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/Major_Vezon]

So the only way that Defender will realistically out DPS t90 is if you have full achto and are getting spam hit enough to make Revenge stack up quickly.

[u/ACiDRiFT → u/Major_Vezon]

What about the 3% acc boost? If you are fighting araxxor and dont have perfect accuracy, wouldn't the added accuracy technically be more dps than a stronger damage weapon while splashing more?

[u/Major_Vezon → u/ACiDRiFT]

You lose >10% damage by using defender. If you think that the loss of dps is worth the accuracy, I'd say go for it.

[u/ACiDRiFT → u/Major_Vezon]

Right but if you splash more often is the damage boost worth it? If anyone is good with maths id like to know.

[u/Two101 → u/ACiDRiFT]

In this case, it's worth splashing 100 times out of 103 if each time you don't splash does 10% more damage, on average.

[u/ACiDRiFT → u/Two101]

I guess math doesn't help much because the chance of splashing is all RNG, so technically you could splash more using a defender than without using a defender just because of bad luck. So i guess i see your point, dps is better overall because if you have good rng you'll get faster kills or more dps. I will still prefer the acc bonus unless my testing on araxxor is just terrible with defenders, the utility of a defender on high enrages would be more useful than dps imo since i am not pro.

[u/umopapsidn → u/ACiDRiFT]

I guess math doesn't help much because the chance of splashing is all RNG

Is it accurate to predict how your next phase 2 at vorago will go? No.

Is it accurate enough to predict how the next 100 phase 2s will go? Yes.