The defense skill, what does it do?

[Dunbar]

So there are talents that can raise your defense skill, as well as a slew of items that have +defense on it. To clarify: I am talking about your defense skill, it's on your skill tab with your other skills like weapon skills and tradeskills. I am not talking about armor or AC.

Now the talents give you +10 defense for 5 talent points. The going theory (or so I have read on the boards) is that this allows you to defend yourself as a character 2 levels higher than you really are. So a level 60 character ordinarily has a max of 300 defense. With this talent, they have 310 defense, so in theory are treated as level 62 characters when defending against attacks...presumably making you take less damage. In the game if you fight mobs 2 levels lower than you, they will hit less and do less damage.

Ok, seems like a bargain, even without knowing exactly how much defense affects your opponent's chance to hit or damage. We can all see that a level 16 mob will do more damage against you when you are level 16 than when you are level 18. However, I had a look in thottbot. There are many pieces of armor and some weapons that add +defense. Assuming you collect the best of the best (and hardcore gamers certainly will if it's as overpowered as I think it is), and take the talent as say a warrior or paladin, you can get +150 defense or so.

+150. At level 60, that's 450 total defense skill. Meaning you defend yourself as a level 90 character?!?

This can't be right. If it is right, then whoever assembles the items for that level of defense will be the ultimate tank, and close to unkillable.

So my question is, what exactly does the defense skill do?

[oper]

i've been wondering the same thing myself. but i have been unable to obtain the information. I simply cant find any site detailing the effect of defence points.

could some über kewl beta dewd, enlighten us please?

[TheImp]

maybe we need to do some testing in-game?

PvP would seem to allow very good opportunities for testing this sort of thing.

Anyone interested?

[Loboleal]

My guess is that Defense skill is used to determine attacker's chance to miss.

In your example, 450 total skill defense would be like fighting against a lvl 90 but only taking into account chance to miss. Other stats would be related to a lvl 60 character

From PvE perspective, maybe that difference won't be noticable when fighting vs elite monsters because they will have a lot of weapon skill (I'm guessing), and their chance to miss you would be pretty low.
From PvP perspective, Defense skill may be a determinant skill for a successfull PvP'er

I would like to test it, but I'm in Europe, so no WoW for me yet :)

Edit:
I've found something in www.thottbot.com:
The Defense skill modifies the skills - Parry, Dodge and Block and also reduces the chance of you falling victim to a critical strike or spell. Every lvl your defense cap goes up 5.
Posted by Rythos on 2004-11-27 17:34:49

[Batch]

I am doing some calculations on rogues dodge chance and the only conclusion I got right now is that you get +0.04% dodge chance per point of defence.

[Geev]

Wow this is a very interesting topic, by looking at thottbot getting a suit of +150 defense shouldnt be impossible, hopefully some testing on this can be done. If it modifies the parry/dodge/block and reduces crit chance like on something 30 levels above you, it should be truly effective. I know I miss tons against mobs like 6 levels above me.

[renideo]

I'd love to know what it does as well. I've also heard it lowers the chance of a critical strike effecting you, and given the fact critical strike chances scale (your chance to get one decreasing each level unless you sustain it via talents, agility and so on), I have to wonder if it is indeed a strongly comparitive value, as suggested.

I really know nothing about any of this though, indeed I haven't played the game. Forgive my idle interest, save of course to answer it.

[Batch]

Defence does also add 0.04 to block chance per point (shield) and from how it looks my guess is since it adds 0.04 perpoint to both dodge and block that it also adds 0.04 per point to parry.

This would mean that an extra 150 defence would add:
0.04% dodge chance * 150 = 6% to dodge chance
0.04% block chance * 150 = 6% to block chance
0.04% parry chance * 150 = 6% to parry chance

[NotAgain]

Defence does also add 0.04 to block chance per point (shield) and from how it looks my guess is since it adds 0.04 perpoint to both dodge and block that it also adds 0.04 per point to parry.

