Resistance Consensus

Just wondering if there's a general consensus in the scrap community regarding the slotting of resist powers for a scrapper. I specify scrapper and am asking in this particular forum because I never play tanks and assume the answer will be at least slightly different if asked there or in general.

In a nutshell, given what I deem very limited quality set bonuses for the resist sets, do most scrappers "in the know" or "power-gamer/number-cruncher" etc types slot with, like, 3 training IOs and the odd single IO set enhancement (i.e. KB resist) or do you folks really go for actual sets and maybe add the same aforementioned single IO quickie bonus and/or a training IO to max out the resist bonus, if not already maxed with the particular set itself?

Thoughts? Opinions?

Thanks!

I always use sets unless I want to save a slot or two. My favorite choices for defense building would be Aegis (F/C/AOE def) or Reactive Armor (S/L/E/N def). Failing that, I go with Titanium Coating for the extra HP.

This is true for all of my characters, not just scrappers. Save for the aforementioned slot saving strategy, I don't see the point in using common IOs ; enhancements hit the ED cap fairly quickly, so might as well grab some set bonuses and extra endurance reduction.

With sets it depends entirely what I'm after with the build, so I have no general advice there. However, there are some decent positional and typed defense bonuses available in resistance sets. Aegis is particularly nice in the regard. Reactive Armor and Impervium Armor find occasional use. Also, that's where your Steadfast Protection goes, and if you're rich, where your Gladiator's Armor goes.

If I'm trying to get maximum bang for my slotting buck and I don't care about the set bonuses that are available, I'll put in a Ribosome or two.

For leveling, I slot 1 endurance and 1-3 resistance depending on the strength of the power. Sometimes I'll frankenslot for endurance/resistance, which is a better approach, but I often don't bother.

Ya, I guess more need be said about the reason I'm asking...

Basically, I have difficulty believing that 6-9% defense in a few areas or a few hp (approx 60-80hp?) is worth the slots I'm spending whereas I could cap out the resists of these powers with 3 slots using training IOs, spend maybe 1 more slot to fire in one of those special one-shot enhancements like 3% psi resist (Impervium Armor) and call it good at 4 slots. Slots are indeed at a premium with almost any build I can come up with... builds that I enjoy playing, mind you.

Also, a huge factor is that, in at least 2 of these instances, my scrappers are */elec so have access to power sink so never run low in, or out of, combat.

Incarnate slots aside, the end isn't a huge consideration but I wanted to know this "general consensus" answer(s) for any situation.

Thanks, guys. Much appreciated info so far

This might be a pointless reply, but I'm reading your post differently now, as "if I use sets, I 6-slot the power", so with that in mind I want to add that when I slot sets, it's usually 3 slots (Aegis or Titanium Coating), or 4 (Reactive Armor, Impervium Armor), and I go for the second choice only if I have a specific build goal in mind. So, with the standard 3 Aegis or TC, going for 3 commons instead is a net loss as I'd gain maybe 1% resistance (if at all, on a toggle like Temp Invul) and lose HP/def/endurance.

Whenever I use commons to save a slot or two, that means I'm going with 2 level 50 commons (close enough to ED capped) or just 1 on powers I don't particulary care about.

At one point, I couldn't believe that a few points of defense here or there amounted to anything important. Given enough time, I learned otherwise. The best PVE builds tend to focus on defense first. Softcapping to S/L in particular has incredible results, with E/N coming in second due to its increased presence in new content and the defense debuffs found in some energy damage. Combined with resistance, it works extremely well.

Part of this depends on how you play the game, though. If you always run with other Tankers, Brutes or Scrappers and split aggro between you, then you can probably let defense slide. If, however, you want to be the point man for taking on large spawns, then defense is definitely worth it.

On a Brute or Tanker, it's a little easier to let defense slide on resistance builds. They have higher resist caps and more HP. Scrappers cap at 75% and usually have much less resistance against one or more common types of damage. Still, they both benefit - and can benefit a LOT - from adding defense.

