How does Defense boosts from Mods work?

orange12

I'm not sure how I should valuate Mods that give boosts to Defense. I see that physical and special survivability goes up, usually by a small percentage, but how does that translate into taking less damage?

I guess what I'm asking is, how much is each percentage of Defense worth compared to a unit of Health or Protection (both which are more straight forward to understand)?

Durrun

There have been many threads on this topic and there's still a bit of speculation on it. But as a strict set bonus the hp mods are Far better in 99% of cases

scuba

There is a lot of guessing going on. Best assumption that seems to work is the armor/resistance reduces physical/special damage done buy that amount.

So if an attack is going to do 1000 physical damage and you have armor of 25% then you will only take 750 damage.
10,000 damage you will take 7500 damage.

If you increase the armor stat by 10% to 30% then you will only take 700 damage. 10,000 damage you will take 7000 damage.

Note that a Defense mod increase of 10% will not increase your armor by 10% but a much lower amount. Basically it is trial and error to see how the armor stat changes.

Durrun

1 point of defense is equivalent to approximately (it varies to character) .11% armor

Durrun

Furthermore you can get more total survivablity from a singular 2 set hp mod than the full 6 mods defense

Defense1236

I tried here.

Dog

I have Fives with three 5 dot health mods that boost defense by 8% at level 10. This appears to do absolutely nothing to actually boost my character. My friends Fives which is the same in every way other than he's got 1 dot mods has more overall power than mine. I just don't understand that.

Josh_K

Based on % itemization, each 1% of health gained is more valuable that each 1% of defense in almost all practical situations. The only exception is Cody due to his massive boost to defense as leader (flat defense is actually more valuable than flat protection).

Dog

OK that clears it up somewhat. So basically mods that boost defense are completely worthless unless used on Cody?

Harlick187

Unless you have a defense mod that gives speed, critical chance or critical damage. I have some of those and the rare mods are still useful.