[FAQ] Natural Elemental Damage / Weapon Rune Pieces

[Celes]

Perhaps there don't exist values for regen, crit rate etc, because these values are calculated each time they needed?

Like max MP within the character stats is missing, because it is based on MGC.

[BadPotato]

I think he means about all the formulla calculation, there probably some of there in the official guide books but I don't think there regen and other...

I never really go into the assembler stuff, but I know that all value are stocked in memory address, and when we press on confirmation button for "battle action", these value are generated and put into the memory address. So, if you have some unasembler knowledge and you want to give a shoot to play while looking the assembler process(there some software for this), this should be possible to watch all the process.. and when they "move" into the correct memory address, that should means that the formula is this aera. But try to find, the correct memory address ask some test and can be a pain, thought

[Ellyos]

Yep, it's what I meant.

And yes it's a pain to find in assembler code (and more if, like me, you don't know assembler -.-")

[KFCrispy]

i believe Fire and Lightning pieces do add extra damage, and there may be a limit to how many pieces actually add damage (like.. a second Fire Rune Piece and Ninth Lightning Rune Piece don't add anything.... but in a normal game you can't get more than 1 Fire Rune piece and 3 Lightning Rune pieces). it was really hard to test earlier for some reason.

[Celes]

So we know that all rune pieces change the weapon element (whether there is one intially or it is non-elemental) and wind, earth and water give some stat bonuses.

The only question that remains is: Do fire and thunder add additional DMG (aside from the extra DMG they inflict to those vulnerable to it) and does it stack (at least for thunder)?

Anyone dare to test this?

[Ellyos]

After some tests, Fire rune piece probably adds damage, but I don't think it's true for Thunder rune piece.

I tried them on Viktor against flying squirrel and yeah he did more damage with a fire rune piece attached :
average : 133 dmg with no piece (127 minimum reached - 141 maximum reached)
average : 140 dmg with fire rune piece attached (133 minimum reached - 147 maximum reached) -> maybe +5% dmg but that's pure speculation
average : 130 dmg with 2 thunder rune pieces attached (122 minimum reached - 134 maximum reached, but not a lot of test with these pieces)

EDIT : trying to hack game to get more fire and thunder rune piece to be sure.

[Ellyos]

Ok, I do some tests with Fire rune piece on Flying Squirrel from Seika area :

No piece (11 fights) : average 133 dmg (min 127 - max 142)
1 fire rune piece (5 fights) : average 140 dmg (min 133 - max 147) (+5%)
4 fire rune pieces (7 fights) : average 157 dmg (min 139 - max 170) (+20%)
7 fire rune pieces (2 fights) : average 180 dmg (min 170 - max 191) (+35% ?) this test is not accurate enough
8 fire rune pieces (2 fights) : average 190 dmg (min 182 - max 197) (+40% ?) this test is not accurate enough
9 fire rune pieces (8 fights) : average 189 dmg (min 175 - max 205) (+45%)

So +5%/piece seems a pretty good value.

I'm gonna test with thunder rune piece now.

PS : My hack was just to give 30% fire rune piece drop rate to flying squirrel, and 30% thunder rune piece drop rate to Roc. So I haven't touched anything about rune piece itself.

[Ellyos]

Thunder rune pieces don't give bonus to damages... I checked with 9 rune pieces attached and there was no change...

So it must give other thing, and I have no idea about what...

[Celes]

Great! Thanks Both fire and thunder have a visible effect. And, in addition to that, both elements deal more DMG while attached to a weapon in S2 (the others don't). So it has to be something offensive, we didn't see.

Subsumption
Water:
switch to water elemental
Regen +5 for each piece

Wind*:
switch to wind elemental
SKL +2 for each piece

Earth*:
switch to earth elemental
DEF +3 for each piece

Fire:
switch to fire elemental
DMG +5% for each piece

Thunder:
switch to lightning elemental
??? (base stats, HP and Regen are out of the question, perhaps it's something like Crit% ... )

Note: The names of the Wind and Earth rune pieces are swapped for both the item name and the piece shown on your status screen. However, they are shown correct on the tablet of stars!

You said the elemental attribute is only consulted for calculating the weapon quota of the DMG. Assuming that we have 100 PWR and 100 (weapon) ATK + 1 Water rune piece attached. Ignoring the DEF of the enemy the results would be the following:

No resistance: 200 DMG
Strong vs. Water: 150 DMG
Weak vs. Water: 300 DMG
Inv. vs. Water: 100 DMG

Correct?

Furthermore, I wondered whether the additional DMG given by the Fire rune piece will be added for the ATK value or the final DMG. The latter is the case. I attacked an enemy using stats similar to those given in my example above, that is inv. vs. fire - the "Kobold" (Mage). Adding 1 Fire rune piece cuts the DMG in half (because ATK is no longer consulted). Adding more Fire rune pieces on the other hand increase this DMG again bit by bit.

[Ellyos]

You said the elemental attribute is only consulted for calculating the weapon quota of the DMG. Assuming that we have 100 PWR and 100 (weapon) ATK + 1 Water rune piece attached. Ignoring the DEF of the enemy the results would be the following:

No resistance: 200 DMG
Strong vs. Water: 150 DMG
Weak vs. Water: 300 DMG
Inv. vs. Water: 100 DMG

Correct?

It's really what I think. I read somewhere "dmg multiplied by 1.5 against elemental weakness". Unfortunately, it's hard to detect it since (PWR+ATK)x1.5 or PWR + (ATKx2) fall often in the same range. But I prefer think it works like Magic : x2 for weakness, x0.5 for high resist and x0 for immune... and we know monster immuned against fire doesn't take 0 dmg from a weapon with fire rune piece attached.

Furthermore, I wondered whether the additional DMG given by the Fire rune piece will be added for the ATK value or the final DMG. The latter is the case. I attacked an enemy using stats similar to those given in my example above, that is inv. vs. fire - the "Kobold" (Mage). Adding 1 Fire rune piece cuts the DMG in half (because ATK is no longer consulted). Adding more Fire rune pieces on the other hand increase this DMG again bit by bit.

Good to know, that means +%dmg is not elemental, but a global bonus. That makes sense since all bonus from other rune piece are global.

EDIT : just to warn that thunder piece doesn't add Magic Defense... at least we are sure now -.-

[KFCrispy]

enemies who take half or normal damage vs the magic spell just take 1x dmg from the physical attack w/element, and they take an extra 50% if they are weak vs the element.

[Ellyos]

Damn yeah... I was mistaken.

My bad, that fucks my Hard mode I would like to make if immunity and 1/2 dmg don't work for weapon >.<

[Celes]

At least you can set their DEF high enough, so weapons won't hurt them at all. In addition some elements to invulnerable, and they can only harmed with a certain magic rune.

[Celes]

Ok, tested with the info from the bestiary and elemental rune pieces check only for Weak (dunno whether its +50% or x2) and not for Strong or Inv. at all.

[KFCrispy]

it's +50% dmg, i did extensive testing when finding the natural elements.