Definitely, as was suggested very early in the thread, a blend or layering of the
three qualities, is better.
The point I've tried to make, is that while Def is most common, "best" is
probably not the appropriate word - Any of the 3 can be effective, and all of
them work well together.
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
I'd rather take full damage 5% of the time than 50% damage (generously speaking) 75-100% of the time.
With a percent to get hit that astronomically low, you're pretty much a mile beyond the "immortality line." Whereas with with resistance you're almost always taking around half the damage to your sets "primary" strength and even more than half the damage from other damage types. 50% of a lot is still enough to put a dent in you. That damage is guaranteed to kill you, and fast, depending on how many foes you're facing and what class they are. Soft-capped characters are more than likely going to take 0% of that damage. A defense based character can get so close to unhittable that it might as well be zero. Most ATs, even at their resistance CAPS, can't attain that level of damage mitigation.
It's exceptionally easy to soft-cap defenses these days. A M/R/AoE capped character will be able to dodge -anything- 95% of the time, barring AVs and foes that have to-hit buffs and special attacks that aren't typed (few and far between).
Or think of it this way. Comparing just Res vs Def in a generic vacuum.
A foe has a 5% chance to hit me, and only has time to attack me 7 times before I kill him with my attacks. Thanks to the 1-shot code, he has to hit me at least 2 times to kill me, and that's assuming he can do enough damage to bring me down to less than 50% HP with each hit.
VS
The same foe, only now I'm using a resistance based set. Let's say he has a 75% chance to hit me, and he gets off 7 attacks before I can kill him. I can resist 50% of his damage, but he's likely to hit me about 4-5 times. Since his attacks are strong enough to take away half of my HP with no protection, with 50% resistance, it would take only 4 successful attacks to kill me.
The Defense set is MUCH more likely to survive by an enormous margin. The Resistance set is actually very likely going to be defeated. Of course this comparison is totally in a vacuum and ignores things like inspirations, secondary effects, etc... but just straight up 1 for 1, defense beats resistance hands down.
0 damage 95% of the time is a lot less than 50-60% of incoming damage 75-100% of the time.
Defence:
-Main benefit is that a missed attack doesn't apply its secondary effects. This is huge to me. It essentially gives a debuff resistance to everything because it is rather rare that the enemy has toggles to use on you.
-Subject to more randomness than Resistance. A few lucky hits can seriously threaten your life or ill you outright.
-Variably subject to cascading defence failures. On a well built SR, it's going to take a lot to eventuate this - probably you are dead before it happens. On some others without so much defence debuff resistance, it's much more of a problem.
Resistance:
-Significantly more 'reliable' in its expectations. Damage is mitigated by a certain amount and that is basically the final rule on it.
-Is subject to secondary effects and must rely on other debuff resistances inherent to the power tree. Without that kind of debuff resistance, mobs that use these attacks can be deadly.
-Can be subject to cascading defence failures. In fact, will *always* be subject to them. Against mobs with a 50% chance to hit, they will almost immediately be taking double the hits from them.
A mix of the two?
-It is far, FAR easier to have a resistance build and then get IOs for defence, and the defence can be made to be very appreciable. In fact it is basically impossible for a pure defence build to find enough resistance to truly feel the effect.
-There is a general weakness in that cascading defence will still hurt, and in enough numbers/frequency you will quickly revert to a 95% chance of being hit.
-However in the above instance, it is not common to find mobs that both provide defence debuffs as well as other life threatening debuffs in the same groups. This limitation means that in general instances, you can either ignore a lot of debuffs through defence, or you can lose your defence but not have to face the debuffs anyway.
Finally...
-All the examples in these threads are extremely 'one dimensional'. There are very very few builds that are pure defence or pure resistance (even SR has scaling defences, and I can't think of any 'pure' resistance build that doesn't have regen or a heal).
