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Sure....right up until you fight Rikti, Mu, Freakshow, Malta, Crab spiders, Banes, any of the Praetorian Clockwork, Coven witches in Croatoa. Do I need to continue? |
Originally Posted by Motley_Cruel
I know it's much easier to softcap E/N/F/C on a WP than S/L, but if I COULD pull off the S/L softcap (instead of the E/N/F/C), is it more survivable?
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There are a LOT of things in the game that will fire pure energy damage at you, and since you barely resist it at all it will eat you alive when you encounter it if you don't have good defense. Also, most of those things that fire pure energy damage, will do so at range, meaning you can't really rely on RttC to see you through it because they aren't close enough to fuel it.
You resist the hell out of smashing and lethal, but you'd be hard pressed to get more than 10-15% resistance to energy damage. Depending on the primary powerset, you can pull off 40% to S/L/E/N pretty easily, and I'd go that route instead.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
Aim for 32.5% defenses if you can. One small inspiration can then put you at the soft cap for the times you really need it. You might be surprised to find out how many situations having 45% defense is overkill.
Generally my rule of thumb for typed defenses is S/L first then E/N. F/C is very rare and uncommon outside some missions and the Winter Events. S/L is the most common damage type you'll face and E/N is not far behind. Even closer now, thanks to a lot of the new content.
If you can get both to 40% that would be great. If you can get both set to 45% without gimping your build that would be awesome.
If you compromise your attacks stacking in so much defense you might have issues.
I wish I could make a build that is softcapped to S/L/F/C/E/N Defense without gimping my MA/WP's attack chain. 45% to S/L and 36 to F/C/E/N is the most I can get without taking away from the other parts of the build I like. Barrier Destiny may just be the way to go for the character, since Regeneration is already covered.
Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
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Li-Mei: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Martial Arts
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery
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Playstation 3 - XBox 360 - Wii - PSP
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Samuel_Tow: Your avatar is... I think I like it
I'm big on 40% S/L/E/N for WP, or as close as possible to it, because Barrier is the only sensible Destiny choice for such a character, in my opinion.
Clarion - don't need mez protection, IW is already complete.
Ageless - don't need endurance ; recharge is cool but not a big difference.
Rebirth - an additional ~+400% regen isn't as nice as it is for other characters when you're already at 700% with 1 target in range.
Barrier - softcapping S/L/E/N as needed, adding a buffer against defense debuffs, adding 5% res to all and more during the first parts.
Answering the actual question at hand, I believe the S/L softcap to be more survivable than the F/C/E/N softcap. Most attacks that debuff defense are lethal, and lacking defense debuff resistance you will get debuffed pretty fast at low S/L def. S/L damage represents something like half of the damage you'll ever see. Most attacks also have a S/L component - energy blasts, ice blasts, fire/ice swords, elec/energy punches, the list goes on.
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This is one of the reasons I consider skipping SoW to be a mistake for Willpower builds post inherent fitness.|
Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
You resist the hell out of smashing and lethal, but you'd be hard pressed to get more than 10-15% resistance to energy damage. Depending on the primary powerset, you can pull off 40% to S/L/E/N pretty easily, and I'd go that route instead.
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An extra 10-15% resistance to exotics might not seem like much, but combined with high regen, defenses and native resistances - its often enough to take the edge off of massed exotic damage attacks.
I also like to back that up with orange insps, and tend to prefer them to purples (since I can already build for defense).
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Originally Posted by Nihilii
I'm big on 40% S/L/E/N for WP, or as close as possible to it, because Barrier is the only sensible Destiny choice for such a character, in my opinion.
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Why would you choose 40% over 32.5%? I think 32.5% defense is better, even though it is a lower number. Here's why:
The difference between 40% defense and 45% defense is getting hit twice as often. The difference between 32.5% defense and 40% defense is also getting hit about twice as often (slightly less, but just illustrating a point). The difference in the amount of slots it takes to increase defenses past 32.5% is significant and is usually done at the expense of recharge bonuses.
If you have 40% defense and use a small inspiration to reach the soft-cap and take half the hits, all of the defense sets you spent going from 32.5% to 40% are wasted. Anything beyond the soft-cap has no effect in most situations.
Team buffs from Force Field, Cold Domination, and Fortitude are at least equal to the value of one small inspiration if they are enhanced. A Controller's Fortitude gives 11.25% defense before enhancements. So again, buffs from commonly-found teammates have a good chance to make 40% defense less valuable than 32.5% defense.
The only situation I can see 32.5% defense being worse than 40% is when your team has no more than two people with Maneuvers, and has no other defense buffs. If you are in that situation, you likely don't have a balanced team composition or aren't in a full team.
A Scrapper's primary job is to deal damage. You sacrifice a lot of potential recharge and likely sacrifice a potentially-better attack chain by going to 40% defense instead of staying at 32.5%, while gaining almost nothing for survivability when inspirations and team buffs are taken into account.
I'm big on 40% S/L/E/N for WP, or as close as possible to it, because Barrier is the only sensible Destiny choice for such a character, in my opinion.
(I have now decided to just repeat exactly what I said instead of trying to rephrase it, when people blatantly ignore it.)
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Yeah, as a rule I'm not a big fan of building a DEF build around Barrier, because if you're going to go to the effort to increase your defenses high enough that Barrier's low-end bonus will cap you, then you might as well (usually) go the extra mile with IO bonuses and benefit from some other Destiny buff.|
Originally Posted by Nihilii
I'm big on 40% S/L/E/N for WP, or as close as possible to it, because Barrier is the only sensible Destiny choice for such a character, in my opinion.
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But Willpower is an anomaly. It already has everything else covered. Even at its lowest value, Barrier really is a boon to WP characters, who can now afford to spend fewer build resources on DEF. As a bonus, if you take Barrier and stack it with ~40% DEF, then you'll be at the Incarnate soft cap 1/4 of the time irrespective of teammate support or Inspiration use.
As far as the original question goes, there's no right answer anymore. Prior to Issue 20, I would have said it's a no-brainer -- go for Smash/Lethal first. Not only are Smash/Lethal attacks more common in generic content, not only do they comprise the vast bulk of the melee (and thus, typically the hardest-hitting) attacks in the game; the bulk of DEF debuffs also tend to be packaged with Smash/Lethal attacks.
But the trials throw all of that out of the window, depending on how focused you are on them.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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If you have the money you can get your WP/SS to DEF:
52 S/L
47 Fire/Cold
45 Energy/Negative
37 PSI
Your will be perma rage. Your end will be 4.50. Your res will be around 67 S/L and 11 for most of the rest except psi which is either 40 or 45%.
Plus you get high recharge....I think 120 with Hasten.
You will need to buy the glad proc. If not then lower it of course by 3+
I do not have the build on me as I am working, but I will be happy to get that out to you guys.
Oh and the regen is around 70 normal and against 1 person in the 100's and more in groups of course.
Always slot forcefeedback in footstomp as that works like a charm everytime for me.
After reading the post above me I have barrier for the trials, which is nice but I use Ageless for most of the other content as it gives you recharge of 70 and if also gives you recovery of over 8 (well me anyway) so when you crash it is great to keep you flowing.
Plus works well with the footstomp that wonderful ageless thing....
I know it's much easier to softcap E/N/F/C on a WP than S/L, but if I COULD pull off the S/L softcap (instead of the E/N/F/C), is it more survivable?