonuses: Resistance Armors, with Incarnate abilities/IO's/Bonuses: Regeneration.

[Heraclea]

I think what's really been shown here is defense > resists. If you have a defensive set, then you build for soft cap. If it is a resist set, then you build for as much defense as is reasonable/possible. Either way, more defense is the goal. If you have a defense set, more resist is nice but not as high a priority as the other way around.

 

There are various factors that can change some specifics, but in the end, more defense is what we're after. And while the top end attack chain may not be everyone's goal, more recharge helps you attack more and that is easier to achieve on a defensive set in general due to Luck of the Gambler. And killing enemies faster definitely helps one survive.

 

I would add that adding a bit of defense benefits a resist set a lot more than adding a bit of resist does to a defense set.  Just adding Weave to a resistance scrapper gets you to just under 4% defense, which translates to around 8% mitigation of incoming damage from baseline.  This is significant, and easily justifies its high endurance cost.  Adding an equivalent percentage of resistance to a scrapper with only defense, of course, mitigates damage by exactly that: 4%.  This is hardly undesirable, but you may well question whether it is worthwhile.  Tough, for a similar endurance cost, puts you to just over 11%  resistance, which may look like the better deal: but that's only smashing and lethal, while Weave protects across the board.  And Tough does nothing to protect you against the various debuffs that are attached to incoming attacks, while Weave prevents at least a few of those from landing.

 

Now, if you are starting from a baseline of, say, 20% resistance to smashing/lethal, then Tough adds significantly to that.  Resistance has a multiplier effect; the more you have, the more adding another 11% will do for you.  But if you start from zero, that .33 end/sec does more harm than your 11% from baseline resistance does more. 

[Dismiss]

I would add that adding a bit of defense benefits a resist set a lot more than adding a bit of resist does to a defense set.

 

The problem with this claim is it ignores the extreme amounts of defense debuff that are in the game. 20% defense might as well be 0% in high level content. On the other hand, the defense capped character is dodging all the debuffs. That's one thing most people tend to ignore in this comparison.

[DSorrow]

I would add that adding a bit of defense benefits a resist set a lot more than adding a bit of resist does to a defense set.

 

The problem with this claim is it ignores the extreme amounts of defense debuff that are in the game. 20% defense might as well be 0% in high level content. On the other hand, the defense capped character is dodging all the debuffs. That's one thing most people tend to ignore in this comparison.

 

This is a very good point. The way I see it, in high level content Defense without DDR is only reliable for mitigating an alpha strike, unless you're significantly above the applicable soft cap. My TW/Elec Brute is built for maximum Resistance (capped S/L/E/F/C), but I did get a good bunch of incidental S/L Def (just above 30%, IIRC) too. The few enemies I have issues with either deal heavy Toxic damage or they have a lot of debuffs, neither of which would be fixed by going for the S/L soft cap.

 

If we consider an aggro cap's worth of enemies (16?) with 5% hit chance against me, the chance that at least one of them hits me in an alpha strike is 56%. More realistically, they'd have around 8% hit chance because I practically never play against +0s in which case the chance of at least one of them hitting me is 74%. As they continue attacking, it won't take many seconds until the likelihood that at least one attack has hit me is >90% and if that attack carries -Def (as many do), the cascade happens and then all that S/L Def is worth nothing. Basically I'm not convinced that going all in on Defense with Resistance builds that innately have none is the best way to build them, especially if stops you from maxing Resistance.

 

That said, for maximum survivability I'd build a soft capped character with significant DDR and mediocre Resistances rather than the other way around (i.e. my Titan). To this end, I'm toying around with an Invuln Tanker build that's soft capped against all elements except Psi with 1 enemy in Invincibility, 90% S/L Res and ~60% Res to everything else including Psi. With the medium DDR from Invuln, the Def buffer from stacked Invincibility and the pretty high resists, the character should live up to the name of his primary set. Now if I could just decide on a primary, create a nice character concept, find the motivation to play a tank and the time for it...

