How does defense work in this game?

[DaBanzaiFish]

I wear heavy armor like the Drangelic armor and it says my total defense is over 500 for all physical and my weapon does around 300 at best but I see people with the same weapon as me doing 200+ dmg to me even when I wear my armor with 500 def. That does not make sense...

[Kalvix]

basically after having played a lot of ds1 and 2 I can sum it up like this.

It means NOTHING.

This is why you see people in stuff which looks cool instead of helps them in any way, the only thing you really want is to be below 75% encumber so you can roll properly, other than that you can go naked and wont notice a huge difference between that and wearing full fully upgraded havels.

[The Bees]

yeah, better to block or evade damage than rely on your armor for defense. The only exception is when people pad their VGR at high SM. That seems to actually make a difference.

[DaBanzaiFish]

I hear that later on if you don't wear good armor, Vendrick will OHKO u.

[Kalvix]

Meh vendrick does that for the most part anyway, and hes very easy to avoid or block anyway

[Zorp]

Naked = you can take 3 hits
Full Havels = you can take 4 hits
Since poise is extremely broken in this game armor is pretty much useless.

[Viggo]

More you have the longer you stay alive. That's all you need to know.

[Kalvix]

Its sad really, I wanted to make a pure strength build as I heard they were going to make it viable in DS2, however poise being broken as hell and armour still being worthless means its just not viable. The only way a strength build would work is lots of armour with his poise so you can get hit but you then smash harder.

In reality you get hit for huge amounts and staggered before you land any hits, dex is still king of melee builds =(

[phosTR]

It means almost nothing, wearing heavy armor gives you 3% or 4% of damage reduction, it is sad really.