The Tough-Weave Tango

It's been floating by me for a few weeks now: People keep messaging me and asking me why I haven't taken Tough and Weave on any of my level 40-50 Brutes. Now before you come in here and tell me that it's a staple for survivability, I have never had an issue surviving in a +2/x8 environment on my brutes. My Brutes are, of course, very self-sufficient: Dark/Dark, Fire/Fire, SS/Elec, Elec/Invul.

I understand from the point of view of minmaxing that hitting higher resistance is not only viable mitigation, it's also a personal triumph. I've heard of some Invul tankers capping out most of their resistances, and that's to their merit. But honestly, if I pay attention enough and time my utility powers I never have to worry about dying. I also have my self-rezzes and Tier 9 armors, so that gives me even less of a reason to take Fighting just for the bonuses.

Is the love of Tough and Weave simply around due to higher numbers and requiring less attention to your health/stats? I mean, I can see if you didn't want to exert the effort to be quick with your keystrokes you'd take powers that'd make you harder to kill. I personally enjoy the thrill of being on my toes surrounded by enemies and beating the odds. But why pester me to take powers I don't really need to survive? I survive just fine.

Any insight?

Maybe it's nothing more than the difference of being able to run at +2/x8 and +4/x8.

I got hooked on tough and weave because my main is SR. Before IOs, tough gave me extra s/l dam-res to take the edge off when I was getting hit. Weave added more defense which is necessary for SR's survival. Now with IOs, tough is the only spot to place the Steadfast +Def unique and weave is a fine set mule as well as the help it gives getting to the softcap.

I won't be taking tough and weave on my new fire/fire tank, but his entire concept is based on dying a lot and dishing out ridiculous damage when he's not eating dirt.

Together, tough and weave add mitigation. Mitigation allows you to handle more incoming damage and stay upright. This allows for faster leveling, faster farming, and the ability to stand up to harder targets.

In my head, skipping the fighting pool is the same as running without stamina. Sure, you can do it, but you'll be better off with it.

I really noticed a difference when I finally got the fighting pool in my SS/WP Brute. I like the feeling of being reeaaaally tough. Don't want to be totally invulnerable as that would be a bit boring, but it surely allows me to ramp things up a bit.

Last night I duoed with a Tanker (A Stoner). He faceplanted when we aggroed two mobs +8 mobs. I told him to hang on while I finished them off so he could rez - something I don't think I could have done without Tough and Weave. Made him feel bad/useless (but he felt better after I instructed him on how indestructable he'd be with different powers choice and IO slotting, incl getting Tough/Weave , but it still felt pretty good be able to 'save a stoner' haha

I just can't imagine a melee character of mine not taking it anymore (well, at least Tough if the base set is built around resistance). I guess I like having my melee characters totally self sufficient and being able to survive just about anything, and that makes Tough/Weave absolutely necessary.

Tough is great for about any character, I mean who doesn't want more S/L resistance? Weave can be skippable if you don't build any defense on top of it, but it can still be nice to have for a LotG slot.

I can't really comment much since I haven't seen your builds, but I guarantee if you take Tough and Weave and build for a respectable amount of defense, you will be a lot more survivable.

I have taken Tough and Weave on all of my Scrappers. That's I think 8 of them at 50 or something, and I seriously couldn't imagine building a Scrapper without Tough. Weave, sure, as an SR you can still easily soft cap without Weave.

Tankers, on the other hand? I have two of them at 50 and neither has the Fighting Pool. Tanks in question are Ice/SS and SD/DM. Both have a -DMG aura, the other has a great AoE KD (Foot Stomp) while the other has a Heal in his attack chain, so they don't really need the added S/L Resistance and both of them are soft capped without Weave. Both are, however, swapping Pyre Mastery for Soul (Gloom, Dark Oblit, Darkest Night) for better ST Damage and more -DMG when needed. The -ToHit is also valuable against enemies who use Def Debuffs.

ETA: I pick Fighting Pool on my Scrappers mostly because they have lower base values for defensive powers than Tanks. This allows me to use set bonuses not only for survival bonuses, but also for offensive bonuses making a very sturdy and capable Scrapper. Then there's also the thing that I greatly dislike traditional godmodes (hard crash) and have picked those on exactly zero of my characters. I prefer the new type of godmodes, but don't pick them on all of my characters if I think more valuable powers are available. Most of my characters need those godmodes very rarely, so I just stick to Eye of the Magus most of the time.

Aren't damage debuffs also affected by the purple patch?

There's also players like me, more casual ones who don't have billions of inf. lying around who can kit out their characters with lots of set IOs. Tough and Weave are significant boosts if all you've got are generic IOs and SOs in your defenses.