Quote:
Your numbers make me lol. You are comparing someone who has a 5% chance to hit vs defence with a resistance set that dies in 4 hits? What kind of crappy resistance set is that?|
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
<snip, the maths is rubbish anyway
|
Why don't you make a real example where it takes 50, 100 or 500 hits to take down the resistance set, like is the actual reality of the game.
Quote:
Elite Bosses and AV's say hi.|
Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
Your numbers make me lol. You are comparing someone who has a 5% chance to hit vs defence with a resistance set that dies in 4 hits? What kind of crappy resistance set is that?
Why don't you make a real example where it takes 50, 100 or 500 hits to take down the resistance set, like is the actual reality of the game. |
They also almost always have secondary effects or do a metric ton of damage(typically both)
This isn't a question of how is the best way to build to survive. It's obvious a bit of resistance, regen, heal and defense is the way to go. The question was Defense versus Resistance
Defense in this game is VASTLY superior.
For the record, my only 50 Brute is ELA. So I do know the merits of resistance.
Quote:
Wait... that should be under defense, not resistance. Resistance inherently resists resistance debuffs and further debuffs are calculated based on the original resistance, not the debuffed. Defense, when debuffed, gives enemies an increased chance to hit which allows more defense debuffs to get through. I would call defense the set that is subject to cascading failure, unless you are super reflexes and have 100% defense debuff resistance.|
Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
Resistance:
-Can be subject to cascading defence failures. In fact, will *always* be subject to them. Against mobs with a 50% chance to hit, they will almost immediately be taking double the hits from them. |
You also claim mobs with a 50% chance to hit will hit twice as often. This is not really possible unless some of them eat yellows and break game code.
It is much easier to soft-cap a couple defenses (smashing and lethal) on a resistance set than it is to get anywhere near the resistance cap on a defense set.
If you want the best survivability, stone armor offers both defense and resistance in granite armor. If you just want an easy time in most content, defense sets start to feel invincible earlier in the game than resistance sets.
Quote:
I have to disagree with this point since getting Mid's and making a very respectable couple kn/shield builds.|
Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
Defence:
A mix of the two? -It is far, FAR easier to have a resistance build and then get IOs for defence, and the defence can be made to be very appreciable. In fact it is basically impossible for a pure defence build to find enough resistance to truly feel the effect. |
I will admit that it is easier to find defense set bonuses, but I counter that shield defense(and low health super reflexes or widows even more) have very respectable resistance behind their capped defense.
My second posted build, in the thread I made in this same forum, has at least 15.6% resistance to all but psionic on top of capped defense to ALL positions, also fairly high regen and health.
I continue to say they are all better with a mix, but I find survivability to be much better with an emphasis on defense with resistance and everything else secondary than resistance at the forefront.
I think this is because defense is the first line of defense. You don't need the other mitigation types at all if the attack doesn't hit at all.
Quote:
1) I'm a little confused about "based on the original resistance" because defense debuff resistance is not debuffed, just defense.|
Originally Posted by Syntax42
Wait... that should be under defense, not resistance. Resistance inherently resists resistance debuffs and further debuffs are calculated based on the original resistance, not the debuffed.
|
Both mitigation types will feel the bite of defense debuffs as I think you can go below 0% defense in the calculations the game uses, but I'm not sure.
2) Resistance is almost guaranteed to get hit by defense debuffs which will make them almost guaranteed to get hit more often even if they had no defense buffs and the enemy had no to-hit buffs.
Defense buffs and debuffs and to-hit buffs and debuffs are easily interchangeable. A debuff to one can easily be considered an equal buff to the other.
Also, resistance sets may have defense debuff resistance(likely because of the cascading defense failures), but defense sets almsot always have much more resistance to said debuffs.
My shield build in the other thread actually has 54.7% defense debuff resistance in PVE and 84.7% in PVP.
That is much higher than any resistance set can get and not far behind the king of DDR, super reflexes.
