How do I deal more damage?
Choose a strong ability, improve the stat it uses, and exploit the enemy’s weakness. Defense matters too: the same build will hit a minimum-defense test target much harder than a tough enemy.
- Power compares strength: with everything else equal, twice the power means twice the raw damage.
- More hits does not automatically mean more damage. An ability’s power is divided between its hits.
- Weakness and stagger are big opportunities: each normally multiplies HP damage by 1.5.
Read the FF Resonance damage formula, worked example, and evidence limits →
Keep the ability and stats fixed, then change the target:
Illustrates ordinary multipliers, below the damage cap.The ordinary cap is 9,999 per hit. That can limit an upgrade’s benefit even when its uncapped damage would be higher.
Formulas, examples & evidence
Power is a direct coefficient. At identical stats, conditions and hit shares, power 33 produces 2.75 times the raw total damage of power 12. Multiple hits divide the skill’s power; three hits do not automatically triple it.
r = effective attack / max(effective defense, 1)
F(r) = 0.5r if r < 0.5
r² if 0.5 ≤ r < 1
8 / (1 + exp(1 − r)) − 3 if r ≥ 1
K = 0.6 × (effective attacker level + 2) × F(r)
Effective power = base power × (1 + applicable power bonuses)
+ flat power additions
Damage for hit i ≈ K × effective power × variance
× element × critical × staggered-target multiplier
× eligible area multiplier × (1 + HP damage bonuses)
× ordinary incoming reduction × hit share[i]Physical attacks use physical attack against physical defense. Magic uses magic attack against magic defense, with a Sanctity path for Light magic. F(r) approaches 5 at very high attack/defense ratios. That limits this ratio contribution, not total damage.
| Separate factor | Ordinary value |
|---|---|
| Damage variance | Approximately 0.95–1.05; mean approximately 1 |
| Critical hit | 1.5, plus applicable critical-multiplier additions |
| Enemy elemental weakness | 1.5 HP damage |
| Already-staggered target | 1.5 HP damage when the calculation allows it |
| Area-target penalty | 0.4 only when the skill’s isApplyAllMag flag applies |
| Player damage cap | Normally 9,999 per hit; cap-raising effects can increase it |
Applicable HP-damage bonuses commonly add in one bucket: a qualifying +20% physical damage bonus and +40% elemental damage bonus yield 1 + 0.2 + 0.4 = 1.6. Weakness, crit and an already-staggered target are separate multipliers; their ordinary combined multiplier is 1.5³ = 3.375.
HP damage is ultimately truncated per hit. Minimum damage, late mitigation, survival effects and caps have their own ordering, so a universal “floor everything, then force at least one” formula is incomplete. The calculator reports an expectation before final HP truncation; tiny hits can differ noticeably.
MP-cost modifiers multiply
Positive MP cost = truncate(max(1, base MP × product of applicable cost factors)) Zero base MP cost stays zero.
Half MP Cost and a qualifying +50% cost effect yield 0.5 × 1.5 = 0.75 of base cost. A 17-MP skill becomes 12 MP in that combination. AP equipment cost and LB cost are separate resources.
How do Espers help in battle?
Fina and Archwitch Fina can summon Espers after the required story progression. A normal summon costs 50 MP and stays for three turns. Only one Esper can be summoned at a time.
Summoning Ifrit brings an ally into battle. Hellfire is one of Ifrit’s combat actions; summoning him does not mean he casts Hellfire three times. Each Esper has its own combat kit and AI.
Choose an Esper for the actions you need: elemental damage, disruption, healing or protection. Compare their combat kits →
The builder lets Fina and Archwitch Fina consider an Esper separately from their equipment. That planning choice is not included in damage or gear rankings.
Evidence & calculation limits
The summon commands, three-turn descriptions, one-Esper tutorial and separate combat units are present in the game files. The exact level assignment, action sequence and turn accounting have not yet been verified. Do not add an Esper’s stats to the summoner or estimate its contribution as three signature attacks.
Older tutorial text describes equipping Espers as visions, but the command tables give Fina and Archwitch Fina a separate summon command. The planner does not change the Vision slot or infer ownership from your save.
Which stats should I raise?
