Damage Scaling
As you combo the opponent, you will notice that each attack does less damage than they would individually. This is due to damage scaling, also known as damage proration.
To determine how much damage the second hit onwards (the first hit always deals 100% damage with Guard Break as an exception) in a combo will deal, there is a formula:
Damage = (Base Damage of the attack) × (Character Combo Rate) × (P1 of the first hit) × (P2 of all the preceding hits in a combo) × (Bonus proration)
Keep in mind that the first hit of a combo still applies its P2 to the second hit onwards. P2 also stacks multiplicatively. For example, for the third hit of a combo, P2 = (P2 of first hit × P2 of second hit).
| Proration Type | Description | Applies To |
|---|---|---|
| P1 | Applied only by the first attack of a combo. For multi-hit attacks, the second hit onwards will have P1 scaling applied. | Next hit onwards |
| P2 | Applied by every attack of a combo. Some multi-hit attacks will apply P2 only once, regardless of how many hits connect, while some apply P2 for each hit. These will be noted in the frame data with multiple P2 values. |
Next hit onwards |
| Bonus | An extra proration value, separate from P1 and P2, generally greater than 100%. Only some moves apply bonus proration. Only one bonus proration value can be applied at a time in a combo; using multiple moves or the same move multiple times with bonus proration in a combo does not cause it to stack. |
Next attack onwards |
| Combo Rate | Applied 2nd hit onward. Everyone has 60% combo rate. | 2nd hit onwards |
Examples
For a simple first case, let's take an example of Hakumen's combo: 5C > ODc > j.214C(Tsubaki) > 5C. The table below lists the damage and proration of each move.
| Move | Damage | P1 | P2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5C | 1100 | 100 | 92 |
| j.214C | 2500 | 90 | 92 |
So we would proceed to calculate the damage as follows:
| Move | Raw damage | P1 of the first move | P2 of the current move | Accumulated P2 | Combo Rate | Final damage | Total Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5C | 1100 | 100 | 92 | Not applied | Not applied | 1100 | 1100 |
| j.214C | 2500 | 100 | 92 | 92 | 60 | 2500×1×0.92×0.60 = 1380 | 2480 |
| 5C | 1100 | 100 | 92 | 92×92 | 60 | 1100×1×0.92×0.92×0.60 = 558 (rounded down) | 3038 |
The following example explains how P2 (once) works. Let's take an example of Rachel's combo: 5B > 3C(3). The table below lists the damage and proration of each move.
| Move | Damage | P1 | P2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5B | 600 | 100 | 85 |
| 3C | 400×3 | 100 | 79(once) |
So we would proceed to calculate the damage as follows:
| Move | Raw damage | P1 of the first move | P2 of the current move | Accumulated P2 | Combo Rate | Final damage | Total Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5B | 600 | 100 | 85 | Not applied | Not applied | 600 | 600 |
| 3C(1) | 400 | 100 | 79(once) | 85 | 60 | 400×1×0.85×0.6 = 204 | 804 |
| 3C(2) | 400 | 100 | 79(once) | 85×79 (once) = 61 | 60 | 400×1×0.85×0.79×0.6 "=" 160 (rounded down)1 | 964 |
| 3C(3) | 400 | 100 | 79(once) | 85×79 (once) = 61 | 60 | 400×1×0.85×0.79×0.6 "=" 160 (rounded down)1 | 1124 |
Finally, we provide an example of bonus proration, for example, Hazama's 6A > 236236B.
| Move | Damage | P1 | P2 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6A | 700 | 80 | 89 | 110% bonus proration |
| 236236B | 1950 | 50 | 94 |
So we would proceed to calculate the damage as follows:
| Move | Raw damage | P1 of the first move | P2 of the current move | Accumulated P2 | Combo Rate | Final damage | Total Damage | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6A | 700 | 80 | 89 | Not applied | Not applied | 700 | 700 | Bonus 110% |
| 236236B | 1950 | 80 | 94 | 89 | 60 | 1950×0.6×0.8×0.89×1.1 = 916 (rounded down) | 1616 |
1The game does not multiply all the value together at once (the final number should be 161 if calculated at once); rather, they will rounded down the numbers at some point and continuing multiplying the remaining. How that works is still unknown.
Exceptions
Certain other mechanics can affect how much damage an attack or combo deals.
Minimum Damage
Most Distortion Drives in BlazBlue will always do certain percentage of their base damage (often 20%, but can vary) at minimum regardless of damage scaling. This means that using supers at the end of combos is a good way to tack on some significant extra damage.
Standard throws always do 100% of their original damage regardless of how much damage scaling has occurred beforehand (assuming the opponent does not break your throw). This is also true for most command throws, however comboable throws (which do not allow the opponent to break them) will not have 100% minimum damage and will scale as normal.
Minimum damage is calculated after all normal combo scaling effects written above, but before bonus damage (see below).
Guard Break
If the combo "starts" from a Guard Break (meaning you start the combo after the opponent's guard is crushed), the combo damage will have an overall 80% proration starting from the first hit. However, the combo will also ignore any P1 proration, meaning that you are better off to start a combo with high P2 value.
Guard Break and DANGER (see below) does not stack additively but is multiplied together (meaning a combo starts from guard crush with DANGER applied will have an overall 96% proration with P1 ignored).
Same Move Proration
In addition to normal damage scaling, certain moves, special attacks and supers have a quality called Same Move Proration: when using the same attack twice or more in the same combo, the base damage of that attack will be reduced by 70%. Any attack afterwards will not be affected by this penalty and will scale as usual.