This would mean that an extra 150 defence would add:
0.04% dodge chance * 150 = 6% to dodge chance
0.04% block chance * 150 = 6% to block chance
0.04% parry chance * 150 = 6% to parry chance
6% in regards to what? If you have 450 total how will it act against 300? How will 300 stand towards 200, its the relations between the attack skill and the defense skill that matters. You can't just say you'll add 6%, because against different attackers it will work differently.

[Scorch_Hellfire]

what im wondoring is... what exactly do attack power, attack rating, and defense rating do?...

now im guesstimating based on my knowledge of d2... that attack rating is ur percent chance of hitting stuff and i guess that means that defense rating would be the percent chance of u blocking stuff?...

[Batch]

6% in regards to what? If you have 450 total how will it act against 300? How will 300 stand towards 200, its the relations between the attack skill and the defense skill that matters. You can't just say you'll add 6%, because against different attackers it will work differently.
I don't understand you completly but i will try to explain my theories. The percentage gained from the defence skill is what is added last in the formulas and is level undependant. So a 6% added dodge chance from defence is always a 6% whether or not the enemys level is equal to your own. Just like the talent adds.
The reason I know this is because of experimentation an seeing that the amount of dodge added is constant 0.04% at several different levels. Thus makes it level undependant.

For instance lets say a rouge is at level 10 and has 20% dodge rate by default. He also uses an armor that adds 50 to defence. This added up gives him a 22% to dodge enemies at the same level as him.

Let's say a warrior at level 11 takes a swings against him.
1) First thing that happens is that the warrior takes a roll at the "hit formula". This includes agility, level of the enemy and the skill with that weapon. Since his enemy is 1 level lower than him it's a litle easier to hit than it would be to hit an equal level enemy.
2) If hit, then it rolls against the critical strike formula. This formula also includes agility, level of the enemy and the skill with that weaoon. On the warriors status page it displays that his chance to hit a critical strike is 5%. But that is against an enemy of equal level so he got a little higher chanse than displayed.
3) The rogue rolls against parry formula which besides of the constants consists of the same variables as the hit formulas.
4) If failed parry then the rogue rolls against dodge. Because the warrior is one level higher then the rogues base rate of defence is lowered from 20 to 19.80. This added with the defence bonus to dodge gives him a dodge chance of 21.80%.
5) If the the rogue didn't dodge then the warrior rolls on the damage formula. This is based on the weapon wielded, strenght and attack power.
6) And on the last stage of the attack the rogue takes the damage calculated and puts it into his damagereduction formula which is based on armor class and level.

Then the fight continues and it's the rogues turn to hit...

Don't know if I answered your question or now but now I have written all this so I can aswell post it. :)

[jamesjiao]

One more thing..

If a piece of armor increaes defence rating.. does it increase the max that you can have?

[Mark of Mayhem]

One more thing..

If a piece of armor increaes defence rating.. does it increase the max that you can have?

Your cap is raised by 5 for every level. The max defense anyone can have is 300. This is similar to increasing your fishing or herbalism skills with bait/enchantments. Once you are maxed out, there's no point in it. I had a +5 defense cape at level 35. My defense skill read 175/175. At level 38, I got a new cape, my defense skill read 188/190. A little bit of grinding raised it to 190/190. clvl * 5 = max defense possible

[Batch]

Your cap is raised by 5 for every level. The max defense anyone can have is 300. This is similar to increasing your fishing or herbalism skills with bait/enchantments. Once you are maxed out, there's no point in it. I had a +5 defense cape at level 35. My defense skill read 175/175. At level 38, I got a new cape, my defense skill read 188/190. A little bit of grinding raised it to 190/190. clvl * 5 = max defense possible
The human sword skill bonus rises the max cap. I can't realy believe bonus from items don't.

[Havard]

You can have over 300 in a skill with items and talent boosts.

On a sidenote, defense is primarily only useful PvE, but not really in PvP. They tweaked PvP to allow low-level players to hit high-levels, making the armor stat much more important than the defense stat.

