I'm considering playing a combat-focused mystic adept, heavy on the adept, and I wanted to know which people thought would be better:
Improved Reflexes 1 + Mystic armor 6 + Troll, or Improved Reflexes 3 + Orc

Some initial character builds give approx. these final combat numbers:
"Fast" option:
Ranged defense 8D, full ranged 12D, melee defenses the same +4D
9 Init and 4 Init passes
Armor 8B/6I, Damage resistance roll 12B/10I

"Tough" option:
Ranged defense 3D, full ranged 7D, melee defenses the same +4D
4 Init and 2 Init passes
Armor 15B/13I, Damage resistance roll 24B/22I

thanks!

From my experience, Combat Sense is worth far more than Mystic Armor.

We had a Combat Sense 5 Troll in our game who was dang hard to geek

YMMV

BlueMax

what Bluemax siad, plus throw in improved ability (dodge and/or gymnastics), aptitude (same skills), exceptional attribute, improved physical attribute (reaction or agility), or boost attribute (reaction or agility)

its easier to soak damage once you have dodged most of it
now you will have max or near max the skills or attributes

you could try to find a balance, a PC who can avoid most of the damage while having high enough body to soak the rest
instead of all defense (speed or tough), split the points down the middle for each

Depending on how your group plays, I'd look at dropping to 3 IP at chargen. Thats a very competent fighter type, but also frees up some points to add to other powers.

Your 'fast' ork is only going to have a Body 4? That a seriously low Body for a combat-oriented ork.

But if that Ork is so fast that he's geeking the bad guys before they know the shit's hitting the fan, then he won't have to worry about soaking damage.

Besides with Half suit FFBA, lined coat, and PPP shin and forearm guards, and PPP arm and leg casings, he should have an armor of 10/9... not good for a Adept tank, but not too shabby to soak what he doesn't dodge.

I've seen it tried many times and such over-optimization always fails. There's just no reason to sacrifice that much Body - storywise, Body 4 on an ork is a sickly out-of-shape ork and gamewise it's just so cheap to buy it up a few more points (once bought up, you can add on a bit more armor too).

HappyDaze is absolutely right. Finally you have to realize that you can either play a tank or a speed-demon. Both at the same time doesn´t work out at the beginning, because no part is filled sufficient. Dodging an attack is ways easier that taking damage (damage can rise very high, successes on the attack test are very limited (if you don´t lay around sleeping)), so i would always prefer the speed-demon to start with and later you can develop your tank abilities. But body 4 is like shit who hits the fan. Don´t even think about fighting with this value, unless your a mage.^^

I´ll suggest option 3: Increase Reflexes spell in a sustaining focus. One of the premier advantages of mystic adepts over adepts.

Right. Love it.^^ But even in this point of view: the spell grants NO reaction dice, ONLY initiative.

Try an Ork adept (5 Magic before cyber), Quality Surge II: Metagenetic Improvement- Reaction, 6 Reaction, 5 Agility, with Quality Restricted Gear: Move by Wire 2 Alpha and Quality: Restricted Gear Muscle Toner 4, take Dodge 6, specialize Ranged, Improved Dodge 1 (Move by Wire adds directly to skill so you already have 8/9 max skill covered), Combat Sense 2.

These purchases would give you, if my calculations are correct, 12 dice for defending against Ranged combat normally, 23 dice against Ranged for Full defense, and 32 dice (or 30 if the specialization doesn't double) against melee Full Defense.

That costs 25 points of Qualities ( I assume this will be a wash with Negative Qualities), 40 points for Magic Attribute (ending with Magic 2), 20 for Ork, 80 points of regular Attributes, 26 for Dodge skill, 202k nuyen (41 points) and 1.5 of your 2 magic points.

You've maxed out your ranged offensive atribute and one defensive attribute, have 3 IP, Skillwires 4, can still buy .5 points of magic, .2 essence cyber/bioware, 120 points worth of attributes, 10 points of Qualities, 9 points of gear and 64 points of skills/Edge.

The points left mean you can put 4 points into body easily, starting you on your way to tanking happiness as well with a body of 8 and all the armor (16 points) that you can stack on. Put a little in strength, intuition and willpower, choose Logic or Charisma as a dump stat depending on what secondary role you want to follow with your skillwires. Voila, effective if a bit one-dimensional combat adept. Of course, it means you have to be willing to corrupt your body with cyber as well.

We kill for money (and sometimes for fun) of course we corrupt everything.^^ I think i want to recalculate my troll-sam.^^