Talk:Luck

Okay, it makes sense to make articles about statistics and stuff, but should we really give each stat its own page? I mean, how much can really be said about each individual one? I'm just proposing we move this to something like "Statistics" or something. ...Yeah, I just said "something" twice. Anyway, if anyone can come up with a way to justify making individual articles, please say so. The world&#39;s hungriest paperweight 00:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. ......Something.
 * On the Hinoa fun box thingy there's the basic Idea of this. ON there I suggest which class series have the greatest increase, perhaps Djinn that increase it the most, ways to boost it temporarily. If we really tried I'm sure we could find enough stuff to fill a decent sized page. Granted that one is on HP but i still feel that we could make long articles. Renegade Zebra 01:51, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, the only reason I wrote this page is because I clicked on the Most Wanted Articles part on the homepage and found it so I clicked on it and started writing.Zabbeth 12:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It's okay. After reading what Zebra wrote, I figure these articles will be longer than I thought. As for whether or not they'll be long enough that we can't have them on the same page, well, lets just see how big they get and decide then. The world&#39;s hungriest paperweight 14:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You can go ahead and delete this if you want. I went and started the Statistics article. There really isn't alot of info on Luck to warrent it's own article anyways. Zabbeth 16:17, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Unleash Effects
Does luck also effect the change an effect from an unleash will occur? For example, will Sheba have increased chance to one hit KO a foe with Life Shear (Atropos' Rod) if her luck is increased? 94.214.166.8 11:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I wish I knew... Erik Jensen (Appreciate me here!) 17:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * NO. That's PURELY Critical Hits/Evasion.  Luck ONLY deals with status ailments, and the chance you'll be inflicted by them.  That's why it's hard as hell to get a status effect on bosses.  For example, though it IS possible to instant-kill Deadbeard with Annihilation, you've got a .04%(ish) chance of actually doing it.  The only thing that most bosses are able to be affected by are djinn unleash effects, many of which have a 100% chance.  RoleOfDATS 06:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Uh... First of all, I know that Critical Hits/Evasion boosting effects from items is what increases the chance that the Unleash itself will physically occur when you do a weapon attack in the first place, which is totally unrelated to the Luck stat, and I know that the Luck stat increases the chance that a status condition attached to a Psynergy spell like Delude would apply itself to the target. What the IP address asked just now, though, was whether the Luck stat also increases the chance that a status condition attached to an Unleash effect like the Zodiac Wand's Shining Star would apply itself to the target in the same way. If it turns out that luck affects all instances of the chance to inflict a status effect and the chance to be inflicted by a status effect, whether it's attached to Unleashes, Psynergy, or even Summons, then the answer to his question would be "yes". Erik Jensen (Appreciate me here!) 08:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed, Luck does enhance the chance an effect of an unleash will occur. I tested this myself. I gave Ivan an Atropos' Rod and he had 31 Luck. I tried my luck in the Jampi Desert Cave. The Winged Lizards have 7 Luck, Sand Scorpions have 6 Luck. All other monsters have above 20 Luck (Fire Dragon has an astounding 36). Of all the unleashes who hitted the other monsters (not lizards/scorpions), none of them were one hit KO's. However, from the 8 unleash hits versus the Winged Lizards and Sand Scorpions, 2 were one hit KO's. So I think that I can safely assume that Luck enhances all effects given by unleashes. At least I made clear that Luck doesn't only deal with status ailments, or are one hit KO effects also seen as one? 94.214.166.8 09:52, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see what you're saying. I know luck has to do with defense vs status, but I have no clue about use of it offensively.  However, if it were true that you could do it offensively, that means that if you amp luck up high enough, you could insta-kill even Dullahan with a decent chance.  I don't think it contributes to it in that regard.  Also, it's best to look in the game's code, not to just 'try it out'.  As such, I recommend asking the resident uber-programmer, AtriusVH.  He may be able to confirm your results in the code, and if that's the case, then the answer would obviously be yes to your question.  Oh, and sorry about misunderstanding what you were asking before.  RoleOfDATS 07:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * From a quick look, it seems luck is only used defensively. Atrius 16:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Luck and Curses
Does luck affect the chance of a curse immobilizing a character during battle? Would higher luck protect you from the curse? Tzion 19:40, 29 February 2012 (CST)

So what does it do?
It's great that we know that it affects certain chances and can make some of them zero, but what are the chances in the first place? If we can find out how many times out of 256 an enemy will use an attack, surely we can find a formula for the chances of those effects in terms of the character's or enemy's Luck stat? We know the exact implications of the other stats, so what are the implications of a point of Luck? A difference of 1% chance? 5% chance? Variable? TheOthin 12:24, 3 March 2012 (CST)

