Set Bonuses: Cover holes or boost strengths?

I was wondering about people's approach to set bonuses. In your experiences, is it your goal to use set bonuses to enhance strenghts you already have or to make up for abilities lacking in your AT/Powerset? For example, I've started a */Regeneration Scrapper and I'm looking ahead to set inventions. Is it overkill to slot all the +Regen, +Heal, +Recovery I can fit or maybe consider defense/resistance?

Thanks.

A lot of it depends on what holes and why.

I _always_ use IO's to cover a KB resist hole, because that's a fundamental imbalance in the game, in my opinion; it is entirely plausible in the late game to spend 75% of your time falling down or getting up.

The rest depends a lot on mechanics- the more Regen you have, the less adding Regen will help you. On the other hand, the more Defense you have [to a point] the more adding Defense helps you.

So in this specific case I'd recommend building up Defense or Recharge.

Both. Or neither. Since I couldn't realistically boost my Defender's damage to anything appreciable, I instead opted to max out his hp, regen, and recovery. He may not do much damage, but he's nearly impossible to kill. He can simply outlast most opponents. As for my Crab, he could have used more damage and defense. Instead, I maxed out his recharge. That lets him keep his pets out 100% of the time, and his dull pain clone perma'd. So more HP, and the pets absorb some of the threat damage while dishing damage of their own. All the purple set bonuses for him were additional gravy.

I simply don't think of set bonuses as covering holes or boosting strengths. I think of set bonuses as letting me achieve build goals, such as soft-capped defense, sufficient recharge for my desired attack string, and so on.

As a Regen Scrapper, prevailing wisdom is to slot for recharge, recharge, MORE recharge, and then defense. Don't bother with +regen except as happens accidentally. Don't bother with +hit points except as happens accidentally (you "need" just enough to be at the hit point cap with accolades and Dull Pain). Definitely don't bother with +heal. Resistance would be nice, but you get pretty negligible amounts out of set bonuses. Do take the fighting pool for Tough. Consider Weave if you're stacking some defense.

You could think of that as covering holes instead of improving on strengths. But I can give a counterexample with a Shield Defense Scrapper. You get a lot of defense with a Shield Defense Scrapper, but you want a lot more. You want to get to the 45% defense soft cap, so pile on those pool powers and set bonuses. That's the most critical part of the build in my opinion. You could think of that as improving on your strengths.

So the answer is a simple "it depends" and also "I wouldn't even look at it that way."

Also, you always want to be aware of (not necessarily avoid, but be aware of) the classic "completionist" pitfall: Sometimes IOing every power and/or six-set-slotting is a BAD thing. Some sets may not offer as much of a enhancement percentage as plain IOs do--is the resulting decrease in damage really worth an 1.5% increase in cold resistance? Debt protection--really? Similarly, sometimes a proc really isn't worth it. It may be fun to have a "Chance for Damage" enhancement...but what happens if you nuke that, and slot an ACTUAL damage enhancement in its place?

Maybe this is completely obvious, but I fall for it all the time.

I recently leveled up and slotted out a Claws/Regen Scrapper. In my case I went for Melee and Ranged Defense. Defense is a big hole for Regen Scrappers. They can die when spiked with damage if they aren't running MoG. Sure more Recharge will let you use MoG or IH more often, but they do go down.

I took Fitness, so I had Stamina and Quick Recovery. With both of those running, plus the usual Accolades, plus decent slotting in my attacks, I don't have any END problems. No need to slot for extra Recovery or END.

I got some HP bonuses from IO sets as a side effect of slotting the ones I wanted for Defense. That plus Accolades plus slotting Dull Pain moderately was enough to put me at the HP cap of 2409.

Sure I got 25% Global Recharge from 5 sets that grant +5% (Doctored Wounds, Red Fortune, Obliteration), plus one LotG, plus Hasten. But I wanted the Defense more than the Recharge. Last night I semi-tanked an ITF thanks to my Defense plus Ice Shields. We didn't have a Tanker, so I frequently led the charge. MoG was great when it was up, but the Defense and shields are what kept me alive when it was down. I ran through Maria's arc and hardly worked up a sweat fighting all those EBs. I rarely bothered with MoG or IH, as Reconstruction and Dull Pain were usually enough.

Neither, really. For me, primary build goals are always recharge and/or defense because for all characters these offer the greatest comparative benefit. +HP, Accuracy and for very few characters +Regen I consider secondary build goals (i.e. after I've got all the rech/def I want). +Dmg, +Res, +End are ancillary benefits that aren't worth specifically slotting for but are nice to have.

What Werner said. Goals. And by goals, I mean recharge.

I'm just going to chime in with the majority here: Do what benefits you the most.

This doesn't always mean covering weaknesses. For instance, trying to cover Invul's psi-hole, while doable (with some messed up slotting, you can get more psi resist than energy resist), doesn't give you a whole lot of long-term gain given the relatively few psi-wielding enemies out there. However, a slight boost to its already formidable defenses and resistances will make you darn near unstoppable the other 99% of the time. On the flip side, a Fire or Dark armor user will WANT KB protection, because that's not a weakness you can just ignore.

And then there are things which are simply performance enhancers that are not tied to a particular strength or weakness, Recharge, for example. Aside from Granite tanks, I don't think any powersets have a -recharge penalty, and in all but the most extreme cases (like a Controller's AoE Hold), recharge isn't a huge issue as far as getting attacks off and doing damage and surviving. But, extra recharge is almost always worth having more of. "How much" you want depends on your build and your dependency on your tier 8's and 9's.