Damage Calculation

Damage Calculator Spread Sheet

Overview
Damage calculation in Romancing Saga 2 differs wildly between attack types. In general, you can categorize attack damage types into several broad categories: You can view the entire table here.
 * 1) Weapon
 * 2) Martial Arts
 * 3) Normal Magic
 * 4) Fusion Magic
 * 5) Dark Magic
 * 6) Dark Fusion Magic
 * 7) Anti-Demon
 * 8) Drain
 * 9) HP Cut
 * 10) Health Dependent
 * 11) Specific Techs

Each one has it's own specific set of formulas used. (Which are incredibly complex beyond the point of useful)

In general though, you'll be looking at several attributes for damage:
 * 1) Effecting Stat: What stat is used to modify the damage. For weapons, it will either be strength (melee) or dexterity (short swords and bows). For magic, you're looking at magic and/or logic. Some attacks also have other stats that weigh into it. i.e. Exorcism Blade's damage is impacted by your magic score and logic score as well.
 * 2) Level: For most attacks, level will have the greatest impact on the damage output. Some attacks, however, function without using levels. (i.e. Air Pressure only uses level calculation to see if the attack hits, not the damage)
 * 3) Tech Power: To avoid the confusion with the term "spell power", tech power ALSO refers to the power of the spell itself as well. (i.e. fireball itself has a tech power of 2, while SPELL POWER is a score that is dependent on the caster) standard attack has a tech power of 3.
 * 4) Weapon Power: Obviously, this is critical for weapon attacks, but is not used by other forms of attacks.
 * 5) Number of Attacks: Some attacks (like mince, double cut, etc) can have multiple hits instead of a single hit. This means that the target gets to defend against it TWICE to reduce damage.
 * 6) Defense Stat: Most attacks have only a single defense value attached to it. When it has more than one, the formula will always pick the LOWEST defense value it can choose from. So if an attack hits slash (25) and ice (10), it will always pick 10 as the defense value.

Weapons
Weapons generally rely on strength for melee weapons, and dexterity for short sword and bow attacks. The standard attack has a tech power of 3. This is the only one that uses weapon stats. The generic formula is as follows: damage = (base score x tech power + adjustment - defense x 5) x number of attacks. Calculating base score is an incredibly byzantine process that differs from weapon type to weapon type, but in general is a function of your skill level in the weapon category. The higher the skill level, the higher the base score.

In terms of level to base score scaling, 2 hands swords > 1 hand swords > bows > axes > clubs > spears > short swords

Martial Arts
Martial arts relies on speed and strength to determine damage. Unlike weapon attacks, martial arts do not use a weapon power score in it's calculation. And in case you're wondering, the highest potential damage output for martial arts damage would be final emperor male > final emperor female > Soji (Levante Guard) > Fuyo (Ninja).

Formula: damage = max(max(Strength-10,0) x (Tech Power+Base Score-1)+int((Strength+Speed) x (Tech Power-1) x (Base Score-1)/8)-Defense x 5,0) x Number of Attacks

Normal Magic
Magic damage is primarily based on spell power, a derived score from magic and logic. The greater the difference between magic and logic, the greater the spell power. By this metric, the highest possible spell power caster in the game would be Kongming (tactician), who has a magic power of 25 and a logic of 10, resulting a spell power of 55.

Formula: damage = Max(int(Spell Power x Level x Tech Power/4)-Defense x 5,0)

Fusion Magic
Fusion magic relies on the average level of the two schools of magic is draws from, but otherwise operates like normal magic damage in that it uses spell power. i.e. if you're using crimson flare, your skill level calculation would be the average between your light and fire magic levels.

Formula: damage = Max(int(Spell Power x Average Level x Tech Power/4)-Defense x 5,0)

Dark Magic
Dark magic damage powers off of logic and dark magic levels, but otherwise are calculated in a similar fashion to normal spell damage. Of course, there are only 4 spells that uses the formula and only 2 of them are available to players, (neither of which are very powerful) so damage is not exactly the selling point.

Dark Fusion Magic
Dark magic damage powers off of logic + magic and the average of dark magic and the other magic level. Much like dark magic, the calculation formula is very similar to normal spell damage otherwise. And just like dark magic, the spells on this list tend not to be very powerful, which limits it's utility as a DPS mechanism.

Anti-Demon
There are three anti-demon techs, fairy fire, exorcism blade, and holy light. The effecting stat is based on the magic stat, and the relevant skill stats.

Drain
Drain attacks (like Stamina Drain) are based on logic score. Higher relevant skill score means more drain damage.

HP Cut
There are 2 HP cut attacks, air pressure and dark sphere. Air Pressure will deal damage equal to 5/8 of the remaining HP, while Dark Sphere will deal damage equal to 3/4 of the remaining HP.

Health Dependent
This category refers to attacks that are element based monster attacks like flames, freezing breath, lightning bolt, poison mist, etc. All of these are also reliant on the constitution score.

Still Blade
Still blade uses normal weapon damage formula except it's tech power is 14 + 1 per attack you take before your action. Since still blade also forces you to go last in the round, certain formations that puts the user in an aggro position can help boost the damage output of the tech quite a bit.

Yoyo
Yoyo uses normal weapon damage formula except it's number of attacks scales up as you gain more levels. For every 11 levels of axe skills you attain, you gain one more attack, topping out at 5 attacks.

Blades of Wind
While visually Blades of Wind gain more blades as you level up (1 extra blade every 5 levels), from a formula perspective, the levels actually just scale the damage directly at increments of every 5 levels.

Earthquake
This category includes fissure strike, Grand Slam, and Buster. Flying targets are automatically immune and can stun ground enemies. The damage also takes the weight of the weapon into account.