Defense vs. Deflection

arinathos · January 2014

Hey everyone!
Trying to spec my HR with a Brutal Hunter T1 set for now. Looking to bump up defensive stats after crit and arpen softcaps.

Anyone know whether defense gives more bang for the buck than deflection when it comes to living longer, or is it the other way around? I play primarily PvE, with the occasional foray into PvP when I succumb to peer pressure from my guild.

Thanks!

shadow5930 · January 2014

Defense is a constant stat. That said, anyone else's arp reduces it. So in terms of PVP, if you have over 30% then you'll actually cut into the debuffs people do. If you don't, then it's not as important.

Deflect is a % chance to happen. If you have a 33% deflect, then 1 in 3 attacks, approximately, will be cut in half. Note, not stopped, just cut in half. Forest meditation currently is bugged so you either get 100% deflect or CC immunity. With the 100% deflect it's half damage coming in while you heal. you can boost deflect severity a bit, however you won't get much over half.

That said, which is better? From my own play, I have found it's critical to have an even balance of everything. Also.. there's no real caps for PVP. More arp means you get through more of their DR. More crit, more hits.. it's not like PVE.

As for the PVE side? Guess it probably depends on how well you can avoid stuff. Personally I only PVP.

kaylos29 · January 2014

I have been experimenting with high defense in pvp using the Warden's gear of protection. It started with a nature tank experiment that didn't quite work since in the end I was playing like a combat HR without the bonus damage and marginal group buffs. I switched to combat with the same set-up and have been pleased with the results. I sit around 33% DR and combined with lone wolf and boar's hide, I can reduce quite a bit of damage in bursts.

33%+25%+10% puts me at up to 68% damage reduction at range, at least for the first hit. ArPen does work against Lone Wolf, so boosting your base DR helps quite a bit. Nothing like a TR opening on me with a LB from stealth and barely moving my 30K health. I am working on my Tier 2 PvP set and the eventual goal is a base of 35% damage reduction.

voltomey · January 2014

I have my T2 master pred but stats will be lowered at little on test to add tenacity also tenacity cancels out at least 10% of Lone wolf then the armor pen from the gear of the opponent.Deflection in my opinion will still win out because nothing can touch it still correct me if i am wrong

kaylos29 · January 2014

What do you mean cancels out 10% of lone wolf? Not sure how tenacity would affect your bonus DR? With ArPen resist, I can see damage reduction becoming mroe important. Full tenacity gives -14% ArPen, so with 35%+lone wolf 25%+10% boar's hide sitting at 70%, even 40% arpen would only reduce that to 44% damage reduction. Kind of nice. I have been playing with the numbers and to get 35% with 9 AC would take about 2550 defense. My current gear only puts me about 170 defense off that number, but going to Tier 2 I would actually lose 406 defense. Would gain some back from weapons, which will be only way to get full tenacity anyways on preview.

edit: to clarify, based on your stats listed on your guide, Tier 2 only loses about 40-50 points of defense, so not a huge loss in those regards.

voltomey · January 2014

Let me re word that Deflection will still be miles better then defence to stack cause nothing can touch deflection like DR can be sliced though by having armor pen your biggest bane will be other hunter ranger cause the amount of Armor pen we can achieve is amazing. Armor pen will not touch Deflection severity as long as you have at least a 30% to 40% deflection chance you will be fine.

kaylos29 · January 2014

I would agree to a point. You can get it to points where even 40% doesn't knock out your damage reduction. Only GWFs and HRs can hit that number without great sacrifices to other stats. It has worked pretty effectively for me in pvp even with low deflection. Defelction is rng survival, making you unkillable at times, and at others doing barely anything for you.

Having high DR as HR definietly doesn;t mean you can face tank since lone wolf and boar's hide both rely on not getting ganged up on, especially at close range. But combined with avoidance, can add to survivability a lot. My only bane so far has been good GWFs, but they are overpowered. I should know, I have a high level GWF.

Defelction is good, but I think people tend to overrate it in some situations.

voltomey · January 2014

kaylos29 wrote: »

I would agree to a point. You can get it to points where even 40% doesn't knock out your damage reduction. Only GWFs and HRs can hit that number without great sacrifices to other stats. It has worked pretty effectively for me in pvp even with low deflection. Defelction is rng survival, making you unkillable at times, and at others doing barely anything for you.

