Willpower vs Invulnerability

Which offers more unkillability?

I have both an Invul and Wp brute, both 50, both epic. I want to go with WP, but Im not sure WPs regen makes up for the epic resistances of Invul. Currently only my WP brute can go AFK while next to a GM and be fine, yet, large numbers of enemies can kill him, especially arachnos and vanguard.

My Invul brute can take on the world, but cant stand up to GMs as well as my WP brute can, hs also lack good regen and psi protection.

Besides Stone Armor, what secondary is best for making the most epic, most unkillable brute ever conceived?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Between the two I'd say WP.

Inv's resistances are great against smash/lethal but only fair against everything else on a scrapper or brute. Wp's resistance is good against smash lethal and practically non-existant against everything else.

Inv has dull pain, which is handy. WP has basically Instant Healing as a Toggle, which is insanely handy.

Once you get your defenses into the 32%+ range really it's THEM that are doing the heavy lifting in keeping you alive. Resistances underneath are great, unquestionably, but so is rapidly regenerating every little bit of damage that gets through.

Arachnos and Vanguard will make mulch out of many armor sets. Including Inv. Don't go by them. That said I happily plow through Arachnos on x8 with bosses on with my SM/WP - same as I do every other enemy group.

However, with enough investment I'm convinced the King of Raging Death Machine is Electric armor.

Once your defenses are higher than 32% (hard to do, but worth it) you have its resistances underneath. They include heavy smash/lethal resistance, capped energy resistance, functional immunity to energy drain, and even psi resistance. It has a 50% heal that recharges faster than dull pain and even boosts regen and lowers endurance costs for a bit.

For other tools Power Sink gives it unlimited endurance and it even comes with a 25% global recharge boost from lightning reflexes. And it has a damage aura.

For the brutes you have, how much have you invested in IOs in them? What about Incarnate? Some mobs are just problematic for some builds. My Kat/sr can point and laugh at a lot of things. DE at x8 isn't one of them. Some debates get over quick when Dark melee is involved since it gives you an additional heal. Considering what stunts people are pulling of with /fire and I don't mean farms, I think any set has the potential for being "unkillable."

I think it really depends what situation you are in. Having tried both powersets extensively, I have to say, I lean towards Invulnerability for generally being more durable of the two.

hardcapped resistances to smashing and lethal when you add tough from the fighting pool into the mix. You don't even need to slot tough to get it up to the cap, just one resistance enhancement will do it close enough (on a tanker at least).

If you go cardiac you won't need tough at all unless you exemplar or malefactor.

I think the reason I prefer Invul over Willpower is, its possible, via IO sets to get larger regen on an Invul, ok, so it will never compare to willpower, but you are starting from a higher plateau anyway. Plus, you have got resistances to the exotic damage types. Not much, I guess most invul tanks have about 35% (with cardiac alpha) as a ball park figure to energy, negative, fire, and cold. Its not much, but its about 35% more than willpower has sans strength of will.

Invul just feels tougher to me. I'll say one thing, strength of will IMHO beats unstoppable as a tier 9. The penalties are much lighter on it.

A built /Elec is the beast you want.

But given the choice between /WP or /Invuln...I feel the nod goes to /Will (but not by much)

IMO, once IO's and Incarnates are involved...ANYTHING can be beastly

Oh..one more thing...Stone Armor FTW :P

I have both SS/WP and SS/INV, both have fairly high end builds and both are nearly unkillable in basically any non-incarnate pve content. However, the Invuln feels tougher and he hasn't even had any real incarnate love yet. I'm pretty sure he's not even 50+1.

It is really a moot point though. Either one can be made much tougher than you will ever need, even before you add all the Incarnate craziness.

WP and Inv are pretty even once you get into top-end builds. If you only want to continue working on one of them, choose the one you prefer, since neither choice is wrong. Personally, I'd keep both around, maybe someday the other could be appealing for some reason as well.

I have two high-end (multi-billion inf each) Brutes (SS/WP & SS/INV) and both
are PvE demi-gods. We're really splitting hairs when we discuss one being "better"
than the other.

So, which is better? I lean towards /WP over /Inv personally. YMMV.

