Snowbreak's Damage Formula
Snowbreak's Damage Formula
Damage in Snowbreak is calculated based upon the following stats:
ATK
Each operative has a base ATK, which is then increased by the ATK buffs they receive (Logistics, Manifestations, etc.)
Note that the base ATK listed in each operatives "View Details" page is correct, however their "Loadout ATK" doesn't include some buffs, such as 5* weapon buffs, and is not quite accurate. (This is true for other stats as well. Loadout stats are good, but not quite 100% accurate.)
Some operatives have their damage based on Max HP or DEF instead of their ATK.
Weapon Compatibility
This acts as a percentage multiplier to the operatives damage, but only if using a weapon.
So for example a weapon with 50% compatibility deals half as much damage as one with 100% compatibility (assuming all else is equal.)
Damage buffs
Things like Ballistic or Skill DMG buffs.
These buffs stack additively - they are all added together. They are not multipliers.
These are commonly obtained from the 2/3 and 3/3 effects of logistics squads, as well as buffs from support operative buffs and weapon effects.
Crits
If you get a crit, it increases the damage of the hit
Note that skills cannot crit, although some specific skills do have the special ability to crit - if a skill can crit it will always be explicitly stated in that skills description.
"Final Damage" buffs
These apply separately from other buffs, and always stack multiplicatively, making them much stronger than other types of damage buffs which stack additively.
These are generally quite rare, although many modern operatives have a 20% (or thereabouts) Final Damage modifier in their M1-M3 Manifestations.
Damage Taken Debuffs
These are a percentage increase to the amount of damage enemies take.
These are rare, and are mostly found on the newer 5* weapons - usually 10-15% for 5* weapons at T1 and 20-25% for 5* weapons at T2.
Defence
All enemies have 1,000 base defence (as far as I am aware).
With no defence pen or reduction, enemy DEF reduces the damage they take by 50%.
Enemy Resistances
Enemies can have increased or reduced base resistances to certain damage types, depending on the damage type and the enemies type.
Enemy Shields
Enemy Shields take 2x ballistic damage.
Each operative has a base ATK.
For a maxed operative this is generally in the 2,300 - 2,700 range.
This is then increased by the sum of that operatives ATK boosts.
Normal ATK boosts includes:
Weapon
Weapons generally have an ATK Boost built-in, usually in the 30-50% range.
Manifestations
Each Manifestation level gives a total of 2% ATK, for +10% total ATK at M5.
Logistics
Getting your Medical officer to Lvl.15 will give you a 20% ATK boost.
Logistics stats
Your Intelligence and Materiel officers will each give you flat +ATK, up to approximately +100 ATK at Lvl.15, for around +200 total.
This can vary by a few points depending on the specific officer, but they'll always be around those values.
Logistics substats
Each logistics officer can have an ATK roll, which gives +10.0% ATK at max.
You can thus get +30.0% ATK from your logistics officers substats
(which is generally what you want for all your operatives, especially main-DPS operatives, unless their damage scales off of Max HP instead, in which case go for that.)
These ATK buffs are summed additively.
Again, note that ATK buffs aren't always listed in the Loadout ATK.
Maxed operatives tend to have around 5-6,000 Loadout ATK.
Some operatives have their damage based on Max HP or DEF instead of their ATK.
These work the same way, except using the operatives Max HP or DEF value instead of their ATK.
Your weapons damage is increased or reduced to match the weapons Weapon Compatibility stat.
If Weapon Compatibility is over 100% this results in the weapon dealing more damage, and if Weapon Compatibility is below 100% then the weapon deals less damage.
Weapon Compatibility is the reason why different weapon types deal different amounts of damage to each other.
E.g. SMGs tend to have Compatibility of around 30%, whereas sniper rifles are over 100% compatibility, resulting in snipers dealing vastly more damage-per-shot than SMGs.
Your damage is increased by the sum of all applicable buffs, such as from logistics squads or support operative buffs.
These damage buffs are summed additively, even if they are of different types.
