Ice vs Super Reflexes

Can I get input on survivability of these sets? Which is stronger? If I understand right, they are both pure defense sets, but SR has +recharge and ice has +end and slows. SR gains +resistance when hit points are low--is this significant or noticeable?

What else can you tell me?

SR is almost pure Defense, plus the +recharge power. Ice will offer you less pure defense, but can still be easily softcapped to S/L/E/NE, while also giving you two aggro auras, including a damage aura, a -DMG/-RCH aura, almost unlimited endurance, and a self-heal/_HP power.

Great! Thanks.

Anyone have info about the +res on SR?

The resistance scales once you start to take damage. It is available from Agile, Dodge, and Lucky.

From the wiki

"This Damage Resistance is only available as you lose Health but it improves as your HP declines"

Super Reflexes as a tanker set seems pretty underwhelming to me, honestly.

It's strictly a one trick pony: you've got no active mitigation (like Ice's 'soft control' abilities,) zero damage resistances and sub-par hitpoints (by tanker standards.) When things get through that defense, and they will, they hurt and you don't have anything else to fall back on. The resistance scaling, in my experience, is rarely enough to save you against more than an isolated string of bad luck. In order for it to work, the first series of attacks have to not kill you first so that the scaling can kick in. This can be a serious problem when you're tanking several bosses or an AV, as their damage can often 'leapfrog' the resistance.

It's not all bad, though. If you're building your character on SOs, Super Reflexes has excellent performance out of the box and you can reach the soft cap of 45% very easily. It also sports superior defense debuff resistance, which helps avoid the 'collapsing house of cards' effect that can happen on other sets. The 20% recharge speed bonus isn't unique, but it's a nice perk.

From an advanced build standpoint, being able to cap defenses without chasing set bonuses opens up a lot of alternatives for slotting other set bonuses you might otherwise not be able to fit into the build. The large number of defensive powers makes slotting LotG +recharge extremely easy.

Whether that can still manage to hold up to the sheer survivability you get through Ice's multi-layered defense (especially with a secondary with lots of active mitigation) will be up to you.

Overall I think Ice would be more survivable, since it's not pure defense. The dull pain clone makes a huge difference when layered on top of defense. SR's +res is very situational and won't always help, while Ice's extra mitigation (heal/HP and slows) will.

Although I'm a huge SR fan I'd have to agree that the damage res is very situational. By the time it kicks in it won't matter unless you're only fighting minions.

In addition to the damage res when taking damage, I'd like to either see recharge increase (Without stepping on Energy's toes) or your defense itself actually raise.

One point that hasn't been mentioned, is that they offer different types of defense; Ice is Typed while SR is Positional.
Ice will have Psi hole which can be a problem in the Forties onwards, most psi attacks have a positional element so SR will be stronger against that damage type - for that reason I would go with SR.
Also on a high defense AT, Aid Self can be used mid combat with a couple of - interupt IO's, I do this running at /x8 on my Shield Tank without issue.

I agree with Kenji, just wanna add that Tanker SR's Evasion (the taunt aura) looks bugged since it has a 1 sec duration (WP's has 1.25 iirc) - and I'm saying bug because the Brute version of the aura has the usual 13.6 sec duration.