Explaining Elden Ring's Misleading Damage Calculation System

VIDEO PATCH NOTES 1.01 (script & phrasing adjustments): 1:50 → The Warpick does deal pierce damage. The in-game menu saying that it deals strike damage is actually a bug. The Lucerne also deals pierce damage. This was a bug in the video's script. It was meant to point out that a weapon's damage type may not always be congruent with its visual design. I've rewritten as follows: There are also some less obvious examples such as the Lucerne and Warpick only inflicting pierce damage despite their visual design suggesting they are able to deal multiple types of damage. 18:20 → The footage comparison shown in this example is not congruent with what I'm explaining, as the left side is actually representing values at NG+5, which shows a damage disparity of 16. The sentence I'm saying in the script is correct. The footage is not. 29:35 → Damage negation from armors also stack multiplicatively, just like any other instance of damage negation. They are not additive. Therefore, this set gives you a total of 30.3% magic negation, not 34%. This armor combination still gives you the highest magic defense in the game. 0:02 → Erroneous statement involving the current month being January. As you can see by the date of upload, it is clearly not.

"Hi. Well It's January..." ~Rusty, February 4th

Posted on January 35th.

Ah yes, 4th of February, my favourite day in January

Very good, now do a ranking video of every weapon based on how much their scaling upsets you.

Elden ring already shows you so many numbers when you open your inventory that it can scare you as a new player, but seeing just how convoluted some of the scaling gets makes me wish we could see even more of them

I love learning all about the different types and values of damage! goes back to ignoring them with blackflame

I'm going 99 strength and this nerd with numbers can't stop me 🤷‍♂

At last, we get to understand half the tier lists he makes

There is one massive exception to the status MVs not going over 100 thing: charged R2s from War Cry or Braggart's Roar hit 300 status MV. You can flat-out bleed some enemies with a single hit from Colossals this way.

bit of a correction: the warpick and lucerne do deal pierce damage, with the warpick's displayed damage type on the equipment screen being a ui error. when it comes to its attack data, it's all pierce like the description says. i'm not really sure where the idea that the lucerne doesn't do pierce comes from since it says its does pierce and the attack data matches it. some wires getting crossed with how it should probably have access to strike instead of being a pure pierce weapon, i guess?

I never thought they'd have specific area scaling of the enemies, but I guess that's easier than setting each individual enemy class's stats every time they pop up. Randomizers probably appreciate that they did that, too.

There was a thread posted on the Dark Souls 3 subreddit from years ago titled "How Defense and Absorption Really Work." It's still up if anyone wants to read it. To summarize the post: defense isn't a linear, flat reduction against attack. Rather, attack is compared to defense and then the result of that comparison is used to choose which formula is to be used from a set of damage formulas. So for example, from the reddit thread, if the ratio of Attack/Defense equals .125 (1/8) or less, the attack will always be multiplied by a flat 0.10 (10% damage) before absorption; at the other extreme end, if Attack/Defense equals 8 or more, the attack will always deal 90% of its damage before absorption; and in the middle, there were 3 other formulas that are more complex but the jist of it is that the formulas are more favorable to the attacker as the ratio of attack/defense increases. For the people less unskilled at math, the damage formula is a piecewise function where each piece of the function has domain boundaries determined by Attack/Defense. As the Attack/Defense ratio increases, you graduate to the next piece of the function which has a higher maximum range than the previous piece. IDK if Elden Ring uses the same system, or if it does then the exact values and breakpoints might not be the same. I wish it were the case, but sadly we can't see the precise damage formula in the param tables for any of the games so I guess that means it's all hard coded into the game's engine.

Even though you did a good job of explaining how damage is calculated across the board in Elden Ring as though I were a developmentally challenged 5 year old, I still barely understand anything I just watched for the last 30+ minutes. So thanks Rusty, I liked the video. Looking forward to when you rank all the particle effects 👍

This type of content is probably my favorite from you. There's something about nerding out over numbers in a game that I absolutely love. Oh, you also did an outro wtf.

Finally someone talks about how misleading the scaling grades are. FromSoft really should've used numbers instead of letters.

Finally, thank you. So that is why the powerspike between Liurnia and Caelid is so obscene. For me the natural progression was Lim->Liurnia->Caelid (I know you can go to Ley with the tunnel next to the lift but I thought that was more for speedrunners), but when you arrive to Caelid and everything starts to twoshot you to death (even with 30-40 vig) thats the reason, you weren't mean to be there yet...

I love fromsoft, but holy crap they are resolute to use the most overdesigned convoluted damage system they can conceive.

"So now, let's look at something a little more confusing" As someone who isn't a math guy, and doesn't play this game, it's already confusing enough.

You left out the fashion bonus for the armor sets, where as if you look good you will play better, and the bonus is quite significant. Wearing the Prelate armor may give that nice 19 physical negation, but the blue cape of the Beast master gives you a nice 21 bonus to skill, which make it so much easier to dodge those attacks.