General discussion of the durability of Willpower on a Scrapper

I have a Willpower Scrapper, who's been dormant since before IOs were added to the game, whom I'm starting to play again. I've put together what I consider to be a decent build for him -- the details of the build aren't what I wanted to discuss, though. It's the durability of the set, really.

Willpower has very good layered mitigation. But have you found the combination of low exotic (i.e., non-smashing/lethal) resistances and low defense debuff resistance to be a problem? Maybe it's because I just fought Neuron's radioactive clockwork, which are armed to the teeth with defense debuffs and energy damage, that I'm wondering. Actually I did great -- but I was only fighting +0/x1. I know Rise to the Challenge scales with more foes, but I wonder if that would have carried me through x8 enemies.

I'm okay with Willpower having a weakness like relatively inconsequential DDR; other sets have weaknesses. Maybe I'm just spoiled by playing so much SR, Shield, and even Invulnerability, which have great-to-merely-good DDR.

But I often see people assert that Invulnerability Tankers have "terrible" exotic resistances -- and yet, my Inv Tanker has 30-32% resistances and my WP Scrapper only 5.6% to those damage types.

Willpower scrappers can be incredibly tough, or very squishy, depending a lot on exactly how it is built.

I'd say any scrapper secondary that can pull off a solo Master of ITF is plenty survivable. (Iggy_Kamakaze did it in i17 or i18, it would probably be even easier with Incarnate stuff)

I haven't found the lack of exotic resistance to be a problem, mostly because I build for E/N defense before S/L defense. It just makes sense, I can slot max level Eradications one level before I even get Heightened Senses. I end up with (depending on primary) around 24-28% E/N defense by level 30, and it just goes up from there when I get Weave and Maneuvers slotted up.

I thought WP came out after inventions? But my memory may be failing me.

I love my WP tanker, but WP on tankers has a significant advantage over scrappers thanks to the extra HPs. I always thought WP would have issues on a scrapper, but I actually do quite well on mine and he is Fiery Melee, so I get little mitigation help from the primary (yes, yes, making them dead is great mitigation too). My scrapper is not IOd well (I have a lot of IOs, but just franken-slotted for good power enhancing) so when I scale up, I need help, but just a little help seems to go a long way.

Willpower's drawback of not having much in the way of reactive mitigation bites me sometimes, but that is because I like to get in over my head (I took Resurgence, but I am very disappointed in that rez, RotP has spoiled me I guess). I find that having a few greens is actually very helpful in those cases, so while I still carry mostly purples and oranges, I make some room for greens on him.

People tend to say Invulnerability's exotic resistances are bad because they used to be much better than they are now (though I think people are mostly over that). They're decent. The issue was mostly that Invulnerability started as a resistance set, and mutated into a defense oriented one.

Also keep in mind that you're talking about a slotted Tanker's resistance values versus an unslotted scrapper's values in that comparison. Slot both under the same AT and you'll see they get a bit closer in value (Scrapper Inv: 23% eng vs. Scrapper WP: 9%).

As for Willpower, it depends more on defense for exotic damage types (F/C/E/EN), and resistance for Smashing/lethal/psionics. It has a litle bit of everything, but for energy damage it relies on defense, which as you know is overcome easily by the debuffing taking place.

It is an issue, but it's not as bad for willpower with RttC as it is for some others. Your best bet in scenarios like that is to pop enough purple inspirations head of time to softscap yourself, that way you avoid as many of the debuffs as you can. Against energy damage, at x8 it's unlikely you can survive when they get you to -45% defense and have a 95% chance to hit you.

Hit and run tactics work when that isn't an option. Once you see yourself getting debuffed in a major way, run away and wait for them to fade before jumping back in. puling them around a corner lets you do this and get them grouped to maximize your RttC buff and AoE potential on them.

Willpower is a great set, all in all. I do sometimes wonder how it'd be if the original goal of it being all passives had worked out, though. I'd still like to see a set like that, as bad as it'd likely be.

RttC, QR, and Heightened Senses (as an auto on a build you need E/N/F/C)...Willpower is a great set.

RttC could have been a T9 god-mode with a crash and people would still take it.

I've found getting those defenses up greatly improves the survivability of a WP Scrapper, not to mention getting as much added HP as you can. Take more hits, regen it back faster.

Of course, Brutes and Tankers will be stronger with WP. They have more Health. A large part of WP's defense is it's regen, so those two ATs will just win out.

Brutes who have the same numbers as Scrappers when it comes to WP's numbers, will make out better due to just having more HP.

Sadly, that's just how it plays out when it comes to deciding on just the survival aspect. Brutes beat out Scrappers.