Obitus

So you say. Why this issue is a major point of contention, I have no clue; suffice to say that I disagree. Part of the reason that Tankers were bent out of shape was that IH ignored the damage or attack type, as you yourself demonstrate here:

As for whether it was a significant point of complaint, that's a subjective judgment, one about which you're exercising an uncommonly and unjustifiable degree of certainty. You'd have to poll the forums from that time period, of which most of the relevant posts have since been purged. Heck, I remember people on this very forum complaining that Regen handled Rularuu better than SR.

(Edit: Come to think of it -- how many times have you personally corrected an INV Tanker's misperception that Invulnerability is actively penalized against psi damage? INV is weak to psi to the extent that it doesn't have any explicit protection against psi, but it does have vastly increased hitpoints as a kind of generic protection relative to the character with no protection at all. The point is that INV Tankers have always been sensitive about their situational weaknesses.)

Boy, you're a little touchy, aren't you? I never said or even meant to imply that my memories trump yours. I merely expressed a desire not to have my memories hand-waved on the basis that you disagree with them.

I said I was there. I never said that you weren't. "Even if you weren't there," doesn't mean I think you weren't, though to my recollection you didn't start to post actively on the Scrapper forum until some months after you registered. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that point; for some reason I feel like you were more interested in Blasters at first, but I could be wrong. Regardless, you were certainly here early enough to see the bulk of Regen's glory days.

Yes, we're all very impressed with your track record. Relax.

(I was one of the people sending samples to Circeus for the Invincibility testing, by the way. Unfortunately, at the time, we hadn't yet realized that the pulses were double-stacking.)

Regen is affected fully by, and easily hit by, every kind of debuff.

It's as much a qualitative complaint as it is a mechanical one.

Damage per second. Period. Damage per unit time.

Again, you're caught up in an artificial distinction. The character's behavior doesn't change whether we slot the proc or not. The proc adds a flat amount of damage.

No, there is no activation time constraint in this instance, because the character's behavior is a constant. The bottleneck is the amount of times the proc is allowed to proc per unit time.

You keep referring to recharge time. No one else is referring to recharge time. I'm referring to the amount of procs incurred per unit time.

Do you deny that the character casts Freezing Rain with the same frequency whether the proc is slotted or not?

Do you deny that a proc that's checked twice as often will yield twice the average damage?

Your methodology is a decent way of looking at a given, singular power's slotting options. It's not a good way of evaluating the overall benefit of a damage proc. Damage procs are not attacks. They don't (or shouldn't) generally change any character's default behavior with respect to attack chain selection.

Damage procs are flat damage. If I have two attacks, one that delivers 50 base damage and another that delivers 100 base damage, then which is the better candidate for the damage proc?

That's a trick question. The answer is that there isn't enough information to decide. If the 100-pt attack is used more often, then adding the proc to that attack will yield more overall damage, despite that the proc represents a smaller proportion of the attack's own damage.

I'm not dividing the power by its cooldown. I'm assuming that the power will be cast every time it's available regardless, and adding the extra over-time benefit of the proc to the character's total DPS.

Let's say you have a character, let's call her Stormy. Stormy's DPS is X including a cast of Freezing Rain every 20 seconds. Adding a proc to Freezing Rain can only add a static amount of damage given that she's casting FR anyway.

So in this case, Stormy's total DPS with the proc added to Freezing Rain is X + 1.44.

You're saying that we should calculate Freezing Rain's DPA (damage per activation) as if in a vacuum, with and without the proc. By that standard, you get a better result for the proc, but you're still only adding a patehtic amount of DPS to your overall chain.

It would be no different if we were talking about a given single-target attack in a contiguous attack chain. If I have two diferent proc-eligible powers in the same attack chain, and (for the sake of argument) one power has twice the activation time of the other, then which power should I put the proc into?

