Zen and the Art of Defiance

"Please note that this guide was written before 'Defiance 2.1' was implemented in December 2007. The sections of this guide relating to the mechanics and damage buff component of Defiance are now obsolete. The sections relating to blaster play style may still be helpful, especially to new blasters."

Zen and the Art of Defiance


Defiance is a tricky beast to tame. Many Blasters hate it, usually because of the mindset required to take advantage of it.

'Any mechanic that requires me to take damage is flawed or stupid.'

This same statement has been echoed in many ways on the board and in game.

Worse, many players, both Blasters and non-Blasters, spread disinformation about Defiance. This is somewhat harmful. It encourages new players to avoid exploring a powerful game mechanism and discourages existing players from taking advantage of something that could greatly enhance their enjoyment of the game.

The point of this guide is not to argue that Defiance really exists in the game. If you don't believe it exists, there's nothing I can help you with. Rather, through this guide, I hope to explain what Defiance is, how it works, and how a player can gracefully benefit from it with a minimum of frustration.

If a Blaster is willing to explore his own limits, his mindset towards the game, and the game mechanic itself, he can greatly boost his damage output with a little practice and care.


Misconceptions:

Before I begin with details, it may be helpful to address some common misperceptions and misconceptions about Defiance.


"Defiance doesn't really kick in until 10% Health"

Like 'Gauntlet' (aka 'Punch-Voke') for Tankers, Defiance is always on. Every damage power a blaster uses, (with the exception of special inherent powers like 'Sands of Mu') is calculated to have a Defiance bonus. This is true even when the player is at full health and the bonus is zero or so close to zero as to be undetectable.


"Defiance is Laggy"

Like every other part of the CoH UI, the Defiance Bar is an animation played by the game client in response to events that happen on the CoH game server. Yes, the bar is a bit slow to react, and perhaps this is a disservice to players. However, the real Defiance calculations take place on the server and not in your client. You can see the results of these in the 'Combat' tab. Defiance is always recalculated for every blast based on your current health as the server sees it and not as your client sees it.


"Defiance doesn't grant a noticeable bonus until you're in the red"

The damage bonus granted by Defiance exceeds the Scrapper's 5% 'Critical' damage bonus while a player's health bar is still in the green-- at approximately 68.2% health.

By the time a player is in the yellow -- 40% to 65% health-- the bonus can climb upwards of 15% to 65%. This would roughly equivalent to a scrapper seeing a 'Critical' damage notification once out of every three or four times he hit rather than once out of every twenty.


"Defiance is affected by the RNG"

I'm not sure where this one came from, but I sure have been hearing it a lot lately. Defiance is solely a function of your current health. It is not affected by any random factor other than your hitpoints at the time you blast.



What is Defiance?:

Defiance is a set of calculations applied to a Blaster's damage output. These calculations multiply the blaster's damage and 'to hit' values against an increasing factor. This factor grows exponentially as a blaster loses health. As Blaster approaches one hitpoint, the multiplier can approach 500%.

Defiance is not a random value, nor is it affected by any random factor.

Defiance does apply to every single damage power a blaster uses, with the exception of special inherent powers, such as 'Sands of Mu'. It even applies to Brawl.

Defiance is always calculated, even when it doesn't grant a measurable bonus.

Veteran poster Arcanaville has done a great deal of research on the calculations behind Defiance. She's proven them with damage logs and has had them confirmed by Cryptic developer Castle. My own research confirms Arcanaville's conclusions. Her calculations are as follows:

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Damage Boost: 25% * 2 ^ [(45 - HealthPercentage)/10]

ToHit Boost: 1.25% * 2 ^ [(45 - HealthPercentage)/10]

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If you'd like to confirm this mechanism for yourself, you can arrange the situation by dropping yourself from varying heights and blasting against the same level enemy. I personally built a set of data points that confirm the equation by dropping myself from progressively higher locations in Atlas Park and then using my basic energy blast against a level 1 hellion.

