Ok, given what I know of your understanding of the damage formula, the notable distinction you make between damage cuts and defense buffs doesn't really make much sense to me.
If you're not setting up to stack damage cuts, then in practice, a +30% def buff basically is a 23% damage cut, except longer duration. That's not so significantly worse than the higher end damage cuts to the point that justifies 'damage cuts are useful, but defense buffs are garbage'. There isn't exactly a big gap between the two until you deliberately start stacking up damage cut/reflect/element tolerance.
Because a difficult solo encounter requires a hefty array of skills, and bringing one skill means not bringing something else. Bring Amaterasu, and you probably aren't bringing Sol. Bring Andromeda, and you don't have Joan. Reaching debuff caps (once implemented) and having overdrive gauge extension on hand means you typically have a grand total of 6 skill slots that are taken. And we haven't even talked about healing and utility skills like cleanse and dispel yet, nor the practical difficulty of assembling a group (all or mostly the same element) with the right combination of those core 6 skills.
Last edited by sanahtlig; 12-05-2017 at 06:27 PM.
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Right, and the full answer to that will depend on the encounter combined with the hand one is given.
I'm not saying that defense buffs are the headline reason to go with a particular kamihime. I'm saying that they're something that'd be listed in a kamihime's pros instead of cons. The way Slashley talks about them makes them seem like a fucking negative or at best a neutral.