 

Anyways, sets like Elec Armor just don't really have the capability to build enough Def to consistently avoid all the different sources of -Def, let alone have a buffer to shrug it off. Sure, on paper 80% S/L Res and 45% S/L Def is much better than 90% S/L Res and 30% S/L Def, but the latter has double the mitigation two or three seconds into most fights.

[Heraclea]

The problem with this claim is it ignores the extreme amounts of defense debuff that are in the game. 20% defense might as well be 0% in high level content. On the other hand, the defense capped character is dodging all the debuffs. That's one thing most people tend to ignore in this comparison.

 

This is, of course, a good point.  Then again, defense debuffs are not the only debuffs that are overabundant in the 35+ game.  My regen scrapper is my Citadel, Synapse, and Trad Sister Psyche farmer.  Trying to make her fun to play while running ITFs or incarnate content would require expenses that ain't cost-effective.  She buys the recipes my mains need.  She will eventually make it to 50, but now that she's 36 she can run all the content she's made for.    I've considered turning off her XPs to make her farm inf as well, now that the value of inf has an effective floor.  I still think that the long range trend at the AH is inflationary and that inf will be a poorer store of value than merits. 

 

The defense also reduces the incidence of other crap like -recharge, which also tends to kill regen and resistance based scrappers, since most of them are relying on self heals and other click powers.  This also hurts Shield and Reflexes characters (and maybe Ninjutsu, which looks to me like renamed Reflexes) before they achieve the softcap and then some, since their mezz defense is a click power, pointlessly so since most players just set it to autofire.  It's just an inconvenience for players of those sets.  If you enjoy New Faultline, you likely want to run the Lost missions on a different character with a regular mezz resist toggle.  By level 50 you probably have enough overlap, fortunately. 

 

Why this wretched excess of debuffs exists to penalize certain content choices is something of a mystery to me.  Your best defense, as usual, is to do something else, a discretion I exercise on just about all of my melees.  If you chose to run it, it's solo only; teaming just makes it worse.

[Marshal_General]

Well so far this is the build i have come up with. He is DB/Ninjitsu. He is more of a thematic char. I will Prolly try messing with some other secondaries but I love ninjitsu for the low rch heal and end recovery and shinobi is just awesome IMO.

 

Hero Plan by Hero Hero Designer 2.23

https://github.com/ImaginaryDevelopment/imaginary-hero-designer

 

Click this DataLink to open the build!

 

Level 50 Mutation Scrapper

Primary Power Set: Dual Blades

Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu

Power Pool: Fighting

Power Pool: Leadership

Power Pool: Speed

Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery

 

Hero Profile:

Level 1: Power Slice

• (A) Superior Blistering Cold - Recharge/Chance for Hold
  
• (15) Superior Blistering Cold - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (21) Superior Blistering Cold - Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime
  
• (21) Superior Blistering Cold - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (23) Superior Blistering Cold - Damage/Endurance
  
• (23) Superior Blistering Cold - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  

Level 1: Ninja Reflexes

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (5) Shield Wall - +Res (Teleportation), +5% Res (All)
  

Level 2: Ablating Strike

• (A) Kinetic Combat - Knockdown Bonus
  
• (3) Kinetic Combat - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (5) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
  
• (17) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
  

Level 4: Danger Sense

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  
• (11) Reactive Defenses - Scaling Resist Damage
  

Level 6: Typhoon's Edge

• (A) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage
  
• (7) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (7) Obliteration - Damage
  
• (9) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (9) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
  

Level 8: Shinobi-Iri

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 10: Blinding Feint

• (A) Hecatomb - Chance of Damage(Negative)
  
• (11) Hecatomb - Damage/Endurance
  
• (13) Hecatomb - Damage/Recharge
  
• (13) Hecatomb - Damage
  
• (37) Hecatomb - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  

Level 12: Kuji-In Rin

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO
  

Level 14: Boxing

• (A) Kinetic Combat - Knockdown Bonus
  
• (15) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Recharge
  
• (25) Kinetic Combat - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (43) Kinetic Combat - Damage/Endurance
  