Having high DR as HR definietly doesn;t mean you can face tank since lone wolf and boar's hide both rely on not getting ganged up on, especially at close range. But combined with avoidance, can add to survivability a lot. My only bane so far has been good GWFs, but they are overpowered. I should know, I have a high level GWF.

Defelction is good, but I think people tend to overrate it in some situations.

Deflection is fundamentally better for Combat HR as the DR from Lone wolf will fall off the more opponents surround you i am a combat ranger not a ranged spec i would say for ranged HR DR is better cause you can keep your distance and Lone wolf will give you the added mitigation. Deflection halve the incoming dmg you take then your current DR will reduce that dmg even if deflection as at a chance i will still take it over just having plain High DR any day. I also use fey thistle so not having high deflection will cripple my build And with the changes to PvP i believe people will be stacking a lot more armor pen then usual.

kaylos29 · January 2014

I hear what you are saying and I understand how deflection can help you survive large bursts. I also understand how deflection never reduces the damage you could potentially take. There are reasons the best PvP GWFs are all Sentinels, but a large portion of it is the added 5 AC and 20% DR bonus to the defense stat. Having less than 2500 defense as a GWF is a big no no. Even in the realm of high ArPen numbers, having 55-57% DR is way better than the 37-44% without armor specialization a non-sentinel has.

Combat already has 10% base deflect + 3% feat + most likley 7% from ability score with campfire. 20% base. How much deflect does it take to get 40%? What other stats will you be sacrificing for it? Even with low deflect, I will be around 30%. Not too shabby a number for low deflect. Even at 50% you are playing with the luck gods relying on it for survival.

The tenacity ArPen resist may mean people will stack more ArPen, but they will never totally overcome the 14% ArPen loss. A flat DR boost is basically what it will be which will be a buff to stacking a solid amount of DR. DR goes up rapidly until about 2500 before it really starts leveling off just as rapidly. 2500 is an achievable number without sacrificing too many other stats.

All I really know is that it has worked incredibly effectively in PvP. Way better than I would have anticipated. I rarely get hit for large numbers. Now I also stack health, so that reduced damage is just that much more effective for my survival.

voltomey · January 2014

kaylos29 wrote: »

I hear what you are saying and I understand how deflection can help you survive large bursts. I also understand how deflection never reduces the damage you could potentially take. There are reasons the best PvP GWFs are all Sentinels, but a large portion of it is the added 5 AC and 20% DR bonus to the defense stat. Having less than 2500 defense as a GWF is a big no no. Even in the realm of high ArPen numbers, having 55-57% DR is way better than the 37-44% without armor specialization a non-sentinel has.

Combat already has 10% base deflect + 3% feat + most likley 7% from ability score with campfire. 20% base. How much deflect does it take to get 40%? What other stats will you be sacrificing for it? Even with low deflect, I will be around 30%. Not too shabby a number for low deflect. Even at 50% you are playing with the luck gods relying on it for survival.

The tenacity ArPen resist may mean people will stack more ArPen, but they will never totally overcome the 14% ArPen loss. A flat DR boost is basically what it will be which will be a buff to stacking a solid amount of DR. DR goes up rapidly until about 2500 before it really starts leveling off just as rapidly. 2500 is an achievable number without sacrificing too many other stats.

All I really know is that it has worked incredibly effectively in PvP. Way better than I would have anticipated. I rarely get hit for large numbers. Now I also stack health, so that reduced damage is just that much more effective for my survival.

Your Not taking things like plague fire into account with minimal Plague fire ther taking 15% from your mitigation right there 45% with greater. Terror enchantment will break your DR as well and a CW's Long range debuffs from CoI with CoI and Greater PF thats 60% of your resistance gone in that instance right there deflection and regen will save you better then straight DR cause Deflection cant be touched period even if its just a chance its still better then relying heavily on DR which can be cut through like butter with some trait like student of the sword GWF and skills like CoI CW.

kaylos29 · January 2014

I have had no issue with plaguefire. I believe it doesn't even work like the description. Student of the Sword says it removes 45% defense as well. But it doesn't. I simply adds 15% percent damage to the target no matter what the person's DR is. So if the person's DR is 0%, they take 115% more damage. If the person's Dr is 50%, they take 57.5% more damage, exactly 50% more damage. How do I know, I was able to test it when it was bugged to debuff yourself when restoring strike crits debuffed you as well.

