The active defenses are about 3 times as effective than the passive defenses, so you are missing out on a lot of defense by only using passives. But if you feel you get by fine with only passives, then by all means play him that way, it certainly frees up more room for attacks and more end to attack with.
Icelock - Ice/Storm Controller
Command Bot 1 - Bot/Traps MM
To give you an idea The toggle defense FF, FS, Evasion
give defense bonus of 20.
Whereas the Passives have a bonus of 10.
Slotting Passive defenses with 3 SO's will only increase defenses to approx almost 17.
Slotting Toggle defenses with 3 SO's will only increase defenses to approx 33.
I'm not a numbers person so someone may want to give exact figures.
Ideally have both if you can afford to!
In I5 I took all the toggles and one passive (Agile)
I found the toggle defenses to be adequate.
However saying this ...
In I6 with ED I will be respeccing in all the passives for the new
damage resistance feature. This is to compensate for the reduction in defense from enhancements.
[ QUOTE ]
With the Respec I enhanced my Auto:Self+Def powers to Six-Slots each, and they're now full of Single (with one or two Dual) Origin Enhancers for Defense Buffs. My attacks are likewise full, although with the new patch, I might move some accuracy buffers into the raw damage slots.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your problem here is that, with I6/ED coming in, your 6-slotted DEF Buffs are now worth about 55% of their old value. Essentially, your ability to dodge blows has been halved with no reduction in the ability of your foes to hit you.
You get a choice:
Only attack -3s.
Start using toggles, which are more effective anyway.
And I'd just like to add that SR scrappers got hit so hard with the nerfbat it's amazing you can see their heads poking up through the ground.
Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.
In your 20s, you should be fine with that - mostly because Broadsword is so damned powerful out of the box that you shouldn't have to worry about your secondary; that is, you can brute-force your way through the game. Importantly, remember that as long as it works for you, you don't have to have the "best" setup.
However, you are what some would deem to be "sub-optimal" in your power choices - especially now I6 has landed. I always advise taking toggles over auto-powers, as you can manage (now lowered in I6) endurance costs by toggle-management (turning off the toggles you don't need in combat), and they give greater bang for your slots. As pointed out, 6-slotting defences is now (realistically speaking) a thing of the past - the gain you get from the fourth slot on even the toggles is minisicule, it'd be infinitesimally small for the passives. Now you have Stamina, toggles should be more than manageable tbh.
Historically speaking, SR starts off (in broad terms) more uber than the other secondaries - but tails off as better enhancements become available to the other sets, and drops off steeply with the availability of extra slotting. This will still be the case now, it might just be slightly less noticeable - and I've yet to see how "Scrapfiance" for SR works out (passives giving +Res as Health drops). FWIW, I'll be taking all the passives on Kuroshi by 50 - I had them all before I6, but I changed my build quite vastly to adapt to the changes - but then again, Claws/SR is a different kettle of fish to BS/SR.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
[ QUOTE ]
And I'd just like to add that SR scrappers got hit so hard with the nerfbat it's amazing you can see their heads poking up through the ground.
[/ QUOTE ]
But the harder you hit Scrappers, the harder they hit back. 
I respecced Kuroshi pre-I6 into an I6 build with the last free respec I had, and ran around on him to get the feel of it... unsurprisingly, I was getting hit a lot more than usual. However, because I'd changed my attack slotting for speed - switched to 1 Acc, 2 RecRed, 3 Dam, and dropped the lame duck of Slash - my damage output was noticeably increased. The downside of that was that I had to scrap at breakneck speed or risk being planted. I can no longer herd +3 minions (except in Elude) which upsets me somewhat; I now have to use Shockwave more frequently for the KB effect, which I'm sure Tanks will adore; I have no idea how Kuro will fare against AVs; I've finally caved and respec'd in Tough, which is something I never wanted to have to do with this toon. Concept is the cost of diversity, I guess.
@Synaesthetix
"Here, take some more bees with you. You may need them."
Union: FU//LoUD
"that Syn is that that" - Mothers Love
I actually dumped my auto's for tough in my I5 respec cause they're value was appaling low, ED's going to make that worse. How low my defence feels with the toggles means I certainly wouldn't want to run on the inates
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
With Hasten no longer perma with 6 slots and elude rate increase reduced as well, you have to wait for a looooooong time before you can use elude again.