Case in point, at level 43, I was able to hit a level 60 caster with regularity and for normal damage (100-140 a hit with a 1H), whereas I'm sure a level 43 mob would not have hit him nearly as hard nor often.

[Frostlion]

Just confirming the bonus also is 0.04% per point for parry. My lvl 60 NE hunter has 5.00% parry with 300 defense 5.20% with 305 5.40% with 310 and 5.60% with 315 (that's a defense bonus from "demon's blood" trinket and "force of will" trinket)

[Ghostrider]

I recently went to the AH and purchased some +defense items and set out to try to see if the "every +5 defense equals 1 level better theory" I dueled my friend 2 times and lost both duels. I was one level higher than he was begin with and we had similar type equipment(mostly green items with a couple blue) so I cannot believe that the +defense items do anything other than aid in the block, parry, dodge stats and possibly figure into some other formula to determine whether or not a landed blow was a crit. If it did hold true then he should be able to solo mobs 7 levels above his own with moderate success which I know is not the case. (He flees the scene, typing RUUUUNNNNN!!! over and over)

I would think that there are enough people (US warriors especially) that are interested in this topic that we can figure this out. Or maybe if the gods are smiling upon us some WoW spokesman will grace us with more than the vague description of the effects of the skill.

My next chore will be to duel him a number of times and simply mark each and every swing as hit, miss, dodge, parry, or block. I'll get some data and report back. Has anyone else done actual trials with data to post? If anyone wants to talk or help with this chore in game I'm Gundish (lvl 51 orc warrior) on the shadowsong server.

[Bombtrack]

that COULD be a nice idea...although (as said) pvp (and dualling too because that IS pvp) is kinda different then normal pve

in pvp it doesnt count as 2 lvls higher for dodge or anything....maybe it counts as 0.2 lvls higher or whatever.....but not 2 whole lvls
so duelling wont crack this figure

try doin the tests on mobs instead....then you should be getting some results

[Gejt]

As havard said defenseskill is probably best in PvE because chance to be hit by players is different from chance to hit by monsters. thought it raises the chance dodge/parry/block in PvP you still miss out on the higher missrate (a normal miss is the the one read "miss" on screen. dont know what the chance to miss might be thou). I have read that defense also affect the chance to become crited which might be worth testing out.

As for ghostriders argument that just because you have same defenseskill as a char 7 lvl's higher he should be able to solo mobs 7 lvl's higher doesnt make sens. you have alot better gear 7 lvl's higher giving more armor (dmgreduction which prolly isnt affected by defenseskill), higher dmg, less health and so on. And the mobs have better AC, higher dmg, mor health and so on. chance to get hit isnt the only thing soloing mobs revolvs around.

Also, about the critchance, there seems to be some kind of connection between defenseskill and weaponskill. try going to a beginnersarea (where mobs most certainly have less defense) and hit the mobs there. you'll get see you crit much more on the mobs there than on higher lvl mobs. I'll try to get some numbers about this later tonight or maybe tomorrow.

[Charron]

I too am very interested in this. I'm a 60 NE Warrior and have gear that gives me 394 defense (so far). 450 Defense is very possible; taking a look at available gear, possibly even close to 500 defense is possible. I haven't noticed any difference in PvP and still get slaughtered (don't particularly care for PvP, even though I'm on PvP server). Against mobs though, I do see a difference and dodge and parry a lot more. I'm going to install a DPS counter to see if it makes a difference with damage taken. I'll try on low level mobs and equal level mobs and post back here.

I will likely maintain two sets of armor, since the armor that gives me +defense skill points have little to no stat buffs. Defensive gear for instances, and the stat-buffed items for PvP. I have found that some of the end-game gear that have +def do have some stat buffs. This can make the difference in hundreds of HP depending on the gear and almost 30-40 strength, with my current armor sets.

