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Considering Elec's S/L resists are mediocre at best, stacking as much S/L defence as possible is probably your best bet. At that point, the only thing you might actually fear are heavy Fire attacks, as a number of them don't have an S/L component and your resists for them aren't particularly good.|
Originally Posted by kendo
looking for some assistance from the electric armor tanks. trying to plan out a new elec/elec and intend to layer a reasonable amount of defense on top of the resists. which works out better for an electric tank - building for S/L or Melee defenses? with the variety of attack types, resist powers, defense powers available in these power sets, I can go either way pretty easily.
if I went melee, not looking to go crazy trying to pump up ranged and AOE defense which leads me to consider going S/L instead. thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated |
Lastly, building up S/L defence will probably build up your Melee defence decently anyway, as those IOs tie together.
Go with S/L defense; it'll protect you against more damage than any other single defense type or position. The majority of all attacks are S/L outright and a majority of the non-S/L damage types also have an S/L component to them, so that defense applies.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
Also, you can slot Reactive Armors in your resistance toggles to get typed resistances. I don't think you can get positional defenses in those powers and slots you're already taking.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
I focused on melee and s/l. This way I'd be safe for melee of all kinds and the s/l would stop a lot of ranged attacks. Ended up with 35% melee / 30% sl / 20% ranged / 19% nrg-neg.
Now this is a DB/Elec scrapper build but you can see where I got my defenses (I went for +maxhp too):
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hmmm. I've experienced my elec/ tank to be one of my most durable... and made the decision not to enh for defense... and went after regen and health. Been a breeze on most foes.
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
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you can get 2.5% melee from red fortune but have to take 6 slots. 4 slotted reactive gets you 1.5% in both s/l and en/neg. I have gone both directions on other characters but they started off with some defense. so I would build on whichever base they already had.|
Originally Posted by Sailboat
Also, you can slot Reactive Armors in your resistance toggles to get typed resistances. I don't think you can get positional defenses in those powers and slots you're already taking.
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but this would also be why I mentioned that if I went melee, I probably wouldn't be pushing up ranged and AOE. have to spend a lot a slots in things like the armors to get the higher melee.
s/l seems to be a bit easier on slots though harder to get the bigger amounts in one place.
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I usually find it better to focus on either typed defense or positional defense, but when I do that I am also usually building up all 3 positions. I can see where this could be an interesting exception. go for good melee but let the s/l take care of a majority of the ranged and AOE attacks. |
Originally Posted by Kioshi
I focused on melee and s/l. This way I'd be safe for melee of all kinds and the s/l would stop a lot of ranged attacks. Ended up with 35% melee / 30% sl / 20% ranged / 19% nrg-neg.
Now this is a DB/Elec scrapper build but you can see where I got my defenses (I went for +maxhp too): |
thanks for posting this build, will have to give it some thought. though it would be pretty expensive with all the Oblits in there. if you can even find all the pieces, supply has been a bit tight at times.
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with the relatively recent changes to energize, I am definitely going to also be looking at adding some extra regen and health, along with recharge to have that up as often as possible. in fact, that change is what is making me think of taking another stab at an elec. I tried one when they first came out and really didn't feel like it stacked up well to most of the other sets. I wanted to give electric melee a shot and like the synergy it could have with the armor.|
Originally Posted by Chyll
hmmm. I've experienced my elec/ tank to be one of my most durable... and made the decision not to enh for defense... and went after regen and health. Been a breeze on most foes.
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but electric reminds me a bit of my fire tanks where I relied on health and the excellent heal in that set. it did well but it did so much better when I added some defense on it instead of relying on the resists and heal.
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With Energy resist capped, tough, and good resists across the board the durability is nice. But mine is /DM, so I get another heal in my chain. Boosted health and regen, and the +regen in energize is a fabulous spike in ability to put the green bar back up - he can take a serious pounding. He also shrugs off any defense debuffers (Cims, etc) without any real stress.
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Originally Posted by kendo
with the relatively recent changes to energize, I am definitely going to also be looking at adding some extra regen and health, along with recharge to have that up as often as possible. in fact, that change is what is making me think of taking another stab at an elec. I tried one when they first came out and really didn't feel like it stacked up well to most of the other sets. I wanted to give electric melee a shot and like the synergy it could have with the armor.
but electric reminds me a bit of my fire tanks where I relied on health and the excellent heal in that set. it did well but it did so much better when I added some defense on it instead of relying on the resists and heal. |
City of Heroes was my first MMO, & my favorite computer game.