Quote:
Resistance sets suffer cascading defence in a very similar way as the defence sets. I did indeed claim mobs hit with a 50% chance (variable depending on their level and status - ie minion / boss etc.).|
Originally Posted by Syntax42
Wait... that should be under defense, not resistance. Resistance inherently resists resistance debuffs and further debuffs are calculated based on the original resistance, not the debuffed. Defense, when debuffed, gives enemies an increased chance to hit which allows more defense debuffs to get through. I would call defense the set that is subject to cascading failure, unless you are super reflexes and have 100% defense debuff resistance.
You also claim mobs with a 50% chance to hit will hit twice as often. This is not really possible unless some of them eat yellows and break game code. It is much easier to soft-cap a couple defenses (smashing and lethal) on a resistance set than it is to get anywhere near the resistance cap on a defense set. If you want the best survivability, stone armor offers both defense and resistance in granite armor. If you just want an easy time in most content, defense sets start to feel invincible earlier in the game than resistance sets. |
When a resistance set is hit by defence debuff, they generally have no resistance to it, and so the enemy goes from hitting 1/2 the time to hitting 19/20 times. Ie: almost twice the hits, hence twice the damage. No magic there, no "game code breaking" or "inspiration eating minions", just people don't consider that defence debuffs aren't much fun for a resistance set too, because they don't appreciate that people missing is still doing something (it accounts for almost HALF your mitigation!).
Quote:
It's a matter of scale to me... 15.6% resistance is negligable if I am intending on tanking something, whereas 40%+ defence is realistically attainable and does a whole lot more. I just don't think there's enough resistance sets to make it particularly useful (though when I look at the gladiator PVP set, it makes me want them so I could get some builds from 80% resistance to the 90% cap, which is verrrrry nice |
Originally Posted by T_Immortalus
My second posted build, in the thread I made in this same forum, has at least 15.6% resistance to all but psionic on top of capped defense to ALL positions, also fairly high regen and health.
|
)
Quote:
I agree about defense, which is why my build has 45.2 to ranged, melee and AoE ALL plus at least 15.6% resistance and almost 300% regen and 130% +hp.|
Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
It's a matter of scale to me... 15.6% resistance is negligable if I am intending on tanking something, whereas 40%+ defence is realistically attainable and does a whole lot more. I just don't think there's enough resistance sets to make it particularly useful (though when I look at the gladiator PVP set, it makes me want them so I could get some builds from 80% resistance to the 90% cap, which is verrrrry nice
) |
It's a beast.
Quick link for Mid's for those curious:
Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Focused accuracy is toggled off because the proc skews the numbers higher than they would be, but you can toggle it on there to see the endurance drain and about what the buffs do.
Hit the "view totals" button for all totals.
Quote:
Anything that causes a defense cascade on a resist-based toon will be |
Originally Posted by BunnyAnomaly
When a resistance set is hit by defence debuff, they generally have no
resistance to it, and so the enemy goes from hitting 1/2 the time to hitting 19/20 times. Ie: almost twice the hits, hence twice the damage. No magic there, no "game code breaking" or "inspiration eating minions", just people don't consider that defence debuffs aren't much fun for a resistance set too, because they don't appreciate that people missing is still doing something (it accounts for almost HALF your mitigation!). |
just as (or even more) damaging to a defensed base toon - pure and simple.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Neogumbercules
Or think of it this way. Comparing just Res vs Def in a generic vacuum.
|
Taking my original hypothetical, generic AT:
1500 HP, 5% Def, 0% Res, 2 HP/s Regen
Let's look at a two minute battle where he simply stands there against a
Mob with 15 DPS...
