Strength and Defence boosts:Okay, let's say a weapon does 10 icons. Each one of those icons is going to do a specific amount of damage to your opponent, and that amount depends on your strength boost. The damage you do to an an opponent is the number of icons x your strength boost's damage multiplier (see the list at the bottom of this section).
So, let's say your strength boost is the 85 boost, so your damage multiplier is 2.5. Let's say you use two 10-iconers. You'd multiply 20 (icons) by 2.5 (damage multiplier), and that 50 damage is what you could do using just those weapons.
Now let's say you train up to the 125 boost and use the exact same two 10-iconers. Your damage multiplier is now 3, so if you multiply that by the 20 icons, you would do 60 damage with the weapons.
The boosts happen at set points, so a pet with 125 strength will do more damage than a pet with 124 strength. A pet with 86 strength and a pet with 124 strength will actually do the exact same amount of damage, because both those numbers fall in the 85 boost.
But of course it's not as simple as that. That's just what's known as "base damage." When you pick an attack from the drop-down box (a "stance"), you can increase or decrease the damage. Selecting "berserk" will increase the damage you do by 50% but will also increase the damage done to you by 50%. Selecting "defend" will
decrease the damage done to you by 20% but will also decrease the damage you do by 20%. And of course if an opponent uses shields or something and blocks some of your icons, you will do less damage to them.
Defence boosts are at the same levels, and I'll explain defence below..
Strength and Defence Boosts/Damage Multiplier:0 - 0.5
8 - 0.75
13 - 1.0
20 - 1.25
35 - 1.5
55 - 2.0
85 - 2.5
125 - 3.0
200 - 4.5
250 - 5.5
300 - 6.5
350 - 7.5
400 - 8.5
450 - 9.75
500 - 11.0
550 - 12.0
600 - 13.0
650 - 14.0
700 - 15.0
Read this for another explanation of strength, with some examples.
Also, play around with the
IDB Damage Calculator to see what your max damage would be at different boosts.
How Defence Works:Defence boosts and damage multipliers are the same as strength boosts and damage multipliers. However, there are two kinds of defence:
Percentage defence is the defence provided by stuff like Downsize! or Thyoras Tear. Those items block a certain percentage of an attack (Downsize! blocks half of every type of icon, for example). Ring of the Lost is like this as well (it blocks all dark). These weapons do not depend on your defence boost -- they do their percentage regardless of whether you have 10 defence or 200.
Non-percentage defence items are the ones that block a certain set number of icons (leaf shield, for example, blocks 5 earth icons, 5 water icons and 3 physical icons). They DO depend on your defence boost -- each icon wil block a certain amount of damage depending on your boost. To find out how much of an icon type you could block, you have to use this formula:
defence icons of the weapon x your stance multiplier x your defence boost's damage multiplier
So let's say I had 200 defence and I was using a leaf shield against an essence of esophagor, which does the full 5 icons of earth and 5 icons of water.
10 icons of defence (5 earth, 5 water) x cautious attack (1.0 multiplier) x 4.5 (the 200 boost's damage multiplier) = blocking 45 damage.
If the person using it also has the 200 strength boost and also used cautious attack, I will have blocked
all of the damage from that EoE. (If they used berserk, they will have done a little damage, and if their strength boost is higher than my defence boost, they will also have got some damage through, simply because they can do more damage per icon than I can block.) Not bad for a simple little leaf shield. Now imagine if it were a dual duty instead, like Mask of Coltzan... I could be attacking with a bunch of hard-to-block fire while also defending myself against a bunch of damage. Defence is very useful.
Okay, that's enough, I think.
If I screwed anything up or forgot a very useful weapon or whatever, tell me and I'll edit.