IO Set bonuses question

[RogueWolf]

So I started slotting my Defender to try to fill the Mez resistance gap. Is there any kind of cap on accumulated bonuses from different sets and procs?

 

I ask because Aegis: Psi/Status resistance states it reduces duration by 20%, but the Combat Attributes window shows 16.67% duration. And Impervious Skin: Status states 7.5, but that reports 6.98%.

[Patti]

Smarter people will explain better but it's like 1 divided by the number plus 1.   Like 1 divided by 1.2

[RogueWolf]

That's what makes me assume there's a soft cap or diminishing returns. I had hoped to slot other powers when I had the influence, but now thinking it would not be worth the influence if there's already a 20% reduction.

[SwitchFade]

Status resistance is not worth slotting for in general. Here's why...

 

100% status resistance halves duration. That's it. So if you were hit with a 15 second hold, the best you can hope for is reducing it by 7 seconds by building to a ridiculous amount of 100% resistance.

 

Mag protection is different. Defenders don't get mez protection, we carry break frees.

[MTeague]

I wouldn't slot for status resistance as a goal in and of itself. 

but it doesn't suck to pick up some as a target-of-opportunity.  If it just happens while you're stacking other resists.

 

Particularly when I'm soloing a Controller or Dominator, and I'm up against enemies that try to use Holds on me, it's import that their Hold doesn't last long.

If their Hold is very short term on me, I can win the war and keep them held or otherwise CC'd while I'm free to act and heal up or kill them. 

If their Holds are 10+ seconds on me....  I'm probably dead unless I have a Break Free.  And I don't always have one. 

 

[RogueWolf]

That's confusing. The combat attributes window says "-x% duration" so that makes me assume that 50% resist = 50% duration.

 

Anyway, I splurged on an unslotter to test this, and the numbers still did not change with Aegis removed. It's 20% lower on all individual status buffs than what the IO Set states. 2.5% -> 2.44% just as it was before when Aegis was slotted.

 

Does anyone have an explanation for this that someone who isn't a math major can understand?

[macskull]

48 minutes ago, RogueWolf said:

That's what makes me assume there's a soft cap or diminishing returns. I had hoped to slot other powers when I had the influence, but now thinking it would not be worth the influence if there's already a 20% reduction.

It's not a reduction - the second poster was correct in the way they described it. It has to do with the way the game calculates and displays things like this and you'd see the same sort of results if you were looking at recharge or endurance reduction. Having 100% mez resistance means a mez lasts half its original duration, just like having 100% recharge reduction means a power recharges in half the time, just like having 100% endurance reduction means a power costs half as much endurance. They aren't straight reductions because otherwise you'd have things like 100% mez resistance meaning mezzes would have no duration, or 100% recharge meaning powers recharged instantly, or 100% endurance reduction meaning powers cost no endurance.

 

Some math, using the examples in @Patti's post:

• Let's look at damage first. We'll use some arbitrary values for this, so let's say our base damage for a given attack is 100. If I have 33% damage enhancement, that becomes

  100 x 1.33 = 133

  damage. Likewise, if I have a 100% damage debuff applied to me it'd be

  100 x 0 = 0

  damage, except the minimum value for damage is 10% so you'd actually deal 10 damage.
• Most enhancement aspects work like the way I described above, but because I don't want to be able to have 100% mez resistance equal no mez ever, or 100% recharge to mean powers recharge instantly, or 100% endurance reduction to mean powers cost no endurance, those enhancements are figured differently.
• The math for these three enhancement aspects doesn't use the

  base x enhancement = result

  formula, it uses the

  (base / (100% + enhancement)) = result

  formula.
• For example, if I slot a power with 33% recharge reduction, it doesn't reduce recharge to 67% of its original value (the first formula), rather it reduces recharge to about 75% of its original value (the second formula). The same thing goes for mez resistance - if I have 20% mez resistance it doesn't mean all mezzes last 80% of their original duration (the first formula), it means all mezzes last 83.33% of their original duration (or 16.67% of their duration is removed).
• So yes, in a manner of speaking, you could say there are diminishing returns applied to mez resistance, or recharge reduction, or endurance reduction, because each 100% of those you have only reduces the value by 1/2 of the current value (i.e. 100% mez resist means a mez lasts half its duration, 200% means it lasts 1/4 its duration, 300% means it lasts 1/8 its duration, and so on), but those diminishing returns are only due to the mechanics of how enhancing those attributes works and not because of some artificial limitation.
• Is it a little bit complicated? Yep. Is CoH pretty wacky and complicated under the hood considering how casual-friendly it purports to be? Also yep.

Edited August 5, 2020 by macskull

[Troo]

"this enhancement provides a 20.0% bonus to Status Resistance (Hold, Immobilize, Stun, Sleep, Confuse, and Terrorize) for 120 seconds."

 

20% bonus does not equal -20% duration.. it is confusing.

[RogueWolf]

It is confusing, but I think I follow most of it. I added up the #s from the individual enhs vs what the combined total is and I see what you mean.

