Lets talk guarding

Hi all,

Hope you are all enjoying the game as much as I am!

!Uhh minor spoilers for characters i guess? (as in which one are recruitable)!

I had some difficulty with understanding the guard system, so i went and test stuff...

Shields and guarding have a few parameters as seen in the game:

  • Kind of shield (shield or greatshield)
  • Guard rate (percentage)
  • Guard efficiency (percentage)

According to our faithful library:

  • Kind of shield (shield or greatshield) Shield grant medium guard (50% reduction) Greatshield grant heavy guard (75% reduction)
  • Guard rate (percentage) Chance of guarding an attack
  • Guard efficiency (percentage) Percentage of damage reduction

What confused me was the guard efficiency and the way the game calculates damage.

Mostly the efficiency says +25% at Lex his shield in the images but the library says 50% reduction.

And does a unit like Virginia with 2 shield offer a advantage?

well turns out that base guard reduction is 25%, so what the shield says makes sense as they add their percentage to the base 25%.

The images show this as well.

Damage is calculated by:

Damage output = (Phys atk - Phys def) * (potency/100).

Damage received = Damage output * reduction by shield (either 25%, 50% or 75%).

We can see Colm has 40 ATK.

https://preview.redd.it/3wfcg4y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64c86f6f3177a742f91584aeb2bfe9eddaa9a73e

Lex has 33 DEF .

https://preview.redd.it/i1hze4y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef6b2503ce6ee6f2b211fcd9c28bd3056b8e7bae

https://preview.redd.it/1pupa3y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4589ddad0bfde9970b54cd111df744e6bca5e19c

(40-33)*0,5=3,5 so 4 damage.

Liza has 31 DEF with greatshield and 19 without shield.

https://preview.redd.it/cu8kj3y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed832a3d1119dca3a6664e98d3367bae96fe4cc2

https://preview.redd.it/4332g7y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=658dc724dda4797a39cc2d3fe9e26811f93769e3

https://preview.redd.it/a023a4y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5e0276039f3b16d3c426dae578fda4ad0fdd7414

(40-31)*0,25=2,25 so 2 damage.

https://preview.redd.it/kc8xn4y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d7cf7edf4bfae59c04ec4befd98cf0562f589472

(40-19)*0,75=15,75 so 16 damage without shield.

Virginia has 29 DEF.

https://preview.redd.it/e3pf85y1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26756ba263a5118ad91da5a8e81c0fea7387577e

https://preview.redd.it/ooxh75z1e6oc1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ff9eb48c65d2cb5f3dcdb36803498b8dda56573

(40-29)*0,5=5,5 so 6 damage.

Virginia does not have more damage reduction it seems even tho she has 2 shields (two times +25% guard efficiency).

So take away :

  • Chance of guarding is linked to guard rate %.
  • You can guard without a shield.
  • damage reduction is linked to the kind of shield you are using (25%, 50%, 75%).
  • More shields don't offer more damage reduction but do offer more guard rate.

I hope this helped if someone had the same issue like me!