Defense Softcap: Does Defense round up?

[Lockpick]

Soft-cap is 45%, but if I have 44.78% am I considered at soft-cap?  What about 44.5%? 

 

Just wondering if I need the full 45% or does the system round up to make 44.5% the equivalent of 45%.

[Galaxy Brain]

Essentially its rounded up. When you are at the soft cap, you have a 5% chance to be hit by most all enemies due to the accuracy formula. They all have a base 50% chance to hit you, and a minimum floor of 5% chance, so subtract 45 from 50 = 5%.

 

If you're at 44.5 = 5.5% chance, etc. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

9 minutes ago, Lockpick said:

Soft-cap is 45%, but if I have 44.78% am I considered at soft-cap?  What about 44.5%? 

 

Just wondering if I need the full 45% or does the system round up to make 44.5% the equivalent of 45%.

According to the combat logs, to hit runs to 4 decimal places.  Ex:   HIT Wild Rikti Monkey! Your Whirling Smash power had a 95.00% chance to hit, you rolled a 80.49.

 

So no, it doesn't round to the nearest percentage.

[Omega-202]

As Yomo said, it doesn't round in any practical sense.  However, the soft cap isn't some magic number where you go from trash to godly.  Essentially everything that you'd survive at 45% defense, you'll also survive at 44.5%.  The difference is getting hit 10 times out of 200 or 11 times out of 200.  Randomness will have a larger effect than the difference of 0.5% defense.

 

Also, if you team, you can reasonably assume that at least one, if not more, of your teammates are packing a defensive boost of some kind that will cap you.  Being in range of a single Manuevers will soft cap you when you're in that 42%+ range.

[Hyperstrike]

While the game doesn't round, I prefer to simply round DOWN to the nearest whole number.
The fractions don't really make that huge of a difference and it pushes me to make sure I don't settle for "close enough" if I don't have to.

[Bopper]

38 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

The difference is getting hit 10 times out of 200 or 11 times out of 200.

This is true only if the enemy doesn't have any accuracy modifiers, which is rare. Only enemies that are minions or below and also even con or below will have a 5% chance to hit you at 45% defense.  However, what is true, you will get hit 10% more often when you have 44.5% defense as opposed to 45% defense.

 

Let's assume you are fighting a +4 boss. It gets a 1.4x accuracy modifier for being +4, and it gets a 1.3x accuracy modifier for being a boss. This means its chance to hit you are:

45% defense: 5% x 1.4 x 1.3 = 9.1%

44.5% defense: 5.5% x 1.4 x 1.3 = 10.01%

 

So ballpark for this example, it's the difference of getting hit 9 times out of 100 versus 10 times out of 100. You'll probably still be fine, unless defense debuffs happen.

[Omega-202]

4 minutes ago, Bopper said:

This is true only if the enemy doesn't have any accuracy modifiers, which is rare. Only enemies that are minions or below and also even con or below will have a 5% chance to hit you at 45% defense.  However, what is true, you will get hit 10% more often when you have 44.5% defense as opposed to 45% defense.

 

Let's assume you are fighting a +4 boss. It gets a 1.4x accuracy modifier for being +4, and it gets a 1.3x accuracy modifier for being a boss. This means its chance to hit you are:

45% defense: 5% x 1.4 x 1.3 = 9.1%

44.5% defense: 5.5% x 1.4 x 1.3 = 10.01%

 

So ballpark for this example, it's the difference of getting hit 9 times out of 100 versus 10 times out of 100. You'll probably still be fine, unless defense debuffs happen.

You're totally correct, as always.  I was going for the simple version.  

 

Principle still stands though.  I personally would never fret over an 0.5% deficit from the soft cap or make any drastic build decisions because of it.  I've had this personal dilemma on builds in the past.  I could have slapped an extra slot in Manuevers to get me to cap, or that slot could go towards another useful proc in an attack or a 6-slot Tox/Psi resist bonus, etc.  In the end, its about cost-benefit.  

