Damage Formula

Damage Formula

Every attack in Cinder & Crown follows a consistent damage formula. Understanding it helps you gear and build your character effectively.

Base Formula

Final Damage = (Raw Power × Hard DEF Multiplier − Soft DEF) × Element Multiplier × Crit Multiplier × Variance

Step by Step

1. Raw Power — Your ATK (for physical) or MAG (for magical), modified by the skill’s power multiplier
2. Hard DEF — A diminishing-returns percentage multiplier applied to damage. Based on the target’s DEF (or RES for magic), this scales as (1000 + DEF) / (1000 + DEF × 5) — always < 1.0, always reduces damage
3. Soft DEF — A flat damage subtraction derived from the defender’s DEF stat and level: floor(DEF / 2) + floor(level / 2)
4. Element Multiplier — Applied based on elemental matchups
5. Crit Multiplier — 1.5x on a critical hit (modified by crit_damage affixes)
6. Variance — A random roll between 0.85–1.15 to keep damage from being perfectly predictable

Damage always has a minimum of 1 — you can never deal zero damage.

Hard DEF vs Soft DEF

The defense system has two layers to prevent either extreme from being too dominant:

Layer	How It Works	Effect
Hard DEF	Diminishing-returns multiplier applied to damage. Higher DEF gives proportionally smaller marginal gains	Scales from ~0% reduction at low DEF to ~60% at very high DEF
Soft DEF	Flat damage reduction derived from your DEF stat and level	Subtracts a fixed amount from incoming damage

Hard DEF gives reliable percentage-based mitigation — every point of DEF helps but with diminishing returns at high values. Soft DEF scales naturally with your level and DEF together, becoming more significant as you progress.

Example: Physical Attack

A Level 15 Knight with 45 ATK uses a basic attack against a monster with 18 DEF.

1. Attacker’s ATK and level combine to form Raw Power
2. Hard DEF multiplier (based on 18 DEF) reduces damage by ~6.5%
3. Soft DEF flat reduction (based on DEF + level) subtracts a fixed amount
4. Element: Knight uses None element vs Earth monster = ×1.0
5. No crit
6. Variance: 85–115% of calculated value

Final Damage: significantly lower than raw ATK

Example: Magical Attack with Elemental Advantage

A Level 15 Black Mage with 52 MAG casts a Water spell against an Earth-element monster.

• Both Hard RES and Soft RES layers apply (same as physical)
• Water vs Earth is neutral (no element advantage) = ×1.0 total multiplier
• With a true advantage (e.g., Earth spell vs Water monster): ×1.5 damage

Critical Hits

Property	Value
Base crit chance	5%
Crit multiplier	×1.5
LUK scaling	+0.3% crit chance per point of LUK
Crit damage affix	Additive with the ×1.5 base (e.g., +20% → ×1.7)

Critical hits are rolled after the damage formula resolves steps 1–4, then the final number is multiplied. The crit_chance and crit_damage equipment affixes stack additively.

LUK and Crit Chance

Your effective crit rate is:

Crit% = 5 + LUK × 0.3    (max 25%)

A Halfling (+5% LUK racial) with high-LUK gear can reach meaningful crit rates, making them strong candidates for physical DPS builds.

Random Variance

Every damage roll includes a random variance factor of 85–115% of the calculated value. This means the same attack against the same target will fluctuate slightly:

A calculated damage of 40 can land anywhere between 34 (85%) and 46 (115%).

Variance applies to all damage sources — physical, magical, and skill-based. Healing is not subject to variance.

Armor Penetration

The armor_pen and magic_pen equipment affixes reduce the target’s effective Hard DEF/RES before the subtraction step:

Effective DEF = Target DEF × (1 − Armor Pen%)

This makes penetration affixes especially valuable against high-DEF enemies like golems and boss monsters.