Some thoughts on defenses

[drbuzzard]

I often see here people say things like "It's a good idea to have some defense" when you're making a resistance set. Perhaps even the converse gets said about defense sets and resistance, but people are usually bigger fans of defense sets and rarely pad in resistance. 

 

What people ought to understand is how to consider the way protection sets work in the game. 

 

First off we should start with the relevant limits, known commonly as softcaps. For defense the number is 45% in normal content, and 57% in incarnate content. Any value of defense you have beyond those numbers doesn't actually change the outcomes unless you are debuffed (and perhaps if the attacker has to hit buffs). Normally enemies will hit you 50% of the time, and the defense number subtracts from that (62% in incarnate I suppose). Hence if you are at the softcap, you will be tagged 5% of the time and block 90% of your incoming damage (remember we start at 50% already missing). This is why people generally consider defense the stronger option in most classes because the resistance cap for most classes is just 75%. It is higher for EATs (85%), brutes (90%) and tankers (90%). 

 

As mentioned above resistance sets for sentinels cap at 75%, so you still get tagged for 25% of the damage and that's 2.5x what you'll take on a defense set. However resistance is nice since the incoming damage will be in smaller lumps rather than the occasional wallops that come through defense. 

 

Sentinels also do some interesting things in the pure resistance sets (fiery aura, electric armor, dark armor, radiation armor) by including strong healing powers and regeneration powers. These actually do a fair job of offsetting the comparative deficiency. I will say having played all the secondaries , the defensive sets are definitely more durable, and you can do more showboating while surviving, but it's not that big a margin. Resistance sets will usually give you enough time to back off if you need to. 

 

So let's get back to my initial point after all that digression. Why is it a bad idea to add a little defense to a resistance set? Well there's the consideration of opportunity cost. If you choose to do one thing, you can't do another thing. If, say, you're picking an IO set and you add some defense to a resistance set and you could instead add resistance, you are making an error. 

 

Say we're making an electric armor sentinel? You're currently sitting at 65% lethal/smashing resistance. You can add either 3.75% defense with a set bonus or 3% resistance. What do you choose? Sure, 3.75% sounds better (and effectively you double defense numbers since the cap works against 50%, so 7.5%) however you need to consider what effect this has one incoming damage. Your enemy shoots you for 100 damage. The increase in defense will nab you 7.5% reduction in damage. What will the resistance do? You'd go from 35 to 32. That's taking 91.4% of the former damage, vs. 92.5%. Sure this is small, but the closer you get to your cap of 75, the bigger the effect will be. Thus you should also chase your caps as the closer you get the more it helps. Say you were at 70, and get to 73, it would be 90%. Since defense only has to work its way to 45 (57 maybe if you want), it's easier to satisfy, but again, chase that 45%. 

 

Another important consideration is debuffs. Many attacks carry debuffs and defense is very often that debuff. If you don't have a set which resists those debuffs any defense you've added will collapse quickly. Even if you have maybe 40% defense debuff resistance, it will collapse quickly. Among sentinel sets only SR has really good debuff resistance, so you should monitor your defense and when you start to see it drop, run (this is known as cascade failure). Resistance has a nice feature in that debuff resistance is baked in at your current level of resistance. If you get your sentinel to 70% lethal/smashing resistance, then any debuff will only hit you at 30% effect. This is another reason to chase those numbers. When you're at the high end of the game content debuffs are flying around constantly. Yes, defense makes them miss you, but only until they start landing and then you die from cascade failure. 

 

So for the TLDR (guess that should be at the top, but tough), stack like with like until you hit a cap or softcap, then add the part that your secondary isn't strong in only then. 

Edited December 30, 2022 by drbuzzard

[Meknomancer]

I do love that you crunched the numbers and explained it in a way that even i can understand. But i still disagree that its not worth a little defence on a res set and vice versa. In game seems to be totally different from any theory's or number crunching. The last few times i tried running any combo, not just sentinels with a res set, aimed only for res cap and put in no defence was a guaranteed faceplant. You get hit, doesnt matter that you dont get hit for much. You get hit. A lot. In no time at all your getting shot to bits and no amount of res will overcome continous incoming damage. You always die unless you run away or kill them first. The defence you build in means you dont get hit as often, buys you much more time and just feels way more survivable. Yes its different when you build in defence and then get debuffed or have a def cascade failure but if you only build in res you just dont dodge a single thing and even when you build way over softcaps it doesnt mitigate the damage enough to survive. I find the easiest way to test this is make an all res set, hit res caps, then jump into something vs enemies that have debuffs, even if its just def debuffs like cimerorans. 

