Damage Resistance, or Damage Reduction (DR), is a game mechanic that affects the amount of damage heroes and defenses take from enemy attacks and inversely: how much damage enemies receive from heroes and defenses.
Resistances can be positive or negative, either lowering or raising the damage dealt. Most factors stack multiplicatively. No attack can be reduced to 0 without a single 100%, or 0.0x modifier.
Heroes[]
Heroes have four resistance stats which correspond to the four damage types: Generic, Fire, Lightning and Poison. These are always 0% if no armor or shield is equipped. Each armor piece and shield can affect up to all four resists. The prefix after the item's quality (lucky, unlucky, enchanted...) describes how many resists the piece of equipment has and the number of which start negative. These damage resistances soft-cap at 23%; a soft-capped resist can only then be raised once every ten (10) upgrade levels. The maximum damage reduction heroes can get from equipment is 90% per damage type.
Squire weapons not used by a Barbarian allow the wielder to block frontal attacks which further reduces (or increases) the damage they take. If the weapon's Blocking Damage Resistance stat is >100%, the hero takes zero damage. The Barbarian's Turtle Stance drops incoming damage to 10% strength, 1% if he has max resists, 3% if he is also in Siphon Stance (X% in Redux).
Call to Arms reduces the amount of damage the Countess takes, on top of her armor.
Defenses[]
Physical hero defenses have varied amounts of damage reduction. Their exact values are hidden to the player. Upgrading a defense reduces the damage they take slightly. A Tower Buff Beam, Squire Guardian or (in Redux) Remote Defense Boost will multiply the damage resistance of buffed defenses; their effects do not stack (in Vanilla). A resistance factor of 2.00 halves the amount of damage received.
In Redux, examining a blockade-type defense displays a resistance value starting at 100, indicating the percentage damage is further reduced to.
Damage Reduction Values[]
Walls/Blockades[]
| Defense | Base DR | DR Fully-Upgraded |
| Magic Blockade | ||
| Spike Blockade | ||
| Bouncer Blockade | ||
| Slice N Dice Blockade | ||
| Physical Beam |
Minions[]
| Minion | Base DR | DR Fully Upgraded |
|---|---|---|
| Archer | ||
| Spider | ||
| Orc | ||
| Mage | ||
| Warrior | ||
| Ogre | ||
| Spider Queen | >=10% |
Enemies[]
- Djinn and Nutcrackers take 20% less damage from all hero defenses. If Ruthless Mode is enabled, all non-boss enemies have at least 20% defense damage reduction.
- Wasps take 60% less damage from all defenses, except Lightning Towers which deal eight times damage against them. In Redux, they are weak to fire instead, taking 1.5x damage.
- Siege Mechs in Redux take 1.5x lightning damage.
- Most bosses have positive damage reduction. Lightning Towers do 50% less damage to all bosses (not factoring the enemy's individual resistances).
Default Boss Damage Reduction Values[]
*Does not include unnamed variants.
| Boss | DR |
| Demon Lord | |
| Goblin Mech | xx%
xx% (Backside) |
| Ancient Dragon | |
| Artificial Ancient Dragon (CR 3) | |
| Spider Queen | 90%
50% (Exposed Shard) |
| Artificial Spider Queen (CR 1) | >90%
xx% (Exposed Shard) |
| Genie King | 33% |
| Artificial Genie King (CR 2) | 75% |
| Kraken | xx% (Tentacles)
100% (Head) xx% (Mouth) |
| Artificial Kraken (CR 3) | xx% (Tentacles)
100% (Head) xx% (Mouth) |
| Goblin Battlecruiser | 0% |
| Mega Cupid | |
| Mega Turkey | 0% |
| Mega Snowman | 75% |
| Old One | 0% |
| Great Old One | 25% Generic (Feet)
50% Fire (Chest) 50% Lightning (Left Palm) 50% Poison (Right Palm) 75% (Head) |
| Phoenix | |
| Desert Goblin Sultan | |
| Polybius | |
| Mischief | |
| Flying Mech | |
| Giant Apprentice | 50% |
| Wasp Queen | |
| Giant Nutcracker | 20% |
| Pumpkin Man |
Misc.[]
- The Strength Drain Aura lowers the base attack power of ALL enemies inside it to a specified percentage, 20% maximum. Projectiles are not weakened if they were fired outside this aura.
- Spider webs (enemy or friendly) causes those hit (and webbed) to take double damage from nearly everything.
- The Initiate's Enemy Drain weakens the resistances of surrounding enemies.
Version History[]
Redux[]
- 12.0.3: Remote Defense Boost adds resistance instead of damage/potency to buffed defenses.
- ?: Some bosses now have additional damage reduction to Proton Charge Blast.
- Wasps now take 1.5x fire damage from all sources, instead of 8x damage from Lightning Towers.
- Siege Mechs now take 1.5x lightning damage.
- ?: Added the bonus damage resistance value (from buffs/debuffs) to blockade-type defenses when examined.
Vanilla[]
Trivia[]
- The highest definite total damage reduction <100% a player can achieve against enemies is 99.9999%, weakening an enemy's attack to 1/10,000 strength(?)
- This requires: 90% resistance (from equipment), a Strength Drain Aura Tower Boosted to its limit (80% DR), blocking with a Squire weapon that has 99% blocking resistance and the Wheel O' Fortuna's "Buff Players" combination (3-Crystals).