When viewing such data points, or graphing Arcanaville's formula, you'd see the following smooth curves:

The Defiance Curves

In the chart, you can see that the curve's 'elbow' where a player's damage bonus starts increasing at the same or better rate than he is loosing health occurs between 20% and 40%. This 'elbow' is a very important location, as we'll discuss later.



The Defiance Mindset:

For many players, the Health bar represents a kind 'Safety Area'. Many players feel that if the Health bar is down at all, something is wrong. There is a problem that should be immediately addressed.

You can see this in yourself if you first reaction to taking damage is to look for a buff or heal, or pop a green inspiration.

The 'Zen' aspect of successfully using Defiance comes from understanding how you feel about the Health bar and evaluating your reactions to its fluctuations.

The Blaster must know his emotions and temper his actions in respect to the game world around him in order to take advantage of the opportunities Defiance presents.

Many players attempt to set up high-Defiance situations in advance and then feel frustrated because they "cannot rely on Defiance".

Rather than attempting to spend your time 'always red' to make Defiance work for you, it is far more fruitful to view Defiance as a wave to be ridden. Defiance provides opportunities. It is up to you, the Blaster to determine how to make use of them.

Don't attempt to force Defiance to work for you. Rather, alter your own reactions so that Defiance becomes a part of what you do. The Health Bar, rather than a single, solid block of safety, should be treated as a fluctuating tool. By allowing it to flow up and down, the Zen Blaster can achieve much greater control over his damage output.

The Zen Blaster's first reaction to taking damage will be first and foremost to blast, and only afterwards look for a buff, heal, or inspiration.



Finding Your 'Zen' Place:

Trying to take advantage of Defiance by staying 'Always Red' is a sure method to achieve frustration. If you're farming Experience Debt to earn your 'Exalted' badge, it's a good method. Otherwise, trying to camp out in the red is not going to do a lot for you.

Instead, let's go back to the charts to look for hints about where to look for the most effective place to play:

Looking for the 'Zen Area'

Again, notice that the 'Elbow' of the Defiance curve occurs between about 20% and 40% of a Blaster's health. This location is the most slippery part of the curve and the most difficult to navigate.

The Zen Blaster will evaluate how close he can comfortably get to that 'Elbow' and how long he can stay there. He will rock back and forth, staying mindful of the factors that affect his comfort level and personal control over his Health Bar:

Is the Blaster alone or teamed?
Do the Blaster's allies, if any, rely more on Damage or Control Effects?
Are the Blaster's allies competent?
Does the enemy rely more on Damage or Control Effects?
What kind of Defense can the Blaster make use of?

Our friends, the Scrappers, have an inherent power called a 'Critical Damage'. This hearkens back to the days of pen-and-paper D20 die games. Every attack a scrapper makes has a one in twenty chance of doing double damage. Over time, this averages out to an obvious 1/20th or 5% damage bonus.

This bonus is marked with an orange line on the chart.

Blasters, however, gain a 5% bonus to their damage when they have about 68.2% of their health bar left. This occurs when a Blaster is still in the Green area of his health bar, just about to turn yellow.

62.2% is marked with a dark blue line. This is the 'Better than Crit' point for Blasters. It's a helpful location near the 'Elbow' that shows us a good place to aim.

The Zen Blaster, taking into account factors introduced by the world around him, will drift down the curve near the 'Better than Crit' point towards the Elbow. His goal is to find a place where he is comfortable and can maintain control over both himself and his enemies. This place is not static. It will change rapidly as the environment changes or as the Blaster's team changes.

The Zen Blaster will continuously balance all these factors as well as his own feelings and reactions in order to achieve mastery of Defiance.



Techniques for Maintaining Balance:

In order to achieve that oh-so-difficult, ever-shifting balance to make good use of Defiance, the Blaster has to keep a lot in mind. Certain factors are going to nudge the balance one way or the other.

Trying to force the balance to occur is an effort in futility. It's ultimately the same thing as trying to spend your time 'Always Red'. The successful Zen Blaster will allow the balance to happen, maintain it for a time, and then allow it to go.

