when does defense make a difference?

[tomlol]

I'm curious at what point does high defense make a large difference. Looking at defiance merc and shiver armor and seeing about 400% defense. If I have 2k defense, theres 6k with HF and then theres 10k defense with defiance.

Will either of these numbers give noticeable benefit to a melee sorc?

I wasn't sure what level defiance merc's ended up with, is there a chart of that somewhere?

[Locke07]

To a mele sorc the HF aura is probably your better bet. It does not increase your defense directly but reduces the amount of times you are hit.

[mephiztophelez]

in pvm, defence only really starts to help when it's in the 10-15k+ range.

for pvp, any defence-reliant build should be looking at 25k+ as a minimum.

[sirpoopsalot]

One of my recent paladins had about 8k (which is about 5k more than almost every other character I've ever played), and he could tell a little bit of a difference in PvM.

But you definitely need at least 5k to get any benefit whatsoever from defense, and 10k is strongly preferred. I don't do PvP, but mephiztophelez is probably correct.


FYI, being a higher/lower level than your opponent (PvM and PvP) has a significant affect on chance to hit too. That's why mercs typically get spanked in Hell if they're level ~60, and why once you get to level90+, you'll likely find you're cruising past most monsters with relative ease (compared to facing those monsters when you were level 80).

On any build, I'd focus as much on the character level as I would the defense.