Maximizing damage in Elona+

Maximizing damage in Elona+.


[Penetration]
100% penetration provides multiple benefits, and main one is - it ignores 2/3 of target's PV rating.

To make it a true 100% penetration you have to apply Proximity Assist Weapon-type debuff, also available with Vorpal attack and blunt weapon gauge attack.
Remaining PV after '100% penetration' weapon hit is capped at 150, PAW reduces this number by 100, vorpal/blunt gauge attack(? not sure if its 100 or 150, actually) debuffs reduce it by 150, turning it into full penetration.
You can somewhat mitigate low penetration using Mist of Frailness debuff. Depending on enemy, it could multiply your damage greatly.

[Vorpal]
Vorpal attack deals the same 100% penetration attack as Lightsaber-type weapons, and applies PV debuff. Only works at melee range.
Chance for Vorpal attack is (total vorpal enchantment strength)/5000, means at 5k enchantment you get 100% Vorpal attack. It may be useful to get maximum damage with inner god weapons.

[Proximity Assist Weapon]
Each item with this attribute has 10% chance to trigger extra attack with PV debuff.
Damage of attack scales with your TACTICS skill level, PAW enchant strength and attack damage.
You can only trigger PAW once per attack.
Only works at melee range.
You need roughly 1k PAW enchant strength to get the same damage as the main attack.

[Interlocking Shooting Mechanism]
Almost like PAW, but there are 3 differences:
It works at any range, including melee.
Damage scales with marksmanship skill instead of tactics,
It applies DV debuff instead of PV.


[Criticals]
Always hits and multiplies damage by up to 3x depending on current weapon weight. If weapon uses ammo, only ammo weight counts.
Rough formula is SQRT(2*weapon weight-enemy equipment weight), maximum multiplier is capped at 360000 weight bonus, in layman terms:
You get 3x damage when
your weapon weight - half of enemy's equipment weight >= 180s
Heaviest gear on NPC is weapon of inner gods.
Martial Arts uses skill level instead for crit damage multiplier, 3x damage at ~800 MA skill level.
Predator class bonus stacks with other sources of crit chance.
Crit chance is boosted by:
Level difference between you and the target
Eye of mind
Predator class (5%)
+Critical attack chance enchantment on equipment
Perception adds separate chance for critical attack, greatly reduced for extra attacks.  IIRC you get something like 40% crit chance with capped at 2k perception.

[Extra Attack]
Maximum number of extra attacks is 3 for all melee attacks with an exception of bare-handed Martial Arts (hand slots are empty).
Bare handed MA extra attack limit is 7.
Ranged extra attack limit is 1, exception is burst/rapid ammo.
Dual Wield adds some extra attack bonus per level.
If you have more than 2 hand slots, you get penalty to extra attack chance.
For 6+ hands, you will most likely only get 1 extra attack.
Each extra attack has reduced crit chance.
Extra attacks acts just like normal attacks and can trigger weapon invokes separately.

[Extra elemental damage]
Magic element is the safest and laziest choice, it deals good damage at all levels.
If you have a pet with [Megid Flame] special action, lightning or fire may be a good choice as well.
Fire is the best versus bosses, you apply [OIL] status effect on those for maximum damage multiplier
Lightning gives good damage versus [WET] targets, make targets [WET] using water ball rod with dupli-cane mode, or using water bolt. Water bolt is useful to get rid of quicklings/metal NPCs either way, and [WET] status prevents suicide.
Ice has the same bonus as lightning vs wet targets, deals a bit more damage but could destroy items.
Nether element heals depending on damage dealt, its similar to %lifesteal attribute in Diablo-like games.
Cut element deals 100% damage to all targets aside from resEle cbit monsters (metal race, quicklings)
Magnitude of enchantment is roughly 1k enchantment = 100% of base damage, its applied after base damage.
Attribute buff for Martial Arts provides extremely high enchantment magnitude.