In quite a few of my builds, if I'm *really* pressed for slots (think Kheldians) then I just simply forgo the resistance sets entirely and use only two Common 50 Resistance IOs. That yields the greatest amount of Resistance "throughput" in the least number of (extra) slots.

So for me, the first and foremost question is ... do I have the slots available to implement (some) Resistance Sets or not?

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...

This question actually touches on a considerably more complex question, namely, the 'dimensionality' of a power and the relative effectiveness of enhancing each dimension.

...aspect? I dunno, call it what ya want.

For example:

Resist Physical Damage is a 'one dimension' power: It does only one thing, and can only be enhanced for that one thing, resistance. So, there is NO SET IO that is more effective than a basic IO. However, the 'one shot uniques' exist largely to give the invention sets an advantage with one dimension powers like this, I suspect.

However, the huge majority of powers are more complex. For example, all attacks are "four dimensional" at a minimum: They can be enhanced for damage, endurance, recharge, and accuracy. Many attacks have even more than that!

Here is where IO's really shine, if you weight all dimensions equally. A '2 effect' IO gives more bonus total than a single IO. A '3 effect' IO gives more than a 2 effect. The maximum total enhancement you can commonly get is a "4effect" IO, which is why the Mako Quad gets so many recommendations from me.

Now, this gets much more complicated with set bonus considerations, and bumping against the ED cap, and with the Incarnate powers (especially Alpha).


So, in any multi-dimensional Resist power, (mostly resist and end) it is 'better' numerically to slot 2 effect resist end IO's, as long as you weight endurance and resistance equally.


See how simple that is?

I don't think there can be any real consensus on how to slot resistance powers. There are far too many variables to consider. I can't help but think you need to post your build and phrase the question in the context of a specific build.

I adamantly (perhaps stubbornly) refuse to sacrifice resistance slotting for defense bonuses. Luckily, such compromises are rarely necessary. I also don't believe resistance sets need to soft cap defense.

That stated, I do heavily favor Reactive Armor for their defense bonuses, it does depend greatly on the rest of the build. While Fiery Aura and Electric Armor don't have the endurance concerns Dark Armor does, I can't imagine any of the other Alpha Slot options being as useful as Cardiac. The additional 20% resistance slotting really impressed me in terms of it's impact on my survivability.

Only on my Spines/ELA have I six slotted one of the resist toggles, and that was for the 2.5% Melee Defense (I was building purely for all the melee defense I could get).

Reactive Armor for INV and WP, as I don't tend to worry to much about F/C Defense, and that set gives an okay amount of S/L/E/N defense.

On my WP I also slot SoW the same way.

However on the INV passives, no, I don't generally slot them as such, and keep it simple unless I have the slots to spare.

Wow... a lot of very knowledgeable folks out there. I can't thank you all enough. This is exactly the type and breadth of examples and facts I was looking for.

/e bow

I have a lot to think about, now more than ever, but I do know one thing... I'll never look at defense the same way again. It reminds me of why I always figured the reason the def bonuses are so low is because they're just that important, from a dev/game balance standpoint. They need those bonuses to remain in those small amounts... because they matter!

Funniest thing is, the character that forced me to finally come here for answers was originally designed with tons and tons of defense. Weave, hover, stealth plus the reactive armor set, 5 of the 3.75% melee defense set bonuses (amongst other random melee bonuses) Went with shadow meld from soul mastery for what I call the "mini-mog" effect. I had another */elec scrap that had very good results without all the def bonuses this guy was going to have just using shadow meld so I was looking forward to this being a defense build. Reason I wanted to know if that strategy was worth going for was due to the sacrifice in dps that I was looking at. But that is surely a digression from the core discussion...

One last thing though... :P

Is ranged +def more/less important than melee as a scrapper? I'm just tired of the aoe and alpha strike deaths I have fallen victim to...

