[Guide] Physical Damage formula / calculation & tips

A forum to ask people who have played the games about gameplay questions.
Post Reply
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

[Guide] Physical Damage formula / calculation & tips

Post by KFCrispy »

Damage-related information and general tips for Suikoden Tactics

Physical damage formula
(proposed formula below is not set in stone, a lot more research needs to be done......)
Total Damage = (ATK - DEF) x {ratio_mod} x {direction_mod} x {battle_lust} + {MAG}
Decimals are truncated by the game when displaying predicted damage.
The equation without the additional MAG is the Total Physical Damage.
ATK is attacker's ATK value
DEF is target's DEF value
(ATK - DEF) can also be considered "base damage".
{ratio_mod} comes from "STR/DEF bonus"
{direction_mod} comes from hitting an enemy on its front (1x dmg), diagonal front-side (1.1x dmg), side (1.25x dmg), diagonal back-side (1.35x dmg), or back (1.5x dmg).
{battle_lust} is only applicable when the attacker has the Battle Lust skill equipped and is not mounted. else, use 1
{MAG} is equal to attacker's MAG stat only when you have Sword of Magic activated, otherwise use 0.

Total Damage is multiplied further by special attack runes, such as "1.5x dmg". Standing on positive and negative elemental tiles temporarily change stats (STR, PDF, MAG, and MDF), even though the game does not display the changed values while on a tile: positive terrain will increase the 4 stats by 30%, while negative terrain will decrease them by 30%.

STR/DEF bonus
If your STR/enemyDEF ratio is high enough, you get a damage bonus.
estimated ratio range / damage modifier bonus value
less than 1 / damage is reduced (i've seen 10% and 15% so far), your multiplier might be 0.80, 0.85, etc
1-1.25 / 1.00 (this means +0%, so no bonus)
1.25-1.42 / 1.20
1.42 - 1.45 / 1.25
1.45+ / 1.30

so far, actual confirmed values are:
1 through 1.185185 for the 0% bonus
1.280702 through 1.413793 for the 20% bonus
1.436364 through 1.438596 for the 25% bonus
1.464286 through 5.981132 for the 30% bonus


Positional damage bonuses
Attack front, side, or back
Compared to hitting an enemy from the front,
-Hitting an enemy's back does 50% more Total Physical Damage
-Hitting an enemy diagonally from the back does 35% more Total Physical Damage; if the character has an increased effect from terrain (provided by a few armors), it increases by 45%
-Hitting an enemy's side does 25% more Total Physical Damage
-Hitting an enemy diagonally from the front does 10% more Total Physical Damage
There are other benefits from side and back attacks--increased chance to hit and lowered chance of retaliation
Accuracy observations:
Yellow Mercenary vs Iskas...
Front: 63%
Diag Front: 73%
Side: 88%
Diag Back: 98%
Back: 100%
I'll try to do more observations in the future, but it looks like you would add 10% for diag-front, 25% for side, 35% for diag-back, and I'm guessing 50% for back

Terrain effect
Standing in your positive/negative element will alter stats: STR, MAG, PDF, and MDF are temporarily increased by 30% while on the positive element, and down 30% on negative. The character also heals 20% of Max HP on positive and loses 20% of Max HP (but HP won't go below 1) on negative.

*A few armors boost the effect of standing on the positive element; perhaps by 10%, meaning stats increase even more on the positive element, but may also drop more on the negative element.

Skills
Battle Lust: at S Rank, this skill increases damage by a whopping 80%. Does not apply to mounts and counter-attacks. Generally, when Battlelust gets to S rank, your regular attacks without a mount out-damage the normal damage you deal while on a Kangacorn.
Narcissism: causes additional damage after a normal attack (if target is still alive) - at S rank it deals 25% of Total Physical Damage.
Critical: increases chance of critical hits by a flat %. E rank gives 2%, S gives 7%.
Sniper: increases accuracy and critical hit rate. The critical hit rate is a flat %, 1% for E rank and 6% for S rank.
Bull's Eye: increases accuracy and reduces enemy's guard rate.

