Ok...help me with soft caps
By
Eek a Mouse,
Posted on: 2009-07-10 22:37 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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I'm confusing myself here. How do the softcaps on defense and resists work? I'm playing a WP Brute, and I think someone said the softcap for defense if 45%...is that per power or per toon?
If I raise a certain power up past 45%, the rest is just a waste of slots basically?
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Okay, I think you're confusing enhancement diversification softcap (re: the point where it's pretty much pointless to enhance an attribute more) and the defense softcap (the resistance cap is actually a hard cap).
When enhancing, when people refer to the softcap, they generally refer to what I call the redzone. It's the point where enhancement diversification reduces the effect of any further enhancement of that attribute to virtually nothing (re: ~5% of what it would have been otherwise). Defense, resistance and a few other attribute types receive less from the individual enhancements but also reach the point wherein ED starts hurting their enhancements proportionately earlier. There's an excellent workup here that explains everything rather well.
As for the defense softcap, it's all about this: the magical chance to hit calculation. The defense softcap is the point at which you've achieved enough defense that any attack by a target that isn't more than 5 levels above you will have their chance to hit taken to the absolute minimum. This is a softcap because, while it's actually possible to get more defense, more defense is not going to have any practical effect aside from providing a buffer for enemies with tohit buffs and defense debuffs. Resistance isn't a softcap because it's actually a solid limiter on how much resistance you can pack, not just how much of it will be effective. The important number to remember where the defense softcap is concerned is 45%. Get 45% defense and any attack that uses that tag (whether it be positional or type based) will be absolutely minimized as long as it's an enemy you stand a logical chance of actually defeating that doesn't have any tohit buffs. It may not always reduce the chance to hit to 5%, but that's not always the minimum thanks to how chance to hit is calculated.
Here's an example using a super reflexes scrapper:
The basic toggle for melee defense is Focused Fighting. It gives 13.9% defense.
Defense uses a different enhancement schedule than most other powers, so a single even level SO gives 20% bonus
1x SO (20%) = 16.7% defense
2x SO (40%) = 19.4% defense
3x SO (56%) = 21.6% defense -- this third SO is affected by ED and only gives 16% enhancement
4x SO (59%) = 22.1% defense -- this fourth SO is very affected by ED and only gives 3% enhancement
ED is Enhancement Diversification, with forces a softcap on individual effects of a power. In Mids' builder, the enhancement value is in red at this point to show that the defense enhancement for this power is at the softcap. You can add more enhancement to this power, but it won't do much good. That's why the previous poster called this the redzone.
Notice that your melee defense is only 22.1% though, even though the power is enhanced basically to its maximum of 59% enhancement (13.9 x 1.59=22.1). Melee defense is not softcapped at this point. just the enhancement of that one power is. At 22.1% melee defense, an even level minion has a (50.0-22.1) 27.9% chance to hit you.
Our scrapper then takes Dodge, an auto power that gives 5.63% Melee defense, which takes us to 27.7%. After enhancing Dodge with the same four SOs, Dodge is enhanced by 59% (to the enhancement softcap for that power), which brings our total Melee defense to 31%. It is still not to the softcap for Melee defense though. We are getting hit (50-31) 19% of the time by an even level minion.
We add Combat Jumping and Weave and enhance their defense values with just one SO, which takes Melee defense to 37.8%. Then we slot two full sets of Touch of Death IO in two of our melee powers. All of these things combined brings our Melee defense up to 45.3%. At this point you would expect even levels minions to only have (50.0-45.3) a 4.7% chance to hit. However there is a guaranteed chance of at least 5% for all enemies of any level. That means that any amount of defense over 45% doesn't really help in most situations. If we added another Touch of Death set, or enhanced Weave more, our Melee defense would go up, but we'd still get hit 5% of the time. So 45% is the softcap for defense.
We have individual defense powers with at the enhancement softcap (ED) of about 59%. However the softcap for defense itself from all sources is 45%.
I say "in most situtations" because it can be useful to have more than 45% defense sometimes. If your enemy has greater accuracy or if your defense is debuffed, it can help to have more. But for the vast majority of the game, 45% is all you need and more doesn't help.
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow][U]Virtue Heroes (Serenity's Children):[/U] [B]@Eek a Mouse, The Devil's Mark, Outlaw Sniper, Gas-Soaked Rag Man, Amazon Prime, Friday's Child, Hot Blooded,[/B][B]Flower of the Moon[/B], [B]Rouge Demon Hunter[/B], Stimulated Emission, Animatronic Wench, [B]Lennie Small[/B]
[U]Virtue Villains (Serenity's Orphans):[/U][/COLOR][/SIZE][SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [/COLOR][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [B]Eek a Rat[/B], [B]Bomb Blondeshell[/B], Babe Brute, Jeanne Dark, Fallen Angle[/COLOR][/SIZE]
By the way, I used four SOs in my example because that's what is needed to get to the red zone in Mids. That last SO doesn't give very much enhancement, and that's why the rule of thumb is 3xSO for ED softcap. Of course with IOs it is different because they vary by level. Three level 50 IOs is a 58.5% enhancement, almost as much as 4xSOs.
Also note that the ED softcap is different for other power effects. Defense and Resistance are on a different "schedule" than most other effects. The most common schedule (A) softcaps at 95%, which again comes from 3xSOs.
Finally, you asked about resistance. As far as calculating the value of the bonus, it works like Defense. However Resistance itself doesn't have a softcap. It has a hardcap that varies based on the archetype. Resistance powers still have the softcap of ED, but they add together without a softcap until they reach the max for that AT.
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow][U]Virtue Heroes (Serenity's Children):[/U] [B]@Eek a Mouse, The Devil's Mark, Outlaw Sniper, Gas-Soaked Rag Man, Amazon Prime, Friday's Child, Hot Blooded,[/B][B]Flower of the Moon[/B], [B]Rouge Demon Hunter[/B], Stimulated Emission, Animatronic Wench, [B]Lennie Small[/B]
[U]Virtue Villains (Serenity's Orphans):[/U][/COLOR][/SIZE][SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [/COLOR][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [B]Eek a Rat[/B], [B]Bomb Blondeshell[/B], Babe Brute, Jeanne Dark, Fallen Angle[/COLOR][/SIZE]
The one thing I do want to point out is that people need to separate the terms accuracy and tohit. Accuracy raises the overall floor of the mob's hitting capabilities (i.e. a higher level mob or one with more accuracy raises the floor from 5% to, say, 6-10%) while Tohit is directly opposed to Defense.
Hah, I knew someone was gonna point that out. I thought it was already confusing enough, but you are right that there's no point in introducing misconceptions.
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow][U]Virtue Heroes (Serenity's Children):[/U] [B]@Eek a Mouse, The Devil's Mark, Outlaw Sniper, Gas-Soaked Rag Man, Amazon Prime, Friday's Child, Hot Blooded,[/B][B]Flower of the Moon[/B], [B]Rouge Demon Hunter[/B], Stimulated Emission, Animatronic Wench, [B]Lennie Small[/B]
[U]Virtue Villains (Serenity's Orphans):[/U][/COLOR][/SIZE][SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [/COLOR][/SIZE] [SIZE=1][COLOR=Yellow] [B]Eek a Rat[/B], [B]Bomb Blondeshell[/B], Babe Brute, Jeanne Dark, Fallen Angle[/COLOR][/SIZE]
I'm confusing myself here. How do the softcaps on defense and resists work? I'm playing a WP Brute, and I think someone said the softcap for defense if 45%...is that per power or per toon?
If I raise a certain power up past 45%, the rest is just a waste of slots basically?