Cool. I know an Ice Tanker. He'll appreciate this, though I'll have to explain the finer points of why it was necessary...
Thanks 
So...why just S/L damage?
Formerly "Back Alley Brawler"
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So...why just S/L damage?
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Exactly.
IMHO, this is only sweeping the problem under the rug.
In my opinion, changed stacking rules would be preferable.
This also has the added side-effect of giving all those powers effective defense against many AoE attacks.
And what about powers such as Steamy Mist and Shadow Fall?
And will Fortitude be given Positional (melee/ranged/AoE) defense to stack with Super Reflexes defenses?
Things are getting more and more complicated instead of the other way around....
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Stealth, Grant Invisibility, Invisibility,Combat Flight, Weave, Maneuvers, Vengeance, and Combat Jumping will grant a Defense bonus to Smashing and Lethal Attacks in addition to Melee and Ranged attacks.
I added the same to Controller/Illusion/Group Invisibility.
The result of this is that ALL defense builds will benefit from Pool powers. Previously, Ice Tankers suffered somewhat because the Pool defenses did not stack with their defense powers. This is now rectified.
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So, I'm kinda confused. How does this "defense bonus" work? Is it a bonus on top of the defense inherent in the power?
Is this how it works:
Stealth Defense + Defense bonus (if Smashing/Lethal) = Stacked Defense.
Anyone wise enough to the comprehend the mystery that is "Defense" implementation in this game?
Oh yeah, how much of a bonus Statesman? 5%? 10%? 91.6667%? And can you add to the defense bonus if you slot defense enhancements?
Me No Comprende. Es muy difícil. 
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So...why just S/L damage?
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Exactly.
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Same question.
Save the drama for yo' mama.
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In my opinion, changed stacking rules would be preferable.
This also has the added side-effect of giving all those powers effective defense against many AoE attacks.
And what about powers such as Steamy Mist and Shadow Fall?
And will Fortitude be given Positional (melee/ranged/AoE) defense to stack with Super Reflexes defenses?
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Yes, it seems like any power that grants defense to another needs both Postional and Typed defense on it in addition to the pool powers... but that should cover all of it.
Nothing fixed here. The problem with Defense and To-hit is still here and very real. It is a shame that we have a give-up instead of a real fix. An opportunity lost.
TTR
Statesman: Why S/L only?
I applaud a step in the good direction (even though there might have been a better way to deal with it.). Still...the question stands.
PS - Did you guys consider changing the way defense currently works?
I know it can't be done in 5mins true...but have you considered that option? In the long run it might be the best....
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Stealth, Grant Invisibility, Invisibility,Combat Flight, Weave, Maneuvers, Vengeance, and Combat Jumping will grant a Defense bonus to Smashing and Lethal Attacks in addition to Melee and Ranged attacks.
I added the same to Controller/Illusion/Group Invisibility.
The result of this is that ALL defense builds will benefit from Pool powers. Previously, Ice Tankers suffered somewhat because the Pool defenses did not stack with their defense powers. This is now rectified.
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In the broad strokes, it does, and I figured that something exactly like that was the likely solution that was going to be pursued.
But because of the stacking rules, there are a lot of intermediate and odd corner cases that are possible, mostly because this sort of thing isn't being done consistently. For example, deflection shield (FF) has smash/lethal and melee defense, while weave has smash/lethal and melee/ranged defense. That's a little odd. Will the average player - or the experienced player, really - have an "intuitive feel" for what happens when an SR scrapper with focused senses, a deflection shield, and hover is going to end up with, or to emphasize the point: will any reasonable player know intuitively that there will, or will not, be a benefit to turning on hover?
The specific problem was "should power pools always benefit someone?" But the general problem was this: "if a player has X, Y, and Z defenses, and he or she has defense W not yet turned on is it always the case that W will improve defense, short of reaching the tohit floor?"
MOST people seem to think that intuitively, the answer to that question should always be "yes." That is, I think, what most people are thinking when they say the current system is too complex or non-intuitive: it non-intuitively creates situations where a defense power might not help. Making sure that there is always "a stacking opportunity" helps, but doesn't resolve, the core issue.
