Giving DEF meaning

As we all know, WDEF/MDEF are pretty useless in MapleStory as it stands.
Armor equips only count as slots to scroll for attack or attack-supporting stats.
The thing that actually affects survivability is HP - if you don't have enough HP to survive a hit by a given monster, you're told to HP-wash or wear HP equips. Nobody even suggests getting higher DEF gear.

This makes no sense.

Consider: a level 10 newborn warrior has a 24-attack sword and wears Maple Island gear totalling about the same amount of weapon defense.
By the time he reaches fourth job, his weapon attack will have increased about fivefold, and his w.def will have increased at least 20-fold.
With 5 times as much w.att, this warrior will be delivering about a thousand times as much damage (using normal attack), and ten thousand times as much using attack skills that multiply his damage.
However, with 20 times as much w.def, this warrior is able to absorb... 20 times as much damage. Since the monsters he's fighting at this point deal 100 times as much damage as the slimes and stumps of level 10, that w.def doesn't help him much.

I think def should relate to the amount of damage you can deflect, the same way att relates to the amount of damage you can give. That is to say, it should be multipied by some function of your level and/or stats, and you should have defensive skills that multiply it further.

Discuss, please.

Actually at higher levels with the right equipment def can go a long way. Equipment such as zhelm and egg'd pendant though.

Basically like, uh

(wdef * 50 + level * 30) or something like that?

(I added in level just for the sake of it)

Shaving 100 or 200 hp from damage taken is "a long way"?
Only if those 100 or 200 hp are the critical ones for you at your particular level against a certain particular monster.
Otherwise, meh, damage taken reduced from 2.5k to 2.3k, whoop-dee-doo.

zHelm and Horntail Pendant (and Egg) would not be anywheres near as sought-after if they had even double the def but no stat boost.

Def is nice to have, and no mapler would turn his nose at free def. But on the other hand most maplers don't mind wearing low-level common-class equips with minimal def (sauna robe, work glove, pan lid) as long as they are scrolled to increase damage and/or accuracy.

Basically like, uh

(wdef * 50 + level * 30) or something like that?

(I added in level just for the sake of it)

I'm thinking more along the lines of

max(wdef, wdef * (level + avoid + 0.5 * (str+dex)) / 30)
max(mdef, mdef * (level + avoid + 0.5 * (int+luk)) / 30)

That is, just as with att and dmg, the multiplier is not a constant (your 50) but grows with your stats.

I also like the thought of sticking Avoidability in there somewhere. Your Avoidability should not just determine whether you get hit or not (binary decision) but also how badly you get hit. If you have high avoidability, you should have a better chance of getting a mere glancing blow, no?
(OTOH, yet another advantage for those overpowered sins? Maybe not such a good idea).

No avoid. Some kind of quadratic function of defense, resulting in 300 defense (fairly standard amount for archers at least) shaving off about 500 damage, and 400 defense shaving off about 800 damage. That would work, I think.

Magic defense needs to be fixed, though, because mages have like thousands of magic defense and would take no damage from any magic attack. Drop one int to add .25 Magic Defense or so, doesn't make sense that lukless have more defense than luk.

My post in "Class role balance" in general section.

Maybe something like this:

(Magic)Defence added by job:
Warrior: 40%
Pirate: 30%(Would really help Corsairs)
Bowman: 20%(They should be able to take more hits than Thiefs)
Thief: 10%(Meant to be fragile)
Mage: 0%(Same as Thiefs)

(Magic)Defence added by Shield:
30%

So a Warrior with 1k(lol) defence and a shield(those don't really add a lot of defence so they should get a multiplier too) would get +70%(+700) to their defence. But even with this defence still doesn't do a lot because the avarage bosser still doesn't have over 1000 defence and not everyone has a shield or is a Warrior. This would make scrolling for defence some more usefull.
So, anyone care to help me on this?

So, lets take my CB with it's 248(or 284) defence at lvl70. With this formula he should get 372 damage reduction of a physical attack with 248 defence. Now, this doesn't make sense because no monster I fight does this kind of damage, unless it's a D.Roy or something like that(even V/Hoodoo would hit under 10). If I'd add in level I could even walk trough Zakums third body at lvl80 with HB and MG(ok, that's not true, but you get the point).

No avoid. Some kind of quadratic function of defense, resulting in 300 defense (fairly standard amount for archers at least) shaving off about 500 damage, and 400 defense shaving off about 800 damage. That would work, I think.

Magic defense needs to be fixed, though, because mages have like thousands of magic defense and would take no damage from any magic attack. Drop one int to add .25 Magic Defense or so, doesn't make sense that lukless have more defense than luk.

Every kind of armor should add some magic defence after lvl30, because thats when you start fighting monsters with magic attacks. Making luk like 0.1 Mdef per point would also help. STR should help a little in normal defence, with like 0.25 per point too.

So, my CB has 284 defence(this one is higher, so I take this one) and if we add in STR it would have 287 Wdef(yay!). With this defence a Voodoo would deal ~370 damage to me(I haven't been here for a long time, so it could be a lot lower too).

Now, I don't know how much Wdef reduces the damage taken, or how monster to player damage is calculated, but somehow this damage(let's say the avarage is 300) should become an avarage of ~50.

We should also get an increase in the HP gained by sitting.