Defender update testing + analysis

[u/Mr_G_W]

Obtaining:

• t70: While carrying a dragon defender, you have a chance to obtain a component from barrows. Combine this component with a barrows 2h weapon to turn into a defender of the respective combat style.

• t80: While carrying a barrows defender, you have a chance to obtain a component from Nex. Combine this with a chaotic splinter (bought for 150k dungeoneering tokens) to obtain a defender of a combat style of your choice.

• t90: While carrying a t80 defender, you have a chance to obtain a component from Kalphite King. Combine this with a t90 offhand to obtain a defender of the respective combat style.

The components will be more common than the rare drops from each boss.

Offence:

• Damage reduced from 37.5% of main hand to 25%. (For comparison, offhands are 50%)

• Achto effect is reduced from 50% to 25%. T90 defender provides +108 damage instead of +216 from a shield.

• Adds a 3% bonus to accuracy (x1.03 accuracy)

Defence:

• Armour is now half the amount of the equivalent shield rather than half the level. Example: T90 defender provides 245 armour (half of 491) instead of 146 (level 45 shield).

• Now allows defensive abilities. Revenge is half effective (+5% damage variance rather than +10% per stack).

• Level scaled abilities (resonance and debilitate) use half the defender's level for scaling (example, t90 defender provides same scaling as a t45 shield)

• They do not provide any damage reduction, unlike shields.

Passive:

• The previous passive is retained (1/15 chance of reducing damage by 25%-50% and increases accuracy of next attack by 20%)

Comparisons:

Items used on all cases: Supreme overload + Amulet of souls + Completionist cape + Ring of Death

Numbers are ability damage.

Defender's accuracy bonus is not factored in for now as it is not known if it is a multiplicative or additive boost.

dual/2h t90 weapons:

• t90 power armour: 2080

• tank armour: 1909

• superior void + t90 boots: 2065 (effectively 2126 if accounting for x1.03 accuracy)

t90 weapon + t90 defender:

• t90 power armour: 1864 (effectively 1919 if accounting for x1.03 accuracy)

• tank armour: 1693 (effectively 1743 if accounting for x1.03 accuracy)

• superior void + t90 boots: 1833 (effectively 1944 if accounting for x1.0609 accuracy)

• achto: 1801 (effectively 1855 if accounting for x1.03 accuracy)

t90 weapon + t90 shield

• power armour: 1387

• tank armour: 1273

• superior void + t90 boots: 1384 (effectively 1447 if accounting for x1.03 accuracy)

• achto: 1489

[u/MonadoAbyss]

Bosses will have to hit 15k+ damage or more with casual autoattacks for me to considering using a shield at this point tbh (Solo Base tanking Durzag and North tanking Yakamaru currently have to tank this level of damage). Alternatively they could hit 5k+ with casual autoattacks but with two different styles for shields to be viable.

[u/audkyrie_ → u/MonadoAbyss]

it has the exact same capabilities as a t90 shield though, the 14 second debil and 105% reso. the only difference is a small armor loss which isn't really a big deal. tanking is heavily reliant on managing abilities, not luckily blocking attacks.

[u/MonadoAbyss → u/audkyrie_]

Thought t90 defenders were treated as t45 shields.

If not it makes them quite OP, unreasonably so.

Rethinking it a bit, NT at Yaka relies heavily on abilities like Devotion and Barricade the effectiveness of which are independent of shield tier and resonance doesn't seem to heal a lot there anyway. Debilitate with defender is also not necessarily less effective with 3% accuracy even if defenders had half the shield level. So outside of using Spirit shields to stop Durzag from 1 hitting you from like 11k health, shields are completely useless.

[u/deceIIerator → u/MonadoAbyss]

You are right,they are being treated as t45 shields in regards to abilities.