Estimating Hidden Numbers That Shouldn't be Hidden

[Burklight]

31 minutes ago, Sire said:

Interesting.

So, if I have this right, most abilities are simply additive. (So, Sword Prowess 3 [+30] and Offensive Tactics [+20] will result in +50% damage.)
-- Getting a Critical Hit is a multiplier, although Apex Weapon is bugged and has a lower multiplier than default.
-- Motivation is a multiplier, ranging from +5 to +15 depending on the level. (I'm not sure if this has been tested yet)

If I'm interpreting this correctly...

(Damage * Abilities) * Motivation * Critical Hit = Total Damage
-- Damage likely has its own formula regarding STR, MAG, MT, and what attack/combat art/magic is used. [Alternatively, perhaps its class based as it was outlined in a previous post]

* * * * *

So, Felix's Lone Wolf is an additive multiplier with only a +30. Guess it's a useless skill since having a Battalion is almost always superior, for having advantage as well as reducing damage taken. I suppose the same can be said for Catherine's personal.

Something like that, yeah. And I haven't seen anyone do any research yet on "advantage" that weapon triangle or battalion gives you. I mean, we know it's 50%, but if it's 50% adding then Felix personal is probably still better than a battalion. If it's multiplying, then I could see arguments either way. 30% vs everything is probably better than 50% vs just one thing, if they're both adding. If it's a true multiplier tho, his personal would be crap. Considering he's likely still in the top 3 best units in the game, that's probably fair. Cant have everything, right?

 

[Archeleon]

Just now, Burklight said:

Something like that, yeah. And I haven't seen anyone do any research yet on "advantage" that weapon triangle or battalion gives you. I mean, we know it's 50%, but if it's 50% adding then Felix personal is probably still better than a battalion. If it's multiplying, then I could see arguments either way. 30% vs everything is probably better than 50% vs just one thing, if they're both adding. If it's a true multiplier tho, his personal would be crap. Considering he's likely still in the top 3 best units in the game, that's probably fair. Cant have everything, right?

 

I'd agree with this assessment. I think Busters and Breakers might be getting a bit overvalued. They are a significant boost when they are active but are completely worthless when not. In Felix's case I think I'd rather have the 30% increase over the Advantage bonus unless the map is particularly loaded with one weapon type.

[Pie Burritos]

51 minutes ago, Sire said:

-- Motivation is a multiplier, ranging from +5 to +15 depending on the level. (I'm not sure if this has been tested yet)

This has been tested by me by accident. During my testing of crits and Impossible Feat and buster, I realized that Shez was actually motivated during that time. Since all the multipliers appeared as they should, it can be assumed that the motivation boost applies multiplicatively. When I tested Lone Wolf for Felix, he had the same stats and same weapon, but did less damage, which is when I realized Shez had to be motivated. Here's a comparison of the two to just show how they differed.
 

Spoiler

 

[Sire]

Regarding advantage, from the tutorial it states that having advantage allows for faster depleting of the enemy Stun Gauge, while not having advantage makes it more difficult to "knock enemies back" and deplete said Stun Gauge.
-- Personally, it feels like having advantage does make it easier to knock enemies back, or at least break their guard when compared to neutral setups, but I may be biased as I tend to fight with favorable matchups. I do know fighting when disadvantaged sorta sucks as the enemy guard seems more effective, but is still manageable.
-- As for Felix, I suppose his personal can be good if you plan on maining him and having him solo the map, regardless of what the enemy has. However, as I tend to switch characters and counter what's on the field, having a battalion is more suitable for my style of play. // Granted, once one is higher enough level and is properly outfitted  (NG+ Hard), advantage begins to mean little, although I wonder if that may change during Maddening (I have not tried Maddening myself yet).

Regarding the motivation test, thanks for testing, Pie Burritos!

