( Player Guide: Defenses) The Best Defense is a Good Passive Defence!

[RynoHound]

In Champions, There's a good amount of Passive Powers you can have slotted into your passive slot. While Offensive Passives are pretty self-explanatory by design, the key to being a good well-rounded character, or to tank or have solo-viability is you need to know your Defensive Passives and which works best for you. Afterall, if you don't build your character to have some measure of survivability, you won't be able to survive.

In other Good News: Once you unlock any Role, you will be able to slot a Passive Defense into your Passive Slot, AND You don't have to start in any of these Frameworks to pick these up once you do. You can pick any of these as early as level 5!

Defensive Passives or "Defenses" Can be slotted into your Passive Slot in either The Guardian (Balanced) or Protector (Defensive) Roles and are as follows:

Invulnerability
Lightning Reflexes
Regneration
Personal Force Field
Defiance

Invulnerability: (Technology: Power Armor)

Invulnerability has what is known as a "Damage Threshold" and "Damage Resistance." All of your Damage Resistance is figured in before the Damage Threshold is figured in. If the number left over does not exceed the Threshold, you take 1 Damage. If this Number exceeds the Threshold, you take whatever is left over.

Invulnerability works very well for Main Tanks. It makes you completely immune to all but the strongest attacks. It makes it easy to take on Hordes upon Hordes of Minions or Villains, and makes Bosses and Archvillain's attacks do very little to you if blocked properly.

Stats that Supplement Invulnerability are Strength and Constitution. Strength will raise the Damage Threshold on Invulnerability while Constitution will raise the Damage Resistance provided by Invulnerability.

Lightning Reflexes (Martial Arts (Any) )

The Ultimate Defensive Power for Glass Cannons or Suicide Bombers, Lightning Reflexes has two parts which are both affected by your Dexterity. "Dodge %" and "Avoidance." Dodge % Goes without saying, it's a percent base To "Dodge Attacks" from opponents your level. Obviously this percent is greater against lower level opponents and less against higher level opponents. Avoidance is a flat percent which your inherient damage resistance is increased by when you dodge an attack.

Lightning Reflexes, by design, is better than Invulnerability for taking on Bosses, Arch-villains and other opponents that have very large "wind up" attacks and other forms of burst damage. But since it is based off of a percent chance, it makes you incredibly vulnerable to chip-damage or large amounts of underlings.

The only Stat that affects Lightning Reflexes is Dexterity. This raises both your Dodge Chance and Avoidance.

*However, under current mechanics, Lightning Reflexes is not working as it should be. It is my strong reccomendation that you look into other powers first.

Regeneration (Supernatural: Dragon Aspect)

Regeneration is the Ultimate in self-healing. Whether you are in combat or not, whether you are taking damage or not, Regeneration is always working. Regeneration works one way, but off two stats. Every second, you regain a small percent of your maximum health back, augmented by your Presence stat. And depending on your Presence, Regen can actually crit when it ticks!

Rengeneration is probably the best all-around Defensive Passive for soloing. It's also highly reccomended for the newer player as Blocking isn't entirely essential to it's playstyle. Since it's always working, it allows you to expend very little downtime going from battle to battle, without having to stop to rest or heavily relying on healing (green) inspiration drops. However, Regeneration does not take large Alpha Strikes or un-blocked High-Damage attacks well.

As aforementioned, since Regeneration is based off of your Maximum Health, it is best supplamented by Constitution, and since that number is buffed by your Presence, Presence can only help.

Personal Force Field (Elemental Projection: Forces)

Personal Force Field provides what is best described as "Phantom HP." Personal Force Field gives you a buffer zone of health that needs to be beaten off of you before you start taking any damage. And once beaten off or damaged, it's protection slowly recovers itself over time when you aren't taking damage.

Personal Force Field is great for taking Alpha Strikes, stray attacks from opponents when teaming, and is also good for breezing through short battles. You won't have much downtime while it's effective, but once it's been beaten off, you will need to stop to allow it time to rebuild itself. Personal Force Field is a good Defensive Passive for those who take on a role that doesn't intend to take great amounts of damage very often.

The higher your Endurance, the more "Shields" Personal Force Field provides you with, while a higher Ego not only hastens the rate of it's return, but how much it recovers per second.

*To make Personal Force Field it's most effective, it's best if Field Surge is taken with it shortly thereafter. Field Surge brings the Personal Force Field back up to full, as well as grants you a short period of limited invincibility

Defiance (Might)

Defiance works unlike any other Defensive Passive, though it is incredibly simple by design. The more times you get hit, the more Defiance will stack on your character, up to a total of 8 stacks. Each stack of Defiance provides you with increasing levels of Damage Resistance.

Defiance works well in a prolonged fight, especially if you can withstand the first few seconds of an Archvillain or Legendary. Though, in prolonged fights with many minions, because it has no Damage Threshold like Invulnerability, Defiance does not perform very well.

Constitution is the only Stat that has effects on Defiance. The Higher your Constitution, The more Damage Resistance each stack provides you with, as well it determines how long you can keep Defiant stacks on yourself.

*To make Defiance it's most effective, it's best if Enrage is taken with it shortly thereafter. Enrage allows you to "cash out" up to 8 Stacks of Defiance for up to 8 Stacks of Enrage. This can lead to incredible Burst Damage and substained DPS, as well as allow the user to begin reapplying Defiance again, after the "cash out," alongside the stacks of Enrage.

[Zombra]

Extremely informative! Thanks!

[Jaince]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Hound

*However, under current mechanics, Lightning Reflexes is not working as it should be. It is my strong reccomendation that you look into other powers first.

Could you maybe explain this part a bit better?