Let's look at a few basic situations in which a Blaster might find himself:


The Blaster is fighting by himself against low-to-mid-level Council. They do a lot of damage via weapon attacks, but don't rely much on control effects like holds, stuns, or fears.

As he blasts, the Zen Blaster can use orange inspirations in order to slow the rate at which the Council soldiers do damage. Purple inspirations can be used to maintain a comfortable level of health during the fight. Since the Council soldiers will do very steady damage, but not a lot of 'burst' damage, the Blaster can venture into the Yellow area of his health bar. If it starts getting too dark yellow, or drifts into the orange at all, it's time to use green inspirations to force it back up.

The Blaster should not try to force his health down nor keep it down. Rather, he should allow it to drop gracefully in the natural course of fighting.

Against lieutenants and bosses, he'll be careful to keep his health more green than yellow. While a higher damage blast can take them out faster, they do much more burst damage with exploding grenades and Martial Arts attacks.


Let's examine a similar, but profoundly different situation.

The Blaster is fighting with a team against low-to-mid-level Council. The team has some solid melee-types, but no one who really excels at tanking or taunting. It also has some moderate control, but no real active defense in the nature of strong healing or strong buffing.

In this case, the Zen Blaster will rock back and forth with the melee players, coming closer and drifting further from them as his health bar fluctuates. Again, as if he were solo, he'll use inspirations to slow and control its movement. He doesn't want it to drift to low, but if it's mostly green, he can move closer to the center of the melee to get in more damage and soak up slightly more damage.

As his health bar becomes yellow, he'll back away from the center melee and start hammering from a distance.


Now, let's take it up a notch.

The Blaster is fighting with a team against medium-to-high-level Freaks. The Freaks use a high amount of lethal, energy, and occasionally smashing damage. Freak Tanks like to knock all kinds of tar out of Blasters. Stunner Freaks like nothing more than to use Tesla Cage to make Blasters sleep. The Blaster's team has solid agro-holding abilities and defensive capabilities that include strong health regeneration and strong endurance recovery.

The Zen Blaster will balance himself between the defense-types and the agro-types, soaking up damage of melee and the defense granted by his team in approximately equal amounts. He will blast in rhythm with his enemies, returning their volleys with his own, boosted salvos. As his health starts to wane, he will stick closer to the defense-types and rely on his own damage to maintain the rhythm of damage and defense.

Again, the Blaster will use inspirations to control his position along the Defiance curve and slow the actions of his enemies. More important at this stage is the gathering and rationing of light purple 'Breakfree' enhancements in order to balance against the control capabilities used by the enemy.



Around the Curve, Into the Red:

The careful, mindful Blaster will always adjust his 'Zen' place along the Defiance curve in reaction to what is going on around him. However, there is a place he should be wary of.

By reason of his own shortcomings, the shortcomings of his team, the strengths of his enemies, or plain simple bad luck, the Blaster has found himself further around the 'Elbow' of the Defiance curve than he ought to be. He is in the red. His damage is boosted above 100%. As if he had an extra dose of Build-up or Aim, his damage is truly a force to be reckoned with.

The Zen Blaster will make a choice in this situation. He will observe all the factors around him and decide if he is willing take a risk or not. This risk is a simple one. Either the Blaster will accumulate more debt or he will not. 'In the Red' is not a place to stay, but if used correctly, it can be a powerful lever. If the enemy is weak or vulnerable, they can be finished off quickly and in a stunning fashion. If the enemy is strong, striking against them from a 'Red' position may turn the tide of battle, but will almost certainly earn debt for the Blaster.

This is a hard decision to make. When in doubt, the decision the Zen Blaster will make is to seek a safer place along the Defiance curve, either by using green inspirations, seeking healing from a teammate, or temporarily retreating from battle to rest.



