Damage calculator and lower form monsters defence buff discovered!

So with the testing I did today with @keets I finally figured out exactly what’s going on with the weird defence buff 1st and 2nd form monsters get. Also, my damage calculator finally works for all cases. I may still have some things wrong (this is all worked out from number crunching) but hopefully this highlights things.

I will be writing a Damage Calculation guide at some point early next year, but for now here’s some of the core content detailed for the hot topic we had recently about defence buffs.

The Damage Calculator


Damage is calculated in a weird way when it comes to the numbers. We all get a feel for it by playing, but not the specifics. I’m going to throw the formula at you then break it down and explain it before putting some numbers into it:

Damage dealt = attack stat * [move power] * [relative toughness] * [lower form buff] * elemental modifier * variance

Covering the simpler bits first…

Attack stat = the current attack stat of the monster (includes buffs like attack boost, vile rage and PvE buffs)
Elemental modifier = 1 if normal, 0.67 (2/3) if weak or 1.5 (3/2) if strong against that element
Variance = up to ±10% with equal distribution
Move power = as will be detailed in my damage calculation guide, some examples are below

Relative toughness = attacker’s stat arrangement attack / (defender’s stat arrangement defence * defence stat buffs) [limit, 0.5;2]
^ This one isn’t so obvious. What I’m referring to is the “stat arrangements” I detail in my KD's Legendaries/Mythics listed + stats thread:

Stat arrangement Attack stat Defence stat
Full attack 5700 3350
Standard attack 5150 3950
Rounded 4600 4600
Standard defence 4175 5225
Full defence 3725 5850

Also, any defence stat buffs like protect focus or simply the buff to PvE enemies are applied to the defence here but not the attacker’s attack. There is a limit for this factor so it can go no lower than 0.5 and no higher than 2. When we see piercing on a move this is the factor it affects and it makes it automatically equal 2. When fighting heavily buffed enemies you can expect it to be 0.5. Interestingly, when buffed enemies fight each other this is the factor which means they hit less than non-buffed monsters do to each other (relative to their health) because the attack part ignores the buff to it.

So a couple of examples:

  1. Full attack monster hitting a standard defence monster with 1.25x stat buff = 5700 / (5225 * 1.25) = 0.87
  2. Full attack hitting standard attack with 1.25x stat buff = 5700 / (3950 * 1.25) = 1.15
  3. Standard attack hitting standard attack with no stat buff = 5150 / 3950 = 1.30
  4. Rounded hitting standard attack with 3x stat buff = 4600 / (3950 * 3) = 0.5 [not 0.39]

Lower form buff = (current form max trained defence / final form defence)^2
^ Max trained defence is not easily visible in the game but in the monsterdex you can view it. This factor is the really questionable one which we’ll talk about in the section at the end of this post.

e.g. 1st form Gearcroc (Ironcroc) max trained defence is 3145, 2nd form Gearcroc (Steelcroc) has 3520 and 3rd form Gearcroc has 4090.
Hence…
1st form Gearcroc (Ironcroc) “lower form buff” = (3145 / 4090)^2 = 0.59
2nd form Gearcroc (Steelcroc) “lower form buff” = (3520 / 4090)^2 = 0.74

Essentially this means lower forms take less damage, roughly 60% if they’re first form and roughly 75% if they’re second form. It doesn’t matter if they’re trained or not (possibly outside of PvP it does - not totally certain). The exact numbers vary slightly between qualities of monsters, I’ll list them below.

Bringing that back together

Looking at the formula again:

  • Damage dealt = attack stat * move power * relative toughness * lower form buff * elemental modifier * variance

Lets do Cyclozar attacking Mechaviathan with chrono killer (0.7 power).

  • Damage dealt = 5710 * 0.7 * [5700/5225] * [1] * [1] * variance
    = 5710 * 0.7 * 1.09 * variance
    = 4360 (±10%)
    = 3924-4797
    Mechaviathan has 4278 health so is (4797-4278)/(4797-3924) = 59.5% chance of being one-shot

For this thread I won’t go into any more details than this example. Let’s move onto the important section for now…

Lower form defence buff


So let's continue from the example above and do both the second form and first forms of Mechaviathan...

Cyclozar attacking 2nd form Mechaviathan (Subliathan).

  • Damage dealt = 5710 * 0.7 * [5700/5225] * [0.74] * [1] * variance
    = 4360 * 0.74 * variance
    = 3226 (±10%)
    = 2903-3550
    Subliathan has 3437 health so is 17.4% chance of being one-shot

Cyclozar attacking 1st form Mechaviathan (Leviapedo).

