#reduce damage

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).

X-CP03/BR02 哀悼の煉獄騎士団団長 ガイスト・ディミオス Sorrow Purgatory Knights Leader, Geist Demios

Size 2 Monster / Darkness Dragon World / Armordragon - White Dragon / 6000 / 2 / 1000

■ 『Counter』 【Act】 Destroy 1 "Purgatory Knights" on your field. If you destroy it, choose one of the following 3.

• Stand this card.

• If it's during the Attack Phase, draw 1 card.

• During this turn, the next time you take damage, it's reduced by 3.

The View in My Memory

Obtainability: You can get one copy from completing all three of the unit’s MSS, and the rest can be rolled from the Support Fate Weave. Usable by Kokoro Awane only.

Splash Party!

Obtainability: Unlimited

With the Red Azalea

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

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.”

The Treasure’s Right Here

Obtainability: Limited to the “Summer with Mikazuki Villa” event.

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

Effect: Reduce Damage [30%] (Self for one turn)

TLDR: This memoria is decent and can help protect your units until you have access to better options.

Thoughts: This memoria is outclassed by other memoria, including unlimited 3* memoria. The memoria “Splash Party” (link to be added) will offer a better Damage Cut and Damage Up while having a shorter cooldown.

If you were able to grab the limited “The Goddess Watches Quietly” from Hereafter, then it could be more useful-- it has worse base stats, but offers higher Reduce Damage, has HP Regen, and has a lower cooldown.

The unlimited 4* “For the Ones I Love” offers slightly less Reduce Damage, but has a lower cooldown while also lasting for three turns, and will regenerate HP as well.

For mirrors, this memoria is not very useful due to having a cooldown at 8 turns, which is too long for a mirrors battle. If you are looking for a better defensive cooldown for mirrors, “Non-Stop Training” has good stats and will give a good boost to your unit’s defense. 

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.