Level 16: Tough

• (A) Aegis - Psionic/Status Resistance
  
• (17) Aegis - Resistance
  
• (19) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance
  
• (19) Aegis - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (25) Gladiator's Armor - TP Protection +3% Def (All)
  

Level 18: Weave

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 20: Seishinteki Kyoyo

• (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (40) Performance Shifter - Accuracy/Recharge
  
• (43) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge
  

Level 22: Kuji-In Sha

• (A) Panacea - Heal
  
• (34) Panacea - Heal/Endurance
  
• (36) Panacea - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (37) Panacea - Hea/Recharge
  
• (37) Panacea - Heal/Endurance/Recharge
  

Level 24: Maneuvers

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed
  

Level 26: Vengeful Slice

• (A) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Recharge
  
• (27) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  
• (27) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (31) Overwhelming Force - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (31) Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (31) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  

Level 28: Sweeping Strike

• (A) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Recharge/Critical Hit Bonus
  
• (29) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (29) Superior Scrapper's Strike - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (34) Overwhelming Force - Damage/Chance for Knockdown/Knockback to Knockdown
  
• (36) Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (36) Overwhelming Force - Accuracy/Damage
  

Level 30: Bo Ryaku

• (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%
  

Level 32: One Thousand Cuts

• (A) Superior Avalanche - Recharge/Chance for Knockdown
  
• (33) Superior Avalanche - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (33) Superior Avalanche - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (33) Superior Avalanche - Damage/Endurance
  
• (34) Superior Avalanche - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (50) Superior Avalanche - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  

Level 35: Blinding Powder

• (A) Siphon Insight - Chance for +ToHit
  
• (46) Siphon Insight - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (48) Siphon Insight - ToHit Debuff
  
• (48) Siphon Insight - Accuracy/ToHit Debuff
  
• (48) Siphon Insight - Accuracy/Recharge
  

Level 38: Mu Bolts

• (A) Superior Winter's Bite - Recharge/Chance for -Speed & -Recharge
  
• (39) Superior Winter's Bite - Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime
  
• (39) Superior Winter's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (39) Superior Winter's Bite - Damage/RechargeTime
  
• (40) Superior Winter's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (40) Superior Winter's Bite - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  

Level 41: Ball Lightning

• (A) Superior Frozen Blast - Recharge/Chance for Immobilize
  
• (42) Superior Frozen Blast - Damage/Endurance/Accuracy/RechargeTime
  
• (42) Superior Frozen Blast - Accuracy/Damage
  
• (42) Superior Frozen Blast - Damage/Endurance
  
• (43) Superior Frozen Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
  
• (50) Superior Frozen Blast - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
  

Level 44: Electric Shackles

• (A) Superior Entomb - Recharge/Chance for +Absorb
  
• (45) Superior Entomb - Accuracy/Hold/Endurance/Recharge
  
• (45) Superior Entomb - Accuracy/Hold
  
• (45) Superior Entomb - Hold/Recharge
  
• (46) Superior Entomb - Endurance/Recharge
  
• (46) Superior Entomb - Accuracy/Hold/Endurance
  

Level 47: Assault

• (A) Endurance Reduction IO
  

Level 49: Hasten

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
  
• (50) Recharge Reduction IO
  

Level 1: Brawl

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Critical Hit

Level 1: Prestige Power Dash

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Slide

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Quick

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Rush

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Prestige Power Surge

• (A) Empty
  

Level 1: Sprint

• (A) Celerity - +Stealth
  

Level 2: Rest

• (A) Empty
  

Level 4: Ninja Run

Level 2: Swift

• (A) Empty
  

Level 2: Health

• (A) Numina's Convalesence - +Regeneration/+Recovery
  
• (3) Miracle - +Recovery
  

Level 2: Hurdle

• (A) Empty
  

Level 2: Stamina

• (A) Performance Shifter - Chance for +End
  

Level 50: Ageless Core Epiphany

Level 50: Agility Core Paragon

Level 50: Assault Radial Embodiment

------------

 

 

 

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I would suggest lowering your defense, you're 10% over the soft cap in Melee and AoE. Around 50% is ok for Incarnate content but anything more is too much.