The answer is that I should put the proc into the power that is used more often per unit time, regardless of its activation time. If both powers are used with the same frequency, then there's no difference. If one power is used let's say twice as often as the other, then the proc adds twice as much to my total DPS.

The proc is a flat damage value, and thus its relation to the power's damage is irrelevant. Its relation to the power's activation time is also irrelevant except to the extent that shorter activation times tend to be better choices to spam. They are not always better to spam, though; the primary determinant is the DPA. If you could, for instance, spam KO Blow more often than Punch, you would do it because KO Blow has a higher damage per activation than Punch, even though Punch animates more than twice as fast.

You're misleading yourself by getting caught up in the cast time of Freezing Rain. The cast time is already being spent on Freezing Rain, with or without the proc.

Heh, cool story. Not sure what it has to do with this discussion, though. I'm certainly not adding an extra variable here. If anyone's getting caught up with extraneous factors, you are.

Yes, you're right. Good catch.

Still and all, the cast-FR-every-15-seconds standard is very optimistic, because it would require you to have a recharge timer on FR of something like 12.75 seconds (the 15 second duration minus the Arcanatime-enhanced activation). More likely, you're looking at casting the thing every 20 seconds or so, in which case my previous number would apply.

By the way, that means that procs in Earthquake aren't necessarily available less often than procs in FR, as you went on to say. FR has to meet a 20-second total cycle time (recharge + cast), with a 60 second starting cooldown, in order to receive 1 proc check per slot per 10 second period. Earthquake has to meet a 30 second total cycle time (recharge + cast), with a 90 second startin cooldown.

They're basically in the same availability boat (except that Earthquake's activation is a little longer, IIRC) assuming a plausible and equivalent amount of global recharge.

As far as patch/toggle powers go, I think you describe a decent general rule of thumb. That might sound superficially controversial, but the numbers are pretty clear that you should avoid slotting procs in powers that are bound to the one-check-per-10-second standard unless you're excrutiatingly desperate for more damage, and/or unless you have discretionary slots coming out of your ears.

A single proc in a spammed (for the sake of argument) Frostbite is worth two equivalent procs in Arctic Air, assuming you can get the cycle time on Frostbite below 5 seconds (which isn't terribly hard to do).

I'm not sure it's fair to say that soft control categorically suffers more from the purple patch than hard control. After all, hard control's duration is cut by more than half against +4s, and your chance to hit with hard control is likewise reduced.

It seems to me that fixed-duration, no-Tohit-check soft controls like Ice Patch and Earthquake perform very consistently against higher level foes.

(It is fair to say that hard control is generally better than soft control, all else being equal, and particularly when we're talking about Dominators, whose inherent power favors hard controls over soft.)

You're right about endurance drain, which is an all-or-nothing proposition, and therefore any modifier that prevents you from draining the target completely renders your end drain effectively useless. Everything else, not so much.

Ah, I see. Your method is valid as far as it goes -- a stand-alone evaluation of how much damage the proc gives the power in question. Mine was simply a best-case presentation of what the proc adds in absolute terms (to your overall DPS) assuming you're casting Freezing rain every time it's available anyway.

Neither approach is wrong, per se. I believe mine gives you a good understanding of the practical cost-benefit ratio for adding a proc, though.

Yes and no. The assumption in both cases (your method and mine) is that the player will give FR full priority irrespective of its expected damage, because the debuffs are just that good. Thus, you're spending that activation time regardless, and therefore the only meaningful commodity here is the enhancement slots you'd need to spend on the procs.

That's why I choose to look at the expected improvement to overall DPS, instead of the expected improvement to FR's DPA in a vacuum.

Aggregate damage is potentially very misleading, which is why I prefer not to use it. What generally matters most when you're trying to figure out how much AoE damage you have is the damage, per target, you can deliver per unit time -- because that tells you how quickly you can kill off a given spawn.

