what is the point of the defense stat?

[ciel]

what it does:
makes lower tier monsters boring to fight because they pose literally no threat any more
what it doesn't do:
protect you from one-hit kills that AT and black dragons deploy constantly.

literally wut, capcom??

[Xilo The Odd]

it protects me from 1 shots. yurs is too low.

to expand on it, its a stat that caps out its damage mitigation after a certain point with exponential diminishing returns. meaning going from 1000 to 1100 isn't gonna see much gains.

however, you can stack high elemental res to compensate for the other portion of damage some attacks have. it is also typically not much, but every point of HP counts.

but the best defense is to not get hit. pure and simple.

[Dagný]

Originally posted by Junebug:

what it does:
makes lower tier monsters boring to fight because they pose literally no threat any more

use low tier gear, problem solved

[DLOZanma]

But it absolutely does, unless you're specifically talking about OHKO attacks like Ecliptic Meteor.

[twiggy]

its just a gimmick stat to trick newbies. its useless, you cant kill a monster with defense

[Zelph]

Constant one shots from ATs? God, thats news to me, beat all the MR ones multiple times, very little one shots outside of the obvious telegraphed stuff.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by Xilo The Odd:

it protects me from 1 shots. yurs is too low.

to expand on it, its a stat that caps out its damage mitigation after a certain point with exponential diminishing returns. meaning going from 1000 to 1100 isn't gonna see much gains.

however, you can stack high elemental res to compensate for the other portion of damage some attacks have. it is also typically not much, but every point of HP counts.

but the best defense is to not get hit. pure and simple.

and the best defensive skill is health boost 3.

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

Originally posted by Xilo The Odd:

it protects me from 1 shots. yurs is too low.

to expand on it, its a stat that caps out its damage mitigation after a certain point with exponential diminishing returns. meaning going from 1000 to 1100 isn't gonna see much gains.

however, you can stack high elemental res to compensate for the other portion of damage some attacks have. it is also typically not much, but every point of HP counts.

but the best defense is to not get hit. pure and simple.

and the best defensive skill is health boost 3.

HB3, divine whatever you can fit, blight res 2,

if you want to be funny, max heroics. though on a raw build its quite fun to cap out your raw with just fortitude 1 and heroics active under a vitality mantle.

[mewlynx]

Originally posted by Zelph:

Constant one shots from ATs? God, thats news to me, beat all the MR ones multiple times, very little one shots outside of the obvious telegraphed stuff.

Play a ranged weapon lol. AT Velk with bow is one shot city even with 200 hp.

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by maelynx:

Originally posted by Zelph:

Constant one shots from ATs? God, thats news to me, beat all the MR ones multiple times, very little one shots outside of the obvious telegraphed stuff.

Play a ranged weapon lol. AT Velk with bow is one shot city even with 200 hp.

yeah but as a bow user, your expected to dodge everything. not face tank hits you should really have been dodging.

[ciel]

Originally posted by Zelph:

Constant one shots from ATs? God, thats news to me, beat all the MR ones multiple times, very little one shots outside of the obvious telegraphed stuff.

The stupid "rev up fireball and then jump to the other side of the arena" move that fatalis does has killed my ass from full more times than I can count.

[lexilogo]

I'd say the primary point of Defense is to encourage players to transition to lategame armors. Even expert players when Iceborne launched went through a long process coming to terms with removing their Drachen/Teostra Gamma armors.


I would like to see Defense rebalanced at some point to actually be a relevant stat in how it varies, though. The actual differences in survivability in this game between players usually come from specific skills like Divine Blessing, elemental resistances, and inherent melee/ranged resistance stats, but never really Defense.

[RedViper]

Originally posted by Junebug:

Originally posted by Zelph:

Constant one shots from ATs? God, thats news to me, beat all the MR ones multiple times, very little one shots outside of the obvious telegraphed stuff.

The stupid "rev up fireball and then jump to the other side of the arena" move that fatalis does has killed my ass from full more times than I can count.

So, the move that only does at its feet and has like a 3 second charge insta kills you? Then maybe move away from its feet, you have 3 whole seconds to do so.

I also hate it when fatalis does his breath attack where it just flies so far into the air and you can't even reach it and scorches the entire arena, you just die to that attack and it's so fast that you can't see it coming</sarcasm>

[ciel]

Originally posted by lexilogo:

I'd say the primary point of Defense is to encourage players to transition to lategame armors. Even expert players when Iceborne launched went through a long process coming to terms with removing their Drachen/Teostra Gamma armors.


I would like to see Defense rebalanced at some point to actually be a relevant stat in how it varies, though. The actual differences in survivability in this game between players usually come from specific skills like Divine Blessing, elemental resistances, and inherent melee/ranged resistance stats, but never really Defense.

I'm wincing, remembering all the people who refused to switch away from Drachen armor when IB dropped >_>

[ciel]

Originally posted by RedViper:

Originally posted by Junebug:

The stupid "rev up fireball and then jump to the other side of the arena" move that fatalis does has killed my ass from full more times than I can count.

So, the move that only does at its feet and has like a 3 second charge insta kills you? Then maybe move away from its feet, you have 3 whole seconds to do so.

I also hate it when fatalis does his breath attack where it just flies so far into the air and you can't even reach it and scorches the entire arena, you just die to that attack and it's so fast that you can't see it coming</sarcasm>

You mean I made a mistake? That's news to me bro thanks for the info, I thought I was just dying for no reason because the animation team wanted to make sure I saw the death animations.

[Lemonidas of Sourta]

Agreed that defense seems like a worthless stat but think of it like this way. Having 1000 defense is like having 1000 health.

Incoming raw damage multiplier - 80/(80 X 1000) = 0.001
Which means you take one damage when you get hit by 1000 damage. Sure, it doesn't seem much when tempered Rajang chunks half your health in one swing, but you'd be far worse off if you didn't have the defense for it.

Unequip all armor, drop mega bombs, stand near it and use slinger to detonate, you will see it takes more than half of your base unbuffed health. So yeah, don't use defense boost skill sure, but defense is still useful.