A few weeks ago I noticed that for tank augments and artifacts there were no defense stat. Which I found to be extremely weird to say the least, that lead me to going over to my stats and reading defense. Which really didn’t have much to say, at this point I feel defense isn’t very important at least not as important as it should be. Defense should be the MAIN tank stat right next to health not dominance. When I read defense I expected it to go into detail and break itself down like every other stat does. I don’t even know how much defense is a lot of defense or how much less damage I’m actually taking as a result of my defense and much more. I feel the same for bosses as well, which leads me into promoting a new stat idea for dps (penetration). Back on defense, I ultimately feel that this stat is the most irrelevant tank stat and it just shouldn’t be that way especially since all the tank powersets have some sort of defense mechanic or if you earth or ice you completely live on your defense. I know I didn’t say all this in the best possible way but I lm confident in the fact that the point of this thread will be understood.
I'm sure others can go into better detail, but the simple answer is that Defense in handled in gear. Get better gear, your defense goes up. Every tank has a different way to mitigate damage, and as such will focus on certain stats to increase their survivability.
If you go to where it lists your abilities, you will find a detailed description of your Tank's defense mechanic. Each tank powerset has it's own unique defense mechanic.
I know that each tank power has its own mechanics for defense but at no point does the game properly explain defense, at no point does defense actually feel incredibly important as tank.What I want is for defense to be explained and I want it to be important for tank there isn’t even a way for a tank to build defense it’s impossible. As a tank there’s no way to make a “defense” centered build which would greatly benefit earth tanks for example and would make tank as a whole more diverse in its build paths. As it stands defense just isn’t properly represented in this game
Really the game just needs better role tutorial in the first place. Maybe better isn't the word, there isn't one in the first place. Newcomers (and even long time players) really needs these to be explained and tried out. The most memorable defense stat I can think of are the augs from Metal 2 that I still use against Barbatos, despite the overall stat disadvantage. It just *~feels~* more useful that I haven't really bother comparing performance.
Defense is what reduces damage from NPC attacks and it is the most important stat for a tank's survivability. What more do you need explained beyond that? Defense is baked into your gear, defense buffs are built into your powerset. Earth gains additional defense equal to 65% of your dominance while in Tank Role. More dominance means more defense.
Not every tank gains more defense with more dom, and to be more specific on what I’m asking for. I would like them to give as much attention to defense as they do with dom or resto for example. Everyone knows that more dom means stronger shields but is that how far the game takes it? No when you press on dom or resto it breaks down exactly how to calculate your shields strength and let’s you know just how much the difference is when you don’t have any dominance. But can you say the same for defense? No you can’t because the game doesn’t go into all that detail. As I said is clearly obvious that defense allows you to take more dmg but the question is,to what extent? I hope now that the point I’m trying to make is clear.
The thing is… why? Why should the defense be updated to be on a formula basis? It would end up with the same results. However it would end up with just being another stat we have to gear for. If they were to rework defense to work on a formula than they would have to rework a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I personally like having things listed with all information possible including formulas which I could plug in and find damage calcs for. But there is no real reason why it need to change. Fire gains defense from fire soul Ice gains defense flat defense plus an extra defense buff from ice armor Earth gains defense from dom and from stone skin if used Rage gains defense from scar tissue (I think that’s what it’s called) And atomic gains a flat defense buff. Yes mot all tanks gain defense from dom, but they they normally have some for of mechanic based around dom. And if they don’t there are other stats they need. I would hate to have to max those and a defense stat on top of it. They could just add the defense stat to dom or health but it would lead to the same issue. If it’s not broken don’t mess with it
I would like to see defense stat vs damage mitigation which stats don’t describe. Such as percentage of damage reduced etc
thing is it is broken, defense only works properly in normal content. In elite content a tanks defense is almost never taken into consideration it’s literally borderline pointless. I’ve done plenty of test the get the most defense possible, over 350k defense in some cases and it does nothing for you. It’s the main reason why I think earth is a terrible tank power, the worst actually. Reason being is because brick is garbage and the aftershock only gives defense with no added mechanics for any other type of survivability for example every other tank gets defense just for being in tank role and also from whatever mechanic they have like fire soul. On top of the extra defense they also get dmg mitigation-(atomic) bonus health/healing- (fire/rage) rage crash mechanic (rage) and earth just defense that doesn’t work properly in elite content. The biggest problem is that the defense from stone skin and just in general isn’t even huge compared to other tank powers to make up for the lack of extra mechanic for earth, the difference in defense as earth with stone skin and the other tank powers is like 10k defense. If artifacts weren’t a thing people would see just how bad how big the gaps are with the tank powers.
If you think defense doesn’t work properly I’m elite than you aren’t testing properly. Yes some attacks ignore defense and shields. These are percentage based attacks that will take away x percent of a players health. These are mechanics. Earth is far from the worst tank powers.
All powersets have the same ability to go damage role. So they made defense a gear trait over a stat point one, so there wouldn't be a lot of confusion with what gear to get as a tank.
In final fantasy there are always a segment of magic/attacks that ignore all defense. TMK this is the same way that a lot of attacks in elite function. They ignore defense and are % based attacks as a way to make the content harder. Like Gravija in FF games.
From what I read the defense statistics is simple but the one that can be improved (or changed xd) I don't know about you, but I have thought, what if there were other relevant statistics? I see that the defense can be ... Imagine: Critical Defense Capacity, it would be the capacity that your defense absorbs the critical damage, or Secondary Defense, a statistic of another a second defense that first absorbs the damage, but a different damage, How about those%-based attacks you mention, or just buffer for a while before deactivating, or just power or precision attacks .... There are many ideas that might work.!
You're attempting to complicate something that's already been simplified. Any changes made to defense means another balance pass for each tank powerset.
Well I think that they will not always do it wrong , and that as defense is linked to the equipment and the damage always passes through the defense, it would not be a great thing... as with critical healing magnitude, which is not a great great thing , if they handle small statistics, as with the critical power, there are not many problems, I just think
Defense isn't solely linked to gear and Defense doesn't protect against all forms of Damage In. When you start messing with the Defense stat they would have to rework all enemy attacks and defense mechanics for each tank power. There's no need for that. Defense isn't broken and you're making an issue out of nothing.
Defense, I agree with TheLorax here, is already simplified. Each tank mitigates damage through various means. Ice has shields, lots of them, there's an artifact to reduce shield cool down. There's an artifact to use a percentage of health towards defense for those who don't rotate through shields. There's an artifact that takes big hits and distributes damage over x amount of seconds. There's an artifact that increases your healing in, which I imagine makes fire really put out some healing. Each tank is different, and there are artifacts that can do all sorts of things to increase survivability with tanks. For dps, you could even use neck mods to increase your defense of needed. Or more SP to increase health so hits don't drop the hp so much. Messing with defense is only going to require a full rework of powers, npcs, and armor. Right now, it's working great!
