#reduce damage passive

[magiamemoria]

The Power to Protect

Obtainability: Unlimited

Notes: This is event memoria and should be kept in the case of the event being rerun.

Effect: Defense Up When Near Fainting [40%] / Defense Up [30%] / Reduce Damage [15%]

TLDR: The best defensive memoria in the game, “The Power to Protect” is good for tanks/defense characters who you want to stay alive as long as possible. It’s good for PVE and Mirrors.

Thoughts: This is likely the best passive defensive memoria in the game for EN. It’s among the highest sources for passive Defense Up and has a respectable amount of Reduce Damage. The effect “Defense Up When Near Fainting” will kick in when a unit is at or under 20% of their health, making this memoria ideal for tanks or defense-type characters who are more likely to survive when that low.

Other comparable defensive memoria include:

"There Are Totally Four of Me” Defense Up when at Max HP [80%] / Reduce Damage [15%]

“Blessed Wind Returns” Reduce Damage [15%] / Defense Up [22.5%]

“My First Homemade Chocolate” Defense Up when near fainting [50%] / Defense Up [22.5%]

“Watching Over Them Together”  Defense Up When Near-Fainting [40%] / Defense Up [15%]

“The Mao Family Is As Rowdy As Ever” Defense Up [30%] / Status Ailment Resistance Up [30%]

“A Wild Welcome in the Sewer” Defense Up [30%] / Negate Stun

However, “The Power to Protect” outclasses them all with its superior stats and powerful high effects.

Additionally, a quick note on the two effects Defense Up and Reduce Damage: “Defense Up” will increase the character’s base stats, while “Reduce Damage” will affect an opponent’s attacks. Essentially, it’s all about where in the order the effect takes place, and in general increasing stats is better than affecting attacks. This can be important, especially when considering Mirrors.

Additionally, when considering PVE,

Having both Reduce Damage and Defense Up makes it great against PVE that has ignore defense or ignore damage cut, as they rarely have both. 

This memoria is especially wonderful on Sayaka due to her having a passive survive skill, and an active survive skill, which will allow her to get the extra defense and abuse it for a few extra turns. I also find it pairs well with sword of light and dark on Ultimate Madoka, as the memoria's higher defense plus the hp restore on a double dokami team will keep sword active, and was great for doing EX Challenges. From @leafbladie

The Mirrors AI will always take the effect Defense Up into account, but not so much for the effect Reduce Damage. This can lead the AI into doing what it thinks will be a killing blow on the unit, and then attacking a different unit despite not having killed the first one. This can be helpful in keeping characters alive: you can trick an enemy into targeting the equipped unit last, but even if your unit is attacked, they can still survive a little bit longer than they currently will. (Correction made here by @leafbladie).

When compared to “There Are Totally Four of Me” (another memoria often used in mirrors for this same purpose), @leafbladie had the following to say:

“The Power to Protect” has much better passive effects than "There Are Totally Four of Me.” Though, “There Are Totally Four of Me” will be preferential if there is a high disparity in defense values (which is unlikely, but still possible).

Overall this is a memoria you’ll want to have at some point in your arsenal. Its use on supports is more limited, but it can find homes in Support Tanks or on especially squishy characters.

[magiamemoria]

With the Red Azalea

Obtainability: Limited to “The Flowers’ Lament” event.

Effect: Reduce Damage [30%] (Self for three turns)

[magiamemoria]

There are Totally 4 of Me

Obtainability: Unlimited (Mirrors Shop)

Effect: Defense Up when at Max HP [80%] / Reduce Damage [15%]

TLDR: This is a great memoria for mirrors but not such a great memoria for PVE. It can be devastating when paired with memoria that increase your attack at max HP.

Thoughts: A key component in mirrors is that you always go first on offense, and that you can trick the AI in attacking who you want it to attack. One part of that is utilizing the elemental rock-paper-scissors to your advantage, another part is working on defense for your team.

