Noticed this on the first day I got the DRG class. I was beginning to see some odd stats on gear that had decent Phys defense, then halved M.Def. I thought: "well this just means the stats on my gear will be making up for it right?" Sort of.



The way they balanced the DRG gear was that your armor would give you enough vitality and stats to off-set the Defense loss you had, which might work since we're a Melee class and would be in Melee range a lot. But we're not tanking anything, and we should already be behind or to the sides of a target nearly 99% of the time, which means that Phys defense is just kinda there for Soloing things. Then we have the halved M.Def, and most unavoidable attacks are magic based most often, so DRGs instantly get hit harder most often because of it. Monks may be squishy sometimes too, but not too this degree if B4B is accidentally up on one, we will most often die.

By the time I had DRG to 45, I was looking more heavily into the end-game gear like the Wyrm and Maiming sets. My Mosshorn Scale Mail and other Scale Mails had more defense than the 90 gear in both Physical defense and Mental, that's a little sad. Where it was supposed to make up for it was the stat gains, which were monumental compared to them. But my defense overall still dropped several hundred if I remember correctly once all the gear was on for the main body pieces. I gained more Vitality and other things, but my Defense felt like it was halved, and I for one didn't like that feeling at all. The only class that gets that halve to it's second defense stat, kind of annoying, it does need something to make up for it.