[Pai Mai]

Defense does the following:

Raises dodge/block/parry by 0.04% each point. 0.4% at lvl 60. It affects a monsters ability "to hit" you (their weapon skill vs your defense), but most important of all: affects your chance to be crit. With 400 in defense, you have roughly a 1% chance to be crit on (by a monster).

Defense is very important for PvE tanking. AC/HP/Defense are all nearly equally important - it just depends on what monsters you are fighting.

[Charron]

Still haven't sat down to crunch numbers yet, but my current Defense skill is at 423 with all my gear that I have found. My guild rogue (and RL friend) usually pwns me quick in dueling, but with the higher Defense, I last a lot longer thanks to the extra parrying and dodging (I still get pwned thoughm never did focus on pvp and dueling and I'm paying for that now). My priest has also noticed that she's not healing me as heavily when aggroing multiple mods, and rage generation seems to be a little better.

I have found though that using the +Defense gear forgoes 500+HP, so until I can score the Stockade Pauldrons, the Ornate Mithril Chestplate, and all those other super-nice gear with stat buffs and +Defense, I won't be doing this too much. With my Valor pieces and the +Def items that do have stat buffs (Stonegrip gloves, Draconian Deflector, Marshall Morris medallion, and a couple of other pieces), I can be at 380, and still have the stat buffs that Breastplate and Spaulders of Valor provide.

The Defense skill is worth investing in for a tanking warrior, most definitely. :happy34: Just don't sacrifice AC and stat buffs too much just for the defense.

[Pai Mai]

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that the game checks dodge/parry/block seperately. All this means is that if you had 10% dodge and 10% parry you do not have 20% avoidance, you have 90% chance to fail on dodge and if it does fail, then a 90% chance to fail on parry.

[Koetjeka]

Wow, this defence would be TOO strong in pve (and maybe pvp), if I understand this all the chance to get hit (average) would be something like:

-44% block from shield
-18% dodge (from 450 def)
-18% parry (from 450 def)
-18% block (from 450 def)
-5% block (from talent)
-5% parry (from talent)

Total block: 44+18+5=67%
Total didge: 18%
Total parry: 23%

Do you know how small the chance is they will hit this warrior? (Dont exactly know how to calculate) Its almost 0 !!! Is there a max for this? like 5% of the time you get a guaranteed hit?

[Tasselhoff]

Wow, this defence would be TOO strong in pve (and maybe pvp), if I understand this all the chance to get hit (average) would be something like:

-44% block from shield
-18% dodge (from 450 def)
-18% parry (from 450 def)
-18% block (from 450 def)
-5% block (from talent)
-5% parry (from talent)

Total block: 44+18+5=67%
Total didge: 18%
Total parry: 23%

Do you know how small the chance is they will hit this warrior? (Dont exactly know how to calculate) Its almost 0 !!! Is there a max for this? like 5% of the time you get a guaranteed hit?

Chance to hit with those numbers would be (numbers used here are 1 minus the numbers above, in case you're wondering):
33% * 82% * 77% = 0.33 * 0.82 * 0.77 = 0.208 = ~21%

Which is quite a bit different from 0.

// Tasselhoff

[Koetjeka]

Still, its super cool :D

[Dar]

So do weapon skills raise your chance to land a hit by 0.04% as well then? Do they reduce the defensive skill bonus to the character you're attacking? Or do weapon skills only affect damage?

E.g. +5 swords skill (on human) would give:
+0.2% chance to hit (in the first case) or
-0.2% chance to block, parry and dodge each blow made (in the second case) or
add <x> damage per hit?

[Gejt]

So do weapon skills raise your chance to land a hit by 0.04% as well then? Do they reduce the defensive skill bonus to the character you're attacking? Or do weapon skills only affect damage?

