the 5% defense question

[cohRock]

As I understand it, attacks are always bound within a 5% to 95% chance of hitting.  E.g., if a level 1 player attacks a level 50 foe, he will still have a 5% chance to hit it.  Similarly, the foe would have a 5% chance to miss.  Correct?

 

If so, I have a question.  The only defenses my level 24 brute has stems from both Combat Jumping and Maneuvers.  Their defense percentage currently sums to 5.05%.  Does this mean they never help him while soloing?  I know other teammates could be adding to his defense with force field shields, cold shields, or their own Maneuvers.  Also if his attack set were one of the swords or Titan Weapons, one of his attacks would add to his melee (and lethal or smashing) defense.  So my brute has a  potential head start when teamed with others or uses a certain attack in certain sets.  But on his own, it would seem to be his level of defense is usually worthless.

[Doomguide2005]

It's pretty trivial.  The mobs base chance to hit starts at 50%.  Which in turn gives us the 'soft cap' (50% - 45% = 5%).  But that also doesn't take into account accuracy (or a bunch of other things for that matter) which also gets bound to a final result between 5% and 95%.

 

So yes 50-5.05=44.95% vs 50% chance with no defense isn't going to do a whole lot especially over the course of one fight or even mission.  

 

Edit:  basically other forms of mitigation will be of relatively greater importance whether that's just defeating things faster, stunning or knocking them down, regeneration/healing or debuffs of some sort (or some mix of all these things) etc..

Edited January 19, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Afterthoughts

[huang3721]

1 hour ago, cohRock said:

Does this mean they never help him while soloing?

I think a 5% defense increase can be noticeable when you are fighting a -1 mob since their base chance to hit is lower. Against +0 critters, you may want to increase your defense to at least 10%. 

 

My blasters have a more or less 10% defense stat and I quickly notice the difference whenever I forget to toggle Maneuver and Weave.

[DSorrow]

The way hit chance is calculated is as follows: 

HitChance = Clamp( AccMods × Clamp( BaseHitChance + ToHitMods – DefMods ) )

Clamp limits the value of the bracketed statement between 5% and 95%, so in the absence of any additional Accuracy modifiers, your final hit chance will always be between 5% and 95%. However, if you do have Accuracy modifiers (basically a given, unless your level is in the single digits), then your final hit chance will be between 5% x AccMod and 95%, e.g. with 33% AccMod, your hit chance would be limited between 5% x 1.33 = ~6.7% and 95%.

 

What comes to NPC opponents, BaseHitChance for a vast majority of the mobs is 50%, so you end up cutting that down to ~45%. AccMods for mobs is typically between 1 and 2, depending on their rank, level and the used attack so with 0% Defense they could have up to 95% HitChance (2 x 50% = 100%, limited to 95%), which with 5% Def would be reduced to 90% (2 x 45% = 90%). 

 

5% Def does some, but not much when solo. However, it does give you a headstart when Def bonuses start stacking which can actually be quite important because survivability doesn't work linearly. To give a simple worked example, let's say you have an enemy with 50% BaseHitChance, no additional AccuracyMods (AccMods = 1), base damage per second output of 100 while you have 1000 HP and you are capable of regenerating 10 HP per second.

 

1. With 0% Defense, the enemy deals 1 x (50% - 0%) x 100 DPS = 50 DPS and you regenerate 10 per second, so your net HP loss is 50 - 10 = 40 per second -> it takes 1000 / 40 = 25 seconds for the enemy to defeat you.
2. With 10% Defense: 1 x (50% - 10%) x 100 DPS = 40 DPS -> net loss = 30 HP per second -> 33 seconds to defeat.
3. With 20% Defense: 1 x (50% - 20%) x 100 DPS = 30 DPS -> net loss = 20 HP per second -> 50 seconds to defeat.
4. With 30% Defense: 1 x (50% - 30%) x 100 DPS = 20 DPS -> net loss = 10 HP per second -> 100 seconds to defeat.
5. With 35% Defense: 1 x (50% - 35%) x 100 DPS = 15 DPS -> net loss = 5 HP per seconds -> 200 seconds to defeat.
6. With 40% Defense: 1 x (50% - 40%) x 100 DPS = 10 DPS -> net loss = 0 HP per second -> infinity seconds to defeat.

Basically, as you stack up your Defense stat, your survivability time starts increasing very rapidly as you approach 45% (the soft cap). In a team environment any existing buffs might help you considerably even if they don't do much when soloing.

[Doomguide2005]

Thanks for the detailed example @DSorrow.  Effectively the only time your likely to see accuracy running into the floor's clamp of 5% is against minions and underlings at +0 or -1 settings and using powers with inherent accuracy less than 1.0 as higher rank foes and higher level foes both have positive accuracy mods.  As far as I know or can recall no player set contains any accuracy debuff powers (only to hit debuffs).  As soon as you start moving off minimal notoriety settings it becomes increasingly rare for the critters final hit chance to be at 5%.  A +4 boss, for example,  is sitting at 1.82 before the powers accuracy mod or bit better than a 9% hit chance.

[Omega-202]

6 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Thanks for the detailed example @DSorrow.  Effectively the only time your likely to see accuracy running into the floor's clamp of 5% is against minions and underlings at +0 or -1 settings and using powers with inherent accuracy less than 1.0 as higher rank foes and higher level foes both have positive accuracy mods.  As far as I know or can recall no player set contains any accuracy debuff powers (only to hit debuffs).  As soon as you start moving off minimal notoriety settings it becomes increasingly rare for the critters final hit chance to be at 5%.  A +4 boss, for example,  is sitting at 1.82 before the powers accuracy mod or bit better than a 9% hit chance.

Yes and no.  The clamp is still coming into effect because the to-hit base is still clamped at 5%, which is then buffed by their accuracy to the final to-hit chance.  So in that regard, the 5% clamp is still relevant, it's just rarely the final value.  The 9% is still "running into the floor clamp", but its modified after the fact.  

[Doomguide2005]

1 hour ago, Omega-202 said:

Yes and no.  The clamp is still coming into effect because the to-hit base is still clamped at 5%, which is then buffed by their accuracy to the final to-hit chance.  So in that regard, the 5% clamp is still relevant, it's just rarely the final value.  The 9% is still "running into the floor clamp", but its modified after the fact.

Sort of if I follow you.  There are two sets of nested and clamped equations. 

    First Base hit chance+various to hit mods-various defense mods is clamped. 

    Then, second, the accuracy mods × the above clamped equation is itself clamped.  I was pointing out that it's rare for the accuracy mods to result in something <5% prior to the outer parentheses clamp being applied.  Even when the inner hit chance portion is clamped to 5% its unlikely the accuracy mods will pull that further down so the outer clamp actually forces it back up to 5%.  It almost always results in something greater than 5% where the outer clamp doesn't matter. You would need a final accuracy mod under 1.0 to make it relevant.

 

Edited January 19, 2021 by Doomguide2005
Clarity