evasion and defense

[cidbahamut]

I have a bit of a gear dilema at the moment. It involves pants.

Combat Caster's Slacks
17 defense
+5 evasion

Magic Cuisses
26 defense
+3 INT/MND

As a back line Red Mage I'll be going with Magic Cuisses obviously, but I'm wondering about the merits of evasion gear compared with straight defense gear.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but evasion gear is great damage mitigation but needs to be stacked in massive quantities before I start seeing a return, yes?
Right now I've only got +13 evasion all told which probably isn't worth beans against anything I couldn't defeat while sleeping on the keyboard, but for a while I've been entertaining the idea of putting together an evasion gearset.

I guess what I'm getting at is: as a general rule of thumb should I value +evasion enough to sacrifice a few points of defense, or should I just leave it to the professionals and just go for defense since I won't be dodging things anyway?

[Callisto]

Re: evasion and defense

In terms of RDM, it's more or less a wash. 5 evasion is going to do next to nothing, as RDM has roughly the same evasion skill as a wet brick. 9 Defense is also never going to make a noticeable impact on the amount of damage you take, either. The amounts of Defense that typically need to be added in order to have a noticeable effect are rather large, and even then it won't change the fact that many higher-level mobs still have rather large base damage, so they will still hit you for a fairly good chunk even with the multiplier that comes out of their Attack vs. your Defense floored.

Were I to pick one of the two I'd go the evasion route, even though it won't make a large difference, a missed attack will mitigate much more damage than +9 Defense ever will. Bear in mind I mean that for standing around in, for any spells where INT/MND actually play a role in their potency I would swap in the Magic Cuisses.

As you get a bit higher you'll start to see more and more gear with the 'Physical damage taken-#%' description, if you are looking for real mitigation you should go after this gear rather than Defense/Evasion+. Good examples are Cheviot Cape, the Darksteel Harness set, Earth/Terra's Staff, and Patronus/Jelly Rings.

[cidbahamut]

Re: evasion and defense

Yup. Totally swapping in Magic Cuisses for spells of course, but I was just wondering if it would be worth it to keep the slacks around for an idle set or if it would just be inventory -1, which it sounds like it would be for the most part. I guess this means I probably shouldn't invest in a Wool Doublet +1 after all. Oh well, I need the gil to save up for staves anyway.

[Armando]

Re: evasion and defense

The thing about Evasion is that high level mobs get a boost in Accuracy for each level they're higher than you. With D rank Evasion you're well below the 5% minimum evasion rate against ITs and the likes (even my PLD with C Evasion is at the 5% floor on high Ts-VTs with no +Eva on and no Blind.) So you have to waste a certain amount of Evasion just to close the gap between your negative evasion rating and that 5% floor before it even starts working for you.

So unless you're doing a build for soloing Ts, strapping on a few stray pieces of Evasion isn't going to help your cause much.