Runes
Sword of Magic - the initial Magic Sword spell deals 1x dmg plus your MAG score and can add an effect (for Lightning, Earth, Wind). It also changes the target's terrain, so like magic spells, it adds a strategic element; if the enemy is standing on its positive terrain, you can switch it to a neutral or negative terrain to allow other units deal more damage to it before it moves. Afterwards, the MAG damage will be consistent as long as you hit the enemy.. ie if an enemy Guards your normal attack (taking half or 0 dmg), the MAG damage will still deal full. Also, special attacks consider the Magic Sword's extra damage so your special 1x dmg attack deals the normal 1x dmg + MAG dmg. On top of that, if you are using your complementary element, you gain the stat boost and auto-heal effect.
-high MAG: Lalacle, Wendel, Flare, Ameria, Eugene, Reinbach, Paula, Charlemagne, Ornela, Rita, Millay, Sigurd, Lazlo (Hero IV - note that his MP is actually based on MAG like magicians, giving him many more spell points than other fighters), Seneca, Keneth, Frederica
*Keep in mind that Sword of Magic is great for all attackers even if their MAG is poor, due to the terrain effect.


Wizard + Sword of Magic: especially useful combination for those with high MDF.
Boost your MAG even further if you feel the bonus from MDF is high enough to warrant the Wizard Rune taking a rune slot. especially useful if you have 3 free rune slots, but less useful if you only have 2.
-high MDF, 3 free rune slots: Sigurd, Flare, Paula, Lalacle, Nalkul, Keneth. these characters benefit the most from Wizard Rune, but others can further boost their already high ATK + MAG bonus.

Warrior Rune: for characters who can afford to give up half of their PDF, this is a good choice. Go back and read the STR/DEF ratio--boosting your ratio against enemies can significantly boost damage, especially if you are moving up from the 1/1 ratio to ~1.3 (0% boost to 20% boost on top of the flat damage boost)! Note that this IS a realistic scenario. At level 50, many characters have about 55 PDF, and normal enemies in Obel have about 55-70 PDF... a Warrior Rune would basically increase your ratio by 0.4-0.5 points. Trishtan and Eugene have high HP and high PDF.. do they really need both? Eugene also has the highest EVA stat in the game.
Other characters who might want to consider it are...
-high PDF: Gretchen, Sigurd, Busk, and Red Mercenary, but these guys have average to low Max HP and don't have high EVA. Sigurd can fight from a distance, so he is relatively safe...
-high HP: Axel, Karl, and Nalleo have exceptionally high Max HP (over 550 at lvl 50), but they don't have high EVA
-high EVA: Wendel, Kika, Jewel, Nalkul, Kate. Mizuki has great EVA but her PDF is very low so that Warrior Rune will provide little benefit. Keep in mind that Kangacorns decrease EVA significantly, so watch out about that.
-archers: Frederica, Flare, Seneca, Yellow Mercenary; yeah all of them, although Frederica has low PDF so it may not be as worth it.

Violence - while not necessarily great on its own, Violence Rune causes Berserk and your defenses to go up once you've taken damage equal to half your Max HP.

Killer - this is pretty simple. criticals occur from normal attacks only, and occur more often if you have high SKL and LUC (based on Suikoden II's known formula, SKL is valued two times more than LUC). There is also a Critical skill as well as the Sniper skill, which both boost the critical hit rate. this is especially useful for characters who don't have special attacks that deal more than 1x damage. good candidates would be (in order of effectiveness): Lalacle, Seneca, Kyril, Kika, Nalleo, Flare, Reinbach, Nalkul, Jeremy, Millay, and Yellow Mercenary. Rita and Nalleo can add the Smash chance to their normal attacks, and Rita doesn't have any special runes so a Killer Rune is pretty much her best choice. 1h Sword users will likely have rune slots to spare since the weapon-specific Viper Rune is pretty poor.
keep in mind that high SKL characters are able to spam special attacks all day, so someone like Nalleo or Kika, who have reliable high-damage no-miss special attacks don't really need the Killer Rune.

Kangacorn and Great Owl
-Battle Lust does not affect damage when mounted.
-both mounts increase STR, affecting the STR/DEF ratio. Kangacorns boost STR by 50% and Owls by 30%. Early on when the Battle Lust skill level can't be raised by much, attack from a Kangacorn will be more effective.
-both mount runes have a lvl 2 spell that causes Berserk. some characters may just want to start on a mount to activate Berserk before getting off.
-Kangacorn Rune's lvl 1 spell, Kangacorn Rush deals 2x dmg and impales the enemy (sends you to the other side of enemy if possible). This attack is necessary to match/beat damage you would do without a mount with S Rank in Battle Lust. However, you do lose 20% of your current HP each use.