R.I.P.
Chyll - Bydand - Violynce - Enyrgos - Rylle - Nephryte - Solyd - Fettyr - Hyposhock - Styrling - Beryllos - Rosyc
Horryd - Myriam - Dysquiet - Ghyr
Vanysh - Eldrytch
Inflyct - Mysron - Orphyn - Dysmay - Reapyr - - Wyldeman - Hydeous
Here is my 2 cents - My main is a electric/electric brute that I have been playing since they first came out she is built to tank and is a beast.
Softcap (45 Def) S/L take tough/weave and combat jumping. You may also end up with a few other bonus my range ends up around 19%
Then get your recharge up to get Energize and Power sink up as much as possible
I use energize as a heal mostly but will hit it for longer battles, power sink is great for mitigation when needed and works great on large teams to help taunt and safety of a team
Next get as much + HP and Regen as you can
The downside is you will have to spend a lot of cash to do this, but you could save money by using more slots for cheaper Io's to build S/L def.
A example would be Kinetic Combat Vs Smashing Haymaker
There is a great guide for invulnerability tanks on the forums for softcapping - Has a lot of options listed in it.
Freedom Server - Main = Lil Bug & way too many alts to list
I'm putting a strong vote in here for Melee Defense.
I don't buy the argument that Electric Armor is too squishy to S/L and you need it S/L defense to compensate. Resist based armors basically cry for Tough, this is true, but once you get it, you're no longer squishy to S/L - Once you bump up from 55% to 80% S/L resist, things get much easier.
Yes, S/L defense overall is a bit better than melee defense. But what you have to do to get lots of S/L defense isn't worth it for me. Your overall set bonuses will be better, more rounded, going melee defense, and you'll get a better overall toon.
Compare some of the sets and you'll see what I mean. With the Electric attack powers, you'll have a ton of PBAoE attacks - Obliteration is one of the best non-purple sets in the game, giving great bonuses across the board, and it builds for melee defense. Going for S/L defense, you go for a lot of sets that don't do much besides S/L - Kinetic Combat, for instance.
Finally, Melee and S/L sets provide bonuses for each other, so if you go heavy for Melee you'll still get a lot of S/L. If you have stuff like Combat Jumping and Weave, your total S/L defense will probably be at least 25%, which combined with the 80% resist means you won't take much damage from S/L ranged attacks - nothing you can't regenerate.
Finally, capped melee defense is probably better for tanking AVs and GMs all told, though this isn't something I have much expertise in.
FWIW, on my Elec/Elec brute I built for Melee primarily and got it up to about 29-30% and had about 25% S/L as well. Made a world of difference. I rolled him back in I7 and boy did the buff to Energize and the build for defense make a HUGE difference. I was using Powersurge all the time in those days, and the new build allowed me to respec out of it (I really don't like Tier-9s with big crashes).
On a tank, you probably cannot go wrong building for either Melee or S/L. Depends on what your plan is for him, if you big team tank a lot versus solo or small team, AV/Hero hunting, farming and so on.
Cheers
[B] GUARDIAN 50s:[/B] [B]Tank[/B]: Ice/Fire, Fire/Fire, DA/SS, Inv/WM, SD/Elec...[B]Scrap[/B]: BS/Reg, Spin/DA, DM/SD, Fire/WP, Claws/SR....[B]Troller[/B]: Ill/Rad, Fire/Kin...[B]Blaster[/B]: Fire/EM....[B]Defender[/B]: D3...[B]Brute[/B]: Elm/ElA...[B]EPIC[/B]: Widow, PB, Crab...CURRENTLY: 45 Stone/Stone Tank...38 AR/Rad Corr...21 Ice^3 Dom
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leaning towards this line of thinking, that the sets that boost melee like obliteration have better over-all bonuses than those that boost s/l. however, I can still get a very good mixture of s/l by slotting powers where that makes more sense, like 4 slotting reactive in the shields instead of 6 slotting red fortunes.|
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
I'm putting a strong vote in here for Melee Defense.