Adding each target's damage together is a decent metric for determining, say, the endurance efficiency of an AoE attack (for instance, the breakpoint at which a given AoE attack is more efficient to use than a given single-target attack), but it's dangerous to go around saying that a power like Fireball delivers 16 * 150 = 2400 damage. You might give people the wrong idea. You might even give yourself the wrong idea.

The unpredictability of the proc is worth mentioning, however. Killing one third of the minions in a given spawn three times faster than the other two thirds really doesn't do me much good, unless they'd kill me in short order otherwise (in which case I probably wouldn't be fighting them in the first place, because who can depend on that many procs to fire all at once on a given target?).

Oh, believe me, I'm familiar with Fire/Mental's attributes. My Fire/Mental Blaster is one of my favorite characters, and I've spent endless time weighing the pros and cons of each different build approach.

The problem with your statement about Drain Psyche is that you need to close to melee range to use the power, which means that you're going to be gulping purple inspirations against an AV anyway -- which means, in turn, that your ranged DEF will be pointless in that situation. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take Drain Psyche; it's a useful tool to have in your back pocket.

All I'm saying is that if you look at Mental's unique strengths -- a supplemental and very wide-area ranged cone attack (Psy Scream), a handy-dandy PBAoE regen/recovery buff/debuff (Drain Psyche), and a powerful PBAoE attack (Psychic Shockwave) -- you're left with only Psychic Scream as a consistently useful advantage on a mostly ranged/hover build.

So if you don't take Psy Scream on such a build, you're probably better off with a secondary that adds substantively to your ranged capabilities. I mentioned /Energy because perma-Boost-Range makes Blaze and Fire Breath into absurdly easy-to-use powers on any map (and if you care to use powers as set mules, all the stuns in Energy are great for the Stupefy set -- one of the few sets that gives both significant ranged DEF and signficant +recharge). I mentioned /Fire because Ring of Fire is one of the better DPA ranged attacks in the entire game -- beating out Fire Blast by a significant margin.

Anyway, that's why I usually recommend S/L DEF on Fire/Mental. S/L DEF certainly has its flaws, but it does allow you to split your time between ranged and melee postures without sacrificing your mitigation to do so. Personally I run two builds on my Blaster to suit my mood. Pseudo Scrapper with Drain Psyche and Shockwave is a lot of fun, but non-S/L enemies tear me a new one.

If you don't like cones, then that's fine, but you are missing out. Psy Scream and range-enhanced Fire Breath (I have 60' on my Blaster's Fire Breath) each have more coverage at max range than Fire Ball does. A melee cone is very different mechanically, because it has a fixed and relatively small area of effect (because you can't enhance its range). I'd urge you at least to try out some of the ranged cones, and particularly Fire Breath with a range enhancement or two, before deciding that they're not for you.

Breath does absolutely massive damage -- roughly 40% more than Ball. Combine them together and you can melt spawns in record time.

Rain is more of a judgment call. Personally I just like the way it looks. There's something about making fire rain from the freaking sky (!) that just screams death and destruction, even if the rain isn't all that in practice. Still, it represents a little more than an extra Breath's worth of AoE damage over 15 seconds if you can get it to stick, and in a 25' radius (Fireball's radius is 15'). It's excellent on the right team, but admittedly it's not a must-have power on a Blaster. On a Corruptor the story changes.

Rise of the Phoenix is likewise a situationally useful power on a brittle build like a Blaster. Inferno is nice to have too, just hard to imagine how it's more useful than a bona-fide, consistently usable ranged AoE power on a ranged-DEF build.

Now that I think about it, the ranged build I mentioned earlier might not even have Drain Psyche. I'll have to look it over later. Sorry for the ramble.

I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're trying to draw here. When evaluating an attack chain, it's true that recharge isn't the primary determining factor (or if you prefer, the primary bottleneck on your damage output); the damage per activation time is the main factor -- assuming you have enough recharge to chain attacks seamlessly.

But how much DPS a given choice gives you is absolutely the right way to judge what to do with an attack chain.

