Brute tanks?

[Infinitum]

3 hours ago, DSorrow said:

That might be true for content that isn't end-game. In end-game content with end-game builds Tanks and well built Brutes have the same Res / Def*, and the situations where ~500 HP or slightly higher regen makes the difference are rare. Most of the time your tank (Brute or Tanker) goes down because of overwhelming debuffs and in that scenario 500 HP is one or two attacks.

 

This may or may not be why I think all Tanker primaries should have a variety of debuff resistances to make them noticeably tougher than Brutes in the end game.

 

* Consider my TW/Elec with capped S/L/E/F/C Res. A Tanker literally can't have better res against those categories so the only cases where they might have an edge is NE/Psi damage, which I can also easily cap with Eye of the Magus, Melee Hybrid or insps. Sure, a similarly built Tank might have soft capped S/L Def instead of the ~35% I have, but without DDR even that makes no difference after an alpha strike.

Sure it does unless it's an autohit.  Softcapped defense no matter how you slice it is infinitely more durable than one sitting on 35%.  It's so noticeable I sacrifice damage capability on the brute to get as close to that soft cap as I can.

 

It also allows you to choose something other than melee hybrid on tanks because it isn't as necessary.  You have to have that on a brute in some situations.

[DSorrow]

Just now, Infinitum said:

Sure it does unless it's an autohit.  Softcapped defense no matter how you slice it is infinitely more durable than one sitting on 35%.  It's so noticeable I sacrifice damage capability on the brute to get as close to that soft cap as I can.

 

It also allows you to choose something other than melee hybrid on tanks because it isn't as necessary.  You have to have that on a brute in some situations.

Soft cap is only great if you can stay there. Without DDR, you won't be there long after an alpha against most enemy groups because basically everyone does some form of -Def. Autohit abilities aren't needed to make soft capped def meaningless. Given this practical consideration, I wouldn't really obsess about soft cap on builds without natural DDR, unless it's a build that intends to not be in harms way in the first place (most squishies). On a Tank, though, soft cap without DDR has limited usefulness against a large number of enemy groups which is why I chose to get capped Resistance instead of soft cap on my TW/Elec. 

 

The nitpicker in me would also like to point out that soft capped defense is thrice as powerful as 35% Def, not infinitely, and exactly equal given a lot of -Def and no DDR.

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, DSorrow said:

Soft cap is only great if you can stay there. Without DDR, you won't be there long after an alpha against most enemy groups because basically everyone does some form of -Def. Autohit abilities aren't needed to make soft capped def meaningless. Given this practical consideration, I wouldn't really obsess about soft cap on builds without natural DDR, unless it's a build that intends to not be in harms way in the first place (most squishies). On a Tank, though, soft cap without DDR has limited usefulness against a large number of enemy groups which is why I chose to get capped Resistance instead of soft cap on my TW/Elec. 

 

The nitpicker in me would also like to point out that soft capped defense is thrice as powerful as 35% Def, not infinitely, and exactly equal given a lot of -Def and no DDR.

Well if you want real game experience, I can demonstrate to you in game how much more survivable soft cap vs 35% is.  No nitpicking necessary, that gap seems like it's infinitely better because I rarely have to pop inspirations at all and I'm only at 42% not even at the soft cap.

[DSorrow]

33 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Well if you want real game experience, I can demonstrate to you in game how much more survivable soft cap vs 35% is.  No nitpicking necessary, that gap seems like it's infinitely better because I rarely have to pop inspirations at all and I'm only at 42% not even at the soft cap.

I'm pretty sure I don't need that demonstration as I have several soft capped characters myself and hundreds of hours of gameplay experience with them. I'm just questioning the value of soft capped Def on characters with no DDR because you won't keep your soft cap against anything remotely challenging for more than one mob's initial volley. Consider an aggro cap's worth of enemies with an average of 7% hit chance, their alpha of 16 attacks has a ~70% chance of tagging you. After the second volley of attacks, you only have ~10% chance of remaining unscathed. Basically, if the enemy group has a lot of -Def as many end game groups do, the cascade happens most of the time after the alpha. 

 

At 90% Res and 35% Def I'm already at (1 - 0.9) * (0.5 - 0.35) = 0.015 or 1.5% incoming base damage, which is absolutely ridiculous in terms of damage mitigation. Cutting that down to 0.5% by soft capping doesn't really make a difference because I can't think of any enemy group with enough base damage to be dangerous at 1.5% incoming damage. The actually dangerous enemies use debuffs to peel away your mitigation, and against those defense without DDR is much more limited in its usefulness. As for Resistance, they can't take that away as easily as Resistance resists Resistance Debuffs. However, in a no (meaningful) Resistance scenario such as Ice Armor or SR, the same thrice-the-survivability gap is much more meaningful as taking 5% damage vs. 15% damage actually has practical implications as to what enemies you can consistently beat.

