What is more important to you?

I was thinking today I go through the 35th iteration of Murcielago's build, what is more important in your character self sufficient survivability i.e. not needing inspirations or any type of outside buffs in order to be very difficult to be defeated or being able to put out large orange numbers and be marginally difficult to kill.

A good example of this would be a scrapper sitting at the soft cap with great resistances, regeneration, and recovery with minimal damage, acc, and recharge bonuses or the same scrapper sitting at 32% defense to all positions with okay resistances, regeneration, and recovery with a large damage, acc, and recharge bonuses.

I was going to post this in the scrapper section but I realized that we're all crazy in there . So I figured I'd get a more balanced view on the subject and post it here.

It just depends on what I want the character to do really. For tanks, I make sure they are steady as possible. For scrappers, it all depends. Regen likes defense and a lot of recharge, at least in my builds. But I generally want them to all be reasonably sturdy in the long run, if that answers your question.

I tend towards being satisfied with a middle ground of big orange numbers and pretty hard but not maximally hard to kill. That means I usually can't run on the game's absolute highest settings without unsustainable inspiration burn rates, and often can't do things like solo AVs. To do otherwise is too limiting to me in what ATs and powersets I play, and sometimes in how I would play them. I therefore am satisfied with being pretty darn bad-***, instead of being extremely bad-*** in very specific ways.

I suppose I'm in 'orange numbers/moderately tough' category. My WP Brute is sitting at around 30% defense to Smashing/Lethal. She also has really good damange, recharge, regeneraton and recovery. I've looked into making the push to Smash/Lethal softcap (45%), but man it sure seems like I'd have to give up a fare amount in all those other areas, where as now I can just pop 1 purple and be a near-softcap without losing anything, and 1 purple is just about always available... Plus, when teaming, outside buffs often push me up there as well.

I don't see a change anytime soon.

If I HAD to pick one or the other (none of this 'middle ground' stuff for me!) then I'd go very difficult to kill/moderate damage. I have a tank at 50% on his positionals* and it's nice to just roll things without a care in the world. If it takes me a few minutes longer to mow them down, who cares? I ain't goin' nowhere.

That's not to talk down the other option; I'm leveling a few scrappers and they're great fun in an offensive manner than I never get from my tank. But you're not killing things if you're running back from the hospital. So I'll take the "impossible to kill" answer and be happy that we're not actually forced into a single choice.

*Li'l somethin' extra for those Cimeroran spears and various rifle bursts...

I would be satisfied with neither, because you're describing two legs of the same character. Either way you look at it, I'm a one-legged man in an *** kicking contest.

I want a character that's self-sufficient, and self-sufficiency requires aptitude in at least the several basic fields, those being survival AND damage. A character who can kill things AND live long enough to do so is far superior to one who can kill things as fast as he can die and one who takes only slightly longer to level than he does to take down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I'm very picky on which sets I slot to make sure I'm getting good slotting for the power as well as a semi-decent set bonus. The result of that philosophy gives different answers to that question depending on the AT, but on my scrappers I end up with good damage and accuracy on a reasonably tough character.

My main scrapper is at or slightly above the soft cap on melee defense but not the other positions but she definitely kicks tail very quickly and I'm proud of her. My main tank is very survivable (except against Lanaruu apparently ) while feeling very scrapperish in the damage department and I'm proud of her too.

I only have 4 IOed 50's and two more that I plan on getting there but I'll speak for what I have so far

I like a toon that can solo 0/x8. It's not a requirement but I do tend to let that guide my AT/Power selection. Unless its an MM, no matter what you pick you can solo just fine.

My Crab kicks but while soft caped with 40% resists but then that's not hard to do. My MM isen't any where near the soft cap but hes mercs/traps so thats not a major issue for him. For a long time he was my priamry farmer on 0/x8

That said my Powerblast/Thermal coruptor cant solo worth a darn. I built her with the intention of teaming, and she is quite good on teams. But my DP/Traps Corr I'm working on is going to be soft capped to melee Ranged and AOE.

/em shrug

I need to be able to live long enough to kill everything. If they're dead and I'm alive, it's a win for me. How I accomplish that depends on what I'm working with; my AR/Fire Blaster is all about the killing large swarms of enemies fast, while my SS/Invul Brute is all about being able to stand there indefinitely. Sometimes I find a character that gets to have both. And it is glorious.

I build for survivability, always. That's probably why my 50s are two Masterminds, a Tank, a Brute, and a Dark Corruptor.

