Camelot Grab Bag Q&A

Mythic's Sanya Thomas has once again posted her weekly Grab Bag Q&A on the Camelot Herald, this time answering questions about confusion spells in RvR, rare spawns, and more.
Q: I noticed that many styles either have a bonus or penalty to defense, but what does this really mean? I have not noticed any difference in damage from mobs, and in RVR it's very hard to test, so please enlighten me!

A: The Big Wheel took the first swing at this: "Bonuses and penalties to defense from styles effect how often your defensive abilities (parry, evade, block) go off. If you have a style with a defensive bonus, it makes those defensive skills go off more; if you have one with a defensive penalty, it makes those defensive skills go off less."

Then he tossed it to a programmer to double check. The Redheaded Stepcoder looked, and he responded: "It doesn't appear to me to directly influence the rate that defensive abilities activate, but rather appears to be a straight addition to defense calculation. So if you get a 30 defense bonus, it is now 30% harder to hit you."

Did you notice the redhead hedging? That's because after this many years, he can look in five places in our code for corroborating evidence, and get the same answer. but there might be some freaky hidden thing that plays a role he can't see. So if this answer is inaccurate, feel free to let me know, just like the evaders on Pendragon did :)