Fiery Aura and the Defensive Softcap, what?

I'm relatively new to the game, and I have been reading around on this forum about different classes and different abilities. Everyone goes on about the softcap... As a tank that makes good sense I guess, but why do so many scrappers go on about it? Now understand I am used to WoW, and if anyone but the tank gets hit by a boss that's all she wrote anyway, so no one other than tanks go for def. I realize this isn't WoW, but other than for soloing (farming) why would a scrapper (or stalker) want softcap (I assume that the squishies don't even try for it?) wanna softcap? Are AoEs that bad at endgame? Maybe it's necessary for farming (solo)?

I'm very curious about this as I got a BS/FA scrapper which I sort of would like to turn into a farmer (at least on one of his builds). So far my problem is getting tough, weave, and combat jumping costs me any and all powers in my ancillery pool (where I was hoping to get a couple of AoEs to supply my DmgAura, and BS AoEs. Is this simply not possible when also wanting softcap? Is it THAT necessary to softcap a scrapper (for farming?) and surely for teaming the tankers are meant to catch all the punches anyway?

Some answers and explanations would be most welcome.

Thanks in advance.

One possible explanation is that it is possible to softcap Defense at the same place as Tankers, while Resistance has a hard cap that is much lower. While comparing Defense to Resistance one to one is problematic, you can arguably get better survivability at the maximum from Defense.

The first thing you should know is that you really don't need to worry about this yet. You do not have to be at the softcap to any defense in order to have a functional and effective character at any level.

If you ask how to softcap a BS/FA on the Scrapper forums, I'm sure someone will oblige you with help. The Broadsword power Parry will probably be the single largest contributor to reaching the softcap on a budget, as it boosts your Melee and Lethal defenses on each hit. But I wanted you to know first and foremost that it is not in any way necessary - it's a way to pursue outlier performance.

Not all armor sets can softcap. I can see it being pretty damn hard to get /FA softcapped all the time. With access to the patron pools now, shadow meld is a good way to get softcapped, but it ony lasts 15 seconds and it will be a bit before it's up again. I call that good enough to take an alpha strike of a spawn, but I won't know until I see it in action. I generally find softcapped toons much more survivable than those without, assuming no defense debuffs on you / accuracy buffs on the enemies.

The difference with CoH is that the teams aren't set up so black and white like in WoW. You won't always have a Tank, Healer, 3 DPS for the easy instances, and 2 tanks, 2 or 3 healers, and 5 or 6 DPS for the raids. Sometimes you will have no heals, sometimes you will have no tanks, and sometimes you won't have either. Being softcapped on a scrapper pretty much makes you independent, at that point you can conquer some of the hardest content in the game by yourself if you know what you're doing and you're patient. On a team it just gets easier.

When you're the rogue in WoW, you don't have to be concerned about the boss nailing you, except for maybe some AoEs, because the tank soaks up all the damage. In CoH, even when there is a tank, there is lots of AoE damage going around, and no warnings to line of sight. Also there is no way to know how much aggro you have on a target, my scrappers pull threat off of AVs all the time. A well timed taunt will generally pull them off again, but you never know what you're going to get on pugs. I like to be self sufficient.

You by no means have to be soft capped to be a good farmer, or to have fun, or for anything. Some people just like the extra security and to perform at levels beyond the average player.

First and for all thanks for all your replies.

Ok I realize that CoH isn't WoW, but I was wondering how it wasn't WoW, and I think I got that answered to thanks. The comparison is due to WoW being the only MMO is know (well).

One thing I get from these forums a lot is that "What matters is what you like", which is great, and very openminded, however at some point you'll probably wanna be useful as well, whether to yourself or to others. Fun is fun, but failing a lot is only fun for so long. It's good to know you can be useful even without the softcap, and I understand that anyone would perferm better defensively with maxed out defenses.

I mentioned that I was interested in farming (solo most likely) with my BS/FA scrapper, so I think I will rephrase one of my question to, is it worth sacrificing a few extra (AoE) attacks (from the APP) to get the softcap? I mean... I would like to hear what YOU guys do with your farmers, especially those that are scrappers, and perhaps even more so with people using resistance def sets (like Fire/Elec/Dark?). Although I intend to roll on my scrapper this is a general question and input from any AT is appreciated (though I supposed ranged ATs would have less use for the softcap)

Thanks again in advance for your patience and willingness to share your wisdom

I think with your cone and AoE from broadsword, along with blazing aura and burn, you should be good on AoE. Not to mention how good fiery embrace is now making your other attacks hit quite a bit harder. I'm also assuming the app/pp attacks will cause redraw, which I personally hate on my weapon characters.

If it was my FA character I would grab shadow meld or maybe even hibernate as opposed to more damage. Your set is designed to be squishier and more damaging than other sets, so I would focus on trying to close that up. You could hit hibernate when things get hairy, or pop shadow meld before you jump into each spawn to give you 15 seconds to thin the herd a bit. I plan on having 15% defense to all 3 positions on my MA/FA scrapper I just made, so when I hit shadow meld I will be at the softcap for the duration.

Grabbing those two powers will involve you having to go villain side and doing the patron arc. I understand what you mean about fun. To a lot of us here on the forums, having fun is pushing the envelope, IOing out the set, and seeing what you can do with it. FA is in a weird place right now, I'm not sure if it is on par with the other scrapper sets. That is a different story though, and I still like the set anyways for concept, damage and some utility. If I want tank mage mode, I generally jump on my Elec/Shield scrapper and pound away.

I'm not sure what WoW is like, but in CoH, Tanks can't always hold onto aggro, especially when someone else on the team is dealing a lot more damage. Also, a lot of toons that are built for damage are squishy...and a single, ordinary Boss can pretty much 2-shot you at full health.

Now, why do so many Scrappers want softcap? They're always in melee range, where they'll be taking the majority of the damage as well as any AoE damage. Since Scrappers' secondaries already provide damage mitigation, it's easier for them to work toward the defense soft-cap.

As for other archetypes, such as Blasters, they can reach the defense soft-cap as well, although they'll have to sacrifice a lot more than Tankers and Scrappers to do so. Ranged archetypes will mainly just go for ranged defense, since they'll be attacking from far away anyhow.

Defense soft-cap are "easy" to achieve in that defense bonuses for IO's are plentiful across the board and they are positional, meaning that there are melee, ranged and AoE defenses. Usually, people will only attempt to soft-cap 2 out of the 3 positional defense, mostly melee and ranged defense since AoE's are generally pretty weak and does not occur very often.

As for if it's necessary, well...it's not. It's nice, yes, but I wouldn't recommend going for an actual defense soft-cap, which is 45% defense. Rather, just aim for 30% or so defense, you wont have to sacrifice too much this way.

Here's a tip, DO NOT worry about soft-capping defense from the get go, this will gimp your toon. You don't need Weave and Combat Jumping, save a respec and get these powers later on when you have all the necessary +def from IO bonuses. As a Fire Armor, I do recommend getting Tough and that's all you really need.

I have played both wow and coh.

The biggest thing you need to get used to is that in this game, is that healing plays a secondary role to damage/control/buffing/debuffing. There are powersets that will allow you to buff yourself to do over 400% more damage that normal. There are powersets that can reduce a mob's recharge rate (how fast he attacks you) to 10% of his normal. There are power sets that can do an aoe stun that locks down 20 mobs at once for 10 seconds. There are powersets that focus on doing aoe damage, on single target damage, on doing damage that also debuffs as well. Everyone is not equal. Some player's powers work well with others, some are great solo, but are blah in a group.