A Few Parting Words: Inspiration Discipline:

You may or may not have noticed that nowhere in the advice given above do I indicate that a Blaster should seek to use defensive powers of his own, such as, but not limited to Health, Aid Self, Tough, or Weave. To take such powers is a choice made by each Blaster. They are part of what makes him unique among all blasters. They certainly factor into his decisions and his knowledge of where he is most comfortable along the Defiance curve.

What is not optional for the Zen Blaster who seeks to successfully ride that curve is the use of inspirations to help control his place along it.

Ideally, the Zen Blaster is always under the effect of orange, purple, or light purple inspirations while in combat. This is not always possible, but should be a goal. The Zen Blaster will never enter a fight without both those inspirations to slow his drift downwards, and green inspirations to move him back up along the curve when he has drifted too far. Purple and green inspirations are available from every contact. Light purple and orange inspirations are available from every 'friendly' contact, the Arena, and now from the Consignment House. They are inexpensive. They should be used carefully, but often and judiciously. The Zen Blaster will not 'waste' inspirations, but will instead ration them out and use them both when wise and when necessary.

When they are not available, he will hold back and stay in the safer areas of the Defiance curve until they are.



I hope the advice I've given proves helpful in evaluating how best you can use Defiance. Ultimately, however, it is up to you, the Blaster, how you use.

Again, special thanks should be extended to Arcanaville for her research and insight.

-- Edit --

It was kindly and tactfully pointed out to me that I made a mistake on someone's gender. Apologies all around!

Nice. But I would just put up the second graph, and say that the sweet spot is 40-60% health, instead of all the zen.

Good writing. It kept me interested throughout even though I knew what you were going to say and use a lot of the same tactics myself.

My sweet spot, however, is often much lower than where you suggest to remain. It does of course depend on team and enemies and the particulars of each situation. The perfect set up for me though is a scenario in which I get pummeled at the beginning of the fight but then the controllers and tanks claim the agro (I might need to hit a green before they have it under control). After that I don't want any healing and instead utilize my single target attacks, especially melee attacks, to take on individual enemies and kill them before they can retaliate. In this situation I would never use an AoE attack.

The other option is, I can start a fight with a purple or two and drain the mobs with powerboosted Short circuit (elec/energy). The damage I take after that is heavy defiance range but the enemies can't retaliate and I can remain in the orange or red while I beat them down using AoEs and melee versus the more powerful opponents. Similar techniques work for other sets with knockback, holds or slows.

A very important element of successfully using defiance is moderation of AoEs, I think. Also, knowing how to properly utilize your secondary effects and mez powers. For example, using defiance against a +1 or 2 boss is very feasible if you can use total focus, or drain them of endurance, or hold them.

The problem with any of this is if you're teamed with any defender or controller that has a heal power you won't be able to use defiance at all. I've always felt it would be very unwise to ask them NOT to heal me, so I refrain from doing that...

And, is that a Pirsig reference or is there some deeper historical meaning?

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The problem with any of this is if you're teamed with any defender or controller that has a heal power you won't be able to use defiance at all. I've always felt it would be very unwise to ask them NOT to heal me, so I refrain from doing that...

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My tactic for dealing with this is to move further and closer to the 'center of healing' as it were as the health bar creeps up and down.

If you have an aura-type healer (AOE Emps, Rads, and Kins), you can start to time your blasts just before the heal hits.

Damage beat Blast beat Heal beat Damage beat Blast beat Heal

This can REALLY frustrate a healer type, so it's best to let them know you're doing it on purpose if they start complaining or you hear the 'If one of my teammates is not full on health it means I messed up' line.

If you have a strong Emp or happen to be on one of the few occasionals where you can team with a Thermal corruptor or Poison MM, this makes it much more difficult to work defiance-boosted blasts into any kind of rhythm. Some Emps will kill themselves with Absorb Pain rather than let a Blaster slip into the yellow.

This falls under the 'let it go' category of Defiance management.

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And, is that a Pirsig reference or is there some deeper historical meaning?

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???

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And, is that a Pirsig reference or is there some deeper historical meaning?

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???