/WP
----
* Very High Regen (+80/sec vs 1 Mob in my case)
* Very High S/L resist
* Defense strategy is: Very High Regen, High Resist, High HP, Decent Def

/Inv
----
* High Defense (softcapped)
* Heal/Very High HP (3K with Dull Pain)
* Defense strategy: Very High HP, High Def, Decent Resist, Minimal Regen

Both perform exceptionally well against most (if not all) PvE content.

The /Inv is hard to hit, and the high HP lets it win most battles of attrition especially
when you consider that its Dull Pain heal is 1200+ HP in a single click - more than
the total health (base HP) of many AT's all by itself.

The /WP gets hit more often, but frequently, its regen fully heals back the damage
before the next attack. Against S/L foes, the layered combination of regen &
resist provides complete immunity. It is simply impossible to kill it in those scenarios.

Where the /Inv gets into trouble is with the Streakbreaker (NPC's have one
too) which can allow/force mobs to hit (often at the same time). As with any +def
build, Cascading Defense Failure is also possible, and generally speaking there are
quite a number of mobs that have -def debuffs in the higher end game.
Finally, with a 5% to-hit floor, you are guaranteed to get hit given sufficient mob
numbers, which will gradually erode HP - so you always have to keep an eye
on that.

What can kill my /WP is a huge alpha hit (GM's) or -regen buffs. While there
are fewer -regen debuffers, they have a nasty tendancy of tanking regen directly
to zero (unlike -def which is usually works in % steps). Without a heal or high
defenses, that can quickly be fatal, although Resist does mitigate it a bit.

Given the pros & cons, I lean towards /WP as better, simply because it's really
hard to downplay immunity The /WP can get it, the /Inv cannot.


Regards,
4

I do not have an invuln at the higher levels, but I will say I tested my Axe/WP tanker build by aggroing 10 Devouring Earth GMs in PI and took my hands off the keyboard. After 30 minutes, my health never dropped below 80%. That's tough enough for me.

FourSpeed, why is it that you rate "very high S/L resists" as a plus for WP, but do not list Inv's even higher S/L resists as a plus for it?

My own Inv and WP brutes are both awesome and die very rarely. The WP has higher regen (obviously) and the Inv has higher resists and defense (other than Psi). Although Psi is a bit of a pain at times, I would place my Inv brute above my WP brute for overall survivability.

Yeah, Im leaning more toward WP to, but it seems that it just dosent have enough resistances, I mean, 1 hit from a toxic tarantula or something and my regen is instantly in the negative, then I get ruined. However when I use SoW Im almost invinicble, but I want a build that can use tier 9 only as a last resort.

My Invul is really nice on resistances, but like you guys are saying it lacks the regen, so it cant "stay unbreakable" for long periods of time, I think I just need more S/L Res on my WP, but all my resistance powers are 6 slotted w/ lvl 50 IOs, Im running the 3 "Healing IOs" in health, (Numinas convalesence: regen/recovery, Miracle: recovery, and Regenerative Tissue: regeneration). Im also running tough and weave.

I pull like 180+ hp/sec on my WP, but I feel like hes still too weak. Any tips for getting the most resistances out of WP, before incarnate stuff?

I'd go with Inv by a hair over WP for late game play because of the large number of debuffs that have been added in the late game. Basically, it comes down to Inv handling -Def, -Res and -Regen better while WP handles Psi, Terrorize and +ToHit better.

They're both excellent, and the difference in generalized strength is likely going to matter less than how well suited to a particular player's style and skill set each is. For example, I know I get more out of Unstoppable than Strength of Will simply because the only time I need either is in cases where SoW just isn't good enough to be a game changer. If you don't like or simply aren't proficient at using crash-laden "God Modes" then SoW is useful while Unstoppable is probably going to be skipped. Which may be enough to swing the balance back to WP.

Honestly I'd roll both so you can handle any situation. heh

... You say you have both at 50, yet you don't know which one's better?

Yeah, uhm, how about you actually play your toons instead of door-sitting/PLing? Anyway...

Each armor set has its weaknesses. These can be shored up somewhat by IOs. If you're willing/able to spend like 3 or 4 billion inf, the WP can be slotted to be better than any Invuln. However, it's a little cheaper/easier to get Invuln to the defense softcap and give it a bit of Psi resistance and extra regen.

*shrug*

Sure. I can elaborate.

Quote:

FourSpeed, why is it that you rate "very high S/L resists" as a plus for WP, but do not list Inv's even higher S/L resists as a plus for it?

