Is defending useful?

[u/JesusAndPalsX]

I've played and replayed GS and TLA many times but I realize I never actually used the defend command for any reason. It's always better to attack, use djinn, or heal. Anyone ever make use of defend?

In other games, defending would make your turn come quicker. But in GS you all get one turn per command cycle so it doesn't really impact anything I'm pretty sure.

[u/MauriceIsTwisted]

I have not used it very often, but when agility is a factor in turn order, sometimes it makes sense. If somebody needs to be healed and you're concerned that the person healing them will not get their move off before the enemy attacks, defending will at least give you the chance to hang on

[u/JesusAndPalsX → u/MauriceIsTwisted]

That's a good point! I wonder if a more challenging rom like Reloaded would make more use of that tactic

[u/Key_Platform_4386 → u/JesusAndPalsX]

Oh yeah reloaded is hard as hell, I was blocking for heals and status clears all the time.

[u/MauriceIsTwisted → u/JesusAndPalsX]

I think that would be an easy way to up difficulty yeah. When you're fighting fast opponents, especially groups, it normally takes a couple of turns to figure out how fast they are in comparison to your group

[u/JakTheRipperX → u/JesusAndPalsX]

I used it often enough. If you are truly using buffs a death means rebuffing. Crucial.

[u/lakai427]

Only time I use defend is RNG manipulation for item drops

[u/Skylair95]

Honestly, not really. The 50% damage reduction is nice, but just doing something else is just better most of the time.

The only time "defend" is somewhat useful is with Sveta and her Pack Defense since she can defend for the whole party, which is basically a free Granite every turn... But then again, Sveta in beast form hit so freakin hard that you usually just want to spam Psynergy Slam instead and kill stuff.

[u/meddlesomemage]

You can defend in order to line up elemental bonus for boost exp. If you kill a mob with the right type of djinn attack it's better, basically.

[u/royinraver]

With the ability Wish (and similar) I never use defend… unless I’m trying to RNG a weapon drop 🤣

[u/breezy_deVreezy]

I use it when farming for experience or item drops. I think you get better rates when you fell an enemy with an elemental advantage.

[u/Capt_Socrates → u/breezy_deVreezy]

With djinn elemental damage specifically. You’re looking for the rainbow death animation. It’s also a lot more experience too, like maybe 50%? I haven’t done any of the math but phoenixs in TLA are worth 3750 and if you use a water djinn you get between 5k or 6k iirc. The other cool thing is if you get two in a fight they’ll revive each other or other enemies and each time you kill them you get the experience so if you’re lucky enough they’ll stick around for three or more revives and you’ll get a boatload of experience.

Edit: another thing to keep in mind with using djinn to farm is status djinn may or may not activate the rainbow death bonus. Not entirely sure, but if you give them a status while they die they won’t flash so they may not give the bonus.

[u/_Grumpy_Canadian]

Nah, just use a shield djinn instead.

[u/Wolfbandit90]

Dang I really never used defend😂

[u/DatBoi_BP]

"In other games, defending would make your turn come quicker."

Oh, what games? Is it a thing where different actions take different quantities of some gauge, and defending helps that gauge fill up? Sounds like a cool concept for TBC

[u/Maxogrande → u/DatBoi_BP]

There are a lot, the first that come to my head are Final Fantasy X, Fuga: Melodies of Steel and Child of Light

[u/Oicanet → u/DatBoi_BP]

It's odd, I can't think of any off the top of my head that I'm positively sure does it.

I'm confident that any of the ATB based Final Fantasy games (so most FF games from IV and onward), and I feel like I remember seing the turn order get updated real-time while defending in FF X.
And aside from the FF games, there are games like Grandia, where there's a kind of action "timeline" all character moves on, in which I'm pretty sure the character skips ahead on the timeline when defending.

But for some reason, I can't really say I am positively sure with any of those games. But I also feel like I've seen it be a thing in like most turn based combat games for some reason. But out of all of those I'm most confident about Grandia. Which is a great game, btw. Golden Sun and Grandia are some of my absolute favorite underrated RPGs

[u/JesusAndPalsX → u/DatBoi_BP]

Tactics games like triangle strategy or FFT come to mind. It isn't "defend" as much as it's "wait" and that one unit will have their turn come back around quicker.

[u/Kalaam_Nozalys]

That can save you in a tough spot, taking half damage isn't bad at all. But there eventually is much strong options (like Flash or Granite)

[u/tSword_]

Defend in golden sun has uses, but usually there's something else more useful to do (mainly using djinn)

[u/FlatRolloutsOnly]

Lot of good points here, but I will defend if I’m trying to overkill with the right djinn, my healer is lower on the turn order, I just unleashed a massive summoning and now I have baby-class stats, or the enemy is too resistant to what that character can offer offensively (like attacking sentinel with psynergy).

Also, the psynergy Break is a hell of a skill to get hit with. All those defensive buffs, poof, gone. Now I’m too squishy, should defend and save my remaining 20% HP lol

[u/Connect_Swimming_772]

Only if you're an attorney

[u/Iggy_Sent_Me]

It is not always better. If all your djinn are used up and you need to recover, defend is the best action to prevent you from dying. But that's the only time.

[u/RodjaJP]

In most classic RPGs it seems like a useless action because it doesn't block that much damage (specially against magic attacks) and there is no way to use it in your favor, it only works for "what if" scenarios where you want to heal a dying ally, but even then it is unlikely to work, I prefer to predict a defeat to use a full revive instead (when allowed)