DEF

General

DEF (defense) protects against physical attacks. Physical attacks are generally attacks based wholly or partially on ATK. However, there are exceptions.

The descriptions used here refer to hard and soft DEF. These names are used for clarity. The vast majority of players do not use these terms in general conversation, and instead refer Armor Def (hard) and Vit Def (soft). Hard DEF works as a percentage reduction. Soft DEF is a subtractive reduction.

Hard DEF

Characters with no equipment, buffs, or skills have a base value of 0 regardless of level or Primary Stats. Hard DEF is primarily increased by equipping armor. However, some cards and buffs can also increase it.

Hard DEF decreases physical damage by multiplying it by the following value:

45/(45+HardDEF)

As an example, a character with 10 DEF will take only 81.8% of normal damage.

Hard Defense Reduction

Additive Bonuses

• Equipment bonus to DEF: +1 per point
• Armor upgrades: +0.25 to +2.7 per refine based on armor type and upgrade level
• Maximize Power: +3 per skill level, up to 15
• Comfort of the Sun/Moon/Stars: +1 per skill level, up to 4

Multiplicative Bonuses

A number of skills and items reduce def in this way however. These effect both hard and soft def, and are often used to reduce damage from Ice Pick and Investigate.

• Grimtooth: -50%
• Spike: -66.7%

Soft DEF

Unlike Hard DEF, which is a multiplier and based primarily on equipment, Soft DEF is a flat reduction and is based primarily on stats.

  Soft DEF = Base Lv + VIT + (VIT ^ 2) / 100

Soft def for monsters, however, is simply VIT

Soft def is applied after hard def and can reduce damage to as low as 1.

The full damage calculation (before any card or elemental modifiers) is

Damage = ATK * 45/(45+HardDEF) - SoftDEF

Multiplicative Modifiers

• Angelus: +10% per level
• Iron Defense: +5% per level
• Poison reduces soft def to 0

Bypassing DEF

The skills and weapons below are known to either bypass DEF, or have a reversed effect, thus increasing damage from the amount it.

Incomplete!

Skills

• Acid Terror
• Asura Strike
• Investigate - increases damage based on VIT - see section on DEF reversal
• Clashing Spiral

The following skills can critically strike, thus ignoring DEF:

• Bull's Eye
• Precision

Weapons

• Ahlspiess
• Brocca
• Bloody Roar
• Caesar's Sword
• Combat Knife
• Dragon Killer
• Dragon Slayer
• Dragon Wing
• Executioner
• Exorciser
• Ice Pick - increases damage based on VIT - see section on DEF reversal
• Immaterial Sword
• Slaughter

DEF Reversal

In special conditions, such as for the Ice Pick weapon and Investigate skill, damage done is determined mostly by inverting VIT def.

In this special case, the hard DEF damage multiplier is calculated as usual, but then a value based on VIT is added to it. At high VIT, this additional value eclipses the hard DEF multiplier and makes its reduction irrelevant, so high VIT targets will take very high damage regardless of hard DEF.

Unlike in traditional RO, hard DEF still reduces the damage in this case, but the reduction is insignificant.

See Also

• MDEF
• VIT