Catastrophic Defense Failure: thinking out loud

Having played nearly every type of resistance toon and defense toon (blueside) as well as having heavily IOed them out I can attest to the fact that having defense without DDR is never completely worthless.

Most defense debuffing mobs do so at ranged with gun attacks, thus if you can move them to melee the -def usually goes away.

My tanks who don't have softcap defenses will generally manage to handle the alpha strike before defense is cascaded to nothing, then mobs move to range and the debuffs fade away. This leaves a round or two of attacks to get through, which means I'll be hitting my heal or mass knockdown power while waiting for defense to come back online. This is the most common scenario where defense debuffs effect my toons and rarely does the cascade failure last more than 6-12 seconds. Popping a purple before hand will usually put these toons close to 45% which means I'll hardly notice any defense debuffs before they close to melee.

The other case is against sword wielding mobs like warriors,various katana users or romans. These mobs will continue to debuff you in melee range. On toons with less than 40% melee/lethal defense they will likely be cascaded to negative defense in short order(1-2 rounds).Toons with 40-45% defense will typically last 1-4 rounds of attacks before failure occurs, depending on the mercy of the RNG.

In all cases you typically get 1-2 rounds of protection out of moderate defense buffs ( 20% or more) and those 10 seconds or so could mean living or dying. Therefor defense is never useless.

I think this thread is lacking some perspective.

It's incredibly baffling to me that people are casually talking about soft-capping non-def sets as if it were a no-brainer or a trivial task. For all the IOing I do, I have never managed to soft-cap a res-based character. I suspect this is also the case for the vast majority of IO users, and I cringe at the thought of the level of sacrifice, not to mention investment, one would have to make to get there.

I think it's relevant to consider the effects of stacking -def on these builds as well.

I'll list some of my characters IOed for def and my experience with them below. Negligible def positions/types are omitted.

-SS/WP brute: 32 S/L/F/C 30 E/N, 17 DDR
Excellent survivability against most enemies, but fairly susceptible to stacking -def. Archnemesis: hard-hitters with ranged -def.

-WP/EM tanker: 39 S/L/F/C 40 E/N, 21.6 DDR
Despite superior layered defences, this character faces higher expectations as a tanker than the brute and falls a little short. Generally faces the same hurdle as the brute. Archnemesis: Arachnos.

-Dark/dark tanker: 25 S/L 26 F/C 29 E/N, 0 DDR
The def is meant to supplement the character's defences. It helps her reduce incoming damage to a more manageable level, but crumbles rapidly against any -def. Archnemesis: Cimerorans.

-Elec/elec tanker: 27 S/L 19 F/C 23.9 E/N, 0 DDR
Similar to the dark/dark. Archnemesis: Arachnos toxic spiders.

-Stone/stone brute: (non-granite) 29 S/L 26.7 E/N 35.2 psi, 41.5 DDR
She doesn't last long, -def or no -def.

-Stone/stone brute: (granite) 35.7 S/L 35 F/C 34.4 E/N, 48.4 DDR
Defence debuffs add up quickly, especially in the case of Cimerorans, Longbow, PPD/Nictus, and Bobcat's minions. She generally has enough mitigation tools to prevent a crisis, but it still happens. I nicknamed her secondary paper armour for that reason.

-Stone/stone tanker: (non-granite) 37.8 S/L 41.1 E/N 46 psi, 51.9 DDR
Performs remarkably well. I generally avoid using this mode to fight enemies known for stacking -def.

-Stone/stone tanker: (granite) 45.2 S/L 40.8 F/C 47.7 E/N, 60.6 DDR
Worst offender of stacking -def that threatens this character would be Recluse. Multiple groups of Cimerorans can also pose a moderate threat (e.g. ITF towers).

-DB/SR brute: soft-capped to positions, 95% DDR
Defence debuffs have no noticeable effect whatsoever, with the exception of unresistable debuffs. The character dies most often to successive streaks or one-shot attacks with DoT.

-Night Widow: soft-capped to positions, 26.6 DDR
Extremely susceptible to stacking -def. With mind link, her def goes into the 50's, but a couple of gunshots and all that def starts evaporating fast. This happens with alarming regularity despite the character's low health.

While defence debuffing does not necessarily make defence useless, it can well start to feel that way when any gun-toting thug can hit you once and instantly nullify several of your def bonuses. In the case of enemies that inflict -def with every attack, defence alone is flimsy protection.

Obligatory screenshot: http://euniana.kahlan.org/cox-lummy-vs-ppd.jpg