Code:
Mob @15 DPS * 120 = +1800 total damage 5% Def = -90 2 HP/s * 120 = -240 Dmg (ie. +240 HP) -------------------------------------- Net Damage = 1470 AT HP = 1500 -------------------------------------- HP Remaining 30 ---> AT survives Mob @16 DPS * 120 = +1920 total damage 5% Def = -96 2 HP/s * 120 = -240 Dmg (ie. +240 HP) -------------------------------------- Net Damage = 1584 AT HP = 1500 -------------------------------------- HP Remaining -84 ---> Hospital Trip
Code:
Defense % 5 15 35 55 75 95 Survivable DPS 15 17 22 32 57 96 Resist % 5 15 35 55 75 95 Survivable DPS 16 18 24 36 72 Infinite
A: 2500 HP, 95% Def, 0% Resist, 2 HP/s Regen
B: 2500 HP, 5% Def, 50% Resist, 75 HP/s Regen
They go taunting and teasing their favorite Rikti Pylon that does, what 150 DPS? Let's call it that for simplicity's sake...
Code:
Pylon @150 DPS * 120 = 18000 Total Damage
vs A: 95% Def = -17100
2 HP/s * 120 = -240 Dmg (ie. +240 HP)
-------------------------------------------------
660 Dmg vs A: 2500HP
vs B: 5% Default Def = -900
50% Resist = -9000
75 HP/s * 120 = -9000 Dmg (ie. +9000 HP)
-------------------------------------------------
0 Dmg vs B: 2500HP
But here's the wrinkle: AT B can completely mitigate ALL of the pylon damage.
So, Player B can take his girlfriend out for lunch, come back in an hour and
pick up where he left off ... at full health... On the other hand, AT A - is DEAD.
...And that's pretty much all I have to say on that -- it's lunchtime...
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
FourSpeed you sound like you have never played a high defence toon in all honesty. You seem to think that cascading defence failure happens all the time, it actually happens fairly rarely, hence we even came up with a term for it! If it was normal we would just call it 'dying'.
Lets assume you take a normal toon and give it 45% defence, yes the -def buffs could cause cascading defence failure, BUT the bit you are not grasping is that the first attack only hits 5% of the time so you will suffer from it 10 times less than a resistance toon, which when hit by -def will quickly end up taking double damage. Add onto that you can monitor your defence so as soon as it drops to 30% or so you can pop a purple pill and be right back capped again. Oh and all that is assuming that you haven't bothered to kill whatever is trying to debuff your defence.
Additionally to that if your toon is actually using a defence based secondary (/SR, /Inv, /Shield, etc) you will probably have resitance to those debuffs. /SR is almost immune to them, /Shield can be too, and the other can get I think about 50% resistance.
Oh and we are completely ignoring the fact that -defence is easily avoidable when you can pretty much pick and choose what you want to fight.
Now add into the mix the availability of something like aid self, which keeps defence capped toons on their feet against pretty much anything. When you have capped defence you have a great chance to be able to use that heal in combat, resistance sets have no chance.
Your numbers are also not realistic for the game because no toons have 0% resist and 2hp/s regen. Giving your pet resistance toon 75hp/s regen and none to the defence toon is laughable. Compare defence to resistance, not defence to resistance + regen. Even then I like how you have to have 37 times the regen of a defence toon to stay alive in your calculations!
Blasters with capped defence can solo GM's, thats is blasters who have barely any resistance, and barely any HP to start with.
Defence simply works MUCH better than resitance as long as you get enough of it (45% being the key for most of the time in the game).
Lastly you shrug off all the other types of debuff that defence protects you against, but you are wrong to do so. I think all the resistance sets in the game get a self heal, -recharge will devastate that. -tohit counts for more than just 'waiting it out' if you are actually fighting any group that poses some kind of challenge, if you can't kill them they 'will' kill you. Longbow too with their -res grenades, yeah a resistance toon will resist them, but only by about half, a defence toon will ignore them 95% of the time!
My capped defence shield toon can go afk in a +2/x8 mob at times and come back to find them all having used all their endurance failing to kill me! This actually goes for most groups, though there are clearly some that would simply eat me up.