In the case of Freezing Rain, we're not talking about a single-target attack that fits into a constantly recycled chain, but we are talking about a power that is so good (for its debuffs) that you generally want to cast it as often as possible irrespective of the damage the power itself delivers.

And if we assume (generously) that Freezing Rain is cast every 15 seconds, then a typical proc adds (0.2 * 72) / 10 = 1.44 DPS to your build. That's a pretty pathetic return on your slot investment almost no matter how you slice it. If you're pursuing a set bonus that happens to include the proc anyway, then great. But you have to be really hard up for damage, or really overburdened with free enhancement slots for that choice to be mechanically worthwhie.

Not saying it's always a bad choice. If there's basically no cost (as you say -- no compelling and mutually exclusive alternative), then have at it. Just understand that the return isn't very good.

I can't see your build just this minute because I'm not on a Mids'-equipped computer, but I can say that a Fire/Mental Blaster with one AoE attack seems self-defeating. Fire's schtick is AoE damage, ditto Mental's -- and particularly if you're committing to a ranged playstyle, because that means you're not using (or shouldn't use) Drain Psyche as a matter of course.

If, in other words, all you want is a ranged-DEF build with good single-target DPS, then there are better options. (Fire/Energy or Fire/Fire, to name two examples.)

I have a build on another computer that almost reaches your level of +recharge while also fitting in soft-capped ranged DEF and (IIRC) four AoEs (Fire Breath, Fire Ball, Psychic Scream, Rain of Fire). I'll try to remember to look it up for you when I get to the other computer.

The one other thing I thought was worth noting is that the teleport bind works perfectly for Rain powers. I use that bind (or some slight variation of it) on my Storm characters and on my Ice and Fire Blasters.

The bind is: "/bind LSHIFT+click "powexec_name Rain of Fire"

(Without the quotes, obviously.)

Just hold shift and click on the ground and the power fires off.

Now obviously if you just don't like Rain of Fire, then that's your prerogative. It really needs an AOE immobilize to shine as a damage power. Otherwise it's a highly situational soft control for the solo Blaster.

The best part is that the immortality line standard already has the effect of additional DEF on debuffs implicitly baked in. Each additional point of DEF is more valuable than the last in both cases.

Bunny's model works in theory. It's just not particularly useful in practice. Any model that predicts that a given amount of regen is more useful than a given amount of DEF -- but only when the character in question will survive indefinitely anyway -- isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Likewise, if you have to raise incoming damage so high that no one could possibly survive -- without so much buff support that his build decisions are irrelevant, anyway -- to prove that a given amount of DEF is more valuable than a given value of regeneration, then you've made a pointless observation.

Bunny started quite reasonably in this thread. After a couple of posts, though, he apparently decided that it was more fun to denigrate his opposition. I guess he was bored.

Ah, I see. You think the following two quotes (of mine) are so self-contradictory that they constitute intentional dishonesty:

"No, my claim was that the opponent's damage is unknowable, and that therefore it's better to concentrate on the practically plausible bounds of your survivability."

And

"It's not clear why you'd prefer a metric for making build decisions that relies on knowing the precise damage output of the opponent(s), rather than a metric that relies on simply knowing your own regeneration/healing rate and resistance values."

I see no glaring self-contradiction there. Certainly no evidence of a lie. For all of your bluster about mathematics, it appears you have very little experience reading for context. My metric (and Werner's, and a whole host of other people's) does only depend on knowing the character's regeneration/healing/RES/DEF/HP. That's what makes it practically useful

Notice that I never said that the absolute value of DEF in the terms you choose to describe it (in this case, virtual regeneration) wouldn't change with the opponent's incoming damage. I never even said that the terms you choose to use are incorrect on paper. I do, however, maintain that your terms are impractical for making build decisions.

Tell me, exactly what incoming DPS figure were you looking at when you designed your DEF-capped WP Tanker? How did you know when exactly it would be worthwhile to switch from adding more regen to adding more DEF?

