Defense

At what % of Defense does it become noticable that it is improving your survivbility.. I had heard 25% but I tend to fight +3 and +4 con mobs, would this still be the same? Soft cap is not available, what am I aiming for instead?

25% sounds about right, it will statistically block 50% of incoming damage (on average). That's the number I aimed for on my resistance based toons (Brute and Tanker: Electric Armor)

I'm going to point you to my softcap guide (link in sig). It goes over many different cases of defense and has a probability analysis of each scenario.

There's not going to be any specific point where you go from not noticing it, to suddenly noticing it. It's also going to vary greatly how much defense it takes, vs 0 defense, before a person notices 'hay, i be get'n hit les!' when toggling between the two.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I can say from my experience leveling a few def based melee toons, 3 scrappers and a tank, that I start noticing my defense working at about 25% give or take; and really start to feel strong around 35% defense. Of course 40-45% is where you start feeling godly but my recollections are that much less than 20% and I start feeling "is this thing on?"

on my regen and electric armor 15% was noticeable, but not enough by itself. Still, enough of a difference that I was happy with it. When I did get into 20/25% range that was really enormous difference. I felt it alot.

on squishies, I dunno. never added significant defense to any of them. But I am in the process of getting ranged defense for one of my blasters.

@callmeAwesome: Try adding it to someone who already has resistance. You'll feel it sooner. But yes, I think if only the defense is protecting you, you need a good chunk before it matters enough.

Running around with my Bane, I've been doing well with ranged defense around 20% against even cons and the occasional +1s. This is at level 22, for reference. I imagine once I get some really decent slotting going, into the 30% range, I'll be pretty dang awesome. As it is, I can get through a single spawn relatively untouched, and 2 spawns (at the same time) will hurt, but probably won't kill me unless their is a boss or lots of -def or -res. I've even made it through 3 spawns at once on occasion, though those were close calls and inspirations were rather heavily used.