Hopeling

I dunno about "the same ease with which you can get defense", but the Brute I copied to beta has ~19% S/L resist from set bonuses with just the build I copied from Live. With a build that actually attempts to take advantage of resist bonuses, rather than getting them purely by accident, this could have quite a significant effect. Unless the values change significantly, I could pretty easily have permanently capped S/L resist on a /FA brute AND my current ~40% S/L defense.

Fixed to deliver the same point without semantics over what exactly counts as an IO.

...the Enhanced Water Jet lockout is 8 seconds, and although I don't know what attack chain you think I'm using, it doesn't take long to get the first one off. With a 30 second duration, I can probably have a stack or two left from the previous fight.
I don't think anyone is disputing that. But that's a thoroughly separate point from the basic mechanics of the Defiant Barrage proc.
Buying Super Packs for Catalysts is foolish, I agree. Fortunately, they are pretty easily obtained via Incarnate content. A catalyst every few trials, or for each run through the DA arcs, seems to be pretty normal.

However, apparently not all procs received an increased PPM, as was the plan last I'd heard. So the normal/Superior procs are still 3/4 PPM respectively, and the proc rates I've cited are slightly too high. So I'm actually looking at 46% in Water Jet.

Anyway, off to run a few missions and see how it works in play.

You can (and probably should) build stacks before getting mezzed; having it in a power that's usable while mezzed is helpful, but not the sole purpose. You also didn't account for the instant recharge on Water Jet, which is silly since it's the main reason I'm slotting it there. 6 casts of Water Jet per 30 seconds is easily done, even if I never use it during the Enhanced Water Jet lockout.

Also, you seem to be assuming that NPC mez is usually mag 3, like player mez is, but IIRC this is not actually the case. Mag 2 will protect you from a fair number of things; it's not totally worthless below 3 stacks.

Thirdly, considering that you're talking about taking alpha strikes from large groups of Rikti and having 150% global recharge, it would probably be more realistic to use the Superior version's proc rate, which should be 5 PPM under i24 rules (with my planned slotting for Water Jet, this means a 57.8% proc chance).

I'm patching beta now; if I manage to avoid getting distracted by the new shiny, I'll try it out and see how it works.

The duration is 30 seconds, IIRC, and at 3 PPM, I'm calculating a proc chance of ~40% in an 8s-recharge t2 blast (under i24 rules, assuming normal-ish slotting). Higher than that, for the Superior version. Thank you for your good luck wishes, but I doubt they will be needed

We already have set bonuses larger than that, and they're supposedly being made larger.
I don't think it will be worthwhile for anyone to build for resistance instead of defense. But, considering that the resist bonuses are getting inserted into existing sets, some of which give defense already, I don't see any compelling reason that it needs to be "instead of", no more than we build for defense "instead of" recharge. There's a tradeoff to some degree, but builds can still plausibly get good amounts of both, sometimes in the same IO set.

So, trade softcapped defense and no resist for for no defense and 75% resist? Not worthwhile, even if plausible.

Keep softcapped defense, and get 50% S/L resist instead of 40%? Now that would be a useful improvement. Not transformative, but useful, and (set bonus amounts pending) probably wouldn't require giving up much else from the build.

They aren't purple, as far as we've seen. Well, the def/res/heal ones might conceivably be, but the TAoE one almost definitely isn't, since we already have a purple TAoE set.

Also, yes, that IS a crazy thought.

No, but you've missed a bunch of information that's been floating around the forums for a while.

We've known about the upcoming Blaster changes for weeks (they were the subject of a couple of Coffee Talk broadcasts), in far more detail than there is on the Overview page. The changes to Blast sets DO apply to Defenders (and Corruptors) as well as Blasters. So crashless and faster-recharging nukes, 80-foot t3 blasts, and fast-casting snipes are all usable by Defenders. In fact, the currently planned condition to allow fast snipes is having at least +22% tohit, which Defenders can achieve at all times with just Tactics + Kismet, while Blasters have to juggle Aim/Build Up and will still only meet the condition a part of the time (well, some Blaster sets can get it perma by various methods, but most cannot).

The only change listed in the paragraph you quoted that doesn't apply to Defenders is the Sustain powers.

Edit: Also, the whole point of the buffs is that Blasters have severe issues in multiple areas. Which isn't to say that Defenders are perfect and flawless, but in my observation they're mostly doing OK overall.

No, but it means absolutely something, and being significantly behind even the second-worst means something too.
...but since a vast majority of the game is "weak stuff", I find this statement dubious. And when you're fighting AVs, GMs, and the like, you frequently have a team or league at your back that trivializes individual deficiencies.

That's the t9 VIP set, purchased with tokens. Premonitions seems to be asking about a free costume set for all VIPs, like Imperial Defense, Olympian Guard, and Chainmail/Leather.

And no, don't see any mention of one.

As in, for builds to abandon building for defense, and build for resistance instead? No amount of resistance will do that.

But for it to significantly change the metagame of building, and to significantly affect how characters perform? Being able to get even 10-15% resist just to S/L could do that. There's no rule that you can't have defense bonuses AND resist bonuses, and sometimes they'll even be in the same IO set.

*tilts head quizzically*

Here I thought it was the S/L defense.

Touch of Death and Mako's Bite should make fine options for the two slots remaining after slotting Kinetic Combat, which will be nice, but I'm not expecting that to be enough to cause a major price change.

Not never, but not often.
I remember there was a thread or two about it. I remember very little outrage, and the few who were concerned were more over "do they plan to stop giving us free things under the f2p model" (spoilers: no) than "zomg i need respex".

"Your proposed idea would force you to deal with a mild inconvenience you already deal with under the current system anyway" just isn't a particularly strong objection, is all I'm saying.

It's about time Badge Protection went away.

The same thing that would happen if the character were deleted or otherwise retired the old-fashioned way: you yank out the valuable ones with a respec, if necessary, and ditch the rest.

Also, I strongly doubt the average level 50 character has 100+ enhancements slotted, since a level 50 non-Kheldian character only has 98 slots total. Well, unless you count the default slots in the prestige sprints, I guess.

I think powerset respecs are rather unnecessary and undesirable, and unlikely to happen for all the reasons described. Just pointing out that your example of why it would be "horrible" is rather flawed.