I build for defense on everything, (well... not regen I guess), but generally speaking willpower performs very well without a lot of defense, and resist sets like dark and invul mostly do too. But I softcap my wp/dark/invul/electric toons (smashing/lethal at the very least) so I can really be awesome.
My regen toons are built for recharge, so that my heals are up quickly, but they are all katana or broadsword, sets that include a defense-building mechanic.
If you want to completely avoid defense and still feel really sturdy... I'd say Willpower.
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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Just don't worry about it? |
Originally Posted by American_Knight
2) Is the chase for soft-cap/high defense unavoidable no matter what combo I play?
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I'm in kind of the same space - I recently took a couple of builds from the forums (as I don't really have the time to sink into designing a soft-capped build myself) and discovered that wow, this can really make a difference! Problem is, it requires I usually not alt half as much as I like to and tends to make other non-specialized build toons feel weak. Which makes me feel like I'm wasting my time with these toons if they're only SOed or something.
Well, so it goes, time to ignore that and just have fun. I know can run even a poorly-built toon on any ol' PUG and still enjoy and contribute, just need to keep that in mind and make that inner nagging voice shut up.
Maybe that's what you need to do as well?
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Many sets have some soft mitigation like knockdown which can be useful for reducing an alpha. Beyond that, most defensive sets are just fine for taking the alpha. My suspicion is that you're either used to incarnate characters (which outperform everybody) or you aren't building to your set's strengths. It's also worth noting that both Elec and Regen are somewhat lackluster sets for pure mitigation. Try out Willpower or Fire, both of those play very well in my experience.|
Originally Posted by American_Knight
My questions are:
1) Are there other alternative melee sets/secondaries that will give me the same playstyle as my soft-capped-charaters? |
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| 2) Is the chase for soft-cap/high defense unavoidable no matter what combo I play? |
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Please don't. If chasing defense is annoying to you - then play toons which don't need it so much. |
Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
Maybe that's what you need to do as well?
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Like some folks, I came to the forums, copied a build - an invuln tank that was soft-capped. The sheer survivability compared to my fire tank (also s/l resist capped like the invuln, but not soft-capped defense) was amazing. I immediately respec'd the fire tank and now wonder why anyone would play an invuln when they can have burn, be softcapped and s/l resist cap like the invuln is.
When you decide to just "have fun" and forget about what you slot in your toon, you might get away with it on a good team --but as soon as you're solo, you're going to regret it.
Playing a toon with just SOs is like driving a nascar stock car and putting regular gas in it. It might go, but it won't go as fast, and it won't have as much power. Anyone that tells you SOs are ok is telling you the truth. Just not the complete truth. I have two level 50 ice blasters. One was io'd, the other SOs. Identical powers, identical everything, except different servers. 3 guesses which one gets more play. I'll NEVER settle for SOs if I can have IOs and all their bonus goodness. Once I experienced the difference between the two, I respec'd and got soft-capped. Now the blaster can farm freaks at +1/8 as long as I have clarion slotted.
If you want to have fun, clobber the baddies - don't let them clobber you.
Chase defense numbers - you don't always have to be softcapped either. Sometimes 25% or 30% is good enough. It all depends on who you team with(tanks? Defenders?) and your playstyle.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
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You would be better off going with Smashing/Lethal defense on this one, rather than melee or ranged. |
Originally Posted by American_Knight
claws/regen scrapper
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Why?
Defense debuffs. The vast majority of the defense debuffs you will encounter are coming from lethal damage attacks, and that includes the large amount of machine gun fire you will face throughout the game.
Even if a machine gun wielder is standing right next to you, his gun attacks will still be flagged ranged. If you focused on melee defense, that means there won't be much to stop his attacks from hitting you and stripping away all your defense. Lethal defense will at least make that less likely to happen (it still will though, there's no way to completely avoid it)
The nice thing there is you don't have to be at the soft cap to notice a difference. My Claws/Regen scrapper's survivability jumped quite a bit when I got his S/L defense up to 35% or so. (It IS possible to soft cap it without gimping the rest of your build, though it will be expensive and require some unusual slotting)
You don't NEED to get high levels of defense with those particular characters, but I do recommend getting at least SOME defense.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Personal play-style. If I felt I just absolutely HAD to go the near-softcap route on every single toon I'll ever play, I'd never get any actual playing done (and I'd quit because the game had become a chore and would leave me feeling like I can't do what I want to, just "what's the best choice"). |
Originally Posted by Ukaserex
Please don't. If chasing defense is annoying to you - then play toons which don't need it so much.
