Spiritchaser

Sorry about the lack of clarity, I was obliquely referring to my precious +3s... I have only two and they both have homes

That depends on the build.

For the basic case, with 3 res IOs in tough and charged armor, the difference is between

78% for SOs, which is 22% transmitted

79.2% for IOs which is 20.8% transmitted.

That's about the weakest case you could make for IOs, and you're already reducing incoming physical damage by 6%, I'd say this is non-tivial, but it might be ignored by many players.

If you overslot, and I personally believe that Ele should at least consider overslotting, given what you have to gain, then the difference is more dramatic

With four enhancements it becomes

79.5% with SOs or 20.5% transmitted

81.2% with IOs or 18.8% tranmitted

That's 8% less. That's going to catch at least some general attention.

81 vs 83.1 and 82.5 vs. 85 are next. I don't think too many players are going to 5 or 6 slot res SOs, but in my personal opinion they should at least think about what else they're losing to get those slots.

With 5 slots, IOs get you an 11% reduction in damage over SOs. With 6, it's a 14% reduction when you go from SOs up to max level IOs.

Just for context, a 6 slotted IO build takes a [edit] 32% reduction in physical damage over a 3 slotted SO build. The difference gets even more extreem with an alpha slot or IO bonuses and at this point the idea of overslotting has to be very compelling indeed... but that's not my point

My point was that a 6% or 8% reduction is actually a reasonably big deal... or at least that was my point before I made my mandatory statement about overslotting ele.

Had to work that in you know.

Edit: edited to remove the other half of one in math I should have checked

If you overslot Charged armor by even a single slot, it will get you there.

This runs counter to my experience with my electric/fire

The def debuffs can put me to the floor, but 90% SL resists will still cut it against these guys.

The spawns of nictus in the second mission (and that one spawn at the end of the first) on the other hand can be quite a handfull, it's important to clear the debuffs I have and pound back a luck or two before I dive in to those. If I get flat footed, it's time for archmage.

I would conjecture that because of the performance of resistance (or def for that matter) near the cap, electric and fire could both be more resistant to SL than to neg, and by a crudely similar ammount, but that the electric would be taking so much less SL (potentially half or less depending on builds) that the fire would have SL and debuff issues, while the ele would have more problems with the negative energy

Just a guess though.

I do typically monitor my defence, but I usually give it up as a lost cause in a dogpile of swords.

What I must NOT do, is hit the nictus and the traitors at the same time if I can at all avoid it.

Rereading his post, he's 38, he may well be using SOs, which might be part of the problem. With IOs (even the basic ones) a 50 can basically hardcap S/L res with an alpha slot, even with no bonuses.

SOs aren't going to get him to that point, which is a big deal. Ele with hardcapped S/L is pretty damned good for large parts of the ITF, even with no def at all.

Negative energy is a significant, def encouraging obstacle of course.

I seriously doubt he'd have much trouble with Arachnos.

Sure, if... I don't know, three mental scrambles hit just before he took on a toxic tarantula and a bane executioner, he might have to pop a pill or hit archmage or something, but in general, They're not a problem for my Ele, I doubt they'd even cause pain to a def capped one.

Arachnoids on the other hand... yeesh.

If you can manage Arachnoides at 4x8, I will be in awe. I can see it being reasonable on a ele/SM, but on any other ele... yoiks.

We'll see what the rest of the incarnate powers have to offer. Who knows, there may be some more toxic res in there somewhere, or hell, an SoE confuse would be funny

For your encore, how about some 4X8 arachnoids?

j/k

I actually have a sl capped ele/

some day when I dont have baby aggro I should try it and see.

That day may never come.

Lots to talk about here, I'll just address this...

An elec tank with tough is one of the places where at least some of the radical overslotting you have in your first build actually COULD make sense, especially with a +res alpha boost.

I played around with this idea on my elec/fire and eventually respecced into an overslotted build that took me all the way to the SL cap. Overslotting isn't a must do for elec, but it's hardly a bad idea. I found the performance delta was quite significant for me, to the point where I'd say it's a no brainer for the way I play. It's well worth the few extra slots.

Once the very rare cardiac boost is available, less overslotting will be needed to cap, and it wouldn't surprise me if overslotting to cap might change from a good idea to just the way most elec tanks are built.

EDIT: if you happen across the +3 res IO, this all gets easier, but given the price I paid for mine... well, it's not in the bargain bin.

Given the advent of some new encounters that are not static tank and spank, I'm hoping for a future tf/sf where the focus is more on the boss fights, with hard single targets that don't just hit hard and take a lot to kill, but which require some dancing to down properly.

Untill then rev up the elec/shield, fire/psi etc.

I'm of the opinion that this is build specific. Even a tier 2 alpha might be the difference between perma PA and not perma PA, and I KNOW it makes the difference between my electric tanker capping SL and missing the cap by over 4%.

We all know how big a deal that can potentially be, and in the case of my character, it made a significant difference.

I'd imagine a lot of fire and dark tankers could end up in the same boat.

I'd suggest this is not going to be the case for a number of reasons.

First off, the Siphon Life self heal in DM's attack chain is going to add regen to any set, and that's actually quite a big deal.

Secondly, even without a defence secondary, DM can stack a meaningful number of fears/debuffs on one particularly troublesome foe (toxic tarantula poisoning your tea? Bane spider executioner tearing you down?) and electric is often most concerned with that one boss in a spawn that you simply cannot handle at all.

Thirdly, and I don't have personal experience with this, many suggest that to make ele/ tankier, the best and most cost effective way is to stack up S/L and Energy/Neg up to the soft caps. In cases where you've done that, or come close, DM's debuffs will make a difference for other types, or get you over the edge for the main ones, or help compensate for some def debuffs which you won't be resisting.

Personally I've gone the resistance stacking route for my ele, as much to proove a point as anything else and while high general resists and capped SL resists are tremendously good at some things, debuffs, toxic and hardcore mez can really ruin my day. I've been continuously adding +mez resist with every respec, and it's still an issue. I think, watching the debuffs fall off, that I'm close... and once the top tear cardiac core paragon is available, I'll be able to maintain my SL cap, and slot enough mez resist (plus the level shift will help) to avoid that problem most of the time. I'm also going to try respeccing out of the fire APP and into soul mastery to save a slot for tactics, which should help with the -tohit... we'll see.

Even then, many other debuffs and toxic will still cut me down to size in many cases. Were I a DM, I would have much better options to deal with them. In any case I'll let everyone know how it went eventually.