Hmmm... would you mind explaining this a little better?
what I'm hearing is that you're talking about adding mag numbers to defense debuff effects and that seems like a bit more work compared to simply adding defense debuff resistance to some powers that don't have it.
So would you mind explaining it again, please?
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Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Hmmm... would you mind explaining this a little better?
what I'm hearing is that you're talking about adding mag numbers to defense debuff effects and that seems like a bit more work compared to simply adding defense debuff resistance to some powers that don't have it. So would you mind explaining it again, please? |
Add a magnitude protection to power-sets that offer defense resistance as is.
I'm not entirely sure how practical that kind of solution will ultimately be, but I think it's a better direction to go than just pushing up Defense Debuff Resistance Numbers.
Why?
Well, for starters, we don't know how many players ultimately use IO sets in their builds. We do have an indication that the number of players with soft-capped builds is a relatively minority in the game. Ergo: any changes that need to be made need to account for the entire player-base, not a select few players.
Simply raising the Defense Debuff Resistance would have an equivalent immediate effect: reducing the the amount of defense removed.
The problem is how and what is removed. I semi-recall Paragonwiki have a section on Defense Debuff Resistance; or a blurb stating that defense debuff reduces the amount of defense and that defense debuff resistance reduces the amount of the defense debuff, but not the time. As of right now, I can't find any pages that reference what Defense Debuff Resistance actually does or what Defense Debuff actually does.
Either way, if Defense Debuff Resistance reduces the magnitude or time of a Defense Debuff, buffing the DDR numbers directly actually presents a rather serious problem from a long-term point of view.
If the defense debuff resistance lowers the amount of a defense debuff, buffing the defense debuff resistance numbers could make it possible for players to completely ignore attacks that debuff defense. Case in point, Super Reflexes and Hamidon Enhancements. I suspect the developers are fine with Super Reflexes being able to cap Defense Debuff protections since the set offers pretty much no other mitigation.
If the defense debuff resistance lowers the time of a defense debuff, buffing the defense debuff resistance numbers would again put players in the position where defense debuff attacks pose no threat at all.
The conceptual idea is that Defense Debuff powers need to still be a danger to Defense based archtypes. A magnitude protection offers players more casual protection, without eliminating the threat altogether.
Easiest way is to add enemy ToHit in the high level encounters they're worried about. Sets with a lot of Defense to begin will have it easier to stack up to protect better against increased ToHit. I wouldn't mind it either that Defense buffs from teammates would actually become useful for my Defense based characters. While it strikes Defense based sets harder than Resistance, most teams still have Defense buffs or at least some buffs available so it shouldn't be a problem for players who already have high Defense. It isn't that difficult to get 50%+ Def to all positions on SR or Tanker SD.
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Defense debuff resistance reduces the effect of defense debuffs, if you have 50% resist and get hit with a -5 defense, then you'll only loss 2.5%.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
The problem is how and what is removed. I semi-recall Paragonwiki have a section on Defense Debuff Resistance; or a blurb stating that defense debuff reduces the amount of defense and that defense debuff resistance reduces the amount of the defense debuff, but not the time. As of right now, I can't find any pages that reference what Defense Debuff Resistance actually does or what Defense Debuff actually does. Either way, if Defense Debuff Resistance reduces the magnitude or time of a Defense Debuff, buffing the DDR numbers directly actually presents a rather serious problem from a long-term point of view. If the defense debuff resistance lowers the amount of a defense debuff, buffing the defense debuff resistance numbers could make it possible for players to completely ignore attacks that debuff defense. Case in point, Super Reflexes and Hamidon Enhancements. I suspect the developers are fine with Super Reflexes being able to cap Defense Debuff protections since the set offers pretty much no other mitigation. If the defense debuff resistance lowers the time of a defense debuff, buffing the defense debuff resistance numbers would again put players in the position where defense debuff attacks pose no threat at all. The conceptual idea is that Defense Debuff powers need to still be a danger to Defense based archtypes. A magnitude protection offers players more casual protection, without eliminating the threat altogether. |
Now, with your magnitude protection suggestion, say I'm hit with a -10% defense and I have mag 4 protection and 50% resist. Would that reduce to -5% and then to -1% or 6% first and then 3%
The good news is that a mechanic exactly like mez protection already exists for defense debuffs. The bad news is that it is the thing we call "defense."
To put it another way, mez protection and mez are the same thing, only one of them is a negative value and the other is positive. Likewise, defense and defense debuff are the same thing, only one of them is a negative value and the other is positive. Defense debuff "magnitude" already exists: it's the value of the defense debuff.
For example, Captain Spandex has an attribute that determines whether or not he is held. By default that value is -1, and if it rises above 0, he is held. Frank the Ice Thorn Caster uses Block of Ice on Captain Spandex. Block of Ice is a mag 3 hold, meaning it raises the value of Captain Spandex's "hold" attribute by three points: -1 + 3 = 2. Because the value is now greater than 0, he is held.
