Attack food seems to work in ToAU xp party

[Celeal]

A few days ago I was leveling my PLD in a party at Mount Z. fighting fire crawlers. After the puller pulled the NM fire-crawler by accident, I got pwned and lost my Black Curry (3 hr Def+ food).

After raised, I tried Coeurl Sub (Atk+ food). It works so well that I continue to use Coeurl Sub for 2 hours, until the party disbanded. I don't have a parser, but from my observation, my damage taken seems about the same with Def+ food. Defender did not make any difference. I was just wearing full AF, having ProtectraIV + Shellra III from WHM, nothing special. The party setup was: pld/war, rdm/whm, whm, drg/war, drk/war, thf/nin. The fire-crawlers /check from VT to IT. I was under the effect on Sanction-Refresh.

In the worst case for attack+ food, I can use Defender for Def +25% boost, and the food's attack bonus should covers Defender's attack -25% with a few % lost of attack. However, in that party I did not need to use Defender.

Any idea ^^?

[Raydeus]

Maybe it had to do with the type of mob, because other mobs (like Spiders) will hurt you bad if you don't have def food on (or defender).

However using Att. food seems like a good idea depending on the mobs you are fighting. Some extra damage is always welcomed if you don't need the defense boost.

[Icemage]

Crawlers don't have any physical WS, so in that case DEF plays a much lower role in the damage you take overall. Eruca-type crawlers use Incinerate instead of Poison Breath, but both are magical attacks, and thus ignore your DEF rating.

Also note that Defense vs. Attack is a tiered calculation. As long as your score is within a certain percentage range compared to the attacker, you won't see much if any difference in damage taken - and as you get higher level, that range gets increasingly large as the ATK and DEF scores increase. Only if a boost or penalty drops you noticeably into a lower tier of calculation will you see differences in damage from ordinary hits.

Of course, physical special attacks from enemies often figure in your DEF into their damage calculations, so for most enemies even smaller amounts that don't change your calculation tier can alter the damage you take over time. However, Eruca have no such attacks, which is probably why you weren't seeing any payoff from either Defender or DEF+ food (neither one was pushing you up into a better calculation range, quite possibly because you're already at the most favorable range already as a Paladin, since I'm assuming by description that you've got pretty good DEF for your level).


Icemage

[Malacite]

Odds are he hit the def cap, at least against that mob. A PLD friend of mine regularly pops berserk and other goodies and notices no difference at all in damage taken against IT mobs. Defense is broken, and needs to be fixed.

[Celeal]

I understand and agree that Defense is also important. However, Def+ seems not very hard to obtain. May anyone please tell me how much Def+ bonus generated from Protectra IV?

For Defensive bonus, I think the defense of attack food + Defender (Def+25% Atk-25%) is higher than most common defense food without Defender. In the worst case, the PLD can eat attack food and use Defender all time. The result should be about the same with defense food without Defender?

My normal PLD setup does not load up with Def+ and Vit+. My Shield is capped, and I use a mix of Def/VIT with a decent amount of AGI gear. I can use more Def+ and VIT+, but to be honest, shield block is just so damn good

I think my PLD setup have decent amount defense and shield block. It may not be the best defense or best shield proc, but I feel that is enough. Now I am trying to push my damage output.

I think Attack food has a lot of potential because:
1. With Defender, it is about the same Defense food.
2. Without Defender, it works well on VT ~ low IT mobs or tank-friendly mobs. The hate should be more secure, and the battle should end sooner with attack food, compare to traditional defense food.

Very flexible, IMHO. At first, I have a lot of doubt too. I will try attack food in more parties and keep you guys posted :D

[Karinya]

Crawlers are also naturally low-ATK, high-DEF monsters, like crabs and beetles. Naturally high-ATK monsters like scorpions would give you a lot more trouble if you didn't have defense food (or Defender).

According to this analysis, PDIF is not precisely tiered. At any given atk/def ratio, either the minimum or the maximum PDIF (or both) is still increasing with increasing ATK, until you reach the absolute maximum possible, where your ATK is double the target's DEF (a situation unlikely to be reached on exp mobs except by repeated Boosting) and you get a non-crit PDIF of 1.6-2.4.

Of course the same graph applies in reverse to monsters' damage to you; but unless you already have DEF over twice the monster's ATK and routinely get hit for 0 (without shield blocking, stoneskin/phalanx effects etc.), you haven't reached a cap on DEF. (And even then you can continue to lower their crit damage, if you care.) At most you've reached a point where further increasing your DEF doesn't make a *large and noticeable* difference in damage taken.

If you take the PDIF formulas already provided (as a function of ATK/DEF), hold ATK constant and solve for PDIF as a function of DEF, you'll see something that looks like an asymptotic decrease: there's no point where DEF stops benefiting you, but the more DEF you already have, the more DEF you need to gain to notice the change. This is why it often pays for high-level PLD to pay more attention to shield skill, -%damage, etc. - not that DEF has stopped benefiting them, but that *small amounts* of DEF no longer produce *as much* benefit as something else could.

In exp, merit, and Assault situations you may find it beneficial to improve your ATK or ACC because you're already taking little enough damage that it doesn't pose any danger to you or cause downtime for the party (recovering from healing the damage you take), and/or to improve your hate holding. This generally does not apply to Dynamis, Limbus, mission, BCNM and HNM situations where monsters are more dangerous and have higher ATK and DMG.