Defense vs damage reduction?

[Paleblood33]

I see both of these stats touted in things like medicines and curiosities and soaks alike and it's quite confusing because isn't defense = damage reduction? The game never really explains the difference.

[CJones]

I've been wondering the same thing.

Damage reduction just negates a certain percentage of damage from every hit, but I'm not at all clear how Defense works. My guess is that it subtracts some number proportional to your defense from each hit, but it can't be very much. You need a LOT of defense for it to have a significant effect.

[Jody]

Two different concepts. For example, if your fire defence level is 40, under 40 fire attack won't damage your life. You can see on the screen, a bar showing fire damage, but after a certain period of time, the bar will disappear. However, if the fire attack is over 40, then you are on fire. It shows on your body and you can see your life bar is shrinking.

Damage reduction is different. In normal time, if you get hit, say, your life bar will be shorten by 30%. However, if you take right medicine, drink or equip right costumes, weapons, this hit may only shorten you life bar by 10% or 5%.