 

As usual everything depends on the powerset. Sents are pretty unique but they always felt like scrappers to me they just happen to run ranged sets instead of melee ones. Isn't it odd that both AT sets have def bonuses built in but no res bonuses.

[drbuzzard]

I very often supplement resistance (or regen) sets with tashibishi (caltrops) from the ninja EPP. If you're stuck in point blank range, this will keep them off you long enough to live. This works just fine on my BR/elec clearing the walls in Cimerora. Nowadays sentinels do enough damage that you can kill things off before they wear you down.  If I'm on a flyer with space, I just back off for a bit and regen back up. If you want to feel impervious to incoming damage, just play a defense set- softcap is a beautiful thing. 

[Doomguide2005]

     There's also one very large and significant difference between building for defense vs resistance.  Its notably easier to build to the defense caps compared to resistance caps in part because those caps are lower (while set bonuses don't increase similarly) and more pool powers buff defense (and do so 24-7). Then add in positional vs typed.  3 vs 6 values to reach.

     Cascade defense failure is non specific.  There's no hard and fast value for it the way there is for the defense or resistance caps.  Its equivalent doesn't happen for resistance values either.  If you drop from 45 to 40 defense you're now taking twice the hits for (barring resistance) for twice the damage.   If you go from 75 resistance to 70 you simply take 5% more damage.  For defense you've also become twice as easy to hit again and get further debuffed.  Its the speed with which the cycle occurs that ends up being called cascade failure.  You know it when it happens but exactly how fast that it must occur to get called cascade will vary from player to player.

     Cascade failure is also why personally I'll build a buffer over the cap on characters without significant DDR so they can take a debuffing hit without dropping below the cap.  An Empath, for example, with 53 defense vs 48 taking a hit that debuffs defense by 7.5% is more resistant to cascade failure as two sufficiently close hits vs the cap must occur.  And each incremental buff to defense multiplies those odds -> 1 in 20, 1 in 400, 1 in 8000 etc. against cascade failure occurring.

     Ultimately I want both (with DDR) and I want to add in passive regeneration/heal/absorb.  In part this is why EA, Invulnerability and Shield are among the top sets they combine resistance and defense.  Even SR is far more of a hybrid than folks tend to think of it due to its scaling resists, but can be rated lower by folks as it lacks a heal/absorb but often these sets get paired with Dark Melee (for Siphon Life and to hit debuffs)

[aethereal]

10 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     There's also one very large and significant difference between building for defense vs resistance.  Its notably easier to build to the defense caps compared to resistance caps in part because those caps are lower (while set bonuses don't increase similarly) and more pool powers buff defense (and do so 24-7). Then add in positional vs typed.  3 vs 6 values to reach.

 

It's not 3 vs 6 values, since everything that you get outside of your actual armor powers that builds resistance will build two resistances simultaneously (S/L or F/C or E/N or P/T), while set bonuses build only one positional defense at a time.

 

Set bonuses are also mildly higher for resistances than defenses, though not to such magnitudes that it makes up for the lower defense caps if starting from zero (resistance set bonuses are 1.5% * rarity, while defense set bonuses are 1.25% * rarity).  However, the OP's point is that you're not starting from zero -- he says build resistance if your armor set gives you starting resistances, at which point it will almost certainly be less effort than building from zero.

 

Your overall point that there are a lot of powerful options to build good defenses and fewer to build resistances holds (it's certainly a big deal that you can pick up five different defense-all toggles from pool powers, and only one S/L-only resistance power).  It shouldn't be underestimated how much defense building is eased by the availability of big S/L defense bonuses in ATO sets, too.

 

What pushes the meta of defense vs resistance is a combination of a few things:
 

• Most players want defense powers anyway to build global recharge, still one of the most powerful attributes in the game, especially with PPM mechanics.
• Lower resist caps than defense caps for non-Tankers/Brutes
• Lack of pool powers that can be taken to give you +20% or so enhanceable resist-all the way that you can get +10% or so enhanceable defense-all.
• Set bonuses for resistance proportionately lower than defense compared to caps.
• With the combination of positional and typed defenses, you still get broader mitigation coverage from defense than from resistance (this used to be a bigger deal before they stripped second type tags from attacks).
• A few sets like ATOs and Kinetic Combat/Touch of Death provide very attractive big adds to Melee/S/L defense that has broad coverage, no equivalently broad coverage for resistance.

