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, otherwise known as damage proration. To determine how much damage the second hit onwards (The first hit always deals 100% damage except in some circumstances) 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 prorations) * (any special prorations)
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 when the first hit of a combo | Next attack onwards |
P2 | Applied to every hit of a combo. There are some multi-hit attacks whose P2 will be labeled as number(once). Such attack will only apply P2 the first time the attack hits. |
Next attack onwards |
Bonus | Only some moves have Bonus Proration, in which they have proration value of greater than 100%. Using the move 2+ in a combo will not add bonus proration. |
Next attack onwards |
Combo Rate | Applied 2nd hit onward. Everyone has 60% combo rate. | 2nd hit onwards |
Special | Only some moves have Special Proration (such as Hakumen in Mugen). See character frame data for details. |
All |
- 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*.92*.60 = 1380 | 2480 |
5C | 1100 | 100 | 92 | 92*92 | 60 | 1100*1*.92*.92*.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*.85*.6 = 204 | 804 |
3C(2) | 400 | 100 | 79(once) | 85*79 (once) = 61 | 60 | 400*1*.85*.79*.6 "=" 160 (rounded down)1 | 964 |
3C(3) | 400 | 100 | 79(once) | 85*79 (once) = 61 | 60 | 400*1*.85*.79*.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*.6*.8*.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
Some attacks ignore this damage scaling. Certain scenarios will also change the formula above.
Minimum Damage
Most Distortion Drives in BlazBlue will always do 20% of the damage of attack at minimum regardless of damage scaling (a few Distortion Drives have different percentages). This means that using supers at the end of combos is a good way to tack on some 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 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 Crush
If the combo "starts" from a guard crush (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 Crush 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.
This means that using the same Distortion Drive twice in a combo is a bad idea because Minimum Damage will also be affected by SMP!
Remember that SMP only affects damage and not Hitstun Decay! Some combos intentionally trigger SMP to get a knockdown, act as combo filler, 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.
Multiple-hit attacks, if gets a counter, will also applied the bonus damage to all hits.
Active Flow
Being in Active Flow increases damage of all attacks by 10%.
Danger State
Danger State occurs when the Barrier Gauge is emptied or when Negative Penalty is incurred. When in the Danger State, they will take 20% more damage.
Damage bonuses can stack, but do so additively. If this sounds confusing, here's what the calculation looks like with all of the bonus damage listed above:
100% base damage + 10% Counter hit bonus + 10% Active Flow Bonus + 20% Danger State Bonus = 140% Total Damage
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 (via Bang's poison nail) and Life Drain (via Hazama's Overdrive) both 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.
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)
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.
- 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 on Fatal. A very small number of moves can force Fatal Counter even on a normal hit (Including during combos!).
- Fatal Counter does not stack, so doing two Fatals in one combo still only adds 3 frames instead of 6.
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.
- Amane Nishiki [★]
- Arakune [★]
- Azrael [★]
- Bang Shishigami [★]
- Bullet [★]
- Carl Clover [★]
- Celica A. Mercury [★]
- Es [★]
- Hakumen [★]
- Hazama [★]
- Hibiki Kohaku [★]
- Iron Tager [★]
- Izanami [★]
- Izayoi [★]
- Jin Kisaragi [★]
- Jubei [★]
- Kagura Mutsuki [★]
- Kokonoe [★]
- Lambda-11 [★]
- Litchi Faye Ling [★]
- Mai Natsume [★]
- Makoto Nanaya [★]
- Mu-12[★]
- Naoto Kurogane [★]
- Nine the Phantom [★]
- Noel Vermillion [★]
- Nu-13 [★]
- Platinum the Trinity [★]
- Rachel Alucard [★]
- Ragna the Bloodedge [★]
- Relius Clover [★]
- Susano'o [★]
- Taokaka [★]
- Tsubaki Yayoi[★]
- Valkenhayn R. Hellsing [★]
- Yuuki Terumi [★]
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