 

Before the advent of easily available Resistance set bonuses Defense was the only meaningful way of getting more survivability through set bonuses, but this is no longer true for everyone.  Give me a Def based character and I'll soft cap it every time. Give me a squishie and I'll soft cap Ranged or S/L or both. Give me a tanky character with little to no innate Def? I'll work in as much as I can, but because I can't build for DDR it's not quite as important for me to soft cap as it is to maximize Resistance.

Edited August 16, 2019 by DSorrow
typo

[Werner]

1 hour ago, DSorrow said:

...The actually dangerous enemies use debuffs to peel away your mitigation, and against those defense without DDR is much more limited in its usefulness. As for Resistance, they can't take that away as easily as Resistance resists Resistance Debuffs... Before the advent of easily available Resistance set bonuses Defense was the only meaningful way of getting more survivability through set bonuses, but this is no longer true for everyone.  Give me a Def based character and I'll soft cap it every time. Give me a squishie and I'll soft cap Ranged or S/L or both. Give me a tanky character with little to no innate Def? I'll work in as much as I can, but because I can't build for DDR it's not quite as important for me to soft cap as it is to maximize Resistance.

I have been coming around to this way of thinking. I had a Katana/Dark Scrapper in the old game with I think 75% melee/lethal defense, ranged and AoE around 35%. Solid resists, but not as good as you can get now. Defense debuffs were about all that could kill him, but it felt like a lot of groups in the end game had them, so he was squishier in play than on paper. Even so, he could usually survive pretty heavy defense debuffs by leaning on his resistance and his healing. That's even more practical in the current game. These days I'm paying more attention to having all the layers in place, even if no single layer is great. Particularly in a world where the new soft cap is 59%, that's usually just not practical on a non-defense character. What is practical these days is intentionally adding a lot more resistance, even at the cost of some defense. Ageless can offer some defense debuff resistance. Not great, at least at the tail end, but it's something. Barrier is another way of handling defense debuffs, but it spikes then crashes too quickly, I've found. If I was sitting with 70% defense debuffs on me, say, fighting a group of +4x8, there was some chance that Barrier was just delaying the inevitable for a short while. I don't have any Ageless experience to compare, but I'm hopeful that it will work a little better. And switching from a Dark Armor toon to a Fiery Aura toon, I'm also missing the fear protection. I don't think fear has straight out killed me yet, but I'm also not pushing the envelope yet. So these days, I want to have it all - good defense, good resists, good debuff resistance, more status protection and resistance, and solid heals/regen. I now feel like it all matters. No more hitting 45% and calling it done, if that was ever a thing. I never called it done, but I'm definitely paying more attention to everything else these days.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Werner

[DSorrow]

39 minutes ago, Werner said:

I have been coming around to this way of thinking. I had a Katana/Dark Scrapper in the old game with I think 75% melee/lethal defense, ranged and AoE around 35%. Solid resists, but not as good as you can get now. Defense debuffs were about all that could kill him, but it felt like a lot of groups in the end game had them, so he was squishier in play than on paper. Even so, he could usually survive pretty heavy defense debuffs by leaning on his resistance and his healing. That's even more practical in the current game. These days I'm paying more attention to having all the layers in place, even if no single layer is great. Particularly in a world where the new soft cap is 59%, that's usually just not practical on a non-defense character. What is practical these days is intentionally adding a lot more resistance, even at the cost of some defense. Ageless can offer some defense debuff resistance. Not great, at least at the tail end, but it's something. Barrier is another way of handling defense debuffs, but it spikes then crashes too quickly, I've found. If I was sitting with 70% defense debuffs on me, say, fighting a group of +4x8, there was some chance that Barrier was just delaying the inevitable for a short while. I don't have any Ageless experience to compare, but I'm hopeful that it will work a little better. And switching from a Dark Armor toon to a Fiery Aura toon, I'm also missing the fear protection. I don't think fear has straight out killed me yet, but I'm also not pushing the envelope yet. So these days, I want to have it all - good defense, good resists, good debuff resistance, more status protection and resistance, and solid heals/regen. I now feel like it all matters. No more hitting 45% and calling it done, if that was ever a thing. I never called it done, but I'm definitely paying more attention to everything else these days.

Yep. Given how incremental Def/Res works and because nowadays it's equally feasible to build for both, it just makes sense to me to focus on what your character already has and get the other as a secondary bonus like I did on my Brute.

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, DSorrow said:

I'm pretty sure I don't need that demonstration as I have several soft capped characters myself and hundreds of hours of gameplay experience with them. I'm just questioning the value of soft capped Def on characters with no DDR because you won't keep your soft cap against anything remotely challenging for more than one mob's initial volley. Consider an aggro cap's worth of enemies with an average of 7% hit chance, their alpha of 16 attacks has a ~70% chance of tagging you. After the second volley of attacks, you only have ~10% chance of remaining unscathed. Basically, if the enemy group has a lot of -Def as many end game groups do, the cascade happens most of the time after the alpha. 