Equipment
There is a good amount of equipment that provide damage boosts, as well as accuracy. Speed is also important to boost (discussed below).
-Berserker Belt (ATK+20, significantly decrease accuracy): this is a really broken item you can acquire early game from Rene's Seeking Treasure Hunt Partner quest, Counter-attacks and normal attacks tend to miss, so you'll want to figure out how characters can effectively use it-- Special attacks never miss, and SKL and accuracy boosts from the Sniper and Bull's Eye skills as well as equipment such as Drop Earrings (an S Rank item) can be used to get a more reliable hit rate.
-Some characters can use powerful equipment: Hand of God (ATK+40), Ogre Breath (ATK+15), Ogre Mail (ATK Up at start of battle). While a good number of characters can equip Ogre Breath and Ogre Mail, only 13 non-mages can use Hand of God: Akaghi, Axel, Champo, Dario, Frederica, Karl, Lalacle, Lino En Kuldes, Nalkul, Nalleo, Reinhold, Sigurd, and Tal.
-Certain characters can take advantage of Master's Vest (prevents Unbalance) and many weapon rune attacks cause the status, but while Unbalance causes a bit of a delay before the character's turn and prevents any kind of defensive skills (dodge, counter, defend, deflect missile, etc), careful planning or simply a high defense would keep your characters safe while Unbalanced.
-Ranger Gloves increases the Bull's Eye skill. It's great early game if you have a Berserker Belt for your long-range characters.
-Sniper Gloves increases the Sniper skill and has slightly more DEF than Ranger Gloves; useful until you level the skill to S
-Godspeed Anklets increases SPD
-Strength Sash increases STR
-Killer Rings increase SKL
-Tome of Black Arts increases MAG
-If you manage to S Rank or dig in the right place, you can find shields with useful stat bonuses such as Rusty Cog (+10 ATK), Viking Shield (+8 ATK), and Wing Shield (+5 SPD and also +2 to Shield Defense)

Speed
SPD is one of the most useful stats to improve because it determines how soon the character gets another turn. That helps both offense and defense. While most SPD boosting equipment adds a flat amount to the SPD stat, the Gale Rune's boost is based your existing SPD stat, making it more effective on characters who already have high SPD. Support characters can also fill up their rune slots with Gale Rune and other defensive effects.
High SPD characters: Karl, Cedric, Snowe, Noah, Wendel, Mizuki, Lazlo (Hero IV), Champo



In-battle strategies

Support characters
Gary raises the ATK and PDF of allies, but he's slow. Ema can use any item in your bag to boost character stats but she's also slow. If you want to take advantage of them early, you can use a high SPD character at the start of battle to move early and switch them in.

Kangacorn Rune + Violence Rune (optional Magic Sword)
works best with high speed and high skill. if the user has a third rune slot for Magic Sword, this strategy can really shine. the idea is that you use the Kangacorn first spell 2 - 4 times (only twice if you took enough damage from enemies, 4 times if you don't get hit at all), which reduces your HP by 20% each time. Violence Rune then kicks in, giving your character Berserk and PDF/MDF Up. Stacked with the Kangacorn mount bonuses, your ATK should be doing a good amount of damage and your PDF should become superb. To finish, stay on your character's element, get someone to heal the character, or just cast Magic Sword. While in Magic Sword state you keep on the element, so with the right element, your character will be healing each round until it ends, as well as having boosted stats.
for characters with 3 rune slots you can also consider casting Magic Sword initially, then using Kangacorn Rush.. you will recover all damage lost or more from the attack if you end the turn on your element.

Sword of Magic x2 for characters with high MAG
What's stronger than Sword of Magic? A second one while you're still in the Magic Sword state! Since special attacks while in Magic Sword state use a base damage equal to ATK + MAG, characters who level up or already have 2 level 3 spells can cast Sword of Magic while still in the Magic Sword state, doubling the damage dealt from their MAG stat (ATK+MAG + MAG). Assuming your character is using the positive element, the attack will be extra strong. Plus, you can't miss and you'll extend your Magic Sword state since it's been re-cast -- Great to use on your last Magic Sword state's turn. characters who have a high MAG stat will do some heavy damage.

