The goal of this guide is to provide understandable information about a core mechanic that might not be well known, and might not be perfectly intuitive, even for regular MOBA players.

If something isn't clear, feel free to ask and I'll try to update the guide.
Comments are enabled (and I get a notification, which I probably won't miss), and alternatively you might ping me on the official Discord: @Aramitz (or @Geralt de Riv #7362).

If you notice some grammatical mistake, feel free to notify me, as I am not a native English speaker.

I am myself a relatively new player of this game, having around 35-40 hours of gameplay as I am writing this guide.
I however have experience with MOBAs, and I am fond of theorycrafting. I am interest in game mechanics, and considering the game doesn't always explain you how things work (even the wiki isn't perfectly clear or accurate or complete, at times), I wanted to investigate for myself. Publishing a guide was a logical step after, considering this is not highly confidential information.

I hope that helps.

First of all, let me quote the official wiki[eternalreturn.gamepedia.com] on this. We'll then deal with each part of the formula step by step, to avoid confusion.

Basic attack damage, aka damage dealt with your right click, on every character in the game, follows the following formula:

Originally posted by wiki:

Damage = ((Attack Power * (100 / (100 + Enemy Defense))
* (1 + Critical Strike Hit Check, (1 + Crit Damage Rate)))
+ Extra Normal Attack Damage - Enemy Normal Attack Reduction)
* (1 + Extra Normal Attack Damage% - Enemy Normal Attack Damage Reduction%)

Skill damage follows a similar formula, except you do not take normal attack buffs and reductions, and take skill amplification buff and reductions instead. Skill damage also does not take into account critical hits, considering skills do not crit at all.

Originally posted by wiki:

Damage = ((Base skill Damage * (100 / (100 + Enemy Defense)))
+ Skill Amp - Enemy Skill Damage Reduction)
* (1 + Skill Amp% - Enemy Skill Damage Reduction%)

Please keep in mind that the aforementionned formulas are kind of "default" rules. Exceptions might apply for some skills. The text description of said skill should explicitely tell you when it works differently. For example, the Rapier weapon skill inflicts damage that also scales with your crit. Some other skills might also depend on the basic attack formula instead of the skill damage one: Fiora's W, Attaque Composée, is such a skill. Again, it is explicitely stated in the skill description.

Let's take a breath, then have a look at the formulas again.
I will break them down and comment them to hopefully make them clearer.

Originally posted by wiki reminder:

((Attack Power * (100 / (100 + Enemy Defense)) [...] )

First of all, your total Attack Power -and by total I mean AP granted by your gear, and your character's base AP, since every character has some base AP at level 1, and gains a few points per level- is reduced by the enemy's Defense.

Defense is not a flat reduction. Having 100 Defense does not mean you will completely negate 100 Attack Power. Instead, it negates a part of your Attack Power.
You could write the aforementioned formula as:

Originally posted by my own incredible math skills:

Damage = Attack Power / (1 + (Enemy Defense/100))

.
Or, writing it another way:

Originally posted by still me, i'm afraid:

Reduction = 1 - (1 / (1 + Defense/100 ))

A few examples of what that means.

In other words:

1) Defense has some kind of diminitive returns: as your Defense goes higher, you need more and more additional Defense points to absorb one more % of damage received.

Considering every character has some Base Defense (14-30 at level 1, depending on the character, melee characters having the most; and also additional Base Defense per level, ending up around 40-70 depending on the character), your Attack Power will always be partly negated, even if your opponent is running around naked.


Example of Aya's base stats, including Attack Power and Defense (source: official wiki[eternalreturn.gamepedia.com]).

2) It also means that pure Attack Power might not be the best way to deal additional damage, especially as the game progresses, enemies level up and (possibly) grab some defensive gear.

3) However, getting a weapon with a high Attack Power early in the game can be absolutely devastating, as your opponents are likely going to have low Defense when you'll meet them.

Example of an Axe with high AP, that can be completed in the second zone you visit.

Are you still there ? It's only the beginning !

Then, your damage is multiplied, if you land a critical strike.
Your base critical hit chance is 0%, and you can get some on several pieces of gear. Increasing your critical strike chance thus increases the frequency of critical hits.

Example of an item increasing Critical Strike chance.

A critical strike deals 200% (double) damage by default. That rate can be improved by a few items, such as most rapiers, or the Creed of the Knight Arm. As far as I know, increases granted by gear are additive (aka you go from 200% to 225% with Creed of the Knight).

