Defense
Defense is a statistic that determines the decrease in damage taken per hit. The player's defense can be increased by wearing armor and accessories, and temporarily boosted/decreased by various buffs/debuffs. Enemies also have a defense statistic.
Defense cannot be reduced to below 0.[1] Furthermore, the damage dealt to an entity will always be at least 1, regardless of defense (with the exception of a player whose multiplayer ally is wearing a Paladin's Shield).
Some forms of damage are impossible to reduce through defense, e.g. damage from damage over time debuffs like Cursed Inferno or from drowning in water. Damage taken from lava, however, can be reduced through defense.
Some items have the ability of armor penetration, which, in most cases, allows them to ignore some or all of the target's defense when calculating damage.
Players
Defense gives a flat reduction in damage, i.e. damage is reduced by a fixed amount per hit (as opposed to a multiplicative damage reduction, which would reduce damage by a percentage). It is calculated after the general ±15% damage randomization.
The formula is: net dmg = \lfloorattack dmg - def × factor\rfloor
, where factor
is 0.5
in Classic Mode, 0.75
in Expert Mode, and 1
in Master Mode.[2]
Examples
Enemies
Enemies have a defense statistic just like players do, but they do not gain more protection from defense in Expert Mode or Master Mode. They will always reduce incoming damage by 50% of their defense: net dmg = \lfloorattack dmg - def × 0.5\rfloor
.
Examples
Weapon | ![]() 0 defense
|
![]() 30 defense
|
![]() 50 defense
|
![]() 100 defense
|
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() 15 damage
|
15 | 1 (0) | 1 (-10) | 1 (-35) |
![]() 200 damage
|
200 | 185 | 175 | 150 |
Boosts
Armor and accessories
A player's defense score can be increased by equipping armor and accessories. Armor usually consists of three items, granting an additional bonus if all pieces match, the set bonus, which may increase the defense score further. Some accessories grant direct defense boosts (see the following table), but all accessories can also be reforged to have defense-increasing modifiers.
See armor for detailed defense information about every piece of armor.
Item | Accessory defense |
---|---|
![]() | 1 |
![]() | 1 |
![]() | 1 |
![]() | 2 |
![]() | 2 |
![]() | 4 |
![]() | 6 |
![]() | 6 |
![]() | 8 |
![]() | 8 |
![]() | 10 |
Item | Accessory defense |
---|---|
![]() |
3 (only during the night) |
![]() |
3 (only during the night) |
![]() |
4 (only during the night) |
![]() |
4 (only during the day) |
![]() |
4 (during the day) 7 (during the night) |
![]() |
30 (when below 25% health) |
Modifier | Defense |
---|---|
Hard | 1 |
Guarding | 2 |
Armored | 3 |
Warding | 4 |
Buffs and debuffs
Buffs and debuffs can temporarily alter a player's or an enemy's defense. The defense of enemies cannot be increased.
Buff/Debuff | Buff/debuff defense |
---|---|
![]() |
2 |
![]() |
3 |
![]() |
4 |
![]() |
5 |
![]() |
8 |
![]() |
8 |
![]() |
−4 |
![]() |
−4 |
![]() |
−15 / −20 |
![]() |
−40 |
![]() |
−50% |
Armor penetration
Armor penetration is a hidden player statistic that determines the effective amount of the enemy's defense portion that is ignored when dealing damage to it. It works by increasing the damage dealt as follows:[3]
- If the player's total armor penetration is greater than the enemy's original defense (i.e. before defense is reduced by certain debuffs), the damage is increased by half of the enemy's defense. This means that the entirety of the enemy's defense is effectively ignored (as the enemy's damage reduction by half its defense – see above – is canceled out).
- If the player's total armor penetration is lower than or equal to the enemy's original defense, the damage is increased by half of the armor penetration value. This means that any amount between nearly none and all of the enemy's defense is effectively ignored, depending on the specific values.
See below for examples.
