MOB (MAGIC) DEFENSE .... What's going on?

 After talking about damage based in the previous chapters, it's time to know how to increase the damage base... "But why will we talk about defenses? Not a guide on offense?.

Sure, but now we'll talk a little bit about the magical and physical defenses of mob's/bosses as they affect and diminish your damage base.

WHAT IS DEF AND MDEF?

DEF is the statistic that reduces the damage taken from a player or mob/boss by a physical attack, as well as the MDEF in the case of magic attacks.

For boss fights, physical and magical defenses can be increased by the difficulty chosen. But this can be reduced with the ailment Armor Break or Physical/Magic Pierce.

Defenses work differently for a player, mob or boss. But now we'll focus only on the case of mobs or bosses.

In the case of the mobs, their defense calculation is very simple:

 Effective Defense = Total DEF * (1 - player's physical pierce%/100)

Effective Magic Defense = Total MDEF * (1 - player's magic pierce%/100)

A boss's defenses are calculated as the sum of his natural defense and the defenses of his parts. That is, breaking the parts of a boss can decrease the DEF/MDEF. But there is something to keep in mind, the boss can increase his natural defense by a player-generated ailment or also by the effect of Tumble/Flinch or Stun.

The statistics of natural defense as well as the defenses of its parts, are determined by the level chosen:

• Easy +10%

• Normal +100%

• Hard +200%

• Nightmare +400%

• Ultimate +600%

The effect of using armor break on a mob/boss decreases your Total DEF/MDEF by 50% (The stats of physical/magic pierce% act independently as indicated in the aforementioned formula).

Therefore, taking into account the DEF/MDEF of your enemies gives you to understand the effect of your damage base.

Final Damage (Step 1) = Base Damage - DEF or MDEF

The decrease in damage due to the effect of the defenses decrease directly, which can be somewhat cumbersome with the next steps of the damage base.

Is this important?

Of course, when you perform combats in higher difficulty bosses, you will notice why your damage decreases.

How do I overcome this?

Get more damage from Physical/Magic Pierce

It is not so advisable to fill yourself with equipment with these stats sacrificing other damage statistics. If not, you have to take this into account.

On the other hand there are skills that have penetration effects of defenses such as Shell Break (Physical Pierce), Holy Light (Magic Pierce) or the best known now that is Dragon Tooth or Garyou Tensei (With Kaikiri effect) with the ability to have 100% Physical Pierce.

Know the Boss/mobs attack pattern

Some can increase their defenses by making a certain pattern (Case of Grass Dragon Yelb after the Bleed/Silence/Stop AoE combo), by certain generated effects (Flinch or Tumble to Cerberus) or some cases decrease them by ailments (Such as Zahhak Machina).

Breaking parts

Breaking parts of a boss can help in decreasing their defenses, as well as earning an EXP and DROP bonus. But keep in mind that it does not always work since some bosses when trying to break these parts, raise their defenses. So, they're not always meaningful if you know it does this.