Best Epic for....

Ranged Defense. Ive seen alot of people with Force Mastery asking about soft capping. Just wondering if any other epic can help me reach that goal better. I have an Archery/Energy Manip that I would like to try it on. Open to any suggestions. I dont have mid's so I cant really post a build. Thanks for any help.

Cold Mastery's Frozen Armor gives 10.5% Def and 21% Resist according to Mids, so that may be another good choice.

I'm just giving that as a suggestion, but I'm sure someone superior will dump all over it.

Da_Captain has it. The upside of going for Ranged defense is that you can slot Thunderstikes for 3.75% each and most blasters can fit in 3-5 of them easily along with a couple of BotZ for another 3.13% each. The upside of going S/L is that as long as you don't mind using Ice Mastery you can get ~16% S/L for one power and a few slots. The downside is that there are fewer blaster friendly S/L sets although if you go Blapper you can four slot some Kinetic Combats.

so going with S/L might be a better route to take?

Either will make you bulletproof.

S/L will protect you from high damage melee attacks liek Freak Swipers, Rikti Swords etc.

Ranged def protects you from a lot of annoying mezzes, Malta Sappers, Carnie Mistress psi attacks and so on.

So if you're a hover blaster, Ranged Defence is probably better. You can hover out of the way of melee. If youre a blapper, S/L defence is better - a lot of enemies dont use ranged mezzes if you close with them, like Rikti Memserists.

This is all very cool, because Ranged attacks take Thunderstrike and melee attacks take Kinetic Combat.

i am a hover blaster. ranged it is. thanks for the help

This will be for my 2nd build, first is DPS. In my DPS build i only took 4 powers from EM. Power Thrust, Bone Smasher, BU, and Conserve Power. Should I take more Melee so I can slot more Mako's. Should I take Stun to 6-slot Stupefy for the 3.125% bonus? Is 6-slotting BU and Aim with Gaussian's Fire-Control for the multitude of defense bonuses (2.5% to Ranged, Melee, and AoE; 1.25% to S/L, NRG/Neg, and Fire/cold) worth it?

I don't think 6-slotting Gaussian's on a ranged defense softcapped squishie is worth it. 6 slots of a set with lackluster recharge enhancement values is not worth 2.5% defense. Ever. It's a different story on melees who need to softcap all three positional defenses.

what about taking the extra melee's for Mako's. I barely use the 2 I have now

I took Fire as an epic not because it would help with getting more ranged defense, but so I could keep them at range with Bonfire. Force Mastery works for that too if you're willing to slot Repulsion Field heavily for end reduction.

I'm not much of a fan of taking powers I don't intend to use and six-slotting them for set bonuses, so if you're not intending to be in melee, you might grab the ranged stun out of the primary and six-slot that. I'll be doing that on mine. Also, archery/energy is a great combo for Boost Range, I think. With that and Bonfire, you can keep stuff at range while soloing pretty well, making what ranged defense you do have count for more.

Makes sense. I didnt take the ranged stun on my DPS build and I have the Fire Epic. Bonfire does work nice and ill have to try it with boost range.

post build please, I don't care if it is just powers, I would like to see what we are working with.

I.E. also, if you build for Ranged defense, you also have to build for AoE, as ranged only covers ranged not ranged AoE's

the build i have now is for dps, i dont have a plan for my ranged defense yet. Ill post my dps and please make any suggestions you can for turning it into a ranged defense build

Name: D-Shot
Primary: Archery
Secondary: Energy Manip
Epic: Fire

Powers: (not in order, i dont remember)

Archery:
Snap Shot - 5-slotted with Decimation
Aimed Shot - 5-slotted with Decimation
Breath of Arrows - 6-slotted with 5 posi's and empty 6th
Blazing Arrow - 5-slotted with Entropic Chaos
Aim - 2-slotted with Adjusted targeting
Explosive arrow- 6-slotted with 5 Posi's and Force Feedback proc
Rain of Arrow - 6-slotted with Posi

Energy Manipulation:
Power Thrust: 5-slotted with Crushing Impact
Bone Smasher: 5-slotted with Crushing Impact
Build-up: 2-slotted with Adjusted targeting
Conserve Power: single slot - recharge

Flight:
Hover: 4-slotted with 3 Blessing of the Zephyr and Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge
Fly: 3-slotted with 3 Blessing of Zephyr

Speed:
Hasten: 2 slotted with recharge

Leadership:
Assault: single slot end reduction
Tactics: 5-slotted with Gaussian's Fire-control (one is proc)
Vengeance: 2-slotted with Luck of the Gambler 7.5% and Recharge

Fire Epic:
Char: 4-slotted with 2 Devastation(one is proc) and 2 Lockdown(one is proc)
**at this lvl**
Fire Shield
Rise of the Phoenix
Bonfire

Not sure about slotting the rest. might be missing a slot or 2. all from memory. I dont have mid's because im on a Mac.

6 slot snap, aimed, blazing arrow and Char with thunderstrike, thats almost 16% ranged defense.

6 slotting Stunning Shot with Stupefy will grant you anther 3.13% ranged def.

Manuvers will grant 2.5% to all, I'd recommend dropping tactics. I feel you would get better use out of that Gaussian's Proc in Aim or Build Up.

The two sets of Zephyrs you already have are granting 6.26% ranged def combined, throw a steadfast res/def unique into fire shield and you are roughly at 32ish +ranged def.

Combat Jumping could be 2 slotted with Zephyrs, for anther 3.13%, if you could find something you felt comfortable dropping.

This gets you in the neighborhood of 35%, if your trying to get higher you could slot aim or BU with a full set of Guassians for 2.5% percent to all. Both stun in your secodary and RotP can be six slotted with stupify for more 3.13% bonuses. I'm not positive you got enough slots to go around for that though.

Mako's could go into your melee attacks, just remember you can only slot a particular bonus 5 times. If you go with 3 sets of Zephyr's and a set of Stupefy you can only slot one set of Mako's for the ranged defense bonus. A second set of Mako's wouldn't grant the 3.13 ranged def.

I think you have a 6.25% recharged bonus going to waste right now in your build. Decimation ,Posi and Entropic are all 6.25% IRC, and I'm counting 6 of them in your build right now.

If I was never going to go into melee, I would go with force mastery for the resistance and get my ranged defense from IOs and pool powers. If, however, I want to be able to stand in melee, I would then choose cold mastery for the smash/lethal defense power and try to up my smash/lethal as much as possible. Ideally also having high +ranged defense.