My character uses Sword of Magic - should I add a Wizard or Warrior Rune?
For most cases, I would recommend Warrior Rune, but a Wizard Rune is safer for survivability because enemies rarely get the chance to successfully cast anything. Most attacks taken by your characters will be in the form of physical attacks, so the Warrior Rune's PDF reduction can lead to easy deaths.
The most important reason for Warrior over Wizard is how many multipliers you get to apply to physical damage. The Magic damage from the Magic Sword state is flat and doesn't gain any damage multipliers. At end game (which is basically when you can buy these runes), Battle Lust should be maxed, or you could be riding a Kangacorn that boosts your STR so that the STR/DEF ratio is usually giving a 30% damage increase. The Warrior Rune itself as well as various equipment can also boost STR for that 30% or less damage modifier. When you consider this, especially when NOT using a Mount, every additional point added to STR translates to about 2.34 points of damage to the enemy, and even more when you attack the enemy's back/side. This can turn a +25 STR gain from Warrior into +87 damage when hitting an enemy from the back.
Wizard Rune, of course, only increases damage while the Magic Sword state is used. While the Magic Sword state is awesome, it can't always be used - you could be out of level 3 MP and in between leveling up, or if you're at max level, you can't restore MP.

If you stumble upon these runes earlier in the game, however (probably from exploring Obel Ruins), one can make a case for Wizard Rune due to having less resources that make it harder to survive and harder to boost STR with equipment, and the skill level cap would reduce the multiplier from Battlelust as well as reduce survival skill potency - this means Warrior Rune offers more risk for less reward until your skills and equipment are 'mature'.




Regular Attacks
Don't count regular attacks out, they have their benefits like in all Suikoden games.
-chance to Critical hit. Critical hits deal double damage, so with a high critical hit rate, you may want to think twice before using a 1.5x special attack. Drain Rune will heal the attacker upon a critical hit. A Killer Rune and the Critical Hit and Sniper skills increase your critical hit rate.
-Assists: when allies are near the target, they have a chance of adding in an attack after your normal attack finishes. There is equipment that increases the chance of encouraging or performing support attacks.
-extra effects: some characters have Smash which ignores enemy PDF and gives normal attacks the chance to unbalance the target. there are passive runes that give the chance of adding other effects, such as Balloon, Bucket, Silence...
User avatar
MatildaWhiteKnightLeader
Posts: 642
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2005 12:14 am
Location: Matilda

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by MatildaWhiteKnightLeader »

I'm going with a more aggressive setup with Warrior Rune on characters like Kyril and Archers on Giant Owls and maybe even spearmen.
Characters with good evasion and S skills in Parry and Dodge with and/or Shield Defense or Deflect Missiles will not get hit as much, just be more careful to position them so they're not opened to back-side attacks.
Archers on Giant Owls usually won't get hit with the high evasion from riding an owl.
So for these characters, you don't really have to worry about cutting the PDF in half.

Kyril with Warrior Rune and a bunch of atk+ equipment with lvl 7 weaponry doing a Swallow Slash can do nearly as much damge as Lazlo with a Wizard Rune, Tome of Black Arts, and Rune of Punishment casting a Double-Edge Sword spell on 1 enemy.
It's is overkill by the way, but you're graded on average damage dealt to enemies on the battlefield in the battle rankings.
Strategy is the key to victory!
highwind44029
Posts: 1490
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:40 am

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by highwind44029 »

I did some testing with Narcissism S with Charlemagne. Stupid Reinbach got Cross Countered by the Skeleton. =\


Exhibit A:
Charlemagne vs. Skeleton (Fist)
Normal Attack: 64
Narcissism Effect: 16
Total: 80
Narcissism %: 20% of total, 25% of normal attack

Exhibit B:
Charlemagne vs. Water Elemental
Normal Attack: 120
Narcissism Effect: 28
Total: 148
Narcissism %: 18.92% of total, 23.33% of normal attack

Exhibit C:
Charlemagne vs. Skeleton (Bow)
Normal Attack: 33
Narcissism Effect: 8
Total: 41
Narcissism %: 19.51% of total, 24.24% of normal attack

Exhibit D:
Charlemagne vs. Water Elemental
Normal Attack: 116
Narcissism Effect: 27
Total: 143
Narcissism %: 18.88% of total, 23.28% of normal attack


So an S in Narcissism grants about 25% of additional damage. I haven't tested it with Sword of Magic yet. I tried using it once using Reinbach and casting the spell only grants the Sword of Magic damage. However, Reinbach died (again... big surprise) so I wasn't able to check whether both Narcissism and Sword of Magic damage would take effect in subsequent normal attacks.

Charlemagne's not impressive stat-wise, but I think he'd be a more effective character to use if you want the magic of Narcissism. It's hard to take advantage using Reinbach (who has higher Critical rate because of his awesome SKL and LUK) because he doesn't get the Bull's Eye skill. Plus, the whole Red Rose Rune limits damage potential.
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by KFCrispy »

highwind44029 from my observations, that damage bonus is coming from the STR difference between the attacker and the target. Narcissism hasn't played a factor when i've been considering the STR dmg bonus.

the best way to test it would be to start with the lowest possible Narcissism skill and reload to preserve levels and whatever, level it up and check again.
highwind44029
Posts: 1490
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:40 am

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by highwind44029 »

I have already leveled their skills to S so I'll just start a new game and test it again.

