High Hitpoints or High Resistance?

I am trying to decide between an Electric Armor tank or a Will Power tank, which got me thinking. Which will help me survive big hits better? On the one hand, Elec has amazing resists, and can be soft capped to Smashing/Lethal and Energy/Negative. It has a good heal, slow resistance, and a damage aura. It lacks however any +HP. I would really want a tank at or above 3k HP. That got me thinking about Will Power which has good +HP but rather low resistances.

So. How does +HP and +Res compare. I do know they are comparative. Extra HP gives you virtual resistance. But how much? Would having capped S/L/E res and 2500 HP be as good or better than 50% S/L and 10% F/C/E/N res with 3500 HP?

This is a general enough question I thought to be asked in the questions forum rather than tanks. I'm not just asking for a tank, but as a general rule (like 1% def == 2% res)

I happen to have two tankers, an electric armor and a willpower tanker, each at level 50 and fully IO-slotted. Both are very sturdy and rarely ever fall. My personal experience was that, while the electric tanker is obviously better at holding aggro, I believe the willpower tanker is slightly more robust. (Note that this refers only to the finalized builds with IOs. On the way to level 50, the electrical tanker was defeated less often. The willpower tanker was rolled back when the powerset was first released, however, so maybe this just means that I got better at playing tankers.)

Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions only, ymmv. A good build is essential for a tanker to truely shine, especially for a willpower tanker.

10joy

+HP increases regeneration, which on a Willpower tank is already pretty good (especially surrounded by foes), which grants more "fake resistance" over time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

I'd suggest just coming up with two builds and throwing them in one of the survival analysis tools that are out there. You can find mine on my blog in the "Guides and Builds" tab, but there are others out there.

Note that currently WP's taunt aura (and I think SR's) is horribly gimp compared to all other tanker taunt auras. It has 1/10th the duration of what most tank sets get and duration factors heavily into the aggro generated by taunt auras. Makes it a lot harder for WP to hold aggro compared to other tank sets.

Also, with just accolade bonuses and no set hp bonuses, Elec would get 2,248 hp at 50, and WP would get about 2811 hp at 50. 25% more hp for WP, which is less than the 40% more you're mentioning. Where are you getting your numbers from?

That said, WP is a fairly nice toggle and go defense set, just has aggro issues.

I pulled some of the numbers off of memory. The Elec tank build I have has 2.6k hp, 85% S/L res and capped Energy. I think I was remembering scrappers' WP numbers for S/L + Tough. Usually I can build a WP tank with 3.2k +HP. (was giving it the benefit of the doubt that I could get to 3.5 if I wanted.

Thanks for the notes though. I am mainly concerned with I-Trials. So I am thinking massive hits of energy damage from AM as well as A good deal of Psi from the MoM trial.