Note that the defense-reducing debuffs Ichor and Betsy's Curse are disregarded in these calculations. All decimals are rounded down.
The following items grant armor penetration (they all stack with each other):
Item | Armor penetration | |
---|---|---|
![]() |
Shark Tooth Necklace | 5 |
![]() |
Stinger Necklace | 5 |
![]() |
Sharpening Station | 12 (for melee weapons only) |
![]() |
Hive Pack | 5 (for Wasp Gun only) |
In addition, the projectiles of certain weapons and accessories have an own armor penetration stat, which is added to the player's armor penetration when inflicting damage upon an enemy with them:[4]
Item | Armor penetration | |
---|---|---|
![]() |
Blade Staff | 25 |
![]() |
Dark Harvest("dark energy") | 50 |
![]() |
Cool Whip(snowflake) | 30 |
![]() |
Light's Bane(slash of darkness) | 5 |
![]() |
Blade of Grass(projectile) | 20 |
![]() |
Muramasa(slash) | 5 |
![]() |
Bone Glove | 25 |
![]() |
Crystal Vile Shard | 10 |
![]() |
Nettle Burst | 10 |
![]() |
Wasp Gun | 10 |
![]() |
Star Cloakand its upgrades | 25 |
![]() |
Arkhalis | 20 |
![]() |
Weather Pain | 10 |
![]() |
Flamethrower | 15 |
![]() |
Elf Melter | 15 |
Examples
Enemy | Player AP |
Increased damage |
Explanation | |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() 0 defense
|
0 | → | 0 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 |
10 | → | 0 | AP > defense, so increase is defense/2 | |
![]() 30 defense
|
0 | → | 0 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 (0% of defense ignored) |
10 | → | 5 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 (33.33% of defense ignored) | |
40 | → | 15 | AP > defense, so increase is defense/2 (100% of defense ignored) | |
![]() Sharkron
100 defense |
5 | → | 2 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 (4% of defense ignored) |
10 | → | 5 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 (10% of defense ignored) | |
40 | → | 20 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 (40% of defense ignored) | |
100 | → | 50 | AP ≤ defense, so increase is AP/2 (100% of defense ignored) (This is a theoretical example, as it is impossible to attain 100 AP.) |
Maximum defense
The highest possible defense can be attained using the setups described in the following sections.
Desktop version,
Console version, and
Mobile version
The maximum possible defense is 186 / 196 / 204:
Guarding with the Brand of the Inferno or
Sergeant United Shield
Old-gen console version and Nintendo
version
The maximum possible defense is 128:
Trivia
- Although not possible in-game, if a piece of armor were to gain a modifier, it would apply the effects just like an accessory would. For example, a set of Warding modified armor would add 12 defense total; each piece adding 4 defense to the total.
- Damage dealt by enemies is doubled in Expert Mode and tripled in Master Mode compared to Classic Mode. This means that despite the higher factors of defense in those modes, players will still take more damage than they would in Classic Mode.
- If the player somehow has negative defense, they will take more damage according to the damage taken added with half / three quarters / full amount the defense.
See also
References
- ↑ Information taken from the
Desktop 1.4.3.6 source code, method
StrikeNPC()
inTerraria.NPC.cs
. There may be inaccuracies, as the currentDesktop version is 1.4.4.9.
- ↑ Information taken from the
Desktop 1.4.1.2 source code, method
CalculateDamagePlayersTake()
inTerraria.Main.cs
. There may be inaccuracies, as the currentDesktop version is 1.4.4.9.
- ↑ Information taken from the
Desktop 1.4.3.6 source code, method
checkArmorPenetration()
inTerraria.NPC.cs
. There may be inaccuracies, as the currentDesktop version is 1.4.4.9.
- ↑ Information taken from the
Desktop 1.4.2.1 source code, method
Damage()
inTerraria.Projectile.cs
. There may be inaccuracies, as the currentDesktop version is 1.4.4.9.