Dodging
A few abilities and effects provide a percentage chance to dodge attacks. Dodging is similar to defense, except
that it is absolute. Whereas defense can be overcome with a high attack score, a chance to dodge applies
regardless of the aggressor’s attack score.
DAMAGE
The damage inflicted by a basic attack is a combination of the weapon’s damage rating and the attacking
character’s primary attribute—strength for warriors, magic for mages, and dexterity for warriors.
However, while swings from a warrior’s weapon or shots from a rogue’s bow are very powerful, they are also
slow. By contrast, a rogue wielding two daggers may not cause much damage with each hit, but the strikes
come at blinding speed. These differences are why the Attributes and Inventory screens also indicate damage
per second (DPS) for the character’s equipped weapons.
Weapon damage is important even for characters who concentrate on using spells or talents because damage
inflicted by abilities is almost always a multiple of the character’s basic attack damage.
Armor
Armor mitigates physical damage—if a character’s armor is rated at 10%, the character suffers 10% less
damage from physical attacks than they would otherwise. Like attack and defense, the armor percentage is
calculated relative to an opponent of the same level, so the percentage degrades if characters do not continually
find better armor.
Keep in mind that armor is completely ineffective against the different types of elemental damage, which are
instead counteracted by specific resistances.
Elemental Damage
There are five types of elemental damage—fire, cold, electricity, nature, and spirit. Most offensive spells produce
one of the types of elemental damage, and some weapons inflict elemental damage instead of physical damage.
Weapons that have been enchanted by runes (see p. 30) may inflict several different types of damage simultaneously.
If you enable damage numbers in the Interface Options screen, you can identify different types of damage by the
color the text appears in:
Damage to your party is red, no matter the type
Physical damage is white
Fire damage is orange
Cold damage is blue
Electricity damage is yellow
Nature damage is medium green
Spirit damage is purple
Healing is bright green prefaced by a + symbol
Elemental Resistances
Each type of elemental damage is counteracted by a specific resistance in the same way that armor counteracts
physical damage. For example, characters with 10% fire resistance suffer 10% less fire damage. As with armor,
party members’ elemental resistances change based on enemies’ rank and relative level.
If enemies have significant resistance to a certain type of damage, a small shield appears next to their name
whenever they’re hit by that element.
