Overview
The damage formula in Dragon Ball Legends is opaque, strange, and convoluted. That's why GamePress does the grunt work for you with our new DBL Damage Calculator.
If you still want to know damage calculation actually works in Dragon Ball Legends, read below for a general overview of how damage is calculated in Dragon Ball Legends. A little damage mechanics knowledge might just help you build your next PVP super-team!
The Damage Formula
$$ Damage = Base \times ArtsPower \times Stats \Delta \times Bonuses $$
Details on each of these four factors after the jump, in summary:
- Base: Base damage scales linearly with level
- ArtsPower: A damage multiplier based on the type of attack selected.
- Stats∆: Attacker's and Defender's stats influence damage in a non-linear fashion.
- Bonuses: Other damage bonuses/reductions go here.
- Damage: Actual damage output, with a small variance of 98%~100% of the calculated value.
Note that attacker's stats will be subscripted with A and defender's stats will be subscripted with D.
Base Damage
$$ Base = 26.7 + .3 \times Level_A $$
Base damage grows linearly with Attacker Level, maxing out at about 477 damage per ArtsPower at the current level cap (but eventually 3,048 at level 9999). Because this factor depends solely on Level, it does not vary from fighter to fighter nor with stats. This means if we can ignore the Stats∆ factor, attack damage simply increases incrementally as your fighter levels up.
ArtsPower
Every attack has a fixed ArtsPower value, which somewhat surprisingly do not usually vary from fighter to fighter.
When unlocking an Arts Card Level panel in Soul Boost, it increases the associated attack's ArtsPower slightly - by 5 ArtsPower for Blast/Strike Arts and by 20 ArtsPower for Special Arts - this translate to a 5% increase in damage per level for Strike and Blast Arts, and 7.7% for Special Arts.
ArtsPower at Arts Card Levels
| Attack Type | 0% SB | 100% SB | 200% SB | 300% SB | 398% SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blast | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 |
| Strike x5 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 15 |
| Strike x7 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 30 |
| Strike x8 | 45 | 45 | 45 | 45 | 45 |
| Blast Art | 100 | 105 | 110 | 115 | 120 |
| Strike Art | 100 | 105 | 110 | 115 | 120 |
| Special | 240* | 240* | 240* | 260* | 260* |
| Ultimate | 300 | 300 | 300 | 325 | 325 |
| Suicide | 135~450** | 135~450** | 135~450** | 145~485** | 145~485** |
*Pikkon and Krillin specials have 210 (230) ArtsPower.
**Suicide Artspower increases with lower HP.
Because both Base Damage and ArtsPower do not generally vary from fighter to fighter, taken together they provide a rough damage range for most fighters. For example, a level 1,500 attacker will generally do around 47,670 damage with their Strike or Blast Arts (ArtsPower = 100), against an equal matchup without any bonuses.
Stats∆
Each attack is classified as Strike, Blast, or Complex, and only the relevant stats are used for calculation.
$$ Stats \Delta = 2 ^{ \arctan ( f ) } $$
$$ f = 5/6 \times {{ Attack_A * BaseAttackBonus_A } \over { Defense_D * BaseDefenseBonus_D }} - 1 $$
Note: Specials, Ultimates, and Suicides are all considered Complex damages, and uses the average of Strike/Blast for Stats∆ calculations.
The heart of Dragon Ball Legend's damage calculation formula may look super intimating, and it is.
In essence, it compares the Attacker's Attack Stat (Strike or Blast) against the Defender's Defense Stat (Strike or Blast), and scales in a way that caps the damage range between 50% to 300%. Maybe it's easier to visualize this way:
The $2^ { \arctan (f) }$ formula has some interesting properties:
- It caps out at 300% when Attacker's Attack is significantly higher than Defender's Defense.
- It caps out at 50% when Attacker's Attack is significantly lowr than Defender's Defense.
- It's roughly linear when the two stats are fairly comparable:
When Attacker's Attack is exactly 1.2x of Defender's Defense, Stats∆ defaults to 1, and Final Damage is simply:
$$ Damage = Base * ArtsPower $$
Before bonuses.
Thus, a Level 1000 Attacker with 1.2x of Defender's Strike Defense will deal 32,850 damage with an Strike Arts Card without any bonuses.
Base Stats Bonus
When a skill description, such as Z Abilities, increases one of base stats - base Strike Attack, base Blast Attack, base Strike Defense, base Blast Defense - it does not directly affect damage. Instead, it is added into the Stats∆ factor.
If you ever wondered why your Z Ability bonus boosts damage less than expected, this is why.
Boosts to base stats always increase damage less than raw damage boosts. The greater the stats mismatch between fighters, the worse it gets.
Other Bonuses
Other Damage bonuses go here. In general, same type bonuses are additive and differ type bonuses are multiplicative.
- Tag-based damage bonuses/reductions
- Strike damage bonuses/reductions (Important: not base Strike Attack/Defense bonus, see above)
- Blast damage bonuses/reductions (Important: not base Base Attack/Defense bonus, see above)
- Raw damage bonuses/reductions
- Combo Reduction: each followup attack damage reduces by 10%.
- Suicide Attacks: increase in effectiveness with lower Attacker HP (by 10% increments).
- Color Advantage: Increase damage by 50% when effective, decrease damage by 50% when ineffective.
- Critical: Increase damage by 25%.
Final Damage
Actual damage will range from 98% to 100% of the calculated value.
Resistances
Every attack is categorized as one of 4 attack types - Slice, Pierce, Impact, Explode - with most non-Special Attacks treated as Impact damage. Damage received is reduced when Defender's resistance is above 100, and increased when Defender's resistance is below 100.
As result, a fighter like Android #19 EX with 106 Impact Resistance will take 6% less damage from most non-Special Attacks, making him slightly more tanking than at first glance.
