Combat Jump & Hover: Defence Bonus?

I'm trying to get a handle on the defence bonus of both powers - as someone who plays a few blaster variants it seems to me that any kind of defence bonus is valuable but I've been told recently that neither CJ nor Hover actually give much in the way of defence.

That said I've never been a numbers type of player - much preferring to go by the traditional "seat of pants" mode of playing - but I'm now getting into the numbers behind the game and I'm interested in knowing what the score is.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Hover and Combat Jumping have the same defense bonus. For a Blaster, the value is 1.75% without slotting, or about 2.625% with slotting. For a Defender or Tanker, who have a better Melee_Buff_Def stat, the two powers start at 2.5% and go up to ~3.75%

While it's true that some defense is better than none, starting with none and going up to 2.6% probably isn't worth the power selection and 2 slots (3 enhancements), if you could instead get better damage out of your attacks or a more reliable stun/hold power. A dead or stunned/held opponent does zero damage; 2.6% defense will reduce your incoming damage over the long run, on average, assuming you have good luck by about 5%.

For most characters, slotting Hover/CJ isn't worthwhile. It can be worthwhile, however, if you're already approaching 45% defense, where a small increase translates into a larger increase in survivability. (Going from 40% to 45% defense is like halving your incoming damage. Starting at 0%, you'd need to reach 25% to get the same jump in survivability.)

A Super Reflexes Scrapper can reach the softcap using SOs and Hover, Combat Jumping, Maneuvers, and Weave
(It may be tough to run such a build, but few builds can reach 45% without IOs)

The simple way to look at it, is that due to the way the math works out a small amount of extra defense does very little when you already have a small amount, but a small amount of extra defense when you have a lot of defense.

The reason for this is, say an enemy has 50% chance to hit you. if you have 5% defense, the enemy now has a 45% chance to hit you. That's a 10% increase in survivability. Now say you already have 40% defense putting their chance to hit you at 10%. Now you grab 5% defense, they now have a 5% chance to hit you, that DOUBLED your survivability.

So in the long run hover/combat jumping will do very little for you unless you already have a solid defense, they are great powers to complement weave/epic powers/IO's, but by themselves they don't add a whole lot of survivability to blasters. if you're curious about the actual numbers those two powers give, it's about 2.5% with slotting, 1.75 without.

edit: argh, I have been defeated!

thanks for the answers guys

here's my thinking:

I've taken Hover on Scarlet and 6 slotted for the range def bonus of LotG.

It seems to me I could junk Hover (or at least save 5 slots) and go for the fighting pool (I tend to blap anyhow) and thus improve my def? I'd have to juggle other powers but I'm not exactly a stand-off gunner.

Would that philosophy work across other ATs? I also play a lot of trollers - in fact I've got more 50 trollers than blasters as things stand.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

The defenkee boosts from Hover, Combat Jumping and Weave are negligible on their own, though in conjunction with a few of defenkee set bonuses, they can definitely help to get it stacked up. People say "every little bit helps," but that's not exactly true unless you have a lot of "little bits" floating around. Expect to see pleasing effects of defenkee after 10% or so, but not before.

Scarlet, do you have Mids installed? It's perfect for answering questions like this, because you can just switch the powers on and off and watch what effect it has on your Def numbers. Also very good for answering the IO set bonus v. pool power type of question.

So it would seem the consensus is to not take either of these powers, is that the case? If so, why not have a defense pool, instead of fitness and jumping which require other powers to be taken. It is plausible that heroes train themselves in self defense without learning how to be an expert hand to hand combatant, although boxing, kick, combat jumping don't qualify as expert HtH combat.

You can do quick "What good is Defense?" tests with a big bunch of purples. Also I recommend Ethereal Shift for when you're getting hammered flat and you want to end the experiment early.

Four small or two medium purples = 50% Defense. This is at the "soft cap" (which is actually 45%) and you should be about 10 times tougher than normal. This is up there with burly Scrappers, and you should be able to run around with no problem. You're almost "mez proof" because if they don't hit they don't mez.

Three small = 37.5% Defense. You should be about 4 times tougher than normal- you'll still get hit with some frequency, but you're going to be a LOT tougher than normal. This is about what an SO'd out SR scrapper gets to without hitting Elude. (They have mez protection, a few more hit points, and scaling resistance. So they are tougher, but not a LOT tougher.)

Two small = 25% Defense. This is about the minimum I, Fulmens, notice. Twice as hard to hit. Of course, random numbers are random and you may go a long time without getting hit or you may get nailed every time.

If you want you can try one small, 12.5% Defense.

Try these various things. You will get killed from time to time, but it will give you an idea of what 10%, or 25%, or 45% "really means."

My one Defense-based Blaster is around 32.5% to several types. That was chosen because I can take a single small purple and be at the softcap.