Add to the fact that all your toggle defenses have been reduce. Whats the best feature of reflexes then.
Elude used to be the only weapon u can use to face an AV, I guess now SR scrappers will be running scared most of the time in between eludes.
Eludes one of those powers that you can live without perma.
In fact the only use I have is as a panic button when things are going badly. Overuse of Elude is a sure path to Debt. The End crash / toggle dropping always happens at the wrong time!
If you have to use Elude all the time then you need to look at taking all toggles and Passives or changing your tactics..
The benefit to SR IMO is quickness & PB. Its nice that the status resist isn't a toggle, cause if they do manage to break it, then it's a power that doesn't go down. Which means less likely hood of the chain mez situation. Quickness just adds enough speed with swift and sprint that you can leg it when your defences fail on a daily basis without too much fear of being caught
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I respecced Flitz to a ED build and he is still on rugged at 37. Admittedly I did get planted by a level 39 council initiate boss last night that was conning purple and have to be a lot more careful against reds and oranges. The rest get stunned and polished off quickly as the extra slots from defence have gone into my attacks.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
You've got that lovely AoE defence, is it still nice after ED?
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I didn't have Evasion six-slotted before and even now with only 3 SOs, it still lets me deal with small groups of nemesis/council. I have increased passives to 3 slots to somewhat make up for reduction to toggles and this will also get me some scrapfiance when it goes live.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
Hey Flitz,
It's already live - someone on US forums quoted seeing around 20% damage resistance.
From the I6 release notes
[ QUOTE ]
Super Reflexes Auto powers now add some minor damage resistance that improves as the caster loses HP.
[/ QUOTE ]
I've not seen any marked difference with Evasion in I6. I also took "Lucky" so have no fear of Nemesis AoEs.
[ QUOTE ]
It's already live - someone on US forums quoted seeing around 20% damage resistance....I also took "Lucky" so have no fear of Nemesis AoEs.
[/ QUOTE ]
I had it in my head that it was coming after I6. That probably explains why I've scraped through a few close fights recently. 
I've got lucky too, as I was taking a lot of AoE hits before 35 (when Evasion is available). Unfortunately, Elude is going to have to wait until 41 as I want to take Agile (ranged passive) at 38 cos I skipped over it early in my career in favour of focused senses.
UNION @Flitz 50, Lead Hose 50, Red Rag 50
DEFIANT Rose Bloodthorn 34
VIGILANCE Captain Caledonia 20 - Yeah, I made toons on the French server coz we only had 4 back then (might have to transfer/recreate them on one of the US servers)
..and many more!
Not sure how my Scrapper's handled the last two issues. I sort of slept through Issue 6 whilst a certain other MMO had my attention.
Anyhow, during Collusium I got my Terra Volta Respec. Was happy with that in my mid-level glee, and went to Mr Wolfe then and there, and respecialised.
Something I noticed was that the Auto: Self+Def (Agile, Lucky) powers allowed me to do some energy conservation by completely replacing the activated versions (Focussed Fighting, Focussed Senses) and buying back those important Primary Attacks for my Broadsword, and getting a hold of Stamina from the Fitness tree.
I came out of Respec with Hack, Slash, Slice, Whirling Blade, Focussused Fighting (needed to be taken at Lvl 1) Dodge, Agile, Practiced Brawler (because fighting Status Effects is NEVER fun), Combat Jumping, Super Jumping, Hurdle, Health and Stamina (least, that's how I remember it)
With the Respec I enhanced my Auto:Self+Def powers to Six-Slots each, and they're now full of Single (with one or two Dual) Origin Enhancers for Defense Buffs. My attacks are likewise full, although with the new patch, I might move some accuracy buffers into the raw damage slots.
Question is, though, is my reasoning right? Is it better having these Auto Powers slotted up maximum and focus now on my offensive/regenerative pool powers, or should I some day actually go back to my activated reflexive powers and do some serious work on them? From what I can see, I'm still quite unhittable in combat, except when something's totally out of my league, and now at least I'm hitting for slightly more. Would appreciate someone to do the math for me on this though
Thoughts?
(This is for Kayn, my Level twenty-something on Union)