Forum Discussion

dwinkelm's avatar
6 years ago

Defense Penetration... how does it work?

I’m curious about T3-M4’s zeta on his Master Gearhead unique. It reads:

“T3 has +100% defense penetration and droid allies gain 100% of T3’s defense penetration.”

Now, it’s my understanding that “defense” contributes to both Armor and Resistence. If a toon has 100% defense penetration, then to me, that effectively means they bypass both armor and resistance. However, I’m being told by friends and guild mates that is not the case.

I know the formulas for calculating damage and how it relates to defense, armor, etc. are proprietary to CG and neither shared nor fully known/understood.

How do others in the community interpret this zeta and what it means to have 100% defense penetration? And what would it mean to have a defense penetration greater than 100%? (T3 will get there with his unique and g12+ gear). Thanks to all in advance
  • Jefferx_CAN's avatar
    Jefferx_CAN
    Rising Newcomer
    It just means that if you have a defense penetration of 500, then this bonus is just giving to you 100% more. So it’s double the current value of your defense penetration. So you have now 1000 in my exemple.
  • "Jefferx;c-1708698" wrote:
    It just means that if you have a defense penetration of 500, then this bonus is just giving to you 100% more. So it’s double the current value of your defense penetration. So you have now 1000 in my exemple.



    This is definitely not accurate. If you look at the stats screen for a character, there is a specific stat for “defense penetration,” and it is labeled as a percentage, not a discrete number.

    By contrast, Armor Penetration and Resistance Penetration ARE discrete numbers, not a percentage.

    Furthermore, adding +100% defense penetration IS NOT the same thing as multiplying by two. If a character has 0% defense penetration to start, then +100% would bring the total to 100% defense penetration (0% + 100% = 100%). In your example, doubling 0% would still leave a character at 0%

    *************

    The current explanation from my guild mates is that “defense penetration” is actually no longer a stat. There is only Armor and Resistence penetration. If that’s the case, then yes, +100% defense penetration would effectively double the discrete values of Armor and Resistance penetration.

    IF “defense penetration” indeed no longer exists, the wording of the zeta needs to be changed immediately to prevent a waste of scarce zeta material.

    Input from a dev is humbly requested @CG_SBCrumb