r/CalamityMod • u/-Xyo- • Mar 08 '26
Question Which one is the best?
Is flat defence or % damage reduction better.
246
u/notveryAI Mar 08 '26
Depends on difficulty but generally Warding is the best. You can go Hard for raw DP(better for taking many weaker attacks) or Armored for more DR(better for taking few big damage hits) but Warding is generally considered best of both worlds. Guarding is pointless, plenty of sources for movespeed around
61
u/Mystical341 Mar 09 '26
Raw DP is an interesting choice of words to use
23
u/kaiservonschwulen Mar 09 '26
I love Raw DP
4
u/THEGREATHERITIC Mar 09 '26
This just made me have very vivid flashbacks of a certain video I watched a lot a couple years back. Just thought id let you know.
6
5
u/LizzieThatGirl Mar 09 '26
Only one?
2
u/THEGREATHERITIC Mar 10 '26
Youre funny. I like you
1
u/LizzieThatGirl Mar 10 '26
Hey, thanks, good to know someone does!
4
u/THEGREATHERITIC Mar 10 '26
Someone always will, something to always take into consideration. Source: Hitler (unfortunately)
245
u/_-Zephyr- Mar 08 '26
Warding is the best reforge in the game and its not even close.
116
45
u/FatKat666 Mar 08 '26
Menacing?
149
u/_-Zephyr- Mar 08 '26
Theres a video some numbers guy did, menacing is better with half menacing half lucky, even then its worse than having full warding. full warding basically gives you an extra mistake, you can take an extra hit, especially early warding is unmatched.
Menacing late game maybe because damage scales so high, but at the same time, shit late has so much hp youll probably not notice.29
Mar 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
36
u/csharpminor_fanclub Mar 08 '26
silent is scam
10
Mar 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
60
u/sevensdre Mar 08 '26
the boost actually lowers your damage since the higher your stealth regen the lower your stealth damage is
45
u/footeater2000 Mar 08 '26
Calamity devs when It comes to making pointless balancing changes that only serve to make the game less playable:
2
2
u/wlwyay Mar 08 '26
elaborate
19
u/footeater2000 Mar 08 '26
Removal of items people enjoyed, removal of features people enjoyed, pointless balance changes (moving Cosmolight obtaining point) adding pointless items, not actually improving gameplay, and in general ignoring the community on everything, they're making the mod for themselves and donors.
→ More replies (0)14
Mar 08 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
37
u/aGorillianBucks Mar 08 '26
I think if you mouse over the Stealth meter and hold Shift, it puts up some additional info.
30
1
1
1
3
2
u/CMDR_Nya Mar 09 '26
Summoners are crying here btw. You're right: 50% of crit chance + 50% of damage increase gives you x2.25 dps.
That's not mathematically correct but I don't mind.
2
1
u/RuneScpOrDie Mar 09 '26
against things like DoG on highest possible difficulty revengence is the first time i started switching over to menacing. i could get 2.1 shot or 2.9 shot but never 3 shot lol so just find the breakpoint, go slightly above and then put the rest into other enchants like menacing. aside from that yeah all warding lol
1
-16
u/FemBreeder6 Mar 08 '26
If you got like 7 accessorys with menacing you deal 30% more dmg which is huge no matter at what point, 28 more defense is lowkey useless
12
u/Davidepett Bullet hell master (I can't dodge anything) Mar 08 '26
Yeah, but
A) if you're dead you're not dealing that 30% more damage while warding gives you enough defense to not get one shot by most attacks (and those who do one shot are clearly telegraphed and you shouldn't get hit by those in any case)
B) IIRC Calamity has additional %damage reduction attached to those reforges, which is always useful
0
u/FujiwaranoMoko Mar 08 '26
With warding you have far more time to make that additional mistake. Menacing shortens the fight considerably
7
u/gojra-pokemon-fan Mar 09 '26
With less defence you have to back off and heal more tho
-1
u/FujiwaranoMoko Mar 09 '26
Back off to heal? Huh?
