Softcap "hardcap"?

[Unrandom]

I just finished reading "Why is the softcap so important?" and it made me curious: is there a "hardcap"? What is the difference in a softcap and a hardcap? (Sorry if this is an extreme newbie question, but that's what I am in regards to this stuff.)

[SeraphimKensai]

Softcap means you can go over it. Doing so only gives you a buffer in case of debuffs. Hardcap means you can't go over it.

 

Defense uses a softcap, 45% for non-incarnate, ~58.5% for Incarnate content.

 

Resistance is hardcapped at 75% for most AT's, 85% for EATs, and 90% for Tanks/Brutes.

 

Any extra resistance pass hardcap is not used, and is wasted. Any extra Defense over softcap can be used if debuffed.

Edited April 22, 2020 by SeraphimKensai

[Unrandom]

Thank you!

[ABlueThingy]

I believe there is a def hard cap but it's waaaay up there.

[Riverdusk]

Yep, high enough to not really be meaningfull:

 

Brute, Tanker

+100.43% at level 1

+225.05% at level 21+

 

Peacebringer, Scrapper, Stalker, Warshade

+97.76% at level 1

+200.38% at level 21+

 

Blaster, Controller, Corruptor, Defender, Dominator, Mastermind

+95.00% at level 1

+175.00% at level 21+

 

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Limits

[macskull]

5 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Softcap means you can go over it. Doing so only gives you a buffer in case of debuffs. Hardcap means you can't go over it.

 

Defense uses a softcap, 45% for non-incarnate, ~58.5% for Incarnate content.

 

Resistance is hardcapped at 75% for most AT's, 85% for EATs, and 90% for Tanks/Brutes.

 

Any extra resistance pass hardcap is not used, and is wasted. Any extra Defense over softcap can be used if debuffed.

To clarify on the defense softcap thing, reiterating a few things OP might have missed in their link:

 

Since the base mob chance to hit is 50%, and the minimum chance to hit is never lower than 5%, any defense over 45% is functionally useless except in the case of enemy defense debuffs (somewhat common) or tohit buffs (far less common outside of incarnate content). That being said, higher-level and higher-rank mobs get an accuracy bonus, which isn't countered by defense so in reality unless you spend your time exclusively fighting even-con or lower minions you will never actually see that 5% minimum.

 

Extra resistance past the hardcap isn't necessarily wasted, since it does work like defense past the cap in that it can provide a buffer for resistance debuffs.

[Gremlin]

To put it slightly differently, if you exceed a hard cap value then the game engine cuts the number down to the cap before doing any calculations. The combat attributes will show the capped value and mark it in blue. With a soft cap, the value is fed into the calculations without modification. It's just that higher values don't help for some other reason. IIRC the combat attributes window doesn't mark soft caps in any way.

 

The recharge and mez resistance mechanics display drastically diminishing returns. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Soft_Cap gives these as examples of a soft cap but I don't recall hearing a player call them that.

[macskull]

On 4/23/2020 at 5:16 PM, Gremlin said:

To put it slightly differently, if you exceed a hard cap value then the game engine cuts the number down to the cap before doing any calculations. The combat attributes will show the capped value and mark it in blue. With a soft cap, the value is fed into the calculations without modification. It's just that higher values don't help for some other reason. IIRC the combat attributes window doesn't mark soft caps in any way.

 

The recharge and mez resistance mechanics display drastically diminishing returns. https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Soft_Cap gives these as examples of a soft cap but I don't recall hearing a player call them that.

Recharge and mez resistance function differently than other enhanceable attributes - if I have a power that does 100 damage base and I enhance it with a damage SO that with an enhancement value of 33%, it enhances that power by (100x1.33=133). Recharge and mez resistance are functionally the opposite - 100% recharge doesn't make a power recharge instantly and 100% mez resistance doesn't make mez have no effect, those values simply cut the original value in half.

 

Enhancement diversification isn't really a "soft cap" in that enhancement beyond that value is useless, but it does become subject to diminishing returns to the point where slotting any more than three identical SO's worth of an attribute into a power isn't usually worth the slots (although you do still get some value out of the slot). The only mechanic that really has a "soft cap" is defense since combat mechanics mean that for most cases anything above 45% defense is wasted.