Resist vs Def

How good are resists, versus defense......

so far on my claws/fiery aura brute, I have about 45% on most of my resists, but no defense yet. If i cap the resists at 90%, is that as good as having defense? Just not sure how they stack up.....i know defense controls how much you are hit, and resist controls how much damage you take when hit, but how it all works out is beyond me.

Well, both have their advantages.

Defense is susceptible to bad RNG(random number generator) rolls that determine whether or not you get hit.
Resistance always works consistently.

Defense means you avoid the damage altogether or take full damage.
Resistance means you always get hit, but you take less damage.


Now, you may think resistance is the only worthwhile stat after reading that, but they are not mutually exclusive.

Defense is applied BEFORE resistance so you may not even be hit, but, when you do, resistance then applies and reduces that damage.



They're best combined.
If you can get defense soft-capped at 45% then you'll only be hit 5% of the time on average, somewhat like having 95% resistance. Add resistance on after that though and you reduce the overall damage you take much farther.



As for which is better, it depends on the situation and amount of either stat you have.
If you have a lot of enemies hitting often then resistance may wither under the assault as the hits almost always hit and take away a bit of health at a time.
Defense can be bad if you have unlucky RNG rolls or the enemy has a damage type or position that you have less or no defense against, or they have accuracy buffs like Vengeance.

A mix of both is best for most situations.

That's a bit of a tricky question to answer as there are several factors
that come into play.

Defense
First, with Defense, if it makes the mob miss, you take zero damage.
Zero Damage is always a beautiful thing, but anytime you are hit, you
take full damage from it...

Mobs will *always* have a 1/20 hit ratio, even with capped defense.

Some Mobs have autohit attacks (No defense at all against these)

Many Mobs have a -def debuff component to their attacks, leading to
what is gently termed "Cascading Defense Failure" (ie. eventually, with
enough mobs and/or enough debuff hits, your defense is gone)

Finally, there is also a Streakbreaker for mobs just like players (I'm not
certain of the exact percentages, but after enough misses a mob will get
a guaranteed hit).

On the plus side, +def is easier for most toons to get - more IO sets offer
it, and there are more defense powers than resist powers.

Resist
Resist on the other hand doesn't affect a mob's ability to hit you at all - it
simply reduces the damage of the attack.

Some mobs have -res debuffs, but I believe there are fewer of them than
mobs with -def.

It's fairly difficult for most AT's to get high enough resist numbers (generally
speaking). /WP ATs and Kheldian PB's typically have it easiest there.

Regen
The third factor you really need to consider in this mix is Regen. AT's
always regenerate health, and in general it's not fast enough to matter
that much (usually).

Some AT's (/WP) can do so at rates that do matter - significantly.



So, I'm certain that there are optimum mixes of Def/Res/Reg that maximise
survivability, but "better" than the others is a bit of a misnomer.

Consider the extremes:

At sufficiently high Regen rates, you're unkillable - nothing can do enough damage

At suffciently high Defense, you're unhittable - nothing can do any damage

At sufficiently high Resist your normal health regen will heal any insignificant damage you take.


Normally, you can't achieve these extremes, and in the case of Defense,
the cap makes it impossible. However, with blending them, you can get to
the point where your survivability is very high.

Typically most players opt for Defense, again, because it's easiest to do
for most toons. But the other approaches are no less viable if you can get
high enough numbers in your mix.


Regards,
4

Defense is vastly superior to resistance because defense will also negate any secondary debuff the attack has.

Also a huge advantage to mixing the three together in a layered defense is you'll be much harder to neutralize with Debuffs. If you rely on just one you'll always have certain enemy types who can just destroy you at will because they strip away your defense effortlessly.

Also I know this isn't want you asked at all but if you really want to get complicated control & debuffs are also powerful defense tools. If you lower the enemies damage or keep them from attack all together they can't very well kill you both of which brutes can get a little of with certain sets like Kenetic Melee.

Defense is like playing russian roulette.
You've got a higher chance of not being hit, however, when things do get through(and they WILL) you're going to hurt BAD.

Resistance is like wearing full body kevlar armor.
You'll get hurt, but it wont be as bad as if you were naked.



In the end it's a play style choice. Some people prefer gambling, others prefer consistence.
I prefer the latter. Constant, but survivable damage. Add a bit of regen, and a bit of defense and I'm happy. That's what I like about WP. It combines all 3 in the amounts I want. Defense being the lowest priority for me.

Defense is superior than resistance primarily because there is gobs of it available in Pool Powers, to all positions/types mind you, and through the IO system. Things would be a bit more even if resistance had any meaningful values available through IOs or pool powers, and if it were at least equal to the values granted to defense, if not doubled.

Smashing/Lethal defense of 3.75% is roughly equal to 7.5% resistance, and the highest bonus available through resistance is a paltry 1.86% in PvP sets... this is not fair at all, and a good step would be making resistance values at least equal to the numbers granted to defense, which would still be 50% of the mitigation granted through defense.

I think if you got to 90% resistance, across the board, you'd have a toon that would get less debt (maybe none ever) than a 45+% def toon.

Back in ye olden days, I'd park my /elec armor brute in that back room of Rikti in that AE mission (you know the one), go away for a half hour, let my damage aura do its thing, come back to aggro more Rikti and go afk again. I could not die with 90% resists to the energy damage. Statistically speaking, you WILL hit an unlucky streak eventually, I doubt a Def based only character could ever afk farm.

This 90% resists toon doesn't exist in nature though. I suppose a Dark Armor toon with a Sonic (for all but Psi) and a couple of Darks (for psi) could cap across the board.

Really, it depends on how Def or Res you have, and I suppose on what your fighting. But as the game is right now, high Def is favored over Res. It is impossible or extremely difficult to cap Res other than to your set's specialty, or if you use a Tier 9. On the other hand, it's possible to soft-cap Def on many toons.

Soft-capped Defense, or close, with some DDR, is far superior to whatever Res you can get on your own. I generally find the effects of RNG to be very manageable with some Regen bonuses. There may be scary moments when you go red, but if you don't panic, you can usually regen back to green. However, things can get dicey if you're up against strong Def Debuffs or ToHit buffs, which requires alternative strategy like pulling or kiting.

However, at Def values of 30% or less, with no other active forms of mitigation, toons feel pretty squishy to me.

Don't forget to consider the mechanics of defense debuffs versus resistance debuffs, and that a lot more enemies debuff defenses than resists.

If you have soft-capped defense and get hit with a 5% defense debuff, you will now have 40% defense (assuming no defense debuff resistanace) which leaves you more vulnerable to get hit by another defense debuff. Some monster power sets are very heaving in adding defense debuffs with almost every attack. All it takes is that first one to get through and you quickly become squishier than a blaster. Instead of avoiding 95% of attacks, you now avoid 90%, making a tiny 5% defense debuff effectively double the amount of damage you take.

If you have capped resistance, however, a 25% resistance debuff simply means you will take 25% more damage. Further debuffs consider your original resistance.

Debuffs favor resistances over defense.


My suggestion: Play a resistance powerset and add defense through pool powers and sets. Stacking both defense and resistance increases your survivability much faster than stacking only one.