thunder rune piece

[like2h]

Finally got my hands on a Double Beat Rune! Playing around with it, I confirmed counter-damage received is just 100%, not 200%. Also, the rules for when double attacks trigger turned out to be more complicated than I expected.

Edit: It seems when you equip long range attackers with a double beat rune (I have tested bow attackers), sometimes the attacker attacks twice, sometimes he just attacks once even if there are more than one enemy. The action order also becomes strange in long range attackers' case. As to melee attackers, the double beat rune works well as long as there are more than one enemy.

Edit2:Try the hawk man in Kalekka with a long range attacker equipped with the double beat rune. For those interested.

[Julian]

I found the formula for enemy magic attacks:

It's the same formula as physical, but, uses enemy mag - player mag.

A third parameter (first is attacker, second is defender) is passed onto this function, with the spell's element. 1 = Fire, 2 = Water, 3 = Wind, 4 = Lightning, 5 = Earth, 6 = Holy, 7 = Dark?, 8 = No Element?

The game is actually checking your equipped rune. If your element matches the spell element, the damage is halved. (Resurrection = Holy, Lv1/Lv2 runes for the other elements)

So an enemy fire spell is halved if you have a fire or rage rune equipped.

This check also specifically checks for the Soul Eater id, and halves *all magic damage*/every element.

Looking around at elements, it's hard to figure anything out from the code alone, because this is directly in each enemy's AI functions. I managed to look at 2: Zombie Dragon's fire breath is holy element. Final boss has the aoe fire and lightning attacks, as well as a "8" element attack.

[like2h]

A third parameter is passed onto this function, with the spell's element. 1 = Fire, 2 = Water, 3 = Wind, 4 = Lightning, 5 = Earth, 6 = Holy, 7 = Dark?, 8 = No Element?

I believe we could consider adding a fourth parameter for a special multiplier, as seen in the case of the Dragon(not zombie dragon,sorry) where its breath only inflicts half damage.

[wataru14]

I found the formula for enemy magic attacks:

It's the same formula as physical, but, uses enemy mag - player mag.

A third parameter (first is attacker, second is defender) is passed onto this function, with the spell's element. 1 = Fire, 2 = Water, 3 = Wind, 4 = Lightning, 5 = Earth, 6 = Holy, 7 = Dark?, 8 = No Element?

The game is actually checking your equipped rune. If your element matches the spell element, the damage is halved. (Resurrection = Holy, Lv1/Lv2 runes for the other elements)

So an enemy fire spell is halved if you have a fire or rage rune equipped.

This check also specifically checks for the Soul Eater id, and halves *all magic damage*/every element.

Looking around at elements, it's hard to figure anything out from the code alone, because this is directly in each enemy's AI functions. I managed to look at 2: Zombie Dragon's fire breath is holy element. Final boss has the aoe fire and lightning attacks, as well as a "8" element attack.

This is cool. Undead with a Holy attack. I always thought the Zombie Dragon's attack was fire since Cleo (who keeps Leknaat's Fire Rune nearly the whole game when I play) took very little damage from his breath attack. But I guess that was just because of her Magic Stat giving her high Magic Defense.

Any other oddballs that you've found?

[Z3R01337]

I found the formula for enemy magic attacks:

It's the same formula as physical, but, uses enemy mag - player mag.

A third parameter (first is attacker, second is defender) is passed onto this function, with the spell's element. 1 = Fire, 2 = Water, 3 = Wind, 4 = Lightning, 5 = Earth, 6 = Holy, 7 = Dark?, 8 = No Element?

The game is actually checking your equipped rune. If your element matches the spell element, the damage is halved. (Resurrection = Holy, Lv1/Lv2 runes for the other elements)

So an enemy fire spell is halved if you have a fire or rage rune equipped.

This check also specifically checks for the Soul Eater id, and halves *all magic damage*/every element.

Looking around at elements, it's hard to figure anything out from the code alone, because this is directly in each enemy's AI functions. I managed to look at 2: Zombie Dragon's fire breath is holy element. Final boss has the aoe fire and lightning attacks, as well as a "8" element attack.

A while back, I noticed that the character in slot 6 takes half damage from Zombie Dragon's fire breath. Seeing 6 = Holy, I decided to test it out if the formation slot can affect magic damage in a different fight and I found an example instantly. Slot 1 vs Dragon Fire Breath attack takes half damage as well. Can't test more right now, but very likely the game incorrectly uses a character's formation slot as their element at some point for the half damage check.

[like2h]

That's odd. I didn't spot the formation stuff. To test the damage formula, I did write down how the damage worked out:

Zombie dragon's magic is 130

Slot1 25 (actual damage) (130-82)=48/2=24 (calculated damage, Tir) ...