[Burklight]

38 minutes ago, Sire said:

Regarding advantage, from the tutorial it states that having advantage allows for faster depleting of the enemy Stun Gauge, while not having advantage makes it more difficult to "knock enemies back" and deplete said Stun Gauge.
-- Personally, it feels like having advantage does make it easier to knock enemies back, or at least break their guard when compared to neutral setups, but I may be biased as I tend to fight with favorable matchups. I do know fighting when disadvantaged sorta sucks as the enemy guard seems more effective, but is still manageable.
-- As for Felix, I suppose his personal can be good if you plan on maining him and having him solo the map, regardless of what the enemy has. However, as I tend to switch characters and counter what's on the field, having a battalion is more suitable for my style of play. // Granted, once one is higher enough level and is properly outfitted  (NG+ Hard), advantage begins to mean little, although I wonder if that may change during Maddening (I have not tried Maddening myself yet).

Regarding the motivation test, thanks for testing, Pie Burritos!

I've only done one maddening run so far (Golden Wildfire) and it raises some interesting issues. I don't have enough experience on maddening in general to know if this is an actual problem, or just me being an impatient perfectionist, but the feeling I got was that because enemy level outscales the current level cap by quite a bit, the units you use need to have access to abilities that let you keep up. Iirc the last few maps enemies are around 160-170. Some of the harder paralogue maps are 180. In order to deal with that, units that have the easiest time are ones with Luna/Flare and to a lesser extent Impossible Feat. Shaz kind of sidesteps this issue by having access to magic and being able to break weak points almost instantly. My run heavily relied on Claude/Hilda. Balthus with Absorb str was somewhat able to keep up in a pinch vs mages, but really it was mostly just the Claude and Hilda show. No one else saw much use, and when they did it was painfully slow in comparison, regardless of whether or not you're fighting at a disadvantage. For example, full damage setup Hilda with War Strike instantly kills non boss sword users on maddening so long as they don't block, so advantage is kind of moot. 

[ZanaLyrander]

4 minutes ago, Burklight said:

I've only done one maddening run so far (Golden Wildfire) and it raises some interesting issues. I don't have enough experience on maddening in general to know if this is an actual problem, or just me being an impatient perfectionist, but the feeling I got was that because enemy level outscales the current level cap by quite a bit, the units you use need to have access to abilities that let you keep up. Iirc the last few maps enemies are around 160-170. Some of the harder paralogue maps are 180. In order to deal with that, units that have the easiest time are ones with Luna/Flare and to a lesser extent Impossible Feat. Shaz kind of sidesteps this issue by having access to magic and being able to break weak points almost instantly. My run heavily relied on Claude/Hilda. Balthus with Absorb str was somewhat able to keep up in a pinch vs mages, but really it was mostly just the Claude and Hilda show. No one else saw much use, and when they did it was painfully slow in comparison, regardless of whether or not you're fighting at a disadvantage. For example, full damage setup Hilda with War Strike instantly kills non boss sword users on maddening so long as they don't block, so advantage is kind of moot. 

Abilities certainly seem to play a large part of it, but I think gear may play an even larger role. I'm on my first Maddening run as well at the moment (SB), just finished chapter 10 and so far it's been far easier than I expected, despite the sizable level gap between my units and the enemy, and I largely attribute that to my equipment. This is like my seventh run, so at this point, most of my units are using high tier, fully upgraded weapons, and I've taught them spells via the adjutant system that make for really nasty combos when used in conjunction with each other. Having powerful weapons and good combat arts/spells seems to more than make up for the enemies higher levels.

[Pie Burritos]

For characters who rely on launching their foes and critical rushes (I'm thinking Ashe with tornado shot into his unique skill, but there are others) having advantage is basically a must on Maddening as no advantage (or disadvantage) typically allows the enemy to flip out of the launch and land back on their feet. I'm finding a lot of the time combat boils down to finding a combo that will easily smash a weak point, or a combo / single combat art that will just murder the enemy instantly. If you have to smash a weak point, then advantage is very helpful, otherwise, not as important. Gear is definitely very important as trying to whack away at enemies with non-upgraded weaponry will result in very little damage.

As for the level difference, it's my belief that on Hard and Maddening, the intended level for your units is half the level of the enemy, though there's no evidence to support this view. It just seems right. I guess if I compared Normal mode enemy level to Hard mode enemy level, I could find out, but eh. It's not really something I need to have confirmed.

