Player Damage

The following sections discuss player damage, i.e., damage done by the player.

Damage Formula

Player damage can be described with the following formula:

Player Damage = ( WeaponATK * Variance + PlayerATK - EnemyDEF ) * Damage Multipliers * 0.2

WeaponATK: The attack value of the weapon equipped as shown on item details.
Variance: The range in which WeaponATK is scaled. This is shown on page 2 of item details. See Weapon Variance.
PlayerATK: The attack value shown in stats window with no equipments.
EnemyDEF: The internal defense value of the enemy. Scales with enemy level.
Damage Multipliers: Final damage multipliers applied from various sources. See Damage Multipliers.

The resulting damage from the calculation is rounded to the nearest integer.

Weapon Variance

The variance range of a weapon is shown on page 2 of item details. A value is selected at random from this range to be used as the variance multiplier in the damage formula. For example, if a weapon has 70% - 100% variance range. A value between 0.7 and 1.0 is randomly selected and used to scale the weapon's attack value in damage calculation. The probability to get each value in the range seems to be the same, i.e., variance is uniformly distributed.

Increasing the variance floor via external sources like Abilities adds a multiplier to the variance floor in calculation. For example, if a weapon has 70% - 100% variance range, having 1% increased variance floor gives us a range of 70 * 1.01 = 70.7% - 100%. Variance floor increase stacks multiplicatively.

With knowledge on variance, we can derive the minimum/maximum player damage from the initial damage formula:

Minimum Player Damage = ( WeaponATK * Minimum Variance + PlayerATK - EnemyDEF ) * Damage Multipliers * 0.2

Maximum Player Damage = ( WeaponATK + PlayerATK - EnemyDEF ) * Damage Multipliers * 0.2

Damage Multipliers

There are many damage multipliers modifying the resulting damage done. These multipliers stack multiplicatively. Some common sources of damage multipliers are:

PA/Tech Notation: The damage modifier of the attack used. This is usually shown in-game as a percentage value for Photon Arts and Techniques, but actual testing is required to determine the distribution of damage notation for each hit of those attacks. Other attacks in-game can also be tested in a similar fashion. For example, Barta has 250 power shown in its in-game description, but testing revealed that it does 150% damage uncharged, and 250% damage when charged (used as 1.5 and 2.5 multiplier in calculation respectively).
Part Boost: Damage multiplier depending on the part of the target enemy where the attack lands. Common values known are:
- Elemental Weakness: 1.2 (Note: this only affects elemental attacks, e.g., Techniques.)
- Weak Point: 1.5
- Enhancer: 1.2
- Weak Bullet: 1.2
- Reinforced Weak Bullet: 1.25
Class Skills
Weapon Potentials
Preset Abilities
Special Abilities
Unit stats
Food buffs
Region Mag buffs
Level Difference Modifier: Damage reduction from level difference below enemy. See Level Difference Modifiers.
Optimal Range Multiplier: Damage multipliers depending on the distance between the player and where the attack lands. Only affects certain weapons. See Optimal Range.

Critical Damage

Critical damage is shown with a larger font in-game (not to be confused with weak point damage which is shown in blue, see Weak Point Damage (Blue Damage)). Critical damage is 120% of maximum player damage, as shown with the following formula:

Critical Damage = Maximum Player Damage * 1.2

Expanded form:

Critical Damage = ( WeaponATK + PlayerATK - EnemyDEF ) * Damage Multipliers * 0.2 * 1.2

Where 1.2 is the critical multiplier.

The default critical rate is approximated to be 5%. This can be increased (likely additively) via other sources like Potentials and Abilities.

Optimal Range

Optimal Range (適正距離) is a term used to describe the mechanics of certain weapon types having increased damage depending on the distance from the player to where the attack lands. Each range gives a specific damage multiplier to most attacks. The range giving the highest damage multiplier (AKA the Optimal Range) is indicated by the target marker turning orange in-game.

Weapon	Close Range	Mid Range	Far Range
Wired Lance	1.0	1.2	1.0
Rifle	1.1	1.2	1.0
Twin Machinegun	1.2	1.1	1.0

Note: Actual distance for each range differs for each weapon type.

Appendix

Level Difference Modifiers

Both player damage and enemy damage are modified when the player's level is lower than the enemy's.

Player Damage Modifier based on Level Difference

When the enemy level is higher than the player's Main Class level by 5 levels or more, player damage done to the enemy is reduced. The damage reduction can be calculated with the following formula:

Damage Reduction = (Level Difference - 1) * 10%

For example, against an enemy at level 15, level 10 players' damage will be reduced by 40%, level 7 players' damage reduced by 70%, while level 11 and above players do not get their damage reduced.

Weak Point Damage (Blue Damage)

When an attack lands on a weak point, the damage number is shown in blue in-game. The following are known sources of blue damage numbers:

Natural weak points on enemies
Enhancer
Weak Bullet
Reinforced Weak Bullet

Damage Formula (NGS)

Contents