These damage buffs include
Ballistic / skill damage buffs
Everything in Snowbreak is either a shot (which is buffed by ballistic damage) or is a skill (which is buffed by skill damage) - nothing counts as both.
Some specific damage sources can benefit from both types of buff, but that it benefits from the other type as well will always be stated in its description.
Some ballistic damage buffs will only apply when in ADS, or when not in ADS (not in ADS is "hipfire").
Some skill-damage buffs only apply to specific types of skill: "Standard Skill Damage" "Support Skill Damage", or "Ultimate Skill Damage"
Damage type (Kinetic, Thermal, Frost, Electric, or Chaos)
Generic "damage boosts" and "damage dealt" bonuses
If a Critical Hit is scored, then the damage of the hit is increased by the CRIT DMG value.
The Crit DMG Amplifier stat is itself an additional value for the CRIT DMG value mod.
So for example if you deal 300 damage, get a crit, and have 30% CRIT DMG, and 31.8% Crit DMG Amplifier.
The 31.8% Crit DMG Amplifier increases your crit from 30% to 39.54% extra damage, so in total the crit will deal 139.54% damage, which would be 418.62 damage.
Damage from skills never crits under any circumstance, unless the skill explicitly states that it can crit.
Hits to weakspots always crit [although again, skills never crit, even against weakspots].
Note that hits from crossbows can never crit, even against weakspots, but crossbow users gain extra ballistic damage based on their crit stats, so extra crit stats aren't wasted.
All enemies have 1,000 DEF (as far as I am aware).
In Snowbreak there are a small number of sources that can reduce or penetrate enemy resistance.
The actual damage that is reduced due to enemy defence follows the formula:
1 / ( 1 + EnemyDEF *(1-%pen) -pen)/1000
If you have no pen (percent or flat) then this is 1 / (1+ 1000/1000) = 1/2 = 50%.
I.e. if you have no modifiers to enemy defence, then enemy def reduces your damage by 50%.
Reduced DEF works as you'd expect - it just reduces the 1,000 enemy DEF value.
Due to how the formula works though, this doesn't usually result in a damage increase equal to the [reciprocal of the] DEF decrease.
Due to DEFpen being very rare, it is quite a strong effect.
All enemies have an inherent damage resistance to each of the 5 damage types - Kinetic, Thermal, Frost, Electric, Chaos.
This is by-default 0% - the enemy doesn't take any extra or reduced damage due to their resistances.
Enemies do also have an inherent weakness to two damage type depending on their species:
Species Kinetic Thermal Frost Electric Chaos
Human -10% -10% -5% 0% 0%
Changed 0% -5% 0% -10% -10%
Titan -5% 0% -10% -5% -5%
Many bosses have resistances that are very different from normal.
Some enemies have additional resistance modifiers - for example enemies in Neural Simulation get an extra +30% resistance to one damage type.
The actual formula used to determine your damage is:
Base ATK * (the SUM of your ATK buffs) (or Max HP or DEF if based upon those stats)
* Skill Multiplier (if using a skill) + Flat Skill Dmg values (if using a skill)
* Weapon Compatibility (if shooting)
* (the SUM of your damage buffs - ballistic, skill, elemental damage, ultimate skill damage, etc. - everything that actually applies to the damage being dealt)
* 1+ (your CRIT DMG * Crit DMG Amplifier) (e.g. 50% CRIT DMG * 10% CRIT DMG Amplifier = 55%, so you'd end up with 155% crit damage if you crit with those values)
* (the PRODUCT of your Final Damage Multipliers)
* 1 + (the SUM of your %Damage Taken debuffs)
* (the enemies effective defence multiplier)
* (1 - (the enemies elemental resistance)/100 ) (e.g. If an enemy has 10% resist you deal (1-10/100 = 0.9)* the damage, i.e. you deal only 90% damage)
* 2 if dealing ballistic damage against a shield
* 99-101% if ballistic damage (this is what gives your shots variable damage numbers. This is normally distributed.)
If you want to be mathematically pedantic, then every separate line of the above should be in brackets. I excluded them to include readability as I hoped they were implied decently well already.