Defend

I've been thinking lately in the time I spend trying to be unproductive, what the fuck is the point of a defense option in RPGS? How many of us have honestly used the defense option in a tactical sense on a random battle? Sure there are some games where you see an enemy charging an attack so you know its gonna be big so you brace yourself and defend, but usually there is a way for you to cancel out his attack or the the HP you save while defending is so nominal that you would have been better off doing something offensive. I can't think of any RPG I've played where it was imperative to my survival in the game to use the defend option, or where it was actually a viable useful action. But I think the most ridiculous thing is how 20+ years in gaming and there has still not been a significant change to this option in RPGs and developers still continue to add in this option.

Wat.

It's usually just another way of skipping turns to me in RPGs for things like power levelling certain characters.

Games with ATB often do it better than turn-by-turn games: for example, simply waiting moves a character halfway on the time gauge, doing something significant, like attacking or casting a spell, moves you all the way to the end, while defending does, well, something, too. Heroes of Might and Magic 5 also come to mind - defending costs you an entire turn there, and gives you a regular 50% defense bonus, but, when 2 sides try to maneuver armies of 8 creatures on a 10x10 field, defending can actually be very important. But, then again, HoMM5 is a strategy/RPG game with tactical combat. PSO2 also does it kinda right with Sword's JG, which can fully absorb any damage directed at you if done right or minimise it otherwise and can cancel any attack and most PAs. But PSO2 is an action RPG, and Hunter is the only class that can guard there. Devil May Cry 3 was pretty creative with its most defensive style, making it the hardest to use, but also the most powerful style in the game by far. But DMC3 isn't an RPG at all.

But yeah, as far as normal JRPGs go, I guess they don't do defending much justice. And I can see why: even in an old turn-based JRPG, choosing "Fight" is usually a more exciting option than to choose "Defend", and it's only natural for developers to further pretty up the most used option with flames, sparkles or whatever instead of making others, like defending and using potions, more worthwhile. No idea why do they keep adding it, but unless you add some gimmick to guarding you can't make the option to lose less HP in a game where your goal is to bring your enemy's HP to 0 very viable.

Defend by itself might be pointless, but it synchronizes well with other abilities that you can add for strategy, depending on the RPG.

One commonly found in JRPGs is countering an attack, so by using Defend, you'll negate most of the damage and counter with a hard hit. Another one is covering for other allies, and Defend will turn the guy covering into a bouncing shield. And if you have all 3, then it becomes a potential game-breaker. Final Fantasy's 5 and 8 come to mind...

Defending in Rogue Galaxy would let you get your attack/action meter back to full instead of waiting for it to return gradually. But this one wasn't the turn based but run around, throw ninjas stars, shoot lasers from your handgun, jump & slash, pickup other enemies and throw them and special ability power ranger team up cinematics more than standing there and summoning but acting out the 2 pirate guys team up to draw the pentagram on the ground with a sword, the jungle princess resurrects the dead demon door, and the Steve Blum pirate opens the gate to hell.

Good stuff Level 5. Found out they're self published (or something with their own money goes into development) recently.

And in thinking about picking up another RPG, checking out that Xenoblade Chronicles I missed out on, see the prices on the Amazon/eBay =

wat.

With Defend...

In FF1, if the black or white mage has nothing to do, I have them defend because they do lousy damage melee'ing.

In FF3 DS remake, defending for several turns allowed me to increase job levels by one level every battle. I'm not sure if that was fixed in the Android version or not.

In 7th Saga, defending once and then attacking allowed me to attack twice as hard.

In Dragon Quest games, I tend to defend if the enemy is preparing to hit you with boosted damage next turn since that gets broadcast easily a lot of the time. Also, I defend when encountering enemies that summon back-up because it's a lazy way to grind and I can go do other things while doing that.

I defend every time I can, in PSO Ep. III! Defend is also important in FF XIII, and I used it sometimes in Skies of Arcadia when I really had nothing useful to do with my healer.