What exactly is the ratio for defense and reducing damage?

What I mean is, approximately how many points of defense are needed to reduce damage by 1 point.

I know that damage reduction through defense is a flat number which is why it wanes in effectiveness the higher up the difficulty pyramid you go, but it also makes it quite hard to calculate exactly how much you need to make a meaningful difference, what it’s breakpoints are, and how buffs interact with it. Because some buffs like Steel and Tengen Amrita are hardly even noticeable, and then others like Kushinadahime 3p offer quite a significant mitigation boost.

I’d like to understand Defense better as a whole, that’s all.

Well... It's a weird equation that's logarithmically bound. The is no easy answer. Essentially - the more you have, the less it gives per point and it's different for each difficulty.

Basically - just keep your stuff leveled up to the level of the loot that drops around you. In WotSam/Strong, any armor can take a decent hit and most folks don't have enough stamina to wear heavy and go light with A Agility or medium with B agility.

In WotD, light armor will get one-shorted if low level, but survive if properly leveled to the level and plus value of the divine loot that drops. WotW, strong attacks from large yokai or skill attacks from bosses can only be survived with heavy armor, but any armor can take other hits of properly leveled.

WotN, if it's not heavy armor (roughly 35% damage reduction) you can't take much, if any, hits. But full heavy will survive until floor 160 in abyss. Above that, you need about 50+% damage reduction - so full Tatenashi or Oyamatsumi with heavy armor. But that can take a hit throughout the entire abyss if it doesn't weaken your armor.

Defense always does something, but from about WotW onwards - it's largely irrelevant. So just keep your gear leveled up to the level of divine loot that drops around you, and you should be just fine - just ignore defense and look at equipment level.

Because isolating the exact equation would involve non-linear regression that is exponentially bound at/above certain values. And you'd have to factor out spirit protection and damage reduction and it'd get really messy and really complicated.

Ah, so it is more complicated then I gave it credit for. It's super simple in Dark Souls 1, I think it's -1 damage for every 4 points or something, and becomes largely worthless from NG+ onwards for that reason.

I guess it'll just be one of those mechanics I'll never fully understand in Nioh, along with the exact amount of Ki regen given by Kekkai and Sacred Water, the formula for Toughness as it reduces Ki loss from blocking, etc.

Still, I was a little surprised to see the impact 3p Kushinadahime has on overall mitigation. Assuming it's only raising flat defense like Steel and Tengen Amrita, it must be a pretty significant boost to cut damage as well as it does. My guess is it's an identical number to the attack buff from 3p Izanagi, so if Izanagi was, say, 27% Attack, then 3p Kushinadahime would be 27% Defense, which would then start to make sense seeing as Steel is, what, a measly 6% that doesn't scale with Onmyo?

I can see 3p Kushinadahime pairing well with some builds. Mixing it in with my Tatenashi build might be worth some experimenting.

The ratio is Not Enough.

LancetJades posted...

The ratio is Not Enough.

True enough.

Foxhound3857 posted...

I can see 3p Kushinadahime pairing well with some builds. Mixing it in with my Tatenashi build might be worth some experimenting

I've been told by reliable sources that they only saw a flat reduction in damage of 60 points. Which is impressive in way of the samurai, but worthless in way of the Nioh. They said all the increase defense buffs had the same value and was basically, a waste of set bonuses / triggered boosts.

Lupinos posted...

True enough.

I've been told by reliable sources that they only saw a flat reduction in damage of 60 points. Which is impressive in way of the samurai, but worthless in way of the Nioh. They said all the increase defense buffs had the same value and was basically, a waste of set bonuses / triggered boosts.

Has anyone tested these buffs personally and recorded the findings for YouTube? Not just Kushinadahime, but Tengen buffs, Steel Talisman, Power Pills, etc?

Foxhound3857 posted...

Has anyone tested these buffs personally and recorded the findings for YouTube? Not just Kushinadahime, but Tengen buffs, Steel Talisman, Power Pills, etc?

Probably - but I wouldn't really know. Usually they'd post a video of testing one of these things while discussing it - and if 10 people test the same mechanic and all get similar results; I wouldn't think to ask them for video proof...

The Tengen buffs are unique, and steel is stronger than increase defense. Powerpills are the weakest between pp/carnage/leeching/Tengen...