This is actually the second time I'm writing this guide. The first time, I wrote the guide in under a day and... honestly, I kind of regretted it. The formatting was awful, and the information unclear. Even though I tried to update the thing, it was getting difficult to make it better.

It was also written before Canto V with MD2H in mind, so a lot of things are no longer applicable. So, I swallowed my pride and admitted that guide stunk. Here's a new one. Clearer and better.

To understand how to defend, you must first understand where to get your information on the skill. What makes a defense skill a defense skill. And to do that, we need to take a look at 3 core game stats.

Coin power is as the name states. It is the power of the number you get when you flip a coin. There are two components to coin power.

Base Coin Power ① is the coin power you start with before flipping any coins.
Plus Coin Power ② is the additional coin power you get when you flip a head on a coin.


Offense Level is the number next to the sword symbol of your skills ①. Having a higher offense level makes it easier for your characters to win clashes and increases the amount of damage they deal.


For the purpose of clarity, for this guide, when two offensive skills clash, we will call that an offensive clash. During an offensive clash, for every 3 difference in Offense Level, the base coin power of the skill increases by 1.

For example, when a character with 20 Offense Level clash against another with 10 Offense Level, the coin power of 4+3+3 will become 7+3+3 instead.

Finally, Defense Level is the number next to the shield symbols on your skills and characters IDs. There are 2 types of Defense Level.

Base Defense Level ① are your IDs natural defense level.
Skill Defense Level ② are the defense level when a defense skill is used, replacing base defense.


So far, Skill Defense Levels have always been equal to or higher than Base Defense Level. When a character takes damage, the amount of damage taken is reduced by the differences between the attacker's Offense Level and the defender's Defense Level by about ±3% for each difference.

A character with 20 Defense Level being attacked by a character with 10 Offense Level will then take about 30% (actually 28%) less damage. The larger the gap between Offense and Defense level, the less effective per Defense Level gets. Basically diminishing return.

The great strength of defense is that it scales. Or, to be precise, it unscales. Because you are not executing a traditional offensive clash when using a defense skill, your opponent's base coin power isn't increased by the difference in offense level.

And defense skills always have equal or higher Defense Level than an ID's base Defense Level. In cases where you will lose a clash, it's almost always better to drop a defense skill to reduce the damage you will otherwise take.



Learning how to defend will also give you far more options. A former "meta" relied on high coin power and spam EGOs. There are quite a few downsides to this:

• In Mirror Dungeons, you'll need the right EGO gift and randomness to build up a sustainable team. (Not an issue in MD4)

• You are stuck with specific IDs. Like in MD3H, you won't be able to fully utilize the starting starlight bonuses if your low-Coin Power character has higher rest.

• In single level stages, you won't have the chance to build up EGO resources. A lot of people who lost during the K Corp story mode stages over relied on clash power and EGO spam.

• The current EGO spam meta isn't even a real EGO spam! Like, why am I supposed to have SP healing? A proper ego spam lets you use any and all EGO without restrictions! Look, let me tell you how to build a real EGO spam team. First, you get your HoboCliff and- wait, what are you doing? UNHAND ME! I HAVEN'T FINISH TYP- The PROPER EGO spam guide has been expunged for your convenience... for now.

• The sanity loss from EGO spams can be detrimental in long runs, especially in modes like Refraction Railways where there are no rest nodes, and story mode dungeons. In story mode dungeons, rests resets sanity, which can leads really quickly to EGO corrosion.

• When defense is fully utilize, every ID becomes viable, drastically increasing your options in gameplay.


Of course, all these depends on the version of the game you're playing, and what Mirror Dungeon or Reflection Railway is active.

However, overall, defending lets you survive attacks that would otherwise be hopeless without spending resources and sanity. This gives room to build better status centric teams, as well as save EGO resources for when you really need them, such as battling bosses.

Or more precisely, let's name the defensive skills. What are they? What do they do? And what are each of their pros and cons?

Originally, I had ranked evade as the least helpful of the defensive skill. But that was back in MD2H times, where as the floors got higher, opponent's coin power raised as well, making evade very inconsistent when running the dungeons as it loses its potency as the level rose.

However, with the release of MD3H, it has become clear that such a mechanic is not common, and should be considered outside the norm. With that in mind, evade has become as viable a defensive skill as the other 2 for general games.



How evade function is that it will toss a single evade coin when being attacked. And as long as the evade coin continues to be higher than the attacking total coin, the attack will be entirely negated. No damage will be taken and no hit effects will proc.

The downside to this mechanic is once a coin does hit, defensive properties instantly breaks and you will receive full damage from then onwards. However, evade can have a higher Skill Defense Level than Base Defense Level, making those evades better than failing a clash if your Offensive Level is low, as it will reduce damage.

Pros
• Negates all damage on success
• Negates all on hit procs on success
• Last throughout the turn as long as success
• Negates offensive clash

Cons
• Damage cascades on fail
• Low Base Coin Power
• Reliant on head coin toss and sanity
• Can end a run on failure


The most consistent of the defensive skills. It creates a shield when you are attacked that will absorb damage before being taken by HP. The shield lasts as long as it is not completely broken, and even if you fail the coin toss, you will still gain a shield.

Unlike evade where there is a level of pass/fail, guard is considered a success on use. The only consideration there is how much success it was able to achieve. When used correctly, it can negate and save you from even the most powerful attacks.


Guard's peak effectiveness comes when you plan the resistance of your IDs. With any damage type you are at least normal in resistant to, you will guard either a great deal of it, or completely negate the attack entirely.

I tend to have 2-3 characters with guard in my team in MD runs, each with a different resistant. This ensures that - especially during abnormalities fight - I will always have at least 1 character with good resistant to a type that can use guard to redirect a strike.

