User blog comment:SolarMist/Tips for Defending Sealstones/@comment-1328622-20131004034220/@comment-17760674-20131004212421

High DS does matter a little if you don't have a bellsummon/etc as leader, though:

If your DS is really high, then it takes longer for consecutive attacks to drain it to the point where you can't summon your full defense team.

If you get attacked 10 times, you'll be worse off starting with 210 DS than with 300 DS. The 210 DS person won't be able to summon their full defense team sooner than the 300 DS person. People know this, so they often target the lower DS people on the main battle list (since the only way to get on the main battle list is to level up) because the low-DS person soon won't have enough DS for a full team if they're being bombarded with attacks. (There's a bit of reliance on other players to have the same mindset here.)

I'll add a new section including your comments shortly ^___^ Thanks for the input!