Pyro_Master_NA

First off, you have a lot of guts for saying you think Arcanaville is wrong, and that deserves some bravery props.

But you're wrong here. Resistance resists resistance debuffs, but the target's base resistances are always used, so that this compounding effect can't happen. So if they had 75% resistance to damage type A, and got a defender level sonic blast debuff, it would debuff by 5%, bringing it down to 70%. A followup attack with 20% resist debuff would be reduced by the base 75%, so the target would still lose another 5%, not 30% of 20%. This means that 4 15% resistance debuffs will lower resistance by 60%, not your compounded figure.

Yout don't reach the softcap all at once necessarily. You soft cap to specific types of damage, or types of attacks, the ladder being called positional defense. The way it works is that you want (out of incarnate trials at lvl 50) 45% defense to your desired damage type, positional attack type, or all types/all positions. The types are usually grouped in 2s as such: smashing/lethal, fire/cold, energy/negative. Psionic damage doesn't get "paired up" with anything else, and toxic damage doesn't roll for defense(at least not typed, you can defend against it positionally). Your positions will be melee, ranged, and AoE defense. These are independant from each other, and independant from all the damage types.

So in your example you have 20, 20, 8, 8 for defense values, but you don't list what kind of defense it is. Let's say for this example you have 30% smashing defense, 20% energy defense, and 15% melee defense. You get attacked with a melee attack that is flagged to do smashing and energy damage. Since your smashing defense is highest, this is the value that gets used, so you will defend against it with 30% defense.

You do not add up defense from various types. Ever.

The softcap refers to getting one type or position to 45% defense. The most common things people shoot for is either 45% smash/lethal on melee oriented characters, because those are the most common damage types, especially in melee (sometimes people will go for energy/negative after that because energy is the next most common damage). Or capped range defense for ranged characters such as blasters, and most controllers/defenders/corruptors. The last kind is the "best" way to cap and that is to cap all 3 positions, melee, range, and aoe. Some people will get those 3 to 32.5% defense so one small purple inspiration will bring them to the cap.

I'm sure someone else will come up with a better and more in depth response, but that sums up the basics.

Melee crab? Blasphemy!
No pet crab? Blasphemy!


I'm glad people are getting use out of more than just the 3 aoes that a huntsman can get.

OP gave all the info needed in the first post. Thread went downhill when you came in, and I'm willing to bet if I stop troll feeding you'll stop and this can be productive again so I'll go on my way and if anyone else gives a good or bad example of a 4 man team, I'll say my opinions on them and elaborate why I think so in a clear way so people understand the content and context since that seems to be some people's weak points.

Haha that's what I was looing for! But I think I could rephrase it a bit from my first post. An attack chain is what I had in mind. A more realistic scenario is you have a pocket kin for damage, pocket emp for regen/recharge/defense, and a pocket pair of thermals for res. Then figure the max damage attack chain.

This sums up my thoughts rather well. The whole post does, but I wanted to point this out specifically. Any of the mentioned combos would work honestly, it's about having fun, and for this post also being a steamroller. Which isn't that hard if you plan it with 4 alts.

You said a lot of combos suggested would faceplant constantly. You then said your random PuGs would fair better at +4x8, which would be a hell of a 4 man PuG. You also offered nothing constructive. I had suggested several sets prior and stuck to the OPs criteria of all 4 characters having the same sets, or potentially 2 pairs. And you have still not come up with any suggestions. All you have said is :

This is total bull. 4 times is capped defense, 300% recharge with no slotting if you get hasten, 4 hold patches, large amounts of -regen for hard targets, 4 aoe def/res debuffs, decent damage buffing, and some insane healing and regen. You're right, no way can that survive AVs with capped defense, over 50 hp/s regen, -800% regen, and enough recharge to run their top attack chain. That'd just be crazy talk. /end sarcasm.

You also claim to be asking for more information on what the OP wants. Read the first post. and you'll see 4 radiation alts were mentioned and you specifically said they didn't seem to be looking for that. Give a suggestion or stop putting down other people's suggestions.

First of all, this was all negative and no positive at all, which doesn't do ay good. It also doesn't suggest what WOULD be able to steamroll.

Second:
4veats=beast
4fire/rads=beast
4emp/sonic=beast
4(insert any corruptor here)=beast
SO, I don't see what you're getting at. Suggest something that would fit the OP's request or go troll somewhere else.

Shift+Right click tactics. Slot all other slots except the BU proc. To see with the proc on, just shift+right click again on the power.

I know the reason for this attidtude, but it still gives ~400HP, which will do quite a bit, especially when Icy Bastion is up. Yes, +HP powers are less useful on stalkers than other ATs, but it's still useful, and a HUGE heal if you get low on health.

This would be way too powerful, stackable or not. I don't have the exact numbers off hand, but I'm sure Arcanaville or someone else with a lot of know how will be around with an in depth explanation. But there's no way players being able to level shift each other will be put in game.

I didn't see the quote you were replying to here. It must have been posting as I was posting mine. Anyway, this is a perfect way of explaining how neither defense or resistance is "better" against higher level enemies than the other in terms of straight damage mitigation.


Now, as far as this goes
The topic is using IOs to increase resists, and if they were adjusted to match the degree of survivability that defense IO bonuses give, capping several types would be child's play. Pain Dom can increase psi, use that if you really want to test it; Dark miasma can also increase psi resist.

This reminds me. Psi is probably the easiest type to build resistance for. Defense isn't that hard either. For fun, I capped a dark armor tank to psi defense and resistance. Didn't gimp the rest of the build TOO badly. Just a lot less recharge than I would like. Other defenses were in the 20s, and had normal resists on everything else.

My fire/fire tank (only 41 atm) doesn't have much issues with psi. I have a winter's gift and temp protection though, so maybe that's what's mitigating the slows.

Weave/combat jump offer resistance/protection to immob, health offers resistance to sleep, aid self has stun resistance, and acro also has KB protection on top of the mentioned hold protection. Assault/tactics will also resist taunt/placate, fear/confuse. The fighting one would be protection to all of them, but in a smaller amount than a primary/secondary power would.

Have you had a toon with 90% resists to everything on a trial? They don't die. Of course, to get 90%, you have to be a brute or tank, and they will probably have a heal of some sort or some form of defense with it, but nontheless, if you have enough buffs to hit 90% resist to all, you are not dying any time soon. (and 53% is not Itrial defense cap, 59% is, since they have a 64% tohit chance)

I have no clue what you mean here. Neither defense or resists "scale" in any way. They are the same amount, but higher or lower level enemies will do more or less damage, and will have more or less accuracy bonuses. If that's wht you mean when you use "scale" then your statement is incorrect. 90% resists will negate 90% of your normal damage, just as 45% defense will prevent 90% of your normal damage against even con enemies.

Get enough buffers to cap one character res capped to all, and another defense capped to all. Since the question is why can't IOs provide good resist bonuses, we are talking about capping things, so cap away. The resists will gradually start to dwindle, but the defense will spontaneously lose big chunks, which is less predictable, and therefore harder to avoid.

The main resist armor tank sets are fire, elec, dark, and to an extent, invuln. Dark and elec have heals and psi resists, and won't have an issue against psi. Fire has a heal up every 15-20 seconds for half their health, and won't have much of an issue. Ice armor and energy aura, however, will rely on hoarofrost and energize alone to survive psi.