Quote:
For brutes, all true, except EA lacks psychic defense even while running their tier9, whereas ELA doesn't really have any holes. Moreso, ELA running the tier9 is potentially capped to all resistances in the game. To make matters even more complicated, ELA offers a 20% +rech passive ability that significantly boosts a player's offensive abilities, EA offers nothing beyond its defenses.|
Originally Posted by JuliusSeizure
From a mitigation stand point, ELA has 41% resistance to SM/L/Fire/Cold/Psi, 32.4% to Neg, and 90% to Energy. This roughly equals the same mitigation as 20.5% defense to SM/L/Fire/Cold/Psi, 16.2% to Neg, and 45% to Energy.
EA has 25.7% defense to Sm/L, 29.3% defense to Fire/Cold, 32.2% defense to Energy, 22.2% defense to Neg, and stacks these values with 11.7% resistance to Sm/L/Neg and 14.6% to Toxic/energy. As you can see, when you convert the resistance values of ELA over to defense equivalents, EA has FAR higher values for the most common types of damage even before you factor its additional resistance bonuses. Neither set at the time had a heal. Both sets had a g-d mode, but EA was blessed with a crash that the set itself could COMPLETELY negate (Conserve Power/Energy Drain) while ELA has the harshest tier 9 crash in the game. Power Surge from Electric Armor has -end, -recovery, and -HP,which is a combination no other tier 9 faces. Electric Armor in theory used endurance drain as an additional layer of mitigation, but this ability scales poorly with enemy potency. Because of the way that debuffs are reduced as enemies con higher, this layer of mitigation is inadequate when the set actually needs an extra layer of mitigation against foes conning +2/+3/+4. When ELA doesn't need much additional mitigation against +0s the endurance drain is almost too potent. And then there is the ubiquity of defense trhough Pool Powers and the IO system, which drastically alters the performance of these two sets (as Arcanavill pointed out). I played both EA and ELA on my Brutes, and ELA was and still is far squishier than EA. |
Post buffs, ELA got the better heal, no matter what calculations Arcanaville might present on hypothetical values Castle refused to implement. Even if it were the 4.2% he suggested instead of the ingame 3%, I'd still take a 25% reliable heal with a lenghtier recharge over a 12.6% that requires 3 targets to be in range.
For stalkers, I agree with Arcanaville. Stalkers are capped at 75% resistance, and if you're going for a single layer of mitigation, which only old ELA and EA used to have, that resistance cap makes ELA a really bad choice, even if EA has that psychic hole.
Post buffs, at the end of the day ELA remains a resistance set with a heal on a 75% cap AT, so EA still retains a significant advantage (even if you ignore Energy Drain, which I mostly do).
But IMO, both ELA and EA were very poorly implemented on Stalkers (at least compared to sets like /Will, /Regen or /Nin), and even post buffs they remained the worse sets you could pick for everyone's favorite red AT. I imagine if it'd be like proliferating /Inv on stalkers by swapping Invincibility for Hide and Tough Hide for Repulse ^_^
EA has 25.7% defense to Sm/L, 29.3% defense to Fire/Cold, 32.2% defense to Energy, 22.2% defense to Neg, and stacks these values with 11.7% resistance to Sm/L/Neg and 14.6% to Toxic/energy. As you can see, when you convert the resistance values of ELA over to defense equivalents, EA has FAR higher values for the most common types of damage even before you factor its additional resistance bonuses.
Neither set at the time had a heal. Both sets had a g-d mode, but EA was blessed with a crash that the set itself could COMPLETELY negate (Conserve Power/Energy Drain) while ELA has the harshest tier 9 crash in the game. Power Surge from Electric Armor has -end, -recovery, and -HP,which is a combination no other tier 9 faces.
Electric Armor in theory used endurance drain as an additional layer of mitigation, but this ability scales poorly with enemy potency. Because of the way that debuffs are reduced as enemies con higher, this layer of mitigation is inadequate when the set actually needs an extra layer of mitigation against foes conning +2/+3/+4. When ELA doesn't need much additional mitigation against +0s the endurance drain is almost too potent.
And then there is the ubiquity of defense trhough Pool Powers and the IO system, which drastically alters the performance of these two sets (as Arcanavill pointed out). I played both EA and ELA on my Brutes, and ELA was and still is far squishier than EA.