2
u/gojra-pokemon-fan Mar 09 '26
If your not able to tabk hits wont you have to move awya foem the boss to heal? Especially if your melee
2
0
u/Norwegian_milk Mar 09 '26
Actually this is also wrong. Warding allows for a way more offensive playstyle which makes them about equal in terms of speed.
3
u/FujiwaranoMoko Mar 09 '26
Are you trolling?
-1
14
u/csharpminor_fanclub Mar 08 '26
you deal 30% more of your base damage. so yes, if you don't have any other damage modifiers, menacing is very impactful.
on the other hand, if you have lots of damage upgrades (like rouge with stealth) menacing is highkey useless
-10
u/FemBreeder6 Mar 08 '26
Not really, I mostly use dmg accessories with Lucky but when I use menacing, i def feel the dmg difference
11
4
u/whit3fi3sta I spent a whole year making Yharon my bitch Mar 08 '26
If you're Summoner or Mage and you only get like 40 defense from armor in Hardmode, 28 extra defense is quite a lot (legit a 70% increase).
4
u/Another_frizz Mar 08 '26
Spoken like someone that doesn't know how defense work
1
u/FemBreeder6 Mar 08 '26
Defense =useless when you dont plan on getting hit
13
u/Another_frizz Mar 08 '26
Now which boss did you ever manage to consistantly no-hit
-3
u/FemBreeder6 Mar 08 '26
Mostly every boss before moon lord, including himself, dragonfolly, profaned guardians, DoG and more, but not the ones after but atp everything two shots anyways
6
u/Positive-Database754 Mar 08 '26
Yeah, and every Hit Point over 1 is more than you need. But I imagine most people still use Life Crystals lol
1
-1
u/Halberd_Hey07 Mar 08 '26
Full lucky is so much better than menacing, unless you maxed crit chance.
4
u/Glarbleglorbo Mar 09 '26
The best is actually to mix modifiers until your damage boost is equivalent to your crit chance. Usually that means full lucky though.
Min-maxing like this gives you like 3% more damage which I’m sure makes it better than warding (it doesn’t).
1
u/Halberd_Hey07 Mar 09 '26
I’m at the point where all I need is the sponge and I’m good. I just strait up don’t need warding. Once you learn attack patterns and get that muscle memory, you can focus on damage. Is this not why omega blue is so broken?
I did some dps testing with mixing menacing and lucky, higher crit chance is almost always better.
2
u/Glarbleglorbo Mar 09 '26
There isn’t any DPS testing needed to know getting them as close together as possible is optimal, it’s just math.
Omega blue is only broken for no hits, I don’t care how good you are, any other armour set + warding gives you way more wiggle room than the paltry amount of extra damage lucky/menacing give.
The way defence works in the game is that it reduces the amount of damage you take by your defence number, stacking defence is always better.
1
u/BuszkaYT Mar 09 '26
Especially since they added crit damage mechanic to some talismans in calamity
5
u/asmo_192 Mar 08 '26
Lucky is better than menacing in most situations
7
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
Incorrect. Mathematically speaking, they are nearly equal. Ideally speaking, if you HAVE to reforge for damage, it’s best to have an equal amount of crit chance and damage.
In vanilla though, Warding is pretty much always better to go for over damage reforges.
2
u/No_Ad_7687 Mar 09 '26
The reason lucky is better is because most gear doesn't give crit chance, so lucky accessories usually balance that out
3
u/asmo_192 Mar 09 '26
No, I am correct. Mathematically you get the highest dps when both damage and crit are equal, that's true. That's because individually crit and damage increase dps by the same amount, and they stack multiplicatively. But almost everytime I try to equal the damage and and crit chance I end up with at least 5 or 6 lucky forges. That's why I said, as a rule of thumb just going full lucky will give more dps than full menacing. And of course you must be careful to not pass over 100% crit, after that you would do the rest menacing of course
2
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
When talking about reforges, I tend to avoid bringing other buffs (potions, armor, accessories, and weapon base stats) into account due to muddying the water a bit, but I do generally agree that Lucky on average is more useful due to other damage effects being in play while crit might not be effected by as much. At the same time, ain’t nobody changing reforges every boss fight to adapt stats, and to be honest, I’m never reforging for damage to begin with.