I don't buy the argument that Electric Armor is too squishy to S/L and you need it S/L defense to compensate. Resist based armors basically cry for Tough, this is true, but once you get it, you're no longer squishy to S/L - Once you bump up from 55% to 80% S/L resist, things get much easier. Yes, S/L defense overall is a bit better than melee defense. But what you have to do to get lots of S/L defense isn't worth it for me. Your overall set bonuses will be better, more rounded, going melee defense, and you'll get a better overall toon. Compare some of the sets and you'll see what I mean. With the Electric attack powers, you'll have a ton of PBAoE attacks - Obliteration is one of the best non-purple sets in the game, giving great bonuses across the board, and it builds for melee defense. Going for S/L defense, you go for a lot of sets that don't do much besides S/L - Kinetic Combat, for instance. Finally, Melee and S/L sets provide bonuses for each other, so if you go heavy for Melee you'll still get a lot of S/L. If you have stuff like Combat Jumping and Weave, your total S/L defense will probably be at least 25%, which combined with the 80% resist means you won't take much damage from S/L ranged attacks - nothing you can't regenerate. Finally, capped melee defense is probably better for tanking AVs and GMs all told, though this isn't something I have much expertise in. |
it will be expensive but not nearly as bad as some of the purple builds you see and what the heck, it's only influence and you need a goal to reach for
borrowing from several of the excellent posts here, the current build I put together has 40% melee, 35% s/l, 73% s/l resist and enough recharge to have energize up every 37 seconds when hasten is active. also enough regen and health to push almost 400% regen when energize is active. may not be the absolute best in any of those categories but I think the over-all effect and layering should work out pretty well
more input would certainly be welcome but many thanks to everyone who contributed. now to go start earning a few hundred million influence
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If I'm reading your post right you might be comparing some apples and oranges here - Reactive is a Resist set, Red Fortune is a Defense set. You can't slot Red Fortune into your armors. If what you meant was whether you should choose slots for defense or resist powers, remember that you need to slot heavily for your Resist powers anyway, since you really want to max out Resist and Endurance Reduction in your Resist toggles (perhaps not Static Shield).|
Originally Posted by kendo
leaning towards this line of thinking, that the sets that boost melee like obliteration have better over-all bonuses than those that boost s/l. however, I can still get a very good mixture of s/l by slotting powers where that makes more sense, like 4 slotting reactive in the shields instead of 6 slotting red fortunes.
it will be expensive but not nearly as bad as some of the purple builds you see and what the heck, it's only influence and you need a goal to reach for borrowing from several of the excellent posts here, the current build I put together has 40% melee, 35% s/l, 73% s/l resist and enough recharge to have energize up every 37 seconds when hasten is active. also enough regen and health to push almost 400% regen when energize is active. may not be the absolute best in any of those categories but I think the over-all effect and layering should work out pretty well more input would certainly be welcome but many thanks to everyone who contributed. now to go start earning a few hundred million influence |
The melee defense equivalent to Reactive Armor is Titanium Armor - It gives 2.5% melee defense but you need all 6 slots. It's not a great set, but neither is Reactive - none of the resist sets really give great bonuses.
As for slotting Defense slotting, such as for Combat Jumping and Weave, I didn't take Red Fortune on my elec/elec, since it gives Ranged Defense. I love Red Fortune on things like Controllers/Blasters/Corruptors, but not on tanks particularly. It's also slot heavy. If you have the dough you can 4-slot weave with the appropriate Luck of the Gambler pieces, and 2-slot Combat Jumping with the same, and pick up more Regen and stuff - this is what I'm doing on my elec/elec, saving slots for other powers while still getting near max defense enhancing on CJ/Weave.
You certainly can take Red Fortune for these powers if you want a more generalist approach with Ranged Defense - more 5% recharges is always a good thing, if you can't afford the 7.5%'s in Luck of the Gambler - but then you really need to be saving the six slots for each defense power you have.
If you're going for an insane recharge build, then you can always go five Red Fortune and the LotG 7.5 in the six slot.
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my bad, it's titanium on the resist side that provides the 2.5% melee defense I mentioned. so I looked at the trade off of 4 slotting reactive vs 6 slotting titanium and decided to go the 4 slot route and use the 6 slots I save somewhere else. like 4 slotting weave with the LotG set pieces. and an extra slot in CJ for the kismet + accuracy.|
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
If I'm reading your post right you might be comparing some apples and oranges here - Reactive is a Resist set, Red Fortune is a Defense set. You can't slot Red Fortune into your armors. If what you meant was whether you should choose slots for defense or resist powers, remember that you need to slot heavily for your Resist powers anyway, since you really want to max out Resist and Endurance Reduction in your Resist toggles (perhaps not Static Shield).