Start with the action you want to improve. Physical attacks generally use Physical Attack; ordinary magic uses Magic Attack. Healing and the Light-magic calculation use Sanctity, which grows with Spirit. A physical Light attack still uses Physical Attack.
| Your goal | Look for |
|---|---|
| Hit harder physically | Strength, Physical Attack, and bonuses that apply to that attack |
| Hit harder with ordinary magic | Magic, Magic Attack, and matching spell bonuses |
| Improve ordinary healing | Spirit / Sanctity and healing bonuses |
| Survive longer | HP and the defense matching the enemy’s attack |
| Act sooner | Speed |
More MP lets you cast more often. It does not make each cast stronger. Check an ability’s calculation type rather than relying on its name or element alone.
Formulas, examples & evidence
| Stat | What it does |
|---|---|
| HP | Maximum health. More HP improves survival against HP damage, including many attacks which ignore defense. |
| MP | Resource spent on applicable skills and spells. It does not inherently raise damage. |
| Strength | Feeds physical attack one-for-one. Weapon physical attack is added separately. |
| Stamina | Feeds physical defense one-for-one. Armor physical defense is added separately. |
| Magic | Feeds magic attack one-for-one. Applies to the ordinary magical attack path. |
| Spirit | Feeds magic defense and Sanctity one-for-one. |
| Sanctity | Attack attribute for healing and Light magic. It starts with full Spirit plus any separate Divine/Sanctity contribution. |
| Speed | Affects turn order. It does not supply a general accuracy or critical-rate bonus. Extra actions and forced-last effects are separate. |
| AP | Ability equipment capacity, distinct from MP and MRP. Base capacity is 100; permanent MR rewards can increase it. |
| Physical / magic attack | Final combat attributes used in the attack-to-defense ratio. Primary stats, equipment and relevant stat effects feed them. |
| Physical / magic defense | Final combat attributes in that ratio. They are not a fixed amount subtracted from damage. |
| MRP / Mastery Rank | Character-specific progression with a vision. It unlocks permanent stats/AP and learnable abilities. |
Naked stat at level L = level-one base + sum of growth rows through L Fixed stat base = naked stat + MR rewards + item flats + permanent gains Final stat = fixed base + sum of individual passive stat contributions Physical attack = full Strength + physical-attack equipment / modifiers Physical defense = full Stamina + physical-defense equipment / modifiers Magic attack = full Magic + magic-attack equipment / modifiers Magic defense = full Spirit + magic-defense equipment / modifiers Sanctity = full Spirit + separate Divine / Sanctity contributions
Growth rows are increments. Naked level-10 Lasswell has 602 HP, 94 MP, 62 Strength, 70 Stamina, 45 Magic, 59 Spirit and 61 Speed. Equipment, mastery and passives can explain a higher value on the character screen.
A percentage stat passive uses the fixed base for its own parameter, excluding other same-stat passive contributions. Each contribution is truncated individually before the game adds them. With fixed Speed 61, separate +20% and +10% effects add 12 and 6, producing 79. They do not compound into 80. The native float32 calculation includes a tiny epsilon, which can affect negative percentage truncation. Playable stats are bounded from 0 to 9,999 in this build.
Why does damage change?
Three separate things can change the result: whether the hit lands, whether it crits, and a small random damage roll.
| What happened? | What it means |
|---|---|
| A miss | That hit deals no ordinary damage. |
| A critical hit | Normally 50% more damage for that hit; some effects change this. |
| A slightly different number | Ordinary physical and magic damage vary by about ±5%, even without crits. |
The large calculator number is an average expected result, including accuracy and the selected ability’s critical chance. The low–high variance display keeps those assumptions; it is not a promise of the smallest and largest individual result you can roll.
Crit chance depends on the selected ability and its bonuses. Eligible spells can crit too.
Formulas, examples & evidence
There is no single universal character crit rate. Each attack has its own threshold; for example, a threshold of 2 gives about a 1.01% chance and a threshold of 3 gives about 2.02%. An eligible hit compares the modified threshold with a fractional random roll.
T = skill crit threshold + sum of applicable threshold bonuses Rcrit = float32(1 + N × float32(99 / 32767)) Critical if T ≥ Rcrit; N is an integer from 0 through 32767. Damage variance = approximately 0.95 + 0.1 × N / 32767 The variance and crit checks use separate draws.
| Threshold | Actual probability under uniform draws |
|---|---|
| 2 | 1.0101% |
| 3 | 2.0203% |
| 22 | 21.2128% |
| 23 | 22.2229% |
| 100 | 100% |
Adding 20 changes threshold 3 to 23, rather than multiplying it by 1.2. The probability gain is roughly 20.20 percentage points until capped. Eligible spells can crit too.