Assuming everyone is the same element, the girl with the highest defense will be targeted last by the AI. You can see how a memoria like this then is useful-- put it on a character you want to live the longest, and as long as it bumps them over with defense over the other characters, you are pretty safe! 

I’d pair this memoria with passive memoria that increase your attack at max HP, such as “A Sword Between Light and Dark” or “Perfectly Imbalanced.”

It’s harder to influence the ai for PVE, so I can’t really recommend this memoria for that purpose.

[magiamemoria]

Blessed Wind Returns

Obtainability: Limited to the “Magia Clash” event.

Notes: This is event memoria and should be kept in the case of the event being rerun.

Effect: Reduce Damage [15%] / Defense Up [22.5%]

TLDR: This is a good memoria for increasing the survivability of your characters and can even see usage in Mirrors.

Thoughts:  This is a good memoria to have on hand if you were lucky enough to be playing during its event-- it combines two different types of damage reduction that can help protect a character, and can be useful to equip on squishy characters who need to survive or tank/defense characters who need more bulk to survive being hit. Keep in mind that this memoria means you are forgoing a different passive memoria that could offer more damage, but otherwise this is a solid choice to have in your toolbox and well worth leveling.

As far as Mirrors is concerned, this memoria can still be useful despite only having three stars-- it depends on how you want to manipulate the AI. 

A good option to use for defense is “There Are Totally 4 of Me” which will increase your defense when at max health. The mirrors AI will target characters with less defense, so that memoria can influence which character is attacked last.

However, sometimes you don’t necessarily want a character to be attacked last; you just want them to survive a little bit longer than they currently do. Evade is another option but it doesn’t reliably proc, while “Blessed Wind Returns” will always be baseline useful.

Lastly, this memoria offers Reduce Damage and Defense Up. The AI will always take “Defense Up” into account, but “Reduce Damage” not as so. This can lead the AI into doing what it thinks will be a killing blow on the unit, and then attacking a different unit despite not having killed the first one. This can also be helpful in keeping characters alive.

Overall this is a good memoria to have on hand.

[magiamemoria]

Note: This Memoria Needs a Rewrite

A Lone Treasure

Obtainability: Limited to the “Magia Clash” Event. You can get one copy from completing Hayate’s personal story.

Effect: Magia Damage Up [] / Reduce Damage []

TLDR: Text

Thoughts: This is a personal memoria which can only be used by Hayate Yagami. As far as personal memoria go, it’s fairly decent-- it provides reduced damage and increased magia damage. This won’t be increasing attack or damage up, so keep that in mind when planning on it’s usage. 

There are better memoria out there (and better units to use, to be quite frank), but this memoria is worth keeping in it’s MLB’d state.

[magiamemoria]

A World of Sheer Bliss

Obtainability: Unlimited

Effect: Reduce Damage []

TLDR: Text

Thoughts: There are far better defense memoria out there than this one, such as A Wild Welcome in the Sewer or the Mao Family is as Rowdy as Ever. 

However, a note on “Reduce Damage” versus “Defense Up.”

According to the Magia Record Fandom Wiki, “Defense modifiers are generally more effective than Damage modifiers” (Source). Essentially, “Defense Up” will increase the character’s base defense stats while “Reduce Damage” will effect oncoming attacks. This means that “Defense Up” will often do a better job of protecting a unit than “Reduce Damage.”

However, the Gamepress site offers the following thought: 

“Damage cut tends to be better than defense up in terms of passives. The AI almost always targets the girl with the lowest defense stats (outside of element), but doesn't take into account damage cut. Damage cut won't help you as defensively as much as adding defensive stats will, so keep this in mind when equipping your girls. Defense up is better for defense units whereas damage cut is better for offensive units” (source). 

So what does this mean? Not much for this particular memoria, it’s still not that great. However, for other “Reduce Damage” memoria out there, this is important to know when trying to trick the AI into attacking who you want it to in Mirrors. It’s something to keep in mind in the future for this particular effect!

In any case, unless you don’t have better options out there, you can safely discard this memoria.