Attacks can have one of three positions they come from: Melee, Ranged, and Area Of Effect. Melee attacks and Ranged attacks are fairly obvious. Area Of Effect is stuff like fireballs, rocket launchers, and shotguns.
This is not a given, mind you, because it's possible that there may be cones out there that count as melee or ranged, but I can't think of any off-hand.
It would've clicked with you if it said AoE defense. 
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Think of Defense as having two overlapping systems. One system is TYPED. Smash/Lethal almost always go together, then there is Fire/Cold, and Energy/Negative Energy. Psi and Toxic are often harder to find. And there are a small number of attacks that are UNTYPED. Some kinds of armors and IOs focus on typed Defense, like Ice and Energy Armor, Stone and Invulnerability.
The other system is POSITIONAL Defense. Those are Melee, Ranged and Area of Effect (AoE). AoE Defense includes Cones, PB AoE attacks and Targetted AoE Attacks -- any kind of attack that would take either kind of AoE damage enhancement. Types of armor and other IO sets that focus more on Postional defense include Shield and Super Reflexes. There are a very small number of attacks that have no positional componant -- most of these are Psi damage.
The two systems overlap. A sword attack will generally be Lethal type and Melee position. An Arrow will by Lethal type but Ranged position. If you are attacked by a foe with a club, the game will look at your Smashing Defense and your Melee Defense, pick the higher one and calculate your chance of being hit based upon that higher Defense. If you are attacked by Rain of Arrows, the game will look at your Lethal Defense and your AoE Defense and pick the higher. There are a LOT of attacks in the game that have a component of Smashing or Lethal damage, which is why S/L defense is popular.
Most IO sets that have defense will reflect this overlap. Sets that provide S/L Defense will also provide about half that much Melee defense. Sets that provide Ranged Defense will provide half that much Energy/Negative Energy Defense. And AoE defense sets provide half as much Fire/Cold Defense. And the reverse is true for the IO sets that provide higher Typed Defense.
So your Area Defense is positional defense, which is in a different sytem as typed defense.
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By an UNTYPED attack you mean an attack that has no defense tags, yes? Currently there is no defense tag called Untyped. There is base defense, which defends against all attacks requiring a tohit roll regardless of their defense tags, but as far as i know only Personal Force Field and the veteran buff pets give base defense. Toxic defense is in the game engine, but no defenses currently in game grant toxic defense.|
Originally Posted by Local_Man
Think of Defense as having two overlapping systems. One system is TYPED. Smash/Lethal almost always go together, then there is Fire/Cold, and Energy/Negative Energy. Psi and Toxic are often harder to find. And there are a small number of attacks that are UNTYPED.
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It's also worth noting that the damage type(s) of an attack has no direct connection to the defense tags it has. That's at the whim of the attack's designer. Singularity's attacks do smashing damage, but have no defense tags at all.
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Yes, that's correct. The classic example of untyped damage is Hamidon and his Mitos; no defense or resistance applies to those attacks, they go directly to your hit points and they also tend to be autohit.
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Originally Posted by Schismatrix
By an UNTYPED attack you mean an attack that has no defense tags, yes? Currently there is no defense tag called Untyped. There is base defense, which defends against all attacks requiring a tohit roll regardless of their defense tags, but as far as i know only Personal Force Field and the veteran buff pets give base defense. Toxic defense is in the game engine, but no defenses currently in game grant toxic defense.
It's also worth noting that the damage type(s) of an attack has no direct connection to the defense tags it has. That's at the whim of the attack's designer. Singularity's attacks do smashing damage, but have no defense tags at all. |
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Toxic is?|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
By an UNTYPED attack you mean an attack that has no defense tags, yes? Currently there is no defense tag called Untyped. There is base defense, which defends against all attacks requiring a tohit roll regardless of their defense tags, but as far as i know only Personal Force Field and the veteran buff pets give base defense. Toxic defense is in the game engine, but no defenses currently in game grant toxic defense.
It's also worth noting that the damage type(s) of an attack has no direct connection to the defense tags it has. That's at the whim of the attack's designer. Singularity's attacks do smashing damage, but have no defense tags at all. |
It's in as a damage type, yes (and thus resistance) but last I heard they didn't want to deal with adding it in as an attack vector because it would be a lot of work.
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To the OP : If you right click on a power icon and choose "Info" it will show an info box (also you can click on a link, or check the power out at either paragonwiki.com or City of Data at Red Tomax, linked to in both the wiki and cohtitan.com). Under the Details tab, it will list info - in the middle section it will list attack tag.
Here is Fireball for example :
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PBAOE and Cone close attacks aren't very well standardized as far as their vectors. Take spines for an example: Spineburst and Quills have an AoE vector, but Ripper (a cone) has a melee vector. Whirling axe from the Battle Axe set is a PBAOE much like Spineburst (though with a small area) but it has a melee vector. It may be that all meleecones have a melee vector (I looked a bit and didn't find an exception.) It may be that PBAOE's are tagged as aoe or melee depending on the the size of the sphere involved with small areas like Whirling Axe or Whirling Hands being tagged as melee and larger spheres like Spineburst or Footstomp being tagged as AOE.
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Originally Posted by MechaCrash
Attacks can have one of three positions they come from: Melee, Ranged, and Area Of Effect. Melee attacks and Ranged attacks are fairly obvious. Area Of Effect is stuff like fireballs, rocket launchers, and shotguns.
This is not a given, mind you, because it's possible that there may be cones out there that count as melee or ranged, but I can't think of any off-hand. |
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Hello all.
Considering that I have been using IOs since they first rolled out I feel stupid for having to ask this question..but here goes.
What powers does "area effect" defense help defend against?
To clarify what I am after..I know Smashing/Lethal defends against sword damage and fistcuffs, range protects against portions of Psionic damage, and I think it also helps protect you from sappers, but I can't figure out area defense.
I am asking because (1) I really don't know and would like to, and (2) Siphon Insight gives 3.77% as it's sixth bonus and I would like to know if that is worth slotting..I have other area effect defense bonuses it could stack with.
Thanks so much.
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