Critical-multiplier effects add to the base 1.5: a +30% CritMul effect produces 1.8. Critical Boost is different: it adds +40% to the HP-damage bucket on physical crits. Expected damage therefore evaluates normal and critical outcomes separately: (1 − p) × normal damage + p × critical damage.
Accuracy is another check
H ≈ truncate(clamp(skill accuracy + accuracy bonuses − evasion, 0, 100)
× (1 − relevant resistance / 100))
Evasion contributions are capped at 75.
Rhit = 1 + min(99, truncate(N × 100 / 32767))
Hit if Rhit ≤ H.The hit roll is integer-valued; the crit roll is fractional. An already-staggered enemy bypasses the ordinary random accuracy check after full-resistance checks. Forced misses, status resistance and special calculation flags can still matter. A miss does not deliver the ordinary HP or stagger damage.
How do I heal more?
For ordinary Cure-style healing, improve Spirit / Sanctity and healing bonuses. Enemy defense, weakness, and crit bonuses do not make Cure heal more.
For example, Cure with Sanctity 128 averages about 300 HP. A total +40% healing bonus raises that to about 420 HP. An ally missing only 100 HP normally receives only 100 HP.
Formulas, examples & evidence
Cure uses Sanctity, not the enemy-damage formula. Caster level affects recovery through stat growth; enemy defense, elemental weakness and critical chance do not increase ordinary Cure healing.
r = caster Sanctity / 256
G(r) = 1 + r if r < 1
4 / (1 + exp(1 - r)) if r ≥ 1
Potential healing = skill power × G(r)
× (1 + applicable healing bonuses) × varianceCure has power 200 and costs 6 MP before cost modifiers. With Sanctity 128, it averages about 300 potential HP. Healing Magic +10% and +30% add to +40%, giving about 420 HP. Generic damage bonuses and crit modifiers do not belong in this healing calculation.
Variance is approximately ±5%. The final amount is truncated and normally capped at 9,999, and actual recovery is limited by the recipient’s missing HP. The calculator’s healer default uses potential recovery for an ordinary living ally; special recovery effects, overhealing and undead reversal need separate handling.
Healing formula evidenceHow do I survive longer?
HP gives you a bigger health pool. Defense reduces matching incoming damage. Which is better depends on the enemy and your current stats.
Use Physical Defense against ordinary physical attacks and Magic Defense against magic. HP also helps against many attacks that ignore defense. No single defense build is best against every enemy.
Separate 20% and 30% damage reductions leave you taking 56% of the original damage—44% less, rather than 50% less.
Formulas, examples & evidence
Flat defense works through F(enemy attack / your defense). Percentage mitigation acts later. Two applicable reduction effects of 20% and 30% produce 0.8 × 0.7 = 0.56 damage taken: 44% combined reduction. This does not prove that duplicate copies of the same status can coexist.
Ordinary damage chain → ordinary mitigation product → hit share → applicable minimum-one handling → later mitigation product → survival / overrides → integer truncation → applicable cap
The calculator compares HP / expected incoming damage for the enemy stats you enter. This is a scenario-based hits-to-KO measure, not a universal HP × Defense formula. It averages the entered ordinary attack; it does not guarantee survival of a random critical or a scripted boss attack.
70 HP or 10 defense?
The answer depends on your HP, defense and the attacker’s stats. This comparison holds mitigation and other factors constant:
Use physical defense for an ordinary physical attacker and magic defense for magic. More HP also helps against damage that ignores those defenses. Percentage-HP attacks, instant death and special survival effects need their own comparison.
Why should I stagger enemies?
Stagger is a second objective beside removing HP. Emptying the enemy’s stagger gauge disrupts its turn and creates an opening for more damage.
- Use elemental weaknesses: they normally triple stagger damage.
- Pick abilities with strong stagger values. Raising Strength or Magic alone does not directly raise their base stagger damage.
- Take advantage of the opening: an already-staggered target normally takes 50% more HP damage.
- Stagger every enemy in one turn to earn party bonus actions and enable a vision’s Resonance at the end of the bonus phase.
In the calculator, “Already staggered” means the enemy is staggered before the chosen attack begins. It does not simulate breaking the gauge halfway through that attack.
Formulas, examples & evidence
Stagger uses the stored stagger value, not HP power, Strength or Magic. It has no ±5% damage-variance roll. It reuses the hit’s critical result and critical multiplier, and applies a separate level-gap factor.