 

At 90% Res and 35% Def I'm already at (1 - 0.9) * (0.5 - 0.35) = 0.015 or 1.5% incoming base damage, which is absolutely ridiculous in terms of damage mitigation. Cutting that down to 0.5% by soft capping doesn't really make a difference because I can't think of any enemy group with enough base damage to be dangerous at 1.5% incoming damage. The actually dangerous enemies use debuffs to peel away your mitigation, and against those defense without DDR is much more limited in its usefulness. As for Resistance, they can't take that away as easily as Resistance resists Resistance Debuffs. However, in a no (meaningful) Resistance scenario such as Ice Armor or SR, the same thrice-the-survivability gap is much more meaningful as taking 5% damage vs. 15% damage actually has practical implications as to what enemies you can consistently beat.

 

Before the advent of easily available Resistance set bonuses Defense was the only meaningful way of getting more survivability through set bonuses, but this is no longer true for everyone.  Give me a Def based character and I'll soft cap it every time. Give me a squishie and I'll soft cap Ranged or S/L or both. Give me a tanky character with little to no innate Def? I'll work in as much as I can, but because I can't build for DDR it's not quite as important for me to soft cap as it is to maximize Resistance.

At 35% you are getting hit a lot more than I am at 42% because I just changed from a 35% build to the 42%  there hasn't been much that touches me since then.  So to say it isn't as important or valuable to have that is flat incorrect.  I see what the difference is every time I play the 3 /Elec characters I have set up that way.

 

And I didnt sacrifice much resistance or anything for that matter to get it either.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Infinitum

[Werner]

45% defense, even without DDR, is lovely and should never be underestimated - if you're fighting non-incarnate enemies that don't spam defense debuffs. If that describes how you play, take the 45% and call it good, because what DSorrow and I are talking about doesn't apply. But if you're out there doing incarnate content without big buffs and/or fighting crowds of defense debuffers without DDR, the luster of that shiny 45% defense fades quickly. Yes, of course 45% is still better than 35%, and if you can get it with little compromise, definitely go for it, but the difference is no longer a stark black or white, alive or dead. Things get more nuanced.

 

Side note that I'm sure everyone knows but is probably worth repeating - even without DDR, defense protects against defense debuffs since the debuff has to hit you. Unfortunately, once they pry that lid open, and they will if you're pushing the envelope, things can go south fast.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Werner

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

45% defense, even without DDR, is lovely and should never be underestimated - if you're fighting non-incarnate enemies that don't spam defense debuffs. If that describes how you play, take the 45% and call it good, because what DSorrow and I are talking about doesn't apply. But if you're out there doing incarnate content without big buffs and/or fighting crowds of defense debuffers without DDR, the luster of that shiny 45% defense fades quickly. Yes, of course 45% is still better than 35%, and if you can get it with little compromise, definitely go for it, but the difference is no longer a stark black or white, alive or dead. Things get more nuanced.

 

Side note that I'm sure everyone knows but is probably worth repeating - even without DDR, defense protects against defense debuffs since the debuff has to hit you. Unfortunately, once they pry that lid open, and they will if you're pushing the envelope, things can go south fast.

Yeah it doesnt matter what you are fighting, if you can get to 45 anyway you slice it its better than 35 and by a good margin.  Thats all I'm saying, I have three /elec builds, they are awesome, they all have 42%  at it is infinitely better than when I was at 35% before I pushed the envelope just a bit further for the added defense.

 

I regularly play incarnate and I know what you are saying about debuff resistance, but you still dodge a lot on the alpha and even that is noticeably better than being at just 35%.

 

Why not get it if it's out there and it don't sacrifice much?

 

That's my point, and the only one im making.

 

Yes with a SR build you should get ageless IMO, but on one like Elec that open salvo gets mitigated more than it would have than just 35%  by then you are in control and your team should be well on the way to dispatching the crowd.

[Werner]

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

...I regularly play incarnate and I know what you are saying about debuff resistance, but you still dodge a lot on the alpha and even that is noticeably better than being at just 35%.

 

Why not get it if it's out there and it don't sacrifice much?

 

That's my point, and the only one im making...

I absolutely agree. Maybe the only complicated question is what counts as sacrificing too much. 

 

Me personally, I use a survivability spreadsheet that splits an arbitrary amount of incoming DPS out by position and type, calculates what percentage gets through each combination, then weights those percentages to get an overall percentage. Add up all your sources of healing and regeneration, divide by the percentage, and you have a number that in a very rough sense tells you the DPS that you can survive indefinitely. That's definitely overly simplistic. Defense also helps by preventing status effects and debuffs from landing. Resistance also helps by being less commonly debuffed (is this true? am I making this up?), and by smoothing out the loss of hit points, making it easier to respond with heals. But even setting that aside, things are still complicated in some cases.

 

The simplest possible case might be, say, a normal enemy with a single damage type. Let's say we're currently sitting at 40% defense to that type, 80% resistance. And let's say we can take a set bonus for either 5% defense, or one for 6% resistance.

 

defense:   (50%-45%)*(100%-80%) = 1% damage gets through
resistance (50%-40%)*(100%-86%) = 1.4% damage gets through

 

Defense is better, ignoring other important factors.

 

But what about against an incarnate enemy?

