If +resistance IO bonuses were worth it...?
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-05-04 17:37 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
I think the answer to this is pretty simple - Toons with resist based defenses would take it and love it, and those without it would find it irrelevant.
I suspect the folks who would really like it would be those with resist-based armor Brutes, since Brutes have a great resist cap that can't be approached on a regular basis without sets.
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Moar Rularuu Sentries plox!
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Originally Posted by Vermain
I expect you'll just end up seeing more things with Defense debuffs or higher base accuracy in GR.
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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
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Soft capping to all three positions is different from soft capping to ranged and using hover, or soft capping to just Smashing/Lethal, which is what melee toons shoot for.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
And that right there is why I dislike how difficult it is to get DR.
As it stands, just about anyone can use IOs to become an SR scrapper. (Minus the DDR.) Why can't folks use IOs in the same way to become an Inv scrapper? |
There is also something to be said about soft capping without having to nerf your build. Builds that soft cap Smashing/Lethal or Ranged/AoE are making some form of sacrifice that is always overlooked. Super Reflexes doesn't have to do this.
That said, I feel that no build should be able to soft cap 100% of the time. There should be a cap at 40% or 42.5% that can only be exceeded through tier 9s (Elude, Kuji, Overload) or purple pills. Super Reflexes is already broken as is, and so is soft capping for other builds.
If the bonuses where as easy to get as +def ones, and twice bigger, i'd probably go for resist on a lot of characters.
One of the big advantage of resistance over defense is that it's reliable.
If you can survive 10 attacks before dying, and your heal recharge every 7-8 attacks, you'll always succeed.
Same if your resistance reduce the DPS you take under what you regen.
Defence on the other hand, you can play for 2 hours without getting hit, then receive 10 hits in a row. Very improbable, but not impossible thanks to the wonderfull world of probabilities and luck.
"It's a scrapper. If he can't handle it, no one can." -BrandX
As many have said, it would depend on the character. I'd undoubtedly end up, if possible, going for a combination of both as layered protections are always better than a single line of defense.
However, there are a lot of builds that can relatively easily soft cap defenses and still have significant room left in the build; it would be tempting to work on +res on those provided they had some base to work with. Hmm, an Invuln tanker, once he approaches the S/L/E/N soft cap would benefit significantly from adding another ~20% E/N resist for example.
On the other hand an Electric Armor tanker who's already pushing 60%+ resistance to most damage types would benefit more from adding moderate amounts of +res instead of basically starting defense from scratch.
It would certainly make for an interesting thought experiment... I'm not sure I'd expect to see any +res bonuses entering the game in the near future though.
All in all soft cap or near soft cap defense is so potent a mitigation that, excepting tankers with a 90% res cap, most AT's are better off with the defense than resist due to their 75% resistance cap.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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I think we'll probably see some mobs that buff the tohit of those around them, ala tactics but probably without the perception. Also more mobs that give "shout" commands and such that boost mez protection and either acc or tohit.|
Originally Posted by Vermain
I expect you'll just end up seeing more things with Defense debuffs or higher base accuracy in GR.
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I think Def as a whole will take a step down with some of the high lvl GR mobs. We might even see more mobs with weak versions of aim (ie much lower dam/tohit buff)
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Those caps were back when defense sets like Super Reflexes had no def debuff resistance. Nor was there a 'soft cap' for every enemy. An AV for example would hit you 75% of the time at even level. And this was due to to-hit. Enemies higher level then you got to-hit bonuses instead of acc bonuses. While minions had 50% tohit, a boss might have 60% tohit. And a minion who was 4 levels above you might have 75% tohit. Thus defense powers were hit hard by the purple patch. I remember fighting giant monsters, and I'd end up turning off my defense toggles. They didn't matter, since the GM was still hitting anytime they wanted to.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
Actually defense does have different caps between ATs. ATs will hard cap at DEF somewhere between 175% and 225%, I think, off the top of my head. It's just that those values are totally irrelevant. Seems like one of those things that the original devs put in without realizing the actual end results.
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Some enemies still get such high to-hit that it requires insane levels of defense to avoid being hit. Such as those freaking eyeballs in the shadow shard.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
Oh yeah... I probably should mention this. Back when they first added resistance inspirations I was all like "cool, resist based characters can get help too". Then I saw the values and haven't touched them once, even on characters with DR.