  • Damage dealt = 4360 * 0.577 * variance
    = 2515 (±10%)
    = 2263-2767
    Leviapedo has 2821 health so is 0% chance of being one-shot

As can be clearly seen with these three examples, legendaries become a bit tankier in their lower forms so the moves which are just about one-shotting them have a lower chance to. What matters is the relative health and defence as they are in their lower forms. For each monster quality it is as follows (note: the calculation here = percentage health of final form / “lower form buff”):

Quality 1st form tanking 2nd form tanking
Epic 1.15x 1.08x
Super epic 1.15x 1.09x
Legendary 1.15x 1.08x
Mythic 1.17x 1.09x

There isn’t a huge difference, but things go a bit ridiculous on the mythics when first forms still have high damage moves because final form mythics are naturally tanky with their high health and these first forms are even tankier than that, at only 6 cost to the team! In fact, mythics have lower than usual health in the earlier forms which slightly cancels out the bigger difference they have in defence. In terms of how much tankier overall they are similar to the other qualities but they take less damage in numbers.
For example, ignoring type advantage of Cyclozar on Y Ddraig Goch a chrono killer on the first form (Armordrake) deals only 1908 damage on average. That’s pathetic considering it should do 3895 on average to a full defence monster.

What I think is WRONG with the calculation (lower forms)


So to be clear, the bit I think is wrong in the damage calculator is this “lower form buff” factor. I think it may even be a mistake in the way it is coded.

current form max trained defence / final form defence
This bit I can kind of understand. It stops untrained and unevolved monsters from dying too easily by effectively counteracting the lower health they have compared to when they’re fully evolved. However, this number is then squared… for no reason at all. It’s this squaring which makes the unevolved monsters take less damage than the final forms.

Personally I think the game would be better without this factor at all. There’s already the “relative toughness” bit which means unevolved monsters effectively have their final form defence. Why do they also need an extra buff to counteract the lower health??

To me it almost looks like there were two people coding this and they each took a different approach to make unevolved monsters survive better. One added a factor that meant their lower defence is irrelevant and the other added a factor that buffs their defence. Then some miscommunication was made so they didn’t realise both had been applied and actually buffed unevolved monsters to tank better than final forms!

@Dev_VKC @Dev_BRD
Tl;Dr Please remove the factor that lowers the damage dealt to unevolved monsters by (current form max trained defence / final form defence)^2. At the very least remove the squaring - this is what causes lower forms to actually be tankier than their final form!

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10 likes and no replies, I think this might be a forum first!

Thanks everyone for either supporting what I’m asking the Devs for or liking the information I’m sharing. I want to ask though…

What do people think of the general layout and explanation of the damage calculator? I plan to write it out in a very similar way for the guide in the future and would like any pointers for improvement. It’s been a slight concern of mine that this write-up could be unclear, too long or messy. In the guide version I will not have any of the “lower form defence buff” section and beyond but I’ll have more examples of using the calculator and how to very easily figure damage numbers out in your head without crunching the numbers in a calculator.

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Sorry Killerdog, I read all the posts, but many times the language limitation does not participate, I agree 100% with doing that kind of calculations and taking it to a simpler way of calculating would help the community a lot, tell me if I can collaborate in something, I will gladly do it!

You always do very well considering your English is not perfect! “Collaboration” will be part of this damage guide as I ask the community to help me test all the moves in the game to find out their damage multipliers.

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Thank you, I feel many times that I need to communicate correctly, I ask the boys of the LDN clan and we can try several monsters without problem :wink:

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I thought it all made sense and the reason for why first and second forms take less damage is interesting to say the least…
All the information was presented clearly and logically, but it’s likely a language barrier would make it difficult to understand certain sections.

That’s true. When I write up the guide I will see if I can rephrase to make it easier for people who are not native to English. If I can’t then perhaps a quick abbreviated section (a summary) might do the trick, which could be useful for English people too.

Thanks for the feedback!

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Many calculations, meaning this will never change? Do I have to put up with the fact that monsters survive in their second form and do not survive their third form? Do I have to put up with the fact that people who are not so advanced because they don’t want to give their monsters an ultra beat me? offline translator :smiling_face_with_tear:

It definitely doesn’t help nagao. Poor celeshine and prismaryx have been stuck on 2nd form on their account for years now. Definitely doesn’t help evidently, because a dc is guaranteed when you start winning against them XD

The general idea is that 1st form and 2nd form movesets are weaker enough than the final form that people should not seriously consider leaving them unevolved. There are, of course, a few exceptions like Mojinator where the moveset changes dramatically.