[Burklight]

9 minutes ago, ZanaLyrander said:

Abilities certainly seem to play a large part of it, but I think gear may play an even larger role. I'm on my first Maddening run as well at the moment (SB), just finished chapter 10 and so far it's been far easier than I expected, despite the sizable level gap between my units and the enemy, and I largely attribute that to my equipment. This is like my seventh run, so at this point, most of my units are using high tier, fully upgraded weapons, and I've taught them spells via the adjutant system that make for really nasty combos when used in conjunction with each other. Having powerful weapons and good combat arts/spells seems to more than make up for the enemies higher levels.

That's kind of what I mean by me being an impatient perfectionist. With the right weapons and setup, everyone can somewhat competently do their job. Some units, however, have the ability to mow down basically anything without any effort at all. I'm not going to turn this into a unit tier list discussion, tho.

On the equipment front tho, I'm willing to assert that Reckless Power on A tier weapons is BiS. Got a few lucky drops and the damage difference was very noticeable compared to fully upgraded relic weapons. A fully upgraded Reckless Power Parthia for example has 640 attack.

[Archeleon]

The true fun for me will be able to solo harder maps with any character and finding what builds will allow them to do that. Though it is likely some may require a bit of assistance to pull it off.

Kind of off topic. I've been working on a tier list for abilities for that very reason and find myself never taking defensive stuff as with good gameplay you tend to be able to survive just fine.

However an idea came to mind for testing. What if you could build a character for "tanking" purposes to follow your main unit around? Give it all those defensive abilities and Provoke, set them to Guard you and see if it works? Maybe give them some debuffs to apply on enemies while you deal the real damage.

[Burklight]

29 minutes ago, Archeleon said:

The true fun for me will be able to solo harder maps with any character and finding what builds will allow them to do that. Though it is likely some may require a bit of assistance to pull it off.

Kind of off topic. I've been working on a tier list for abilities for that very reason and find myself never taking defensive stuff as with good gameplay you tend to be able to survive just fine.

However an idea came to mind for testing. What if you could build a character for "tanking" purposes to follow your main unit around? Give it all those defensive abilities and Provoke, set them to Guard you and see if it works? Maybe give them some debuffs to apply on enemies while you deal the real damage.

I hadn't thought of that. I had thought about support builds. Annette pretty clearly wins on that front with Rally Spectrum, but there's 3 or 4 other really good support units.

The only "defensive" abilities I actually like running are Stalwart Stance and Serene Stance because they prevent you from getting completely screwed over by poor play.

[Archeleon]

21 minutes ago, Burklight said:

I hadn't thought of that. I had thought about support builds. Annette pretty clearly wins on that front with Rally Spectrum, but there's 3 or 4 other really good support units.

The only "defensive" abilities I actually like running are Stalwart Stance and Serene Stance because they prevent you from getting completely screwed over by poor play.

Adjutants are a whole other can of worms that is going to be interesting to tinker with.

I'm thinking more of a Guard unit. Maybe you can give them healing effects too.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Archeleon

[Pie Burritos]

Now I'm beginning to wonder what kind of multiplier effective damage is. This is much harder to test since you can't just hop into a mock battle and get results. Sure, there are combat arts that are effective vs all, but what other combat art are you going to compare them against? The better test is to compare weapons that are identical apart from effectiveness against an enemy who takes effective damage... while somehow keeping the level of advantage the same. Is that even possible?

The main point of determining this is to see whether effective damage is additive or multiplicative. I think it's safe to say it's most likely multiplicative but I'm not gonna say that for sure until we test it. And, of course, if it does end up being multiplicative, that means that effective vs all combat arts like Atrocity become even better with more boosts.