It couldn't be because you instinctively understand that DEF multiplies regen. Nah.

Apparently you can't. You failed to come up with a relevant example where 5 hp/sec is better than 5% DEF on a character who already has 30% DEF and 20 hp/sec regeneration. All examples you did provide showed that the character was infinitely survivable regardless.

Your best rebuttal to my method for evaluating the next example (5% DEF versus 50 HP/sec regen on a character with 20 HP/sec initially and no other mitigation) was an example where the character will die in an eyeblink without sufficient buff/heal support that his 5% DEF would be trivialized.

You were abrupt and confrontrational from more or less the beginning. I have not lied about anything. Please provide examples if you're going to make an accusation like that.

No, my claim was that the opponent's damage is unknowable, and that therefore it's better to concentrate on the practically plausible bounds of your survivability.

But then, that's been clear from the outset, and if you were debating in good faith, you would have made at least a token effort at addressing that point with a straight face. Did you answer my question in the latest post? No.

You just like belittling people who disagree with you. Enjoy your 45% DEF-capped Willpower Tanker. We all know that that last 5% is exactly equivalent with the first 5%, right?

Yeah, great. Meanwhile, if you're taking 1000 damage per second and your only source of mitigation is 5% DEF, then you're screwed anyway without huge outside intervention.

Again, the point isn't that your numbers are wrong in theory. The point is that your numbers are practically useless. No one in his right mind would choose 5% DEF over an extra 50 HP/sec in regeneration when he has no access to any other mitigation. (and no heals to speak of).

Are you denying that 20 hp/sec and 45% DEF allows you to survive 20 / (1 - (50 / 45)) = 200 DPS indefinitely?

Oh, I'm sorry; I forgot. You like to double the mob's DPS for no good reason. Let's make that number 400 DPS to account for the fact that the average mob has an inherent 50% chance to miss.

See, when you slide your standards all over the place, it leaves you an all-too-convenient opportunity to claim the other side is stupid. Cool story, bro.

Didn't we already do this?

5% DEF is 10% mitigation. Therefore it increases your regeneration (and your healing, and any heals thrown your way by teammates, and your chance of avoiding a debuff) by 1 / 0.9 = 11.1%.

0.111 * 20 = 2.22 HP/sec.

So clearly the 50 hp/sec wins.

Your bluster is unwarranted. Your math is fine as far as it goes, and I've never disputed that (except in certain specific examples where it turned out you were making unstated and completely abstract assumptions).

My math is fine, too. The only difference is that you don't accept (without saying why) that mitigation multiplies regeneration.

No, I don't make build decisions based on an incoming DPS figure. I base build decisions (as far as DEF/RES/regen/healing/HP are concerned) based on how much damage I can survive without intervention.

There are so many considerations that make your approach impractical. For instance, how much regeneration is your DEF worth if you have five Respite Inspirations in your back pocket? Someone throwing heals on you? How much is your DEF worth if you immediately lose it because your initial DEF was low enough that the first salvo of debuffs hit you?

I notice you went out of your way not to give me a starting regeneration rate in your latest set of pure-sophistry examples. So let me say this one more time:

For any given value of additional DEF that is more valuable than a given value of additional regen at a given initial regeneration rate, that DEF will always be more valuable than the Regen under the following conditions:

1. The incoming damage is applicable to the DEF in question (uses the corresponding position or type).
2. The incoming damage is sufficient to kill the character eventually before we even consider the addition of DEF or regen.

Your first rebuttal to the above theory is detailed in the previous posts. It soon became clear that you couldn't find an example under your chosen set of assumptions where the extra regen both beat the extra DEF and provided a useful benefit (both builds were infinitely survivable).

