Best resist armors in the game

Okay, do not say Tank. lolol And let's just make it official, yes I am asking "What is the best armors in the game for Resistance?" The reason I am asking here is I do not want to be drawn into best for Tank or best for Brute...yet.

On it's face a pretty straightforward question, and a few minutes in Red Toejam (do not steal that name I may want it) er Tomax would probably have me near an answer. (unless I misunderstand something, which peeps around here know never happens with me...) But wait, there is more.

The reason I am asking for the help (beyond being incredibly lazy) is I was hoping one of you clever peeps knew if any of these sets I/O out easier. I plan on getting the most inherent resistance, then I/Oing for S/L defense. then looking and seeing where to push the rest of the build. Of course please add Fighting pools and any other design tricks there are to make this monster come to life. Also, any pairing with primaries for survivability (dark's -to hit, and heal...) are also welcome suggestions. Thanks in advance.

The best is granite armor. After that would be dark armor. Dark has solid resistance paired with the best heal in the game.

*edit* as far as pairings go, stone melee has fault and energy melee has whirling hands which can stack with oppressive gloom.

Invulnerabilty for S/L res. No Psi.
Elec Armor for Energy res. No Toxic outside of crash power.
Fiery Armor for Fire res. No Psi.
Dark Armor for Neg/Psi res.
Ice Armor for Cold res. Defense based.
Granite for Everything but Psi. Dull.
Willpower for S/L and Psi with Regen on top. Generally low numbers to everything else.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but Dark would be my personal suggestion.

If you're building for Def with IO's, Kinetic Melee might be handy for it's -damage/pseudo +res. Knockdown is good mitigation, too. I went Dark/Dark/Body on my tank, and she's ridiculously hardy, so much so that I can use the heal as a taunt.

I heart my War Mace/Dark brute. Definitely preferred it to Electric (which I tried on a Scrapper). Oppressive Gloom is an impressive power, and stuns on warhammer stacked well with it. Leap into a spawn and smack a boss with Clobber and he's out of the fight. As a brute, once slotted I hit about 39% defense on S/L and E/N both. Resistances are roughly 50% for S/L/N, with 23% on energy/toxic and 35% for F/C. Psi res approaches 60%.

Cons were there, though. Endurance management was a severe pain before getting slotted out (but after IO set slotting and accolades, the issue was pretty well solved). DA has no resistance to knockback, but you can solve that easily enough with inventions. Also, with tough/weave/combat jumping I was running a grand total of eight (8!) defensive toggles at any time. If I did happen to die, I *needed* most of that 15 seconds of invulnerability just to toggle back up! And finally, you need a lot of Kinetic Combat and Eradication to get high defense, so it's a very expensive set to slot out. Does NOT fit your criterion of "IOs out easier."

edit: I originally planned this character as a tank, and S/L/N was at or near the non-incarnate softcap.

Dark Armor has a massively better heal, but Electric Armor has far better resist numbers than Dark Armor. 90% energy resistance is insanely good, energy damage is very common. Dark Armor has better psi and dark resists than Electric armor, but the 90% energy resists outweigh that greatly.

The main thing Dark Armor has over Electric Armor is Dark Regeneration, while electric armor has more useful resist numbers.

The best raw Resistance is Granite - 50%
Otherwise, Stone can pile up about 27% Resistance to S/L.

Temporary Invulnerability is 30% vs S/L unenhanced.
Additionally, an Invulnerability Tanker can add another 15% from other powers.

Those are the numbers, there's really not much more to discuss.

A Tanker can add another 15% from Tough.

Enhancements can almost double these numbers.

You should know all of this already! Why are you asking questions that you know the answers to?

Be Well!
Fireheart

trying to think outside the box. For instance, I have always looked at dark, and for theme reasons ran every toggle. (i know...) But now I am looking at it as a brick in another build and forgetting that its "dark" just looking for value, strip the rest, add in one or two of the "flavor" toggles (yes, i know they do more than flavor, but....) only if I have build room. Compare that to an electric built for tanking.

The truth is that the best set is the one you've learned to play. All the raw numbers and maxed out IO sets in the world will get you precisely nil until you take the time to play and learn which powers work at what times. I can play an AR blaster (a set known for low dps) and pull aggro off a tank. My WP tank typically won't fall to anything that doesn't con red or purple. Experience goes miles beyond your build.

In other words, close your browser, fire up the game, and forget the numbers. PLAY.

Umbral Aura. Hands down.

I have at least one WP brute and two WP scrappers with smash/lethal softcapped (and high or softcapped energy/neg energy. Very tough. (War Maid is one of them, we took down Adamastor together the other day).

I have a brute, scrapper, and tank who are invulnerabilty based with softcapped smashing/lethal and high or softcapped energy/neg energy. VERY tough. I love playing them.

I have a dark melee/dark armor brute that I did the same sort of thing on, don't think I quite managed to softcap the energy/neg energy on. In theory this would be one of my toughest, sturdiest brutes. In practice, I don't really like playing the character because they're just a ball of ugly black dust.

I have a 50 electric armor brute and a 50 fire armor tank, haven't tried to IO either of them out for softcapped defenses. In general I never liked playing the fire armor tank for the same reason I don't like my dark armor brute... they were always a small ball of bright fire, couldn't see the character. I know that has nothing to do with your original question, but it kind of does, because however tough I make a character, how they look is a part of what makes me want to play them or not. I have a 33 stone tank and a 36 stone brute, and I've never got either to 50 for precisely the same reason... the look of granite armor does nothing for me.

What set you pair with will make a big difference. One of my scrappers is spines/WP, and that was VERY difficult to cap smashing lethal on because ideally you want 5 powers that you can 4-slot kin combat in. I think I had to mule both boxing and brawl which really annoyed me, I hate having to mule sets.

I am very interested in this. With a good build I think this could be a lot of fun. Would give me an oppotunity to make my Cthuloid storyline. These things go Redside now right? I still am disgusted with whoever stole HP Lovecraft stuff (Oops did I say that out loud) and then was ignorant enough to be like "Look a Hero is born!" Pancakes!

maybe i can reclaim the insane membrane for ol' HP.