The only sort of resistance I'd even consider trying for with sets is.... psi resistance. Of course psi defense or ranged defense would be better.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." Lord Acton
Madam Enigma's History
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This makes absolutely no sense to me. If you're running an electric armor tank, orange inspirations are your bread and butter - an orange moves you from about 80% S/L resist to the cap at 90%. Halving the damage you take from many sources - I'd say that was pretty good for one inspiration, wouldn't you?
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Originally Posted by Madam_Enigma
Oh yeah... I probably should mention this. Back when they first added resistance inspirations I was all like "cool, resist based characters can get help too". Then I saw the values and haven't touched them once, even on characters with DR.
The only sort of resistance I'd even consider trying for with sets is.... psi resistance. Of course psi defense or ranged defense would be better. |
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A small purple offers you more mitigation than a large orange. The only time I use oranges are on my characters who are already soft-capped.
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Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
This makes absolutely no sense to me. If you're running an electric armor tank, orange inspirations are your bread and butter - an orange moves you from about 80% S/L resist to the cap at 90%. Halving the damage you take from many sources - I'd say that was pretty good for one inspiration, wouldn't you?
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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UNTRUE.|
Originally Posted by Dispari
A small purple offers you more mitigation than a large orange. The only time I use oranges are on my characters who are already soft-capped.
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Did you actually bother to read the example that I gave?
It completely depends what cap you're pushing up against. If you're pushing up against the resist cap, then resist insps will give you the best bang for your buck. If you're pushing up against the defense cap, then defense insps will. Of course, if you just want to not read carefully and say defense always wins, then that's your perogative.
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actually she's right. |
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
UNTRUE.
Did you actually bother to read the example that I gave? |
In my own experience with Fire / Electric / and Dark, purple inspirations are far more valuable and useful than oranges.
Wow, the ignorance runs deep on this board. If you're at 80% s/l resist, how would a purple help more than an orange? Someone enlighten me.
Perhaps this is a case of Scrapper bias, where lower caps make resist inherently inferior to defense on that class. But contrary to popular belief, not everyone's playing a scrapper.
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You are correct for the simple reason that each % of resistance or defense is more valuable than the % added before it.|
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
Wow, the ignorance runs deep on this board. If you're at 80% s/l resist, how would a purple help more than an orange? Someone enlighten me.
Perhaps this is a case of Scrapper bias, where lower caps make resist inherently inferior to defense on that class. But contrary to popular belief, not everyone's playing a scrapper. |
Added resistance/defense does not scale linearly with effective mitigation.
You still have to consider that a medium purple inspiration is like adding 50% resistance. While not enough to make you a god on its own, it's contributing more towards the cap than a medium or even a large orange.
If you gobble 2 medium purples, you're at the softcap. If you gobble 2 medium oranges, it doesn't do much. But considering that it only takes one orange to push you into the hardcap for resistance as an elec tank, the oranges are doing more for you.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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ok im goin to bite.....So you have 80% resist(yey!)....now the question becomes do i eat an orange and hit my cap reduceing incoming dmg by 90% or do i eat a purple and only have a 5% chance to get hit?|
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
Wow, the ignorance runs deep on this board. If you're at 80% s/l resist, how would a purple help more than an orange? Someone enlighten me.
Perhaps this is a case of Scrapper bias, where lower caps make resist inherently inferior to defense on that class. But contrary to popular belief, not everyone's playing a scrapper. |
Personally ill eat that purple any day of the week cuse even the small purples increase your def enuff that just 1-2 will softcap you easy.....Now the question of what is better is pretty easy to see imo......to get hit or not to get hit all the time? Honestly ide go for the purple over an orange any day because even at the resist cap your still taken dmg mabey not as much but its still hittin that green bar but at the soft cap of def you might only get hit once out of every 5 times.
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Please tell me which size purple inspriation gives 45% defense again?|
Originally Posted by Retilian
ok im goin to bite.....So you have 80% resist(yey!)....now the question becomes do i eat an orange and hit my cap reduceing incoming dmg by 90% or do i eat a purple and only have a 5% chance to get hit?
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How about I throw some math out there.
Small inspiration usage when you already have 80% resist:
No inspiration: Taking 20% damage of all attacks that hit. 50% attacks hit, so we're at 10% of incoming damage gets through.
Small orange: Taking 10% damage of all attacks that hit. 50% attacks hit, so now it's 5% of incoming damage that gets through.
Small purple: Taking 20% damage of all attacks that hit. 50%-12.5%= 37.5% attacks hit, so the result is 7.5% damage gets through.