Base = skill stagger value
Mbase = 1 + outgoing base-stagger bonuses + incoming base-stagger bonuses
Flat = outgoing flat stagger additions
Mbreak = 1 + sum of eligible stagger-damage modifiers
Mtarget = product of target stagger-defense factors
Gap = attacker level − target level
Lgap = 1 + 0.1 × Gap^0.6 if Gap > 0
1 if Gap = 0
max(0.1, 1 − 0.1 × abs(Gap)^0.6) if Gap < 0
Raw stagger for hit i = (Base × Mbase + Flat) × eligible area factor
× stagger element factor × critical multiplier
× Mbreak × Mtarget × hit share[i] × Lgap
Stagger damage for hit i = truncate(raw stagger + 0.5)| Element response | Stagger multiplier |
|---|---|
| Neutral | 1 |
| Weakness | 3 |
| Half | 0.5 |
| Immune / absorbed | 0 |
Positive stagger damage rounds to nearest per hit. At equal levels and neutral element, a noncritical two-hit attack with base stagger 25 and 50/50 shares deals 13 + 13 = 26. A single hit at the same base deals 25. There is no remaining stagger damage after the enemy is already staggered; a multihit move can empty the gauge before its last hit.
Stagger modifiers occupy separate groups. Placidity’s +40% contributes a 1.4 outgoing multiplier. Null Moon’s already-applied target debuff contributes a separate 1.3 multiplier. Together they produce 1.82 before per-hit rounding. Applying Null Moon does not retroactively increase the hit that applied its debuff.
An HP-damage bonus does not directly raise stagger power. Increased crit chance can raise expected stagger because critical hits also increase stagger damage.
Bonus phase and Resonance
- Reducing an enemy’s stagger gauge to zero prevents its normal turn action and increases damage it receives.
- The character that staggers an enemy gains an extra action at the end of the round: the bonus phase.
- Staggering every enemy in one turn produces a sweeping stagger and gives the party extra actions.
- A sweeping stagger enables a vision’s Resonance at the end of the bonus phase.
Enemy-specific scripts can change reactions and recovery. A nonzero default stagger field on a support skill does not mean the support skill damages the gauge.
How do Limit Bursts work?
Limit Bursts spend LB gauge, not MP. One gauge is 100 units. Learning a level-2 LB unlocks room for a second gauge, but each burst still has its own cost.
Check the character’s level-sorted ability list to see when a stronger burst unlocks. Some bursts also grow stronger with character level; that is separate from unlocking the upgraded ability.
Taking damage, staggering enemies, and specific passive effects can build gauge. A high damage preview does not mean the burst is ready to use—you still need its gauge cost.
Formulas, examples & evidence
One LB gauge is 100 units. A second gauge becomes available after learning a level-2 LB, allowing a 200-unit maximum. Skill costs are separate: Null Moon consumes 100, while Transient Rite consumes 200. A theoretical build still needs enough banked LB to use its selected burst.
“Level-2 LB” is an unlock tier. Character-level power scaling is a separate attached effect. Lasswell’s bursts use:
Null Moon power = 22 × (1 + effective character level / 15) Transient Rite power = 33 × (1 + effective character level / 15)
At level 15 those powers are 44 and 66. Do not apply this scaling to every LB by name; only skills with the corresponding effect receive it.
Gauge gained from receiving damage
Base LB gained = truncate(50 × min(HP damage, HP before the hit) / max HP) Final gain = truncate(base gain × applicable LB gain-rate factor) New gauge is clamped to the unit’s current gauge capacity.
A single damage result removing 10% of maximum HP produces 5 base LB units. Small hits can round to zero. Overkill does not charge as though damage beyond remaining HP were lost.
The stagger-completion branch grants either 25 LB or 50 for the sweeping-stagger case to its acting-unit recipient. Those are alternatives, not 25 + 50. Everyone gaining a bonus action does not establish that everyone receives that gauge award.
Applicable general LB gain-rate effects use a maximum-selection pool in the traced resource helper, rather than adding every printed rate. Direct gains on crits, attacks, battle start or action end have their own triggers. The calculator does not turn unverified proc frequency into guaranteed LB-per-turn or extra burst casts.
What does my vision give me?