I’ve been a big advocate of 2nd form nerfs on the problematic monsters, pushing the Devs in DMs. Most of them have been dealt with over the years. This is the best solution for dealing with the problem. The Devs intend to make people want to evolve their monsters.

Some extra info about mythics:

I can’t remember for certain, but I don’t think mythics get a defence buff in their second form. However, there might be something with the difference in stars between the monsters attacking. E.g. Legendaries attacking a 2nd form mythic do normal damage but if an awakened mythic attacks a 2nd form mythic it may do less damage than it would when attacking any final form monster. When I did all the above calculations, I didn’t have mythics to test this with so I cannot say for certain (what I’m writing here is just a random theory).

I say that because I think with mythics it makes proper sense to awaken them to make them survive better, even ignoring how you can give them HP boost only when awakened.

One thing that definitely did happen was 1st form mythics gained a lower form defence buff. Since this defence buff is meant to be for monsters without fully trained stats, it was ridiculous on 1st form mythics that were trained to 100%. Here’s a post I made about it, looks like it was a 0.4x damage multiplier to what they took, so with their roughly 57% of the awakened form HP they took 1.43x the amount of damage to kill. Once a few mythics had come out that showcased the problem in a big way (Plumesilisk & Lemon), they made almost all 1st form mythics get terrible movesets and tweaked the code so 1st form mythics specifically get the damage they receive multiplied by a large amount (e.g. 2-3x). They did that as a hotfix of sorts, but didn’t change the overall calculation.

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so I understand the mechanics are crazy no matter the defense has the enemy but the difference between attack and defense then so that there training defense? if at the end not care about these numbers and damage that will receive has to do with all exepto with the number having defense and the solution to fix it of mostruos in second form was making the most powerful get a mechanical different and themselves receive more damage than normal :exploding_head: a while the development is the smoke doing the game was better that you have a mechanical for all and force players to ultra evolve to mostruos at the end there players with sheep Holy awake and his team they have legendary in his second form knowing all these things and making it more difficult to defeat them as a legendary in second form has more force a s.epic in his third way and have less cost. this game has things to be the best game with this topic but its bad mechanical disappoint much

if one day I dislike with the game and I don’t see write more anything already know because is👋

Honestly I don’t see what’s so bad about having some Legendary mons be sorta-viable in 2nd form. Power creep by mythics has already ruined the scalability of the point cost system as it is… especially with the SS’s. Very few SS-enabled legends should be costing 16 at this point, with the majority being at 14, reasonable ones at 15, and extremely powerful ones being 16. Can you look me in the eye and tell me enabling instant stealth on Cephalogandr should make him cost 16? Really?

Anyway, my point is that having semi-decent un-evolved legends helps to mitigate this and other issues. (1) It loweres the barrier of participation for newcomers and (2) gives additional usable options for <10 cost monsters. I suppose in some ways this also somewhat hurts newcomers as well, because then the evolved Epics and SEs are even less useful… and to that I say, why aren’t there any remotely viable Epic monsters?

I guess what I’m saying here, is that while I agree with you in theory that 2nd-form legends shouldn’t be murdering every single Epic level monster power-wise… if you’re going to actively prevent that and nerf those forms, then there needs to be some actually useful alternatives being added to the game as well (that aren’t just the dang rocks). And right now there absolutely are not, nor does it seem that there ever will be.

Look at it this way. Four or five years ago the balance between the different rarity tiers was relatively well balanced. But… in the last 5 years the devs have released something like ~100+ mythics, ~60 legends, ~30 SEs, and ~5 Es. And all the new monsters are dramatically creeping in power…

So, while the cost system encourages us as players to use and maintain monsters at a variety of different rarity levels, in reality the viability of each of those tiers has diverged from one another immeasurably. Specifically because of the frequency with which new content gets added.

I’m not opposed to power creep, but right now no 4* monsters are viable for PVP. They just aren’t. So PVP teams now consist of a mix of 16-cost monsters and 4-cost monsters… because there’s no other way to balance it out. I’m being hyperbolic and reductive here but you get my point.

Anyway I didn’t intend for this to become such an essay but the TLDR here is: viable 8-cost monsters have significant value for all player levels, by culling out the usable 2nd-form legends the pool of monsters in that category is now nonexistant, so either the effort should be curtailed or actual content in that class range needs to be produced. The update to <4 star monsters was absolutely fantastic (or at least a good start), and I really wish they would do that kind of upkeep more often.