 

defense:    (64%-45%)*(100%-80%) = 3.8% damage gets through
resistance: (64%-40%)*(100%-86%) = 3.36% damage gets through

 

Resistance is better, ignoring other important factors.

 

These are arbitrary numbers, of course, chosen to illustrate a difference. I'm not saying to always go defense against normal enemies, always go resistance against incarnate enemies. That would be silly. And things get more complicated weighing positional defense vs. typed resistance, but the spreadsheet will dutifully return numbers for each to compare. 

1 hour ago, Infinitum said:

...Yes with a SR build you should get ageless IMO, but on one like Elec that open salvo gets mitigated more than it would have than just 35%  by then you are in control and your team should be well on the way to dispatching the crowd.

What is this "team" thing you're talking about? It sounds like it greatly improves DPS and survivability! 😉 Soaking the alpha is definitely important. But I'm used to a long hard solo slog from there against +4x8 enemies, in the old game, at least. Nothing short-lived was going to keep me vertical for long. But I'll agree that your teaming preferences are another factor. On big teams, soaking the alpha strike is probably significantly more important than being able to hang in there indefinitely. Perhaps that's also why I measure survivability in terms of what I can survive indefinitely rather than time to defeat, even though in most situations, having any sort of reasonable time to defeat is sufficient.

 

(Edit: Mind you, this is in the context of Brute tanks, in which case the team is a given, and the rules I'm used to following change.)

Edited August 16, 2019 by Werner

[Infinitum]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

I absolutely agree. Maybe the only complicated question is what counts as sacrificing too much. 

 

Me personally, I use a survivability spreadsheet that splits an arbitrary amount of incoming DPS out by position and type, calculates what percentage gets through each combination, then weights those percentages to get an overall percentage. Add up all your sources of healing and regeneration, divide by the percentage, and you have a number that in a very rough sense tells you the DPS that you can survive indefinitely. That's definitely overly simplistic. Defense also helps by preventing status effects and debuffs from landing. Resistance also helps by being less commonly debuffed (is this true? am I making this up?), and by smoothing out the loss of hit points, making it easier to respond with heals. But even setting that aside, things are still complicated in some cases.

 

The simplest possible case might be, say, a normal enemy with a single damage type. Let's say we're currently sitting at 40% defense to that type, 80% resistance. And let's say we can take a set bonus for either 5% defense, or one for 6% resistance.

 

defense:   (50%-45%)*(100%-80%) = 1% damage gets through
resistance (50%-40%)*(100%-86%) = 1.4% damage gets through

 

Defense is better, ignoring other important factors.

 

But what about against an incarnate enemy?

 

defense:    (64%-45%)*(100%-80%) = 3.8% damage gets through
resistance: (64%-40%)*(100%-86%) = 3.36% damage gets through

 

Resistance is better, ignoring other important factors.

 

These are arbitrary numbers, of course, chosen to illustrate a difference. I'm not saying to always go defense against normal enemies, always go resistance against incarnate enemies. That would be silly. And things get more complicated weighing positional defense vs. typed resistance, but the spreadsheet will dutifully return numbers for each to compare. 

What is this "team" thing you're talking about? It sounds like it greatly improves DPS and survivability! 😉 Soaking the alpha is definitely important. But I'm used to a long hard solo slog from there against +4x8 enemies, in the old game, at least. Nothing short-lived was going to keep me vertical for long. But I'll agree that your teaming preferences are another factor. On big teams, soaking the alpha strike is probably significantly more important than being able to hang in there indefinitely. Perhaps that's also why I measure survivability in terms of what I can survive indefinitely rather than time to defeat, even though in most situations, having any sort of reasonable time to defeat is sufficient.

 

(Edit: Mind you, this is in the context of Brute tanks, in which case the team is a given, and the rules I'm used to following change.)

I agree with every single bit of that. 

 

I build tanks and brutes to tank.  If I can't cap most resistances and add a healthy 40+ defense on the brute I opt to build it as a tank instead and focus on more attacks and other powers and set bonuses.

 

Survivability more so than damage is what I'm looking for at the end result.

 

Basically if I can survive the fire +4/8 and sl +4/8 ae missions indefinitely - while also tanking the new maria Arc +4/8 solo, there's not much I can't do on a team for instance apex or tin mage tfs or even incarnate trials. 

 

If it's toxic or negative nrg based I lean a little on the team to help mitigate those particular types.

[DSorrow]

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

At 35% you are getting hit a lot more than I am at 42% because I just changed from a 35% build to the 42%  there hasn't been much that touches me since then.  So to say it isn't as important or valuable to have that is flat incorrect. 

I'm not saying it's not valuable, I'm saying Defense without DDR is much less valuable than Defense with DDR against actually tough enemies. Against conventional enemies 35% Def takes roughly 140% more damage than 45% Def which in percentages is a significant difference. However, at 90% Resistance that 140% difference might be pittance in terms of absolute damage as 140% of not very much won't be all that much either. I would take my Brute to 45% S/L Def if I could do it without sacrifices, but at this point I don't feel like the trade offs in offense would be worth it.

