Can overstacking defense be good?

veramis1 · August 2013

I used to have a guardian fighter with 5000 defense until I was defeated by the arcane reservoir, and with feats and AC, had a total of 51% damage reduction. My rationale for stacking defense to the point where it took about 500 defense to raise 1% was that as you get closer to 100%, each point is more valuable. And each point becomes more valuable when paired with a cleric teammate or using the acolyte of kelemvor pet that casts a 10% damage reduction buff.

Just to illustrate, consider the difference between 40% and 50% damage reduction. 40% reduction means you take 60% of incoming damage, but 50% means taking 50% of incoming damage, or 16.66% relatively less damage.

If we were to stand in astral shield, 20% damage reduction on top of our 40% and 50% damage reduction, it becomes 60% vs 70%, or 40% vs 30% damage taken, or 25% relatively less damage.

Throw in foresight which is 11%, will make it 71% vs 80% (1% gone to waste due to defense reduction cap), and it becomes 31% relatively less damage.

Hallowed ground daily gives 30% damage reduction, which by itself without foresight or astral shield can bring the 50% damage reduction guardian to the damage reduction cap.

You could say that hallowed ground and foresight together would bring a 40% damage reduction guardian to the cap and that 50% is overkill, or that you don't need more than 30-35% damage reduction to reach the 80% defense cap after cleric buffs or beat all content in the game. I wouldn't disagree with such arguments, but just wanted to share this information because I think defense is potentially more valuable than some people seem to think. And anyway, it's kind of fun to be hit by fulmino for less than 150 damage after deflecting and the 150 heal from briartwine+astral seal.

dkcandy · August 2013

You should NEVER STACK "Defense" and only get defense from Armor & Set Bonuses.

If you are going to stack defensive stats work on deflection, Regeneration and health.

Deflection gives you a flat 50% damage reduction and regeneration/health give you more effective health.

veramis1 · August 2013

dkcandy, my con/dex cat gf had

5k defense
2.6k deflect (29.5ish% chance)
1400 regen
1200 lifesteal
31k hp
2.2k recovery
1k arp (21ish% ignore damage resistance)
~700 critical strike

I had no defense enchantments or runes, but wore indomitable champion set and CN set, both of which give big defense boosts. I reached soft caps for all skills except crit, but I'll admit HP is better than life steal for a purely defense build, I went life steal because I didn't want to be a total damage sponge with no dps or self healing.

dkcandy · August 2013

Looks like a really good balanced tank build.

caexar · August 2013

I'd take 500 or so off defense and add it into recovery. I'd also swap out your armor penetration for more crit. Most groups will have multiple mitigation effects up on enemies which will render armor penetration far less effective than your crit probabilities in fights.

kaylos29 · August 2013

I am not sure of the exact numbers. Since it takes 2% deflection to get a 1% reduction, as long as more defense reduces your damage by 1%, ie .6%@40%, .5%@50%, for less stat points than 2% deflection, it would be worth more and more consistent than deflection. Since it starts tapering off incredibly fast at around 2200-2400, that number is probably not high.

The way defense increases at such a fast rate and than almost flatlines it irksome to me. Being human probably has something to do with that, as it really diminishes the value of the human racial for 3% more defense. WoW was able to set it up so that even though it diminshed, every point increased your time to live just as much as the last one.

kaylos29 · August 2013

caexar wrote: »

I'd take 500 or so off defense and add it into recovery. I'd also swap out your armor penetration for more crit. Most groups will have multiple mitigation effects up on enemies which will render armor penetration far less effective than your crit probabilities in fights.

All the mitigation abilities I am aware of go into the negatives and stack on top of ArPen. As long as the resistance ignored from ArPen and Dex isn't higher than the resistance of the mob, ArPen is a larger damage increaser than crit. And it it is much cheaper stat allocation wise.

caexar · August 2013

The only creatures in epic dungeons that will have higher than 15% or so mitigation will be the elites and bosses which you most likely will not be tanking anyway as that is the rogues job. g\Going all the way to 21% ArP like he has is overkill for the majority of what he would directly be facing as a tank with current game as the extra 7% or so does nothing to increase damage output at that point since he would exceed the base mitigation stat already. It's wasted points and would be better served increasing his crit probability.
You are right about the overall point effectiveness in scale but aren't taking likely adversary content into consideration.

veramis1 · August 2013

I agree my gf had too much defense caexar, but I just wanted to illustrate that each percent in damage reduction becomes more valuable the more you have, and high defense can synergize with cleric teammate or acolyte of kelemvor pet buffs. The way game mechanics are I think power stacking conquerors are still superior, but if someone decides to make a turtle gf, they should keep in mind defense isn't all that bad.