Pros
• Shield generation is guaranteed
• High Base Coin Power
• Not reliant on coin toss success
• Shields lasts throughout the turn until depleted
• Negates offensive clash

Cons
• Hit procs will still take effect
• Can still be damaged if damage dealt is high enough to break shield

I love counter. I will die on this hill. The animation for counters just brings so much joy to my life. Counter is an offensive defensive skill. If you survive being hit after using counter, you will retaliate with a one-sided attack.

While that's a risky move to make, in terms of defensive skills, it does have the highest reward in a guaranteed attack. Counters are also often on characters with high HP and stagger limit, meaning it's okay for them to take a few hits.



The true power of counter comes from its turns. While the other defensive skills can negate damage - letting you survive longer - counter continues to deal them, letting you end a fight faster. It also uses Offense Level instead of Defense Level.

In a game mode where number of turns used to clear a level can be important, such as clearing EX goals or Refraction Railway, You can continue to deal damage even when you will otherwise lose a clash. In non-turn priority games, a properly built team with passive healers can make counter a viable long term strategy.

Pros
• Damage dealt is guaranteed
• Uses Offense Level
• Can have the highest Offense Level of all skills
• Will produce sin resource even without UT 4

Cons
• Hit procs will still take effect
• Must survive direct damage being dealt
• Needs passive heals in Mirror Dungeons

So when is the most opportune moment to use a defensive skill? Honestly, it depends a lot of the game mode you are using.

For normal levels, you should be using defensive skills liberally at the beginning, and as your sanity increases and clash win rate goes up, switch to offensive skills. Same for story dungeons and farms.

For Refraction Railway, you'll likely want to use counters more often, but only against attacks that are not finishers, and guard and evade sparingly and strategically. You'll want to deal damage more to end faster, so guard and evade are not recommended, and clash victories are better than defending.

Above: A charge team preparing to use evade and guard to turn the tide of a floor 5 battle.

For Mirror Dungeon, go nuts. You do not have a time restriction, so your goal is just to survive. If you want to turn your brain off, just defend whenever your auto assign will lose a clash. You'll find it far easier to survive fights and farm up your sin resources for boss fights. Honestly, outside of focused abnormalities fights, you should be using defensive skills about 10-20% of the time here.

Above: The result.

So with all that out of the way, WHEN do you actually use each type of defensive skills?


Because of the focus on coin plus power, evade is really only consistent at high sanity. Even then, they do not work well with single strike finishers that have high max coin power. Evade is incredibly powerful against mobs and low coins "aggro" skills that forces you to engage to prevent worse damage.

At its absolute best, a well placed evade can draw multiple low max coin attacks and evade all of them. To do that, target the fastest dice from left. At worse, it will lose on the very first clash and cascade into an unpreventable death that ends your run. It is the all or nothing of defense skill. Use at your own discretion.


When to use

• Redirecting weak mob attacks with high speed characters
  
• High sanity
  
• Attacks with low max coin value
  
• Unavoidable failure and Skill Defense Level is higher than Base Defense Level

Because of its 'never fail' functionality, guard is really great whenever your attacks just aren't cutting it and you don't have the resources or need to EGO up.

Given that it will absolutely reduce the damage you've taken regardless of outcome, with both the shield and the increase in Defensive Level, guard should be used liberally whenever you are going to fail a clash.


When to use

• Pretty much whenever you want, baby~
  
• It's usually either a guard or an EGO
  
• Helpful when even EGO is neutral or lower
  
• Reduce damage taken when Offensive Power differences are too high

Counter is incredibly counter intuitive (see what I did there?) to use. It seems complicated, with stagger, taking damage, and timings and what not. But the truth is, you just use it whenever you are going to lose a clash. It's better against single coin attacks, cause you don't have to worry about the stacking damage as much. And its innate sin type means you can use weaknesses to the maximum advantage and gain EGO resources, especially valuable in story/farm fights.

The coins for counters are usually incredibly powerful single strikes, and its potential damage output is actually higher than skill 1. This is because of their (possibly) higher Offensive Power closing the gap in damage reduction and damage dealt. For example, Little Sis Don's S1 does 17 max damage at 0 bonus. Her S2 does 27 with 3% bonus. However, her counter does 22 max coin damage, but with 9% bonus for 24 Damage.


When to use

• Best when you can do it without entering stagger
  
• Whenever you will lose a clash
  
• For high damage and nice numbers, utilize weaknesses
  
• Against single coin attacks
  
• When your resistance are good
  
• Short or fast fight, passive heals needed for long term

Comments Section:


I'm so confused by all the counter hate and evade stans. It's absolutely baffling. Like, if you're having trouble using counter effectively, that's what this guide is for! I cannot be responsible for skill issues. I'm just trying to teach ya'll how to use defense.


Above: Me literally using counter on MD3H floor 5 successfully. Maybe floor 5 isn't "long term" enough. We should wait for floor 6 release.

If ya'll find some typos, some parts that reads badly, or some error in the mechanics of the stats like that 5-3 offense level that I fixed, just let me know. But this guide isn't wrong just because you hate guards and counters smh.

26 May 24

• Fixed a typo in offense level difference for clash power being 5 instead of 3. Wrote that while fighting Bull and brain got stuck calculating Faust's Fluid Sac sanity.
  
• Removed a mention of "current meta" which was written in January 2024 before Canto VI and replaced with something that doesn't mention version so the guide can be used in the future.
  
• Slightly more specific with Defense vs Offense Levels.
  
• Rewrote "When to Counter" section to be clearer.
  
  • Fixed brain fart typo that said counter damage was between S2 and S3 instead of S1 and S2.
    
  • Gave calculated example.