Hey folks, just popping in to give a few quick clarifications and to expand on some of the information released tonight in the web cast.
Regarding the armor cap and armor penetration, you can now exceed a Defense or Toughness value of 5278. The maximum amount of mitigation you can achieve still remains at 75%. Attacks made by enemies in Tier 3 areas like Fortress of Solitude will now ignore 25% of your base armor. Enemies in Tier 2 areas such as Batcave ignore 12% of your base armor.
Higher level PvP weapons are gaining Toughness Penetration. So the top tier PvP weapons will ignore 25% of your enemies base Toughness in PvP. The tier of weapon just below it ignores 12% Toughness and will also now function as a 97.1 DPS weapon when used in PvP.
Dominance is gaining the role of secondary defense stat.
For Ice tanks Dominance will increase the amount of damage prevented by abilities like Winter Ward and Shatter Restraints. The trivial Defense stat increases these abilities had were removed in lieu of the scaling damage prevention. The damage prevention effects work in either role again but obviously they will be much more effective in the Tank role due to the Dominance multiplier Tanks have.
For Fire tanks Dominance increase the amount of healing recieved by all abilities that cause healing. Dominance also adds to your maximum Health beyond the base 60% when you use an ability. The individual 25% Health bonus effects were removed. By stacking Dominance you will be able to meet and exceed these health levels with a single power rather than having to constantly rotate through several specific powers to maintain the maximum.
FOr Controllers, Dominance means that any ability that prevents damage (like Hide, Reflect Pain, Light Barrier etc) will prevent more damage based on your Dominance score . Dominance does NOT affect your power regeneration though. That's still the domain of Vitalization.
Dominance also increases the amount healed by abilities commonly found in Controller and Tank trees across the board, not just for Fire tanks. So for example, a high Dominance will result in more healing from abilities like Anesthetic, Triage and Hibernation. Basically your healing can now scale despite not having access to the Restoration stat.
Finally for Healers, their Shields will finally scale too. So for example, Boon of Souls and Swarm Shield will prevent more damage based on the Restoration score of the healer.