Pistoleer Archive
Thread: Some melee defense analysis
Another excellent analysis, Nifty! This is the kind of number crunching that I love to see here. I just took your numbers and plotted them in a spreadsheet chart, and it's obvious that it's a simple linear relationship between defense mods and damage received, following the equation y = -0.637x + 382.6. That means that defenses do not follow a diminishing-returns formula like weapon speed uses, and therefore the more defense modsyou have, the better (sort of)...
You helped me figure out whether the FS Ranged Defense and Melee Defense lines are worth keeping. Using the aboveforumula, the entire FS Melee Defense branch (4 boxes), which gives a total of+20 Melee Defense, reduces the damage taken by 13 points per hit. That's a pretty small return for an awful lot of grinding. That's also pre-armor (and pre-PSG), so the actual reduction per hit is a lot smaller. I'd consider putting the points into FS Ranged Speed and Ranged Accuracy instead if they weren't broken, except that the returns wouldbe even smaller there because of the logarithmic formula used for weapon speed (I'm not sure how the accuracy formula works). I guess I'll just put my 3 available FS points into Vehicle Control instead.
NowI don't feel so badly that I accidentally deleted one too many FS defense skill boxesthe other day when I was moving around skills.
That's interesting that Improved Duelist Stance gives such a large defensive benefit. I haven't been using it at all because I was under the impression it was broken--but I guess the part that is broken is the reflection of damage back to the attacker. I'm going to start using that now. Now the question in my mind is, is it worth applying all the various states at the beginning of every attack (intimidate, stun, blind, dizzy), or would the attack rounds be better spent actually applying damage using other specials? I'd be interested in hearing people's opinions about that.
Thanks for posting these results! Let me know if you see any flaws in my logic, and perhaps I'll post the results in a thread I've got going on the FS forum (I'll give you credit for the experiment).
Yeah, Nifty, I'd be very interested in seeing how accuracy interacts with defense mods. Perhaps somebody else has already figured it out in another forum? I haven't really been paying attention to much outside of this forum lately.
Back to the state specials... now that you've done your experiments, are you going to be using state attack specials in PvE anymore? If so, which ones? It seems to me that the only ones thatare definitely worth using regularly are Stopping Shot and the knockdowns, but I wouldn't argue with anybody who thinks otherwise. it just seems to me that if a special only reduces a mob's defenses by 20% or less for a few seconds, then I could perhaps do more damage by firing an extra Critical Shot (or Body Shot, or whatever your template may allow)in its place. I'll have to test that idea out before I make up my mind though.
true that, but I'd hate to think we have useless specials. 
So I just feel I HAVE to use them occasionally.
oh, I did some quick and dirty accuracy testing. will be making a short post on it now.
Nifty wrote:
true that, but I'd hate to think we have useless specials.
I absolutely thrive on these kinds of discussions.
feel free to jump into a discussion, even if it is just to report how things are working for you.
I noticed today that I was getting a lot of reflections. For those of you who haven't seen a successful reflection the words *Return Fire* pop up over your head.
Now, I have only seen this when getting shot at by ranged NPC, but today I was seeing it a lot. Well, I realized that I had drank some +80 Ranged Defense Pica Thundercloud earlier and forgot about it. I truely believe having that buff raised my chance of reflecting damage with Duel Stance active. When it wore off, and I continued fighting NPC stormies, the success rate dropped again.
So... perhaps the reflection chance is based on your actual Ranged Defense amount?
Shrug.