 

That said, if you don't have any resistance, the gap in absolute damage is huge between 45% and 35%. If you have 90% Resistance, then it doesn't really matter all that much. Going from 15% incoming damage to 5% incoming damage is the same relative change as going from 3% to 1%, but there are very few enemies that become sustainable at some point within the 3% -> 1% gap while there are a lot of enemies who become sustainable between the 15% -> 5% gap. Just look at what Werner posted:

 

3 hours ago, Werner said:

Add up all your sources of healing and regeneration, divide by the percentage, and you have a number that in a very rough sense tells you the DPS that you can survive indefinitely

And you can see damage doesn't scale linearly. Going from 80% total mitigation to 90% total mitigation doubles the incoming damage you can sustain infinitely, which is what you're seeing with the 35 -> 42 increase: some enemy groups that become infinitely sustainable as opposed to sustainable for a moderate time and you increase the time you can sustain "non-infinitely" against by a large margin. Consider an arbitrary example: you have 1000HP, 50% total mitigation, regenerate 100 HP/second so you can infinitely sustain 100 / (1 - 0.5) = 200 HP/sec incoming damage or take 250 HP/sec damage for (1000 / (250 * (1 - 0.5) - 100)) = 40 seconds. If you bump your total mitigation by 10% to 55%, you can infinitely sustain 100 / (1 - 0.55) = 222, which is slightly more than a 10% increase. However, you can sustain 250 HP/sec incoming damage for (1000 / (250 * (1 - 0.55) - 100)) = 80 seconds, which is a significant increase from 40 seconds.

 

The closer you are to what you can infinitely sustain (i.e. a natural place to find yourself in actual gameplay where people play against stuff that most of the time can't kill them), the bigger the difference through any incremental change in your defensive stats. Basically what this means is that if you play at x8, that arbitrary example would allow you to have a much easier time given the same difficulty settings as you'd double the time you can sit under the same incoming DPS = seems like it's an "infinitely" good improvement.

 

Still, any enemy groups that actually pose a challenge do so through debuffs so:

 

5 hours ago, Werner said:

45% defense, even without DDR, is lovely and should never be underestimated - if you're fighting non-incarnate enemies that don't spam defense debuffs. If that describes how you play, take the 45% and call it good, because what DSorrow and I are talking about doesn't apply. But if you're out there doing incarnate content without big buffs and/or fighting crowds of defense debuffers without DDR, the luster of that shiny 45% defense fades quickly.

 

[Infinitum]

2 hours ago, DSorrow said:

I'm not saying it's not valuable, I'm saying Defense without DDR is much less valuable than Defense with DDR against actually tough enemies. Against conventional enemies 35% Def takes roughly 140% more damage than 45% Def which in percentages is a significant difference. However, at 90% Resistance that 140% difference might be pittance in terms of absolute damage as 140% of not very much won't be all that much either. I would take my Brute to 45% S/L Def if I could do it without sacrifices, but at this point I don't feel like the trade offs in offense would be worth it.

 

That said, if you don't have any resistance, the gap in absolute damage is huge between 45% and 35%. If you have 90% Resistance, then it doesn't really matter all that much. Going from 15% incoming damage to 5% incoming damage is the same relative change as going from 3% to 1%, but there are very few enemies that become sustainable at some point within the 3% -> 1% gap while there are a lot of enemies who become sustainable between the 15% -> 5% gap. Just look at what Werner posted:

 

And you can see damage doesn't scale linearly. Going from 80% total mitigation to 90% total mitigation doubles the incoming damage you can sustain infinitely, which is what you're seeing with the 35 -> 42 increase: some enemy groups that become infinitely sustainable as opposed to sustainable for a moderate time and you increase the time you can sustain "non-infinitely" against by a large margin. Consider an arbitrary example: you have 1000HP, 50% total mitigation, regenerate 100 HP/second so you can infinitely sustain 100 / (1 - 0.5) = 200 HP/sec incoming damage or take 250 HP/sec damage for (1000 / (250 * (1 - 0.5) - 100)) = 40 seconds. If you bump your total mitigation by 10% to 55%, you can infinitely sustain 100 / (1 - 0.55) = 222, which is slightly more than a 10% increase. However, you can sustain 250 HP/sec incoming damage for (1000 / (250 * (1 - 0.55) - 100)) = 80 seconds, which is a significant increase from 40 seconds.

 

The closer you are to what you can infinitely sustain (i.e. a natural place to find yourself in actual gameplay where people play against stuff that most of the time can't kill them), the bigger the difference through any incremental change in your defensive stats. Basically what this means is that if you play at x8, that arbitrary example would allow you to have a much easier time given the same difficulty settings as you'd double the time you can sit under the same incoming DPS = seems like it's an "infinitely" good improvement.

 

Still, any enemy groups that actually pose a challenge do so through debuffs so:

 

 

Still unless the debuff is auto hit, that soft cap defense is going to miss both defense debuffs and resistance debuffs indiscriminately gaining several magnitudes of more durability than not being at the soft cap.  I play all those tough enemies you talked about and I noticed the difference immediately how much more durable I was after I went to 42 % which is as high as I could get it without too much sacrifices.

