Defense Vs Resistance?

Every blaster reaches that point in their career where they decide to choose between resistance or defense for their master-blaster build. I started off being a huge advocate of high resistance (using force mastery) then recently switched to high defense builds (mace mastery.)

What worries me in this switch is that one of these two options are more quickly debuffed by oncoming enemies.

What is more easily debuffed in-game, Resistance or Defense?

With this in mind, would it be a wise decision to softcap s/l resistance and get around 30% Ranged/Energy defense on top of that? I'm considering this option with my dp/fire since an entirely defense based build is a bit to tight for my taste...and I enjoy the idea of dp/fire/fire theme.

Scorpion Shield is great, I'd stick with it. You can softcap energy defense too, but it's a little more work and you'll have to sacrifice other things for it.

If it's harder to hit you, then it's harder to debuff you, so defense is the clear winner for me. It helps against mez, as well, which resistance just lets right on through.

Go for softcapped S/L/E with Mace Mastery if you can. If not, then at least get softcapped S/L. If you can softcap S/L and have respectable resists, then you might be in the best shape of all, but I imagine it'll cost a pretty penny to pull off.

Defense wise all I can tell you informational wise is Devouring Earth, Malta, Longbow Nullifiers and certain Nemesis mobs debuff my defenses and are an issue.

If someone who into resistances can answer that part It might help you out a bit.

Examples

The Nemesis Jaejer require movement because of that cloud they drop. If you move your okay.

Longbow Nullifier requires you to trick them to dropping that AOE debuff and then moving to your fighting point or again be able to move and fight. Or eat a purple to counter that debuff.

Malta you need to counter the debuffs with purple inspirations.
DE are a bit of both.. AOE attacks and others..

Any missions with these mobs I drop settings down to 2 or 3 and 6 or 7. Usually 2/6 for less aggravations.

I'm purely a defense guy with some sort of resistance shield I might pick up from an EPIC or PPP.

Defense all the way.

Both and neither. My most powerful toon is one purp and one orange from soft cap def and capped res. Didn't need to gimp the build since I am not pushing for either.

Also, I don't feel like I am getting wasted insp drops since I could always use a purp or an orange.

Defence will be more effective against normal enemies, but is very easily neutralised.

Devouring Earth are the worse, because each Quartz emanator dropped by a Guardian gives them a +100% To Hit.

Arachnos Tarantula Mistresses (and Queens) do a psychic area attack that carries a big defence debuff, and cuts through S/L/E defence by virtue of being psychic, of course.

Than again, in both these cases, Blaster epic Resistance shields won't do much good either against the incoming Toxic or Psi damage.

I'm going for defence on my blaster.

Defense, definitely. Many stuns have a S/L component and a decent number of holds have an Energy component... resistance won't stop those from affecting you but defense will. Scorpion Shield plus some IOs (don't even need to softcap, just get in the 30s) will make a huge difference in how often you get mezzed, especially if you also have decent Ranged defense (might as well since Thunderstrike is pretty much the best non-purple set for blasts anyway). I find that my Blasters rarely faceplant while fully funtional... they're usually mezzed or debuffed and then eat floor unless the tank goes down and I suddenly just catch a ton of aggro or something. Defense helps prevent those mezzes and some debuffs, so it's the clear winner to me.

Note that it is possible to softcap S/L defense while taking a resist shield, but it requires massive sacrifices and a truly staggering budget.

I like going for S/L defense if I'm going to softcap, simply because softcapping Ranged without resorting to purples or PvP IOs tends to require too many build compromises. I do prefer Ranged defense on a pure ranged Blaster, but lately I've been playing more /Fire, /Electric, and /Mental types that tend to get into melee range quite often. My Archery/Energy hover Blaster does well with decent (30% or so) Ranged defense but he's just plain boring compared to my Fire/Fire... once you get used to jumping into a spawn and wiping out everything around you it's hard to sit back and plink at things.

Edit:

Quote:

Originally Posted by StrykerX I like going for S/L defense if I'm going to softcap, simply because softcapping Ranged without resorting to purples or PvP IOs tends to require too many build compromises. I do prefer Ranged defense on a pure ranged Blaster, but lately I've been playing more /Fire, /Electric, and /Mental types that tend to get into melee range quite often. My Archery/Energy hover Blaster does well with decent (30% or so) Ranged defense but he's just plain boring compared to my Fire/Fire... once you get used to jumping into a spawn and wiping out everything around you it's hard to sit back and plink at things.

I know what you mean, try going from a warshade to an arch/dev blaster...it's impossible. lol


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Okay, so i tested out my character today with three small purple insps, which is equal to around 35% defense and he was REALLY hard to hit. So i'm going back to the defense route.

Where could i improve, if its possible?

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I have a rad/energy blast. Who has pretty much all here defenses in the 20s..which isn't that helpful. I have two builds which I switch through...one of them takes force mastery for the personal force field (mule for LotG recharge) which makes for a good "oh crap" power. Force of nature is good too. and the s/l res is a bit over 50.

My other build took electrical master, for the energy res + s/l res...so that is good and Surge of Power makes me feel like a god for 2 minute

my recharge is high enough that both surge of power and Force of Nature are only down for like 100 seconds.

I have a fire/fire blaster which uses scorpion shield and she is my most survivable though.

For me, it all depends on how I'm feeling that day...do I want to take hits like a champ, or make the champs miss me?

Anyhow...I'm sure whatever you decide will work out for you.

For a blaster, defense is better than resistance, mostly because of their lower HP.

Tanks, Brutes, and Scrappers can get decent results with resistance, but they also have more HP to work with.

If you have 35% resistance, you're still going to take 65% of the damage. or 650 damage out of every 1000 thrown at you.

If you have 45% defense, you only have a 5% chance of taking any damage at all.

I'm a fan of hover-blasting with a lot of ranged defense and a resistance shield. Covers all the bases. I can force them to attack from a position I have a lot of defense from, and if anything does get through it will hurt somewhat less. I also have Aid Self to help if I get tagged a couple times in a row. My Sonic/Devices blaster rarely dies anymore.

30% def + 50% s/l res + surge of power is usually my pick. Capped defense is great, but I prefer sturdiness since blaster defense is easily debuffable by lvl 1 council soldiers.