Combat Mechanics: Power, Damage, Healing

[Ferret]

Correct: It doesn't work with Agony: Agony can't target things with Agony. I admit it's an oddball, but I really wanted a Mein that did that, and Agony's slot was the logical choice.

Healing Factor has a cooldown mostly to cut down on message log/VFX spam.

[Gaswafers]

How much do Reaper's Mien and Judge's Mien care about enemy resistances?

[Ferret]

Fully!

Judge's Mien specifically says a "100% chance" for this reason, rather than stating it definitely, as you see for example with Chill effects. If the target is Light resistant, it will reduce the chance. Also, your Cunning and the target's Vitality still play a role too: even a non-resistant target may resist if their Vitality bonus > Cunning bonus.

As for Reaper's Mien: it gets more interesting!

Drain effects can come in two kinds:

1) Damage type and drain type match. In this case, if the target resists, the drain amount is only penalized once: when the damage itself is. So if you use Life Siphon (a Body damage spell and Body drain type) on a Body resistance target and say, the damage would have originally been 10, it gets knocked to 3.33, which is reduced 50% for the drain rate, leaving you with 1.66.

2) Damage type and drain type don't match. In this case, both resistances can reduce the final drain result. Leech Bite is a good example of this type: Pierce damage, but Body drain type. If the target resists both Pierce and Body, your 10 damage would be reduced 5... then the 50% drain would be cut to 16%... and the final result would be less than 1.

If Reaper's Mien triggers off a Dark attack, it functions as Type 1, since itself is Dark.

If Reaper's Mien triggers off a Light attack, it functions as Type 2, since it's Dark type is a mismatch with Light.

All that said.. in the vast majority of cases, the difference is pretty minor. It only really gets noticeable if the target resists both types: it's basically impossible to drain anything with most abilities in that case.

[Gaswafers]

I could have sworn that Judge's Mien didn't have a listed hit chance, and I ask about Reaper's Mien because I wasn't aware that the code automatically accounts for this type of thing. It didn't use to work with light attacks, so it seemed possible that this could have been overlooked.

Another question that I feel was probably already answered somewhere in this thread: is accuracy additive to the base accuracy of abilities; does +10% accuracy bring Clobber up to 60%? And is there a reason why there aren't any abilities that use 70% normal accuracy(i.e. not the static hit chance some electric spells have)?

[Ferret]

No worries. Never going to get trouble from me over asking questions about things: I often go back through this thread when poking at the manual or reviewing tooltips, as it's a pretty good indication of what people are confused about or want more info on. That isn't to say I put everything in here in the manual or plan to: if I think it's a detail that you need to beat the game, I'll put it in the manual. If it's just something that's neat/interesting to know for the more number-crunchery among us, that sort of thing probably won't make it in.

Anyway, +10% accuracy is based off the base accuracy... but Clobber's tooltip says "50% accuracy" not "50% chance to hit"... this actually puts the base chance to hit for Clobber at 43%.

This is poor wording on my part though, because in this case, since the 43% is built into the ability, a +10% accuracy bonus actually modifies the 43% (i.e. +4.3%), not the "original" 85% value. I should (and will!) change it instead to say "Half normal accuracy.", which would be the actual situation: An ability with a base hit of 43 will hit half* as often as one with an 85 base hit, assuming the same modifiers, since accuracy modifiers are %s of the base amount.

(* - Yes, yes, okay, 43 is actually slightly more than half of 85. You get what I mean!)

[Gaswafers]

If that's how it is, then it makes me glad I asked this question.

Maybe you should just state base accuracy on every attack and make more attacks have accuracies that deviate from the norm so you're not repetitively seeing "85% accuracy" everywhere.

[Ferret]

If that's how it is, then it makes me glad I asked this question.

Yeah, that's why I like this thread. Over time, it has helped me identify and fix a fairly large number of poorly worded, unclear, or inconsistent things in the game.

Maybe you should just state base accuracy on every attack and make more attacks have accuracies that deviate from the norm so you're not repetitively seeing "85% accuracy" everywhere.

Hmm... that actually could happen, some day. I considered for awhile having Tier 2 attacks use 80% accuracy and Tier 3 attacks use 75% accuracy, as another nod (in addition to lower SP cost) towards there being reason to use Tier 1 attacks even after 2 & 3 become available. Main reasons I hesitate: tiny differences are hard to balance properly (80% vs. 85% accuracy? What do I give the 80% ability, or take away from the 85% ability, to balance them?), tooltips already are a bit beefy as it is without adding in another thing they'll be responsible for disiplaying.

[Gaswafers]

What do we call the LoS-wide light/dark attacks now that you're using "miracle" for something else?

[Ferret]

A good question. Calling the LoS-wide stuff miracles wasn't an official in-game term before anyway though, just something I used here a few times. I'll try to think of something.

[Gaswafers]

Is the bonus/penalty to maxHP from weaknesses/resistances the same for all non-physical resistances? Because some resistances seem much better/worse for reasons other than just the frequency the element shows up.