My two cents.

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Great essay. I agree with a lot of your sentiment and get what you’re saying. The way the game has slowly transitioned over the years has left us being sad about a lot of things.

I think unfortunately all it will do is mean veterans will utilise these under-costed powerful monsters and it will feel unbalanced. Also, as you say, Epics and SEs are something for newer players and if they’re invalidated before the player has even worked to get the materials to evolve their legendaries then we’re probably in a worse situation.

As for Epic monsters being made viable, they already do that with the special rocks that are released. We get a steady flow of these and they are great for cost balancing teams. If the standard Epics from the egg pool were as strong as this then why would people bother getting the new ones… the special rocks are essentially the power crept version of those 0-4* monsters just like how we barely use any of the legendaries/SEs from the base game.

You have to also consider that the design of the game should incentivise people to work towards evolving their monsters, so if legendaries were already great in second form then people wouldn’t be as keen to play the events to get the materials.

Another thing to consider with why we don’t get the base game 0-4* monsters buffed is because the early game experience is typically with these monsters and it’s all been designed and balanced around them. Buffing them just so they might see niche PvP play from veterans who get nostalgic might end up doing more harm than good.

On a similar topic… I’d love to see something that helps new players evolve their Epics / SEs more easily. I don’t know the new player experience too well, but given the overwhelmingly large number of SEs that exist now and when I see screenshots of people’s accounts there’s usually only a fraction evolved, I feel like new players need help in this area so they can utilise these monsters before they reach the point where all they want to use is legendaries.

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like it sucks that mostruos in second form resist more “blow” because what kind of logic is this? and the worst of all is that we exploit are not new players if they were they I don’t mind but are players take a long time and exploit this. ago days I found a player with sheep mythical wake up and the rest of his team were legendary in second way, I take the buff of sheep when this with monsters 0-5✭ and that these same monsters resist more if players exploit of mechanical should be only for newbies it would not be trap?

The reason is simple: no monster can be unevolved. It’s also counter-intuitive in terms of game design, as you are encouraged by the game to evolve your monsters. No monsters should be better in second form than their final form.

Like Killerdog said cheap and good second form monsters will just be abused by high level players and mitigate whatever advantage they would give to low level players. So it just wouldn’t work like you think it would. We’ve seen this plenty of times, for example in the case of Lavamane and Ziberius, as well as Canishogun spam.

Then let’s fix these individual cases instead. Much easier and doesn’t change the design philosophy of the game.

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I agree that no monster should actually be better or more useful in 2nd form, for sure!

But as with the mythics, all legendary mons are kneecapped to some degree in their 2nd form, and some of them absurdly so. (Though I admit a key difference here is that 2nd form mythics require passing though an evolution step whereas legendaries do not.)

Some of the legendary 2nd forms are particularly well designed though, where having the monster be missing one critical or useful aspect & lower stats feels like a natural tradeoff, similar to how many of them function with vs without their SS.

For example: Doomengine’s 2nd form is perfectly useable. It’s not amazing, and is not as good as its evolved form for sure. But it is probably still better than every single Epic-level cloner, and for an 8-cost monster the utility is pretty good (at least for PvE, anyway), especially when compared with musashoid or lebroid which are both 7-cost.

Another example: Centaureon is still pretty good in 2nd form. With champion entrance + counterstrike + bloodcrave, he is still workable in a team. He doesn’t work as the elite-level sleep counter he could be after UE and SS unlock, but he’s still potentially “useful.” Compared with other fully evolved legendaries? He’s not great. Compared with the existing pool of epics/rocks? He’s pretty good!

Yet another similar example: Tygoron’s 2nd form is still excellent. With faststrike + bloodlust + stun revenge, he still absolutely kills it as an 8-cost monster. Really, an amazing bang for the buck. If his 2nd form moveset existed as-is on an Epic-level monster, it’d probably be on many players’ radar. Of course, without stun converter + dual give turn, he does not function as an elite stun counter like his 3rd form, and instead he’s just a pretty good monster for the cost… And pays for those excellent moves with some rather low stats. Since I don’t particularly care about high-level PvP, I’m not especially passionate about unlocking his stun-countering potential. I’m fine with keeping him as a fairly-solid low-cost team-filler.

I just wish more of them were this way. I understand some legendaries have concepts that don’t exactly lend themselves to working partially or only halfway without being absurd (e.g. aurodragon), and some legends are just so mediocre that even a partially nerfed version of the final form is unavoidably trash (e.g. ziberius).