In the case of 80% damage resistance, a small orange is better than a small purple.
Further study:
You can see that the two situations are comparable. The small purple is 50% less effective than the small orange. But what about medium inspirations?
Again, no inspiration: Taking 20% damage of all attacks that hit. 50% attacks hit, so we're at 10% of incoming damage gets through.
Medium orange: Same as before, in fact, some of the orange is wasted. Taking 10% damage of all attacks that hit. 50% attacks hit, so now it's 5% of incoming damage that gets through.
Medium purple: Now it gets interesting. 20% damage from attacks that hit, 25% attacks hit. Result is 5% of all incoming damage gets through. This is the same as the small orange.
So you can get the same result from a small orange that you can from a medium purple.
Yes, all this is making an assumption that all incoming damage is the resisted type of damage.
Where to now?
Check out all my guides and fiction pieces on my blog.
The MFing Warshade | The Last Rule of Tanking | The Got Dam Mastermind
Everything Dark Armor | The Softcap
don'T attempt to read tHis mEssaGe, And believe Me, it is not a codE.
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Ok, now this is just silly. First off, how does the Electric Tank suddenly only get hit 5% of the time by taking a small purple? Unless, you've been building defense through lots set bonuses and weave and such, a small purple does NOT softcap you. If it is the case that you've built up a lot of defense, then you're sitting pretty, since you can cap with EITHER an orange or a purple and both makes you a god.|
Originally Posted by Retilian
ok im goin to bite.....So you have 80% resist(yey!)....now the question becomes do i eat an orange and hit my cap reduceing incoming dmg by 90% or do i eat a purple and only have a 5% chance to get hit?
Personally ill eat that purple any day of the week cuse even the small purples increase your def enuff that just 1-2 will softcap you easy.....Now the question of what is better is pretty easy to see imo......to get hit or not to get hit all the time? Honestly ide go for the purple over an orange any day because even at the resist cap your still taken dmg mabey not as much but its still hittin that green bar but at the soft cap of def you might only get hit once out of every 5 times. |
As to the argument that it's better to be at the defense cap than the resist cap, this is incomprehensible to me. Personally, I'd have a slight preference for the resist cap because the damage flow is more even and less at the effect of the RNG, but both are dandy. But arguing that the defense cap is better because you get hit less often is...deliberately ignoring half the equation.
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I suppose you're talking an Elec Tank with Tough, since that's the only way you'd have 80% RES. So assuming all your RES stuff is fully slotted with level 50 IOs:|
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
Wow, the ignorance runs deep on this board. If you're at 80% s/l resist, how would a purple help more than an orange? Someone enlighten me.
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S/L: 79.2%
E: 90%
N: 35.8%
F/C: 35%
P: 55.55%
T: 0%
If you use a small orange, you end up with 89.2%. So for a 100 damage attack, you take 10.8 instead of 20.8. Which is almost half (-50% damage). Your E doesn't change at all, so that's -0% for E. For N/F/C you're taking 55 instead of 65. Which is about -16%.
A small purple would mean you take 25% less damage to S/L/E/N/F/C. Which, while it's less on the S/L, is better on everything else. Especially E, which gets no benefit from an orange at all. So unless you're fighting enemies that do only S/L damage (unlikely), adding a purple allows you to reduce all incoming damage by a flat 25%. Adding a purple allows you to reduce damage to energy, which an orange can't do.
Also, using a medium or large orange when you have that much RES is a huge waste. You're only one small orange away from being capped to 3 things, so if you do use an orange, anything after that should be a purple.
Now, baseline, a small purple is -25% all damage, and a small orange is -10% all damage. A large orange is -20% all damage. If you have extraordinary amounts of DEF or RES already, it is a good idea to play to your strength since both of them increase exponentially as you indicated. 80% -> 90% is half damage. I do use oranges on my Invuln Brute who has 70% S/L. But mostly because she already has 40-50% DEF when surrounded by enemies. But in most cases, a purple goes a lot farther than an orange.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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Your numbers look off to me. Base (with Tough) those numbers are:|
Originally Posted by Dispari
S/L: 79.2%
E: 90% N: 35.8% F/C: 35% P: 55.55% T: 0% |
S/L: 50%
E: 82.5%
N: 30%
F/C: 35%
P: 35%
T: 0%
Assuming your numbers for s/l are correct, that's 58.4% enhancement. If so, the slotted numbers should be:
S/L: 79.2%
E: 90%
N: 47.52%
F/C: 55.44%
P: 55.44%
T: 0%
My take? Lucks are my goto inspiration to get out of trouble because they provide unusually strong mitigation compared to any other inspiration in most circumstances. I do use oranges, but much rarer. (There are only two ATs that can get as much out of oranges as purples, Tanks/Brutes, and not all of them have high enough resistance to make it meaningful.)