Once again, thanks a ton, everyone. I will now begin the mulling over process...

For Electric Armor, extra defense is really potent. You should probably be focusing on S/L defense instead of melee, though, as it covers so much more incoming damage. Because of that, slotting most of your resistance shields with Reactive Armor is your best bet. You really don't have to worry about softcapping E/N, as the more common of the two, energy, is your strongest resistance. Also, F/C is not a big deal. If you have the budget to softcap S/L while not gimping the rest of your build, Electric Armor takes one of the top survivability spots, if not the very top (though I'm admittedly biased).

A couple of other things: OMG do not get rid of Power Sink! Take it and give it three end mod IO's. Screw Cardiac, get Musculature Radial Paragon; this will also help with your endurance and it can make Power Sink powerful enough to sap a spawns' entire blue bar in one activation. Basically the difference between Cardiac and Musculature is that Cardiac's primary focus, endurance, is mostly a waste for an /electric, but Musculature's primary focus, damage, is still helping you while you get that extra oomph in end mod.

I slightly disagree with Werner (sacrilege!) on 45% being mostly useless in newer content. Having 45% means you need fewer outside buffs to help get to the new softcap, or you need fewer purple insps to do so if you get stuck alone. My db/elec has 44.92% S/L, and with a small purple he easily solos the warehouses or labs in a Lambda trial. I still recommend getting to 45% unless you are going to hurt your build in so doing.

Ah, it seemed to me he was saying that 35%-25% would be just as good, because there are buffs everywhere now.

On incarnate content, "More defense is better of course, but there's no longer any magic to 45%." You just want as much defense as you can get without overly compromising other aspects of the build. If you do a lot of regular content, 45% is still the magic number, but likely isn't worth gimping your build for. If you can get there without serious gimpage, though, it may be worth some compromises.

35%-25% defense IS just as good, except when it isn't. Buffs are indeed everywhere in the incarnate content, except when they aren't. The lower your defense, the less likely you'll be buffed to 59% at any given point. But for much of the trial, 40% and 50% defense, say, will be functionally identical after buffs. So what do you want to sacrifice to remain solid on the rest of the trial?

Me personally? I'll sacrifice a lot. I like extremist builds for their own sake, even if the numbers say to do something else. And I'm still a soloist at heart. I don't like being dependent on others. I hate dying, viewing it as failure, no matter how trivial it is to get back in the fight. I view inspirations as failure - I'll routinely take them when I don't really need them, but when the going gets tough, I'm ashamed every time I take one. Heck, I get angry when I need to use Dark Regeneration, "What the hell? How am I letting them get away with doing enough damage to me that I actually needed to HEAL?" I'll lower my DPS, I'll give up on AoE, I'll gimp core powers. But it's probably not a good idea to build that way unless you're a bit crazy in the same way I am.

I was able to get to about 40% S/L defense on my fire tank before deciding I wasn't willing to make the sacrifice to get the last 5% for soft cap. Getting to 40% in place of 30% entailed sacrifices I *was* willing to make, and made a substantial survivability difference, but that varies by person. I took Darkest Night for extreme tanking situations. The build has worked pretty well in Incarnate trials, I don't seem to die any more often then other tanks I see there.

I saw a soft capped katana/dark scrapper build that gave up any slotting of Lotus Blossom, the main AoE of the set. Not a sacrifice I'd be willing to make, I'd rather use Divine Avalanche and Shadow Meld to handle defense, the one handles alphas while the other covers later in the fight.

For sets, I suggest a lot of playing around in Mids planner. The resistance sets provide fairly low defense bonuses, you may be able to take Aegis or Reactive set slots out of an armor, for example, and put them into Gaussians in Focused Accuracy and get more total defense. An IO defense build is pretty much always slot constrained. Conversely, if you are close to the cap on something like Energy resistance, overslotting it may be helpful, since there is a lot of energy damage out there in high end content.