Isn't the incarnate softcap 59%?

[marcussmythe]

The problem with this claim is it ignores the extreme amounts of defense debuff that are in the game. 20% defense might as well be 0% in high level content. On the other hand, the defense capped character is dodging all the debuffs. That's one thing most people tend to ignore in this comparison.

 

This is, of course, a good point.  Then again, defense debuffs are not the only debuffs that are overabundant in the 35+ game.  My regen scrapper is my Citadel, Synapse, and Trad Sister Psyche farmer.  Trying to make her fun to play while running ITFs or incarnate content would require expenses that ain't cost-effective.  She buys the recipes my mains need.  She will eventually make it to 50, but now that she's 36 she can run all the content she's made for.    I've considered turning off her XPs to make her farm inf as well, now that the value of inf has an effective floor.  I still think that the long range trend at the AH is inflationary and that inf will be a poorer store of value than merits. 

 

The defense also reduces the incidence of other crap like -recharge, which also tends to kill regen and resistance based scrappers, since most of them are relying on self heals and other click powers.  This also hurts Shield and Reflexes characters (and maybe Ninjutsu, which looks to me like renamed Reflexes) before they achieve the softcap and then some, since their mezz defense is a click power, pointlessly so since most players just set it to autofire.  It's just an inconvenience for players of those sets.  If you enjoy New Faultline, you likely want to run the Lost missions on a different character with a regular mezz resist toggle.  By level 50 you probably have enough overlap, fortunately. 

 

Why this wretched excess of debuffs exists to penalize certain content choices is something of a mystery to me.  Your best defense, as usual, is to do something else, a discretion I exercise on just about all of my melees.  If you chose to run it, it's solo only; teaming just makes it worse.

 

The intent, based on reading the old AMAs, was purely to increase the challenge.

 

And that is good.

 

The fact that they did so in a way that has a targeted effect of increasing the challenge for characters that rely on surviving incoming attacks, with little to no impact on characters that rely on preventing attacks from coming in via their own control, debuffs, or damage, is unfortunate.  I do know that after struggling with ‘endgame’ villain groups on my tanks and brutes, I took a page from a blaster SG mate (who had noted that he saw no difference between Arachnos/IDF/Banished and any other gillian group - he kills them equally quickly, and that is his mitigation), I started focusing on damage output rather than survivability - bringing up a damage focused, mitigation second TW/Bio Scrapper - and found that it performs much better against endgame villains than did my Tank or Brute - the level of incoming debuffs was such that my defense powerset only mattered during the early stage of a fight, so better to end the fight quickly than try to survive it.

[DSorrow]

The intent, based on reading the old AMAs, was purely to increase the challenge.

 

And that is good.

 

The fact that they did so in a way that has a targeted effect of increasing the challenge for characters that rely on surviving incoming attacks, with little to no impact on characters that rely on preventing attacks from coming in via their own control, debuffs, or damage, is unfortunate.

 

I would guess the biggest challenge in creating challenging enemies in CoH is that most ways to do that would be pretty obnoxious, especially if applied across the whole enemy groups like they did with the debuffs. Enemies that are heavily resistant to damage? Annoying. Enemies that have high defense? Also annoying. Protection to mez? That just makes Controllers useless because of the binary way mez works. High damage? Many squishies would like to have a word with the designer. Debuff parade? Doesn't really make a difference to squishies, doesn't make the enemies the enemies glorified punching bags with extremely high effective HP, doesn't hard counter controls and they can at least partially be countered by strong buffs.

 

In my opinion a better way could have been a mix of all of these. Malta Sappers were a good starting direction for this, the idea just could have been elaborated. For example, an end game enemy group could have some enemies that have high resists and taunts, enemies that are mez or taunt resistant, enemies that debuff and some enemies with particularly high damage, so that each mob would sort of mimic a hero team. Basically give a bunch of potential priority targets and potential counters depending on your team's composition: mez the taunters so you can focus fire the other enemies, taunt the mez resistant ones so they don't bust up your Controller buddy after they lock down the rest of the spawn, debuff the spike damagers so they can't destroy the tank, and so on.

