Fortitude

Hello, my Defender friends. I'm working on an Empathy/Archery defender (Freedom, "Wrong Game?"). I'm wondering about slotting Fortitude. Should I focus on raising the Defense component first (to get more use out of it on those who get it), or the recharge component (to have it on as many people as possible)? Eventually I'll have both ED capped, but for now I can only cap one aspect, so this is a short term question. Is it worth slotting for the tohit buff? It is pretty good on its own, but would be massive enhanced.

I would slot for Recharge first and Defense second since having it on more people increases the chance of someone having the defense bonus when they need it.. The to hit bonus is large enough that you don't really need to slot for it.

I say recharge first. This will allow you to get it on more people and spread the love to more of the team. A reminder, there's three parts to fortitude: Defense, To-Hit Buff, and Damage buff. The more people that have it on your team, the more things will die.

As for final slotting suggestions:

Luck of the Gambler: Def/7.5%
Luck of the Gambler: Def/Rech
Membrane Exposure: Rech/Def/THB HamiO
Membrane Exposure: Rech/Def/THB HamiO

That slotting with lvl 50 LotG and nothing else in your entire build associated to it, you acquire the following: 57.78% Defense buff (71.88% pre-ED), 90.17% Recharge (93.1% pre-ED), and 40% To-hit buff. Actual numbers (with only this slotting and nothing else in your entire build: 30.4 second recharge, 23.7% defense buff, 26.3% THB.

On the scale of importance when slotting: Recharge, Defense, then To-hit buff.

A friendly reminder that I believe that everyone should be self sufficient and thus the damage buff is what I consider to the be the most important buff of the three that it does buff.

Depends on team size and whether you have Hasten. The bigger your usual team size, the more important recharge becomes. I usually get stuck on 8-man teams, so even though I have Hasten, I still give up some defense for recharge. (Currently slotted 1 def SO, 2 rech SOs).

If you typically duo or trio, of course recharge goes right out the window and you can slot only def DOs/SOs.

Unenhanced Fort will softcap teammates' tohit against almost all targets. I don't bother slotting tohit until I get Hamidon membranes, and even then, it's just a nice side effect that's included with the defense and recharge I want.

If you have some influence to burn, uncommon (yellow) Def/Rech IOs can solve the dilemma for you at a reasonable price. Assuming you're level 13, you could craft a level 16 Karma Def/Rech IO for under 25k inf (recipe and salvage included). Kismet Def/Rech.16 IO about the same. Gift of the Ancients Def/Rech.16 and Serendipity Def/Rech.16 IOs perhaps 75k each.

Oh by all means, I prioritize my buffing.

If the tank is having a hard time give him a fortitude, or anyone else catching aggro for that matter. Usually by mob 3 I know who I need to fortitude for defense purposes. However, defense wise, it's typically 2 maybe 3 people of the 8 man team that needs the fortitude, otherwise other mitigation can catch most of it (My Empath is Emp/Psi so Psi Tornado +rech and knockup ftw).

After that, I move to damage ideology. It's most important to keep people on their feet, but because of my mindset of everyone should be self-sufficient, I move to damage, which means the blasters/scrappers are the first to get it and typically are the ones that fall into your category of going "all out".

I'm not going to simply ignore the team needs for my silly ideologies. That'd be a silly ideology within itself!

Thanks, everyone, for the tips. I run 8-man PuGs because, as a support character, I don't feel sufficiently challenged on smaller teams. I try to put Fortitude on whoever gets the most benefit out of it, so a defense-based melee type is usually my first target.

Fort does 3 things:

Accuarcy
Damage
Defence.

1) Accuarcy - Everyone always slots to have good accuarcy by themselves, so this aspect of the power is just gravy.

2) Damage - Great aspect of the buff, but unenhanceable.

3) Defence - Most people cannot softcap themselves on defence. If they do, its a very expensive IO build and one you are unlikely to encounter.


So what to slot for?
1st Priority: Slot for defence, as I mentioned its not necessary to slot for the tohit bonus and the damage is not enhanceable. Increasing the defence of the power will greatly boost the survivability of anyone you use it on and makes it more likely you will be able to react with a heal fast enough.

2nd Priority: Recharge, because you want to cast it on as many people as possible. Warning: You will need to regularly be using Fortitude for these enhancements to be useful. So don't just Fort at the start and forget it.

My personal IO sets of choice is
Luck of the Gambler - Global Recharge/Defence.
Red Fortune - Everything but the "Endurance" one.

This will give you 12.5% global recharge, capped recharge and defence, and some other goodies.

Hope that helps!

For frankenslotting, def/rech is usually one of the cheap ones. Slot Serendipity, Red Fortune, and Kismet D/R and one each generic D and R, and you're capped for both Defense and Recharge, from level 30-ish on, for a few million and 5 slots.

I don't have an empathy defender, so the advice I have to give is how I feel from a team leader's perspective and a mathematical perspective.

By the numbers, you get more value out of recharge. More recharge allows you to keep the buff on more people at a time, which essentially multiplies the value of the power. Two people with fortitude at 15% defense each is more defense than one person at 23% defense.

I take that back. 23% defense added to one person is more protection than 15% defense added to two people. The way defense works, every percent does more than the percent that came before it. That last 5% does as much for someone's survivability as the first 40%.

Still, having the damage buff on more people is preferable in my mind.

When I'm playing my tank, fortitude provides me minimal benefit. If the enemies have heavy defense debuffs, then I'll appreciate fortitude, otherwise not at all. Tanks don't do enough damage to really benefit from the damage buff.

Blasters seem to get the most benefit from Fortitude. They have higher base damage, which is what damage bonuses build on, plus they have a higher than normal damage bonus cap. The DPS built controller or defender is still only boosting a small base number. Kheldians who have nova will do a lot better with Fortitude on. It helps them avoid mez as well as dish out more damage before they have to shift forms to recover from incoming damage.

Low levels, fortitude should be going on the defense based scrappers and tanks because of the aforementioned mechanics of defense. Pushing them from 30% to 45% is an unfathomable leap in survivability.

My fort rotation, all other things equal, goes Blaster -> Fender/Troller -> Scrapper/Tanker in priority of who get fort.

But I'm willing to change on demand as the situation needs it. Anyone single digits level SKed up (Happens a lot during sg nights) gets it, to help offset lack of slotting.

Bubbler on the team becomes my number 1 priority, usually getting the PBU Fort. (Heck, on a team with a bubbler I basically become their servant, as they keep me and the rest of the team safe. I'm just there to keep *THEM* safe)

Dechs Kaison wrote

Definitely slot for recharge first. Being able to Fortitude 1 or even 2 more people is much more valuable than increasing defense or tohit values by a couple percentages.