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British by act of union, English by grace of God, Northern by pure good fortune!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Aggelakis
PrincessDarkstar: "RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH SOMEONE IS *WRONG* ON THE INTERNET!"
|
If you want an unbiased opinion on the effectiveness of maximum resists versus softcapped defense you can....now this is gonna sound crazy I know....run an identical AE mish with stock critters with the maxed resist toon then the softcapped one.
You'll get the answer you're looking for without any input from the cheerleaders of the resist-based toon versus the defense-based toon.
Quote:
I have a L50 NB/Nin Stalker, and a fully softcapped L50 Night Widow...|
Originally Posted by PrincessDarkstar
FourSpeed you sound like you have never played a high defence toon in all honesty.
You seem to think that cascading defence failure happens all the time, it actually happens fairly rarely, hence we even came up with a term for it! If it was normal we would just call it 'dying'. |
I'm quite familiar with Defense.
My Night Widow dies to the Pylon - every time (unless I'm very active in
keeping her alive).
My Brute - ignores it -- it cannot kill him ... at all...
Same is true for 0/8 settings... My Widow (occasionally) gets spiked to
death... The Brute? Never...
Yep, there are differences, yep there are things you can do about them.
All the caveats you mention apply equally to the Res/Reg build - it can pick
and chose mobs too, it can get Aid Self (or pop a respite) etc. The difference
is Toon B doesn't need to do *any* of those things to survive.
So, folks that are 100% vehemently certain that Def is the "Hands Down,
Stop the Discussion Winner", are quite simply put ... wrong.
Believe it or don't. The math in my example speaks for itself...
Def is very good, and very easy to get... In general, I recommend it, but it
is not by any stretch of the imagination a be all or end all, or even the
best way for everyone, necessarily...
Some toons have other alternatives.
If that concept is difficult for folks to "get" - I'm ok with that ... YMMV
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Quote:
Just throwing this out. Streakbreaker kicks in after X missed attacks against the same target. So if the enemy are all attacking a roughly the same speed, and you're near capped so they are all missing virtually all the time. they will all hit streakbreaker at the same moment because they will all launch their "Attack #7" at roughly the same time. This is why it sucks when it kicks in.|
Originally Posted by FourSpeed
Speaking of RNG - there's Streakbreaker ... which kills Def toons outright,
and doesn't bother Res/Regen at all... They're getting hit by everyone anyway. But, often when Streakbreaker does kick in, most of the mobs seem to get it at the same time ... Boom. Dead Def toon (see Spike above) |
It helps to move around so some of them pause their attacks. And you'll kill some. And 1 in 20 at a minimum will hit. So you can spread it out. But if you're soloing against big groups, this is why streakbreaker hits you very hard.
Just thought I'd toss that out since a lot of people think it is just perception and not a function of the mechanics.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
To Chime in, I have found that after building all sorts of toons and leveling to 50 (SR, 3 Shields, Fiery Aura, 2 Invulns, Dark Armor and WP), that of these armor types, the set that I have found that offers the most of everything is Invulnerability or Willpower (at a tie).
Invuln gives vastly superior S/L resistance, and you can build it for LArge mobs or single enemy type scenarios. The new Invuln defense buffs from a few issues back now make an Invuln quite capable of soft capping all damage types (save for toxic and psionic, of course) with relative ease on all melee ATs, at least in my theoretical builds. Or, for the more solo oriented/AV soloist, you can build an invuln to be softcapped against one single enemy with S/L defense. With dual builds, you can do both. What attacks do get through your defense and overcome your resistance are fixed with Dull Pain, a power that not only nearly heals you to full but also boosts your HP, which directly boosts your regen as well.
Willpower has more of a "Set it and forget it" feel. It obviously can be built into a vastly superior hybrid. I have seen S/L softcapped builds do quite well, and high regen builds perform just as good if not better depending on the circumstances.
My point being, that a combination of the three, High defense backed up with hp/regen bonuses and resistance, is what I feel to be the best route.