It is important to note that Minimum Damage will also be affected by SMP; this means that using the same Distortion Drive twice in a combo is a bad idea!
However, SMP only affects damage and not Hitstun Decay, unlike in previous version. Some combos will intentionally trigger SMP to sacrifice damage in exchange of a better position or gain other resources. For example Izayoi often triggers SMP to gain 4 stocks in her combos.
Bonus Damage
Additional bonus damage can be added in a number of ways.
Counter Hit
Netting a counter hit increases the damage of that one attack by 10%. Normal throws (aka Throw Counters), does not benefit from this bonus. Comboable throws, however, does receive this bonus damage, such as Naoto's Phantom Pain.
Multi-hit attacks will apply the bonus damage to all hits.
Active Flow
Being in Active Flow increases damage of all your attacks by 10%.
Danger State
Danger State occurs when the Barrier Gauge is emptied, including when Negative Penalty is incurred. While a character is in Danger State, they will take 20% more damage.
Damage bonuses can stack, but do so additively rather than multiplicatively. For example, hitting an opponent who is in Danger State while you are in Active Flow will cause your attacks to deal 130% of their normal damage, not 132%.
Attacks that have minimum damage have their minimum damage applied before bonus damage is added. For example, an attack that normally deals 500 minimum damage will deal a minimum of 550 damage during Active Flow.
Other Damage
Chip Damage
Special and Super attacks in BlazBlue (and most other fighting games) do small amounts of damage even if they are blocked.
Most Special and Super attacks do 5% of their base damage on block. This chip damage can be prevented by using Barrier Block. Additionally, there are certain moves that are defined to do more or less chip damage like Amane's drills (see move notes for details). Ragna's drive (Soul Eater) does chip damage which is ALSO absorbed by Ragna and converted into health. Soul Eater can be prevented with Barrier Block.
Poison and Life Drain
Poison and Life Drain (or similar effects) steadily decrease the opponent's life while active, but can never kill the opponents by themselves; the most they can do is decrease the opponent's life to 1 health. They are not considered attack/combo damage, so they are unaffected by damage scaling and not tracked by the combo counter.
Combo System
Hitstun Decay
As a combo goes on, the amount of hitstun each attack deals is reduced as it reaches certain time thresholds. Hitstun/Untechable decay is determined by the amount of time that has passed in the combo as well as what starter is used. (Note that time freezes like superflash frames do not contribute to this time, but hitstop does)
| Combo Duration | 120F~ | 300F~ | 480F~ | 660F~ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decay | -2F | -5F | -10F | Reduced to 1F |
- Starter Rating
The above table alone does not tell the whole story: each attack has a rating that determines how much "time" is instantly consumed when used as the first hit of a combo. The rating for each attack is listed in each character's frame data.
| Starter | Long | Normal | Short | Very Short |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time Consumed | 0F | 60F | 120F | 240F |
Increasing Hitstun
- Crouching Opponent
- Hitting a crouching opponent give an additional 2 frames of hitstun. This means that there are combos that only work on crouching characters. For example, Jin can combo 5C > 6C on crouching characters but not on standing characters. Some moves force standing characters to crouch and this is used in some combos to make some combos work. Extended crouching hitstun only applies while the opponent is still grounded. Virtually all normal moves performed from a crouch are also considered crouching, but very little else is.
- Fatal Counter
- Fatal Counters adds 3 frames of hitstun/untechable time to all subsequent attacks in that combo. This allows for combos that would otherwise not work. For example, Jin can combo 5B >2C only duringa Fatal combo. every character has at least one move that causes a Fatal Counter instead of a normal Counter Hit. A very small number of moves can force Fatal Counter even on a normal hit (Including during combos!).
- Fatal Counter does not stack with itself, so doing two Fatals in one combo still only adds 3 frames instead of 6, but it can stack with crouching hitstun for a total of +5 frames.
Fixed Hitstun
Some moves inflict fixed hitstun regardless of the combo length. Usually Distortion Drives, Exceed Accels, Astral Heats and throws have this property, but there are other moves, specific to each character. Usually this property simply stops certain moves behaving strangely (Players teching mid-throw, for example) but it does also mean using these moves at the end of combos is viable where other moves would fail.
Invalid Combos and Resets
Because characters can delay an ukemi, this leads to the possibility of combos that work only if the opponent did not ukemi. This means that some combos are not "true" combos; the game's HUD differentiates between the two classes of combos by showing the hit counter as red for a valid combo and blue for an invalid combo. The invalid combo HUD also show which hit was invalid.
Invalid combos still behave the same as normal combos for the purposes for damage scaling, hitstun reduction, etc.
There are some situations on defense where you intentionally delay an ukemi to avoid a mixup or a reset. For example, some players avoid performing an air ukemi against Tager's Atomic Collider grab because if you air ukemi, then he will reset you into a new combo that will likely do more damage than his Atomic Collider ender. Often this is a low risk tactic since a few extra hits at the end of an already long combo are unlikely to actually add much more damage due to the amount of damage scaling that will have stacked up. However, beware that remaining knocked down for too long without teching will allow your opponent to reset you into a fresh combo.
A number of characters have methods of forcibly restanding the opponent in order to start a new, freshly scaled combo. Jin and Nine's freezing attacks and Tager's Gadget Finger are examples of attacks that can force this type of reset.
If you cause a "purple" throw for any reason then the combo counter will reflect an invalid combo, even if that throw was a throw counter and unable to be rejected.
