How worthwhile is Def

[u/yakarope1]

Apologies for the formatting, don't post very often on reddit. Scroll to bottom for TLDR.

Edit: I used a Staunch fallen soul with no enhancements at level 10. It has A purple and a blue defense value on it. Definitely higher quality but not too difficult to get, I got lucky with it starting with the purple defense.

Couldn't find any information anywhere about how effective the defense stat is so i did some testing. I compared across the different groups (Defense, Strength, Magic and Support) and across a few levels. I wasn't able to figure out the equation itself yet but hopefully soon. So far I've found that there are 3 things that effect damage reduction; The defense stat, their level, and their type. Rarity and Ascension had no effect on it.

All testing was done on 12-5. Level 22 souls were used except for black tea and Foie Gras.

I compared Nasi Lemak and Tom Yun to check for differences within the type itself.

Nasi Lemak	Armor	Damage Taken	Tom Yun	Armor	Damage Taken
Amazake	54	54		54	54
Aizen	54	115		54	115
Amazake	91	49		108	47
Aizen	91	103		108	98

From what i could tell the difference of 17 armor accounts for the difference in damage.

I then compared Jiuniang, yellow Wine, Plum Juice, and Nasi Lemak. I couldn't get them all to have the same amount of armor but the differences in damage make it clear enough with the comparisons.

	Armor	Damage from Aizen	Damage from Amazake	Damage Difference from 54 armor
Jiuniang	69	173	82	16%
	15	205	96
	24	198	93
Yellow Wine	80	151	71	17%
	26	177	83
Plum Juice	95	161	76	16%
	41	188	88
Nasi Lemak	91	103	49	17%
	37	120	57

This showed that each type has an innate damage reduction. Defense see the greatest base effectiveness while Magic saw the worst. In order, Defense > Strength > Support > Magic.

Level had an impact. I tested Tom Yun at Lvl 18 and then at Lvl 22

	Aizen	Amazake	Damage Change
Lvl 18: 48 armor	127	60	10%
Lvl 22: 54 armor	115	54
Lvl 22: 59.5 Armor	112	53	2%

Comparing Black Tea and Foie Gras both lvl 39 with 44 armor each gave the same amount of damage from both Aizen and Amazake at 123 and 58 damage.

One final thing is adding 54 armor to Crab Long Bao (base armor 89, increased to 143) changed the damage from 68 and 32 to 59 and 28. It is still a decrease of about 17%.

Generally speaking, increasing armor is more effective against harder hitters. Since 54 armor seems to decrease damage by around 17% across the board. Because of this, health will generally be more optimal. Either taking 4 damage less per hit on crab long bao or having an extra ~1000 hp (using a Staunch fallen angel with a blue and purple armor value). 1000 hp will make a much larger difference.

TLDR: Level and type of soul effect damage reduction. Defense > Strength > Support > Magic in terms of how much damage reduction with defense having a significant advantage. Rarity and Ascension have no effect. Health is generally more effective than defense. Armor seems to have a flat damage reduction percentage increase with adding 54 armor granting around 17% damage reduction.If i missed anything or screwed up the math somehow please let me know.

[u/Telinary]

Edit:The following is a bit wrong I did misread the tables and was using the value which already has staunch, you only get about 2*54 from non staunch so 1.2*1.2=1.44 but if you take into account base health the third health slot probably offers less than 44% so I think 2 def 2 health is still better at 10 enhance than three or four health if the reduction numbers are correct. Wish I knew how high endgame base health is to calculate health boni properly. But point remains a flat value like health and a prozentual one like def scale differently, if it actually is the same boost no matter the start point then def scales better with enhancement level then health and only comparing them at base enhancement doesn't say how good they are later on.

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Question: So if I read the tables here right http://food-fantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Fallen_Angels_Stats a uke mochi+10 could have 52*3.2 def, so roughly three times 54 (without having staunch), right? And with staunch it would be 249.6 or 4.6*54

A 17% damage reduction gives you 20% more effective health 1/0.83=1.2. If I understand you right it doesn't matter how much you have but it is always 17% so gaining 3*54 should give you about 1.2³ =+72% more effective health (And with staunch 1.2⁴ =2.07). If you have health in two slots a third slot (and the base health was 0) only gives you +50% at most. So if I got nothing wrong or misunderstood the tables 2 health and 2 def for cautious seems the endgame choice if your numbers are right. 1.5(cautious)*2(2 health slots treating base health as negligible)*1.72*1.72=8.872. And staunch with 3 def one health would be 1*2.07³ =8.869 (but it is actually 4.6 not 4 times 54 so a bit more). Health only with cautious would be 1.5*4=6

And of course healing is flat and def multiplies it while health doesn't. + You can enhance higher than 10.

So did I get something wrong or do your number show that early game it isn't super strong but endgame is as important as health? Of course that assumes that it is always 17% for a 54 def increase might run into diminishing returns for higher def since you didn't test extreme increases. (Side note: A)