I am 90% sure Plaguefire works the same way, so DR is still good against it. 9% more damage damage, period.

I have not had anyone cut through it like butter on my GWF, GF, or HR and if Plaguefire worked the way you suggest, all that DR would be useless on those as well. Any DR beyond your opponents ArPen can't be touched either and it does reduce the damage you could potentially take, unlike deflect.

I am not totally downplaying deflect, but it isn't as good as you are making it out to be. Deflect and HPs is the only defense for TRs and CWs because they cannot get thier base Defense high enough to overcome the ArPen most PvP players have. Yet GFs and GWFs rely on DR because they can get it high enough to get a use out of it. That is my point, HRs with lone wolf can get it high enough to get use out of it. Of course lone wolf dissappears when out numbered at close range. You shouldn't be rushing in like a GWF anyways. Plenty of offensive GF are pretty squishy too and rolling into the fray of 3-4 people alone like a GWF is death for them as well.

voltomey · January 2014

kaylos29 wrote: »

I have had no issue with plaguefire. I believe it doesn't even work like the description. Student of the Sword says it removes 45% defense as well. But it doesn't. I simply adds 15% percent damage to the target no matter what the person's DR is. So if the person's DR is 0%, they take 115% more damage. If the person's Dr is 50%, they take 57.5% more damage, exactly 50% more damage. How do I know, I was able to test it when it was bugged to debuff yourself when restoring strike crits debuffed you as well.

I am 90% sure Plaguefire works the same way, so DR is still good against it. 9% more damage damage, period.

I have not had anyone cut through it like butter on my GWF, GF, or HR and if Plaguefire worked the way you suggest, all that DR would be useless on those as well. Any DR beyond your opponents ArPen can't be touched either and it does reduce the damage you could potentially take, unlike deflect.

I am not totally downplaying deflect, but it isn't as good as you are making it out to be. Deflect and HPs is the only defense for TRs and CWs because they cannot get thier base Defense high enough to overcome the ArPen most PvP players have. Yet GFs and GWFs rely on DR because they can get it high enough to get a use out of it. That is my point, HRs with lone wolf can get it high enough to get use out of it. Of course lone wolf dissappears when out numbered at close range. You shouldn't be rushing in like a GWF anyways. Plenty of offensive GF are pretty squishy too and rolling into the fray of 3-4 people alone like a GWF is death for them as well.

Dmg mitigation i believe is capped at 80% you can hit 80% mitigation with With a perfect negation enchantment Lonewolf and just having a base 30% dmg resistance if you want to be cheap you can use a normal negation and use boar's hide to make up the other 10% meaning stacking defense beyond 30% dmg resistance is a waste imho if you run negation All of this mitigation can be delt with by skills armor pen PF ect. Anyway Every 20% deflect chance is like adding 10% more mitigation that can't be touched By armor pen PF or any thing mentioned in previous post Also Deflection is not affected by the 80% Damage Resistance cap mentioned above and as such can increase total mitigation to 90% or more on deflected attacks.

So in short Deflection is like adding a extra layer of Mitigation unaffected by mitigation lowing effects onto your toon this is the reason GWF sentinels are so feared is not because of there DR if it was just that my CW would have no problem its cause they deflect 40% or more of my spells that makes them hard to kill along with the high amount of regen they stack and the healing they get from ther restoring strike encounter.

voltomey · January 2014

Any way with everyone getting a extra 10% dmg resistance in PvP having a 30% base will be like having 40% base meaning lone wolf will make that a effective 65% and 30% Base is easy to get i would rather stack HP or deflection beyond that. This and the fact Tenacity itself will give you at least 10% or more dmg resistance making actually stacking defense as a stats rather useless on HR if that patch comes though. So lets see there giving us 10% more resistance also tenacity itself will give use more dmg resistance so right there thats at least 20% more more resistance being handed out on a silver plate.

kaylos29 · January 2014

You are correct that the mitigation cap is 80%, however every % past 80% still counts against ArPen. That is why you can still burn down PvE GWFs in full unstoppable with high penetration, but full defensive GWFs not so much. My GWF has 105% resistance in a full bar unstoppable which even 40% ArPen will only reduce to 65%. A PvE GWF with 37% resistance would only have 87% and get reduced to 47%.

I understand how deflect works. My point is with diminishing returns, 20% deflection from the deflect stat is expensive.

