I have had most success with a dark/mace build that goes for typed defense. 35 to all but psi iirc
A thing to keep in mind with sets offering little to no Defense on their own: even if you build up for Defense with set bonuses you typically have zero Defense Debuff resistance. This means that the CDDF (Cascading Defense Debuff Failure) will happen much more often than on sets with Def Debuff resistance.
For example, a 7.5% DefDebuff will hit a SR scrapper for -0.375% Def (95% DefDebuff resistance IIRC), but will take away a fourth of a Dark Armour character's Defense if he has 30% Def.
My point being, +Def does help you survive. It actually helps you quite a lot, but it is nothing I'd rely on if I didn't have any DefDebuff resistance. On a Dark, though, you have one or two mez auras and an insane heal to back you up if things go south.
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
Defense sets will improve it, so it is viable and also quite a nice thing if you as I do, don't like the names of some powers on what's meant to be a heroic character and make more of an allowance for you to skip them.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
So what I'm gathering is anything with even a little -def debuff will gradually render my defence useless and not make my surivability any greater in the 'tougher' situations. What have most people aimed for in their respective Dark Armor builds? Recharge and recovery just to keep Dark Regen available?
@Fail (Used to be @Tux) and @Tuxedo Infinitus Defiant/Freedom/Champion
Favourite Toons: Prosper [Ill/Rad] Controller :: Infinitus [Fire/Elec] Blaster :: Pocket Dynamo [Fire/Shield] Scr :: Fast [Cold/Sonic] Def ::
Inspire [Plant/Storm] Controller :: Quality - SS/Fire Brute :: Double Down [DP/Kin] Corr :: Pwnz [Fire/Cold] Corr :: Fail [Fire/Son] Corr
In short to reply to the first post. No you won't be wasting your time.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
But you would be wasting the opportunity to slot sets that would give you greater benefit.
First aim to get to the resistance caps, then go for regen and recharge, making sure you have suffcient endurance recovery of course.
I really should do something about this signature.
Really Praf?
Cos I don't think so. It's better to have to heal with less regularity and save endurance.
You can have good defense with maximum res and decent recharge and regen.
One of the problems with SS is, is the rage crash so the less firing of the heal the better.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Having a high resistance reduces the effectivness of defense as damage mitigation, and having a high defence reduces the effectivness of resistance as damage mitigation.
As an example, if you have gain 5% def with zero resistance you reduce avarage incoming damage by 10%. If you have 90% resistance adding 5% def only reduces incoming damage by a further 1%.
As for saving endurance, ok, my level 50 tanker is Ice, but the only time my blue bar dips is when I get hit by a sapper, the rest of the time endurance simply isn't a factor.
I really should do something about this signature.
May I ask how you define damage mitigation, PRAF? Depending on whether you mean:
- Indefinitely sustainable incoming damage
- Time before falling to a certain rate of incoming damage
- Reduction of incoming damage in relative or absolute terms
you will reach different conclusions.
From your conclusion
[ QUOTE ]
Having a high resistance reduces the effectivness of defense as damage mitigation, and having a high defence reduces the effectivness of resistance as damage mitigation.
[/ QUOTE ]
I am guessing you mean "reduction of incoming damage in absolute terms"?
[ QUOTE ]
I am guessing you mean "reduction of incoming damage in absolute terms"?
[/ QUOTE ]
This.
I really should do something about this signature.
Def % to avoid DMG type
Res % to reduce DMG from DMG type
95% Def gives them a 5% chance to hit you for the full DMG
Res can actually reduce the DMG but won't stop it hitting you.
I like to think of Def as the opposite of ToHit and Accuracy
Sort of a typed 'Spidersense'.
Res is more of a ok I can't stop that hitting me, but how much DMG can I shake off.
Nuff Said...
Coolio Wolfus leader of Coolio�s Crusaders on Union.
Tekna Logik leader of Tekna�s Tormentors on Defiant.
Creator of: Coolio's Tech Beacon Replacements
AE arc 402506, 'The Rise and Demise or Otherwise of Tekna Logik...'.
45% in PvE terms gives roughly a 5% chance of being hit.
"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!"
