Defense

Defense
Type	Damage Reduction

Description

Defense is a status value given to certain enemies and units. Enemies may spawn with this naturally, or be granted this through a litany of means.

Mechanics

There are two types of defense statistic. The main defense statistic is Percentage Defense which is used to calculate Effective Damage.

Percentage Defense is the actual defense percentage you see on an enemy or unit. However, this does not mean that if an enemy has 50% defense damage dealt towards it will be decreased 50%.

Effective Damage is the actual damage dealt towards an enemy by a tower once Percentage Defense is applied. Effective Damage is calculated by calculating

Original Damage ÷ (1 + Percentage Defense)

where Percentage Defense is changed from a percentage into its equivalent decimal number (for instance, 50% would be 0.5 in decimal form). For example, a tower that deals 100 damage attacking an enemy with 50% defense would deal 67 damage as 100 ÷ (1 + 0.5) = 66.67 to two decimal places. Due to Effective Damage always being rounded up to the nearest integer, 66.67 rounds up to 67. Prior to the Entity System Update, Effective Damage was always rounded down to the nearest integer.

Unit defense works identically to enemy defense, reducing damage from enemy abilities and collision.

Countering Defense

Defense can reduce the damage output of most towers significantly.

There are a couple of towers and consumables that can drop the Percentage Defense value of enemies, allowing your towers to deal more damage. A few certain towers can also ignore defense. There are two types of defense dropping towers. The first has them decrease Total Defense by a certain percentage. However, if the Pyromancer, which drops defense by 50%, is decreasing defense of Fallen Hero, which has 50% defense, this does not mean its defense will be lowered to 0%. Instead, it is decreased by 25% defense, as which is 50% of 50% defense. The defense removal can stack, so the Pyromancer and Electroshocker can together remove 70% Percentage Defense, but two Pyromancers cannot remove 100% Percentage Defense. Instead, only 50% Percentage Defense can be dropped. Additionally, defense dropping from burn cannot stack with other burn towers, freeze defense dropping cannot stack with other freeze towers and poison defense dropping cannot stack with other poison towers.

The second type has them decrease Total Defense by a flat amount. For example, the DJ Booth at maximum power can drop 25% defense. This means that when dropping defense of the Fallen Giant, it will will drop its defense from 60% to 35%.

Both forms of defense dropping do not interfere with each other and can stack. For example, if the DJ Booth decreases the Vindicator's defense from 100% to 75%, the Pyromancer will reduce it from 75% to 25%, which is the same decrease (50% less defense) as if DJ Booth did not affect it. Likewise, if the Pyromancer decreases the Vindicator's defense from 100% to 50%, the DJ Booth will still be able to decrease it by 25%, from 50% to 25%.

Most splash damage will deal full damage to enemies with defense, no matter the percentage, though not all of them do. If a tower that deals explosion damage has orange indicators appear when it deals damage, that means it should be able to bypass defense. If the tower has the regular, red indicators, this is affected by defense.

In addition, units and the Trapper ignore defense for their collision damage. However, for their other sources of damage (like ranged damage for the Humvee 3, burn damage for the Trapper or melee damage for the Guardian Elf), these damage values are affected by defense. Enemies do not ignore defense by colliding with units, damage dealt to a unit with defense from collision will be reduced.

Due to a bug, poison and electric defense dropping cannot drop the defense of any enemies added or updated starting from the April Fools 2024 update, though any of the enemies before that are still affected.

The following towers and consumables affecting defense are listed below.