Your numbers aren't wrong; they're just so abstract as to be useless. No one makes mutually exclusive build decisions based on some arbitrary opponent's specific DPS. People can and do make build decisions based on the perceived commonality of a given attack type or mez/buff/debuff effect, but they can't make an intelligent judgment about how often or how likely it is that they'll see a given amount of incoming damage.

So what we're left with is the sustainable survivability metric. It's not perfect for a number of reasons, but it's the easiest and the most practically useful way to measure the relative benefit of X amount of regen/healing or DEF or RES or +HP.

Again, regeneration is possibly the worst standard you could pick for your argument, because it offers no side benefits. Once you're at a point of sustainable survivability, regeneration does nothing for you.

Still waiting on you to come up with an example where 5 hp/sec beats 5% extra DEF on a character with 30% DEF and 20 hp/sec to start. "The 5 hp/sec wins when the character can stand the incoming DPS forever regardless" is not a useful answer.

You're falling into the worst kind of theory-crafting.

So that's how you address the fact that the character already has infinite survivability in your only examples where the 5 hp/sec wins? Really?

No. I have said that I don't believe that several times. Heck, in my first example I explicitly noted that the DEF has to apply to the attack types being used.

Beyond that, though, it's crazy to try to make a build decision based on this-or-that opponent's potential damage output. Just from playing the game casually, I can know which mob faction uses this-or-that attack type, this-or-that mez or debuff effect, etc. I'd need to parse logs endlessly to figure out what each mob's DPS is, and even then I'd be left with an answer that slides around based on difficulty level.

Because I know how much damage I can sustain indefinitely with a given DEF value. DEF/RES multiply regeneration. That question was answered on page one. Just because you say it's wrong doesn't make it so.

Consider addressing the debuff issue, the fact that your only counter-examples prove that extra regen would be superfluous because the build in question survives indefinitely anyway, and the fact that DEF multiplies regen.

If the enemies have an inherent 50% chance to miss, then that should be baked into their unmodified DPS figures, because clearly if the mob loses half its damage to begin with, then that half of its damage is irrelevant for any meaningful discussion. The fact that you'd dismiss my post on the basis that I didn't assign the opponent twice as much DPS as it can actually do smacks of gotcha-game nonsense, frankly. It's almost as if you purposely made a bizarre and hidden assumption just so you could play the "you're an idiot" card when I inevitably failed to read your mind.

I was using your example of the character with 30% DEF and 20 hp/sec, by the way. If you were using something else just now, then my bad. It's hard to tell from your post. Please be more explicit about your assumptions.

Regardless, you still haven't come up with an example to disprove my rationale posted earlier. Let's look at your numbers again, taking into account that when you say "500 DPS," you really mean "250 DPS":

1. 250 DPS incoming (500 originally) :

30% DEF cuts that down to 100 DPS. We regenerate 20 hp/sec, so we initially net 80 DPS. Adding 5% DEF would put us at 75 incoming DPS, and net us 55 DPS after regen is accounted for. Adding 5 hp/sec instead would net us 75 DPS.

Surprise, surprise. Your numbers (75 and 95) are still wrong. This is why I ask if you suddenly changed assumptions on me.

2. 50 DPS incoming (100 originally) :

As before, the 30% DEF reduces our incoming DPS down to 20 DPS, which is equal to our regeneration rate. So both choices result in infinite survivability.

3. 25 DPS incoming (50 originally) :

As above. If 50 DPS results in infinite survivability, then 25 DPS sure does too. The extra regeneration would be irrelevant.

There. Happy?

You have yet to demonstrate that.

So you keep saying. But your entire premise is based around the idea that we're trying to make mutually exclusive build decisions, right? Well that's fine and dandy, except that no build always goes up against the same opponent, or even the same type of opponent.

So at some point you have to make build decisions based on generic foes.

500 DPS incoming becomes 200 DPS after 30% DEF. That's cut down to 150 DPS with an extra 5% DEF. Since you didn't give me the max hp with your example, I can't calculate what the life expectancy is, but whatever it is the life expectancy increased by 33%.

