Typed versus Positional Defense

I started this topic over in the general forum, but I was told the Def gurus mostly hang out here

I'd like to know the effectiveness of S/L Def versus Positional Defense.

I understand that Positional Defense covers the vast majority of attacks, and that S/L Defense covers a good majority of attacks.

I understand why a scrapper would find reaching the softcap on all Positions to be ideal, and why S/L soft-cap is a nice "next best" goal.

However, I don't know where the effectiveness of one overtakes the over. Surely 40% Def (All Positions) is as good as 45% S/L Def, but where is the line? 35% Def (All Positions)? 30%?

Additionally, I'd love to know if anyone has a clue how mezzes affect these results. I'd imagine that most mezzes have a Positional component, but that the Type has a greater variation than non-mezzing/damage attacks.

For ATs other than Scrappers, doesn't Positional Defense have a greater impact simply by virtue of covering a greater percentage of incoming mezzes? For those ATs, surely the balance is even more skewed towards Positional Defense?

Additionally, if you're a dedicated flier, can you safely cut Melee from your Positional Defense and just worry about Ranged and AoE, or does that work out badly in practice?

The game uses whatever defense is higher. Say an incoming attack is ranged and lethal. Whichever defense you have that is higher will count. So if you have 45% ranged defense and 30% lethal defense, the ranged will count. Make sense?

Now what is better is usually determained by what secondary you have. Shields for example has powers that increase your positional defenses, so it is generally easier to get set bonuses with positional defense to reach the soft cap. Willpower on the otherhand grants some typed defense powers, so its generally easier to softcap types.

Dont waste money trying to get high levels of both typed and positional, try and reach the soft cap with either or.

As for dedicated flying, I would think Ranged and AOE would be good enough for positional defense in most situations. If going for typed though, you would probably need all 3 (6) types to be safe (S/L, Energy/Negative and Fire/Cold)

Edit: Bah, Umbral beat me to it ... don't you ever sleep man??

For me Ranged/AOE/Melee just covers more bases than any achievable combo of the other defense types possibly could. Everyone else did a good job of laying down the tech of it so I won't go there, but I think from a practical standpoint, if soft capping positional is possible it's way more practical.

The only thing I look at is what kind your powers give you, before you slot any IOs. If you have even a few percent of typed, go with typed defense IOs. If you have positional, go with those. If it's mixed (pretty uncommon if it exists at all), which is higher?

IMHO, trying to soft-cap from base zero defense consumes so much of your attack slotting that it would hamper you in-game, with every attack -- much more often than you'd be hurt by any situation that would make a difference between positional or typed.

If you have zero defenses at all, I'd be inclined to go with positional -- you can control that in every encounter, but you can't change an enemy's damage type.

I agree with what's been said so far. I'd generally want to soft cap at least smashing/lethal or melee, and would pick whichever is easiest to achieve on a given build. As already stated, there usually isn't much doubt which to go for. Ideally, I'd softcap all positions or all types but psionic (and toxic, obviously).

I will add that someone (I keep forgetting your name, sorry) worked out that about 70% of attacks were either smashing or lethal. While I don't have any real data to back me up, I'd also guess that that's about the percentage of melee damage you face as a melee character. So to me, the two are roughly equivalent. Similarly, I'd rate Ranged as about equivalent to Energy and Negative, and AoE as about equivalent to the rest, again on a melee character. It's all pretty rough, though, and will differ greatly depending on what you're fighting.

My rule of thumb for my melee toons is that if you can cover all 3 positions, do that over typed. If you can't, go for S/L, and if possible, add some ranged on top of that. In practice, that *usually* means my resist (or regen) based toons (DA, WP, Fire) get their S/L def capped, but my Shields guys (and if I had an SR) get all 3 positions capped. Exceptions are like Invul, where I argue that since S/L resist is already capped, I go for F/C/E/N typed + ranged capping. Also, Stone isn't really resist based, but since the S/L def was already high w/Rock, it was a small push to get it capped. They all work out great, btw.

FWIW, pretty much all my non melee toons go for ranged def cap w/decent to good AoE def.

I did this with my blaster with very solid results.

45% smash/lethal
45% ranged.

I find these 2 can be pumped up without interfering with each other. Smash/Lethal from the cold ancilary pool power plus many 4 slotted kinetic combat sets in melee attacks. And ranged with 2 slotted Zephyrs in multiple travel powers, and thunderstrikes in my ranged attacks. Also +defense to all from weave, hover, combat jumping, and the Steadfast Protection Unique/PvP Unique add to both.

45% ranged while hover blasting is a more solid way to fight, but you can't go into melee without serious risk. The 45% smash/lethal covers you well enough to go into melee without any significant concern. The NPC's that you don't have defense against are so few that you can easily pick your way around them, or just hover from greater distance (outside AoE range) when you know they're coming.

I hate to admit it on the scrapper forum, being a hardcore scrapper myself... but that blaster is my new main. Too much damage... too much fun. I play him like a scrapper though.... BLAZE from 5 ft away looks a lot like a punch.