Edit: It might be better to test effective damage by allowing an enemy to hit the player instead. You can more finely control a player unit's bulk so that even two different classes have the same bulk, then simply have the enemy hit those two units and compare. This also works for controlling advantage, since you can have a rapier wielding enemy have 1 tier of advantage against a cav, then have a brigand with the same physical bulk be in the same scenario, just without the effective damage. Wow, I'm really talking myself into this idea. I'm probably gonna do this once I have some time.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Pie Burritos

[Dark Holy Elf]

21 hours ago, Archeleon said:

I'd agree with this assessment. I think Busters and Breakers might be getting a bit overvalued. They are a significant boost when they are active but are completely worthless when not.

The thing is, you usually have four units available whom you can switch to as needed, and on top of that few maps feature all six weapon types on enemies (three or four is typical) so you should have advantage the overwhelming majority of the time. Advantage also lets you deplete the stun gauge faster and thus more quickly pull everything nearby into devastating critical rushes, as well. It seems incredibly important to me. To the point where I kinda regret doing as many oddball builds as I have because I've reached the point where my characters with Breaker skills feels better than those who don't.

[Velystia]

I did some testing for Luna/Flare and managed to figure out how they work exactly. They ignore a flat amount of Def/Res equal to your Luck divided by 10. Decimals do count. For example, if you have 105 luck and hit a target with 18 Res, they will be considered to have 7.5 Res instead. Since it's a flat amount reduction, the resulting effect is much higher on target with low defenses, and does not do much against targets with very high defenses.

 So, let's say you do 1500 dmg without Luna on a target with 60 def and have 85 Luck, you can easily calculate the impact of Luna with this formula:
1500 dmg x 60 def = 90 000 dmg
60 Def - (85 luck ÷ 10) = 51.5 Def
90 000 dmg ÷ 51.5 def = 1747.57 dmg (~16% dmg increase)

Edited July 22, 2022 by Velystia

[Archeleon]

4 minutes ago, Velystia said:

I did some testing for Luna/Flare and managed to figure out how they work exactly. They ignore a flat amount of Def/Res equal to your Luck divided by 10. Decimals do count. For example, if you have 105 luck and hit a target with 18 Res, they will be considered to have 7.5 Res instead. Since it's a flat amount reduction, the resulting effect is much higher on target with low defenses, and does not do much against targets with very high defenses.

 So, let's say you do 1500 dmg without Luna on a target with 60 def and have 85 Luck, you can easily calculate the impact of Luna with this formula:
1500 dmg x 60 def = 90 000 dmg
60 Def - (85 luck ÷ 10) = 51.5 Def
90 000 dmg ÷ 51.5 def = 1747.57 dmg (~16% dmg increase)

If I got this right, then you are correct in stating that the effectiveness of Luna/Flare is higher on lower Def/Res enemies (which seems weird) and that Lck doesn't actually affect its performance that much. Might make abilities like Absorb Lck a lot less useful than I thought. Luna/Flare will still be very good on their own in most situations though. I checked the last map of SB on Maddening and the enemies there had an average of 60 Def/Res (coincidentally).

[Velystia]

Yep, Luna/Flare are quite decent against most enemies, even late game as you mentioned. Against enemies with 60 Def/Res, it's a ~9% dmg increase at 50 Luck, and ~20% damage increase at 100 Luck. Keep in mind too that this is multiplicative with all other damage increasing abilities since it's calculated at the end of the damage formula, so it's pretty solid.

[Burklight]

34 minutes ago, Archeleon said:

If I got this right, then you are correct in stating that the effectiveness of Luna/Flare is higher on lower Def/Res enemies (which seems weird) and that Lck doesn't actually affect its performance that much. Might make abilities like Absorb Lck a lot less useful than I thought. Luna/Flare will still be very good on their own in most situations though. I checked the last map of SB on Maddening and the enemies there had an average of 60 Def/Res (coincidentally).

Currently, Ignatz is the only unit that has Absorb Lck, and he doesn't learn Luna or Flare. 

This is also interesting. I'm now very curious as to what's actually going on with the damage formula when you lower defense below 0. I know from earlier testing that the multipliers get absurd, but my original theory doesn't hold. If this theory is correct, then you'd think hitting something with -5 defense would just give you +5% damage, but that's pretty clearly not what's happening.