E.g. +5 swords skill (on human) would give:
+0.2% chance to hit (in the first case) or
-0.2% chance to block, parry and dodge each blow made (in the second case)

I am not sure but i think this is the case. It has to be compared to something (we all know lowlvls hitting highlvlmobs are missing alot and the other way around). it could be a lvl-check but a weaponskill-defence-check would make more sense. I've looked into this some but not much and my primary conclusions where that this is the case and that mobs gain 5 to defence. and weaponskill each lvl, but again, im not sure. Don't know how this would work with extremly highlvlmobs (onyxia ragnaros) I've never fought one.

[Kail]

From what I've seen, the weapon skill-defense skill check is what's used. And the modifier is added to a base chance. For example, your base chance to crit something at the same level/defense skill as your level/weapon skill seems to be 5%, although different classes might have a different base. I don't have a rogue, they'd be the most likely candidate for a higher crit chance, I'd guess. Anyways, what ever the difference in the skills, is multiplied by 0.04 and added to that base chance. Say you've got the edge by 13 points; your chance to crit would be 5.52%.

A lot of that is just repeating stuff that's already been said, I know; but sometimes putting things in context together is helpful.

[toochaos]

i beleive that the thing that most of you may be missing is that dodge and parry and block all over lap so if all were 33% then the chance WOULD NOT be 1% because of the overlap also i think burst summed this up pretty well

[DarkChylde]

I had this linked in my bookmarks and thought it was pretty consistant with what was posted on this thread but also had some other insightful points on defense too.

http://evilempireguild.org/guides/defense.html

[SneakyTiki]

OK, I was looking this up, trying to figure out if it was worth it to ge tthe defense talent for my protection speced warrior and came across this thread. I've decided to put my 2 cents in.

Now my main is not a warrior, it's a mage, but from doing MC on a regular basis, I have the following insight. What a lot of you seem to be saying against those calculations is that it would over power the warrior, but you're forgetting what the warrior has to do. All those max stat gear data you guys are presenting is right. Each point does give you .04%. The reason i know this is not overpowered? Look at MC, where the main tank has to take on ?? Bosses. We can't see the Boss's level, because all the big ones, like Ony and Rag, and Azuregos, are all level 500. So yes, you're stats are correct, because if you don't have all of those uber stats, you can't even begin to think about tanking a boss in the end game, because he'd be critting you almost everyother hit.

On a fianl note, defense skill and weapon skill makes little to no difference, for the very reason you guys were saying, it'd be impossible to beat a protection specd warrior with good gear. I personally find this bull****, seeing as a resistance doesn't work the saem way, in fact it does the opposite. In instances, resistance stops helping after you get it past 350 or so, but in pvp, it just keeps going, so those people that have 450 fire resistance on, they have an almost 100% resistance to that school (mainly fire) which I think is bull****.

Anyway , my 2 cents

[Athame]

Intuitively you'd think the game would first calculate if you hit or miss, then see if you crit that hit, then see if it is parried etc. But that's not how it works at all, it uses a Combat Results Table (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_results_table). Basically it calculates a percentage change for each possible outcome, and then only rolls the dice once.

It can be summarized as a miss, a hit and a crit chance. Your base miss chance is based on the targets level, with an equal level target you have a 4% miss chance - level difference affects your miss chance much more in pve than in pvp. Miss chance is capped between 1% and 60%. If your miss chance is higher than 60%, it will consume your crit chance instead (crit + hit + miss = 100%). Defense reduces the opponents miss chance, as mentioned earlier. Defense also reduces the opponents crit chance; his crit chance is modified by his weaponskill versus your defense skill - however this is only the case in pve.

[Athame]

It doesn't say it's a PvP example even though I agree it looks that way. It's a bad example anyway since it's not possible. I think it's more likely they just made a crappy example than that they put in the lines about defense not reducing crit in pvp if it's based on nothing.

[Fleabag]

Ok the common misnomer is that Defence only adds .04 to block dodge and parry for each point over your level max. What most people miss is that it ALSO increases your chance to be missed, AND reduces your chance to be crit by the same amount.

What this means, rather then each point of def increasing your mitigation index by .12 it actually increases mitigation by .2, therefore it only takes 5 def for a full 1% of mitigation value.

