Invuln Vs Willpower: Fire/Elements.

Against WP's energy DEF? (~20ish% before IOs or pool powers.) I don't think that event is as common as you think it is.

I'm also not convinced that the scenario you describe above is as clear-cut as you seem to think it is: 40 points of end drain in 10 seconds may or may not cripple you depending on how much end you start with, and depending on your net recovery. If you have 0 net recovery while attacking at full speed, then given a sufficient margin-of-error cushion you're basically fine even if an opponent drains nearly your whole bar.

But hey, let's say that your build has a -2 net recovery while attacking at full speed; getting hit with 40 points of end drain over ten seconds would still leave you with 40 end to play with, or about 20 seconds worth of attacks after that initial 10 second period, assuming you don't get drained again.

What really kills builds that are (or near) endurance sustainable is the combination of endurance drains with recovery debuffs, or just recovery debuffs if they last long enough. In order for drains to cripple you without any accompanying -recovery debuffs, the drains have to be applied consistently (or they have to be effing huge). Situations in which you'll face consistent drains equivalent to ~4 EPS are rare, and even when you do face that kind of consistent drain, that number only describes the point at which Invuln's resistance starts to outpace Quick Recovery; Invuln still won't have a noticeable advantage until drain grows well beyond that point.

Regardless, Quick Recovery doesn't require that you be drained/debuffed for you to benefit from it. QR is better than Stamina. Invuln's endurance-drain resistance does diddly squat unless you're hit with a drain. I was willing to entertain your anecdote about Lambda because it honestly confused me, but let's not lose the forest for the trees here. Would you seriously trade away QR for Invuln's drain resistance? Is it even a choice you'd deign to consider?

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

That is usually an entirely separate discussion, but the proper way to quantify that would be to measure the healing capabilities of the third party and add them to the survivability of the set you are evaluating.

Forgive my ignorance if this is a silly statement, but IMO it shouldn't matter what the outside source's healing capability is. We know that it refilled the character to full, so whether they are capable of healing 100HP or 1000 I don't think matters at that moment in time. You may not even have a guarantee that the heal will happen again, or it could be an unreliable splash heal, like from a Kinetics user.

The question I have is, when the external heal restores the target to full, does this mean the system has been "reset"?

I love QR. I am still upset my Regen Stalker cannot get it. I agree it is way better utility than the end drain/recovery debuff resistance.

I don't think I would (I'd have to play with my builds to truly figure it), but nor would I trade away the end drain resistance even if they just added the +recovery of QR to ResNrg. At this point I'd prefer to keep the resistance.

My regen scrapper has died too often to drains. My WP tanker has had severe difficulties due to drain. My Invuln scrapper has not had issues with drain since they added the debuff resistance.

This is assuredly a situation where IOs are weighting my decision. No doubt in an SO comparison QR laps this minor ability. But in game, when it matters to me on my builds, I have been able to build enough recovery to make me happy even before I added IOs to my build. But until Ageless, there was no way for me to build to solve the end drain problem even on characters with QR.

For balancing purposes: no.

If you just playing, sure you can see it that way.

The thing is, if you want to see how well an Invuln would do with a third party that can heal him for 100% every 2 minutes, then you need to just add that to the formula. If you are not sure if the heal will ever return, then you consider that a one time heal and average it over the course of the simulation.

But again, if you just playing, you can consider it "reset", but even then its a very limited way. No matter how much you are healed for, the fight was not reset, unless you also go about healing to full and resurrecting any hurt enemies. It is just an event going on inside an ongoing battle.

Also, as Garent states, there are other variables. If, during the fight, the tanker had to use Dull Pain, healing you to full will not reset the timer on Dull Pain. It still is recharging as part of the ongoing fight.

What, seriously? Ever? What I tend to hear is 'invuln is underpowered because WP does everything and has disappearing nipples as well.' You can also say the same of stone and fire and ice. Seriously, people trump WP as unkillable all the time.

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There is a significant camp of people that will always insist regen of any kind is never going to keep you alive.

Defense.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

It is true my regen scrapper has little of that commodity and my Invuln is benefiting from gobs of it on top of the small resistance to debuff/drain.

However, the WP tanker has 47.5 Sm/Le, 41 F/C, 54 En/Neg, and 36 Psi. Even before the IDF, the endurance could be problematic, but only against enemies with drain.

But we have likely beaten this horse enough and I must admit I am now fascinated with the concept of trying to get buffs for Invuln. I definitely had more issues leveling my Spine/Invuln than my Kat/Invuln or Staff/Invuln, so without outside mitigation, I can see some Invuln issues.

This is especially surprising since my WP scrapper is fire, which has no mitigation from the primary, and yet is still solid. Of course the WP scrapper has been Frankenslotted with mixes of set IOs since level 17 and the Miracle proc, while the Spines was all SOs with a few commons and no miracle.

So many variables. I am eager to see more of Starsman's results.

Regen is a massive benefit to anything...I would never dispute that, I play a lot of /Regen toons and I love the set...

This is the flaw I see in Willpower personally...and I may be biased about it, because it doesn't suit my playstyle; however, Willpower is good to a specific threshold: Once you overcome the Regen in terms of DPS/debuffs whatever the method of choice is...Willpower is headed for unavertable CDF. I experienced this with the set back in issue 12, and every WP toon I have ever rolled. Regen, as a powerset, suffers similar weakness, but has more than 2x the sustainable regen to overcome it. Invulnerability has tools that mitigate the slippery slope better. So, my assessment is that Invuln's strengths lie in it's ability to better cope with outside factors that alter your survivability.

I have been personally lobbying for 2 things for /Regen myself. Though the last conversation I had, aluded to the fact that /regen would not be looked at again for a while. However, I thought that QR should have recovery debuff resists built in, and that regen should carry more regen debuff resists, being as those 2 things are the heart and soul of the set, I personally think that they should be better protected. I have also thought recharge debuff resists would be useful but the argument there is sketchy to pose at best, and the thematic purpose of them is less heavily weighted by the set's inherent design as the other 2 resists.

I have found that SoW works decently to help push me above normal. For my scrapper, I took Resurgence for concept and used it, but it was horrible. The recent buff to it has really helped make it a nice click to recover when you get in over your head.

There are also flat earthers. This isn't criticism of you, mind you, or your work, I'm just surprised it was felt as being necessary.

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On the other side, there used to be a big camp of people that was sure that defense sets were worthless if they didn't contain a self heal. Then everyone started playing shield.

Really, it comes down to this: You can claim any idiocy as a popular opinion because in any situation there are a number of idiots enough to agree on anything.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

Well, it wasn't done just to show they are even, it was done to show WP was significantly better. Enough better to try and push for buffs to Invuln.

I guess in any situation where you use comparisons to suggest a buff, the reverse is always an option. I don't think that is the intent, nor do I think it is a likely result.

No. Never.

It's nor my intent nor smething I would be ever be able to convince any developer to do, EVEN if I thought it was required (and I dont.)

With nukes getting the non crash treatment, I really wish the Devs would look at at least halving the crash of the Armor tier 9s. Even is Unstoppable were 1/2 as effective, I would use it all the time if it had only half the crash. I keep it in my build because hitting 90% Res on everything except Psionic is hot stuff, but the fear of the crash keeps mre from ever popping it.