Talk:Elemental Power

Damage calculation

Attack-dependent offenses

I'm working on the next version of Ragnarok and Odyssey, and I have a question about damage calculation. According to this article, Attack-dependent elemental offenses subtract the target's Resistance from the caster's Power, the difference is divided by 400, 1 is added to the result and the new number is multiplied by the caster's Attack. Now, my question: Does the target's Defense matter at all? If so, I think that's an important thing to point out, both here and in what I'm working on. The World's Hungriest Paperweight 20:23, 23 May 2011 (CDT)

Right, Defense would apply. I should specify that the new number is multiplied by what the damage of the user doing a normal physical attack on a target would turn out to be, NOT the user's Attack Stat itself. Erik the Appreciator 20:57, 23 May 2011 (CDT)

Thanks! By the way, another question occured to me just before I saw your answer: If the target's Resistance is higher than the caster's Power, would the caster then deal less damage than with a standard physical attack? For example, say you have 80 Power and your target has 100 Resistance. The difference, -20, would be divided by 400 to get -0.05. Add one to that and you have 0.95. Or would the -20 just get rounded up to zero? I'd imagine the former (even then, the lowest your attack would get is half damage), but I want to be certain. The World's Hungriest Paperweight 21:03, 23 May 2011 (CDT)

The 0.95 version would be right, both by the formulae and by my experience with the game - there's been plenty of times when I used Ragnarok and Heat Wave and the damage result felt blunted, somehow, particularly on enemies you would expect to be resistant to the element of the elemental-physical-attack you're hitting them with. Erik the Appreciator 21:07, 23 May 2011 (CDT)

Doesn't sound very definitive, but it sounds good enough to use the formula until proven otherwise. Thanks ;) The World's Hungriest Paperweight 21:13, 23 May 2011 (CDT)

Oh, wait, by "blunted" you meant "reduced", not "closer to average". Okay, it sounds more definitive now ^_^; The World's Hungriest Paperweight 21:14, 23 May 2011 (CDT)

Sorry if I'm bogging you down with questions/requests, but I just checked the Attack (statistic) and Defense pages, and neither explain how damage is calculated for normal attacks. That kind of information would probably be useful, both here and there. The World's Hungriest Paperweight 11:37, 24 May 2011 (CDT)

That's definitely a missing important thing, though it's very simple: damage from a normal physical attack is the user's Attack statistic minus the target's Defense statistic, and then divided by 2. By this way, a 426 attack physical strike at a 132-defense monster would make a difference of 294, and divide that by 2 to get 147, so the physical strike would be 147 - 150 damage. (Incidentally, any attack that would do 0 or less damage will do 1-3 damage, and not 0-3 damage because 0 is always changed to 1, so if your Attack is lower than a target's Defense, you still get 1-3 damage.)

When you upgrade gear, you can expect to deal 10 more damage with your physical attcks on average every 20 points of Attack you give yourself, and you can expect to take 5 less points of damage on average from any physically-oriented attack for every 10 defense points you get. It's this 147 damage figure that then gets modified by added damage, multipliers, and elemental power/resistance (first the multiplier is done, then an added damage bonus is added, and then the elemental mod is done, and finally the +0-3 random damage at the end. However, when the Unleashes of Excalibur, Tisiphone Edge, and Masamune multiply damage, this multiplication is not the multiplier mod, but is counted as the Special Effect that happens after everything except the +0-3 has been calculated out, similar to a Special Effect that adds a status condition or heals the user. Because of this, the added damage and the results of the elemental interactions are multiplied as well.)

Now, since I'd anticipate this to be the next question asked, I'll explain normal Critical Hits. Unfortunately, the FAQ I'm using doesn't seem to explain anywhere what is the chance for a normal critical hit, only saying that any chance a Critical Hit has is worked out after the chances for Unleash have been worked out (which is why you never see Critical Hits on a character with a high Unleash rate). It's basically a normal physical attack with a multiplier of x1.25 and an added damage bonus, but funny enough this added damage bonus is 5/6ths of the enemy's Level, or 83.33% of the enemy's level. If you would do 200 damage with a normal physical attack on a level 36 Treasure Isle enemy and that attack turns critical, it would then get multiplied by 1.25 to make 250, and then 36 is x5 and then /6 to make 30 which is added to make the total damage 280. If you're using a pure-element weapon, then power and resistance is carried out like you were doing an Elemental Physical Attack. And finally the +0-3. Erik the Appreciator 12:33, 24 May 2011 (CDT)

I wasn't even thinking about critical hits. Most of the questions I've asked so far are for the revision I'm preparing for Ragnarok and Odyssey (I was thinking of adding a "damage calculation" section). Still, that's useful information to have. Also, I don't suppose you could provide a link to the FAQ, could you? That way I can look this stuff up myself instead of constantly asking questions ;) The World's Hungriest Paperweight 18:28, 24 May 2011 (CDT)

Yeah, of course. Though in the past I've been frustrated by it lacking some critical information which I don't remember now. http://www.gamefaqs.com/gba/561356-golden-sun-the-lost-age/faqs/22880 Erik the Appreciator 19:30, 24 May 2011 (CDT)

Complete or not, something's better than nothing. Thanks! The World's Hungriest Paperweight 15:22, 25 May 2011 (CDT)