Awakening belongs to the vision. Mastery belongs to each character’s relationship with that vision.
| Reward | How you use it |
|---|---|
| Awakening skill or passive | Equip that vision at the required awakening tier. No separate AP cost. |
| Mastery skill or passive | Free while that vision is equipped; once learned, equip it with AP when using a different vision. |
| Mastery stat or AP increase | Permanent for that character. You can change visions and keep it. |
AP is ability capacity. It limits which learned extras you can equip together; it is not spent each time you cast. MP and LB pay for using actions in battle.
A vision’s own battle-unit stats are not simply added to the character. Use the vision’s Overview to see its actual unlocks and permanent mastery rewards.
Formulas, examples & evidence
| Source | How the build receives it |
|---|---|
| Equipment passive | Automatic while the supplying item is equipped; no separate AP cost. |
| Equipped vision awakening ability | Automatic through the selected awakening tier; no separate AP cost. |
| Equipped vision MR ability | Automatic through that character’s attained MR; no separate AP cost. |
| Other vision MR ability | Learned ability that must be equipped and paid for with AP. |
| Other vision awakening-only ability | Not automatically transferable just because that vision is owned. |
| MR stat / AP reward | Permanent for that character across configured learned visions. No need to equip that vision. |
| Spirit mastery ability | Bundles that vision’s MR active/passive abilities for its listed AP cost. It does not re-award stats or include awakening-only abilities. |
Spirit costs vary: Terra’s is 95 AP; others in these tables range from 90 to 130. Redundant abilities already active through a Spirit or the equipped vision should not incur an additional individual AP cost.
The stat blocks for summoned visions describe separate battle units. Their hundreds of HP and their growth tables are not equipment stat bonuses for the playable character. In the extracted awakening rewards, none of the 26 visions has a direct flat-stat reward; their abilities and permanent MR benefits still matter.
Demo progression stops at character level 15 and vision mastery rank 5. The verified acquisition list supports awakening tier 2; higher tiers in the files need later materials. Read the demo availability notes.
The calculator separates equipped-vision candidates from configured MR progression. Removing a vision from the candidate list does not erase already-earned mastery stats. Set its MR to zero to model a character who has not gained those rewards.
How should I read the calculator?
Treat the calculator as a way to compare builds under the same conditions. Change one piece of gear or one target setting and see what improves.
- The minimum-defense target is a test target. Its large damage numbers do not represent a particular enemy.
- Average damage is an estimate, not a guaranteed hit. Misses, crits, variance, and caps affect the result.
- Some effects are not scored: counters, extra actions, boss scripts, and other special behavior can change the best real battle choice.
- Vision Resonance scoring remains unverified where the acting unit’s stat ownership has not been traced.
The calculations come from extracted game records and native-code research. That is evidence for the modeled rules, not a claim that every battle interaction has been tested in play.
Formulas, examples & evidence
The ordinary HP and stagger arithmetic, growth/stat assembly, equipment capacity, vision ownership, AP costs, MP-cost multiplication, crit rolls, mitigation products and the documented LB event branches are reconstructed from the installed executable and tables. This is static evidence, not a claim that every possible battle has been replayed.
Search results are ranked within a pruned combination search and the implemented effect model. Extra actions, counter chains, reactive imbues, enemy status application, duplicate status lifetime, healing over time, fixed/percentage damage, reflection and boss scripts can change actual choices. The calculator lists effects it has not assigned a numeric value. Vision Resonance scoring is excluded because its event-specific attacker-stat ownership has not yet been traced; it must not silently borrow the playable character’s stats.
Temporary effects are evaluated at the entered turn. Damage-from-MP scores hold that state fixed; they are not a simulation of buffs expiring across repeated casts. The calculator’s Demo mode uses a verified acquisition list and enforces level 15 and mastery rank 5. All game data mode permits theoretical builds beyond those limits.
New native checks also expose localization disagreements. Essence of Mundanity’s damage gate checks the base skill element, with no additional physical-only filter in that handler. Tip-Top Shape’s handler lacks its description’s physical-only restriction. These source discrepancies are identified in the calculator rather than resolved by silently trusting a label.
Evidence and reproducibility
Steam build 24032336. Sources: DT_UnitParameter, level tables, DT_UnitParameterCalc, skill/calculation/effect tables, equipment and vision mastery tables, original English Game.locres and targeted disassembly of FFRS-Win64-Shipping.exe. No game, process or save was modified.
The local analysis reports preserve exact native addresses and reasoning for stat assembly, modifier gates, stagger, mitigation and LB.
Download the combined combat research notes