 

That all stands against this thread's (correct) overall point that if you've already got resistances from your armor set, you get increased return from the resists if you double down on resists instead of pivoting to defense.

Edited January 3, 2023 by aethereal

[Doomguide2005]

8 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

It's not 3 vs 6 values, since everything that you get outside of your actual armor powers that builds resistance will build two resistances simultaneously (S/L or F/C or E/N or P/T), while set bonuses build only one positional defense at a time.

That's correct probably too much influence of SR on my brain.  It was more an afterthought to my main point (and certainly not as straightforward as 3 vs 6 or 6 vs 6).

8 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

Set bonuses are also mildly higher for resistances than defenses, though not to such magnitudes that it makes up for the lower defense caps if starting from zero (resistance set bonuses are 1.5% * rarity, while defense set bonuses are 1.25% * rarity).  However, the OP's point is that you're not starting from zero -- he says build resistance if your armor set gives you starting resistances, at which point it will almost certainly be less effort than building from zero.

Well that's true of both resistance and defense AT sets.  Neither starts off at zero.    So yes build on what you got doubly so if it's vs a common sort of attack (build vs S/L before you build vs Cold or Psi generally etc.).  And again one of my main points was I want both resist and defense (plus).  I want what doesn't miss to get resisted and do as little additional harm (debuffs) as possible.

8 hours ago, aethereal said:

 

Your overall point that there are a lot of powerful options to build good defenses and fewer to build resistances holds (it's certainly a big deal that you can pick up five different defense-all toggles from pool powers, and only one S/L-only resistance power).  It shouldn't be underestimated how much defense building is eased by the availability of big S/L defense bonuses in ATO sets, too.

 

What pushes the meta of defense vs resistance is a combination of a few things:
 

• Most players want defense powers anyway to build global recharge, still one of the most powerful attributes in the game, especially with PPM mechanics.
• Lower resist caps than defense caps for non-Tankers/Brutes
• Lack of pool powers that can be taken to give you +20% or so enhanceable resist-all the way that you can get +10% or so enhanceable defense-all.
• Set bonuses for resistance proportionately lower than defense compared to caps.
• With the combination of positional and typed defenses, you still get broader mitigation coverage from defense than from resistance (this used to be a bigger deal before they stripped second type tags from attacks).
• A few sets like ATOs and Kinetic Combat/Touch of Death provide very attractive big adds to Melee/S/L defense that has broad coverage, no equivalently broad coverage for resistance.

 

That all stands against this thread's (correct) overall point that if you've already got resistances from your armor set, you get increased return from the resists if you double down on resists instead of pivoting to defense.

Yes though I wouldn't say it stands against as much as elaborates on why builds that lack either (non-armor) start by chasing defense then as possible add in resists.

[Carnifax]

20 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     Cascade defense failure is non specific.  There's no hard and fast value for it the way there is for the defense or resistance caps.  Its equivalent doesn't happen for resistance values either.  If you drop from 45 to 40 defense you're now taking twice the hits for (barring resistance) for twice the damage.   If you go from 75 resistance to 70 you simply take 5% more damage. 

No, not quite.

 

If you drop from 75% to 70% you'd be taking 20% more damage (I would have taken 25 damage, I took 30. 20% increase). 

 

If you drop from 90% to 80% (which is the equivalent of 45% to 40% def) you'd take twice the dame you were, just like Defense. 

 

The big difference is that DDR is a separate stat, RDR is just equal to your un-debuffed total resistance (with no cap that I could find). And of course there's a LOT more -Defense running about which leads to Cascading Def failure (one attack with -20% def gets through suddenly they all start doing it). 