The melee defense equivalent to Reactive Armor is Titanium Armor - It gives 2.5% melee defense but you need all 6 slots. It's not a great set, but neither is Reactive - none of the resist sets really give great bonuses. As for slotting Defense slotting, such as for Combat Jumping and Weave, I didn't take Red Fortune on my elec/elec, since it gives Ranged Defense. I love Red Fortune on things like Controllers/Blasters/Corruptors, but not on tanks particularly. It's also slot heavy. If you have the dough you can 4-slot weave with the appropriate Luck of the Gambler pieces, and 2-slot Combat Jumping with the same, and pick up more Regen and stuff - this is what I'm doing on my elec/elec, saving slots for other powers while still getting near max defense enhancing on CJ/Weave. You certainly can take Red Fortune for these powers if you want a more generalist approach with Ranged Defense - more 5% recharges is always a good thing, if you can't afford the 7.5%'s in Luck of the Gambler - but then you really need to be saving the six slots for each defense power you have. If you're going for an insane recharge build, then you can always go five Red Fortune and the LotG 7.5 in the six slot. |
thanks for catching the oops on red fortune. I use that set all the time to fill out ranged defense but not on this one
S/L is the way to go my electric brute used to be caped to Melee and I ran that way for about 3 months or so until I read up about defense more. I also had all my squishes set for ranged defense as well. I took 2 of my squishes and Electric brute and took them to test with soft-capping S/l instead and there was a world of difference. My survivability has went up with having S/L capped over Melee
There are more attacks in the game that have S/L attached to it the Melee. If you only go Melee then every ranged & AOE attack will hit you.
If you want to talk set Bonus now we will take Kinetic Combat (4 slots) and Touch of death(6 slots). For single target to get the S/L bonus you need 4 slots as opposed to Melee you have to 6 slot. This may be ok for some powers, but it would take you 12 slots(2 single target attacks) to get 7.5 defense (2 X 3.75). Where as going S/L 12 slots gets you 3 powers and 11.25 defense (3 X 3.75) or get 7.5 with only 8 slots. This makes it easy to slot your weaker attacks or even slotting boxing. Also the other set bonus they have both the same Immobilization and HP bonus, the only thing extra you get with Touch of death is hold resistance and a 2.5% damage buff.
Yes I do agree that Obliteration is the best set for PBAOE attacks but you still get 1.88 to S/L with it and most electrics will skip Jacobs Ladder in there final build and its much better to put a force feedback + recharge in Thunderstrike and then 5 slot the set with a purple set.
So lets talk other powers that you will slot for Defense bonus. The best set for your resistance shields is Reactive Armor with 4 slots for S/L of 1.25 plus you also get 1.25 to energy/neg or .63% to ranged. You would have to 6 slot it with Titanium Coating for 2.5 % but the rest of the set bonus are pretty bad.
The next is Taunt every 1 of the taunt sets have S/L as the bigger number with the top 2 sets giving very high numbers and other good set bonus.
The best thing I can tell anyone is try it on test with a softcap to Melee build and a soft-cap to S/L build grab a bunch of mobs and heard them up and watch how many miss you on both. This is what I did and S/L won every time.
Freedom Server - Main = Lil Bug & way too many alts to list
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Not buying some of the logic here. Here's a big reason: you are comparing a Brute to a Tank. A Brute with armor and tough maxes at about 60% S/L Resist, a Tank at 80% S/L Resist. A brute takes double the S/L damage before we get into defense. Consequently, the S/L ranged damage is a much bigger deal to Brutes than it is to Tanks.|
Originally Posted by monkey0707
S/L is the way to go my electric brute used to be caped to Melee and I ran that way for about 3 months or so until I read up about defense more. I also had all my squishes set for ranged defense as well. I took 2 of my squishes and Electric brute and took them to test with soft-capping S/l instead and there was a world of difference. My survivability has went up with having S/L capped over Melee
There are more attacks in the game that have S/L attached to it the Melee. If you only go Melee then every ranged & AOE attack will hit you. If you want to talk set Bonus now we will take Kinetic Combat (4 slots) and Touch of death(6 slots). For single target to get the S/L bonus you need 4 slots as opposed to Melee you have to 6 slot. This may be ok for some powers, but it would take you 12 slots(2 single target attacks) to get 7.5 defense (2 X 3.75). Where as going S/L 12 slots gets you 3 powers and 11.25 defense (3 X 3.75) or get 7.5 with only 8 slots. This makes it easy to slot your weaker attacks or even slotting boxing. Also the other set bonus they have both the same Immobilization and HP bonus, the only thing extra you get with Touch of death is hold resistance and a 2.5% damage buff. Yes I do agree that Obliteration is the best set for PBAOE attacks but you still get 1.88 to S/L with it and most electrics will skip Jacobs Ladder in there final build and its much better to put a force feedback + recharge in Thunderstrike and then 5 slot the set with a purple set. So lets talk other powers that you will slot for Defense bonus. The best set for your resistance shields is Reactive Armor with 4 slots for S/L of 1.25 plus you also get 1.25 to energy/neg or .63% to ranged. You would have to 6 slot it with Titanium Coating for 2.5 % but the rest of the set bonus are pretty bad. The next is Taunt every 1 of the taunt sets have S/L as the bigger number with the top 2 sets giving very high numbers and other good set bonus. The best thing I can tell anyone is try it on test with a softcap to Melee build and a soft-cap to S/L build grab a bunch of mobs and heard them up and watch how many miss you on both. This is what I did and S/L won every time. |
I don't know about you, but I take Jacob's ladder in my final build; it's not a terrible power and one more Obliteration is great.