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Nevermind, I guess it's a pretty common expression. (Robert Pirsig)

Great post.
I use defiance accordingly on my blaster.
It's also one of the reasons my empaths always take absorb pain. It's to allow that blaster that '1 HP shot' and then immediately zoom them back to full health.

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And, is that a Pirsig reference or is there some deeper historical meaning?

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???

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Nevermind, I guess it's a pretty common expression. (Robert Pirsig)

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Oh, yes. The title is indeed a ref to 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'.

It seemed appropriate since so much of what's required to use defiance is a knowledge of ones self and how ones self reacts to the environment.

totally sweet. you put into words what I only thought in my head. Especially the parts about blasters that want to artificially setup defiance and then complain cause they died. Although I don't conciously adjust my sweet spot, I do make that decision when my health is low and I have no greens. At that point its do or die. If I have oranges and purples I'll pop them and then blast with reckless abandon with great results, but if I have no inspirations to back me up, I'll quickly target those that will go down in one defiance enhanced hit, or use an AoE knowing that I'll probably die in a blaze of glory due the aggro I pull... and many times I've come out alive.

Of course, at lower levels (pre-20) you stand a better chance using defiance but at higher levels the mobs just plain hit harder.

Hmm, I find this quite interesting. It's sort of like the capacitor gauge in EVE.

Could knockbacks and holds be manipulated to keep you where you need to be as well? (no need to answer, pretty obvious)

[ QUOTE ]
Hmm, I find this quite interesting. It's sort of like the capacitor gauge in EVE.

Could knockbacks and holds be manipulated to keep you where you need to be as well? (no need to answer, pretty obvious)

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Totally. My energy/energy blasters enjoy the KB control to keep alive. I learned this from my 50 PB, who did not have defiance but needed to play cat n mouse with kb and holds just to stay alive. It's also important to use kb to the team's advantage. you need to knock them onto the ice, into the tank's aura, over a ledge to temporarily thin out the numbers...

Moo, you are Amazing!

I could write a whole other treatise on knockback. It's ultimate class of crowd control. Is an enemy hitting you too much? Throw him away until you're ready to deal with him.

A favorite situation comes up about once per warehouse mission. You're going into the large room with all the loading docks. To access it, you've got to climb a ramp and go through a lounge/break room.

On the ledge just before the break room is a favorite spot for Bosses to hang out. It's also nasty because three or four groups can agro at once.

If you get your team up there and engaging the heavy hitters, you can control the number of baddies wailing on your meleers by knocking them over the side. They have to jump back up or, more usually, run back up the ramp.

The only problem with this is you have to train your scrappers not to follow the enemies over the ledge. They get down on the floor and are promptly out of range of all the AOE defense your team is providing.

Excellent post, Moo, and your timing is impeccable. Three or four times last night I found myself retreating with no health and a full bar of Defiance. I thought to myself, "Why is it that a Brute gets to charge into battle with a full bar of Fury, while a Blaster has to retreat?" I figured Defiance wasn't going to change anytime soon and I came to the boards hoping that I was wrong. Instead, I found this amazing post that makes total sense. Two points that stood out:

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The damage bonus granted by Defiance exceeds the Scrapper's 5% 'Critical' damage bonus while a player's health bar is still in the green

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so I should stop whining. And

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He will blast in rhythm with his enemies, returning their volleys with his own, boosted salvos.

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That is so obvious that I'm stunned I didn't think of it before. I've been focusing on the Alpha Strike and not getting hit. Aim + Rain o' Arrows + alternating Fist/Explosive Arrows usually wipes up a group of +0 or +1's before I get hit too bad. Judicious use of Stunning Arrow keeps the Lt's out of the fight until I can finish them off. I couldn't figure out how I could take on Rugged or Unyielding missions like I'd seen other Blasters do.

What I could do is flirt with disaster and hold my 'Alpha' Strike until I'm in the 'Zen Area'. I guessed it would be more of a 'Beta, Gamma or Delta' strike at that point depending on how flirtatous I'm 'Zen'-ing.

In any case, good food for thought. Thanks a bunch.