[Bopper]

12 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

In the end, its about cost-benefit.  

Absolutely 💯 

[Sailboat]

Yeah .  Just for clarity of communication, I wouldn't round in conversation either.  44.96% defense is not soft-capped.  It's close enough you might never notice the difference, and it's very good defense, but I wouldn't confuse that with actually being soft-capped.

[Doomguide2005]

The other consideration while building for defense gets into defense debuff resistance.  While this won't change the initial to hit chance it can definitely effect what someone building for defense considers sufficient for improving survival in combat.  For example, my /SR scrappers would be fine sitting at or near 45 ... their DDR means a blow won't effectively change their defense.  My defenders however usually like more defense as a cushion against defdebuffs and will go well over 45 if I can (maybe 50 or 52).  Helps prevent cascade defense failure as it will take back to back hits against the soft cap for the debuffs to truly increase the next foes chance to hit.  And/or keep a close eye in combat attributes and use other measures to keep cascade failure and sudden death at bay.

[JnEricsonx]

I've been on teams with triple digits defense. Once, for a few seconds, my character was at 200% def.   It was glorious.

[Omega-202]

18 minutes ago, JnEricsonx said:

I've been on teams with triple digits defense. Once, for a few seconds, my character was at 200% def.   It was glorious.

That's part of the reason I don't fuss over 0.5%. 

 

I was recently on a Tin Mage with double Crabs, 2 storm Controllers running Steamy and a /Ice Corruptor, with 6 members also running Manuevers.  I was easily into triple digits.

[JnEricsonx]

Thank God they made fitness inherent, and removed travel prereqs.  Sure as hell made it easier to fit in tough/weave, or leadership.  When they did that on live....I just didn't have the heart to respec all my chars.

[MunkiLord]

I think it'd be fun if the system rounded the numbers at random points in the defensive calculation and to different decimal places. And the points of rounding changed every time you zoned. Things could get interesting. And sometimes all the numbers would round up, other times they all round down. Glorious chaos.

 

[EmmySky]

Sounds like a rodeo in progress.  Round 'em up, boys, we're headin' out!

[macskull]

1 hour ago, MunkiLord said:

I think it'd be fun if the system rounded the numbers at random points in the defensive calculation and to different decimal places. And the points of rounding changed every time you zoned. Things could get interesting. And sometimes all the numbers would round up, other times they all round down. Glorious chaos.

 

This is a pretty accurate description of PvP diminishing returns.

[Lockpick]

Thanks all, I was curious because I have Blaster character where my build is over soft-cap for R/S/L/E and N is at at 44.71%.  I can get it to 45% by boosting my LotG IOs to +5, but I generally like to leave them attuned.  Was debating how much value it really adds.  Probably not worth boosting, since it would likely really mess me up from an OCD standpoint.

[Gulbasaur]

2 hours ago, JnEricsonx said:

I've been on teams with triple digits defense. Once, for a few seconds, my character was at 200% def.   It was glorious.

Equally, I have tanked +4 Mot with lower than 45% and my main issue was teleporting teammates far enough away that they could rez safely because they kept getting chomped by the floor AoE.

 

45% isn't a magic number. Teammates usually provide quite a lot and you can do fine with lower.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Gulbasaur

[MTeague]

4 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

The other consideration while building for defense gets into defense debuff resistance.  While this won't change the initial to hit chance it can definitely effect what someone building for defense considers sufficient for improving survival in combat.  For example, my /SR scrappers would be fine sitting at or near 45 ... their DDR means a blow won't effectively change their defense.  My defenders however usually like more defense as a cushion against defdebuffs and will go well over 45 if I can (maybe 50 or 52).  Helps prevent cascade defense failure as it will take back to back hits against the soft cap for the debuffs to truly increase the next foes chance to hit.  And/or keep a close eye in combat attributes and use other measures to keep cascade failure and sudden death at bay.

