Defense in Monster Hunter World (MHW) is a stat that equals the total protection the Player or Monster has against Raw (Physical) Damage.
For a more complete rundown on combat with Monsters, see Weapon Mechanics and Elemental Resistances.
Defense, Incoming Damage, and Effective Health
Incoming Raw Damage is subjected to a multiplier that depends on the Player's Defense value.1
The formula for reducing incoming Raw Damage is:
80 / (80 + Player Defense)
For example, having a Defense value of 300 will multiply a Monster's physical attack damage by:
Incoming Raw Multiplier = 80 / (80 + 300)
or approximately
Incoming Raw Multiplier = 0.21
This multiplier allows Defense to alternatively be considered as a multiplier to the Health bar; i.e. taking one fifth of incoming damage is the same as having five times as much "effective health."
In this vein, for every 80 points of Defense the effective multiplier to the health bar is raised by one. This means that the end result of Defense scales linearly.
Effective Health = 1 / Incoming Raw Multiplier
For example:
Incoming Raw Multiplier = 80 / (80 + 0) = 1; Effective Health = 1
Incoming Raw Multiplier = 80 / (80 + 80) = 0.5; Effective Health = 2
Incoming Raw Multiplier = 80 / (80 + 160) = 0.33; Effective Health = 3
Incoming Raw Multiplier = 80 / (80 + 240) = 0.25; Effective Health = 4
When considering Defense in terms of Effective Health, this multiplier should be applied to the current value for maximum health, which can be raised by Skills and Items.
Improving Defense in Monster Hunter World
- Players can equip Armor that increases their Defense against Attack Power
- Players can equip Charms that increase their defenses against Attack Power
- Players can seek out Skills that increase their Defense against Attack Power
- Certain Weapons provide protections against Attack Power
Armor, Weapons and Skills with Defense
- The Defense Boost Skill increases player's Defense stat.
- The Fortify Skill increases player's Defense stat by +15%
- The Dragon Resistance Skill increases player's Defense stat by +10.
- The Fire Resistance Skill increases player's Defense stat by +10.
- The Water Resistance Skill increases player's Defense stat by +10.
- The Thunder Resistance Skill increases player's Defense stat by +10.
- The Ice Resistance Skill increases player's Defense stat by +10.
- The Heroics Skill increases player's Defense stat by up to +40 when under 35% health.
- The Iron Skin Skill prevents status Defense Down
- Charms with Defense Bonuses are:
- The Armors with the best raw Defense are:
- Kulve Taroth Beta Set (β) (360
)
- Kulve Taroth Alpha Set (α) (360
)
- Xeno'jiiva Beta Set (β) (360
)
- Xeno'jiiva Alpha Set (α) (360
)
- Commission Beta Set (β) (350
)
- Commission Alpha Set (α) (350
)
- Guild Cross Beta Set (β) (340
)
- Guild Cross Alpha Set (α) (340
)
- Kulve Taroth Beta Set (β) (360
- The Weapon categories that provide good Defense are:
- Sword & Shield
- Lance
- Hunting Horn can provide boosts.
- Uragaan Weapons
1 Information taken from a Reddit post made by user ryz
- Anonymous
- Anonymous
23 Aug 2019 10:37
And don't forget kids! All of this is meaningless for endgame, and If you didn't learn to dodge and got used to taking hits before fighting Arch temps, you're gonna have a bad time! Source: the staggering amount of people who get whipped at HR 150+
- Anonymous
13 May 2018 16:29
Little side note, elemental resistance might play a role in how much damage you take defense wise, after reducing my defense in favor of elemental resistance, I took pretty much the same amount of damage, so defense appears to be increased meekly and affected in some way by elemental resistance, so defense is important but is weakened if you don't have enough elemental resistance, it might not even play a role unless it's at 10 or 20 to boot, but that's just me and my experiments, anybody else have some other crazy idea about defense and elemental resistance?
- Anonymous
19 Feb 2018 04:23
What tf EXACTLY does defense do for me in this game, 400 def and I get one-shot or halved way too easily.
19 Nov 2019 07:18
I heard that ranged weapon has only half the defense but double the elemental resistance, is that true? or do they just have completely different ways of calculating defense.
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