There have been some comments from players mentioning that they don’t see the point of defense as a stat, so I’d like to go into some detail on it.

As defense increases over an enemy’s attack power, the amount of damage reduced gradually tapers off. If the enemy you are fighting is lower level and your defense is way higher, it becomes more difficult to gain large benefits even if you increase your defense.

In instances where your defense is reduced via an enemy action, where your character’s defense would normally be higher than an enemy’s attack power, and the gap between the two is narrowed, the amount of damage being reduced will start to vary largely. This shows that you’ll take more damage when your defense is lowered, giving meaning to the value of your defense.

Another easy way of feeling the effects of defense is to face off against an even match enemy and compare the damage received with your armor equipped and off.

Since the effects of defense increase as defense is stacked, the benefits are by no means small, so it would be really helpful if we could receive feedback with this in mind.

For reference, Mocchi provided some test data.

Setup
  • Compared physical damage taken between the following situations when fighting warrior-type monsters that were 15 levels higher than the level 99 PLD/WAR (defense 460) used for testing.

Naked/with Defender active/with Defender active + food effects (black curry bun)

Results
  • Naked (Defense 460): 245 damage
  • Defender (Defense 575): 216 damage
  • Defender + food (Defense 663): 197 damage

Depending on the situation, the numbers may not be the same, but this is simply intended to serve as reference.