Although -def is pretty prevalent in CoH a lot of it still has to hit you first. The less that hits you the less you have to resist, the less that you need to resist the less you have to either regen out or heal out. The heal in particular is quite costly in endurance. The rage crash is also quite costly in endurance. You could hasten the heal for good recharge but its not the ideal heal versus few targets. In teams you are often the result of the team. Thinking in terms of how can I tank <insert name of AV here> for a <insert defender type here> it can pay to have abilities that can meet the defenders means of supporting you. It is said that 1 def = 2 res but the thing about def is, is that if an attack misses then its debuff can miss to. It maybe nice upping recharge but its also nice not being hit by -recharge tyvm.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Aye, on a character with not great KB prot, no recharge or slow prot then any sort of defence will be nice.
Foes with +tohit aren't actually that common, which means they need to hit you to take away your defence. DE have so much +tohit in their eminators its actually pointless trying to out def them and comes down to actually playing smart instead.
"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!"
Yeah you don't have to fight on top of them at the very least.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
[ QUOTE ]
Having a high resistance reduces the effectivness of defense as damage mitigation, and having a high defence reduces the effectivness of resistance as damage mitigation.
As an example, if you have gain 5% def with zero resistance you reduce avarage incoming damage by 10%. If you have 90% resistance adding 5% def only reduces incoming damage by a further 1%.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't understand this 1% figure. A toon with 90% resistance who then adds 5% defense will improve his survivability by 10% over what he had without the defense, not 1%. He'll be taking 10% less damage than he was without the 5% defense.
For example if an even levelled minion attacks you with an attack for 200 damage a completely defenseless toon will be hit 50% of the time, so on average they'll take 100 damage.
A toon with 90% resistance will take 10 damage
A toon with 90% resistance and 5% defense will be hit 45% of the time, so would take 90 damage. Resistance would absorb 81 of that so they'd take 9 damage, as oppose to 10 without the defense.
So the defense accounts for 1 damage of the 10 that the defenseless toon incurred, or a 10% decrease in damage received. The 5% means the toon is 10% better off that he would be with just the resistance.
Also since Defense Debuffs can knock your defense into the red even Defense without Defense Debuff resistance is still useful, it's still working as a buffer against the defense debuffs as well as initially helping to avoid the attack & hence the Defense Debuff entirely.
Unless my maths is wrong, which is quite possible. I haven't had coffee yet this morning.
[ QUOTE ]
He'll be taking 10% less damage than he was without the 5% defense.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats relative, not absolute.
Imagina a mob that does 200 damage per attack. With 90% res and no def you will take, on avarage 0.5*0.1*200 = 10 points. Add in 5% def: 0.45*0.1*200 = 9 points. Relative benefit 10%, absolute benefit 1%.
Given that the secret to long term survival is to be able to recover hp faster than you take damage, I'm pretty sure that increasing regen/healing will give a better return from set bonuses than the small reduction in absolute damage that +def provides.
I really should do something about this signature.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He'll be taking 10% less damage than he was without the 5% defense.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thats relative, not absolute.
Imagina a mob that does 200 damage per attack. With 90% res and no def you will take, on avarage 0.5*0.1*200 = 10 points. Add in 5% def: 0.45*0.1*200 = 9 points. Relative benefit 10%, absolute benefit 1%.
Given that the secret to long term survival is to be able to recover hp faster than you take damage, I'm pretty sure that increasing regen/healing will give a better return from set bonuses than the small reduction in absolute damage that +def provides.
[/ QUOTE ]
Relative is all that matters though, the absolute is irrevalant in this case. If I have 90% resistances I'm interested in how much damage is reduced by pumping up defense on top of that resistance. The answer is 10%
The 1% figure is too misleading and not really relevant.
Given that Dark has a huge heal for Healing and that Defense helps avoid secondary effects I think I'd go with Defense. Sure there are a lot more Defense debuffs than Regen ones in the game but it also helps with avoiding annoyances like -ToHit debuffs and -Slows / -Recharges (which would be a killer on your slow to recharge heal).
*Edit : Actually thinking further I think I'd base a lot of my judgement on the market and what's achievable. +Regen does have the benefit of being a 2 IO Set Bonus a lot of the time so in terms of easy-to-achieve it could easily be better from a cost / build point of view.