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Stealth, Grant Invisibility, Invisibility,Combat Flight, Weave, Maneuvers, Vengeance, and Combat Jumping will grant a Defense bonus to Smashing and Lethal Attacks in addition to Melee and Ranged attacks.
I added the same to Controller/Illusion/Group Invisibility.
The result of this is that ALL defense builds will benefit from Pool powers. Previously, Ice Tankers suffered somewhat because the Pool defenses did not stack with their defense powers. This is now rectified.
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So, I'm kinda confused. How does this "defense bonus" work? Is it a bonus on top of the defense inherent in the power?
Is this how it works:
Stealth Defense + Defense bonus (if Smashing/Lethal) = Stacked Defense.
Anyone wise enough to the comprehend the mystery that is "Defense" implementation in this game?
Oh yeah, how much of a bonus Statesman? 5%? 10%? 91.6667%? And can you add to the defense bonus if you slot defense enhancements?
Me No Comprende. Es muy difícil.
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No, I believe Statesman is saying that all power pool defenses, in parallel with providing melee/ranged defense, will also be providing smash/lethal defense.
Right now, if you have a melee defense, like say focused fighting, then combat jumping, which offers melee/ranged defense, stacks with it for melee attacks. But if you have smash/lethal defense (say, Frozen Armor), then combat jumping *didn't* stack, because smash/lethal doesn't currently stack with melee/ranged.
In effect, what Statesman is saying is that power pool defenses, like combat jumping, are being changed from melee/ranged, to in effect melee/ranged/smash/lethal - all with the same value.
There is no "bonus" actually being "added" to the power pools, they are just being made to stack with different (and orthogonal) attack types.
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No, that's not how it works. Let's say you have 15% def to S/L via a power like rock armor. You also have 10% def to melee/ranged via weave (numbers chosen for simplicity). If a melee smashing attack comes your way (under the old system), you will have 15% def towards it, because type defense does not stack with positional defense - and the larger of the two def values is chosen.
Under Statesman's new system, weave will now have def to S/L as well as melee/ranged (I'm assuming he's going to use the same def value for S/L as he did for M/R), so with 15% S/L def from rock armor and 10% M/R,S/L def from weave, you now have 25% def to any S/L attack, and 10% def to any other type melee/ranged attack (ie, you have 10% def to a ranged psi attack).
Don't feel bad if it's difficult - this gets confusing real quick, which is one real downside to this system - I happen to agree with Arcana. Defense (if specific numbers are not going to be provided for us) should be intuitive. I should know, without doing any math, that turning on hover will help my defense (as long as the tohit floor hasn't been reached). At this point, we don't know that (at least not intuitively).
(EDIT: yeah, what Arcana said in her second post)
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Nothing fixed here. The problem with Defense and To-hit is still here and very real. It is a shame that we have a give-up instead of a real fix. An opportunity lost.
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That's the bigger problem perhaps, but not the one this will fix. This just addresses the problem of certain pool powers offering absolutely (or at least next to no) value to certain powersets.
It doesn't really touch the bigger problem at all, it was just making sure that the power pools were effective to all.
As for the bigger problem, it can still be addressed.... will it? Somehow I doubt it will be anytime soon, but this small fix hardly closes the door.
Ok. First, why only S/L?
Second, if someone punches my ice tank with a dual-typed attack, say, energy-smashing damage, is hover going to help to its full defense bonus? Half? Greater defense still applies?
Statesman,
Although I greatly appreciate the step in the right direction, it's time to dump typed defense. It makes perfect sense for damage resistance to be typed, and it makes good sense for defense to be positional.
Lose the typed defense, adjust the game accordingly. It simplifies our understanding, it simplifies the combat system, it introduces a further level of fairness.
So where do we stand with ToHit buffs negating defense? And where do we stand with defense not scaling to the level of enemies as damage resistance does?
Be well, people of CoH.
For anyone that's interested, here's a post from Starshield that details some of the whackiness that is CoH's defense system and how +defense powers stack (or don't stack).
'Twas a real eye-opener, and the issues raised go WAY beyond Ice Armour.
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No, I believe Statesman is saying that all power pool defenses, in parallel with providing melee/ranged defense, will also be providing smash/lethal defense.
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Yep. That's what it meant.
As for changing the way defense works...eek. That's not really an option. There's simply too many things that would break...It's just not do-able.