I'm currently looking for a defensive ability for my munitions girl, who's using Dex/Ego as main stats.
So Lightning Reflexes looks pretty sweet, considering its based on Dex, whihc I will keep raising.

All others have at least 1 stat that I won't focus on, so it will most likely get worse over time.

Regeneration doesn't look bad either really, however I skill neither Con nor Presence.

Personal Force Field seems even better than Invulnerability, at least when testing against the Lasers in the powerhouse (which only fire every few seconds). Even at its worse it was still absorbing more than Invulnerabilty did.
At least it uses Ego for something.

Would really like to know whats broken with Lightning Reflexes, to decide if I should take it or one of the others.

[SaintKairos]

Originally Posted by Jaince

Could you maybe explain this part a bit better?

I'm currently looking for a defensive ability for my munitions girl, who's using Dex/Ego as main stats.
So Lightning Reflexes looks pretty sweet, considering its based on Dex, whihc I will keep raising.

All others have at least 1 stat that I won't focus on, so it will most likely get worse over time.

Regeneration doesn't look bad either really, however I skill neither Con nor Presence.

Personal Force Field seems even better than Invulnerability, at least when testing against the Lasers in the powerhouse (which only fire every few seconds). Even at its worse it was still absorbing more than Invulnerabilty did.
At least it uses Ego for something.

Would really like to know whats broken with Lightning Reflexes, to decide if I should take it or one of the others.

agreed.
tis has been a complaint since mid closed beta.
supposedly, no matter how many tweaks they make, this thing just flat out never works up to par with the others. If it's not working as intended, then how's it supposed to work?I contend that tis is the trouble with making an avoidance based power in a game with no to-hit. The irony is that the game allows for a way to simulate total avoidance, but it seems unattainable. Also, being linked to a powers timer means that you can never be spiderman. Spiderman can dodge a room full of guys with machineguns. yet I can't dodge 1 gun with a pistol because his attack is "too fast". Or rather, I can, at a mediocre chance, and still take damage anyhow. this isn't superdodging at all, it's like my next door neighbor chuck dodging.

also: I know the damage rate is the variable percentage while the avoidance amount is not (it's effected by dex, not by chance), however, I contend that the avoidance rate needs a buff overall, but decays against larger attacks and AOEs. thus: when a room full of gys shoot at you, you dodge 2/3 of the gunfire (the rest of the 1/3 hit you full force), but you do so at nearly full avoidance (the resulting numbers are piddly and almost unnoticible, perhaps 1s or 2s), but a force blast is harder to dodge (the rate is higher if they charge it, but you dodge for less... ie: it grazes you more due to projectile size, this would be like the current avoidance amount), then you have AOEs, which, unless very very fast, would be easier to dodge due to wind-up time, but would dodge for 1/2 the effectiveness (avoidance) of your "standard" (current) avoidance. IE: when you get AOEd, you get out or you get hurt. This is how dodgers really work, and it would behoove a dodger to take laughing zephyr, breakaway shot or thunderbolt due to this. the best way to dodge is still to really really dodge (get out of there), at least for the big stuff that's area based or LOS.

for the huge, single target, ranged AOEs with short wind-up? (if they exist), well... your dodge won't work well now, or even in my system. and this is where getting out of LOS, or turtling with a good block power and a healing supplement is not to be scoffed at.
---
in conclusion: most of my comments above are not misinformation, it's "how I'd like it to work". Such a situational variable would let them safetly buff dodging powers and give them a numerical counterbalance to "this power sucks against many weak opponents". Make it less effective to be sure (like now) but with greater success when it DOES work. after all, small attacks are very binary in nature: either a bullet hits or it doesn't. it might hit you in the arm or the chest (variable damage), but anyone who shoots will tell you, in the heat of the moment, a moving target is often missed entirely. grenades are another matter. this is why I like the idea of an avoidance buff against small/fast attacks, and an avoidance normalization against medium, and avoidance nerf against AOE.
-

[Disgraceland]

my understanding was that regeneration crits off of dex and was not tied to any other stats- are you sure that regeneration scales with Pre?

[Jaybonaut]

We need a player's guide section, this one needs to be stickied otherwise.

[daboomsa666]

well done my man.

[AkumaMishima]

Regen is unaffected by presence, technically recovery boosts how much you heal but you need something like 100 REC to even see a single heal point. Regen is currently more affected by DEX and EGO, since they increases the liklihood and magnitude of Regen Heal Crits.

Regen works off of a fixed heal rate, that's affected by Rank and damage intake alone. Raising your CON will not raise the amount you heal per "tick". That was how it works in CoH, it doesn't work that way here though.

Unfortunately, Regen now decreases when you elect to damage enemies.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Hound

Invulnerability works very well for Main Tanks. It makes you completely immune to all but the strongest attacks.

Well, if you put a level 40 with Rank 3 Invul up against a level 10, sure.

The Absorb goes up to around 70 at Rank 3 with 230+ STR. Remember that the Absorb part is done before the Resist, so a 75 damage attack will still hurt you.

A level 40 minion will frequently deal more than 100 damage.

[Scion_of_Amber]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Hound

Invulnerability
All of your Damage Resistance is figured in before the Damage Threshold is figured in.

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

Remember that the Absorb part is done before the Resist

Okay we have two directly contradictory statements here, both made with equal belief in their correctness.

Clarification is required and /or word from the source (ie. a Dev).


I'll also comment on Defiance.
At its full effect it will give more damage resistance than Invulnerablity.
I've also never seen it stack more than 6 times on it's own. I think any extra stacks would have to come from other powers such as Defensive Combo.
Maxing out Enrage also doesn't need maximum Defiance if you also rank up Enrage. You can get 8 stacks from 5 Defiance and a Rank 3 Enrage