20 HP/sec mitigates 20 of that initial 200 DPS, leaving us at 180 with 30% DEF. Adding 5 HP/sec to that leaves us with 175 in incoming DPS. Life expectancy increased by 2.8%.

No. 100 DPS becomes 40 DPS after the 30% DEF. Adding another 5% DEF lowers that figure to 30 DPS. 20 is mitigated by regeneration, so you net 10 damage per second with the DEF.

You net 15 DPS with the extra 5 hp/sec in regen. DEF wins again.

50 DPS becomes 20 DPS after we account for the 30% DEF. We start with 20 HP/sec in regeneration. Which means that both choices result in infinite survival, and thus, the extra regeneration would be irrelevant.

That's the problem with regeneration. It has no side benefits; if you're already going to survive anyway, then more regeneration does nothing for you. More DEF at least reduces the chance that you'll get hit with a troublesome debuff or mez or whatever -- a qualitative improvement at worst.

Anyway, find an example where the extra regeneration wins and the build is in some remote danger of dying. Then maybe you can crow. Until then, not so much.

I'll play along.

30% defense (and no resistance) and 20 hp/s regen allows me to survive indefinitely an incoming DPS of 20 / (1 - (30 /50)) = 50.

35% defense (and no resistance) and 20 hp/s regen allows me to survive indefinitely an incoming DPS of 20 / (1 - (35/50)) = 66.7.

So, against a generic opponent using the attack type in question, the extra DEF is better than 5 hp/sec regen. Against attacks that don't apply, the regen is better. The extra DEF may provide ancillary benefits too though -- like decreasing the chance of a Debuff hitting me by about 25%. Notable here is that the first 5% DEF (assuming I started at 0%) would only lower the chance of a debuff landing by 10%.

Now, your turn. Which is better? 10 hp/sec of regen or 5% extra DEF, assuming you don't know anything about the opponent.

Ok, let's pretend the underlying assumption is that you have 50 hp/sec in regeneration and you don't know what the unmodified incoming damage is.

Then what? How much extra regeneration equals how much extra DEF? You can't answer, because you can't assign an absolute value to the DEF's mitigation.

Your most recent argument amounts to, "It isn't good to use other methodologies because in one specific example, my methodology answers the question faster." It's not clear why you'd prefer a metric for making build decisions that relies on knowing the precise damage output of the opponent(s), rather than a metric that relies on simply knowing your own regeneration/healing rate and resistance values.

Method 1 can't even answer the question categorically, though. The answer depends on the situation. 5% DEF doesn't mitigate a flat amount of damage irrespective of opponent. It mitigates 10% of the attacker's damage.

So what you should have written was: "Method 1. if you're facing a Boss that delivers 100 DPS, and you have no resistance and an initial regen rate of 50 HP/sec, then you should take the regeneration."

Most build questions come down to the same answer: "It depends on X, Y, or Z." You're basically saying that because Werner's example happened to include X but not Y, the methodology that gives an instant answer is therefore superior. The example was just that, an example.

In any case, what difference does it make that one method gives you a faster and less thoroughly considered answer? Is that really your magic bullet to put the thread to rest?

Do you honestly not believe that proportional mitigation effectively multiplies regeneration?

Do you honestly believe that doubling your life expectancy under fire is equivalent to adding 10%?

Do you honestly not consider the probability that debuffs (and particularly DEF debuffs) will land on you? Even if we ignore all other considerations, it seems to me that that one little wrinkle pokes your proposed theory of build evaluation full of little machine-gun-bullet-sized holes.

We know that the Justice slot is intended to give players an AoE power of some sort, from the Incarnate web page if nothing else.

I don't know how (or even if) we know for sure about the other slots. That seems like speculation to me, but hey, if there's a dev quote somewhere I'd be pleased to read it. I sure hope that we're not gonna get nine more powers, though.

My trays are full-up as it is.