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Originally Posted by Direwolf21
Ok, I read this first, but I'm still not totally clear, and I think I just needed to write all this out, because after I did, it started making sense.
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Defense So I have a brandy dandy new Ice Defense, and his single target buffs are Defense against S/L/Melee, then E/N/Rng/AOE. His AoE buff is a stealth + Melee/Rng/AOE defense. So lets say, for arguement sake, that I'm buffing someone with 25% S/L/Melee from his single target, and 5% Melee/Range/AOE from my AOE buff. So his totals are: 25% Smashing/Lethal 30% Melee 5% Range, AOE Correct? Now, someone punches him. Thats tagged with a smashing damage type, and melee positional type. His 'Defense' will be calculated as 30%, since it uses the highest one. It will NOT be 55%, because the 'Smashing' and 'Melee' two don't stack. Right?  .Also, I guess theres no difference in enhancement choices, because +defense buffs everything (Positional vs. Typed) the same. |
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Originally Posted by Finduilas
The single most important criteria for determining the sort of defense bonuses to look for is what, if any, kind of defense your primary has already; IIRC all but three tank primaries have at least some defense of one kind or another.
Assuming that you're playing a set that has no inherent defense, or has some to both typed and positional defense, (which is true of Dark's Cloak of Darkness) there are a couple of advantages to typed defense. One is that S/L damage is a much larger proportion of the total damage in the game than melee. So if you can only or are only going to increase one position or pair of types, then S/L will be more worthwhile. Also, typed defense bonuses like S/L as a rule require fewer enhancements in a set; 3-4 is most common compared to 5 or 6 for positional bonuses. On the other hand, if you can get melee/ranged/AoE to the soft-cap, it will cover the vast majority of attacks in the game. Soft-capping S/L/E/NE/F/C defense will still leave you vulnerable to pure Psi and Toxic attacks. Psi and Toxic damage are very rare, but still, one advantage of positional defense is that most of those attacks will be covered. Hope that helps! EDIT: Regarding the problem you're having with defense bonuses in Mid's; most likely you've hit the "rule of 5" for 3.75% bonuses. Check the "Sets and Bonuses" window to be sure. If that's not it, post your build and we can probably figure out what's causing it. |
here is some things i found on the boards that might help. Keep in mind once you hit the i20 trials the caps go up to some stupid number like 60-70%. But up until then 45% will get you by for anybody but tanking Lord Recluse and such. I know I tossed 45% out there casually, but it's a tough number, and used to be the gold standard.
Well for one thing, it's the Kinetic Combat sets that are particularly expensive, and that's because they're damn good for S/L def and everyone gets melee attacks and can use them. IME the other sets that offer typed def aren't any more expensive than sets offering positional def, and you usually need fewer of them.
But basically, there are two reasons why I'd go with typed def over positional, and the first one is just that it does take fewer slots to get the bonuses. For instance, it takes 5 slots of Scirocco's Dervish to get 3.13% AoE defense, and 3 of Aegis for the same amount of F/C defense. Four slots of Kinetic Combat for 3.75% S/L defense, and 6 slots of Touch of Death for that much melee defense.
That means you have a lot more flexibility in slotting. With sets, you can fully slot an attack with 5 slots if you're not locked in to using 6 slots to get a particular bonus. With typed defense, often that 6th slot can be used for something else. You can also shore up weaknesses in a set, for instance, making sure an attack that's 3-slotted with Eradication has enough end reduction. Six-slotting Obliteration for the Melee def bonus won't give you that option. And you can also mix and match sets for even more bonuses--for instance, Char and other ranged attacks that take Hold sets can be 3 slotted with Thunderstrike and 2 slotted with Gaze of the Basilisk for a total of 5% E/NE def in one attack.
The other reason is that if you slot for the most common damage types you can increase your survivability significantly without having to slot for all types. The last estimate I've seen was that around 86% of attacks have some S/L or E/NE damage. Picking two positional defense types and slotting for them is not going to give you near that level of coverage.
That's why I like typed defense, anyway. Hope that helps!
My Characters
Knight Court--A CoH Story Complete 2/3/2012
Well, heck, BC, if I'd known you'd quote my previous post, I wouldn't have bothered to type all that stuff up again. 