[Archeleon]

4 minutes ago, Burklight said:

Currently, Ignatz is the only unit that has Absorb Lck, and he doesn't learn Luna or Flare. 

This is also interesting. I'm now very curious as to what's actually going on with the damage formula when you lower defense below 0. I know from earlier testing that the multipliers get absurd, but my original theory doesn't hold. If this theory is correct, then you'd think hitting something with -5 defense would just give you +5% damage, but that's pretty clearly not what's happening.

That's because Def/Res divide damage by its coefficient, it doesn't reduce damage by its coefficient.

2 Def doesn't sound like much but here is what happens:

1000 / 2 = 500

2000 / 2 = 1000

This doesn't happen

1000 - 2% = 980

2000 - 2% = 960

[Burklight]

23 minutes ago, Archeleon said:

That's because Def/Res divide damage by its coefficient, it doesn't reduce damage by its coefficient.

2 Def doesn't sound like much but here is what happens:

1000 / 2 = 500

2000 / 2 = 1000

This doesn't happen

1000 - 2% = 980

2000 - 2% = 960

That makes more sense. Still doesn't explain what happens with negative numbers tho. You think instead of diving it just starts to multiply instead? That would be pretty funny.

[Archeleon]

9 minutes ago, Burklight said:

That makes more sense. Still doesn't explain what happens with negative numbers tho. You think instead of diving it just starts to multiply instead? That would be pretty funny.

This is easily tested. I used a unit with Counterbreak against our favorite punching bag Myrmidon with 7 Def.

Before debuff = 62 (7 Def)

With debuff = 448 (0 Def/-3 Def?)

62 * 7 = 434

62 * 10 = 620.

So no, doesn't seem to go into negatives.

[Burklight]

1 minute ago, Archeleon said:

This is easily tested. I used a unit with Counterbreak against our favorite punching bag Myrmidon with 7 Def.

Before debuff = 62 (7 Def)

With debuff = 448 (0 Def/-3 Def?)

62 * 7 = 434

62 * 10 = 620.

So no, doesn't seem to go into negatives.

Counterbreak may not make it go into negatives, but Luna may. I went back and looked over my data collection from when I attempted to solve this back on the first page and OF COURSE I stopped at ~70 luck which would have put it at 0. If it doesn't go lower than 0,  you would expect 90-100 luck to have identical damage numbers as 70 luck vs a 7 defense enemy, right? 

[Archeleon]

1 minute ago, Burklight said:

Counterbreak may not make it go into negatives, but Luna may. I went back and looked over my data collection from when I attempted to solve this back on the first page and OF COURSE I stopped at ~70 luck which would have put it at 0. If it doesn't go lower than 0,  you would expect 90-100 luck to have identical damage numbers as 70 luck vs a 7 defense enemy, right? 

Correct. Against a 7 Def enemy anything more than 70 Lck would be a waste as far as Luna is concerned.

[Archeleon]

19 minutes ago, Burklight said:

Counterbreak may not make it go into negatives, but Luna may. I went back and looked over my data collection from when I attempted to solve this back on the first page and OF COURSE I stopped at ~70 luck which would have put it at 0. If it doesn't go lower than 0,  you would expect 90-100 luck to have identical damage numbers as 70 luck vs a 7 defense enemy, right? 

Just tested this with Lck at 70, 80 and 90. There is no further damage increase after 70 against the 7 Def Myrm.

[Burklight]

5 minutes ago, Archeleon said:

Just tested this with Lck at 70, 80 and 90. There is no further damage increase after 70 against the 7 Def Myrm.

Well I guess that answers that then.

[Archeleon]

Just learned something that might not have escaped other, sharper players but kinda blew my mind. 

Damage numbers displayed on your screen are a running tally of your damage chain not necessarily separate instances of damage.

If you successfully land a four S4 (4 hits) and see 67, 122, 234, 484 you didn't deal 907 total damage, you just dealt a total of 484 in that chain.

This appears to apply to spells that do consecutive hits as well.

In summary, I'll have to look at target HP before and after using CAs/Spells to get an idea of how much damage they are doing and not the numbers on display.