But it just seems that too few have any viability in 2nd form. Many of them could have had their stats reduced rather than their moveset completely obliterated or replaced with “ultralux all.” And none of this would be an issue if there were any halfway decent Epics. None of them even work well to set up combos with other more powerful monsters. with very few exceptions they all just have one of 5 or 6 carbon-copied bland move kits. I’m not asking for Epics to be standalone killers, but just sprinkling in some teambuilding or synergistic moves would make them useful later on without overpowering any of them.

Like, would it be such a sin to give an epic monster Taunt? Or Auto-protect+? Or shield teammate? Or a void move? Or like… stunt double?

I do agree with you in principle, but I want to make one point known.

At this point, the game is already unbalanced… I’m proposing addressing an existing imbalance, not creating a new one. Power goes up exponentially with cost rather than linearly. And so I think you could add many useful 4* monsters without breaking anything… The only reason a decent 4* monster would be so unbalanced right now is because every 4* monster is currently useless. Which is not a good reason to continue to avoid improving anything.

I’m also not advocating giving a 4* double bloodthirst or 4k attack or anything. But sprinkling in a few teambuilding/support moves that may come in handy or synergize with other stronger monsters later on would be a huge win. Gandalfrog was a great attempt to address this somewhat, and the result is a 4* monster that actually gets used.

Think of it this way; by your own admission–
A-level Mythics ==> S+ Legendaries
D-level mythics ==> S- Legendaries ==> S+ SEs

So, at the very least, it should be something like this:
D legendaries ==> A super epics ==> S+ Es

But, instead, right now it’s more like this:
E/F super epics ==> S+ epics
…That doesn’t seem weirdly out of balance to you?

Why do we even have this entire class of monsters if they only exist to be useless/temporary? Even some of the <4* monsters acquired in the overworld have more value than 90% of the existing 4* monsters hatchable in eggs. But why? Why maintain (and actively exacerbate as new SEs are released) this massive gap in usability?

In point of fact: a few months ago I got a new phone and replayed the beginning of the game from scratch for fun… and the 4* monsters were never useful at any point. The SEs I acquired early on immediately outclassed the Es by so much that there was essentially never a point during which I felt they had any real value. Which is in stark contrast to the very first time I played this game ~5ish years ago.

I feel like I’m the only one with this opinion so I’ll just shut up about it now, but I still say this is not a crazy hard problem to fix. Just give something Roaring Entrance, or stun absorber, or mark entrance, or shield ally, or some knockback moves, or forgive/repent, or gravity field, or… something. Adding some minor passives would also help differentiate the numerous categories of 6x monsters with identical moves.

And I know the rocks are a thing, but there’s only a small handful of them available in the store right now, and each one takes ~5 months worth of 6* tickets to acquire. So… no, I don’t think the 10 special rocks in the ticket store “fix” it. And it’s crazy to me that I seem so totally alone in suggesting some useful/synergistic Es would make the game more interesting or open up new strategies beyond “awakened mythics + rocks” spam.

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I completely agree with what you’re saying and if it’s true that there’s never a point in time where it’s worth using epics then they should probably be repurposed.

A simple route would be either buffing them or, at the very least, making their movesets/stats unique.

A more complex route could be some kind of enhancement that happens by getting to X bond quest level. Personally, this is something I’d like to see for both Epics and SEs. So it would either be an HP boost or one of the moves gets upgraded.

Then what we’d get is something like each day the game will randomly select one of our monsters which doesn’t have MBQ lvl 120 and it gets 50% off entry tickets for its MBQ that day. When it’s a SE it can also reduce the battle difficulty and when it’s an Epic it could reduce battle difficulty even further.

So the idea is that for a new player without many monsters it would give them a chance to buff those monsters by doing some MBQ. The buff(s) should be in the earlier bond levels, so they’re accessible and not a huge ticket grind.

If I was starting with no knowledge of the game at all I suppose my perspective may have been different, but going back with even a basic knowledge of what works and what doesn’t changes the perspective.

Why even bother giving a de-age to an epic if I know I’ll never use it in the longrun? And the window of time where you can evolve an E but not an SE is extremely short-- from being able to acquire lamps/bulbs to acquiring pyramids. Very brief. It essentially eclipses the amount of time it takes to gather the resources to UE one or two epics.

And it takes way too much effort/resources to UE one, compared with the power they have. Resource requirements go up linearly with rarity level but power goes up exponentially; therefore they are simply not worth the investment.

Does completing bond quests for a given monster buff the stats? I thought it just unlocked a few gems.