 

The net result, though, when you look at the Combat Attributes window. When I see "72.73% duration" from all the stacked effects, does that literally mean just under 3/4 of the duration? So it shaves ~5 seconds off a 15 second hold, for example. Like MT said above, that might matter when soloing.

 

I can see where trying to stack any more than that would net out to like 1-2 seconds at the most, though. Assuming I got this right.

Edited August 5, 2020 by RogueWolf

[macskull]

Yes, that's correct. Generally speaking it's not worth building specifically for mez resistance. You'll usually get a modest amount as collateral while you're building for other things (especially damage resistance as damage resistance set bonuses also provide mez resistance). The best way to avoid mez is to have the defense to prevent it from hitting you in the first place, and carry along a few extra tools just in case you do get mezzed (I tend to carry a few breakfrees with me when I'm running mez-heavy content).

[Six-Six]

I, too, was confused with the status effect duration at first. And your more recent post is correct. the lower then number, the less time you spend mezzed.

Also, the "cap" you were asking about in the original post: the only answer I can give is that you can only have 5x of a particular set bonus (i.e. you can have 5x 6.5% mez res, AND 5x 3.5% mez res and so on, but your 6th 3.5 or 6.5 will not count and be wasted), until you reach the cap of mez res which is 75%(?).

Macskull is correct, though. It is better to build up your ranged or aoe def/res -- which is how enemies mez you -- instead of directly slotting mez res/def. I can attest to this after a rebuild of my mez-magnet blaster. a switch to higher ranged and aoe def/res now lets him face off against rikti and carnies with ease. he still gets mezzed but A LOT less, and for shorter periods (like a 2 seconds).

I'd also like to add that numbers and stats behave differently when you play. I suppose several factors are in play and the AI needs to reconcile every single one of them. that's why I'm not too fond of taking the stats to heart. They're a nice guide, but not the law.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Six Six

[macskull]

40 minutes ago, Six Six said:

Also, the "cap" you were asking about in the original post: the only answer I can give is that you can only have 5x of a particular set bonus (i.e. you can have 5x 6.5% mez res, AND 5x 3.5% mez res and so on, but your 6th 3.5 or 6.5 will not count and be wasted), until you reach the cap of mez res which is 75%(?).

The cap on mez resistance is 10001.01% (not a typo) which results in about 1% duration but outside of PvP there are very few powers which give mez resistance vice protection so it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever hit more than a few hundred percent even in extreme cases.

[Omega-202]

I will second what others have said: mez resistance isn't worth building towards.  At best, you'll half the duration of a mez, but that won't keep you from being chain mezzed by certain enemies.

 

It's better to try and build mez protection into the character.  Some options for a Defender include:

- sets with protection built in (eg FF, Traps. Electric)

- Rune of Protection in the Sorcery pool.  With decent recharge, it's up 50% of the time.  Also can be used when you're already mezzed.

- Clarion Destiny incarnate power

- Melee Hybrid incarnate power

- Acrobatics in the Leaping pool provides a bit of hold protection

 

You can also build towards soft capped defenses.  You can't get mezzed if they can't hit you.

[CaptainLupis]

6 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

I will second what others have said: mez resistance isn't worth building towards.  At best, you'll half the duration of a mez, but that won't keep you from being chain mezzed by certain enemies.

 

It's better to try and build mez protection into the character.  Some options for a Defender include:

- sets with protection built in (eg FF, Traps. Electric)

- Rune of Protection in the Sorcery pool.  With decent recharge, it's up 50% of the time.  Also can be used when you're already mezzed.

- Clarion Destiny incarnate power

- Melee Hybrid incarnate power

- Acrobatics in the Leaping pool provides a bit of hold protection

 

You can also build towards soft capped defenses.  You can't get mezzed if they can't hit you.

I get the feeling that is not widely understood or more people would be taking it. I think they just see the 10 min recharge and assume if they can't get it perma it's useless. Where it's actually like a break free you can use every 5 minutes (or more with global recharge) that has the benefits of a fair chunk of resistance to all thrown in as well. It can also be used as a mule for res +def uniques, which for some would be more useful than going the fighting pool route for tough to slot them. 

 

It may not be obvious but I like rune of protection...

[Shred Monkey]

My suggestion...  slot for ranged defense instead.  They can't mezz you if they can't hit you.

[macskull]

9 hours ago, CaptainLupis said:

I get the feeling that is not widely understood or more people would be taking it. I think they just see the 10 min recharge and assume if they can't get it perma it's useless. Where it's actually like a break free you can use every 5 minutes (or more with global recharge) that has the benefits of a fair chunk of resistance to all thrown in as well. It can also be used as a mule for res +def uniques, which for some would be more useful than going the fighting pool route for tough to slot them. 

 

It may not be obvious but I like rune of protection...

I like the idea of it but I have never found a build where I could acceptably drop enough things to fit it. If the origin pools were an exclusive pool pick and didn't count against the four picks you get, I'd probably take it but right now my four pool picks are almost always Speed/Leaping/Leadership/Fighting.