My Characters
Knight Court--A CoH Story Complete 2/3/2012
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It depends what your tanker is good at. WP for example gets toggle power buffs to typed defense. This means building up your typed defense will softcap you much easier then building up your positional.|
Originally Posted by MidnightBlue
So I am slowly approaching that time to start slotting some additional Tankers. First one is an Ice/Ice but I have a Willpower/Mace and Elec/Elec quietly approaching 50. As slotting defense is still very effective for survival I have been looking at that for each of these as well. I am sure I should be looking at typed for the Willpower if only because of the typed defense in Heightened Senses but the Elec brings a question that goes beyond just Tankers as well.
I see lots of people pushing typed over positional for most instances. Typed does seem somewhat easier to achieve but it also seems like it requires weaker IOs that cost astronomically more influence. Can someone please explain the benefits to each? I've been at this a long time and this is the first time I'm actually having to look at this for something, all of my other slotted up guys had one or the other before I started (Ice, SR, and guys with Def based APP armors). I figure the Tankers are who to go to for this kind of information and that this will be good if I ever make another set that has no inherent defenses. Thanks for the feedback! |
As to typed defense over positional... It's easier, on slots required from the sets, in general, to softcap type defense.
example - 4 parts of Kin Combat will give you 3.75 s/l defense. While you'll need 6 parts of Touch of Death to get 3.75 melee defense.
Overall melee/ranged/aoe defense is better to have softcapped, however, unless your def set gives you those types of defenses you'll never have the slots available for you to softcap those, while you probably could come pretty close, easily, without gimping your build if you use typed defensive IOs
as to what is better, all things being equal-
your highest def number, for type or position on the incoming attack is always used. SO a punch which is smashing damage will check your smashing def and your melee defense, then take the highest as your defense number. An attack from an EN blaster will have smash and energy as it's attack components, and it's damage type will be ranged, so it will check all 3 (smash, energy, ranged) then take the highest value as your defense against the attack. The reason why ranged/melee/aoe is in general better (if they're an option to you) it because of untyped damage sources like Toxic. Toxic attacks don't have a type defense, as a result it will only take the positional value. Furthermore, boosting your Psy type defense is not easy; as a result, you'll probably never be able to softcap it unless your def set gives you specific def against it (like WP)
IMO, positional is only good if you build for all 3 positions. The exception are hover blasters with ranged defense. Say you build for melee defense on your elec/ tank. While you won't get hit by any and all melee attacks, you'll still get pelted with range and aoe.
Build for typed defense covers all attacks of that type - from any position. So you have S/L defense, which makes checks against all attacks (melee/range/aoe) that have a smash or lethal component to them.
Rule of thumb: build to your sets' strengths. Willpower, for example, already has typed defense like Ice Armor. With IOs you build on top of that and attempt to fill in the gaps. Aside from hover blasters mentioned earlier, you should really only build positional defense if you already have some from your powersets (like SR NIN SD).
Slightly unrelated. S/L defense is popular for squishies because most can get a S/L defense toggle from their epic power pools.
SG: Guadians of Paragon - VG: Paragon's Darkness
The Usual Suspects: Fimboolvetr (Icer Tank), Tsukiyomi (Mind/Psi/Ice Dom), Smiting Dragon (Dm/Sr Scrap), Widow Mortis (NW)
Up and Comers: Ameterasu (Km/Reg Scrap), Arrhymian (Elec/Nin Stalk), TDMKII (Bot/Traps MM)
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s/l typed defense is also popular because something silly like 70-80% of all attacks from mobs in the game have a s/l component. soft-capping that makes you pretty tough from everything.
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Originally Posted by Infini
Slightly unrelated. S/L defense is popular for squishies because most can get a S/L defense toggle from their epic power pools.
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So I am slowly approaching that time to start slotting some additional Tankers. First one is an Ice/Ice but I have a Willpower/Mace and Elec/Elec quietly approaching 50. As slotting defense is still very effective for survival I have been looking at that for each of these as well. I am sure I should be looking at typed for the Willpower if only because of the typed defense in Heightened Senses but the Elec brings a question that goes beyond just Tankers as well.
I see lots of people pushing typed over positional for most instances. Typed does seem somewhat easier to achieve but it also seems like it requires weaker IOs that cost astronomically more influence. Can someone please explain the benefits to each? I've been at this a long time and this is the first time I'm actually having to look at this for something, all of my other slotted up guys had one or the other before I started (Ice, SR, and guys with Def based APP armors). I figure the Tankers are who to go to for this kind of information and that this will be good if I ever make another set that has no inherent defenses. Thanks for the feedback!