Slot6 97 (actual damage) 130-39=91 (calculated damage)

Regarding the Dragon's case, I just realized everyone took half damage from its all-target breath (Tir 1/4).

[Z3R01337]

My magic stats
Kirkis 76 (Wind Rune)
Valeria 74
McDohl 84
Gremio 44 (Holy Rune)
Viktor 52 (Clone Rune)
Kuromimi 42

So this actually gets a bit weirder lol. Valeria slot 1 Kirkis slot 2 take 20 & 38 damage respectively. Kirkis slot 1 & Valeria slot 2 take 36 damage each. I think the slot formation bug only applies if they don't have an elemental rune attached?

I'm also noticing a damage difference between slots 5 & 6 for Viktor & Kuromimi.

All screenshots are off the same save state, same RNG, and with trying to Run turn 1 (game treats this as all defend).

ValeriaSlot1.png

ValeriaSlot2.png

ViktorSlot1.png

[like2h]

Haha, interesting! It seems some kind of bug does exist.

Edit: Played around with Neclord, but I still can't spot the influence of slots. Anyway, I feel it's not easy to trigger this bug.

[Julian]

Looking at the PSP code, I see no indication or reason why slot would do anything. It's possible this was a bug on the PS1 that they fixed in the port.

A quick run of Zombie Dragon, and my 6th slot is definitely taking full damage. (PSP)

I tried out the Dragon, found its AI code. The single target lightning attack does full magic damage, element 4/lightning. The party fire attack does element 1/fire, but the AI halves the damage returned from the damage formula. (How nice of them!)

edit: Another random tidbit: Prosperity rune stacks in this game, exponentially. (At least on the PSP it does...) 1 rune = 2x, 2 runes = 4x, 3 runes = 8x, etc.

[like2h]

Wind: PDF(typo,DEF)+3 per piece, looks like it also givies DMG+5% per piece?

I almost confirmed the wind rune piece does give DMG+5%.
This is how I did it:
To maximize damage, I chose Ronnie Bell(3x) and Flying Squirrel(low def and earth weakness1.5x).
Bell's attack is 267, the Squirrel's def is 25.
267-25=242
242×0.9=217×1.5×3=976(lower cap)
242×1.1=266×1.5×3=1197(higher cap)

If the piece gives DMG+5%
then 217×1.5×3×1.05=1025(lower cap)
266×1.5×3×1.05=1256(higher cap)

there were six Squirrels, actual damage:
1038 1170 1188 1236 1248 1071

since 1236 and 1248>1197,
the wind rune piece gives DMG+5%.

Edit: I conducted additional tests with the Killer Rabbit and confirmed that only the fire and wind rune pieces have a 5% damage boost effect.

[like2h]

I'm playing really slowly to see what tricks these encounter-enemies have up their sleeves. It seems many enemies have special modifiers for their attacks, especially party-wide ones. Just found an interesting one: The Sunshine King deals only 1/3 damage with his party physical attack. Figuring out the 1/3 stuff took me a little time, lol.

[like2h]

The Crystal Core's attack (before transformation) really confused me. Julian, could you read the code to see what it indeed does?

Edit: It can't be physical, as "Defend" doesn't halve the damage. However, if it is magical, why does Tir take full damage? More strangely, party members' mag doesn't seem to affect the damage, and characters with the Earth Rune equipped take ridiculously little damage, like 28 compared to others taking 200.

[Julian]

The single target attack? It looks like a normal physical attack damage formula with no modifiers.

The aoe "fire" attack post transformation looks to be element 8 (non elemental) so only Tir would be taking half damage from that.

(Assuming I'm looking at the right file functions... I think I am?)

[like2h]

Yes, the single-target attack before transformation drove me crazy. Let me illustrate how it happened:

Crystal Core
- PWR:350
- MGC:275

Everyone in the front row took damage three times:

1. Luc (DEF 91, MGC 186, Earth Rune)
- 1, 1, 1

2. Tir (DEF 193, MGC 135, Soul Eater)
- 189, 189, 208

3. Humphrey (DEF 245, MGC 50, Killer Rune)
- 192, 196, 184

4. Tengaar (DEF 192, MGC 158, Earth Rune)
- 27, 29, 30

5. Flik (DEF 178, MGC 133, Flowing Rune)
- 175, 178, 201

Edit: I bothered to swap Tengaar and Humphrey's runes, yet the result remained the same. It appears the issue is not with the earth rune but rather with Mag. I'm uncertain about the exact details, though.

[like2h]

I found that Water of Kindness, the level 3 magic of the flowing rune, only Heals 300 HP in battle, while fully restoring HP out of battle. When searching the internet, I found one Japanese site that pointed this out:

"味方全員のHPを戦闘時は300、通常時は完全に回復する"