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Description
You can protect yourself from any attack of the enemy in close-quarter combat by using this Defense skill. Remember that, while Defense is a way to protect your body, it also lets you retaliate. Successfully defending yourself disrupts the enemy's flow of attacks, opening themselves up to your attack. If you determine that you are on the defensive during a battle due to the one-sided attack of the enemy, you can instantly turn the tide of the battle by using this skill. Don't be discouraged even if your enemy does not lose his flow of attack, but persistently lead him on to spend his energy. After tiring out the enemy, administer a quiet and calm strike. Defense is the most effective preparation for your attacks.

Details
When active, allows the user to block one enemy attack.
Defense can only block one hit, so be wary of Multi Aggro.
While defending, the user will be slowed to a walk.
Being hit with Defense loaded will negate stun and cancel a single opponents' attack streak, allowing for immediate retaliation.
Note that the user will be have to wait a small fraction of a second while the defense animation finishes before they can retaliate.
It is possible to bypass this using a Bolt followed with Melee, such as a second Icebolt, Arrow Revolver, or Final Hit.
Defense cannot reduce INT bonus damage.
Smash, Firebolt, Magnum Shot, and Advanced Magic will cancel this skill.
Firebolt will still knock down the player, but the damage is reduced with a shield.
A player equipped with a shield and with Defense loaded will not be knocked down by Magnum Shot.
Smash completely ignores Defense.
The user is able to recover stamina while defending.
"Defense" (stat) itself subtracts damage from the base damage received.
"Protection" (stat) reduces damage received by the specified % after Defense is calculated. It also reduces the chance of an opponent successfully landing a critical hit upon the user.
Every point of protection reduces an opponents' before-max critical hit chance by 2%.
Damage received is as follows: (Damage - Defense) * (100 - Protection) / 100
Ex. If you had Def:20/Pro:10 and received 200 damage, then it'd be (200-20)*(100-10)/100 = 162 damage received from a hit.
While defense is active, add in the Bonuses conferred by the defense skills into their respective variables in the equation.
Since shield rebalancing, an equipped shield provides additional melee only Defense points regardless of Defense activation or not.
Defense has very high Skill CP; 2nd out of all melee combat skills. It is suggested that this skill shouldn't be ranked too high early on, as it may disrupt your proficiency training for other skills