Caexar, I read that t2 trash mobs have damage reduction of high 10's to low 20's, and a bit higher in t2.5. The way I play my turtle gf, I tank everything in a boss fight baby. Spamming iron warrior and enforced threat, coupled with indomitable champion armor set shield bonus and shield master passive, keeps my shield meter up very often. Admittedly I do terrible damage, but it keeps bad public teams alive

which was what my gf was built for.

vidfinnx · August 2013

hey would you mind sharing your gateway or equipment setup, i been trying to achieve a balance stat setup like that on the more tanky side, its what im looking for

curmuring · August 2013

Socketing HP is waaay better that defense. All defensive sockets should have radiant enchantments in them, except perhaps your companion like the Stone.

Say you have 45% damage reduction and 20% deflection, you get (1.00-0.20)*30,000/(1.00-0.45)+0.20*30,000*2/(1+0.45)=52,000 effective HP. Using this formula you get that 1 point of hp will add about 1.7 effective HP.

If you check the marginal value of 1 point of defense, it will again be about 1.7. But remember, in an enchantment, you get about 4x as many HP than you do defense with an equivalent defense enchantment.

veramis1 · August 2013

vidfinnx wrote: »

hey would you mind sharing your gateway or equipment setup, i been trying to achieve a balance stat setup like that on the more tanky side, its what im looking for

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?472651-Buffbot-Tactician-Turtle-Build-PVE&p=5891011#post5891011

frarii · August 2013

And how do you manage holding agro, because all the defense is USELESS if the mobs go attack the wizards, are you able to get all the monstars on you on MC/CN when there is a wizard with GPF? do the monstars attack the rogue/gwf if they get in the middle of the fight? if any of the answers to this questions is "yes" or even "sometimes it happens" your build is USELESS!

veramis1 · August 2013

Frarii, I ran several mc's where I took 3.5x+ more damage than next highest damage taker, never less than 3x, and much of the damage other teammates take are from red aoe's. By focusing on the boss, rogues and gwf's never take aggro, but for any gf build there's no way you can hold aggro of the boss and all the spawns at all times, if only because many mobs just get pushed around by teammates and will attack closest so I don't get your argument.

frarii · August 2013

that's what i was asking, then is cool, if you can protect your party, you're doing it perfect, i tried that kind of build when started the open beta, and i was unable to protect the clerics (then they got insane agro for healing before the first big patching) so i switched from protector to tactician first, with the same problem and to conqueror after that, and with conqueror i just was able to do it before patch and after patch, and stood as conqueror since then, i guess i can test a more tanky build again, but for my game style i feel conqueror is more suited, i will test the build in the preview server though, cuz in live im kind of short of funds now. TY for answer.

veramis1 · August 2013

I am of the opinion that conquerors are superior, my particular build was just an experiment specifically made for public t2 games before they ruined dungeon delves chest. Nevertheless I thought the information I provided about damage reduction may be useful for people trying to make turtles, or maybe in the future if they buff protector and tactician.

trollgre · August 2013

mark target for better aggro
builds more threat when attacking marked monster
trample the fallen feat helps too and it adds damage

dont really need potent challenge its a waste of points imo

you dont need to spam enforced threat (use it only if your DC/CW are getting mobbed)

dkcandy · August 2013

trollgre wrote: »

mark target for better aggro
builds more threat when attacking marked monster
trample the fallen feat helps too and it adds damage

dont really need potent challenge its a waste of points imo

you dont need to spam enforced threat (use it only if your DC/CW are getting mobbed)

I'm sorry but I disagree with most of what you are saying:

Marking builds no threat unless you are using Enchants Threat Passive.

Marking a target and striking it according to tooltip doubles the threat gained. But after testing Mark appears to have little to no threat gain unless using enhanced mark passive even striking creatures.

Potent Challenge is the BEST way to gain threat as it puts a base amount of threat gain on each and every attack.

This was notable when I tested this back during BETA and even wrote a very nice guide on threat mechanic's back then before the threat patch.

All you need to tank in NW is Potent Challenge and if you still are having issues then you need to use Enhanced Mark and mark targets.

The only reason you mark targets now should be to add the damage increase.

trollgre · August 2013

dkcandy wrote: »

I'm sorry but I disagree with most of what you are saying:

Marking builds no threat unless you are using Enchants Threat Passive.

Marking a target and striking it according to tooltip doubles the threat gained. But after testing Mark appears to have little to no threat gain unless using enhanced mark passive even striking creatures.

Potent Challenge is the BEST way to gain threat as it puts a base amount of threat gain on each and every attack.

This was notable when I tested this back during BETA and even wrote a very nice guide on threat mechanic's back then before the threat patch.

All you need to tank in NW is Potent Challenge and if you still are having issues then you need to use Enhanced Mark and mark targets.

The only reason you mark targets now should be to add the damage increase.

only reason to mark is for damage?
mark them all the time for better aggro
if you have daunting challenge its 10% less damage for your party

with or without potent challenge you can lure mobs from your party easily i even tried build with no trample feat dont have any problem luring mobs away from others

mark is useless

Can overstacking defense be good?

Comments