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?340162-GF-Statistical-Data-%28Avoiding-Diminishing-Returns%29

A good bit over 3000 points for 20% while just under 1200 gets you 10%. This graph was made GFs early on, but I have found it holds for every class. You will notice the defense graph rises sharply before then reducing sharply. Up to 1500, it is really, really cheap making 1500 a really solid amount. Going to 2500 nets you about 7% which puts it about on par with other stats, but every 1% damage reduction is more more than the last when it comes to expected life or another way of putting it, effective HPs. After 2500, it starts getting expensive.

Theory crafting is nice, but of course it all matters is what happens in practice. Deflect was good in practice because it could save you from large bursts, but it could also fail you. For a TR or CW, it is their only defense. A DC can stack their resistance with Astral Shield and Foresight if they spec that way, so many of them actually did raise their base resistance so that extra resistance would help against ArPen. GFs come with a lot of defense regardless of the gear set they use, so resistance is already high. DR is so high after 3500, no point in stacking it. So they stack deflect for survival builds. Offensive builds of GFs believe it or not, do not stack Deflect in large amounts.

Effective GWFs insure they have a mixture of Defense/Deflect/Regen. That was always easy mod 1, because Titan's/Imposing Scrapper comes with a ton of Defense/Deflect/Regen/Lifesteal. Going with offensive armor was pointless because mod 1 GWFs didn;t have a lot of damage without Tenebrous. Since Mod 2 up GWF burst damage a ton, many are dropping 2 pc imposing for other offensive peices and Bravery (8% deflect) for Trample the Fallen. Yet they still have a ton of survival. Why? High defense stats, High HPs, High Regen, and a modicum of Deflect, much less than the 40% we used to run. More like 20-25%. My GWF only has 20% deflect and I survive jsut fine thank you, even in high level premades.

This brings me back to HRs. Deflect is important? Yes. But at 25-30%, you might deflect all or none of the attacks, at 40% you might deflect all or none of the attacks. The Master Predator set doesn't give much deflect, so to stack levels to 40%, you will be sacrificing defense in pretty large numbers since only Warden of Protection and Master Predator gear give it in any appreciable amounts. That is fine because you can still build a survivable build without a ton of defense, but defense is another route that can be effective and will only be more effective if the current working of tenacity goes through. A flat resistance bonus heavily favors defense, since each % point is more effective than the last.

kaylos29 · January 2014

voltomey wrote: »

Any way with everyone getting a extra 10% dmg resistance in PvP having a 30% base will be like having 40% base meaning lone wolf will make that a effective 65% and 30% Base is easy to get i would rather stack HP or deflection beyond that. This and the fact Tenacity itself will give you at least 10% or more dmg resistance making actually stacking defense as a stats rather useless on HR if that patch comes though. So lets see there giving us 10% more resistance also tenacity itself will give use more dmg resistance so right there thats at least 20% more more resistance being handed out on a silver plate.

My understanding is that PvP resist does not work like that. I have not tested it because I was struggling to find time to. But you can check the preview forums where someone posted that the devs said it did not work like that. A flat resistance bonus would be ridiculous for GF and GWFs. Can you say 72% base mitigation in pvp gear on test? I can almost guarantee it won't work that way. It would actually be more effective to stack defense in that scenario. 65% resistance gives 285% more effective HPs. 75% would give 400% more effective HPs.

No, I am quite confident it is multiplicative, meaning that everyone gets damage reduced by 20% regardless. So a GF with 50% would only effectively have 60%, while 0% would have effectively 20% more.

scoutmasterj · January 2014

The OP was mostly concerned with PVE, but this has mostly been about PVP. How about for a PVE ranged HR, which is better defense or deflect? I've been under the impression that defense it better. I mostly stay out of the way, but I guess I'm just trying to protect against that big one-shot from a epic Dungeon boss. (When I don't have my fox cunning dodge up). but perhaps I'm wrong and should be doing deflect.

kaylos29 · January 2014

Fraid I don't have enough experience in pve. But 1500 defense is cheap and would give a solid damage reduction without eating into diminishing returns. Doubt you would be running lone wolf in pve, but I dunno.

hiddenfate · January 2014

I prefer to stack deflect as opposed to defense. It can't be pierced by armor penetration and it proc's fey thistle (which means you instantly hit your attacker for 400 damage). Kinda nice to have a situation where you're under the CC of a CW and they're still taking damage.

Defense vs. Deflection

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