As for why only S/L? Because in these powers, that simply made sense - and because of the prevalence of S/L damage throughout the game.
So... after level 40, we are supposed to respec out of power pool defense powers, since that's around the point where smashing and lethal become much less common? What about those last 10 levels? What about enemy groups which focus entirely on other types of damage?
What about defensive powers such as Steamy Mist and Shadowfall? It's not enough that they have almost nil defense since the last patch, but they also are wastes of endurance once a good tanker joins the group?
What about PvPers, who often feared the Blast powers, most of which are elemental or energy?
I'm glad that you're willing to admit this 'bug' nearly on your own, unlike the month or so where the change Innervating Field was completely shrugged off and those who showed you proof were called liars and worse, after which a half-truth or too slipped from CuppaJoe's mouth. But slapping a band-aid on a large wound isn't going to fix the problem, not in the long run.
These are power pool or Defender abilities. They should benefit everyone, not be left for only the squishies or those who rely on regen or resists. We already know that it's possible to add new defense classes to existing powers. Just add all to non-tanker primary/non-scrapper secondary powers.
This is just a bunch of numbers, not just a basiclevel code-change
Or if you don't like that, simply set all positional defense to 0 and all typed defense to a reasonable number. It can't be that hard.
EDIT: also, got to love how a controller primary power got a boost while defender primary powers are left as 'bugged' as always. Yah. I'll go stand in the squishies with my Steamy Mist, now. Least I have a reason to run my Ancillary Power Pool defensive power again.
EDITx2: Can we get a respec whenever you finishing bugging with these powers? I know I had to use mine last one just from the nerfing of Steamy Mist, Vigilance, and when the whole typed/positional defense came into play. It'd be nice to not end up running around missing a power I used to have just cause of this sort of 'bug'.
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Ok. First, why only S/L?
Second, if someone punches my ice tank with a dual-typed attack, say, energy-smashing damage, is hover going to help to its full defense bonus? Half? Greater defense still applies?
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Assuming nothing has changed in the defense logic, the way it works now when a defense with smash/lethal is attacked by an attack with smash/energy damage, the full value of the smash/lethal defense is used, not only a portion.
The logic is a bit torturous, but the basic conceptual reasoning for why this occurs is this: many times, defense is "separated at birth." Deflection Shield and Insulation shield (prior to the melee/ranged recent changes) offered smash/lethal (DS) and fire/cold/energy/negative defense (IS). The intent of the devs was that they expected an FF bubbler to one day have both bubbles: the two bubbles were supposed to "combine" into a shield offering full defense to smash/lethal/fire/cold/energy/negative. They then split a piece (s/l) into one shield (DS) and the remaining piece (f/c/e/n) into the other shield (IS). Those two shields were meant to be, for lack of a better way of putting it, "side by side defenses" not "overlapping defenses."
Now, attacks that aren't broken up along the same lines create confusion: energy blast attacks have smash/energy typing. Its a little ambiguous conceptually what is supposed to happen, but the devs have declared their notion of the "correct" behavior when they fixed up damage-typed defenses a while ago (it was bugged before). An attack with smash/energy "interacts" with (damage) typed defenses as if stopping either damage component stops the entire attack. So if you have smashing defense, and energy defense, the *greater of the two* is used to determine if you are hit or not, and if you aren't hit, the entire attack misses.
To answer your question: hover is going to stack with Frozen Armor for all of its value.
In more detail, if you have frozen armor (smash/lethal defense) and glacial armor (energy/negative defense), and hover (melee/ranged/smash/lethal) and you are hit with an energy blast (smash/energy damage, ranged attack), then:
You will have FA + Hover smashing defense
You will have GA energy defense
You will have Hover ranged defense
Obviously, FA+Hover is always greater than Hover alone, so it comes down to the greater of FA+Hover and GA.
Now, if you are attacked with an electric blast (energy damage, ranged attack), then:
You'll have Hover ranged defense
You'll have GA energy defense
You get to have the greater of those two.
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I may be dredging up something that was all ready solved. But as those are Travel/Stealth powers arent these benefits suppressed as soon as combat starts?
Ignore this part if above is unture
Whats the point of a Providing Defense that combat suppresses?
ok I'm wondering. Will all these additions of S/L and melee/range defenses to powers affect how many defenses were intended to work.
