/WP and S/L/E/N Def - What's it mean to be short of capped?
Quote:
In actual play, 45% defense can make you nearly twice as hard to kill as 41.4% defense. However, in actual play you don't face a constant level of threat. The threat goes up and down. It starts high when you first engage a spawn and then drops as you defeat things. Its higher when fighting AVs than minions. Its entirely possible that in normal play 41% defense is plenty enough with your resistances and regen most of the time, but only occasionally do you need more than that and only for short bursts. If you need it all the time, most people try to build for that. But if you need it only some of the time, many players stop at a level of defense that is high enough to work most of the time, and then pop lucks for those few moments when you need more protection. 41% might be "good enough" in the sense that it works 95% of the time, and the other 5% of the time you always can use inspirations for. If you only had 35% defense, you might need inspirations 50% of the time and would tend to run out. At 45% you might never need them. So between 35% and 41% and 45% you might have a case of going from inadequate, to good enough with occasional insp use, to capped out.|
Originally Posted by Kinetoa
In a previous thread, I found and tried to tweak a WP/WM build I was interested in. Here, however, I wanted to get away from specifically asking for help with that build and focus on a broader principle.
With all the focus on "getting capped", I am confused about when it's "good enough" to say "ok I am not capped, but still pretty hard to kill" specifically regarding /WP. Keep in mind this is from a person who has not experienced playing a Brute at 50 and I am trying to get my build in order ahead of time. The build in question went to 41.4 to S/L/E/N w/o PVP IO (44.4 with it). This was with 49.7% S/L res and 684-1115% Regen (depending on RttC targets). Is 41.4% "good enough" for most content? Under what situations do you need to be at 45% enough to feel the difference? I am trying to figure out if I need to keep poking and poking and pulling to get to 45. Thanks. |
All of this is based on the player, what kind of things the player does, and at what difficulty level the player normally plays at. So what is "good enough" varies depending on the player. At the numbers you're talking about, you're way above standard difficulty, and generally above even standard task force difficulty for most situations. You'd need to be running at higher than normal difficulty or fighting particularly harsh special cases to have situations that build can't fight its way out of.
For a long time I ran my SR scrapper at only 40% defense just because I knew one luck would put me to the floor and if I was fighting enough stuff to need more than 40% defense it would also probably be raining inspirations anyway. Only relatively recently (I19) did I update the build to a 47ish build, and honestly I notice the heightened regeneration from the build more than the heightened defense, simply because I already knew what 47% would look like: it would look like my old build after popping a luck, which was not an uncommon circumstance.
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a single small luck is 12.5% iirc
45%
-12.5%
------
32.5%
w/ a bind that combines inspirations for you into purples, you're golden.
incidentally, combining insps via bind doesn't count against your other actions
doesn't interfere w/ attacks or clicking glowies or seem to cost any time.
Thanks for the responses.. it's very helpful!
PS WP/WM above is a typo, but obviously you got the idea =)
Quote:
Yes.|
Originally Posted by Kinetoa
Is 41.4% "good enough" for most content?
|
Quote:
| Under what situations do you need to be at 45% enough to feel the difference? |
The only time I actually worry about getting all the way to 45% is when playing a set with little or no survivability outside defense (Super Reflexes, Energy Aura, etc). If you have a significant amount of resistance, 32.5% is plenty, because like all_hell said, one small purple softcaps you. In fact, if you have a lot of global recharge, you can just rely on Demonic. It's really easy to get, gives 50% S/L/F/C/E/N defense AND resist, and recharges in 12.5 minutes if you have 100% global recharge.
Quote:
| I am trying to figure out if I need to keep poking and poking and pulling to get to 45. |
If this were my main, and I already had the IO, I'd consider it. But only then.
@Roderick
I've actually found the difference between 41% and 45% to be noticable...when doing things most wouldn't want to do...like AV soloing...without inspirations.
If you're not into that, you really don't need to worry.
Also a bit more of a buffer on some of the -Defense happy enemies.
If you have your build, and you've found 41% to be enough for what you do, then it's enough 
I wouldn't worry about the PvP IO unless you plan to play the WM/WP Brute as one of your mains. Or, you just happen to have the Hero Merits saved up due to not needing them for anything else (such was my case on my second purchase of it)
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I am a big fan of LOWERING defense to 32.5% on most of my characters. With the soft-cap at 45% for most content, any defense between 32.5% and 45% is wasted when you use an inspiration for the tough content. I also find that 32.5% is enough for most situations. The biggest advantage of not pushing your defense as high as it can go is that you can fit more recharge in a build, usually. More recharge means you can do more damage. More damage generally means dead enemies faster, which means you take less damage. My logic is flawless!
In a previous thread, I found and tried to tweak a WP/WM build I was interested in. Here, however, I wanted to get away from specifically asking for help with that build and focus on a broader principle.
With all the focus on "getting capped", I am confused about when it's "good enough" to say "ok I am not capped, but still pretty hard to kill" specifically regarding /WP. Keep in mind this is from a person who has not experienced playing a Brute at 50 and I am trying to get my build in order ahead of time.
The build in question went to 41.4 to S/L/E/N w/o PVP IO (44.4 with it). This was with 49.7% S/L res and 684-1115% Regen (depending on RttC targets).
Is 41.4% "good enough" for most content? Under what situations do you need to be at 45% enough to feel the difference? I am trying to figure out if I need to keep poking and poking and pulling to get to 45.
Thanks.