Part 55: Mechanics 1 - Stats and Battles

Stats and Battle Mechanics

Stat Explanations



There are four main stats that every character has, and each of them influences battle. For the most part, only the large stars are used in any calculations.

Gen: The manual refers to Gen as the unit's leadership, but I prefer to call it the general defensive stat. It influences losses during a charge or counterattack, and affects the ability difference modifier after battle. Gen is also used to defend against card skills, when they arrive.

Atk: This is the offensive ability of the unit. After the charge and counterattack, Atk determines how well the unit will do in the rest of the clash. Atk is also used in the ability difference modifier, to calculate morale damage.

Tec: Tec is the technique of the unit. It directly opposes Gen in regards to charges and counterattacks, as well as using card skills. There is no use for Tec in the morale damage calculations.

Luk: Luck influences critical hit chance during a charge, as well as the chance of performing a Flash Attack in battle. It is also used to make an enemy drop his equipped item.



Rep: A player's unit's reputation, Rep is a strange stat that rarely is all that important. The unit gains one Rep every time he or she wins a clash, to a maximum of 6. If the unit loses a single clash, he loses all of his Rep as well. Reputation comes into play at a few certain points in regards to item collection. Some items need a high rep; some need a low rep.



Pow. Up: An enemy unit stat, Pow. Up determines how much power a card gains after defeating the unit.

Geo: Geography provides a defensive bonus after a clash, which depends on both the terrain the unit is on, and if any special characteristics modify it.

Special Characteristics:



Units may also up to 4 permanent characteristics, good or bad. Some of the most common look like:

O <land type> - Provides 4 levels of combat advantage while fighting on terrain. Also protects you from Card Skills that require this terrain, as pointed out by Einander.
O <time> - Like above, but depends on the time of day – day, evening, or night.
O <void> element - The unit nullifies all damage of that element, be it physical or card damage.
O > <unit type> - The unit always has a Red Star advantage vs the listed unit.
O void <status> - The unit is immune to the listed status effect, and any related sources of damage.

X <land type> - You lose 4 levels of combat effectiveness while on the terrain. You also take Fatal Damage from card skills that require this terrain.
X < <element> - You take extra physical damage from said element, or take Fatal Damage from card damage
X < <unit type> - The unit always has a Grey X combat effectiveness vs. that unit type.

There are quite a few more, but they're usually either self explanatory, and I'll explain them as we see them.

Battle Phases:

Battles normally occur between two groups of 8 units – 7 of which are regular units, and the last is the head. The head is roughly twice as strong as the others. This isn't saying the head deals twice the damage, but takes twice as long to go down. Each side deals damage to each other, picking off the regular units until it's down to the head.

Large units, such as Knights, only have 4 units. Their total strength is equal to the 8 units of a small character, so a large character has roughly twice the strength as a small. Besides this mostly cosmetic difference, large units have many advantages.

A clash has about 4 phases, in this order:


Charge: (Tec vs Gen) The offensive unit charges in from their side of the screen, and attacks the enemy. Based on Luk, a critical hit might occur.


*Critical hit: On a critical hit, the offensive side will deal normal damage, plus drop the enemy head. This sets the defending unit into a Panic Mode, in which the attackers have a few seconds to deal unopposed damage to them.


Counter: (Tec vs Gen) After the charge, the defending unit pushes the attacker back. Note, neither bow users, or units attacked by bow users, can counter. Also, if units that have been dealt a critical hit they lose their counterattack as well.


Attack phase: (Atk vs Atk) The main phase of the attack. The main variable in effect is Atk, modified by your combat effectiveness. Luk also plays a role in dealing Flash Attacks. When the first side is reduced to 0 fighting members, the clash is over.


Victory: The final stage involves calculating the total damage dealt to the losing force. The attacker has two factors:
*Surviving Units: Each small character is 8% per unit, each large is 16%.
*Bonuses: Normally the attacker has Head-Alive, worth 40%. Critical hits, equipment effects, and various card skills also add to this.

There is one neutral variable as well:
Ability Difference: This is the difference between the winner's Atk, and loser's Gen. If Atk is higher, the attacker deal's 10% per difference. Otherwise, if defender's is higher, this may be a negative number.

The defender has one factor, listed on their side of the screen:
GEO Defense: Depending on the defender's terrain, and any other attributes related to them, they may have a bonus. For example, Bridges provide 10%. If a Knight was on a bridge (with Bridge ), they gain a 20% bonus.

You sum the Surviving Units, Ability Difference, and Bonus Factors. This is the percentage of the selected card's Pow that the losing side would take – with a minimum of 0. You can't heal someone by winning against them. The loser's GEO Defense then reduces the damage they take - this is different than the GBA version, where it additively fits in with the other variables. It now takes a flat % off at the end, to an overall lower effectiveness.

In-battle: Combat Effectiveness:

Your strength is indicated by an icon on the bottom of the screen. From best to worst, they look like:



There are various features that determine effectiveness.

Weapon Triangle: Similar to games like Fire Emblem, weapons have a triangle of sorts. Sword, Axe, Lance is the basic triangle, but there are 8 weapon types in-game.



If we add Bow and Rod to the melee weapon triangle, we see that Bow is good against Rod, Rod is good against Melee, and Melee is good against Bow. In general, the opposite is also true. (There is one exception – Bows are poor against Melee, but Melee don't have an advantage over Bow – indicated by the Red Arrow.)

Here's the full triangle, if you're interested.



And here's what the game tells you. Triangle is poor, circle is good. Find your weapon on the left, and match it to the column of your opponent's weapon.

Skill / Rage:

The next way to affect combat effectiveness is with your skill gauge, or the enemy's rage bar.








Your skill bar fills at the start of battle, dependent on your Tec. You can activate Aggressive mode, which drains the bar and gives you a two-level jump in effectiveness. You may also activate Passive mode, which fills your bar for a 2-level penalty. The formula to see how much the bar fills at the start of battle is roughly: (Tec + 1) / (Card Mov) * 100%






The enemy's rage bar automatically fills up as the battle progresses. Until it fills once, they have no benefit. Once it fills the first time, they gain a two-level bonus, and the bar keeps filling – this is Rage mode. Once is maxes again, they are in Max mode, and gain one additional level.

Character Attributes:

Characters fighting with a attribute gain a 4-level jump in effectiveness. attributes are just as bad, with a 4-level drop.

Characters that are weak ( < ) vs a unit type go down to Grey X. Characters strong against a type ( > ) go to Red Star.

Rage Mode and Aggressive Mode: Elemental Damage



Yggdra's sword glows with holy power during Aggressive mode, while the Fencer's blade crackles with electricity.

Certain unit classes deal additional elemental damage during their Aggressive or Rage mode. Max mode disables elemental damage again. This doesn't do anything special, unless:
1 - The opposing character is weak to that element, or the character is equipping an item that UPs elemental damage. In this case, they deal more damage than normal.
2 – The opposing character is strong (void) against that element, in which case the attacker goes to Grey X, and deals no damage until they stop.

Some classes we've seen, or will see that deal elemental damage are:
Yggdra / Valkyries – Holy Damage
Assasins – Dark Damage
Fencers – Lightning Damage
Witches – Fire Damage


Next mission update will finally unlock the titular feature of the game – unions. These allow us, and the enemy, to put units in certain formations so that multiple characters may battle on the same turn. Also, someone wanted to see it, so after too damn many replays:



Things finally worked out in my favor. Durant wasn't a failure, I skipped a couple enemies to save time and the Knight on the bridge fell quicker than I had predicted, and the Witches were completely trivial this time around.

I shrunk the screens again to 600 x 340. Comments?