 

Currently the design is just pretty bland: either hard control or nuke the whole spawn, else they'll just stack up enough debuffs on you that it doesn't matter what class / powersets you have because you'll die in 2-3 hits regardless.

[marcussmythe]

The intent, based on reading the old AMAs, was purely to increase the challenge.

 

And that is good.

 

The fact that they did so in a way that has a targeted effect of increasing the challenge for characters that rely on surviving incoming attacks, with little to no impact on characters that rely on preventing attacks from coming in via their own control, debuffs, or damage, is unfortunate.

 

I would guess the biggest challenge in creating challenging enemies in CoH is that most ways to do that would be pretty obnoxious, especially if applied across the whole enemy groups like they did with the debuffs. Enemies that are heavily resistant to damage? Annoying. Enemies that have high defense? Also annoying. Protection to mez? That just makes Controllers useless because of the binary way mez works. High damage? Many squishies would like to have a word with the designer. Debuff parade? Doesn't really make a difference to squishies, doesn't make the enemies the enemies glorified punching bags with extremely high effective HP, doesn't hard counter controls and they can at least partially be countered by strong buffs.

 

In my opinion a better way could have been a mix of all of these. Malta Sappers were a good starting direction for this, the idea just could have been elaborated. For example, an end game enemy group could have some enemies that have high resists and taunts, enemies that are mez or taunt resistant, enemies that debuff and some enemies with particularly high damage, so that each mob would sort of mimic a hero team. Basically give a bunch of potential priority targets and potential counters depending on your team's composition: mez the taunters so you can focus fire the other enemies, taunt the mez resistant ones so they don't bust up your Controller buddy after they lock down the rest of the spawn, debuff the spike damagers so they can't destroy the tank, and so on.

 

Currently the design is just pretty bland: either hard control or nuke the whole spawn, else they'll just stack up enough debuffs on you that it doesn't matter what class / powersets you have because you'll die in 2-3 hits regardless.

 

Bigthink:  There are only a couple of kinds of 'Hard' in CoH.  There is '+Lots/xLots against Endgame Foes' hard, there is 'Can I take down this AV/GM/TF Boss' Hard, and there is in theory 'can we do this Itrial' hard - but the few ITrials I have been on never felt in danger of failing, so lets focus on the first two.  So we will focus on 'solo hard' - nothing is really hard when you bring 8 Purpled Incarnates.

 

For +4/x8 Debuff Mobs, you need damage and some way to control or survive long enough for the spawn to go down under your firepower.  Nothing can tank this spawn indefinitely, and sooner or later they get too tough to kill fast - consider the waves of high level debuff boss robots at the start of Apex.

 

For AVs/GMs, you need heavy to massive sustained damage, and/or -Regen, and some way to not die from return fire.  You wont be holding Purple Triangles long, so control is out - though they are easily tankable.  Your ability to debuff them is limited.

 

Proposition:  The 'Right' character for modern CoH, for handling both kinds of hard, needs either -Regen, High Damage, or both.  It needs as much survival as possible - but some spawns are simply unsurviable for long, so we cant get there with defensive powersets.

 

Is the 'right' character for CoH content, as implemented, an Illusion/Rad (or Cold, or Dark, or similar) Controller?  Indestructible pets for tanking, control and debuff to go with against the big bad debuff spawns, -Regen for the AVs/GMs, decent damage once you bring in the various lore pets (that you are better able to keep alive because your a team support character by design?)

 

 

 

 

[Heraclea]

Is the 'right' character for CoH content, as implemented, an Illusion/Rad (or Cold, or Dark, or similar) Controller?  Indestructible pets for tanking, control and debuff to go with against the big bad debuff spawns, -Regen for the AVs/GMs, decent damage once you bring in the various lore pets (that you are better able to keep alive because your a team support character by design?)