I build intuitively (sans Mids or any other tools) to get over a minimal threshold of survivability. Without this, characters just become too tedious to be fun.

What is my criteria for this threshold?

- I can solo missions, bosses on at even level, with whatever inspirations I have at hand without faceplanting so many times that the travel back from the hospital has me /ragequitting

- I can play on a tf PuG, even a speed tf (but not record breaking usually) without being the one fingered for slowing the team down

After that, I build intuitively to flesh out character concepts as they become more refined in my mind. Sometimes that means playing into my character's AT, sometimes against it. A few will bump up against some of the caps--at least they feel like they do as I don't run the numbers myself but based on how the perform feels parallel to some labored min-maxers. But ultimately, nearly seven years on, I'm still building for that "gee whiz" artsy feeling. And I love it!

I like Recharge.

I also like playing the "underdog" powersets. Unfortunately the original underdog sets of the game seem to have been latched on to as "amazing" since IO's and/or changes to their mechanics. Specifically, Dark Armor, Fiery Aura, Dark Melee, and the like. No Energy Aura, though. That set's just ugly.

Yeah, I'm with everyone else. It depends.

On a tank, I build to be able to survive apocalyptic forces and enough damage to not have a problem holding aggro.

Everything else just needs to survive "long enough." Survivability is good, but by making something push out bigger orange numbers, "long enough" becomes a shorter amount of time.


EDIT: Oh, and then there's my MFing Warshade, who got both survivability and ridiculous orange numbers. Capped damage, capped resist (at 85%, mind you), unholy amounts of recharge and three damage dealing pets.

I only ever make a character with the idea of suprise. I want people to look at my character and think woah i didnt expect THAT from that sort of power combo/character! Two examples of this follows . . . . . .

My old main [which i stopped using years ago sadly], my emp/nrg defender was in a crazy PUG team before and we took on more than we could handle really and i couldnt keep the team healed enough and the entire team wiped except me. So i went from defensive mode to avenge mode [i was cornered so had no choice really] and was able to defeat the remaining enemies and rez everybody up Everybody cheering me on as a defender was awesome and the best feeling ever, was so glad i built it in that way for emergencies and was just . . . well smiling loads after that.

Finally my now main [ill/rad controller] is built for any situation possible really with its power choices, however the one aspect i am proud of though is its damage. roughly 90% dmg buff is great for a controller in my opinion! Anyway this rare time i joined a farm team about 2 years ago, i had the best compliment possible i thought from the team leader who was the fire/kin. He said i was killing stuff faster than most fire/kins he seen farm before . . . . . now to me that was a huge compliment and made me feel happy about myself that i had built that character to the point it was out performing average power combos that were designed to be killing machines!

My Fire/Fire/Fire blaster is an unapologetic, devil-may-care, damage-dealing best. If I'm not half-dead, I'm going something wrong. I frequently forget to even toggle on her fire shield. If and when she drops, I pop the self Rez and start the carnage all over again. She dies A LOT, but she is crazy fun to play.

My few tankers are on the other side of the spectrum. I don't take an attack power if there are still defensive powers to take, and when I do start filling out attack powers, I focus on AoE ones that will help me hold aggro and/or debuffs that will help me live longer.
Similar philosophy on trollers. Lock it down, debuff and buff. Leave the actual killing for someone else.

Depends on the character, but i do personally have a preference for the offense based, so orange numbers do well for me.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

I lean towards survivability more, if only because it seems to me (as in, from playing, with no analysis of the numbers) that a build configured for survivability makes more of an impact on said survivability than a build configured for damage has on said damage. If I get my blaster to the s/l defense cap (or even just ranged cap), that has a pretty huge impact on their survivability. If I go for +dam and +rech instead, sure I'll pump out more dps, but I don't notice the increase nearly as much (and the basic ED enhanced damage is already sufficient to stomp on things, whereas the basic survivability tends to keep me fairly well acquainted with the hospital staff).

Course, they're not mutually exclusive, you can enhance both; I'll just focus more on the survivability and take what I can get along the way for the big orange numbers (and won't make any crazy sacrifices in damage to get that last 2% defense). I do have some glass cannon types that've gone all out on damage output without worrying at all about survivability, and they're fun to play, but they also reinforce my beliefs from the first paragraph.

I favor defense, recovery, and regeneration above everything. I love defense sets, and I love to tack on as much rec and reg as I can to it. Rarely get hit, and when you do, recuperate fast before you get hit again, all the while attacking without fear of running out of blue.