My current character is around 310 hours old. I still haven't maxed any of my defenses (in fact, I'm a way's off ). I’ve killed around 50-70 with him at a guess (all but about 5 solo), and died 4 times in pk. Three of these were because of a tactical error (for example, attacking a group able to permalag me without any preps, trying to finish someone off when I was convulsing and they were covering in wounds, trying to slip disarms in in between trips, knowing that I’d get two rounds of unparryable attacked if I did). One was down to something that no amount of defenses would have saved me from. (Four on one in a room with no way out, and three of the four keeping me permalagged.) Of the wide range of weapons I can learn, only two are perfected and they are the two I used all the time in fighting. The others have been used to some extent: most are in the upper eighties or lower nineties, and one is still in the 70s.

Lokrin was over 300 hours old, and again, had a similar pk experience. He hadn’t perfected his defenses either. All his kills but one were solo.

Finally, Daurwyn was over 500 hours old and did have perfected defenses, but didn’t have perfected word of recall. Daurwyn didn’t kill so many but then usually a good conjie only kills someone when someone does something wrong.

The only difference I can see my defenses having made in all my fights is this. I may have avoided one extra hit early on in some fights, leading me to think I’m only going to get hit once every other round. However, a bad round will still get you killed. Usually you know quite early on in a fight whether you are going to win it or not. Usually it is clear enough that a few percent more in defenses isn’t going to help that much, and I’d even include warriors in this (I’ve played hero polespec, whip spec, axe spec and hand specs warriors, and none of them perfected all their defenses).

Things like element of surprise, use of potions, knowing layouts helpls more.