 

Resistance debuffs are nasty as well and resistance does nothing to stop them eventually, but defense will.  They will hardly ever hit you at that point.

 

Thats game play experiences no numbers, actual in game observation against all damage types and debuggers.  You name it ive done it.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Infinitum

[Hyperstrike]

12 hours ago, Werner said:

45% defense, even without DDR, is lovely and should never be underestimated - if you're fighting non-incarnate enemies that don't spam defense debuffs. If that describes how you play, take the 45% and call it good, because what DSorrow and I are talking about doesn't apply. But if you're out there doing incarnate content without big buffs and/or fighting crowds of defense debuffers without DDR, the luster of that shiny 45% defense fades quickly. Yes, of course 45% is still better than 35%, and if you can get it with little compromise, definitely go for it, but the difference is no longer a stark black or white, alive or dead. Things get more nuanced.

 

Side note that I'm sure everyone knows but is probably worth repeating - even without DDR, defense protects against defense debuffs since the debuff has to hit you. Unfortunately, once they pry that lid open, and they will if you're pushing the envelope, things can go south fast.

 

Rad was my first venture into Massive Resistance Tanking.
And don't get me wrong.  With the newer IO sets, it makes MRT EASILY doable

Basically I went through the 1-35 game running +2x8 using the Def > Resist formula.
And it works!
Then I high higher level Arachnos...

And I simply couldn't stay alive!  I even cranked it back down and limited the mob sizes.
I was still getting shamed  (not beaten, SHAMED) left and right.

And I could track it all back to the point when my Defense became compromised.  I basically cracked like an uncooked egg.
And, because I'd compromised my build to favor Defense over Resist, once they'd chomped into my soft center...END OF LINE.

So, I had a bunch of spare Inf and lots of RMs.
I spend a couple hours tweaking in Mids, rebuilt for Resist > Def, and the experience COMPLETELY changed.

It was such a huge difference that, upon hitting 50 on my Rad/Rad, I re-engineered my Fire/Fire and my Elec/Elec the same exact way.
I did something similar with my PB too (running Perma-Lightform).
Dear GOD has it made a huge difference in playability and fun factor.

All of them still have a slathering of Defense.  But now, I basically look during something like an ITF and go "OH GOD!  -74% Defense!  What EVER shall I do?  MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" and cram my foot so far up a Surgeon's kiester that when I wiggle my toes it looks like he's talking...

Now all we need are art assets for Cimeroran Surgeon Slippers...

[Hyperstrike]

4 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Still unless the debuff is auto hit, that soft cap defense is going to miss both defense debuffs and resistance debuffs indiscriminately gaining several magnitudes of more durability than not being at the soft cap.  I play all those tough enemies you talked about and I noticed the difference immediately how much more durable I was after I went to 42 % which is as high as I could get it without too much sacrifices.

 

Resistance debuffs are nasty as well and resistance does nothing to stop them eventually, but defense will.  They will hardly ever hit you at that point.

 

Thats game play experiences no numbers, actual in game observation against all damage types and debuggers.  You name it ive done it.

Is 45% valuable?
Sure.

Is 45% that goes into cascading Defense failure after the first hit LANDS as useful as it would be on a build rocking DDR?

No.  ESPECIALLY so for a TANK, where DURABILITY is a consideration and who many these days subject to exceptionally high levels of difficulty.


 

[Frostweaver]

I would like to point out something very interesting about brute vs. Tanker Damage numbers.

Now bear in mind, this is coming from the point of view of fire farming, where the incoming damage IS predictable, and there is nothing like defense debuffs to worry about.

I built a rad/fire brute for farming, specifically so I could afford stuff on 50+ characters to optimize them for incarnate content. working on the theory that a rad melee could potentially outdamage a spines melee on a farm with bleed damage and without the delays for lining up cones. This theory has proven true, but the amount of WORK involved with constant ST attacks, and target switching, turned out to slow things down almost as much as setting up cones... in general, the two sets are fairly equitable.

The sustained survival values for the build appeared to be 90% fire (easy) and 30% fire defense (with heals and constantly popping inspirations) 38% defense (if you use your heal) and 42% (without) Clear times for rainbow were around 4 minutes 45 seconds to 5 minutes 15 seconds (The variances were for how much you have to run around after groups and how easily you can taunt for an ongoing stream of baddies)

Well, I decided I wanted someone that could PL my main account characters for some toons I just couldn't stand to run through lowbie content AGAIN. But since I already had a rad/fire brute, I decided to go with a fire/rad tanker with a nearly identical build.

I noticed some very interesting things... some I expected, some I didn't.

Obviously, the sustain based on higher tanker values were considerably lower. the heal and inspirations still needed 30% for sustainability, but base heal defense sustainability was only 34%.... I assume because regen bonuses on a MUCH higher HP increase your regen rate to compensate.

The interesting part was where DAMAGE was concerned. I expected the brute's fury to stay high, and with damage adds, I tended to hover around 225% but with the tanker, the slightly base damage made the damage a lot more 'bouncy' with regards to the effect of the two build-ups.