But then Bubble Lass stands next to him with Dispersion Bubble running. That subtracts 8.65 (at level 50) from Captain Spandex's hold attribute: 2 - 8.65 = -6.65. It's now once more under 0, so he is no longer held. Both Block of Ice and Dispersion Bubble have manipulated the same attribute of Captain Spandex, but in opposite directions.
Captain Spandex also has an attribute that determines his defense to, say, melee attacks. By default that value is 0. If it rises above 0 he becomes harder to hit, down to the tohit clamp of 5%, and if it decreases below 0 he becomes easier to hit, up to the tohit clamp of 95%. A passing stranger does a fly-by tarot reading on him and he draws the Hermit, causing his melee defense attribute (along with all his other defensive attributes) to increase by 0.05--colloquially, he has gained a 5% defense buff. Captain Spandex is happy.
But then, tragically, Bob the Earth Thorn Caster drops a Quicksand patch under his feet. This reduces his melee defense attribute (along with all his other defensive attributes) by 0.25--colloquially, he has suffered a 25% defense debuff. His defensive attributes are now at 0.05 - 0.25= -0.20, or -20% defense. This allows Susan the Succubus to easily claw his face off. Both the Hermit temporary power and Quicksand have manipulated the same attribute of Captain Spandex, but in opposite directions.
But what about resistance? Well, mechanically, resistance is aspect of an attribute that resists all attempts to alter that attribute in any way. (This is why buffs are flagged unresistable--otherwise you could resist those too). The exact result of resistance to an effect depends on whether that effect is a duration effect or a magnitude effect. All effects are either duration effects or magnitude effects; it is not possible for anything to be both.
Duration effects have a fixed magnitude that cannot be altered by any means, but a variable duration that is affected by things such as slotting, strength buffs or debuffs, archetype modifiers, level scaling, etc. Powers that inflict mez generally use duration effects.
Magnitude effects have a fixed duration that cannot be altered by any means, but a variable magnitude that is affected by things such as slotting, strength buffs or debuffs, archetype modifiers, level scaling, etc. Powers that inflict debuffs generally use magnitude effects.
So if Captain Spandex has hold resistance, that will try to resist any change to his hold attribute. It will reduce the duration of Block of Ice's hold, because that is a duration effect. It will always be a mag 3 hold no matter what.
Likewise, if Captain Spandex has defense debuff resistance, that will attempt to resist any change to his defense attributes. It will reduce the magnitude of Quicksand's debuff, because that is a magnitude effect. It will always last 0.45 seconds per pulse, no matter what.
tl;dr:
Unfortunately the mechanics you're proposing are already being used by the game, they just do something else.
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What happens when you have a DDR >100%?
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Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
Defense debuff resistance reduces the effect of defense debuffs, if you have 50% resist and get hit with a -5 defense, then you'll only loss 2.5%.
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It caps at 95%.
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Originally Posted by all_hell
What happens when you have a DDR >100%?
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I am not convinced that anything needs to be done regarding defense. It is readily available in IO sets, stacks nicely with other forms of mitigation to make you very tough in the regular game. But...
1) There are literally hordes of villains able to reduce that defense quickly.
2) As you pointed out, some of the toughest encounters can make even a "soft-capped" character scream for mercy (or their nearest defender)
3) Finally, on anyone that doesnt have DDR, if they also don't have status protection, it doesn't really provide the tools to avoid incoming damage without other powers to back up that "defense".
What bothers me about "Defense" is not actually defense at all.
It's the lack of available options through IO builds.
Can you "hard cap" resistance on a toon ?
Nope
Even if you could, would it be as good as "Soft-capped" Defense ?
Maybe on a "armored" AT, but certainly not on a "squishy"
Can you get the resistance or protection from status effects up to a comparable level of survival as "defense" ?
Nope
If you could, would the "Squishy" ATs be overpowered ?
Doubtful
This is where they should focus any new IO sets on; making additional "Options" for increasing survival in builds.
Nerf Defense ? Hello No!
If they thought alot of folks left the last time, just wait and see what a GDN2 would do.
But I think it is a pretty safe bet though that we will not be getting any "NEW" defense IOs.
Heck, I will be pretty surprised to see anything +DEF related with Incarnates. (I realize that the alpha slot can raise your defenses, but it only works off actual defense powers, so will help the characters that are designed around defense considerably more than the ones that are not.
I will also be really surprised to see ANY new IO sets because of all the Incarnates stuff that we should be seeing for the "foresee-able" future.
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This is a non-issue.
A lot of the defense based powersets give bonuses that still make them favorable to resist based sets after IO's.
