If +resistance IO bonuses were worth it...?

...would you go for them instead of +defense bonuses?

It seems that every build I make, in order to increase survivability, the question always is Positional or Typed defense?

Defense bonuses are stupidly easy to come by and stack, whereas resistance bonuses are not only tiny to the order of worthless, but are so over the place getting a decent amount all around just does not feel doable, nor worth the effort.

For example:
3 slotted Cleaving Blow increases Energy and Negative Energy Defense by 1.25%. Three slotted Scirocco's Dervish increases Negative Energy Resistance by 3.13%. Following the loose rule that 2 res = 1 def, changing Scirocco to provide 2.5% resistance to energy and negative energy would be a start.

Likewise, place more +res bonuses around. There's plenty of room in those very low mezz protection bonuses (which also need a look at) and the debt prevention bonuses. Make them a viable option.

Assuming they made some modifications and paired the resistance bonuses on S/L, E/N, F/C, and bumped the values a bit, and made them more accessible, do you have some alts that would go after them?

If getting 30% resistance to Smashing/Lethal was as easy as it is to get 15% defense to Smashing/Lethal, would you be interested on some alts?

Or would defense prevail no matter what?

NOTE: I'm aware defense has the advantage of avoiding side effects. But there's also defense debuffs, which might make resistance attractive.

Supposedly 1 defense = 2 dam-res.

Would I like to be able to get at least half of the dam-res to all that I can get for positional defense to melee, range and aoe?

Ummm, yes.

Depending on the avatar, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.

I already know what kind of punishment my Willpower and Fire tanks can take when using Peeble's Ring. Being able to have that resistance all the time? I'd take it.

+Resist bonuses are generally ignored by most because of the fact it has very little effect on toons overall. This is because of the huge difference between defense and resist damage mitigation.

A person with a base of 47% resist to lethal when hit with an attack that deals 100 points only receives 53 points of damage. That +3% resist bonus would only help drop that attack to 50 points of damage. However in the case of defense, if a player has 42% def to lethal and puts on a +3% def bringing it up to 45% def to lethal. That player now only has a 5% chance to even get hit with lethal attacks.

Even if +resist effects were buffed and given out on a larger degree, most people would still favour +Def bonuses. I'd consider it on my invun toons, not so much on my others.

Depends on the toon. For a lot of my toons not being hit is imperative because it means avoidance of the secondary effect the attack carries.

I'd likely build in a bit of resistance just to smooth things out, but generally not at the cost of recharge.

It would be nice to be able to cap resistances on my brutes and scrappers as easily as I cap defense. Some characters I would probably prefer it. Can't imagine it happening though, sounds like a ton of work.

Don't see it happening, but I would love it on some of my characters.

For squishy characters like Defenders and Blasters I think I'd still prefer defense but for melee characters I can see some advantage in resistance if it was effective.

In terms of actually making it effective I think three things need to be done:
1. Replace all single resistance bonuses with double resistance bonuses (i.e. a Small Smashing resistance bonus would become a Small Smashing/Lethal Resistance bonus)
2. Increase the [url=http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Invention_Origin_Enhancement_Set_Bonuses#Base_Valu es]base value[/quote] of the double resistance bonuses from 0.63% to somewhere between 1.25% and 2.5%
3. Increase the number of resistance bonuses available either by adding new sets or replacing less useful bonuses in existing sets (*cough*debt protection*cough*)

As for why:
1. This is basically for the same reason typed defense bonuses were all doubled up, using IOs to build up 8 different resistances sucks, building up 3 or 4 is a lot more reasonable
2. As others have said 1% defense is worth more than 1% resistance, generally people use a 1:2 ratio so since defense bonuses have a base value of 1.25% resistance needs at least that to be comparable to typed defenses, personally I think 2.5% would be a bit to good in part because resistance bonuses tend to come earlier than defense bonuses so I'd probably use 2% as the base value.
3. There are a severe lack of sets with resistance bonuses in general. Even if the other two changes were implemented actually building up resistance would be hard withotu adding decent resistance bonuses in higher end sets.

imo, resist bonuses shouldn't be lower than 5% and would be considered "minor resist bonus"

I'd still go for defense

Having 15% S/L defense is still better than having 30% S/L resistance, since the defense will provide mitigation against ALL attacks with a S/L component (such as Ice Blast, Fire Melee, Energy Blast, Dark Melee, Sonic Attacks, etc), while the 30% will only provide mitigation against S/L damage and nothing more

Though I can see how defense debuffs being so common compared to resistance debuffs can tilt the scale towards resistance

Well of course, if it was worth it I would do it. It is worth it after all.





On a more serious note, squishy characters without mez protection still generally benefit much more greatly from defense building than they do resistance building as they can decrease the incoming damage and amount they are mezed, while resistance would only decrease the damage. Ultimately, res bonuses would only be worth it for everyone if they also came with much higher levels of status resistance, not just by being bigger.

That being said, I would very much like it if my resistance based characters could raise their resistance to the same advantage that defense based characters can soft-cap their defenses.

"If these were worth using, would you use them?" Kind of an odd question.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Basically, the way I see it is this:

Having a 5% chance to take full damage from an attack will work in your favor FAR more often than a 50% chance to take 50% damage.

When you're in a fight, those reduced damage hits that are coming in will add up quickly. I cite as an example something like the RWZ Challenge. Trying to do that with defense is a LOT more likely to succeed than doing it with resistance.

For those who don't know, the RWZ Challenge is taking on a level 54 spawn of Rikti that includes at least 3 bosses. You are not allowed to use inspirations or temp powers.

They are +4 to you, meaning their chance to hit you is somewhat better than the 50% base chance of a minion. The bosses hit REALLY hard. Like, over 1,000 damage hard. So, they won't be missing very often and will still be doing in excess of 300 damage per hit after resistance is factored in, assuming 70% resist to that damage type. And there are at least 3 different damage types to worry about in a Rikti spawn: lethal, energy, and psionic. Odds of capping all 3 damage types on a single character are very slim at best.

Not to say that resistance isn't useful, but significant levels of defense become much more valuable than significant levels of resistance once you pass a certain threshold of difficulty in what you're trying to do.

+resistance in sets would really help SR out a bit, I think.

As it stands, you can softcap SR easily, you can softcap Shields with a bit of work, and you can softcap Dark Armor with a lot of work. Layering the defense on top of resistance based sets has a multiplicative effect on survivability. I feel it shouldn't be a one way street, though. You should be able to layer resistance on top of defense based sets.

I probably would not go for resistance even if resistance bonuses were, say, twice bigger than defense bonuses and just as available, unless on alts close to the resistance cap, or already defense softcapped with capped DDR and plenty of room for other sets (SR).

I'd never shift the focus from defense to resistance unless the values for resistance were ridiculously high, though. What kills me ingame is more often than not debuffs/mezzes enabling high damage spikes rather than pure damage, defense helps avoid that while resistance do nothing about it.