Softcap: Positional vs Typed
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2011-03-18 24:11 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
If you have one or the other, you're pretty much golden.
Attacks check the defenses of all tags associated with the attack and picks the highest. If you're attacked by an Energy Melee attack, it will check Smashing, Energy, and Melee defense and select the highest of the three - so if your Energy defense is capped it doesn't matter for purposes of that attack what your Melee defense is.
Therefore, if you're softcapped to all three positions or all defense types, you're pretty much covered save for a few outliers. If you have a set that grants defense, generally that set grants only typed or only positional, and it's best to focus where that set does.
TL; DR - In the case of WP, softcapping your Typed defense is the right choice.
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In the absence of other considerations, postional defense will protect you from Toxic and Psi damage, while it is very hard to find a lot of Toxic typed defense and somewhat less difficult to get defense to Psi damage. |
Originally Posted by Irish Fury
I just finished a build for my Willpower tank that has me softcapped to S/L/E/N/F/C but is somewhat lacking in positional defense, which led me to the question: Which is better to pursure the soft cap on, positional or typed defense?
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However, most characters have either postional or typed defense available to them in their Primary, Secondary, APP or PPP set, so it is generally better to go for whichever kind of defense you can build on. There is no need at all to try to add positional defense to a character softcapped to typed damage or vice-versa.
Your Willpower tank has some typed defense, so it is better to build on typed defense. If you are softcapped to typed defense, then positional defense will only help for very, very few situations (toxic or untyped damage).
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It depends on the character. Basically cap the one you can cap. If you can't cap either, or can cap more than one, cap the one that's more useful.
If you can only cap one, cap a position (generally ranged)
You made the right decision for willpower; it's better to have capped to all types but psi instead of below capped for positional.
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Aweosme, question answered, thank you all very much. Now I have a question regarding resistance. How do resistance percentages translate to damage taken or avoided? If an incoming attack, which does 100 points of smashing damage hits me, and I have 70% smashing resitance, will I only take 30 points of damage, or am I over simplifying it?
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That's exactly how it works. It really is that simple.
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Originally Posted by Irish Fury
If an incoming attack, which does 100 points of smashing damage hits me, and I have 70% smashing resitance, will I only take 30 points of damage, or am I over simplifying it?
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Yep.|
Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison
That's exactly how it works. It really is that simple.
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It only gets confusing once you start tossing around -RES debuffs and stuff.
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Not only very hard, impossible.|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
while it is very hard to find a lot of Toxic typed defense
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Last I checked there was no defense flag for toxic attacks. For pure toxic it is positional or nothing.
Yeah. toxic attacks should check fire defense since there's no toxic defense type in the game, but instead they just left it blank, so positional is the only defense.
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It really gets confusing when you first hear the statement: Resistible resistance debuffs are resisted by resistance.
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Originally Posted by Rush_Bolt
Yep.
It only gets confusing once you start tossing around -RES debuffs and stuff. |
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Yo dawg i herd u like resistance, so i put resistance resistance in ur resistance so now you can resists resistance while you resist!
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Originally Posted by Pyro_Master_NA
It really gets confusing when you first hear the statement: Resistible resistance debuffs are resisted by resistance.
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Most Toxic attacks are Ranged/Energy or Melee/Lethal. Of course, there are exceptions (Bane Maces are Melee/Smashing), but if you're softcapped to all three positions or to S/L/F/C/E/N, you'll have roughly the same defense to Toxic attacks either way.
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Originally Posted by Krogoth
Not only very hard, impossible.
Last I checked there was no defense flag for toxic attacks. For pure toxic it is positional or nothing. |
@Roderick
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That may be true for player toxic attacks but for NPCs it is a whole different story.|
Originally Posted by Roderick
Most Toxic attacks are Ranged/Energy or Melee/Lethal. Of course, there are exceptions (Bane Maces are Melee/Smashing), but if you're softcapped to all three positions or to S/L/F/C/E/N, you'll have roughly the same defense to Toxic attacks either way.
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The hyrda and Vahzilok ranged toxic attacks are flagged as only range.