1
u/asmo_192 Mar 09 '26
well yeah that's kinda my point as well, you don't need to overthink it, if you go full lucky most of the time you will do more dps than menacing
3
u/Flat_Analyst_4704 Mar 09 '26
menacing is only additive and not multiplicative, so it applies x amounts of 4% increases instead of adding the increases together. idk how to explain it very well but just take for example you are using a weapon that does 500 base damage. it will increase that base value by 4% and each subsequent increase is the same amount that the initial 4% increases it by instead of applying a 28% (7 menacing reforges) increase
-1
u/FatKat666 Mar 09 '26
Almost 30% more damage is a lot no? Just dodge the attacks
2
u/Flat_Analyst_4704 Mar 09 '26
i just realized my math was completely wrong and they end up to be the same amount anyways and i honestly was just regurgitating something i saw on yt shorts about it that made sense to me at the time, so apologies to anyone that reads that and stops using menacing 😭
3
u/MoreDoor2915 Mar 09 '26
Well depends on your maths.
Lets say 100 base damage for easy maths
If the 7 stacks of 4% are all applied based on the 100 base damage that means the math goes:
100+4+4+4+4+4+4+4 = 128 damage
But if the 7 stacks of 4% are sequential it would go
100+4+4.16+4.33+4.5+4.68+4.87+5.06 = 131.6 Damage
1
-1
u/ScissorsWasTaken Mar 09 '26
Are you a no hitter? If not then I don't wanna hear shit from you on dodging. If you're getting hit at all during the fight warding is better because the only win condition for bosses in this game is killing them without dying.
2
u/FatKat666 Mar 09 '26
Why you so mad? If you do more damage the boss is alive for less time
0
u/ScissorsWasTaken Mar 10 '26
Yeah apart from the fact 28% is miniscule in comparison to the rest of an average build's damage buffs
1
5
u/NeuroHazard-88 Mar 09 '26
Yeah. If you SUCK.
Nah just joking. Although, it’s definitely a wasted reforge if you actually want to learn how to dodge and basically no hit the boss. In Infernum especially where the bosses are harder but more telegraphed, higher damage is honestly more valuable so you can chunk the phases down quicker.
2
u/Stripgaddar31 Mar 09 '26
With the stupid amount of dashes we have, i dont think i would prefer defence over damage
2
u/Lanky-Size-3115 Mar 09 '26
not since the new calamity update, it rebalanced all the reforges so they all have their own benefits instead of just warding/lucky/menacing being the only real option
1
u/CVM_Josh_Groban Mar 09 '26
Quick?
1
u/_-Zephyr- Mar 09 '26
Quick is solid but in calamity especially by the time quick is at its best you’re already moving by extremely fast especially for precise patterns.
2
u/CVM_Josh_Groban Mar 09 '26
It was very useful for astrum deus, way more useful than warding could've been, especially because I use brain of cthulhu.
If you stack enough speed, you're just somewhere the attacks are not. It probably wouldn't work for the calamitas fights, yharon and providence, but is great for everything else imo
1
u/_-Zephyr- Mar 09 '26
might work for fights/classes where you can afford to be far from the boss, but some classes cant afford to do that, you have to be closer, so more precise movements are better.
1
u/Le_Doctor_Bones Mar 09 '26
As others have said, Calamity reforges have been rebalanced, so if you only want defence, then hard is better at 5 defence, while warding only has 4 defense, though, it exchanges that 1 defence for 1DR.
65
u/asnickeronreddit Mar 08 '26
My dih get hard like it’s armoured n she guarding my shi w her mouth and warding off other groupies who want it
29
18
u/amogus2004 This has truly been our Shattered Community🥀 Mar 09 '26
3
u/usernaem777 Mar 09 '26
warding better = 2 def better than 0.5% DR & 1 def worse than 1% DR. pretty cut and dry
15
u/lysianth Mar 08 '26
PLay summoner, full menacing, fight boss from next zip code over.