As I think about what the topic was about (meaningful +res bonuses), I'm not sure how many characters I have would chase them. Defense, in general, has better perks (higher mitigaiton cap, avoid damage to mixed type attacks, avoidance of secondary effects, easier to stack with pool powers). In this case, the devil would really be in the details - how many bonuses are there, how big are they, how many slots do they take, etc.
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Maybe a missed a power. Oh well.|
Originally Posted by Sarrate
Your numbers look off to me.
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tl;dr: Purples are generally superior to oranges in nearly all situations.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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I don't disagree at all with the statement that purples are much better for most classes than oranges - this is obviously true because of the 45% vs. 90% disparity in how much defense/resist is required to reach a cap, and because defense is generally easier to get overall. |
Originally Posted by Dispari
I suppose you're talking an Elec Tank with Tough, since that's the only way you'd have 80% RES. So assuming all your RES stuff is fully slotted with level 50 IOs:
S/L: 79.2% E: 90% N: 35.8% F/C: 35% P: 55.55% T: 0% If you use a small orange, you end up with 89.2%. So for a 100 damage attack, you take 10.8 instead of 20.8. Which is almost half (-50% damage). Your E doesn't change at all, so that's -0% for E. For N/F/C you're taking 55 instead of 65. Which is about -16%. A small purple would mean you take 25% less damage to S/L/E/N/F/C. Which, while it's less on the S/L, is better on everything else. Especially E, which gets no benefit from an orange at all. So unless you're fighting enemies that do only S/L damage (unlikely), adding a purple allows you to reduce all incoming damage by a flat 25%. Adding a purple allows you to reduce damage to energy, which an orange can't do. Also, using a medium or large orange when you have that much RES is a huge waste. You're only one small orange away from being capped to 3 things, so if you do use an orange, anything after that should be a purple. Now, baseline, a small purple is -25% all damage, and a small orange is -10% all damage. A large orange is -20% all damage. If you have extraordinary amounts of DEF or RES already, it is a good idea to play to your strength since both of them increase exponentially as you indicated. 80% -> 90% is half damage. I do use oranges on my Invuln Brute who has 70% S/L. But mostly because she already has 40-50% DEF when surrounded by enemies. But in most cases, a purple goes a lot farther than an orange. |
But this isn't what was being argued - it was basically being claimed that oranges aren't worth using, even on resist-based toons, which just isn't true. Folks responded to my example of where it wasn't true to say they'd still use purples. With most toons, purples are an easy choice. But there are also clear cases where oranges are more useful, or the utility is about the same.
My tray usually goes like this:
2 Yellow (More when fighting Arachnos and the like)
2 Blue
3 Purple
Everything Else: Break Free
If I have Status Protection I just fill up on purples after that.
Even if I had a lot of resistance on my character I would still take purples. Especially if I had 80%, as the over all benefit I would get form purples would wind up being much higher.
Purples are *my* version of Unstoppable.
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It is not that Oranges do not give any benefit, but that purples generally give a higher one. As such, why would you carry around Oranges when Purples do the same job better? |
Originally Posted by MaxLongstreet
I don't disagree at all with the statement that purples are much better for most classes than oranges - this is obviously true because of the 45% vs. 90% disparity in how much defense/resist is required to reach a cap, and because defense is generally easier to get overall.
But this isn't what was being argued - it was basically being claimed that oranges aren't worth using, even on resist-based toons, which just isn't true. Folks responded to my example of where it wasn't true to say they'd still use purples. With most toons, purples are an easy choice. But there are also clear cases where oranges are more useful, or the utility is about the same. |
I'm hard pressed to find many examples where you wouldn't have been better off with purple instead.
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Because when you're running around at the softcap, more defense won't do you any good at all.
| As such, why would you carry around Oranges when Purples do the same job better? |
Be well, people of CoH.
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Which is incidentally pretty much the only time I use oranges. Except for small oranges, because I always burn small inspirations whatever they are.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Because when you're running around at the softcap, more defense won't do you any good at all.
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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU
Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.
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I expect you'll just end up seeing more things with Defense debuffs or higher base accuracy in GR.