How useful is ADF?

[Exarch_Alpha]

Does it only protect versus arts, or are there regular atacks and special abilities that enemies use that also are blocked by it?

[Shadow]

There are some attacks that do magic damage, 2nd Boss in old schoolhouse comes to mind, which would be countered by ADF. I personally think that DEF is better though.

[Exarch_Alpha]

How can I know which attacks use DEF and which use ADF? By their animation?

[Kurosu]

It defends from arts and magic crafts/scrafts.

Honestly the Trail games thanks to the insane variety of ways to break the game dont need to focus on defense. Go full attack mode and get speed. In CS2 thanks to "delay" you can basically ensure that the enemy never gets a SINGLE turn and that includes the final boss.

[Stabbey]

I can't really think of any special abilities enemies have which hit ADF, or a way for the game to systematically communicate that to the player. So yes, ADF is one of the less important stats. Most enemies don't use arts, but some arts can be really powerful.

FYI: Certain crafts or S-Crafts you have have "Magic Attack" in the description instead of "Attack", and that means that they are boosted by ATS UP and resisted by enemy ADF.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Can you give examples of S-Crafts that use magic? I bet
Emma and Elliot but who else? I´ll check the descriptions too of course, I never noticed them. So that gives some oooomph to ATS then.

[󠀡󠀡󠀡⁧⁧the.jester]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

Can you give examples of S-Crafts that use magic? I bet
Emma and Elliot but who else? I´ll check the descriptions too of course, I never noticed them. So that gives some oooomph to ATS then.

Alisa's S-craft is also ATS based as far as I'm aware.

[Evil Gambio]

There're a lot of enemy abilities which use magic damage under the hood. You can "generally" tell by their animation. To confirm you use Crescent Mirror and if the attack reflects than it's magical.
In terms of animations, most beams tend to be magical for example. Beam of electricity fired from the enemy? Probably magic.
I can't think of hilariously misleading examples where you're completely unable to tell or it makes no sense.
Though overall both DEF and ADF aren't worth stacking until CSIV so lol I guess.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Exarch_Alpha:

Can you give examples of S-Crafts that use magic? I bet
Emma and Elliot but who else? I´ll check the descriptions too of course, I never noticed them. So that gives some oooomph to ATS then.

The casters. Emma, Elliot, and Alisa. Alisa's S-Craft admittedly does pretty poor damage without it being boosted.

The Fortuna spell boosts ATS by 25%, which can help a lot. Jusis's Noble Command craft also boosts ATS.