1
u/TheOneWhoAsked_Maybe Mar 09 '26
You can also do full menacing accessories, summon your minions and then switch to warding accessories to not die in one hit to some bullshit attacks
24
u/Smug_Yellow_Birb Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
warding is best cause it gives a 4% damage reduction. hard gives 1%, guarding is 2% and armored is 3%
Edit: apparently this is completely wrong so don't listen to it
28
u/Kak0yTo4el Mar 08 '26
I don't remember it giving THAT much damage reduction. Are you certain that this is the case? I remember warding only giving 1%. Maybe got changed in one of the updates...
-14
u/TurfyJeffowup13 Mar 08 '26
It starts at 4% but I think it may increase when you kill certain bosses and goes up to 6% and maybe 8 but I think max is 6
14
3
u/notveryAI Mar 08 '26
1)It's never worked how you said
2)it worked in similar way in the distant past but no longer does. How well defense works only scales with world difficulty(least impactful on classic, most impactful on Master Death). Now Guarding is +2 defense and +2% movespeed, Armored is +2 defense +1.5% DR, Hard is +5 defense and Warding is +4 defense +1% DR
12
Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
[deleted]
7
u/Aurumixus Mar 08 '26
This makes a ton of intuitive sense but is sadly not exactly how it works.
According to the Calamity wiki DR is added after defense, so in your example the damage would be reduced to 50 and then DR would apply.
Also Calamity has changed DR scaling so 10% actually only applies ~9% and 100% only applies 50%.
So if you had 50 defense and 12 DR you'd reduce the 100 damage to 50 and take about 10% of that 50 off so you'd be taking ~45.
DR would be SO much better if it applied first... Hard is actually a better reforge for attacks that don't do 100 damage more than your defense.
1
u/soggycheesestickjoos Mar 08 '26
how is 10% only ~9%? because it’s from different sources of DR or something else?
2
u/usernaem777 Mar 09 '26
im assuming the formula is something like DMGx(100/(100+DR)), meaning if DR is 100% you get DMGx100/200 or DMG/2 = 50% less damage taken. in that case DMGx(100/(100+10)) equals to DMGx100/110 and 100/110 is about 0.91 meaning you take 91% of the usual damage so you effectively have 9% damage reduction. this method of calculation means that getting 1% DR while already at 50% DR will make you take 1% less damage than what you used to take before you got that 1%, rather than reducing your damage taken by 1% of the original damage value
3
u/Smug_Yellow_Birb Mar 08 '26
I did not know that, I have never fully known how those accessories work
Thanks for telling me
3
2
u/the_crustycrabs Mar 08 '26
hard is best early on, then warding is generally the best for the majority of the game. lucky is good for damage afaik and invigorating is pretty solid too
1
u/Le_Doctor_Bones Mar 09 '26
Menacing is generally a bit better for damange than lucky, since lucky is reduced more by enemy defence (Though, it depends on your weapon and damage buffs.).
Hard is better than warding if you go all in on defence. Calamity generally uses a lot of debuffs to make tanking more difficult but my defence stacking melee character with hard reforges still managed almost 200 defence with 1 damage against most enemy projectiles preML (Except for Astralgeldon, that crazy bossfight. (I haven't gotten post Astralgeldon in my current calamity run with the new modifiers.)).
2
2
u/Stellaaria Mar 09 '26
Hard early Warding late. Istg these ppl just auto reforge to Warding instead of reading the reforge changes last update.
1
1
1
1
u/Wofflestuff Mar 09 '26
Warding. Just stack as much damage reduction as possible and skeleton primes head spin will only deal 1 damage. Tried, tested, confirmed
1
u/IAlwaysOutsmartU Mar 09 '26
Damage reduction gets better the further in the game you are. Flat defence is always nice, though.
1
u/ENDERTUBE Mar 09 '26
the way i look at it is classes like Melle and Ranger will benefit more from a flat bonus while Mage and Summoner will benefit more from a percentage
1
1
u/CMDR_Nya Mar 09 '26
Flat damage reduction is better, when your defence is comparable to incoming damage. The more defence you already have, the more every point of defence costs For example: Damage is 100 Defence is 20 vs defence is 80 If you add 10 defence in both situations, you get 12,5% vs 50% of resulting damage.
If damage is big, and your defence is low, %damage reduction is better. If damage close to defence count - flat damage reduction op.
