Enlightenment mana shield testing

Testing with 0 def and 0 prot, I threw a rock at a rat and took 1~2 damage without mana shield on. When I turned it on, I started taking 3~5 damage per hit. This is with over 1000 intelligence. Meanwhile, a friend of mine with low intelligence but with armor on (I didn't ask the exact amount of int or def/prot) took 1~2 damage with mana shield on. Neither of us had any reforges related to mana shield on. This seems to imply that def and prot still apply to mana shield at this point in time though there is definitely a very noticeable nerf in mana shield's efficiency.

Strangely, when I asked a friend to smash me in a 10% duel, I took 40 mana damage but 200 hp damage. Clearly the efficiency is there, but the rat is somehow still doing more damage to me with mana shield on. Perhaps efficiency increases as damage taken in a single hit increases.

I'll continue investigations over the weekends.

Did you take into account your friend's rank of mana shield, if he was equipping a magic weapon, or how much magic attack he had?

He was barehanded, rank 6 mana shield, and since he had low intelligence, he probably had low magic attack as well. I was the same, except with high intelligence/magic attack.

Two words: Defense Protection

The patch notes specifically say that defense and protection are no longer used when calculating damage to mana shield. I can only guess there's a bug where armor mastery or armor still affects the calculation.

In retrospect, it's obvious I would be taking more damage with mana shield on against weaker enemies. For example, the article on white spiders says that they have 5~10 damage. I have 21 defense while naked after this update so I can easily block any damage they do. However, with mana shield on, that defense is nullfied so I won't be able to completely reduce everything to 1 damage since it's impossible to get a 1:10 mp to damage efficiency.

I'm still not sure why my friend was able to take less damage than me with mana shield on though and I really don't want to raise any armor masteries since I don't care for them... perhaps someone else can test?

Red Spider hit me for 10~18s with Rank 6 Mana Shield, 662 Int, and no armor but Royal Knight Boots and Gloves (both 4 Def, 2 Prot), a Tail Cap (1 Def), and a Wedding Ring (1 Def, 1 Prot); left me with 98 Def and 6 Prot (10% Damage Reduction). It hit me for 8~14 with Pumpkin Bat Costume (4 Def and 3 Prot from upgrades), resulting 102 Def and 9 Prot (15% Damage Reduction). It hit me for about 7~10s with Royal Knight Armor (24 Def, 15 Prot, Rank 1 Heavy Armor Mastery) for 142 Def and 31 Prot (35% Damage Reduction), and then 3~5s with Kite Shield (2 Def, Rank 1 Shield Mastery) for 165 Def and 42 Prot (42% Damage Reduction).

I didn't do enough conclusive tests since I ran out of MP so fast, but its quite clear that equipment masteries are doing something...?
No wait. 41 Defense from the equipment masteries would reduce the damage to 1; that would only leave protection.

Seems like Mana Shield only affects Defense and has no bearings on Protection?

What about damage reduction from passive defenses?

I wasn't transed at the time, but I got hit for 1~3s when Heavy Stander ping activated, so I guess its possible.

Just for the record: Damage reduction on Heavy Stander in trans is active even if the hit doesn't activate the ping. The ping from auto-defense on equipment does not reduce damage.

Auto-Defense does reduce damage by 50%. A Snowfield Slayer's slash which does a fixed 100 damage only did 50 when AD activated. I wasn't transformed either.

Hmm... my bad then. I don't use auto-defense stuff all that often, so I guess I should keep my mouth shut.

I thought it was all forms of ping from Heavy Stander that reduces damage by half?

Well, there's also something about shields that just equipping one greatly increases mana shield reduction even if it doesn't ping. I don't have heavy armor mastery ranked, but I do have r1 shield mastery. It turns 10-17 damage with mana shield on to 1-2 damage with mana shield on. I have r6 mana shield, and had 206 magic attack when I tried this on mutant carnivorous plants. No armor or accessories just shield and no shield. I'll have to refresh my memory on how much it helped at black dragon's fire breath, or snowfield slayer's swings.

I heard JP wiki says Mana Shield still factors in Magic Defense? I have 97 Magic Defense, 50 Magic Protection (46% Magic Damage Reduction), 676 Int, and Rank 6 Mana Shield. I didn't run enough tests on this but weak Skeleton Squad explosions do 1 without and 7~ with while strong hits 120~ without and 150~ with. I didn't go unarmored nor did I bring any potions for pot poisoning.

I think it's just hidden shield stats and defense skill with a shield which lower damage from a short test on ice sprites with armor, without armor, with shield, without shield, defense with shield, defense without shield.

Oh yeah, I forgot about hidden shield stats. They're so... hidden.

My test with the Red Spider, Kite Shield has 15 passive defense against melee and I was taking about that much less damage, so that seems quite accurate. Would it be safe to conclude that MS doesn't take hidden shield stats into consideration?

I don't know about passive, but the hidden shield stats makes ice sprite 23 damage melee attacks with mana shield on without shield into 1 damage melee attacks as does using the defense skill with a shield with mana shield on. I take 1 damage without mana shield on from both its melee and magic. The damage was only reduced with shield without defense skill loaded on melee attacks but not for magic attacks.