Take for Eg my tank on Uther vs a level 63 elite:

Def 416
Dodge 15.64%
Parry 15.89%
Block 36.98%
Regular hit 5.61%
Crushing blow 15% (there is speculation that Def helps mitigate this as well, but the popular consensus is that a mob 3 levels higher then you will always have a 15% crushing blow chance)
Crit .90

My total mitigation index would be something like:

miss 9.98%
+ dodge 15.64%
+ parry 15.89
----------------
41.51% total damage avoidance

+ Block 36.98%
---------------
78.49% total mitigation index

[Tunga]

I have 289 Defense, no block talents and 5.96% chance to block.

289 * 0.04 = 11.56

Why doesn't this add up?

[Kail]

Because the block rate you see in your spellbook is based on mobs your own level. They have an attack skill that's five times their level; if your defense is the same (maxed defense skill, no bonuses), your block rate would be 5.00%. To put it another way, you'd only get that 11.5% block rate on something that's level 1 or so.

Based on the numbers you gave, I'd say you're level 53, with at least 24 +defence from items, and possibly talents. If your defense skill isn't capped for your level, you'd need a few more points to make up for that. Am I right?

[Tunga]

I'm a Paladin who just respec'd Protection so never had any interest in block % before now. Sure, I had a shield but I never got to MT so it was used for an occasional mob where I'd off tank it as best I could. Now I am using a shield all the time and trying to stack Block because it's very powerful for a Paladin (Redoubt, Holy Shield, Blessing of Sanctuary)

Anyway, I'm level 58 with no + Defense, so I'm actually one away from my current level cap - 289/290.

Also seems I made a mistake and I had 4.96% (rather than 5.96% which I said before).

So this makes sense, when I get 290 then I will have exactly 5%, which as you say is the ammount I should have as a base against something my own level.

Your explanation was perfect, thanks :) .

[Mancora]

Because the block rate you see in your spellbook is based on mobs your own level. They have an attack skill that's five times their level; if your defense is the same (maxed defense skill, no bonuses), your block rate would be 5.00%. To put it another way, you'd only get that 11.5% block rate on something that's level 1 or so.

Based on the numbers you gave, I'd say you're level 53, with at least 24 +defence from items, and possibly talents. If your defense skill isn't capped for your level, you'd need a few more points to make up for that. Am I right?No, that doesnt make sense. Why? Because the percent increase in block, parry, dodge was calculated from looking at the spell book after adding a certain amount of +defence.

The numbers dont seem to add up, which probably means that this stuff doesnt scale linearly, going from defence 100-105 probably gives much less of a bonus compared to going from 300-305.

[Kail]

No, that doesnt make sense. Why? Because the percent increase in block, parry, dodge was calculated from looking at the spell book after adding a certain amount of +defence.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say here. What increase? Tunga wasn't comparing two sets of numbers, he was giving his current only; which happened to be wrong, as he said in his next post.

The numbers dont seem to add up, which probably means that this stuff doesnt scale linearly, going from defence 100-105 probably gives much less of a bonus compared to going from 300-305.

Heh. The defence skill does produce linear improvements; 1 point of defense will always equal a 0.04% change to your block, parry, and dodge, no matter your level. It is important to understand that those values shown on your spellbook are for mobs your own level. If you want to know your actual chances for something a different level, add 0.2% per level you are above your opponent, and subtract the same for each level you are below them. Every level is 5 points of skill, 5x0.04%=0.2%.

But you don't have to take my word for it; take a low level character, check his spellbook numbers, then put on some +defense gear. The only bobble is if that gear also changes his agility, since agi affects dodge. Block and parry are only ever affected by the defense skill and any relevant talents, so they're your best benchmark. Also, I advise checking out the link at the top of this page. Repeated for your ease: http://evilempireguild.org/guides/defense.html. If you have the spare time for some light reading, you might want to check out the other guides they have available (http://evilempireguild.org/guides/); overall, they've done some fantastic work.