I'll check out the STR difference, as you say.
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by KFCrispy »

cool, we look forward to your results!
highwind44029
Posts: 1490
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:40 am

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by highwind44029 »

Still playing my New Game+ game, trying to boost everyone to Level 50, and I discovered something. Apparently, after using Sword of Magic Level 3, subsequent attacks will lose Narcissism, and only have Magic Sword effect. =\

I'm going to double-check tho. It could be that Narcissism and Sword of Magic damages were combined together.
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by KFCrispy »

wait a minute, does the Narcissism dmg occur AFTER the normal attack damage? i'm thinking i have been missing it completely because i've been doing 1-hit kills (possibly). it's been too long...
Oppenheimer
Global Admin
Posts: 2861
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:41 am
Location: ON, Canada

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by Oppenheimer »

Yes, I'm pretty sure that you won't get the narcissism damage if you kill in one hit.
ThricebornPhoenix
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:29 am

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by ThricebornPhoenix »

-Attacker is on opposite element (decreases damage dealt by ??%)
I've tested this with some spells (convenient since you can target the same enemy from many panels and facing is irrelevant). I don't recall any adverse effect.
"Evil is always a distortion or an exaggeration of something that is good. People don't understand that now." - Gene Wolfe, an interview
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by KFCrispy »

i'm pretty sure your stats drop if you are on the opposite element. you certainly take more damage and lose HP each turn.
ThricebornPhoenix
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2008 10:29 am

Re: Maximizing physical damage / damage multipliers

Post by ThricebornPhoenix »

It seems my memory deceived me. I thought that damage output was unaffected, but after some testing I can say that the effect is pretty significant - damage is reduced by about 40%, but that varies a bit. What I may have been thinking of is chance-based spells like Voice of Death - just tested on +, -, and neutral terrains, and VoD's chance to hit was the same on all three.
"Evil is always a distortion or an exaggeration of something that is good. People don't understand that now." - Gene Wolfe, an interview
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: [Guide] Maximizing Physical DMG / DMG Multipliers

Post by KFCrispy »

a lot of info gathered through testing is posted at RPG Dueling League: http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,1269.0.html
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: [Guide] Physical Damage information / calculation & tips

Post by KFCrispy »

i know this game gets very little attention nowadays, but i found some damage and accuracy mechanics for side/back/diagonal attacks recently so i added it above! i will probably be testing out a couple more things the next few days as well.
also, I played with Warrior Rune, and due to the STR/DEF ratio modifier i found last time i was messing around, it's pretty powerful!
KFCrispy
Global Admin
Posts: 6174
Joined: Wed Jun 30, 2004 3:29 pm

Re: [Guide] Physical Damage information / calculation & tips

Post by KFCrispy »

I think standing on your positive element increases stats, not straight-up damage... but I'm having trouble with a couple things. If the enemy is on a neutral terrain and your character is on his/her positive terrain, my formula is still fairly accurate if I increase the character's STR by 45% (and you have to re-evaluate the STR/DEF ratio if it was originally producing a multiplier below 1.3). The Magic Sword predicted damage starts getting tricky though. I actually suspect the game's calculated damage may be wrong and that my formula is actually more accurate, because when I actually ran an attack, the damage was very close to my formula. The other problem is that my formula says MAG remains constant, but the damage number from the animations showing the magic damage as the last hit generally show an increased MAG damage compared to normal. But if the total damage is coming out close to my calculation, then we could wonder if the numbers displayed before the final damage are pretty arbitrary... but i know from past experience that the final magic damage is very separate from the rest of the attack--if an enemy blocks the attack, the magic damage still hits automatically!

I'm also getting some problems when an enemy stands on its positive terrain. For one scenario the numbers worked out if I increased the enemy PDF by 35%, but that idea ran into problems another time.

EDIT: doh, today i repeated the tests for elemental affinity and i'm getting 35% boosts for STR instead of 45%.. no idea why! i'm using the same element day and this time tried with more characters, different elements. i did find that wearing equipment that boosts the effect of terrain was bringing it up to 45% boost, but my previous tests didn't use that effect at all (and i used 3 different characters that time as well)-----MAYBE it's possible one accessory i was using before but not this time has an unadvertised terrain boost? i really doubt it though...
Post Reply