Should I Use Gloria or Defense Up?

My main char is a str>vit 2h focusing on survivablility. I've seen people use aegis and protection, so why not gloria or defense up? How much defense do those skills give, and are they better or worse than aegis and protection?

 

Aegis n protection gives magic n physical resistance .. wht is better than defense ... is good to have both but resistance is still better

 

Defense up and defense mastery both give DEF & MDEF = your character's level / 4, which means having both would give you DEF & MDEF = character level / 2, which means at the current maximum level, you would gain 102 DEF & MDEF (or 103, idk which way it rounds). 102 isn't that bad considering that 100 DEF & MDEF would be an 8% damage reduction to their respective damage types, but if you already have 250 DEF the effect of every point of DEF & MDEF is only a fourth as effective, so it would only be a 2% damage reduction. Not a great place to put your skill points in my opinion.

At level 10, gloria boosts your DEF & MDEF by 200%, which is a lot, but every time I have tested it, it doesn't seem to reduce the damage I take. I don't know if it's bugged or not, or if maybe the numbers just don't show right, but it just doesn't seem to work properly.

Protection and aegis are much better than defense up and gloria.

 

Defense isn't very effective past 250, where you get 20% dmg reduction. Next benchmark is 1250, where you get extra 10% dmg reduction. I know vit/int can reach such values of def/mdef if using heavy armor. If you aren't using it, you can indeed opt to use such combo of def up+gloria, but at which cost? Is allocating skill points on those skills worth 10% dmg reduction (considering you gonna reach 1250...)? Aren't here better options, like you said, protec/aegis? Those are questions that just you can answer based on what you gonna fight.

If you just want an opinion about it... Get defense up to reach 250 def/mdef if you still didn't get it, if already got, then just ignore def up and completely ignore gloria. Also, def up stargem isn't very expensive and since it's situational, you can consider buying it.