Defense

Defense is one of the core attributes for characters in Diablo III. It governs the amount of damage your character takes from all attacks.

All attributes have changed since their original conception. Bashiok made an announcement[1]about these changes on the Battle.net forums on December 20, 2010:

Defense: Decreases all damage taken
- This stat is separate from armor and resistances, each of which effects different damage types. This stat effects ‘all’ damage.
- This stat will allow players to control incoming damage rather than increasing health capacity, which is useful to reduce the need for health globes and pots, and allows players to double down on defense for survival focused builds.
- This stat is also useful for PVP, and likely will be valued in the arenas, but isn't tuned to be a 'PVP' only stat.
- This stat has no secondary effects.

More details on exactly how Defense will work in Diablo III are not yet known. What is known is that attribute points are not assigned by the player; they are auto-assigned. See the relevant section in the attributes article.

• Defense is a secondary attribute in Diablo II, governed by Dexterity. Read more about the effects and bonuses of Dexterity in Diablo II.

History

Defense is a new attribute for Diablo III, equivalent to the Armor bonus granted by Strength. See Attack for more details on how Strength changed.