This.  So much this.  

 

This is also why I completely disagree with "Force Fields are useless at endgame".  No they are not.  I'm quite sure the support crew with Force Fields, Cold Domination, and Empathy, and of course your VEATS, probably prevent cascade failure deaths on a regular basis, each night, every night, by paadding the defense of their team to the point where the baddies start needing an Improbability Drive to start cascade failure on characters who DON'T have /SR levels of Defense Debuff Resistance.

 

People still may perceive them as useless because of the all-too-human tendancy to "Of course they didn't hit me! I'm just that awesome", instead of "Of course they didn't hit me!  Props to my buffers!".  But I am always glad to see any such defense contributing characters on a team. 

[Omega-202]

28 minutes ago, MTeague said:

This.  So much this.  

 

This is also why I completely disagree with "Force Fields are useless at endgame".  No they are not.  I'm quite sure the support crew with Force Fields, Cold Domination, and Empathy, and of course your VEATS, probably prevent cascade failure deaths on a regular basis, each night, every night, by paadding the defense of their team to the point where the baddies start needing an Improbability Drive to start cascade failure on characters who DON'T have /SR levels of Defense Debuff Resistance.

 

People still may perceive them as useless because of the all-too-human tendancy to "Of course they didn't hit me! I'm just that awesome", instead of "Of course they didn't hit me!  Props to my buffers!".  But I am always glad to see any such defense contributing characters on a team. 

I think you're slightly missing the mark on the reason people say FF is useless.  It's not that the defense is completely useless, its that those other sets can provide said defense and so much more.  

 

Outside of the bubbles, FF isn't giving you any -Res, healing, end buffing, -regen or anything else that you really want at endgame.  You also forgot Time, which has all of that and can softcap a team by itself using PB+Clarion.  

 

Basically, FF is 3 good powers and a bunch of mediocre to dud powers.  

[Apparition]

20 minutes ago, Omega-202 said:

I think you're slightly missing the mark on the reason people say FF is useless.  It's not that the defense is completely useless, its that those other sets can provide said defense and so much more.  

 

Outside of the bubbles, FF isn't giving you any -Res, healing, end buffing, -regen or anything else that you really want at endgame.  You also forgot Time, which has all of that and can softcap a team by itself using PB+Clarion.  

 

Basically, FF is 3 good powers and a bunch of mediocre to dud powers.  

You do want endurance drain resistance, toxic damage resistance, and mez protection though.  None of which Time nor Cold provide.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Apparition

[Omega-202]

A) Those things are all in the 3 good powers of the set.  The rest of the set is a bunch of duds.

 

B) Mez protection I'll give, but toxic resistance is quite niche and end drain resistance is not usually as relevant as end recovery buffs, which Time and other sets do have.  

 

I'm not saying its totally useless but when your selling points are "it gives toxic and drain resistance", that really shows that the set is lacking.  

[macskull]

Plus, while those things are nice, by virtue of having defense alone you're less reliant on them because you're just not getting hit often.

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, Omega-202 said:

A) Those things are all in the 3 good powers of the set.  The rest of the set is a bunch of duds.

 

B) Mez protection I'll give, but toxic resistance is quite niche and end drain resistance is not usually as relevant as end recovery buffs, which Time and other sets do have.  

 

I'm not saying its totally useless but when your selling points are "it gives toxic and drain resistance", that really shows that the set is lacking.  

 

I actually like that Force Field only has a few good powers.  It leaves plenty of room for pool powers, and more enhancement slots for attacks.

 

Besides, Time can’t do this. 😛

 

 

[Hyperstrike]

21 hours ago, JnEricsonx said:

I've been on teams with triple digits defense. Once, for a few seconds, my character was at 200% def.   It was glorious.

Try a ship raid with a couple teams of Kins and Rads.

The entire league spends the entire bowl phase at Recharge Cap...

And every beam-in is covered by multiple Fulcrum Shifts...