It's very possible for a /FA to be softcapped to at least to S/L. This will protect you against 98% of all melee attacks and quite a few range/aoes attacks to boot.
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minimum 50% rchg and soft capped S/L.
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The goobs who tell you that it is "useless" to go for defense are completely exaggerating the effect of -def debuffs beyond hyperbole, beyond fantasy and out into the nether reaches of delusion. they are the ones who like to claim that having def with anything less than capped DDR is "worthless". My /elec brute has about 38% defense to melee, 32% to s/l and 0 DDR. She's just fine against nearly all enemies, even romans. Why? Because when the defense goes negative she stlll has 100% of the powers and survivability that the Devs feel are balanced against a pure defense set. IE her resists and heal. When a /SR goes into the negatives it may as well be a blaster (splat).|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
Hi guys,
As the title more or less implies, what is the most "common" effect to slot for on a Fire/fire? Some people have been telling me that recharge is where I wanna go, as it is pretty much useless going for capped def on a set that has no abilities whatsoever for defense. The reason I ask is because my 1st lvl 50 Brute is beginning to deserve a revamp and I'm thinking a lot about remaking the very concept of the character, so I might have him ready to be incarnated in I19. Thanks for your help! |
Getting defense gives you an extra layer to the onion that is your survivability. This is purely a good thing. 15% makes a solid difference in your survivability. 25% you will really feel the difference. 35% is all you need, at that point popping a small purple is no different than having access to a crashless tier 9 power. 45% is totally unnecessary, but fun.
"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.
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I never knew! :O Honestly, I'm sadly half of the people you describe there, as I have very little understanding about game balance and defenses, and thus have thought that if you didn't have a chance to acchieve mentionable def from ur primary/secondary epic pool, you'd be better off not trying :/. But again, since I don't have much experience, I guess I've still got a chance to learn ^^
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Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
The goobs who tell you that it is "useless" to go for defense are completely exaggerating the effect of -def debuffs beyond hyperbole, beyond fantasy and out into the nether reaches of delusion. they are the ones who like to claim that having def with anything less than capped DDR is "worthless". My /elec brute has about 38% defense to melee, 32% to s/l and 0 DDR. She's just fine against nearly all enemies, even romans. Why? Because when the defense goes negative she stlll has 100% of the powers and survivability that the Devs feel are balanced against a pure defense set. IE her resists and heal. When a /SR goes into the negatives it may as well be a blaster (splat).
Getting defense gives you an extra layer to the onion that is your survivability. This is purely a good thing. 15% makes a solid difference in your survivability. 25% you will really feel the difference. 35% is all you need, at that point popping a small purple is no different than having access to a crashless tier 9 power. 45% is totally unnecessary, but fun. |
@Global: Difficult One
Playing on European Servers (Union, Defiant)
If a person turns down an idea, he turns down an opportunity to evolve himself
I'd personally go for Recharge, as that's what I went for on my MA/Fire scrapper and having two build-up type powers cycling that often is sadistic joy in an easy to open can.
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@Starflier
For a scrapper, I think the "MOAR RECHARGE" strategy is a little more attractive, because your attacks don't (necessarily) taunt.
For a Brute, I think it's definitely worth it to put on that extra raincoat of defense. As Gavin said, even the standard non-defense-based-AT loadout of Combat Jumping, Weave and Steadfast +3% will make a noticeable difference.
If you can get your Smashing/Lethal defense up into the 30s or 40s with Kinetic Combat sets and other bonuses, you'll be amazed. Even in situations where enemies are debuffing your defense, they can't take you from 30-40 down to 0 immediately. So those few seconds will still be really effective for alpha strikes from mobs of Romans or assault rifle critters.
And again, on a Brute, where you are designed to make things angry and get them to attack you, I think it only makes sense to build up some defense so you don't have to play your Brute like a blapper.
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There's a difference between "useless", and "has trade offs you might not feel are worth it" or "is much weaker". That's all I'm sayin'. =)|
Originally Posted by JanusFrs
I never knew! :O Honestly, I'm sadly half of the people you describe there, as I have very little understanding about game balance and defenses, and thus have thought that if you didn't have a chance to acchieve mentionable def from ur primary/secondary epic pool, you'd be better off not trying :/. But again, since I don't have much experience, I guess I've still got a chance to learn ^^
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It is never "useless" to add defense. Ask a SS/WP while s/he's farming the wall in Cimerora if defense is useless on a character who starts with none.
"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.
Extra defenses here and there are good, but if you have extremely high recharge (mine on mids has 97% recharge bonus) you can get that wonderful heal down to a 15 second downtime. Add hasten into the mix and now you have a 40% hp heal every 11 seconds. I think the heal is definatly what makes the set.
You can get close to capping S&L and still have enough rech to chain 3 + spamming your heal.
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Well a SR wouldnt go in to the negatives concidering it has 100% DDR on my build.
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Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
The goobs who tell you that it is "useless" to go for defense are completely exaggerating the effect of -def debuffs beyond hyperbole, beyond fantasy and out into the nether reaches of delusion. they are the ones who like to claim that having def with anything less than capped DDR is "worthless". My /elec brute has about 38% defense to melee, 32% to s/l and 0 DDR. She's just fine against nearly all enemies, even romans. Why? Because when the defense goes negative she stlll has 100% of the powers and survivability that the Devs feel are balanced against a pure defense set. IE her resists and heal. When a /SR goes into the negatives it may as well be a blaster (splat).
