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What is the benefit of choosing to devote stats into the defenses over HP?
Topic Started: Jan 23 2017, 03:54 AM (1,575 Views)
OniLink64
Pokémon Trainer
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Outside of the evasion bonus which does eventually max out, is there a particular reason to both putting stat points into your defenses when you could just put it into HP instead? I'm just curious because HP just seems to be the better investment overall.
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l33tmaan
Pokémon Trainer
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I'm not a big math guy, but after throwing a Drifblim at my party that lasted a whopping 2 rounds, I've determined that all but the most min-maxed pokemon need some measure of defense so they don't go down like a wet paper bag. When you get hit for 50+ damage and you can only shave off 5 damage because you didn't put any points in defense, anything short of a ludicrous amount of HP won't help you.
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togapika
Togepi in human form
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Say you take 50 damage twice. If you have 100 hp and 0 defense, then it kills you. If you have 50 hp and 50 defense or even 25 defense, then you stay alive. HP helps for one big hit of damage, but any damage over that you need defenses to survive
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Professor Scamander
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Maxing out on evasion takes a looooong time. For most Pokemon, it takes about 40 points to reach 30 in each stat. That comes out to a Level 30 Pokemon, assuming you don't put stats into anythign else. Realistically those mons also invest in HP and sometimes an attacking stat. If you distribute evenly, that puts you at level 60/80 to reach full evasion (the numbers are generally obviously. Shuckle doesn't need nearly as many, while a Sentret would need many more). So it's very late game before evasion caps come into play.

Additionally, avoiding damage wholesale is incredible. The difference between 30 defense and 10 is a 20% less chance of being hit by any given attack. Mathematically, that means you only take 4/5 as much damage as the HP monster.

HP is better against getting hit by high DB attacks (although usually high evasion means they hit less often due to higher ACs) and Defense is better against the At Will/EOT kind of attacks. Generally speaking, if you anticipate lasting longer than 3 hits in battle, defenses are usually a better investment. Both are important on tanky/wall types though. They also benefit more from healing effects (synthesis/leech seed, dedicated medics, heal pulse, etc) since its harder to get past their defenses and actually chip away at hp.

Sweepers (HP/Atk/Speed) just kind of ignore defenses to depend on their higher HP stats and Speed Evasion to keep them safe, with the understanding that they aren't going to be around forever in battle.
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Flamewolf9
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togapika
Jan 23 2017, 09:13 AM
Say you take 50 damage twice. If you have 100 hp and 0 defense, then it kills you. If you have 50 hp and 50 defense or even 25 defense, then you stay alive. HP helps for one big hit of damage, but any damage over that you need defenses to survive
You get three points of HP per stat point invested as opposed to defense where you only get one 1 of defense per point invested.

HP is a better investment per point until you take three successful hits neutral hits. At three neutral hits your investment has broken even. After that defense is better.

HP is better for quite a bit longer if you can manage to take only NVE hits.

HP is a better investment if you plan to only one take SE hit. Defense breaks even in regular SE hits after two, and is a better investment 2+ double SE hits.

The kicker to all this is that HP defends against all kind of damage, while Defense only against specific types. The upside to defense though is as you invest more you become more able to simply take no damage due to evasion.

I have some spread sheets that need to be combined together to get a better picture of which is the better investment in any given situation that include evasion and the attackers expected damage.
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OniLink64
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Flamewolf9
Jan 23 2017, 09:25 AM
togapika
Jan 23 2017, 09:13 AM
Say you take 50 damage twice. If you have 100 hp and 0 defense, then it kills you. If you have 50 hp and 50 defense or even 25 defense, then you stay alive. HP helps for one big hit of damage, but any damage over that you need defenses to survive
You get three points of HP per stat point invested as opposed to defense where you only get one 1 of defense per point invested.

HP is a better investment per point until you take three successful hits neutral hits. At three neutral hits your investment has broken even. After that defense is better.

HP is better for quite a bit longer if you can manage to take only NVE hits.

HP is a better investment if you plan to only one take SE hit. Defense breaks even in regular SE hits after two, and is a better investment 2+ double SE hits.

The kicker to all this is that HP defends against all kind of damage, while Defense only against specific types. The upside to defense though is as you invest more you become more able to simply take no damage due to evasion.

I have some spread sheets that need to be combined together to get a better picture of which is the better investment in any given situation that include evasion and the attackers expected damage.
The 3 for 1 aspect of the points is why I bring this up. One of my party members is thoroughly convinced that HP is simply better than defense and I couldn't really come up with an argument against that statement. So in shorter battles HP is better and in longer battles defense is better?
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Professor Scamander
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That's a simple way of putting it I suppose, but in reality it's more complicated than that. Defenses help against super effective attacks because they're applied before multiplying damage. Most opponents in PTU have 6 moves (and usually it's group v group, so a variety of mons), so SE attacks are more common in the video games. So that's a big help.

