magical or physical?

[Asari5]

i play for a while now and while its not too important for me since i dont play tank in savage there is a question which bothers me from time to time. especially when i play DRK now and then.
how can i determine the nature of the dmg? is it physical? magical? can i use magical mitigation for auto attacks? just for skills? only for some bosses? for all bosses? for trashmobs?

[ReiMakoto]

i play for a while now and while its not too important for me since i dont play tank in savage there is a question which bothers me from time to time. especially when i play DRK now and then.
how can i determine the nature of the dmg? is it physical? magical? can i use magical mitigation for auto attacks? just for skills? only for some bosses? for all bosses? for trashmobs?

Changes from attack to attack, enemy to enemy. Generally you can go off what they attack looks like to tell if its magic or physical but sometimes magic looking attacks are actually physical. You just need to learn whats what, you can't parry magical attacks so if you've seen yourself parry a move its certainly physical.

[shao32]

If you look at the battle log you can see it there, if a boss "readies X attack" then is physical, if it's says "casting X attack" then is magical, it's really boring to do that and look at the big amount of data there for such specific thing but there is no other way to be 100% sure what thing is magical or physical.

[Absurdity]

Yep, unfortunately SE designs mitigation for a specific damage type but doesn't actually want players to be easily able to determine what type of damage an enemy is doing /shrug

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Yep, unfortunately SE designs mitigation for a specific damage type but doesn't actually want players to be easily able to determine what type of damage an enemy is doing /shrug

This is false, and was specifically addressed at a Q and A not too long ago as to why there is no "easy" means to determine damage type, specifically, damage numbers don't reflect magic or physical via different colour float text.
It would add extra time onto development of patches, specifically a lot of back and forth between QA team and battle and UI teams.

[Absurdity]

This is false, and was specifically addressed at a Q and A not too long ago as to why there is no "easy" means to determine damage type, specifically, damage numbers don't reflect magic or physical via different colour float text.
It would add extra time onto development of patches, specifically a lot of back and forth between QA team and battle and UI teams.

I saw that Q & A as well. Sure, they may not be able to easily add it now, seeing as how "temperamental" the ARR engine is it doesn't just seem plausible but very likely.

But I simply raise the question, why didn't they think of that when they were making ARR? It had two specific types of damage and mitigation for specific types from the get-go.
Someone in the room should've gone "so this ability we're adding reduces intelligence and therefore magic damage? But how will players know when to use it?" or "So these stats we have, block and parry, only work on physical attacks...how do players even know which attacks are physical?"


It doesn't just end there, the game is simply severely lacking in clear information. How much % crit is for example 3000 critical hit? What is the critical damage modifier? How much % damage increase does 3200 Determination give? What's the proc chance on 2760 Direct Hit? It's all information that players have to visit 3rd party sites for when the game itself should already tell them.

The same applies to stat intervals to a lesser extend, you often can't do anything about excess amounts of a substat that doesn't really do anything. Nowhere does the game tell you that a secondary stat actually only provides a benefit when it reaches the next interval.

Let's take Tenacity as an example. Does the game ever tell you that if you have 2063 Tenacity (which translates to 5.1% passive mitigation) then every single point in Tenacity above this is completely useless until you reach the next interval, which is 2096 (5.2%)? So any amount of Tenacity between 2063 and 2096 is completely wasted because it does not actually increase anything, I highly doubt most players even know this is a thing.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

I saw that Q & A as well. Sure, they may not be able to easily add it now, seeing as how "temperamental" the ARR engine is it doesn't just seem plausible but very likely.

But I simply raise the question, why didn't they think of that when they were making ARR? It had two specific types of damage and mitigation for specific types from the get-go.
Someone in the room should've gone "so this ability we're adding reduces intelligence and therefore magic damage? But how will players know when to use it?" or "So these stats we have, block and parry, only work on physical attacks...how do players even know which attacks are physical?"


It doesn't just end there, the game is simply severely lacking in clear information. How much % crit is for example 3000 critical hit? What is the critical damage modifier? How much % damage increase does 3200 Determination give? What's the proc chance on 2760 Direct Hit? It's all information that players have to visit 3rd party sites for when the game itself should already tell them.

The same applies to stat intervals to a lesser extend, you often can't do anything about excess amounts of a substat that doesn't really do anything. Nowhere does the game tell you that a secondary stat actually only provides a benefit when it reaches the next interval.

Let's take Tenacity as an example. Does the game ever tell you that if you have 2063 Tenacity (which translates to 5.1% passive mitigation) then every single point in Tenacity above this is completely useless until you reach the next interval, which is 2096 (5.2%)? So any amount of Tenacity between 2063 and 2096 is completely wasted because it does not actually increase anything, I highly doubt most players even know this is a thing.

I mean it was more than likely an oversight among the absolute s**t storm Tanaka left them. It's an easily forgettable addition, when you look at everything they manage to overhaul on a larger scale, but it's not even a matter of can't of restriction, but they don't want to, out of preventing delays to patch releases due to last minute changes. IIrc, an example was given in the Q&A also.

While yes they could spend more resources adding a stats table display, but as you have pointed out we do have resources you can check for yourself, like balance discord or akhmorning website for the stat tables in mere seconds. Could they add it? sure, do they need to? not really when we already have the means to check ourselves.

[Jukebox12]

wasn't there a type of damage that was neither physical or magical in midas?

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

wasn't there a type of damage that was neither physical or magical in midas?

There is, sometimes referred to as darkness damage, essentially hp %age based damage, or damage that is set for an exact amount every time. Eden Prime is a recent example of the former, Ede's Gravity, in savage dealing 75% of party members HP. The only means to mitigate is HP shields such as Adloquim, Nocturnal shields, Divine Veil, Shake it Off, TBN, and Divine Benison.

Following this, I believe J-Kick is darkness damage in TEA, which happens after Limit Cut transitioning into Phase 2 iirc, so may be the case for Midas' version of Brute Justice.

Other example is WoL, where your HP is dropped to 1HP, this usually is followed by a requirement for healers to heal everyone to full hp.

[Jukebox12]

There is, sometimes referred to as darkness damage, essentially hp %age based damage, or damage that is set for an exact amount every time. Eden Prime is a recent example of the former, Ede's Gravity, in savage dealing 75% of party members HP. The only means to mitigate is HP shields such as Adloquim, Nocturnal shields, Divine Veil, Shake it Off, TBN, and Divine Benison.

Following this, I believe J-Kick is darkness damage in TEA, which happens after Limit Cut transitioning into Phase 2 iirc, so may be the case for Midas' version of Brute Justice.

Other example is WoL, where your HP is dropped to 1HP, this usually is followed by a requirement for healers to heal everyone to full hp.

you forgot the old storm's path