When you wrote about farming onyx, funny i was doing that yestoday as well. It was HARD trying to get them above 15*. I only got a 17 and a 20* out of two runs, and i had to reload 3 times because the other three times gave me under 14* even with 450 stamina. One of the main problems is that the onyx drop rate is lower than the junk loot you can get from there, the ratio seems to be 3:1 with you getting 3x more iron scraps and ores compared to onyx's.
Thanks to this though, i found out that this tower is the best place for farming dark matter higher than 1*, but you generally don't want to craft weapons using high ranked dark matter as the penalty to hp is too severe to be beneficial. (The dark matter drops from the walking darkness monsters)
When you have high amounts of defense, you can start to notice the difference it makes, especially paired up with combat skills that boost your defense. I had forgotten to equip pupu with defensive gears,and she had under 500 hp. When the 4 spirits in the oasis looked at her, that 500 hp disappeared in a flash. Meanwhile, i had overgeared kokori and une with massive amounts of health and defense, kokori having around 700 hp and une around 800. At one point, une used a defense buff, and the earth spirit (the one that hits HARD with a earth physical attack) did only around 10 damage to kokor(okay,maybe not THAT low,i might be exgaggerating. But it was pretty low if i remember). I was like: lol wut. Watch out though, the spirits can buff their attack too, that same earth attack hit 200 on kokori 2 turns later.
In general, you get greater health boosts over defense on most equips with good materials. Having both good defense and health makes your party survive onslaughts and thus able to heal up for the next turn.
Thanks to this though, i found out that this tower is the best place for farming dark matter higher than 1*, but you generally don't want to craft weapons using high ranked dark matter as the penalty to hp is too severe to be beneficial. (The dark matter drops from the walking darkness monsters)
When you have high amounts of defense, you can start to notice the difference it makes, especially paired up with combat skills that boost your defense. I had forgotten to equip pupu with defensive gears,and she had under 500 hp. When the 4 spirits in the oasis looked at her, that 500 hp disappeared in a flash. Meanwhile, i had overgeared kokori and une with massive amounts of health and defense, kokori having around 700 hp and une around 800. At one point, une used a defense buff, and the earth spirit (the one that hits HARD with a earth physical attack) did only around 10 damage to kokor(okay,maybe not THAT low,i might be exgaggerating. But it was pretty low if i remember). I was like: lol wut. Watch out though, the spirits can buff their attack too, that same earth attack hit 200 on kokori 2 turns later.
In general, you get greater health boosts over defense on most equips with good materials. Having both good defense and health makes your party survive onslaughts and thus able to heal up for the next turn.