Some other numbers for what Defense "means": 40% is half as good as the 45%+ "softcap." 30% is half as good as that.

Wow... You know they made Defense stacking overpowered when that is the aspect people focus on with these two powers. Yes, the defense is negligible unless you are approaching the softcap, but that isn't the sole purpose of Hover and CJ.

Hover pretty much grants you guaranteed melee defense if you hover out of range (doesn't work if you have to get in close, but it's perfect for ranged characters). It is also slightly less annoying being knocked back while hovering. And while slow, you can still fly with it.

CJ gives you a decent jump height boost AND Immob protection. Many people take it and hurdle to get around early on (less so with the temp travel powers now). Also, don't forget other IO slotting besides defense, such as KB protection, that can be put in both powers.

You did mention you prefer to blap and such, so CJ would likely be a better choice in that regard. But I wouldn't take either one simply for defense stacking unless you are REALLY close to the softcap.

Personally, I would take Combat Jumping over Jump Kick.

If I'm going the Flight pool, I take Air Sup (generally).

The base numbers on Hover and CJ are relatively low but the powers themselves open opportunities for slotting.

Example: Both open at level 6. Need knockback protection? Slot a Karma KB protection. (At lvl 7 you can slot the lvl 10 if you can find one)

Noticing you're not hitting as much as you'd like? Slot a Kismet 6% Accu.

Or slot both!

Need some more recharge time bonuses, slot a Luck of the Gambler 7.5% recharge.

So yea, the defense bonuses may be on the lower side, but you definitely have options. And every little bit helps.

Assuming you don't have the City Traveler vet badge, you'll need to pick one or the other regardless for your travel power. Worst case scenario is you have a slot to place a spiffy IO.

If I'm going the SJ route, I use a macro to toggle between CJ and SJ. This way I can make use of the mobility and the defense bonus without have to search for the power.

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Food for thought, much appreciated

To clarify; I've traditionally blapped with Scarlet - she was my first toon and is my main and essentially the toon I learned to play with on the day. I've tried to avoid numbers - it allowed me a bit more leeway to experiment but I'd like to make her a lot tougher.

She flies because I prefer flight as a power to SJ, and also it fits her thematically. I'm thinking of building her for ranged Def rather than blapping and my question stemmed from a number of people asking why i'd not taken the fighting pool. Weave seems expensive - 2 powers plus 6 slots to get the best out of it.

I shall have to break the Mids out and look hard at combos... though I'm still getting to grips with it.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

" I personally feel set bonuses are overrated (except purples), but that's a whole 'nother thread. :P "

Funny I feel the opposite is true

In researching defense I think some of the logic in this post may be incorrect. From what I understand the reason 45% is the softcap is not because that is as much as you can get (you can actually get up to 300% defense) but that that is where defense stops doing you much good. Critters have a base 50% chance to hit you (even level) and since defense is a one to one reduction of chance to hit and the chance to hit can't go below 5% having more than 45% defense does you little good.

So having only 5% defense reduces your chance to be hit by 10% (5% reduction divided by 50% (base) = 10% reduction of chance to hit). So basically every 1% of defense reduces you chances of being hit by 2% up to 45% defense (90% reduced chance of being hit) so even small defense numbers can be beneficial. For a blaster a very achievable 10-15% defense reduces you chance to be hit by 20-30%. Certainly high defense are better but making 1 out of 4 or 1 out of 3 attacks miss is nothing to scoff at, every little bit does help.

I always thought that hover's major defense buff wasn't in any numbers at all.

It's in the fact you can use it to stay the HELL out of melee range.

Yeah nearly all critters have SOME kind of long range attack. And yeah, some have -fly attacks. But 80-90% of the time you can hover out of melee range where most mobs only have one attack rather than in melee where they have two or more. Those are attacks your not soaking in. Which means you are mitigating damage with hover.

The minor defense boost is just a plus.

Do not this only counts for blasters, controllers, defenders, Kelds, Corruptors, Dominators and Master Minds. Maybe the SoA too. For something like a Tanker you're better off with Air Sup.

I've been doing ranged defense builds on a bunch of my squishies lately. I tend to wind up with both CJ and Hover, but don't slot either beyond the default slot, unless I want more hover speed.

Neither power provides a lot of defense by itself, but ranged defense is mostly a case of six-slotting a lot of powers. There aren't enough slots in a build to six-slot everything, so these two powers are nice for adding a bit more defense but not consuming slots. They would take Red Fortune, which is a nice enough set, but I'd rather spend those slots on a full set of Thunderstrike, Lockdown, or something like that, where I'm getting good use of the power, and save Red Fortune for powers with higher defense and that can use the end reduction, like Shadow Fall, which generally blasters don't get.

If you are going to blap, ranged defense is less universally applicable, and you may want to consider typed defense or possibly even melee defense instead of ranged, but I still wouldn't slot up CJ or Hover for defense.