[Invokes]
Invoke chance is fixed and depends on invoke type. You cannot increase it.
Spell invokes scale with your weapon skill, weapon skill is used instead of Casting for spellpower formula. Ball spell invokes are great at clearning packed rooms, but damage is underwhelming due to low 15% chance. Chaos ball is great even for simply applying stus effects.
Gravity sphere is powerful vs bosses due stacking debuff and very high chance (80%) of triggering.
Lightning Bolt is sufficiently powerful on the same conditions as lightning element on-hit damage, without any downsides.
Grenade doesnt scale well when enemies go beyond lv200. 80% proc chance may be still useful to apply Confusion and clear mist tiles.
Breath-types are extremely weak.

[Status effects and misc]
[Fury] status deals/takes 2x damage
[Fury] vs [Fury] deals/takes 4x damage
[Rampage] triggers [Fury] status on all allies
[Provoke] triggers [Fury] on all affected enemies and forces them to target only this character for 30 turns.
[Uncontroll] triggers [Fury] status on caster, applies speed buff and converts half of the sum of WIL/LRN/MAG to STR/DEX/PER/SPD bonus.
[Oil] takes ~1,8x damage from fire element
[Wet] takes ~1,6x damage from ice and ~1.4x from lightning element
[Megid Flame] debuff applies capped out Elemental Scar debuff, boosting Fire/Ice/Lightning damage.
[Charge attack] deals 10x damage with normal weapons and 15x damage with 'it enhances charging attack' weapons. Always crits.
[it enhances throwing stones] attribute on staves sets penetration to 70 and bonus 50% to range damage penalty. It means that at range where normally stone deals 20% damage, it deals 70% when you have equipment with this attribute. You can exceed 100% on range damage multiplier this way.
[piercing ammo] is the same as vorpal attack for ranged weapons.

[Damage/hit bonus from stats]
Here is the bonus you get from leveling skill/stat to 2k level, separately.

For ranged:
>weapon skill
25x damage multiplier
2665% hit rate
>marksman/tactics
100x damage multiplier
>STR
+66 flat damage bonus
>DEX
25x damage multiplier
500% hit rate
>PER
+66 flat damage bonus
25x damage multiplier
>WIL
+200 flat damage bonus

For thrown weapons:
>Throwing
18x damage multiplier
2665% hit rate
>Tactics
89x damage multiplier
>STR
+66 flat damage bonus
x45 damage multiplier
>DEX
500% hit rate
>PER
+66 flat damage bonus
>WIL
+200 flat damage bonus

Melee is similar to thrown.
Max two hand bonus damage multiplier is
~137x
~2200% hitrate

MA and DW do not provide damage multiplier bonus.
Leveling DW only mitigates penalties and adds extra attack bonus.
MA level adds base damagen penetration rate, hit rate and crit multiplier.
MA adds roughly 2x hitrate of the weapon skill.
Equipping shield switches weapon type to 'shield', disabling TH/DW bonuses but at the same time you lose penalty for equipping multiple weapons.

[Ether disease]
Desire for violence adds powerful flat damage bonus, exceeding capped WIL. Penalty is negligable.
Stat bonuses 4 eyes/Animal ears can boost perception by a good amount, adding some crit chance and base damage.

[Buffs]
[Hero] and [Concentration] cover all stats that have influence on damage.
Hypnotism feat gives buff that boosts Eye of Mind skill.
[Clear Mind] boosts several stats that have influence on damage bonus/multiplier even when you don't use Martial Arts.
[Uncontroll] gives a powerful boost to combat stats, speed and gives [Fury] status, but forces a 5t confusion which cannot be resisted. You can cure confusion by gulping some minor healing potion. When alone, [Uncontroll] may be used to clear large groups of monsters - when buff is active, repeated usage activates shadow step and swarm instead.

v1.1
todo:
actual formulas.
expanded stat/skill influence on damage.
equipment PV/skill PV/penetration/debuffs explained.
enchantment strength dividers.
expanded debuffs.
magic.
special actions\items that may be used as a source of damage.
gauge attacks and ammo explained.