It's highly likely that the less def you have the more of an attack chain you will face. If you want to take an AVs entire attack chain, heal it away and then take it again then GL with that and the endurance bar. Even with 30% def to all positions you can become quite comfortable, even a controllers def buff will stack to it very nicely. Circumstances vary and being flexible helps in that case. I much rather have 3 legs to stand on than 2.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
[ QUOTE ]
I much rather have 3 legs to stand on than 2.
[/ QUOTE ]
*thinks that bragging is inappropriate in this thread*
Right guys, thanks for all your replies. I think I'll definitely build my Tanker for some respectable defence numbers, adding to my survivability.
My one question is I have been looking around the US forums and any DA Tanks building for defence have seemed to have gone for the typed defence route. Is this for any particular reason because it would seem to me that it would be easier to build for positional as there are only three aspects to aim for. Again thanks in advance.
@Fail (Used to be @Tux) and @Tuxedo Infinitus Defiant/Freedom/Champion
Favourite Toons: Prosper [Ill/Rad] Controller :: Infinitus [Fire/Elec] Blaster :: Pocket Dynamo [Fire/Shield] Scr :: Fast [Cold/Sonic] Def ::
Inspire [Plant/Storm] Controller :: Quality - SS/Fire Brute :: Double Down [DP/Kin] Corr :: Pwnz [Fire/Cold] Corr :: Fail [Fire/Son] Corr
You can max out on the most common damage type defense or try to on ones your uncomfortable with. Many attacks come as Fire/Lethal or Energy/Smash so just by being maxxed on Smash/Lethal you have a great chance of avoiding both.
You could try maxxing on Positionals as you like you say only have 3 to worry about. But successfuly getting all 3 can be hard. I'd say getting 40% to all 3 isnt too hard depending on your melee but perhaps you can scale them as in melee being one CoF works with and so needs to be 38%ish iirc, but then your hardly likely to worry about ranged as much with many enemies switch to melee during the engaging process. Ranged is often for ranged priorities or the herding/entering phase. AoEs aren't too excessive so that doesn't have to be that high neither. So its a case of priorities. There are always reasons to have a lot of anything and so no one "has it all".
I personally looked at positional, to a level thats generally happy with what others stack in terms of debuffs or buffs but there is a 2nd build that maybe used to isolate 2 common damage types and build defense to them. It'll pay to look at what damage types -def comes with normally.
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Well the most common -def are either the guns or the Cimeroran swords which are both undoubtedly Smash/Lethal, so getting some Smash/Lethal defence around the 40% Defence range might be very nice with Kinetic Combat etc., thanks for the help guys 
@Fail (Used to be @Tux) and @Tuxedo Infinitus Defiant/Freedom/Champion
Favourite Toons: Prosper [Ill/Rad] Controller :: Infinitus [Fire/Elec] Blaster :: Pocket Dynamo [Fire/Shield] Scr :: Fast [Cold/Sonic] Def ::
Inspire [Plant/Storm] Controller :: Quality - SS/Fire Brute :: Double Down [DP/Kin] Corr :: Pwnz [Fire/Cold] Corr :: Fail [Fire/Son] Corr
Hey everyone, I have a 34 Dark/SS Tank, and I was thinking whether it would be viable/worth it to shoot for some defence. With Cloak of Darkness, CJ, Weave and a Steadfast +3% Def.IO, I would get some respectable numbers.(Also to a lesser extent some -tohit from Cloak of Fear).
So basically has anyone tried it and found it to be making a difference in survivability or would I be wasting my time?
@Fail (Used to be @Tux) and @Tuxedo Infinitus Defiant/Freedom/Champion
Favourite Toons: Prosper [Ill/Rad] Controller :: Infinitus [Fire/Elec] Blaster :: Pocket Dynamo [Fire/Shield] Scr :: Fast [Cold/Sonic] Def ::
Inspire [Plant/Storm] Controller :: Quality - SS/Fire Brute :: Double Down [DP/Kin] Corr :: Pwnz [Fire/Cold] Corr :: Fail [Fire/Son] Corr