This effect became even more pronounced when I turned off all inspirations but damage, and I noticed that the Tanker's clear speed was very closely approaching that of the brute... 5 minutes to 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Obviously the tanker doesn't have the damage cap of the brute, but solo you seldom approach the damage cap anyway.

That makes me wonder at the accepted wisdom that 'brutes always hugely outdamage tankers on teams'. I know that in a situation where you rub against the cap constantly, like with a couple of fulcrum shifters on the team, That is absolutely true... but in normal pick-up teams is that really always going to be the case?

And how much of that damage difference is tied to the ATO's, which I specifically replaced in this case to make the tests more fair?

[DSorrow]

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Still unless the debuff is auto hit, that soft cap defense is going to miss both defense debuffs and resistance debuffs indiscriminately gaining several magnitudes of more durability than not being at the soft cap. 

I feel like we're talking in circles, but at the risk of repeating myself: defense debuffs don't have to be autohit to wreck your defense. After 10 attacks at 7% hit chance, there's a ~50% chance at least one of them hit you and primed you for a cascading defense failure, after 20% it's ~77%. That's basically every other mob where your defense does squat beyond the alpha, and most fights where it does nothing past the second volley. Larger mobs and higher hit chance, well, it's pretty obvious that your chance of avoiding a cascading failure is even smaller.

 

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Resistance debuffs are nasty as well and resistance does nothing to stop them eventually, but defense will.  They will hardly ever hit you at that point. 

Resistance does nothing to stop them? Resistance resists resistance debuffs. It does a whole lot to stop them.

 

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Thats game play experiences no numbers, actual in game observation against all damage types and debuggers.  You name it ive done it.

Yes, yes. I know, experience. I have that too. I also like to analyze the numbers.

 

It seems to me you're missing my point. Defense is great. Avoiding debuffs is awesome, but on a character with no innate defense and no DDR, the ultimate value of defense is far less than on one with both. S/L Defense helps you avoid most melee attacks, but it works against far fewer debuffs which are often associated with more exotic elements.

 

2 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

Is 45% valuable?
Sure.

Is 45% that goes into cascading Defense failure after the first hit LANDS as useful as it would be on a build rocking DDR?

No.  ESPECIALLY so for a TANK, where DURABILITY is a consideration and who many these days subject to exceptionally high levels of difficulty.

This basically summarizes what I want to say. Sure, if your team only needs a tank to cover the alpha, get your defense high and let them nuke everything after you hop in. Cascading failures don't matter at that point. Building a lot of Defense with no DDR on top of decent Resistance just doesn't get you quite as far as having high Resistance and decent Def with no DDR in content where you actually need to tank.

 

There's a reason all of my other 50s are soft capped against one or more attack types/vectors: being soft capped is valuable. The difference between them and my Brute, though, is that either they have DDR or I don't expect to rely on their Def to tank. Well, actually that last point applies to my Brute too. I didn't get ~35% S/L Def for fun, it's there because it's useful, but I just can't think of any enemy groups I currently can't tank/survive that I could given a 10% increase in my S/L Def, as the danger to my TW/Elec is strong debuffs, NE, Psi and toxic damage. Most dangerous debuffers would peel that 45% Def away just as easily as they do with 35%, and in incarnate content you'd need 59% Def to achieve the soft cap which is a pipe dream for any non-defense sets.

 

Anyways, there aren't really any DPS checks in the game so if you're happy with sacrificing offense to get soft capped S/L on top of your Resists, go ahead, I'm not going to tell you it's wrong especially you like the build. Based on my experience and some numbers, though, I prefer high Resistance and high offense given Elec's lack of DDR.

 

Key takeaways:

• soft capped def is great
• capped resistance is also great
• both have their advantages and disadvantages
• defense without DDR is less reliable, resistance provides its own debuff resistance

[summers]

Just some food for thought about soft capped defences and their effective equivalent resistances. The assumption is that there is no defence in the resistance set, and no resistance in the defence set. Some rounding occurs in the below:

 

45% defence, +0 enemies

Chance to hit: 5%

Effective resistance level: 90% (50% chance to hit, 90% resistance)

 

45% defence, +4 enemies

Chance to hit: 7%

Effective resistance level: 90% (70% chance to hit, 90% resistance)

 

45% defence, +4 AV

Chance to hit: 10.5%

Effective resistance level: 88.95% (95% chance to hit, 88.95% resistance)

 

So far the ratio of effectiveness at damage mitigation has kept pace with the resistance set. What if we go to incarnate content at the soft cap?

 

45% defence, +0 enemies (incarnate)

Chance to hit: 19%

Effective resistance level: 70.31% (64% chance to hit, 70.31% resistance)

 

45% defence, +4 enemies (incarnate)

Chance to hit: 26.6%

Effective resistance level: 70.3% (89.6% chance to hit, 70.3% resistance)

 

45% defence, +4 AV (incarnate)

Chance to hit: 39.9%

Effective resistance level: 58% (95% chance to hit, 58% resistance)

 

Whats the take away from this?