Keep in mind that some things that do not do damage are flagged purely as one type, usually the positional. They are somewhat more rare in the main version of the game, but I run into them all the time in AE missions. Some of the ones I know about (and including a few powers that do do damage):
Entangling Arrow: Ranged only
Flash Arrow, Poison Gas Arrow, Acid Arrow: AoE only
Siphon Speed, Siphon Power, Transference, Transfusion: Ranged only
Sonic Siphon: Ranged only
Seeds of Confusion: AoE only
Volcanic Gasses: AoE only
Fearsome Stare: Negative energy only
Detention Field: Ranged only
All powers in Mind Control: Psi only
Flash: AoE only
Blind, Decieve: Psi only
Spectral Terror's fear power ("Terrify"): Ranged only
Weird ones in Thermal Radiation (was this set originally planned as an "Energy support" set?):
Heat Exhaustion: Checks Ranged and Energy, not Ranged and Fire
Melt Armor: Checks AoE and Energy, not AoE and Fire
Is the Toxic damage from the sewer in Apex TF non-positional? My Shield Tanker got eaten alive on that mission. It seemed like I was hit by every attack.
Edit: I should be more specific. Is the damage from the Hydra tentacles non-positional? I had read that someone posted they were Ranged, but I was softcapped--and they cut through me like a hot knife through butter.
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Was it from actual attacks, or could it have been from a damage aura? If it was from the ranged attacks, I don't have an explanation. If it could have been from a toxic damage aura, I think there might be ... an issue.
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Originally Posted by GI Justice
Is the Toxic damage from the sewer in Apex TF non-positional? My Shield Tanker got eaten alive on that mission. It seemed like I was hit by every attack.
Edit: I should be more specific. Is the damage from the Hydra tentacles non-positional? I had read that someone posted they were Ranged, but I was softcapped--and they cut through me like a hot knife through butter. |
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I really would like to say it was a damage aura, because I was still within the range of a typical ranged attack. I can't be certain, though; the guys I was teamed with acted like it was completely typical, and I didn't check any combat logs. I do know, however, that I could not last long at all up close to the Hydra tentacles--but maybe that's subjective, because I'm used to tanking.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Was it from actual attacks, or could it have been from a damage aura? If it was from the ranged attacks, I don't have an explanation. If it could have been from a toxic damage aura, I think there might be ... an issue.
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Edit: I seem to be making a lot of typing errors, today. I meant that while I was still within the range of a typical ranged attack, I essentially avoided all damage. Perhaps maybe it was an aura; but I can't be certain.
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I believe the tentacles have a damage aura that isn't typed. I don't know if that is intentional or not. Next time I'm in Apex I will try to check it out.
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Originally Posted by GI Justice
I really would like to say it was a damage aura, because I was still within the range of a typical ranged attack. I can't be certain, though; the guys I was teamed with acted like it was completely typical, and I didn't check any combat logs. I do know, however, that I could not last long at all up close to the Hydra tentacles--but maybe that's subjective, because I'm used to tanking.
Edit: I seem to be making a lot of typing errors, today. I meant that while I was still within the range of a typical ranged attack, I essentially avoided all damage. Perhaps maybe it was an aura; but I can't be certain. |
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Not sure about the untyped part, but I'm almost certain it's auto-hit (or at least has the to-hit boosted so high as to essentially be auto-hit). I know my softcapped /SR scrapper doesn't last long in melee with those towers.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I believe the tentacles have a damage aura that isn't typed. I don't know if that is intentional or not. Next time I'm in Apex I will try to check it out.
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Indeed, there is no such thing as Toxic Defense. Only Positional Defense will work versus Toxic.|
Originally Posted by Elfis_Presley
Yeah. toxic attacks should check fire defense since there's no toxic defense type in the game, but instead they just left it blank, so positional is the only defense.
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(Originally, there was no Toxic resist either! 'Invulnerable' tanks died from Vahzilok Vomit all the time)
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I just finished a build for my Willpower tank that has me softcapped to S/L/E/N/F/C but is somewhat lacking in positional defense, which led me to the question: Which is better to pursure the soft cap on, positional or typed defense?