Getting defense gives you an extra layer to the onion that is your survivability. This is purely a good thing. 15% makes a solid difference in your survivability. 25% you will really feel the difference. 35% is all you need, at that point popping a small purple is no different than having access to a crashless tier 9 power. 45% is totally unnecessary, but fun. |
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This is the thing I don't understand. After the significant investment of time and inf, you gain almost 5 seconds on Healing Flames (often cited as the KEY survivability tool in /FA's arsonal, after "rapidly melting enemies"). I say five seconds because standard slotting gets you ~20s recharge and ~50% heal. |
Originally Posted by Syndace
Extra defenses here and there are good, but if you have extremely high recharge (mine on mids has 97% recharge bonus) you can get that wonderful heal down to a 15 second downtime. Add hasten into the mix and now you have a 40% hp heal every 11 seconds. I think the heal is definatly what makes the set.
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With that same investment of time and inf, you could reach defense levels that generally make the Heal a nice bonus instead of one's primary crutch.
All I know is that a while ago, I was using HF a couple of times in per x8 spawn. Now? I use it about every 2-3 such spawns.
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No it doesn't. DRR caps at 95%.|
Originally Posted by _UJ_
Well a SR wouldnt go in to the negatives concidering it has 100% DDR on my build.
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However, my SR brute with 46% def to all needs to take the alpha from a double spawn of def debuffing enemies to drop below 40% def, so the difference is negligible.
@Roderick
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Originally Posted by Roderick
No it doesn't. DRR caps at 95%.
However, my SR brute with 46% def to all needs to take the alpha from a double spawn of def debuffing enemies to drop below 40% def, so the difference is negligible. |
Ah, didn't know it capped at 95%, was just looking at mid's numbers, I just leveled my SR brute to 50 today so I will see how the defence debuffers effect me soon enough, and mine also has 46% to all, bought the enhances for him today as well, still am doing tip missions, but from what I have heard they are pretty damn survivable, even if the enemies debuff defence a lot (especially with aid self when they do occasionaly hit you).
Gavin, care to share your Elec slotting via mids please ? i've just made a post where i cite my claws/elec problems and it would greatly help me to see how i can reach 38% to melee without gimping myself in other areas
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Heh, this makes me laugh. I just explained (possibly slightly incorrectly) in another post that I thought it was more or less useless to softcap def against Paragon police ascended. But it was for a very particular build and I had a very specific tactic worked out for dealing with them. So I made the judgement call on that toon. |
Originally Posted by GavinRuneblade
The goobs who tell you that it is "useless" to go for defense are completely exaggerating the effect of -def debuffs beyond hyperbole, beyond fantasy and out into the nether reaches of delusion. they are the ones who like to claim that having def with anything less than capped DDR is "worthless". My /elec brute has about 38% defense to melee, 32% to s/l and 0 DDR. She's just fine against nearly all enemies, even romans. Why? Because when the defense goes negative she stlll has 100% of the powers and survivability that the Devs feel are balanced against a pure defense set. IE her resists and heal. When a /SR goes into the negatives it may as well be a blaster (splat).
Getting defense gives you an extra layer to the onion that is your survivability. This is purely a good thing. 15% makes a solid difference in your survivability. 25% you will really feel the difference. 35% is all you need, at that point popping a small purple is no different than having access to a crashless tier 9 power. 45% is totally unnecessary, but fun. |
I say all of this, because from my understanding of play it is very very wise to softcap smash/lethal defense. jeez, especially on a Fire armor Brute. fire brutes have a notoriously squishy feel. If I had to puit a number on it, I would say that 50% or more of the time you would feel Tanky all of a sudden. will not work against everything, high level play has a lot of mean crap that does odd stuff. Still, to be able to walk through 50% of stuff like a tank while doing Fury filled Brute damage is good.
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And this guy found that post. Anyways, the only freaking reason he can take 2 groups alphas is because he is at full cap. NO ONE IS HITTING HIM. As soon as they start to he will have cascading failure. In other words, a minute into the fight he will be at neg defense. Sure, after pulling 2 large groups simultaneously he is fine, his defenses are still up. that will go away like water running downhill, at a ever increasing angle. |
Originally Posted by Roderick
No it doesn't. DRR caps at 95%.
However, my SR brute with 46% def to all needs to take the alpha from a double spawn of def debuffing enemies to drop below 40% def, so the difference is negligible. |
My plan for the situation is to kill the stuff, and simultaneously deal with the incoming damage by constantly healing, which my toon is very well built to do. And does it when he farms debuffers at +0/x8 solo. After a minute, after 2 minutes, after 3 minutes, never stopping, Fury filled destruction.
But, as in my previous post, I reiterate it is very very wise to get S/L softcapped.
Def debuffs are extremely common, and without DDR your defense is noteworthily less useful.
However, that doesn't make it pointless, it just makes it a 'layer' of your defense that you lose effect from as a fight goes on. Since the alpha is the most dangerous part of a spawn, normally, the fact that your defense might be debuffed following the alpha is less important than the fact that you had it up to mitigate more of the first strikes than otherwise.
Further, not everything is -def. A lot of groups are, but you'll still at least occasionally run into ones who don't, and in those situations you can really cut loose. Rikti, for example, have no -def. 
"Experience is the mother of good judgement. Bad judgement is the father of experience."
Hi guys,
As the title more or less implies, what is the most "common" effect to slot for on a Fire/fire? Some people have been telling me that recharge is where I wanna go, as it is pretty much useless going for capped def on a set that has no abilities whatsoever for defense.
The reason I ask is because my 1st lvl 50 Brute is beginning to deserve a revamp and I'm thinking a lot about remaking the very concept of the character, so I might have him ready to be incarnated in I19.
Thanks for your help!
@Global: Difficult One
Playing on European Servers (Union, Defiant)
If a person turns down an idea, he turns down an opportunity to evolve himself