SD is exremely popular due to numerous reasons including high DDR, AAO and Shield Charge.
SR has a recharge bonus and the highest levels of DDR in the game.
Ice Armor has great endurance management, the best aggro management tools, solid debuffs, a damage aura, and easily reaches far beyond the softcap against multiple foes.
Also, defense based powersets get easy access to more LoTG slots for extra recharge.
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Count the number of enemies in the game that can apply defense debuff effects. Then count the number who can apply resistance debuff or regeneration debuff effects. Last I checked the defense debuffing mobs had a pretty clear lead. Defense may be easier to get but it is also far easier to lose, both because of the number of debuffs out there and because of the mechanics involved in how those debuffs work. Thus, it is balanced.
I might also point out that even when softcapped, defense still has a 5% chance to do absolutely nothing to prevent that Archvillain oneshotting you. So there's an element of luck involved too. Resistance is less available, but also more reliable.
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How about the negative impact towards every other character in the entire game? Defense debuffs affect all characters, not just those with defense.| The developers can seed more NPC groups with enemies that debuff defense, thus countering the rise of the IO soft-capped builds, without negatively impacting power-sets that rely on Defense as their primary application. |
I'm also still having trouble fathoming why we need a convoluted new system when the obvious and easy answer has always been to nerf IOs.
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Wonderslug hit the nail on the head. This suggestion is already in effect, and has been since day one.
In point of fact, I'm not certain the powers system can support Effect A protecting you from Effect B. As Wonderslug said, all protections are merely the inverses of the effect they're protecting you from. Hell, it was even too much trouble to add in Toxic defense, think about the developer reaction to defense magnitude.
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I've been sitting on this posting for... well... a while... waiting to see how the Incarnate System was going to play out. Then I watched a couple of global channels descend into madness over the death of defense and the marginalization of defense as a damage mitigation effect. I have seen several statements to the effect that another Global Defense Reduction is coming, and that all Defense based avatars are going to be thrown to the wolves.
The primary cause of this behavior, from what I have observed, is rooted one of two causes:
- The first is the in-between lines from the developers that the number of defensive IO buffs available was un-intended, and that there is concern over Archtypes and power-sets reaching Soft-cap defensive protections that they should not be reaching.
- The second is the current Incarnate System that features enemies with higher native comparative levels, and thus higher accuracy and to-hit ratings, that can more easily ignore defensive protections.
The short point is this: I cannot see the developers, in this case specifically Black Scorpion and Synapse, overhauling the defense system in a negative manner. Power-sets such as Force Field, Cold Domination, Super Reflexes, Shield, Energy Aura, and Ice Armor have powers based primarily on defense as a damage mitigation. Making any changes to how defense works would not only require extensive recoding to the game's processing engine to handle the new effects; it would also require significant re-balancings to preserve the comparative protections of defense with other mitigiation effects.I do not, at this point, have any reason to believe that either Black Scorpion or Synapse intend to push through a system overhauling how defense itself works. That being said, I do agree that something probably should be done about the marginalization of Defense as a damage mitigation. I do think that Black Scorpion and Synapse are going to look at some kind of solution to lessen the important of defense as a combat utility tool to archtypes and power-sets that do not depend on defense as a native utility.
So I'd like to propose a solution that I think will work, based on an existing in-game system.
Currently in the game players can achieve both Status Effect Protection and Status Effect Resistance.
- Status Effect Protection determines whether or not a status effect applies to the player.
- Status Effect Resistance determines how long a status effect applies to the player.
My suggestion is to implement a Defense Protection system based on the Status Effect Protection System.- All defense debuff attacks are assigned a magnitude rating
- Player defense debuff protection is based on existing defense debuff resistance
- only melee archtypes with native defense debuff resistance receive defense debuff protection
- add defense debuff protection stats to Force Field Dispersion Bubble and Cold Dom Frostworks Powers
- In order for a defense debuff attack to apply the defense debuff, the magnitude rating must be passed.
The conceptual idea is that power-sets that already offer defenses continue to be valuable against enemies with higher-to hits or debuff effects. The developers can seed more NPC groups with enemies that debuff defense, thus countering the rise of the IO soft-capped builds, without negatively impacting power-sets that rely on Defense as their primary application.Cold Domination and Force Field users can also give players without native defense protection the benefits of defense debuff protection, but even then application is largely limited.
I don't know if this is the direction that Black Scorpion and Synapse will ultimately take, but the concept has largely been proven to work.
Forgot a point somewhere in there. On the prospect of Incarnate Content. We already know of one Level-Shift in store through the Alpha Slot. This alone will reign in some of the ease that enemies on Tin Mage and Apex have in hitting defense based players. We also still don't know what Mr. Miller has planned for the rest of the Incarnate slots... An Incarnate Effect to boost native resistances and protections could already be planned.