Stats and Links, all you need to know about what shapes your unit
Disclaimer: I refuse to discuss or address any questions about builds, my intention is not to tell you what to do, but to give you the information in a digestible manner for you to reach your own conclusions. As a former Dota/Starcraft player who enjoys getting into the theorycrafting aspect, builds are created when the meta solidifies and all creativity is stifled, so I absolutely despise any sort of instruction manual that tells you how to build your units.
By LittleEmp
Stats: What are my unit’s stats?
The observant user will have realized that their units have a group of stats displayed in game, so this must seem pretty redundant, right? Sadly, no. Half of the meaningful stats are hidden from the user, so it is downright impossible to judge any given unit by the stats shown in game. Lucky for us, we have one man whose borderline-obsessive behavior is only matched by his determination and he has graced us with all this valuable information that I’m about to share:
Raw Stats:
- Stamina
- Attack
- Defense
- Spiritual Pressure
- Focus
Hidden Stats:
- Magnification
- Effective Hit Points (HP)
- Effective Defense
- Attack Speed
- Casting Time
- Hit Count
- Critical Chance
Every unit has all combination of all these and, sadly for the layman, the hidden stats have a much more important role to play than the visible ones. Characters with godly stats may be gimped by under the hood, while characters with subpar stats may have secrets that make them far better than otherwise expected.
- Stamina: It represents the raw stat that will help us determine your effective HP.
- Attack: It represents the raw stat that will help us determine your normal attack damage.
- Defense: It represents the raw stat that will help us determine your effective defense.
- Spiritual Pressure: It represents the raw stat that will help us determine your strong attack damage in conjunction with your attack stat.
- Focus: It represents the raw stat that will help us determine your critical chance.
So far so good, we have managed to define that these stats are necessary to shape the numbers, but hardly an absolute on anything. With all this in mind, we will define how the hidden stats help shape your character.
Magnification (MAG)
Magnification will give each hit a multiplier, which will in turn give you your damage. Some players already know that damage can be increased utilizing Normal and Strong Attack Damage links, but what may not be known to them is that these are essentially normal and strong damage magnification modifiers. The formula to calculate your attack is the following:
Normal Damage = (Attack-EDEF)*((Normal Attack Damage+MAG)/100)
First Strong Attack = (HITCNT)*(MAG/100)*((Attack-EDEF)+SP*1.2)*((Strong Attack Damage+100)/100)
Second Strong Attack = (HITCNT)*(MAG/100)*((Attack-EDEF)+SP*1.5)*((Strong Attack Damage+100)/100)
Third Strong Attack = (HITCNT)*(MAG/100)*((Attack-EDEF)+SP*1.8)*((Strong Attack Damage+100)/100)
Special Attack = (HITCNT)*((Attack-EDEF)+SP*5)*((MAG)/100)
Where EDEF (Effective Defense) is set to 0 for PvE.
Where HITCNT stands for Move Hit Count or number of hits for a multiple hit move.
The usual MAG values for units are 100 for every hit except the last of each combo, which is set to 120. There are characters whose MAG values have been toyed around in order to be made stronger/weaker than they appear, such as the WD units who all have 100 MAG on even the last hit of their combos.
Effective Hit Points (EHP)
This is essentially what your Life points are like once the stamina has been processed. To simplify things, we’ll consider different variations of this distinguished by the existence of special conditions such as the PvP scenario detailed below.
- EHP (PvE) = Stamina
- EHP (PvP) = Stamina * 10
Effective Defense (EDEF)
The raw defense stat is processed for both PvE and PvP scenarios in different ways with the purpose of higher/flashier numbers (presumably at any rate). The formula behind it is fairly simple:
- EDEF (PvE) = DEF^0.8
- EDEF (PvP) = DEF*0.33333
Attack Speed (AS)
A stat of sorts originally defined by Royu which refers to the time it takes from the moment that you begin your first normal attack to reaching your hit-stun attack (final attack of combo string). The only way known for the time being of extracting this valuable information is empirical evidence.
Time between hits is disregarded as it’s seen not conducive to any kind of consequence, so it will surprise a lot of people to see their perceived “fast characters” actually being fairly mediocre and their “slow” characters being faster than imagined.
This, casting times, and the Hit Count concept merit their own separate post. All the data for existing characters has been catalogued, most of it by Royu, and yours truly currently maintains it up to date.
Casting Time
This refers to the time it takes from the moment that the command to cast a strong attack is issued all the way until it actually happens. It is perhaps the most important stat, albeit often overlooked, which truly defines how effective a character can be in PvP.
Casting time can only be obtained through empirical evidence for the time being and will be addressed on a separate feature.
Hit Count (HITCNT)
This refers to how many hits a strong attack is poised to deliver and is closely tied together with Magnification and Casting Time. As stated before, this is only obtained through empirical evidence and will be addressed separately.
Critical Chance (CRIT)
Critical Attacks have a set value of 1.2x the damage of whatever is calculated through the previously defined formulae, but the chance of this occurring is tied to two factors: the Focus stat and your Combo Hit count.
(FCS*FCS Buff)*0.001)*((Combo Hit Count / 100) + 1)
Where Combo is a value between 0 and 100 (0 < Combo ≤ 100)
Where FCS Buff refers to a condition in which Focus is being augmented by an outside factor such as VD Nel’s buff move.
My personal opinion on the significance of this stat is that the practical effect of focus is negligible to the point that it’s not worth factoring in. In my testing, more attack is not only more consistent, but also a higher overall damage output than focus by a significant margin.
Links
Normal Attack Damage (NAD)
This increases your normal attack in a multiplicative manner. It directly affects the damage formula as stated above.
Strong Attack Damage (SAD)
This increases your strong attack in a multiplicative manner. It directly affects the damage formula as stated above.
Cooldown Reduction (CDR)
This decreases your strong attack cooldown.
Cooldown = BaseCooldown – (BaseCooldown * CDR)
Where Base cooldown values stand for what your initial cooldown was without any links (usually, but not necessarily, 8s/16s/24s)
Attack
This is a raw stat link that affects both normal and strong attack damage. The break even point for a +27 attack link compared to Magnification type links is around +7% NAD/SAD assuming an average of ~400 stat points for each unit.
Stamina
This is a raw stat link that affects your EHP by adding to the stamina stat.
Spiritual Pressure
This is a raw stat link that affects strong attack damage. The break even point for a +21 SP link compared to Magnification type links is around +7% SAD on the first strong move assuming an average of ~400 stat points for each unit.
Defense
This is a raw stat link that affects your defense additively.
Focus
This is a raw stat link that affects your focus additively.
Last Ditch Survival
A link which grants you a chance to revive with minimal HP after you die.
-Status Ailment Duration (STATDUR)
This link reduces the duration of the status ailment indicated.
Total Duration = Duration – (Duration*STATDUR)
Field Recovery (FLDREC)
Heals your HP by a percentage of your Max HP after entering a new room.
Heal = FLDREC*MaxHP
Dodge
It grants you a chance for an enemy to miss his attack. If the enemy misses a hit stun move, then you will find yourself unaffected by it.
Damage Reduction (DMGRed)
It reduces the incoming damage by a percentage. While it provides a certainty that dodge doesn’t, you will find yourself interrupted by hit stun moves.
Increased Crystal and Coin Drops
Links which grant you increased crystal and coin drops after a stage.
I hope that this was informative enough to allow you to draw your new conclusions about your units after the initial kneejerk reaction of looking at the visible stats and thinking “hey that’s so high!” or “power creep!”. Mobile games aren’t particularly well known for balance, but I can attest that Klabs is trying to keep the power creep to a minimum by balancing around hidden stats.
