The single most confusing stat in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The First Descendant is Defense. S🦹ome characters can achieve Defense values in the hundreds of thousands, yet the stat can seem downright useless under certain situations. It's also impossible to figure out♏ what the stat actually does in-game.

It turns out that Defense is a simple damage mitigation layer that every Descendant has access to, 🌸but its exact values are tied to a formula that's never explained in-game. Fortunately, we've done enough testing to get a rough idea of how Defense ac🧜tually scales and how useful it is. Let's dig into how Defense works and answer an age-old question: Is Defense worth scaling?

How Does Defense Work?

Defense (called DEF in-game) is one of your main sources of damage reduction in First Descendant, mitigating all non-attribute damage by a certain percentage. The more Defense you have, the less damage your HP and shields receive. Increasing your Defense will reduce all incoming damage, excluding elemental damage, but you'll start to experience diminishing returns the higher your Defense rating goes. This stat is heavily front-loaded, 🍒so you only need minimal investment to see major returns.

The Defense Formula

From our testing, the formula below is the most accurate model we could create for calculating your effective damage reduction (DR) from your DEF rating. This isn't the exact formula—values a🦄re of꧅f by ± 1%—but it should give you a fairly accurate value.

Damage Reduction = 0.013 * ln(0.00161 * DEF + 1)

Most Descendants have a DEF rating of roughly 2K at max level, granting 19% damage reduction (DR for short). You can easily add 4.6K DEF to your build with a single external component, bringing your DEF rating to 6.6K or 31% effective DR. Throw on another component, and now you're looking at roughly 38% DR. You can see that the jump between DR values (19 ⇾ 31 ⇾ 38) isn't linear. That first module drastically increased your DR, while the second module was slightly less effecti♛ve.

So how much Defense is enough? Based on our testing, you want at least 6,000 DEF. This will give you 32% DR and requires virtually no investment. A single affix on your Me💛mory external component, paired with a Level 40 Descendant, should hit 6K DEF. Additional Defense is generally less effective than adding flat HP to your character.

Defense Breakpoints

These values were obtained from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:[Hard] Dead Bride.

Elemental resistances use the same value🌄s and exclusively mitigate 🐬elemental damage.

As you can see, your DR falls off a cliff past 30K DEF, requiring roughly 2.2x your current DEF rating to gain an extra 10% DR. It doesn't require much build investment to reach 13K, but achieving 30K+ will require the use of Defense modules. In almost every case, you're better off equipping a second HP module. To explain why, we first need to✱ talk about EHP.

How We Gathered Data For DEF

Testing Methodology And Data

For this article, I tested over 50 DEF values against [🤪Hard] Dead Bride and [Hard] Executioner. This let me test how DEF works against non-attribu𒅌te damage (Dead Bride's cannon attacks) and elemental damage (Executioner + Dead Bride's mechanics). Executioner uses a mix of elemental and physical damage.

To ensure no weird scaling mechanics are added in Hard mode, I🍸 also did a few tests on Normal difficulty. Damage values were consistent across both mode♉s.

Calculating DR was fairly straightforward:

DR = 1 - (Incoming Damage / Base Damage)

To calculate base damage, I simply looked at the website. This pulls data directly from the API and displays it in a clea⭕n interface. As you can see, [Hard] Dead Bride's Firearm ATK is 353 at Level 103, which is her leve꧋l when you attempt the fight solo. Her arm cannon deals twice the listed Firearm ATK damage, so her base damage is 706. The highest damage value I recorded during testing was 704 (75.36 DEF), so the base damage value seems accurate.

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With all the data collected, I plotted my recorded values in Desmos and tested various regression models. If you're interested, . Surprisingly, the best fit for the damage values was a logarithmic model, not a power model like the community had previously theorized. If you look at the nodes above (the red dots), 𒉰they fit the logarithmic model (blue line) much better than the power model (red line) in the second image. I cleaned up the values and got this formula:

Damage Reduction = 0.013 * ln(0.00161 * DEF + 1)

The formula itself isn't perfect, but it gives a fairly accurate estimate of how much DR you'll receive from your DEF rating. It's unclear if enemies use the same formula, seeing as how certain bosses like Pyromaniac get over 400,000 DEF in Hard mode—which is about 84% damage reduction with this model. Elemental resistances do use the same formula, however, but they apply to elemental damage 💜only.

Some bosses, such as Executioner, will deal a mix of non-attribute and elemental damage. In these cases, you neeജd to run a mix of DEF and elemental resistance to fully mitigate the damage. For example, the Executioner's total damage is roughly 45% electric and 55% physical. DEF values seem to be half as effective on this boss, but once I started to use elemental resistances, the formula began to work as expected, proving that DEF does not mitigate elemental damage.

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What Is EHP?

EHP is an acronym for "effective health pool," which is your character's total health value multiplied by your damage resistance values. This is a more accurate way of determining your character's survivability. In simpler terms, we can use math to determine how many hits our character can take. Once we figure out a build's EHP, we can compare EHP v꧑alues against one another to see which build is truly the ta✨nkiest.

