Tard the Paladin
Grandmaster
So the ONLY function alone as the talisman is the -50% damage? The others do not trigger at all without the relics?
Correct, the -50% damage includes spells and physical. It makes a big difference. I played another dexer that didn't have a talisman and I was like ewww. I turned that toon into a mage. The abilities only trigger with the relics in place. Here's a quick run down:
Quench - it has a 30 second cool down (I think its 30 secs). It gives you a period of time where you are immune to firebreath. I think its around 5 seconds of immunity per level. Its fun to kite dragons around Destard. I can pretty much kite all the dragons on level 1 destard. I've stat'd a lot of reds that were chasing me this way by kiting and hiding.
Remedy - same as quench but with poison. Pretty useful.
Recoil - recoil reflects one hit from a monster and deals the damage back to them. Its cool down timer reduces in duration as you level it up. I have this one max'd out and it makes no difference to game play.
Leech - slightly better than recoil but also not a very effective relic. You occasionally zap a miniscule amount of life from enemies around you.
There's bloody explosion relic. This is the aesthetic relic. It just blows up corpses and scatters body parts. The body parts can be used as food by my tamer guildies so it does provide some functionality.
Overall, the defense talisman is pretty solid. If you enjoy playing a tank then its definitely going to boost your ability. Another good idea would be to level up one of these talismans and then switch that character over to a red mage. You would have a major advantage when you are hunting blues in dungeons with one of these talismans.
Some players have asked me if the defense talisman is worth the effort when it comes to PVM ability. Basically, will the time and effort put into the talisman be worth it when it comes to farming and acquiring wealth? Nope, not by a long shot. The amount of time that goes into a talisman would reap much larger rewards if a player spent that time on a tamer. So, make a meta dexer/mage if you want a unique gameplay style. If a player is looking to better their socioeconomic standing then a tamer is a wiser choice.