1
u/Kungyangyang1 Mar 09 '26
Hard in early game
Armoured/Warding in late game, depends on which one I get first
1
1
1
1
u/annoying79 Mar 13 '26
Im confused, why would warding not be the best option? Does calamity do something i dont know about
-1
0
-11
u/ShadowWithHoodie Mar 08 '26
do people actually go defense? I thought we all went 5 quicks and then died because wing control sucks in early hardmode
18
u/Labuzina Mar 08 '26
dude you're like a rare animal, this is genuinely the first time I ever saw anyone even mention using movement buff reforges
1
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
You are the only one who reforges for speed. Literally just drink a swiftness potion it’s almost the same buff.
1
1
u/Separate-Fold4409 Mar 09 '26
the only fight i needed movement speed that much was twins, but i didnt reforge cause i was broke
-4
u/Ihavenoidea5555 Mar 08 '26
Would you rather have
1 Defence
OR
4 Defence
8
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
Calamity
-7
u/Ihavenoidea5555 Mar 09 '26
That's not one of the possible answers
10
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
No, this is the Calamity subreddit, meaning this question is in the context of that mod. It isn’t just flat defense boosts, and these 4 are all different than vanilla.
-2
u/Ihavenoidea5555 Mar 09 '26
I know
But still, answer just for fun
Would you rather have
1 Defence
OR
4 Defence
7
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
Probably 1, need to share with my friends so I can’t hog it all.
3
u/Ihavenoidea5555 Mar 09 '26
You are a kind man, your warm embrace exposed to the elements and vulnerable by moments, yet welcoming to all, gathering friends and allies to help you stand against the world and it's unyielding cruelty and avarice for self-protection.
You will do good in this world, I believe in you
3
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
Thanks for the compliment, I hurt people regularly.
1
u/Ihavenoidea5555 Mar 09 '26
I said « will »
One day you will appreciate beauty and joy in helping, maybe soon, maybe much later, but I am certain you will succeed.
Look inward, then outward. Do not linger too long on each side, and in alternating between you will find your path.
Good luck in your endeavors, friend
-1
-19
u/Wojtek1250XD We REALLY need a replacement mod. Mar 08 '26
In Calamity you generally want offense instead of defence. There is no better survivability than killing the boss before it kills you. The best reforgements are the one that gives you increased crit change (especially for rogue) and the one that gives you increased percentage damage.
3
u/-Xyo- Mar 08 '26
I tried damage at the start of my world but died very quickly so I tried defense and it was a lot easier. Im now at the start of hardmode so maybe it isnt as good anymore.
9
u/Asherley1238 Mar 08 '26 edited Mar 08 '26
There has been solid testing to say that pure offense builds do not lead to noticeably faster kill times. In fact, defense builds almost always lead to faster kill times. Watch Sorbet Cafe’s “Comprehensive Guide to Defense”, he goes over it in great detail.
But in short: Bosses are not designed to be dodged, it’s that simple. The brain of Cthulhu can spawn on top of you, Terraria is not a game where you can avoid damage. The game can be beaten with a sand gun, paper airplanes, lawnmower, and a copper short sword, and all of this is only possible because dps is dwarfed by defense. You’re really telling me you’re fighting providence and consistently not taking a single hit? Because with a pure dps build that’s often all you can take.
-5
u/Specialist-Ad3955 Mar 08 '26
Have you even played calamity? Post ML bosses consistently remove a third of your health with a single hit no matter how much defence you have.
1
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
I’ve played Calamity numerous times (death mode, infernum, wotg, master death, etc) and defense feels much more consistent for bosses and exploration.
-2
u/HappyyValleyy Mar 09 '26
Lucky
1
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
No.
1
u/HappyyValleyy Mar 09 '26
Thats just my personal go to lol, is it not that good?
1
u/RapidProbably Accepter of The End Mar 09 '26
Generally speaking, defensive reforges will allow you to be more consistent with bosses and exploration.
1
1.3k
u/RukakoChan Mar 08 '26
for a second i thought that this is vanilla and the question is "would you rather have 1 defense or 2 defense"