[NinjaSquirrel]

On 12/29/2022 at 8:45 PM, drbuzzard said:

Say we're making an electric armor sentinel? You're currently sitting at 65% lethal/smashing resistance. You can add either 3.75% defense with a set bonus or 3% resistance. What do you choose? Sure, 3.75% sounds better (and effectively you double defense numbers since the cap works against 50%, so 7.5%) however you need to consider what effect this has one incoming damage. Your enemy shoots you for 100 damage. The increase in defense will nab you 7.5% reduction in damage. What will the resistance do? You'd go from 35 to 32. That's taking 91.4% of the former damage, vs. 92.5%. Sure this is small, but the closer you get to your cap of 75, the bigger the effect will be. Thus you should also chase your caps as the closer you get the more it helps. Say you were at 70, and get to 73, it would be 90%. Since defense only has to work its way to 45 (57 maybe if you want), it's easier to satisfy, but again, chase that 45%

I would argue that going from 65% to 68% res is better than you think.  At 65% you're taking 35 points of damage, at 68% you're taking 32 or a drop of almost 10% (91.4%).  This effect is more profound for tanks as they can get closer to 100% resistance, but it's still very helpful for squishier ATs.

 

Going from 0 defense to 3.75 is still useful however.  100 damage minus 50 (chance to hit) vs 100 minus 46.25 yields a difference of (42.5 / 50) 92.5%, so a drop of 7.5%.

 

Best would be to get both together.  (32 damage * 92.5% -> 29.6)

 

(edit: numbers were wrong dammit)

Edited January 3, 2023 by NinjaSquirrel

[Doomguide2005]

11 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

No, not quite.

 

If you drop from 75% to 70% you'd be taking 20% more damage (I would have taken 25 damage, I took 30. 20% increase). 

Arrg.  Brain was obviously malfunctioning at the time (I was even mentally using the same numbers you did and ...)

11 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

 

If you drop from 90% to 80% (which is the equivalent of 45% to 40% def) you'd take twice the dame you were, just like Defense. 

Of course that's part of it.  Gaining another 5% defense is generally easier than another 10% resistance at least in set bonuses (even as @aethereal pointed out the gain is 1.5 vs 1.25 per rarity/bonus name)

11 minutes ago, Carnifax said:

 

The big difference is that DDR is a separate stat, RDR is just equal to your un-debuffed total resistance (with no cap that I could find). And of course there's a LOT more -Defense running about which leads to Cascading Def failure (one attack with -20% def gets through suddenly they all start doing it). 

There's no cap that I know of ... though obviously anything over 100% is meaningless.  No you won't regain health with over 100 😜.  At best you just have a bigger cushion before you drop under the cap.  

[Carnifax]

 

4 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

Of course that's part of it.  Gaining another 5% defense is generally easier than another 10% resistance at least in set bonuses (even as @aethereal pointed out the gain is 1.5 vs 1.25 per rarity/bonus name)

It's a fair trade-off (although we could do with more +Energy Resist bonuses). Harder to build up but comes with DR protection "built in". 

[Erratic1]

47 minutes ago, NinjaSquirrel said:

I would argue that going from 65% to 68% res is better than you think.  At 65% you're taking 35 points of damage, at 68% you're taking 32 or a drop of almost 10% (91.4%).  This effect is more profound for tanks as they can get closer to 100% resistance, but it's still very helpful for squishier ATs.

 

Going from 0 defense to 3.75 is still useful however.  100 damage minus 50 (chance to hit) vs 100 minus 46.25 yields a difference of (42.5 / 50) 92.5%, so a drop of 7.5%.

 

Best would be to get both together.  (32 damage * 92.5% -> 29.6)

 

(edit: numbers were wrong dammit)

 

It is not like the 50% chance to be hit (by an even level opponent) does not apply to the character upping their resistance. It is 100 damage, 50-50'd to 50 damage, then resisted at either 65% leaving 17.5 damage or resisted at 68%, leaving 16 damage--a drop of 8.57% using the method above.

 

Were you to add 3.75% defense to the 65% resistance build your odds of being hit drop to 46.5% leaving on average 46.5 damage, which 65% resistance drops to 16.275.

 

16.275, being greater than 16, means you are better off increasing your resistance rather than picking up defense (at least in this case).

[drbuzzard]

2 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

It is not like the 50% chance to be hit (by an even level opponent) does not apply to the character upping their resistance. It is 100 damage, 50-50'd to 50 damage, then resisted at either 65% leaving 17.5 damage or resisted at 68%, leaving 16 damage--a drop of 8.57% using the method above.

 

Were you to add 3.75% defense to the 65% resistance build your odds of being hit drop to 46.5% leaving on average 46.5 damage, which 65% resistance drops to 16.275.

 

16.275, being greater than 16, means you are better off increasing your resistance rather than picking up defense (at least in this case).

 

You know, I didn't even think I was skipping this part of the math. Thanks for the correction.