Like some folks, I came to the forums, copied a build - an invuln tank that was soft-capped. The sheer survivability compared to my fire tank (also s/l resist capped like the invuln, but not soft-capped defense) was amazing. I immediately respec'd the fire tank and now wonder why anyone would play an invuln when they can have burn, be softcapped and s/l resist cap like the invuln is. When you decide to just "have fun" and forget about what you slot in your toon, you might get away with it on a good team --but as soon as you're solo, you're going to regret it. Playing a toon with just SOs is like driving a nascar stock car and putting regular gas in it. It might go, but it won't go as fast, and it won't have as much power. Anyone that tells you SOs are ok is telling you the truth. Just not the complete truth. I have two level 50 ice blasters. One was io'd, the other SOs. Identical powers, identical everything, except different servers. 3 guesses which one gets more play. I'll NEVER settle for SOs if I can have IOs and all their bonus goodness. Once I experienced the difference between the two, I respec'd and got soft-capped. Now the blaster can farm freaks at +1/8 as long as I have clarion slotted. If you want to have fun, clobber the baddies - don't let them clobber you. Chase defense numbers - you don't always have to be softcapped either. Sometimes 25% or 30% is good enough. It all depends on who you team with(tanks? Defenders?) and your playstyle. |
Secondly, most builds I find here are for end-game, using at least a few purples, HOs and what have you. For me, a toon at 50 is pretty much at the end of their play-time. I don't PL and I do alt, a LOT, so my interest for any single toon can only last so long. I still have yet to do one post-50 thing in this game, and that's not likely to change.
Well, take that back, my designed-by-the-forums-blaster is looking to be a beast when she hits 50 and I just might take up some end-game to help out funding for other toons... maybe. Depends on if my other alts claim me more...
Personally, I DO feel I have have a great build/softcap build on nearly every one of my characters, and I structure a lot of my game around that. I market aggressively so that I can afford whatever I want, I place long-range lowball bids on the things I do want, and I earn a lot of regular merits and hero merits and spend them. But I enjoy immensely getting a character's build together and seeing how they improve, so I don't consider it too much of a chore.
My builds are almost always build knowing that I run TFs a lot and exempt down a lot, so they're not perfect level 50 builds, but still very strong at 50.
But I'm also an alt addict so I can understand, not everyone can be bothered to do everything I've done. ^_^
my lil RWZ Challenge vid
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I don't really know how to have fun doing it any other way. I try to keep my enhancements from expiring and I slot inventions of opportunity (mostly what drops that I think I can use) but I don't plan builds until I reach the late 40s generally.
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Originally Posted by Ukaserex
When you decide to just "have fun" and forget about what you slot in your toon, you might get away with it on a good team --but as soon as you're solo, you're going to regret it.
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Almost all of my characters run on either SOs or generic IOs. Of my four 50s, I have two characters with significant IO progress on them, one slotted almost entirely in generic IOs, and one still with her fully-HO'd build from <I9 Hami Raids. I do almost nothing BUT solo, and I don't understand the concept you put forth. Why do I have to blaze through enemies so fast? Why do I need to be super powerful? Who am I competing with? I'd rather be only slightly over par, keeping me on my toes with the danger of defeat (even though defeat means nothing in this game), than be guaranteed to win every single time. That would be exceedingly boring.
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Originally Posted by Ukaserex
When you decide to just "have fun" and forget about what you slot in your toon, you might get away with it on a good team --but as soon as you're solo, you're going to regret it.
Playing a toon with just SOs is like driving a nascar stock car and putting regular gas in it. It might go, but it won't go as fast, and it won't have as much power. Anyone that tells you SOs are ok is telling you the truth. Just not the complete truth. |
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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.
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To be blunt, your entire post is pure BS. |
Originally Posted by Ukaserex
When you decide to just "have fun" and forget about what you slot in your toon, you might get away with it on a good team --but as soon as you're solo, you're going to regret it
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I especially find the bit on SOs funny, when we have people (still!) complaining about, oh, Trapdoor, First Ward, etc. with their fancy builds and I wander through them on SOs... pretty much without trouble.
The only - *ONLY* - time I'd say someone should ignore SOs is if they're going into a PVP league. But at that point, you actually ARE competing with others. Other than that, leave it at "I prefer a build this way" instead of implying you're going to be somehow unable to do anything or left behind if people don't play/slot exactly the way you do.
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I tend to find that I don't like playing on SO's because I can't solo spawns meant for multiple players without even thinking about strategy. I'm kind of lazy that way. |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
The only - *ONLY* - time I'd say someone should ignore SOs is if they're going into a PVP league. But at that point, you actually ARE competing with others. Other than that, leave it at "I prefer a build this way" instead of implying you're going to be somehow unable to do anything or left behind if people don't play/slot exactly the way you do.
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my lil RWZ Challenge vid
I go through altitis moods whereby I will find myself liking my controllers and corruptors and playing them mostly then go to my dominators and MMs for awhile then move on to my scrappers/brutes/stalkers. I am in my melee phase right now and am put-off by chasing defense.
I have a claws/SR scrapper, a spines/sr scrapper, and a stone/shield brute all soft-capped. They allow me to set the pace of the team I play in by absorbing the alphas and going crazy on the damage. These characters were made 6 months ago or longer. My problem lately is that my latest creations, claws/regen scrapper (lvl 31) and TW/elect brute (lvl 24ish) arent as survivable as my defense based characters and it will take a large investment and time commitment to build up their defenses to get them to be good enough for the style of play I like.
I team mostly and only do PvE and no incarnate stuff.
My questions are:
1) Are there other alternative melee sets/secondaries that will give me the same playstyle as my soft-capped-charaters?
2) Is the chase for soft-cap/high defense unavoidable no matter what combo I play?