Health boost Vs defense, which is better

[Anastasia]

I'm still ignorant regarding charm, but so far I feel like health is better since I can tank more damage. Defense, I don't know, it feels like it's still doing nothing, because the monster still hit as hard as without the charm. Am I using it wrong, or its really better to get more health than defense?

[Wii remote gaming]

health because its cheaper

[Suzaku]

Defense charm will never really give that much in the end. Your armor already gives you a ton of defense, so a health increase will yield far more noticeable results, followed by Divine Protection to have a chance to reduce damage taken by a large amount.

Basically, Defense Boost is a skill used purely for joke builds, when you want to see what the highest defense that you can reach is, but not something you'd use or seek in any real build.

[Unit076]

Pack max Health Boost and Divine Blessing then I think even Defense Boost 4 is enough if you still need it.

[TyresTyco]

Defense is a noob trap. You need to gain something by using a skill. Defense or better said more defense on top of your maxed armor does almost nothing.

[Varagonax]

Originally posted by Anastasia:

I'm still ignorant regarding charm, but so far I feel like health is better since I can tank more damage. Defense, I don't know, it feels like it's still doing nothing, because the monster still hit as hard as without the charm. Am I using it wrong, or its really better to get more health than defense?

Health boost is a valuable skill if you find yourself taking a lot of chip damage, but ultimately it wont save you in the ways skills like guts, divine protection, evade window, or resitances can.

Steadfast 3 gives immunity to stun, which means you cant be stunned by any wombo's coming you way with exception for paralysis. This means you can take you chip damage, and leave instead of risking a stun=death scenaio.

Protection 3 gives you a fairly high chance to reduce the damage you take by half. Any attack that would one shot a 200 health character, wont one shot a 150 health character when it procs. And it procs a lot. It also has a secret you can invest into to get 60% reduction more frequently.

And here comes the part where I mention mantles. Health becomes relatively irrelevant when you have 20 resist against your targets damage and a mantle to match. Kirin cant one shot or paralyze you with a thunder mantle and 20 thunder resist.

In my opinion, its better to take a combat focused charm like weakness exploit or handicraft as a charm vs health. BUT its my opinion, and alot of people benefit from health boost so you do you. Its best to consider your charm as 3 free deco slots, so you can free up more space from your actual deco slots.

[Pelikan]

Health boost by a country mile.

In my experience, defence is only okay if you have lots of it to get the % dmg reduction, usually because you wear the damascus helmet to have more deco slots, not because of defence. So as a side effect the helmet gives you 3 defence which you can augment if you happen to have another piece with defence or add a lvl4 defence jewel ( say on your mantle).

But it is one of the weakest defensive skill IMO, health boost is one of the best with speed eating/mushroomance, stun resist or divine blessing.

[kampfer91]

HB 3 is a guarantee save from a number of high damage attack that would one shot a normal 150 HP player .
Divine protection is a gamble, sure it is good when it proc but when it doesn't you are in danger of being 1 shot .

[Hunny]

defense is a really trash skill, level 7 defense boost gets outclassed by even 2 levels of health boost, health boost is also cheaper, its really not a hard choice

[Aunel]

Health boost because maxed out defence gives effective HP of about 1.5 ranks of health boost. There's plenty of mathguys videos on it on youtube. It has a lot to do with diminishing returns at the top end, too.

[Katitoff]

Health boost is THE best defensive stat in game.
Then divine protection.
Then defence.

[Dephase]

Plus, a lot of lvl 4 deocrations have health boost as a secondary skill such as release/vitality, flawless/vitality etc.It's even easier to slot now.

[Nikana]

I got defense 7 divine blessing 5 health boost 3. I have a lot of fun with it. but still, I recommend you to use health boost over defense

[iNol]

Health boost is better coz just with 3 skill points you get a lot. 3 points of defense is nothing in comparison lol. Points by points like that. Health boost 3 is priority and is suggested for any build to avoid 1 shot death vs strong monsters.

Defense only meaningful if you can get 7 of it imo, the 5 resistance to all element is handy if you want protection against element/blight (combined with resist L from food), and the 10 percent defense bonus, which can mean 90-100 defense extra. Defense boost 6 can do too.

Defense boost charm is quite good tho, coz it gives 5 points when maxxed, with extra 2 from deco you can have 7 easily. Defensive set is my favorite and I use defense charm there coz of the 5 points of skill that is rare.

[Pelikan]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Health boost is THE best defensive stat in game.
Then divine protection.
Then defence.

That is debatable... it can be the best in some cases but we had the discussions thousands of times and the conclusion was always that :

1) if you wear a decent armor with high defence and element resist, almost nothing can one shot you in this game which means that your survivability is mainly affected by how fast you can heal the initial damage.

2) Statistically, the most common cause for carting/dying is not one shot from full hp... it is not being able to heal on time after being hit initially, or by being stunned then combo-edt to death. So instant healing is usually more valuable there

3) The main benefit of healthboost is not one shot protection from full hp, but protection from being killed after you have taken chip damage from poison/fire etc.. that you did not heal because you did not have any time to sheathe to heal it or insta-heal it with mushroom/speed eating.

So basically yes Health boost is really great to have and almost mandatory late game against the likes of Gold Rathian etc, especially combined with skills like mushroomancer/speed eating but to say it is definitely the best, well not sure. It depends what you are fighting, for instance against Lunastra, Health boost is super important due to this supernova.

[Catpuppy]

Level 7 defense boost is something like 12.5% effective HP for a pretty big investment, whereas Health Boost and Divine Protection give double (or more than double) at level 3. The one nice thing about defense boost is, if the +3 all resists is enough to bring more than one resist up to 20 with or without elemental food. Then it can be efficient.