Evasion again, can't be overstated in importance, especially if they're ignoring speed as well.

This isn't to say HP is bad or shouldn't be invested in, but just that HP isn't always going to be better than defensive investment.
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The Black Glove
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OniLink64
Jan 23 2017, 01:52 PM
The 3 for 1 aspect of the points is why I bring this up. One of my party members is thoroughly convinced that HP is simply better than defense and I couldn't really come up with an argument against that statement. So in shorter battles HP is better and in longer battles defense is better?
I won't deny HP is a great stat for everyone, and is probably my favorite stat of the 6. But it's best for surviving one big attack as opposed to surviving multiple smaller attacks.

Think of it like this: If your Pokemon is fighting against a large horde, and has an HP of 30, and each of those attacks does 10 damage, you can take 3 hits before going down. If you only have 20 HP, but you invest in 5 points in a defensive stat, those attacks will only do 5 damage each, meaning you can take 4 hits before going down. That means one more enemy had to spend one more turn trying to bring you down, which is a big deal in a game where numbers are more powerful than levels. Almost like you caused an enemy to waste their turn.

It's not the perfect example, no, but I feel it gets the point across.
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Paperblade
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Defense tends to shine vs weaker attacks, rather than longer fights necessarily

For example, consider a Pokemon with very little attack investment that's mostly utility. A Pokemon with no defense investment can still lose a noticeable amount of health from it, whereas something with some defense investment can shrug it off
Edited by Paperblade, Jan 23 2017, 02:25 PM.
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Goliathus
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Here are some calculation I did on another thread comparing a +1 split on both defense vs +2 HP:

Quote:
 
The prevalent theory is that HP is better for Pokemon who can only take a few hits(so, sweepers) whereas defenses are better for any Pokemon that can take more than 3 hits(walls) because it's all profit after 3. However, that does not seem to be the case upon further investigation:

Quote:
 
We will be using level 50 neutral nature ditto for this example:

Damage: 51
Damage: 31
Damage: 81

HP: 75
Def: 35(+30 to both)

HP: 255(+60)
Def: 5

HP: 165(+30)
Def: 20(+15 to both)

51 - 5 = 46(5.54 hits before KO)
46 * 0.5 = 23(11.08 hits before KO)
46 * 1.5 = 69(3.69 hits before KO)

51 - 35 = 16(4.68 hits before KO)
16 * 0.5 = 8(9.37 hits before KO)
16 * 1.5 = 24(3.12 hits before KO)

51 - 20 = 31(5.32 hits before KO)
31 * 0.5 = 15.5(10.64 hits before KO)
31 * 1.5 = 46.5(3.54 hits before KO)

-------------------------------------

31 - 5 = 26(9.8 hits)
26 * 0.5 = 13(19.61 hits)
26 * 1.5 = 39(6.53 hits)

31 - 35 = -4 = 1(75 hits before KO)

31 - 20 = 11(15 hits before KO)
11 * 0.5 = 5.5(30 hits before KO)
11 * 1.5 = 16.5(10 hits)

-------------------------------------

81 - 5 = 76(3.35 hits)
76 * 0.5 = 38(6.71 hits)
76 * 1.5 = 114(2.23 hits)

81 - 35 = 46(1.63 hits)
46 * 0.5 = 23(2.82 hits)
46 * 1.5 = 69(1.08 hits)

81 - 20 = 61(2.70 hits)
61 * 0.5 = 30.5(5.40 hits)
61 * 1.5 = 91.5(1.80 hits)


From the calculation above, we can understand (upon extreme investment) that HP are much more efficient in taking huge hits whereas defenses, as long as you can reduce the incoming damage down to a certain amount, are more effective than HP. That makes HP the perfect defensive stat for a sweeper that relies on Speed Evasion to dodge and is expected to take huge damage whereas defenses provide evasion(that cannot be removed by the Stuck status) to a tank, value on combat stage boost and well-balanced tankiness.

Personally, HP is just the one defensive stat you invest in if you only want to invest in one but the two defense stats are still superior over HP because of how much they provide, from tankiness to evasion to C.S. snowball.


Add-on: C.S snowball makes defense better and healing move makes HP better. And you also have to factor in "sure hit" move against the evasion provided by the defenses. Then, you also have to think about tick-based damage from various moves and so. There are too many factors to determine which stat is really better and I think it is totally up to the party setup and scenario.
Edited by Goliathus, Jan 23 2017, 09:32 PM.
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