Formula hunting time?
I think it's about time we figured out specifically how luck and ailments interact. We have formulas for everything else, but not ailments. I know there are three factors involved - The Luck Stat, the Ailment's innate success chance, and a certain value listed on classes and monsters (the GSHC only recently found out what that value even did). Now, ignoring the class resistance, it'd be great to figure out specifically how luck effects each ailment and debuff... Rolina (talk) 08:14, 6 October 2012 (CDT)
 * I doubt any of us have what is needed for this to be figured out, though. It sounds like only the hacking community could possibly come up with the answer for that for us... Erik the Appreciator (talk) 19:28, 6 October 2012 (CDT)
 * The problem with that is that it's dying over there. We need help with this.  Without the editor being properly updated, people have just left - we've only got about six or so active members left.  The hope is that we can get a few other communities interested in trying to figure this out, because the fandom knows pretty much every other technical issue in the game, except for this one.  That, and I need it for a GSAR project.  Rolina (talk) 03:42, 9 October 2012 (CDT)

Odd discovery...
Now this is a surprise. Over in the GSHC, we've been looking at the specifics. Here's what we've found so far:

Element level is a factor in both dealing and resisting ailments! The element of the ability uses the element level of all things (not power and resist as you'd expect) as well as target luck to determine the rate of infliction.

Luck may actually have an effect on non-ailment added effects like "May ignore 50% of defense" and "May deal 2x damage". How this works specifically, though, we're not sure yet. Don't add any info on it just yet, not until we figure out more specifics, but keep an eye out here for when we've found out more info. Rolina (talk) 20:09, 1 November 2012 (CDT)


 * This is a bit late, but I am not surprised. There are all sorts of hidden stuff that people take years to find.  --Secreteer (talk) 06:18, 19 November 2012 (CST)
 * It wasn't hidden, so much as a bit encoded. The general mechanics of the game have been known for a long time, but in regards to luck, ailments, and effect chances, not much has been known so far, because people weren't really digging around that deep.  Luckily the GSHC was been wanting to tweak these things, so we've been looking at it for a bit now. Rolina (talk) 12:09, 20 November 2012 (CST)
 * This makes a lot of sense. Part of the GS1 speedrun relies on using the Assassin Blade to instantly kill the Storm Lizard. When I was messing around developing that strategy I noticed that if Garet (the assassin blade wielder at the time) had all djinn on standby then the unleash would trigger but the instant death affliction would not. The battle random number and general random number seed is the same in both instances, yet different results happen. This suggests is there some kind of luck check mechanic based on some threshold. --Plexa (talk) 11:51, 12 June 2014 (CDT)

We've discovered the formulas. Now we know exactly how luck works. http://forum.goldensunhacking.net/index.php?topic=2460.0 Rolina (talk) 20:08, 3 July 2014 (CDT)


 * Well, well. That honestly would allow for a lot of new rewriting across the wiki about the true comparative relevance of each side effect in the GBA games. Up until now I was never sure if there were innately different chance rates for the different ailments, let alone aware that side effect chances were lower for enemies on the sides just like damage or that elemental vulnerabilities improved ailment's chances to be inflicted. I should try to fill in this page to start with... Erik the Appreciator (talk) 21:34, 3 July 2014 (CDT)

GS2 Boss Luck Ratings
I am a little concerned about the luck ratings of the GS2 bosses, or at least how we understand the role luck plays in inflicting status ailments. First off, the 40 luck = immunity claim in GS1 seems to hold true. I have been unable to find RN seeds which inflict any kind of status condition on Saturos, Saturos&Menardi, Fusion Dragon or Deadbeard (despite claims from other people that you can inflict instant death on Deadbeard!). All other bosses have some kind of vulnerability to statuses, and the speedrun abuses their vulnerability to instant death once you obtain the assassin blade.

In GS2 the 40 luck = immunity doesn't seem to be a rule, or the luck ratings for a bunch of bosses seems to be incorrect. The current GS2 speedrun strats use the fact that King Scorpion (40 luck) can be inflicted with the sleep condition and that the Avimander (41 luck) can be inflicted with stun. Of course, other status conditions can be applied to those bosses as well! Since the speedrun skips fighting the Aqua Hydra (and does the Briggs fight once you get 4 party members) I am uncertain as to whether they can be inflicted with status, but it seems plausible. I have been unable to inflict Serpent/Poseidon/etc with status at the moment, but it could be possible.

Anyway, the point of this is that it seems that either the luck ratings for bosses are incorrect, or the status vulnerability threshold is set higher. --Plexa (talk) 12:04, 12 June 2014 (CDT)


 * There are four unknown bytes in enemy data suspected to be vulnerabilities to particular effects - Avimander and King Scorpion both have three non-zero of 12, 13, and 24, which would be defense reduction by 12.5% and 25%, and inducing sleep respectively if this is true. As for Deadbeard, all four bytes are zero, so that would mean he has no vulnerabilities.  Also, the wiki formula isn't the same as the one in the forum thread Role linked (parentheses are messed up) so I'll be fixing that shortly and running the numbers through it.  &mdash;Galrion (talk) 18:33, 20 July 2014 (CDT)