 

At +0 minions, each point of defence below 45% is equivalent to dropping 2% resistance.

At +4 Incarnate, each point of defence below 59% is equivalent to dropping 1.56% resistance.

At +4 Incarnate AVs, each point of defence below 59% is equivalent to dropping 2.21% resistance.

 

Since a lot of builds don't reach for the incarnate cap, I hope some of these numbers might assist in getting a better understanding of where things compare.

 

A few other observations is that because the chance to hit is capped at each stage, there's only so bad that a defence can be before it no longer matters - it will always protect you against 5% of hits. Resistance for all practical purposes never stops getting worse. Additionally, against very challenging content, DDR and the soft cap is very important. If you have IOd your defences to 45%, 14% of white minion attacks will hit you in incarnate content and almost 20% of attacks will hit you from purple minions. If any of these have defence debuffs, you will crash quickly and hard. YMMV in groups, since you are probably buffed by party members, but solo it's just you.

 

[Infinitum]

5 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

Is 45% valuable?
Sure.

Is 45% that goes into cascading Defense failure after the first hit LANDS as useful as it would be on a build rocking DDR?

No.  ESPECIALLY so for a TANK, where DURABILITY is a consideration and who many these days subject to exceptionally high levels of difficulty.


 

Missing the point.  

 

Again all I'm saying is on Task forces like Tin Mage, and other heavy -def incarnate content +4/8 when I switched to 42% from 35% melee defense on ALL my Elec armor characters i went from having to watch my health bar to never worrying about it.

 

My ONLY point is I'm sure I can survive longer than if I had 35% because I've seen me do it.

 

Argue all you want to like the other guy that is missing my point too, the one with 35%, I know from actual in game experience that the extra defense helped my build tremendously against lots of super hard high level incarnate content.

 

I'm not saying ddr isn't great.

I'm not saying cascading defense failure doesn't exist.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong for not wanting soft capped defense.

 

45%>35%  observational experience.

 

That's all I'm saying guys.

[Marshal_General]

Something I pondered in another thread is about ranged defense vs melee for tanks. It seems to me that the majority of the melee attacks will have a S/L component to them, while the exotic attacks without S/L in them will be mostly ranged.

 

Would we get better mileage out of soft capped S/L and ranged?

[Frostweaver]

Probably, except that pretty much every defense set that has s/l gives you melee defense at the same time.

But that rule is what a lot of at primaries and secondaries actually work on.

[Hyperstrike]

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Missing the point.  

Not really.

 

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Again all I'm saying is on Task forces like Tin Mage, and other heavy -def incarnate content +4/8 when I switched to 42% from 35% melee defense on ALL my Elec armor characters i went from having to watch my health bar to never worrying about it.

 

And on my Perma-Lightform PB, my Rad/Rad, Fire/Fire and Elec/Elec with maxed-as-possible Resist, I don't have to especially watch my Health bar either.

 

6 hours ago, Infinitum said:

My ONLY point is I'm sure I can survive longer than if I had 35% because I've seen me do it.

 

Argue all you want to like the other guy that is missing my point too, the one with 35%, I know from actual in game experience that the extra defense helped my build tremendously against lots of super hard high level incarnate content.

 

I'm not saying ddr isn't great.

I'm not saying cascading defense failure doesn't exist.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong for not wanting soft capped defense.

 

45%>35%  observational experience.

 

That's all I'm saying guys.

And all *I* am saying is that it's not as dependable as maxing Resists when you're on a build with no DDR.

 

[Hyperstrike]

9 hours ago, DSorrow said:

Key takeaways:

• soft capped def is great
• capped resistance is also great
• both have their advantages and disadvantages
• defense without DDR is less reliable, resistance provides its own debuff resistance

 

Bingo!

[Infinitum]

17 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

Not really.

 

 

And on my Perma-Lightform PB, my Rad/Rad, Fire/Fire and Elec/Elec with maxed-as-possible Resist, I don't have to especially watch my Health bar either.

 

And all *I* am saying is that it's not as dependable as maxing Resists when you're on a build with no DDR.

 

You kinda still are missing the point because 45 will always be > 35 or none.  Even if it gets your through 2 waves or 1 thats 1 more than you would have had before.

 

So get both like im suggesting, its not like its hard to accomplish that.

 

You arent getting through groups in Tin mage +4/8 with no defense and only capped res without team support.  Sorry not buying that if thats what you are saying.

 

+4/8 with no team support is what the metric for discussion has been so I apoligize if that isnt what you are talking about.

 

It goes a long way in my experience to bolster your resistance mitigation.  Any bit that misses you completely is less damage, debuffs, unresistable damage, toxic damage that could potentially hurt a bit.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Infinitum

[Hyperstrike]

7 hours ago, Infinitum said:

You kinda still are missing the point because 45 will always be > 35 or none.  Even if it gets your through 2 waves or 1 thats 1 more than you would have had before.

 

You're talking in the absence of all other considerations.
And, in that case, sure.  You're right.


The problem is, the game isn't this sort of vacuum.