GavinRuneblade

Just jumping back in, Still haven't gotten an answer on why the Chain silverado recommends is better than incinerate-scorch-cremate-scorch.

How does it matter what you swap out for build up?

also, why swap out? I just kind-of insert rather than swap. is that a really bad thing? Do you restart the chain or estimate timing (I think I did two attacks worth so now I'm on cremate)?

You can still hit them with the right AoEs.

Just popping back in. Can anyone explain why it is better to replace fire sword in its chain than scorch in its chain?

#1 It's annoying
#2 It's ugly
#3 team-mate damage is a mostly useless statistic that too often encourages pissing contests
#4 it conceals your own damage numbers which are useful, sometimes very important

1. Do you believe there is an issue with the respective effectiveness’ of resistance vs. that of defense?
--> No. Especially not at the level of SOs where the game is balanced.

2. Do you believe there is an issue with the lack of effective hard limit on the amount of available defense for each AT?
--> I think you are misusing the term, "hard limit". Please clarify this question. The soft limit is reducing enemy attack chance to 5%. The "hard limit" is irrelevant outside of external buffs. Hell, I'm not even sure what the hard limit is, I've been at over 140 to all positions thanks to buffs and it wasn't blue (indicating at the hard limit).

3. Do you believe that there is an issue with the lack of inherent protection to secondary effects within the damage resistance mechanic?
--> No. Status effects are not damage they have their own mechanics. I do wish some versions were more common (such as the tohit/acc debuff protection in Focused Accuracy) but in no way shape or form do I feel they SHOULD be attached to damage resistance. COULD be? Possibly, but not likely, on a case-by-case basis. SHOULD be? No.

I understand this is brought up due to the way mez and status effects can be avoided when the attack misses. This seems like a non-issue to me. I have many resist-based characters and it's not an issue unless there is a deliberate hole in the set (knock vs fire).

4. Do you believe there is and issue with the amount of available resistance bonuses that can be stacked vs. the amount of available defense bonuses?
--> No. Having easy access to both is broken. Of the two I feel the developers chose the better to provide access to since defense is easier to debuff/overcome. Players do not need permanent god mode. Some builds are already too close to it. It would be nice if resistance bonuses were linked similar to defense bonuses, but that's not needed.

5. Do you believe it would be worthwhile to stack resistance bonuses instead of defense bonuses, if the amount of available bonuses were currently comparable?
--> Yes. This would be an incredibly bad thing for the game balance and would require a severe nerf, so I hope it never happens. Please note that some ATs have had this ability (to get high levels of both def and resistance) and have been nerffed for it. I believe Invulnerablility was one.

6. Do you believe that a change should be made to make the efficiency of resistance and defense more comparable?
--> No. Think what happens if they are? In order to overcome resistance the devs have to let enemies hit harder or start flagging damage as unresistable. That means if you don't have resistance, then you are screwed. On the other hand, the situation we have currently works just fine because defense can be debuffed, or tohit bonuses can be used to bypass it. Neither of which critically gimps a build that didn't have defense to begin with. What this question proposes would make resistance a requirement. That would be bad for game balance.

7. Do you believe that if a change were made, that defense should be brought more toward resistance or vice versa?
--> No, no and a thousand times no. I believe that the Devs have made the right choice. Resistance resists debuffs. Defense does not. It is easier to take away defense, therefore they have provided easy access to the one that I prefer we have access to. Both is broken, if we can only have one, from a design standpoint I prefer we have access to defense.

8. Am I completely nuts, and resistance is actually more effective than defense?
--> No, it is and always will be less effective than defense under most circumstances until you can get it above the current hardcaps or if it is changed from % reduction to fixed point reduction. The latter would be a horrible idea.

However taking a resist-based character and layering on lots of defense is possible, and extremely effective. See Dechs Kaison in the Tanker forum for a discussion of what Dark Armor can do and how.

9. Do you have any ideas regarding how changes could be made to close any gap that might exist in performance?
--> No changes are needed. Play two characters with SOs only, then get back to us on the strengths and weaknesses of the two. As soon as you bring IOs into it you are outside the balance point. Now, the devs do care what IOs do and they do keep tabs on it. But the game is balanced around SOs. See Arcanaville's talksa bout why regen won't ever get resistance to -regen debuffs for a thorough discussion of this. The point is that at the level of SOs resistance based characters have comparable survival abilities to defense based ones with a few outliers. In those cases (super reflexes) the devs are more likely to nerf the superior set than buff the weaker, but they're not at all likely to do either.

10. Did I miss anything that should be addressed relating to the topic?
--> Yes. #1 You only limited discussion to the mechanics themselves, but all powersets come with non-def non-res powers as well and this is critcal to any discussion of the mechanics. Defense is based on the premise of preventing hits, resistance is based on the premise of getting hit for less damage. Think about snipe powers, or an assassin strike, or a summon, or a teleport, or an interruptable heal/rez. Defense sets rarely have self heals built in (ninjitsu is one that does). Fire is a mixed offense/defense set that trades survivability for damage. Just upping the resistance for everyone via higher set bonuses etc would throw all of these secondary powers out of balance.
#2 You didn't think about the side effects (raised by Umbral) of what happens when resistance is common. Damage goes up to compensate and anyone without resistance is gimped. This is bad. Very bad.

I just did this same thing but worse on the same damn item. I just spent 210 million on a demonic threat report. I thought I was typing over the previous number, but all I did was add some more digits to the previous purchase price.

It's too late, I need sleep and shouldn't be near the market. So if any of you had a big surprise on your junk salvage, consider it a belated Halloween treat. =)

And, I need to figure out how to take screenshots of the UI on a Mac, all I can do is get the background.

Thanks for the responses!

I was thinking recently of the way that -resist sort of affects itself. So if you have two effects for -15% resistance, the first gives-15% and the second -17% since resistance is also resistance to resist debuff.

Does an orange inspiration do the same in reverse for players in PvE? What about Defense Debuff Resistance? Any other form of mez debuff, or -regen or anything like that?

And also, not that any NPCs use teleport foe, but if they did, does anyone know what the % protection vs teleport is on an orange insp?

I'm looking to make a new kheldian for exemplaring down quite low both to run posi and synapse TFs, but also to help friends level new characters. Any advice on which one works better under level 15 Peacebringer or Warshade? I'm thinking dual form human/nova (which gives me mild nightmares since I have a hard time flying in combat the nova's are too fast, but you have access to nova way lower than dwarf).

I'm also thinking of using some of the cheaper PvP IOs to get things like knockback protection all the way to level 1 etc. They don't have the fancy set bonuses like defense, but they do also give endurance/recovery, and with fitness becoming inherent that should be very helpful.

I'm guessing 1 purple set ought to do me for accuracy, all things considered. Anyone have thoughts on that?

Thanks!