Talk:Bastion/@comment-74.193.239.36-20161230035036

How Bastion works is dictated as a flat damage reduction from all physical sources, including most holds (not tested on Maneaters, though).

How the game calculates the damage you recieve is normally done through several mechanics; the type of damage, your damage resistance to that type, your overall defense stat (which is a level scaling percentage of total damage reduction, not a flat damage reduction), and finally, flat damage reduction.

Bastion is by far the most overpowered of defense adjustments, as it's applied after all calculations are done, and furthermore reduces the incoming damage by a physical number, not a percent. It entirely nulifies weak attacks, but isn't great against powerful blows.

Say an attack hits for a base of 100 damage. By percent calculations, your current armor value reduces incoming damage by 20%. You'll take 80 damage. If it's a piercing attack or so, it's different, because it can be reduced additionaly by stat adjustments.

After these calculations, you'll take 80 damage. But Bastion follows up and reduces incoming damage by 50 points (225 on hard), thus reducing the incoming damage to 30.

At low level, this is an absurdly powerful flat reduction. Not so much at higher level, though it's still powerful. In hard mode, it's much more effective than usual.

To put it in perspective: At level 10, let's say you have 500 Defense (this is hypothetical values, not entirely accurate), in this situation we'll say this is a very high value comparitive to your level. So when you take damage, it can be around 30% reduction to all incoming damage. As you level, the gear you're wearing devalues as a higher level means there's more room for better gear. So while 500 defense is great at level 10, at level 20, it's very poor, and gives only a 15% reduction or so. When you level, your base defense rises, to help compensate for the loss of defense from your gear, slowing this effect down. At level 100, this effect drops significantly, so 6,000 defense at level 100 and the same defense at level 200 is about the same 25%, give or take a few percent.

Bastion works outside of this mechanic, so even with 0% damage reduction, you'll still take 50 points less damage than before. An attack that hits for 100 with no other forms of damage mitigation will always deal 50. If the attack does less than 51 damage after defense reduction, you'll take the minimum of 1 damage.