Question about stacking specs (The Best Defense & Aggrestive Stance) vs Sentry Aura

mlmii

Recently I've started another character as I've finally found some halfway decent internet and I've been thinking about spec trees.

And something that seems like would work, at least on paper is using both of my spec trees to create a self reinforcing loop of Offense and Defense.

The Best Offense grants 100% of my Defense as Offense

Aggressive Stance grants 20% of my Offense as Defense


... Now on paper it looks like to two should bounce off of each other and shoot both my Defense and Offense stats up to the point where they cap out.

On the other hand, I cry a little when I think about giving up Sentinel Aura and the automatic self healing every tick, or Sentry Aura that grants a flat Damage Resistance.


So my basic question to people who may have had similar thoughts, is the Defense and Offense boost worth more to a mostly solo hero than an auto self heal and flat damage resist?






Some other build thoughts that I'm thinking about are....



My Character's main attacks are:


(short range)

Psi Lash
Vengeance (AoE / Paralyze & Stun)
Sparkstorm (PBAoE / Knockback / Toggled)
Ego Storm (PBAoE / Fire & Forget )
Devour Essence (combat heal)

(long range)

Rebuke (Damage & Heal / Stun)


Basically her attack tactics, if they can be called such is to get a mob's attention with Rebuke, and as they swarm her hit them with a layered combo of Vengeance, Spark Storm, and Ego Storm, with Devour Essence thrown in to keep her health up.



On the defensive side of the coin, she can boast;

Defiance ( Honestly, although Invulnerability feels more powerful to me, Defiance offers me a partial stopgap to the biggest weakness I see on paper, a energy management.)

Telekinetic -OR- Force Shield ( I'm not quite sure which one I like better, on one hand T-Shield is simply better defense, but on the other hand F-Shield helps feed me energy and as long as I'm paying attention I should be able to keep either of them up most of the time. )

Inertial Damping Field ( As far as I'm concerned, this is a must have power for any hero.)

Protection Field -OR- Mindful Reinforcement ( Not sure which way to go, on paper they both seem like valid options. )

Resurgence -OR- Unbreakable ( I'm leaning towards Resurgence as it provides straight healing coupled with breaking CC effects. )


And a couple of other tricks are:


Support Drones ( I'm probably set one for attack and the other for healing unless I'm having trouble keeping myself alive. )

Palliate ( My own personal "Oh Crap" button for when I get in over my head? Yes please. )

Rebirth ( For those moments when Palliate just wasn't enough. Although I'm open to suggestions to drop this for a more generally useful power. )




...


Thoughts?

kenteko

TBD/AS loop gives ~20-50 defense, depending on your inherent numbers. If you're a support/healer, which you seem to be, it's by and large wasted vs Sentinel/Sentry + any other given spec. A good rule of thumb is to see how much % increase Sentry gives you and how much TBD/AS gives you (on the test server) and you should have a better understanding of its relative worth.

That being said, I haven't a clue what your build intent is going for. As a support, which seems to be your goal, Sentinel Aura + AoRP is going to be infinitely more powerful then anything TBD/AS would give you. If you're just a solo build, Defiance makes sense but otherwise I'd question why you aren't running AoRP or Regen.

Likewise, you're all over the place on powers with Sparkstorm + Electric Personality then Consume Essence instead of Lifedrain. If you've never heard of it, I'd heavily recommend going to http://powerhouse.nullware.com and mocking up a build. That will likely help other people give better input.

To reinforce the original question though, Sentry vs TBD/AS is whichever's bigger.

mlmii

Thanks for the feedback, I'm trying to aim for a basically unkillable solo hero that can hopefully handle the huge energy requirements of tossing around three AoEs at once as baddies swarm around her... Basically someone who can pull off a "Jenkins" and live to tell the tell. All the while keeping as much of the FX as possible looking like the hero is a font for limitless but barely controlled energy but without being forced into being a simple elementalist or a glass cannon...


A story that I like telling to point towards my goal is that shortly after City of Heroes went live I had a force field/energy blaster character that accidently fell into a room full of red minions (Clockwork King), although I couldn't do any real damage to them they also couldn't kill me either. I spent the rest of the mission stuck in the room joking on team chat while the rest of my group won the mission.

kenteko

That's actually a great start then, or at least goal.

To start: Let's look at some obnoxiously survivable passives, which is to say Regen, Defiance, and Invuln. Regen's survivability is rather obvious, as long as you're not dead, you pretty much don't die. Invuln and Defiance are fairly lateral, with one making it feel like you take no damage (Invuln) while the other makes you take significantly less damage and ignore energy (Defiance). If you're looking to effectively be a solo god, you're gonna be looking at those three.

Next, it bears mentioning the importance of active defenses. Because you intend on effectively never dying, Protector and its Mastery for a spec is really not that bad of a call. The tree itself is a bit "meh" when you look at it compared to Guardian/Warden/Vindicator, but its mastery is all kinds of incredible for a soloer. Resurgence/MD/Unbreakable are all incredibly powerful on their own merits, but when you fall into emergency territory having them come back up immediately is its own brand of "woo!" If your goal is insane survivability, odds are good you want to go Guardian/Warden as the second tree, though Sentinel is nice (why not just go Regen and get a better spec is the question).

Next, let's look at forms. IDF is a great power, yes, but it suffers from a situation called "Oh god my energy." In all seriousness, if you never intend on just soloing, IDF will go a long way to making sure you never die, especially if paired with regen. That being said, you'll suffer from significant energy issues you really wouldn't have if you took Concentration or any other real offensive form (Mental Discipline notwithstanding). If you're married to IDF, though, I'd take a serious look at energy unlocks because you want one you can guarantee will be pumping.

Without knowing anything else about your concept, a few token suggestions are as follows:
1) Build a powerhouse build. As important of a concept as it is, you do want to make sure you have some personal synergy and flow without ruining it. Something like Sparkstorm + Devour Essence looks cool on paper, but in execution it's made of frustration and fail.
2) Weigh what you consider your "role" to be. To put a finer point on it, ask yourself how you intend to function alone and in a group. If the role is identical (i.e. the person who never dies), that's going to be different then someone who wants to take the hits. Judging by your defender example, you may be leaning to support (though person who never dies is totally a role, just pack a rez).
3) Create a "bread and butter" rotation that determines what you will be doing when things get serious. For example, one of my character's has a build that looks overly complicated and, at its base, seems to be full of redundant and gimmicky powers. However, when I'm doing something that matters (i.e. Gravitar) my "bread and butter" becomes "Maintain Fire Snake, Flashfire, Devour Essence." Find that goal for yourself.
4) Determine what you actually WOULD like to do. Do you see yourself soloing Gravitar or are you more comfortable chugging through Resistance in Elite (regardless of how long it takes). This one's more a blanket question.
5) How malleable is your concept? Are we going "super flashy" and just throwing in what fits or do you have specific needs?

Sorry if I got a little wordy, but I love concept builds like this and I'd like to help to the best of my ability.

Edit: Whoops, just saw you had a build up. Will look it over and post over yonder, though the questions are still there in case it can be answered.