I'm thinking of Toxic and Psy, two powers that were the least defended against. If a power had originally defenses for everything BUT Psy/Toxic, and then you add to it Melee and ranged, wouldn't Psy and Toxic be covered under the 'greater value is used' rule?
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No, I believe Statesman is saying that all power pool defenses, in parallel with providing melee/ranged defense, will also be providing smash/lethal defense.
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Yep. That's what it meant.
As for changing the way defense works...eek. That's not really an option. There's simply too many things that would break...It's just not do-able.
As for why only S/L? Because in these powers, that simply made sense - and because of the prevalence of S/L damage throughout the game.
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I don't think this suggestion really makes drastic changes to the way defense works internally, and its comparable to the changes made to fix damage-typed defense stacking in the first place, although there's no way I could ever really prove it one way or another. But its very simple conceptually, and I think most people would understand what is going on a little easier: every defense you own that *applies* to a given attack *actually works* with the one exception being two defenses from the same power set and owned by the same player. The "same player" exception already exists: you can't stack the same power buff on the same target. An extension is that you cannot use both DS and IS from the same defender on the same attack - they were meant to be "side-by-side" and not "stacked" defenses.
Look at it from the point of view of buffs. If someone flips on hover, should they get the benefit of the "buff?" The answer should always be "yes." If an FF defender hits you with DS, should you get the benefit? Yes. If an FF defender hits you with two DSs, should you get the benefit twice? No. If an FF defender hits you with DS and IS, should you get the benefit twice against a single attack? Still No. But if one FF defender hits you with DS, and another one hits you with IS, should they stack against a single energy/smash attack? Yes, because the second defender's buff shouldn't be "penalized" by the presence of the first one.
Of a more critical nature is the fact that you may end up making a lot of little ad hoc fixes to address lots of potential corner-cases that are bound to come up, and that has the "cost" of making things very complex for people to attempt to understand. Its really that cost that should be factored in when thinking about how hard it will be to fix, or work around, specific problems.
*I* understand it just fine. I even "get" why you limited power pools to smash/lethal (the thought was: power pools work against the more common attacks: melee/range and smash/lethal, and not the more exotic ones: AoE, and elemental/energy/psi). But I am not a good example of the limits of how far defense complexity should be stretched.
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Tormentoso, they already had a Ranged and Melee defense, so, yes, they had the ability to +DEF against Toxic and possibly untyped (it's possible untyped has special rules, but because it's a very rare event, little testing has been possible). The only difference is that now, these pool powers work for players who already had more than 5% Smashing or Lethal defense.
Oh, and I think I just realized why they choose smashing and lethal.
There aren't many ranged smashing or lethal AoEs. Everything that's does area smashing or lethal is classified as a melee, such as monster stomps, which no squishy is going to get into unless they have a death wish. To keep squishies from getting clumped (and therefore, better defended), they don't want to make moves like Fireball or Energy Torrent decently possible to dodge or deflect. And many ranged mezzes will remain undodgable, like Telsa Cage.
Damn, that's cold.
How about the possibility of other-typed DEF power pools, then?
I consider this proposed fix a bandaid, at best, frankly.
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As for why only S/L? Because in these powers, that simply made sense - and because of the prevalence of S/L damage throughout the game.
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Just a note about all the S/L damage in the game from a PvP prospective. yes its prevalent but some ATs only do S/L damage ei axe swords Assault rifle ect and every AT in the game has acess to atleast 50% resists to S/L via epic power pools. I think this is already hoseing These ATs just a bit. Just keep in mind S/L is all the damage some of us do and with all the S/L resists already running rampant Adding more S/L resists/defence to the game isnt always the right thing just cause thoes types are common.
Stealth, Grant Invisibility, Invisibility,Combat Flight, Weave, Maneuvers, Vengeance, and Combat Jumping will grant a Defense bonus to Smashing and Lethal Attacks in addition to Melee and Ranged attacks.
I added the same to Controller/Illusion/Group Invisibility.
The result of this is that ALL defense builds will benefit from Pool powers. Previously, Ice Tankers suffered somewhat because the Pool defenses did not stack with their defense powers. This is now rectified.