Burn
Pyromancer	With each tick, the Pyromancer drops Percentage Defense of all enemies on fire by 5% at Level 3-4, and by 10% at Level 5. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other burn defense dropping sources.
Golden Pyromancer	With each tick, the Golden Pyromancer drops Percentage Defense of all enemies on fire by 5% at Level 3-4, and by 10% at Level 5. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other burn defense dropping sources.
Molten Monster	With each tick, the Molten Monster drops Percentage Defense of all enemies on fire by 15%. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other burn defense dropping sources.
Molotov	With each tick, the Molotov drops Percentage Defense of all enemies on fire by 15%. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other burn defense dropping sources.
Napalm Strike	With each tick, the Napalm Strike drops Percentage Defense of all enemies on fire by 15%. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other burn defense dropping sources.
Freeze
Freezer	With each tick, the Freezer's freeze drops Percentage Defense by 10% at Level 2+. Can only drop 33% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other freeze defense dropping sources.
Frost Blaster	With each tick, the Frost Blaster's freeze drops Percentage Defense by 10% at Level 2+. Can only drop 33% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other freeze defense dropping sources.
Cryomancer	With each tick, the Cryomancer's freeze drops Percentage Defense by 10% at Level 0-4. Can only drop 33% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other freeze defense dropping sources.
Pumpkin Bomb	The Pumpkin Bomb has a chance to drop Percentage Defense by 20%. Can only drop 33% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other freeze defense dropping sources.
Santa's Air Strike	With each tick, the Santa's Air Strike drops Percentage Defense of all enemies on fire by 20%. Can only drop 33% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other freeze defense dropping sources.
Poison
Jester	With its poison bombs, its poisonous puddles drop Percentage Defense by 1% each tick at Level 3-4. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other poison defense dropping sources.
Toxic Gunner	With each tick, its poison drops Percentage Defense by 1% at Level 2-4. Can only drop 50% of Percentage Defense. Defense dropping cannot stack with other poison defense dropping sources.
Other
Electroshocker	With each attack, the Electroshocker drops Percentage Defense of all enemies in a chain reaction by 5% at Level 0-3 and by 15% at Level 4-5. Can only drop 20% of Percentage Defense.
DJ Booth	The DJ Booth drops Percentage Defense by a flat amount with a red track pulse hit, with base decrease being 5%, which increases by 1% for every tower in range up to 25%. Cannot drop defense further than what its defense drop per hit is.

Prior to the Frost Invasion Update

There were two types of defense statistic. One was the Effective Defense and the other was Total Defense.

Total Defense was the actual defense number you see on an enemy. However, a tower's damage was rarely reduced by this number.

Effective Defense was the actual number that was taken away from a tower's damage towards the enemy. Each point of Effective Defense dropped damage by one point, with Effective Defense varying depending on the difficulty of the match. When calculating Effective Defense, if the number was a decimal, Effective Defense is rounded up. However, the damage of towers could not be lowered below half.

Match Multiplier

Mode	Defense Multiplier
Normal	Effective Defense = (Total Defense × 0.25)
Molten	Effective Defense = (Total Defense × 0.35)
Fallen	Effective Defense = (Total Defense × 0.5)
Hardcore	Effective Defense = (Total Defense × 0.75)
Trick or Threat Town	Effective Defense = (Total Defense × 0.5)

Countering Defense

Defense could reduce the damage output of certain towers significantly, such as the Minigunner or Militant. Likewise, it least affected the damage output for towers that had high damage, such as the Ranger or Mortar.

There were a couple of towers that could drop the Total Defense value of enemies, allowing your towers to deal more damage. Each defense dropping tower could decrease Total Defense by a certain percentage. The defense removal could stack, so the Pyromancer and Electroshocker could together remove 70% Total Defense, but 2 Pyromancers could not remove 100% Total Defense. Instead, only 50% Total Defense could be removed. The only towers that could not stack their defense dropping was the Frost Blaster and Freezer.

In addition, units ignored defense for their collision damage. However, for their other sources of damage (like ranged damage for the Crook and Humvee 3, or melee damage for the Citizen 1), these damage values were affected by defense.

The following towers affecting defense are listed below.

Pyromancer	With each tick, the Pyromancer dropped Total Defense of all enemies on fire by 1 at Level 2-4, and by 2 at Level 5. Could only drop 50% of Total Defense.
Freezer	With each attack, the Freezer dropped Total Defense by 1 at Level 3-4, and by 2 at Level 5. Could only drop 20% of Total Defense. Defense dropping could not stack with the Frost Blaster.
Electroshocker	With each attack, the Electroshocker dropped Total Defense of all enemies in a chain reaction by 1 at Level 5. Could only drop 20% of Total Defense.
Frost Blaster	With each attack, the Frost Blaster dropped Total Defense by 1 at Level 3-5. Could only drop 20% of Total Defense. Defense dropping could not stack with Freezer.

Update History

• 29 October 2020 - Overhaul v1.0.0
  • Defense added.
• 8 May 2021 - Overhaul v1.1.0
  • Defense changed, now drops damage by a percentage based on the Defense value on an enemy, instead of dropping it by a specific number of damage based on mode multipliers.
  • Defense now cannot reduce damage to anything lower than 1 instead of anything lower than 50% of the tower's damage.
• 12 March 2022 - v1.1.0
  • Defense on an enemy now rounds up when Defense is reduced instead of rounding down.
  • Defense now rounds up damage dealt instead of rounding down.