I didn't say it wasn't a plus. The thing with a High Def build though, is that it simply
doesn't come into play as much (if you don't get hit, resist does nothing).

The /WP typically gets hit much more often, so it is a much more vital part of
its overall defense strategy because it allows the regen to keep pace with the
incoming damage.

Let me give an extremely simplistic example that will demo what I mean and
hopefully clarify the "immunity" concept as well.

Consider our two Brutes.

SS/WP: 2000HP, 70/s Regen, 50% S/L resist -- No Def (for simplicity)
SS/Inv: 3000HP, 45% Def, 60% S/L resist -- No Regen (for simplicity)

We're gonna gloss slightly because I want to focus on the primary core points
for the ATs rather than quibble over to-hit floors, or idle HP recovery etc.

Each is going to mock a Lt. (ie. Ridicule him, but not kill him). The Lt, of course,
will be very annoyed and pummel said Brute mercilessly, because he's used to
pounding squishies, and doesn't tolerate that sort of verbal abuse...

Lt: Melee Attack does 600 Dmg. 5 Second recharge. Standard 50% ToH

Let's see what happens after, say 25 minutes (1500 seconds)...

Code:

                     Mob  Attk Attk Total  Dmg    HP
Brute  HP/Def/Reg/Res ToH Count Hits  Dmg  Taken  Recv Result
-------------------------------------------------------------
SS/Inv 3000/45/--/60    5  300   15   9000  3600   --   DEAD 
SS/WP  2000/--/70/50   50  300  150  90000  45K   105K  FULL
-------------------------------------------------------------

Hmmm... after 25 mins, assuming neither Brute does anything, the SS/Inv is in
the hospital - despite higher def, higher res and higher HP, while the SS/WP
is at Full Health...

Even though the SS/WP actually took 10X the damage, his very high regen
along with his resist was able to keep pace with the incoming damage over
time.

Unfortunately, the 5% ToH floor, along with no regen at all, guaranteed that it's
simply a matter of time and attrition for the SS/Inv Brute.

Now, there's zero doubt that both Brutes would win the battle had they lifted
a finger to fight, but the SS/WP has complete immunity - No matter how long
the battle goes on, the Lt can *never* kill the SS/WP in that scenario.

Quote:

I've certainly experienced cascading defense failure on my WP builds.

Quote:

My much-more-expensive, soft-capped WP build HAS been slaughtered by defense debuffs, and has to be careful -- it only has around 17% DDR and less cushion.

Sure, that can happen.

Consider what would happen if we gave the Lt. in our example a 5% -Def
buff, stackable for each hit.

Well, ToH would start to approach the 95% ceiling in fairly short order

Very Bad news for the SS/Inv, but a complete non-issue for the SS/WP,
(in this instance) because even at 100% ToH, the Lt. couldn't beat the regen.

However, you can see that if the Lt put out a little bit more damage, it would
begin to be a problem for the SS/WP, so, yes, it can indeed be subject to a
CDF problem, but in general that is far more severe and troublesome to the
/Inv than it is for the /WP, and in many cases, it doesn't matter at all to the
/WP if he's fighting his preferred S/L mob types.

On the other hand, if the Lt. had a -regen buff that tanked it to 0, then the
SS/WP is in very deep doo-doo.

Hopefully, the example shows, conceptually, why I like /WP over /Inv provided
you can get a high regen rate. It's also the very same reason that the Devs
seriously nerfed regen sets way, way back... Immunity is as close to an "I-Win"
button as you can get, which is why very few AT's can get away with it.

SS/WP is one of the ones that can.


Regards,
4

It would only approach the 95% to-hit cap if the debuffs were of sufficent duration to stack that much.

Also, regen IS a big part of how both would survive if just because, depending on the attacks, a lower regen is needed for the Inv to counter what damage does hit.

Yes, what they said, and giving the Inv "no regen" totally distorts the scenario -- a minion doing 1 hit point a week would eventually bring him down.

It's also worth noting that in the debuff scenario, you are ignoring Invulnerability's DDR. It has the third-best DDR I know of (after SR and Shields, and better than Granite's unless you're also running Rooted) and it's definitely significant against the sort of small, short-duration defense debuffs done by so many swords and guns.

So, how would WP counteract -regen and defense debuffs before alpha slot abilities?

Lets say getting money and Rare IOs dont apply, would would be the best to get the most resistance out of WP?