Calculating your EHP is quite easy:

EHP = (HP + Shields) * (1+ total DR)

For example, if you have 1,000 base HP, no shields, and a total of 33ไ% damage reduction, you'd have 1,333 EHP. This applies to shields as well as health. If you're playing Kyle and have 8,000 Shields and 50% effective DR, Kyle's EHP would be 16,000.

Calculating Total DR

The confusing part is calculating your effective DR. Damage reduction stacks multiplicatively, not additively. You calculate it with this formula:

Total DR = 1 - (1-x) * (1-y) * (1-z)...

Exclude elemental resistances from the formula. It mitigates a different damage bucket.

Each variable in this equation represents a source of damage reduction. For example, let's say your DEF gives you 30% DR, and you have two modules equipped that grant a total of 20% DR—generic DR sources from modules staඣck additively. The formula would look li🃏ke this.

Total DR = 1 - (1-30%) * (1-20%) = 44%

You simply add a (1-x) to the equation for each new source of DR you're adding to the build. HP and shield values can be taken strai🦹ght from your Descendant's stat page, so calculating a build's EHP should be fairly straightforward.

Scaling Your EHP

You have three methods of scaling EHP:

1. Increase your HP.
2. Increase your shields.
3. Increase your damage reduction.
   • This can be done through DEF, elemental resistances, and dedicated damage reduction modules.

In general, the best way to scale your EHP is by increasing your health. Shields in First Descendant have poor base values, worse module scaling, and lower flat values from external components. Descendants generall⛦y have higher base HP values, and external components have stronger max HP modifiers🔯. Modules that scale HP tend to have higher percentages as well.

Is Scaling HP Better Than Defense?

Yes, it is always better to scale your HP over your Defense. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Unless you are playing as Ajax or a Descendant who gets added value from their DEF rating, you will always gain more EHP from scaling your HP than your DEF. Now that we have the formulas for calculating EHP, we can prove this with some basic ꦏarithmetic.

The bar graphs above showcase Freyna's EHP (excluding shields) with every popular external component configuration. Each bar🅷 represents her EHP with tw🐽o modules equipped:

• Blue Bar: Only HP modules.
  • Increased HP + HP Amplification or Battle Stamina.

• Pink Bar: Only DEF modules.
  • Increased DEF + a conversion mod or Spear & Shield.

• Brown Bar (Control): Increased HP + Increased DEF modules.

I tested multiple sets of modules to showcase the EHP differences between using two min-max survivability modules versus running a secondary hybrid module like Spear and Shield. The graphs above make it clear that HP scaling is the most effective means of scaling your EHP. Across all compone𒆙nt configurations and module combinations, focusing on your HP always leads to mo꧋re EHP.

However, that doesn't mean Defense is completely useless. If you focus on scaling your HP, you should always use a Memory component with a gold +DEF modifier. This will increase your EHP by roughly 10% for most Descendants. The highest affix value you can get is 4,264, 🅰as shown on the .

Elemental Resistances

Elemental resistances are also worth investing in, provided you're fighting Void Intercept bosses. An external component can grant up to +3,858 resistance, which mitigates that damage type by roughly 25%. 🍸The opportunity cost might seem high, but if a boss is dealing an even split between elemental and physical damage, that's an easy 12% DR from a single stat on an external component. Don't sleep on them.

Resistance Modules

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Don't use dedicated elemental resistance mods on your 💞Descendant. The values are pitiful and take up valuable module space. Instead, aim for resistance affixes on your external components.

For reference, each component 🌺can roll with one resistance ty♛pe.

• Auxiliary Power: Fire Resistance
• Sensor: Chill Resistance
• Memory: Electric Resistance
• Processor: Toxic Resistance

How To Make A Tanky Build In The First Descendant

Now that we understand how♈ Defense and EHP work in The First Descendant, let's put that knowledge to use. Based on my findings and everything we covered, here are the key takeaways for building a tanky character:

• Always scale HP - Health is your best source of survivability in First Descendant. DEF has serious diminishing returns, and shields have much less powerful modules and flat values.
• Run double HP modules - It's more effective than running HP + DEF or double DEF.
• Use Gold Components - Components play a huge role in your survivability. Flat HP affixes can double or triple the base HP of your Descendant.
  • Every Descendant can be built tanky. It's all about your components and modules. A well-built Bunny is infinitely tankier than a poorly-built Ajax.

• Aim for 6K DEF - A Level 40 Descendant and a single DEF affix on your Memory component will grant 30% DR. Scaling DEF past this point has an opportunity cost that generally isn't worth it.
  • If you have multiple sources of HP regeneration or scale shields, then DEF might be more useful.

• Elemental resistances aren't useless - Keep a spare set of components with resistances on your character. They make Void Intercept fights much easier.