Cardiac and damage resistance

I could have been clearer when I used the 5% example as the top but that is to a specific type of resistance. Whereas Cardiac gives it to anything you currently have a power for. Making it almost global if you have the right AT and power choices. And in some cases, like Invulnerabliity, it can be far more than 2% for S/L resist.

The only global resitance bonus I know of is the PvP unique. All the rest are 1 or 2 types at most. Far inferior to what cardiac offers.

Fire Armor "Tank" build running Fire Shield, Plasma Shield, and Tough, Combat Jumping, Blazing aura and Acrobatics:

Without Cardiac at all:

Resist Scores:
Smashing and Lethal: 70.20%
Fire: 90.00% (Capped)
Cold: 27.60%
Energy and Negative: 46.80%

Endurance consumption: 1.49 end/second
Recovery: 3.03 end/second
Net Gain: 1.54 end/second

With Cardiac Partial Radial Revamp (Rare tier):

Resist Scores:
Smashing and Lethal: 75.38% (Above build takes 21.03% more damage)
Fire: 90.00% (Capped) (Above build is the same)
Cold: 30.75% (Above Build takes 4.54% more damage)
Energy and Negative: 50.25% (Above Build takes 6.93% more damage)

Endurance consumption: 1.15 end/second (Above build spends 29.56% more)
Recovery: 3.03 end/second (Same as above)
Net Gain: 1.88 end/second (Above build only nets 81.91% as much)

Now, the character hasn't transformed into an invulnerable juggernaut, but as you can see, he takes a signifigantly smaller chunk of physical damage, and has a fair bit more endurance to toss around. He lasts longer, stronger, and stays in the fight in situations where before he may have had to withdraw. Coupled with his heal (which is ALSO now cheaper, and grants more toxic res), the gain in survivability is small, but far from meaningless.

Now the problem is, as you can see in my above example: The further you are from the resist caps, the less valuable these added points will be. In the case of invulnerability's exotic resists, going from 20% or so to 23% or so doesn't chop off that much, proportionally speaking, of the remaining incoming damage. If you were going from 87 to 90, those 3 points would be a lot more signifigant.

Ok so if Im understanding this correctly ladies and gents, if when I unlock it, I can get Cardiac Core Paragon, I'll get 20% resistance to my resistance powers, which factoring in 2/3 ED bybassed, should mean an additional 13 or 14% plus a bit of change, of resistance?

Which would mean with the SO build I got now, my exotic resistances shoudl from 32% to 46% which is a hell of a good hike upwards. (If I got that right)

But lets not forget the endurance reduction accross the board which on an invul / SS would be flipping handy no question I mean, it means you can keep slugging away.

If you're a resistance-based tanker and you're NOT taking Cardiac, you're doing it wrong.

For an invulnerability tanker, Cardiac Core Paragon gives you:

+1.333% smash/lethal resist from Resist Physical Damage
+4% smash/lethal resist from Temp Invulnerability
+1.333% fire/cold from Resist Elements
+0.666% smash/lethal resist from Unyielding
+1.333% fire/cold/energy/negative/toxic resist from Unyielding
+1.333% energy/negative resist from Resist Energies
+2% smash/lethal resist from Tough (You did take tough, right?)

That's all bypassing ED, for a grand total of:
+8% smash/lethal resist
+2.666% fire/energy/cold/negative resist
+1.333% toxic resist

This is all in addition to the huge endurance discount you get, and whatever fractional improvements you get from the ED-affected bonuses you'll get as well.

Cardiac is awesome if you are running a character with a lot of toggles (much easier to happen with inherent Stamina) or other end heavy powers, and then also for sets with resists in them. There are analyses out there have how much each percentage of resistance gets you in terms of survivability, but the higher you go, the more significant each percentage helps you. You can find it if you want.

Me, I'm not a huge numbers person, so I'll go with personal experience. My Fiery Aura tanker with Tough going went from the high 60s resists (68 of 69%) to S/L to 74% or so with his uncommon. The difference for him in how much damage he could take on the ITF and LGTF was dramatic. Soloing a group of Romans on the Cimeroran wall used to require use of Healing Flames at least once every mob. After, I hardly touched it.

If you're already at 90% S/L with your Invuln, you can round out your other resists at least with Cardiac. You might also be able to adjust slotting in your other powers to account for the extra resists and pick up something you currently have.

If none of that sounds good, you can try something else out. But Cardiac is pretty awesome.

Its rather nice that you "double dip" when your packing both your normal Resist toggle and Tough with the cardiac Alpha.

Cardiac on my Sonic Resonance defender made a big difference. I now run 5 toggles while blasting constantly and rarely worry about endurance. When I got the fourth tier version it boosted my resistance buffs from around +54-55% to a little over 60%.

Cardiac is super fantastic awesome on my Fire/Sonic Corruptor. Had end problems before so I needed Power Sink to keep me going. With Cardiac I was able to not only drop Power Sink but respec into Scorpion Shield so I'm softcapped to s/l to boot. Running more toggles, can spam my AoEs more and have less endurance issues.

Oh, and all of my shields are slightly buffed too. Oh and the cone on Fire Breath is too. Oh and the range on Blaze is too. Hooray for Cardiac!

The increase in damage resistance for fire, ice, toxic, energy and negative is trivial on an invulnerable tank.

Already my big guy is capped on smashing and lethal, he's hovering around 32% on the afore mentioned 5 exotic types. The thing is though, I kinda get why the resistance on the exotic types is so low on invulnerability, I mean, if it was too good, then, you'd only ever see invulnerable tanks running about wouldn't ya?

Having said that, some fire attacks combine lethal elements too them, which invulnerability can effectively neutralise totally, leaving only the fire to hurt.

Most energy attacks have got smashing in them, which again, Invulnerability can effectively neutralise.

Toxic, negative and most fire attacks though, you just take those pure, and it hurts. Though again you counteract that with Defence and using your body to deflect those harmful negative shots from hitting. So rather than look to make more resistance for the exotics, instead I'd rather use Defence for them, its easier, plus, as he's SS and footstomp pops so fast mostly the bad guys spend more time getting back up than shooting.

Swings and roundabouts peeps!

Honestly, Cardiac is great for its end reduction componant, especially if your running an end heavy build, and odds are your not capped there, or if you are you can readjust your build some, the resist is just gravy. on a resist heavy build say like a electric armor type, you really do have to get the upper lvl cardiacs to get any real benifit from the resist. I don't have an incarnate MM, but I have heard it mentioned, that Cardiac does increase your henches resistance, not sure about that.

Or you could under-slot TI and Tough, use Cardiac to hit 90% S/L, and toss those extra couple of slots somewhere else.