Originally Posted by Unregistered

As far as i'm aware TP will actually matter when we get whaleship i also believe defense is the weakest stat atm until it gets reworked like DMM did

The problem with defense is that enemy attack is rising too rapidly and our girls don't have Blooming to keep up. Attacks on high-defense Rainbow girls in 12-5 will deal pitiful damage (if you have heal-on-pest-node then you're pretty much invincible). Attacks on those same girls in 14-5 will start to eat away at their HP. I have a ampy-maxed Anemone on a team that includes Bride Oncidium (about half-maxed on ampies) and they go through the lower route on 14-5 and if they get that 2nd trash fight before the boss (behind 2 RNG nodes), that squad ends the boss fight often with 1 down and the rest low on HP (incidentally that is often Dianthus or Ionocidium that is down)

Due to the interaction between Attack and Defense, our girls would need IIRC 1.5-2x their current defense for it to be truly effective mitigation, given the current attack power of the 14-5 enemies. Thankfully, event enemies are typically not as strong as the 14-5 ones, but it's still problematic. Thus the favoring of Enemy Attack Down girls over Team Defense Up girls (exception: Counter teams due to them adding Defense to counter damage; best Counter Team will also include Bride Oncidium or Cherry Sage because Counter Damage is basically Attack + Defense, with no regard to damage taken by the girl countering, but you need to survive the hits to counter them)