 

I rolled an ill/rad controller like I was supposed to, I guess.  The character is stuck at, I think, 42; she still has grossly inadequate mezz protection for soloing, and is both fiddly and fiercely boring on teams, and gets harassed for buffs from the brute who ran well ahead of everyone else. The only worse experience in the game is being 'the kin'.  If I ever do get her to 50 I'm sure she'll be popular because she's 'the rad' and get invited to the exclusion of my tankers, sentinel, or blaster.  I would run her like my fire/regen scrapper in the service of the characters I want to play: but once you start talking incarnate content, most routes to play for the benefit of other characters are cut off. 

[Marshal_General]

The problem with this claim is it ignores the extreme amounts of defense debuff that are in the game. 20% defense might as well be 0% in high level content. On the other hand, the defense capped character is dodging all the debuffs. That's one thing most people tend to ignore in this comparison.

 

This is, of course, a good point.  Then again, defense debuffs are not the only debuffs that are overabundant in the 35+ game.  My regen scrapper is my Citadel, Synapse, and Trad Sister Psyche farmer.  Trying to make her fun to play while running ITFs or incarnate content would require expenses that ain't cost-effective.  She buys the recipes my mains need.  She will eventually make it to 50, but now that she's 36 she can run all the content she's made for.    I've considered turning off her XPs to make her farm inf as well, now that the value of inf has an effective floor.  I still think that the long range trend at the AH is inflationary and that inf will be a poorer store of value than merits. 

 

The defense also reduces the incidence of other crap like -recharge, which also tends to kill regen and resistance based scrappers, since most of them are relying on self heals and other click powers.  This also hurts Shield and Reflexes characters (and maybe Ninjutsu, which looks to me like renamed Reflexes) before they achieve the softcap and then some, since their mezz defense is a click power, pointlessly so since most players just set it to autofire.  It's just an inconvenience for players of those sets.  If you enjoy New Faultline, you likely want to run the Lost missions on a different character with a regular mezz resist toggle.  By level 50 you probably have enough overlap, fortunately. 

 

Why this wretched excess of debuffs exists to penalize certain content choices is something of a mystery to me.  Your best defense, as usual, is to do something else, a discretion I exercise on just about all of my melees.  If you chose to run it, it's solo only; teaming just makes it worse.

My SR brute has two slots in PB with level 25 IOS and it shows in game as recharging 1 second after it expires. That can suck, but so far hasn't.

[Riverdusk]

Is the 'right' character for CoH content, as implemented, an Illusion/Rad (or Cold, or Dark, or similar) Controller?  Indestructible pets for tanking, control and debuff to go with against the big bad debuff spawns, -Regen for the AVs/GMs, decent damage once you bring in the various lore pets (that you are better able to keep alive because your a team support character by design?)

 

I rolled an ill/rad controller like I was supposed to, I guess.  The character is stuck at, I think, 42; she still has grossly inadequate mezz protection for soloing, and is both fiddly and fiercely boring on teams, and gets harassed for buffs from the brute who ran well ahead of everyone else. The only worse experience in the game is being 'the kin'.  If I ever do get her to 50 I'm sure she'll be popular because she's 'the rad' and get invited to the exclusion of my tankers, sentinel, or blaster.  I would run her like my fire/regen scrapper in the service of the characters I want to play: but once you start talking incarnate content, most routes to play for the benefit of other characters are cut off.

 

Illusion/traps solves the mezz protection thing and you don't get harassed for buffs.  It could still be labeled as "fiddly" though with all the traps set up.  Main fiddly problem I have is with force field gen getting stuck on something, not keeping up, or blowing up at the wrong time.  On fast teams of course you don't have time to set up much unless you run ahead and you aren't as "wanted" as a rad is, even though your debuffs are actually more powerful. 

 

Despite all that, I'm enjoying mine very much so far.  Certainly not a farming character, but for one to "take on the tough challenges" and being able to solo practically anything, it should be near the top of the list.  Yet, you almost never hear about it.  More fun to me than the famous bots/traps or yes, illusion/rad, I do hear raved about all the time for similar qualities.

 

Last bonus, one of the very few combos where trap's web grenade that you are forced to take is actually useful.  An immobilize for illusion which it lacks otherwise.  Easy containment damage setup, no running AV's.