As I said, all the Resist sets are pretty sucky; Titanium isn't anything special, but Reactive is plain lousy. 4 slots to get 1.25% S/L and little else (Energy Defense isn't exactly needed on an Electric Tank), whereas Titanium gets you 2.5% and a nice hit point buff.
Touch of Death to Kinetic Combat is probably the worst set comparison for melee defense, and yet Touch of Death is probably just as good - for two slots, you get a 2.5% damage buff, a damag proc in the power, and increased End/Rdx in the power on the enhancement.
Here's the thing: your Tank is going to be extremely hard to kill either way. The 'you gotta take S/L' argument argues that 80% Resist and 25-30% defense to ranged S/L attacks isn't good enough. I don't really buy that.
I advise playing around with the different sets and seeing what overall bonuses you get in other areas that may matter to you - recharge, Regen, Damage, HP, accuracy, etc. - and seeing what you like best. The hybrid approach of taking both Melee and S/L depending on your preference of each particular set and its bonuses is very viable. Whatever way you go, a tank with high Resists and high defenses is going to be hard to kill.
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I thought I heard somewhere that the multiple damage-type attacks have to be tagged as such for that to help. So a ranged ice attack with smash damage would have to be tagged as ice and smash before your S/L defense did anything to help. I'm pretty the same person clarified it as: Resistance checks damage types, Defense checks damage tags (or something to that effect).|
Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
The majority of all attacks are S/L outright and a majority of the non-S/L damage types also have an S/L component to them, so that defense applies.
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Can anyone confirm that?
@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
i actually went the route of s/l resistance first then melee defense.course that meant diving into the pvp i.o's which unless your loaded now it wont happen.luckily i got all mine before the nerfing of the drop rates.
i got to like just over 88% resistance and over 30% melee defense and havent had any issues thanks to it even with all the -def powers currently out there
what i dont like about slotting lesser resistance i.o's is the fact that it also comes with lesser resistance totals.
my elec/sm broke me...still currently broke..lol but hes a monster!
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This is correct, although not a problem for most attacks, fireball is the exception I know, in that it does fire/smash but is only tagged as fire. Ice blast and BIB are tagged as cold and smashing.
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Originally Posted by Rylas
I thought I heard somewhere that the multiple damage-type attacks have to be tagged as such for that to help. So a ranged ice attack with smash damage would have to be tagged as ice and smash before your S/L defense did anything to help. I'm pretty the same person clarified it as: Resistance checks damage types, Defense checks damage tags (or something to that effect).
Can anyone confirm that? |
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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Ah, ok then. Good to know most are tagged accordingly. Thanks, Min!
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Originally Posted by Minotaur
This is correct, although not a problem for most attacks, fireball is the exception I know, in that it does fire/smash but is only tagged as fire. Ice blast and BIB are tagged as cold and smashing.
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@Rylas
Kill 'em all. Let XP sort 'em out.
looking for some assistance from the electric armor tanks. trying to plan out a new elec/elec and intend to layer a reasonable amount of defense on top of the resists. which works out better for an electric tank - building for S/L or Melee defenses? with the variety of attack types, resist powers, defense powers available in these power sets, I can go either way pretty easily.
if I went melee, not looking to go crazy trying to pump up ranged and AOE defense which leads me to consider going S/L instead.
thoughts, suggestions would be appreciated