I havn't been able to find a single person who knows exactly what defense shatter does. Anybody know for sure how it works?

Slater was tested with no crits and elementless damage, so element/type advantage should not be affecting the results.

Baseline damage on the no-defense training dummy:

Slater damage vs no-defense dummy = 391

The likely defense formula is:

Damage = Base Damage / (1 + Defense)

So for these tests:

Damage = 391 / (1 + Defense)

A 40% defense decrease should mean:

Reduced Defense = Defense * 0.6

So expected damage after the defense decrease should be:

Damage = 391 / (1 + Defense * 0.6)

Orgot

Observed damage:

Normal damage = 17
Damage after 40% defense decrease = 27

Normal damage gives:

17 = 391 / (1 + Defense)

Defense = 22

After 40% defense decrease:

Reduced Defense = 22 * 0.6
Reduced Defense = 13.2

Expected damage:

Damage = 391 / (1 + 13.2)
Damage = 27.5

So the expected result is about:

27 damage

Observed result:

27 damage

So Orgot makes sense. His damage reduction appears to be explained by normal defense.

Galland

Observed damage:

Normal damage = 12
Damage after 40% defense decrease = 17

Normal damage gives:

12 = 391 / (1 + Defense)

Defense = 31.58

After a true 40% defense decrease:

Reduced Defense = 31.58 * 0.6
Reduced Defense = 18.95

Expected damage:

Damage = 391 / (1 + 18.95)
Damage = 19.6

So Galland should take about:

19 or 20 damage

But he only takes:

17 damage

That means Galland is taking less damage than he should if defense is the only thing involved.

Based on the actual 17 damage, Galland’s defense after the debuff acts like:

17 = 391 / (1 + Defense)

Defense = 22

So Galland effectively went from:

31.58 defense -> 22 defense

That is only about a:

30% effective reduction

Not 40%.

So the important question is:

What specifically is Galland’s other mysterious “defense”?

The Trifecta: Skill Damage, Darkness Damage, and Crit Damage

Multiplier	Your Current Stat	Multiplier
Normal Skill Damage	19.11%	1.1911x
Darkness Damage	54%	1.54x
Crit Damage	119.8%	2.198x

These do not just add together. They multiply each other:

That means after your base damage is calculated, these three stats together multiply it by about:

1.1911×1.54×2.198=4.0317

That is the core of why the build works.

What would greatly increase my damage is lowering crit damage and increasing normal skill damage.

Equalizing these three stats is what's key to highest DPS in this game.

The strongest builds usually are not the ones with the biggest single number. They are the ones with the best spread across separate multipliers.

Base Damage×Skill Damage×Darkness Damage×Crit Damage

Another note is that Darkness Attack is actually pretty good as long as you have high darkness attack numbers. Currently my Darkness attack total is almost equal to my regular attack. This means that Darkness attack is actually better than darkness damage since it maxes out past 40% while darkness damage maxes out at 18%.

Normal Skill Damage and Crit Damage are multiplying each other.

So this:

70% Crit Damage + 70% Normal Skill Damage

is better than this:

150% Crit Damage

Even though 150 looks bigger.

Why? Because separate multipliers boost each other.

Example:

70% Crit × 70% Normal Skill = 1.70 × 1.70 = 2.89x damage

But:

150% Crit Damage = 2.50x damage

So balanced stats can beat one huge stacked stat.

Detailed testing:

My base stats:

Attack = 7744
Crit Damage = 76.46%

First, I tested a basic attack with no crit:

7744 Attack = 930 damage

So for that basic attack:

930 / 7744 = 0.12009

That means the basic attack is doing about:

12.01% of Attack

or roughly:

1 Attack = 0.12 damage

Then I tested a normal skill with no equipment and no crit:

2672 damage

So:

2672 / 7744 = 0.3450

That means this normal skill is doing about:

34.5% of Attack

Then I equipped leggings with:

+21.83% Normal Skill Damage

My non-crit normal skill damage went from:

2672 → 3255

Check the math:

2672 × 1.2183 = 3255.70

That matches almost exactly.

So Normal Skill Damage is not adding flat damage. It is multiplying the skill damage.

Then I tested a crit with the same leggings equipped:

3255 non-crit → 5744 crit

Check the crit math:

3255 × 1.7646 = 5744.77

That also matches almost exactly.

So Crit Damage is also multiplying the final skill damage.

This means the formula appears to be:

Final Damage = Attack × Skill Multiplier × (1 + Normal Skill Damage) × (1 + Crit Damage)

Not:

Final Damage = Attack × Skill Multiplier × (1 + Normal Skill Damage + Crit Damage)

That distinction matters a lot.

Archpriestess, I’m mainly confused about the last part. Does it only increase Punishment duration, or does it also increase the dual ult duration? Could it increase ult duration at all?

The main reason I’m asking is because of Daisy’s book ult. Her ult gives a defense reduction, either 50% or possibly 65%, but it doesn’t seem to work like a normal timed debuff. From what I can tell, enemies only have the debuff while they’re inside the ult’s attack range. Once the ult disappears, or the enemy leaves the area, the debuff is gone.

Because of that, the duration feels too short to be useful with Meli. I’m trying to figure out whether there’s any way besides Daisy P10 to extend it.

So the main question is:

Do buff duration or debuff duration effects actually affect Daisy’s ult defense reduction, or is it only tied to the ult field duration itself and does Arch priestess actually do anything here?

There are many problems with this game, even so I still really enjoy it, but I want to voice my two main concerns currently. Signature weapons and achievements.

Signature weapons are currently garbage, you cant have weapons designed specifically for one individual character and have them worse than the easy low tier weapons (Black Flame Weapons). From a player standpoint the signature weapons are a total waste, they are not versatile and cant be swapped between other characters for any sort of benefit and are overall much much worse. These weapons are much harder to craft and have 0 benefit. Netmarble needs to make elemental damage much more affective soon. Elemental damage has to outscale crit damage for this to make any sort of sense.

Achievements. As a f2p player I've grinded achievements in order to get as many fragments as possible, I'm currently over 100 achievements down and have had 0 benefits from doing this. I can understand the first one or 2 being 500 fragments but this has to go up. The achievements not only get much much harder but the rewards don't scale and on top of this the rewards are bland and boring there's no incentive and no reward. I understand this is hard to address post launch but I think thats a cop out excuse. Just give everyone who's already achieved some double rewards for progressing quickly and use that as an apology for the lack of detail at launch.