Combat Mechanics: Power, Damage, Healing

[Ferret]

There were some questions about this recently, so I figured I'd take a few minutes and explain what's what.

1. Power is the % of Base Damage an ability deals in damage or healing. Demon is balanced internally around the concept that, all things being average, you have to throw 540 Power at an equal level character to kill it. This number factors in an all-things-being-average hit rate of 85% (which is the base accuracy of any attack that doesn't say otherwise.) The 540 number is not arbitrary: it has changed many times through Demon's earlier days, ranging between 450 and 800 at various points as I attempted to settle on the right balance. Basic attacks are all 55 Power. Abilities range both below and above this, but almost never above 100.

2. Base Damage = ( Level+10 ) * 0.615. Power is multiplied by this to get the base damage of the attack. So, a Level 6 character using a 70 Power attack would have a base damage of: (16 * 0.616) * 0.70, or 6.9.

3. Stats. Damage dealing and healing abilities are tied to a stat: either Strength or Magic. The attacker's value of this stat is compared to the defender's Level+10 for damage abilities, or the caster's Level+10 for healing. The ratio of stat vs. Level+10 determine the penalty or bonus the ability receives to its damage or healing. This starts a -25% for a ratio of 0, and increases by +25% per 1 the ratio improves. For example, if an attacker has 30 Magic and is aiming at a Level 5 opponent, the ratio is 30/15 = 2. This results in a +25% bonus to damage. If the attacker instead had 40 Magic, the ratio would be 40/15 = 2.66, about a +42% bonus to damage.

4. Resistances. If the target is immune, the damage is 0. You lose, you get nothing, good day sir. If the target is resistant, either 50% or 75% of the damage is lost, depending on whether it is a physical resistance (50% loss) or magical resistance (75%). If the target is weak, a bonus of 25% is applied.

5. Buffs and Debuffs. Various status effects influence damage dealt as well. The amounts are spelled out in the abilities for the most part. Each is applied separately. For example: If you have +25% offense and your target has -20% defense, a result that started at normal (100%) damage will turn out to be 156% damage.

6. Blankie. I named my RNG Blankie after a pet ferret I had when I was younger, and Blankie finally gets involved here in the last step. The final damage value is adjusted as much as 20% in either direction, decided completely at random.


If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

[Sandman25]

What's the point of melee relic which grants 100 power attack with 50% chance to hit and a cooldown? It is marginally better than base attack (55 power * 85% accuracy = 46.75) and worse than 70 power attack (70 power * 85% accuracy = 59.5) which costs less SP and is available also. Am I missing something like the 50% chance becomes 100% when attacking some monsters (paralyzed/stunned)?

[Ferret]

Clobber doesn't have a cooldown. Or at least, it shouldn't.

And yes, Stun and Paralyze make it almost impossible to miss the target with everything but negative status effects or the very rare attack that doesn't use accuracy/evasion (Storm Strike is an example of this). Clobber makes an excellent follow-up to either of those conditions.

You can also just use 'brute force' to push its accuracy up. Most abilities hit 100% hit rate pretty easily, but if you're willing to undertake various measures (some early game examples: raising Agility considerably, the Mind Reader passive, Freybug reducing enemy evasion, Echeneis Chilling targets to lower evasion, or learning Red Cap's Intent self-buff to raise accuracy), even Clobber can hit reliably without need to Stun or Paralyze. Then you have a dirt cheap, very high Power attack.

[Sandman25]

Yes, I missed a lot , I completely forgot about accuracy boosts/penalties.
Thank you for the explanations!

[Abe]

This is pretty interesting, so damage is largely determined by just your level and your power. That explains why Mind Scream never became a doomsday nuke no matter how much juice I pumped into it.

I was a little worried that low power, no miss moves would become too efficient because of their ability to capitalize on (in some cases) only a single stat, but it seems that power (which tends to be inherently higher on hybrid moves) keeps a lid on that. Jack of all trades relics like Crown and Eye, as well as demons with more balanced stat distributions, suddenly look a lot better.

[geminimax]

How do the resistances part apply to the physical/elemental attacks(like avalanche)?

[Ferret]

It gets a bit odd there:

If you are immune to the "up front" element (the one listed on the tooltip), the whole thing fails. So for Avalanche, if you're immune to Impact, *none* of Avalanche hits you, not even the Ice part. This may be more clear when you think about it with say, Venomous Bite: If you're Immune to Pierce and the teeth can't bite you, the fact they have venom on them never becomes relevant.

Otherwise, resistances act normally, so for Avalanche, a 70 Power Impact/Ice attack, your Impact resistance affects 35 Power of the damage, and your Ice resistance affects the other 35 Power.

[Sandman25]

How is damage determined for mixed attack like Shocking Stab (half Pierce/half Electro). Is it 50% Str and 50% Magic? Or just Str since it shows Pierce as "up front" element?

[Ferret]

50% split either way. The up front element only matters for two points:

1) Triggering abilities that work off of using an ability of a given type. (As you noted in another thread, Shocking Stab only counts as Pierce, since that's the up front element, even though it does Electricity damage and Shock too.)

2) If a character is immune to the up front element of an ability, it is immune to the entire ability, even its effects of other elements.

[Sandman25]

Are you sure about only up front immunity counted? I remember I had a message about immunity X2 when using Shocking Stab vs a demon who was immune to Electro. Or does the second message refer to stun attempt?