Defense

is one of the eleven core player statistics. It determines how much Damage reduction the player has.

The more a player has, the less damage is taken from Hostile Mobs. Defense does not reduce True Damage.

Increasing Base Defense
Players do not have any base by default. It can be increased by:
 * Turning in Fairy Souls to Tia the Fairy


 * Leveling the Mining Skill
 * Forbidden Defense V in Wither Essence shop.

Increasing Bonus Defense
There are several ways to gain additional bonus.
 * Equipping any type of Armor. (Excluding Mastiff Armor, Tuxedos and most heads)


 * Holding the Golem Sword, Earth Shard, Wither Cloak Sword, or Astraea


 * Using Accessories (ex: Gravity Talisman)


 * Using the Protection Enchantment on Armor


 * Reforging (ex: Titanic Reforge)


 * Drinking the Resistance Potion


 * Pigman Sword's ability gives +300

Damage Reduction
The more the player has, the less bonus damage reduction the player will get (A player with 123  has 55% damage reduction, but when they reach 246, they will not have 110% damage reduction).

The formula for damage reduction is

$$\frac{Def}{Def + 100}$$ damage reduction. For example, if Defense is 200, the formula is

$$\frac{200}{200+100}$$ or

$$\frac{200}{300}$$ or 2/3 or ~67% damage reduction, meaning with 200, the player takes one third of the damage from monsters that would normally be taken with 0 defense.

This leads to a misconception that higher  is useless because the damage reduction only goes up slightly. This is incorrect, for as the difference from 0% to 50% damage reduction may seem more substantial than the jump from 90% to 95%, both are equal in that they double EHP (Effective Health Points) (100-200 vs 1000–2000)

Effective Health
Effective health is the amount of health the player has when defense is factored in. If one has 100 HP and 200 defense, they will be able to take 300 damage, as shown below.

The formula for EHP is

$$HP \times \frac{Def + 100}{100}$$ .

For example, if is 200 and  is 100, the formula is:

$$100 \times \frac{200 + 100}{100}$$ or

$$100 \times \frac{300}{100}$$ or

$$100 \times 3$$ or

300 EHP, meaning with 100 and 200, the player can take as much damage without dying as someone who has 300  and 0  could.

EHP is a useful metric for calculating which armor is better than another armor.

Not to be confused with True Defense.

Achieving Max Defense
To achieve max defense possible in game, a player needs to do the following:


 * Achieve Catacombs 50, which boosts dungeon item stats inside dungeons by 515%.
 * Achieve Mining 60, turn in all 220 Fairy Souls, and get Forbidden Defense V for 163 base defense. Base defense can then be increased by another 50 by getting Defense Essence V from the Undead Essence shop.
 * Wear a full set of Recombobulated Absolutely Perfect Armor with Protection VII with 10 Hot Potato Books and 5 Fuming Potato Books. This set gives 1871 defense outside dungeons. While inside dungeons, this is boosted by 515%, for a grand total of 11506.65 defense from the armor alone.
 * Use an Astraea, which gives 260 defense inside dungeons. Once again, this is boosted inside dungeons by 515%, meaning from the sword you will gain 1599 defense with this sword. Also, right before this you can use the Pigman Sword's ability for another 300 defense.
 * A Resistance 8 Potion can be drunk inside a dungeon for 66 defense.
 * in total so far, we are at 13684.65 defense.
 * A Tank level 50 will give an instant buff of defense by 100 for our new total to be 13784.65. In addition, tank 50 buffs all defense by 35%. With the tank buff, our defense is now 18609.2775.
 * Putting Last Stand V on the perfect armor means whenever your health is below 25%, you will gain +100% defense. So we multiply our current defense by 2 and we get 37218.555 defense.
 * As our defense is extremely high, the best pet for us would be a turtle pet. 37218.555*1.2 = 44662.266 defense. Turtle pet also gives 100 defense as its base stat, which can then be copied onto the Astraea with Chimera V. The copied stats will get buffed inside dungeons. The turtle pet also buffs defense by 40 while near water. The total defense buff from turtle pet is 755. However, this defense is then increased by the Tank Class and by Last Stand. In total, the turtle pet buffs the defense by 2038.5, for a new total of 46700.766 defense.
 * Finally, 4 pieces of the Perfect reforge will increase total defense by 2% each, stacked multiplicatively. The final total max defense is 46700.766*1.02*1.02*1.02*1.02 = 50550.411
 * Although Blessings can increase that further, the blessing buffs are inconsistent. Therefore, 50,550.411 defense is generally considered the max defense you can have in the game. That is over 99.8% damage reduction.

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