Example of an item increasing Critical Damage.

Critical Hit chance seems to be random (aka you can crit 10 times in a row with 20% if you're particularly lucky), but official confirmation or correction would be appreciated.

In other words:

1) Critical Strikes are a way for characters with high AP to scale well into the late game: being a multiplicative modificator to your AP damage mitigated by Defense, it can definitely help still dealing noticeable hits even to characters with decent Defense (Dealing a critical hit at 200% damage against a character with 100 Defense is the same as dealing a normal hit vs. 0 Defense; crit on 200 def is the same as normal hit on 50 def, etc.).

2) Critical strikes are unreliable by definition, unless you entirely build around them, which will probably mean you will be some kind of glass cannon (aka a character with terrific damage but terrible damage mitigation). Of course, having a high critical hit chance will make Critical Damage increases more interesting). Having a low critical strike chance mean you might obliterate your opponents in one fight, then struggle into another, so please remind that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

I had to make a second part due to reaching the character limit, but we are still talking about basic attack damage.

After taking into account AP, Defense, and Critical Strikes, the formula then includes this simple step:

Originally posted by wiki:

[...] + Extra Normal Attack Damage - Enemy Normal Attack Reduction) [...]

Nothing that isn't obvious here: your Extra Normal Attack Damage stat provides direct added damage, while the enemy's Normal Attack Reduction mitigates a flat amount. Both can be found on specific pieces of gear. Examples below:

An example of item providing extra normal attack damage.

An example of item providing normal attack damage reduction.

In other words:

1) Extra normal attack damage (ENAD) is flat, aka it is simply added to damage dealt, no matter how fast your hits are. Characters with high attack speed builds will naturally benefit greatly from it.

2) ENAD completely ignores Defense. Remember that considering Defense was our step one. It was in the past. Now, we don't talk about Defense anymore. As such, a character with high ENAD (and probably high attack speed) will damage even the sturdiest of tanks, should said tank rely only on having high Defense (which is not a good idea anyway), and will be comparatively much more effective against high Defense targets than a character with higher AP but no ENAD.

3) It is the same for Normal Attack Damage Reduction (NADR): it will be immensely helpful against fast attacks, no matter how high your Defense is. Of course, it is completely useless against skills, while Defense is not (cf. the following chapter about Skill damage), and has a limited relative effect against very high damage individual hits.

Our formula concludes by:

Originally posted by wiki:

[...] * (1 + Extra Normal Attack Damage% - Enemy Normal Attack Damage Reduction%)

That part is also relatively clear: after following the first three steps, you multiply your damage by a factor influenced by ENAD% and enemy's NADR% (both of with are added, and not multiplied one after the other).

The important part is that these two stats do not come from gear. The only source of this damage is your Masteries: your Weapon Mastery grants you ENAD% (between 1,5% and 5% per mastery level, depending on the weapon type[eternalreturn.gamepedia.com]), while Defense Mastery grants you NADR% (1,5% per mastery level).

In other words:

Waiting in a bush for the game to progress is absolutely not a good plan, even if you manage to grind your levels by doing something else than fighting ! You might get some nice base mastery experience by crafting your gear, but fighting actual players (even if you don't kill them) is a significant source of experience. Fighting animals will also grant some, but definitely much less. Of course, killing your opponent is better, since you get substantial bonus experience, and can take their gear. Moreover, if they're dead, the experience they got while fighting you won't be of any use to them.

But for real: if your opponent has a much higher weapon skill (you can check that by pressing TAB, it's the first number of the row) than you, especially if they're using a high % weapon (and honestly most of them grant 4 to 5% per level, low percentages being the exception), I hope you are exceptionally cunning, because you will definitely get smacked in a regular 1v1 fight. Remember that this is a multiplicative effect !

Moreover, Weapon Mastery also grant attack speed bonuses. While this bonus is the exact same one than the one you can find on gear, meaning it is additive with it, not multiplicative, it still represents another free stat gain granted by Weapon Mastery.


Here is the chart including every weapon mastery bonus, coming from the wiki.

As a conclusion, I'd say that even if there is no currency (gold coins) in this game, killing others is definitely a way to "get fed", as the experience itself is worth quite some stats.

Well, to be frank, this part is going to be much shorter than the others.
That is because the formula is roughly the same, so I don't really need to explain it with the same amount of detail.

As a reminder, here is the complete skill damage formula:

Originally posted by wiki:

Damage = ((Base skill Damage * (100 / (100 + Enemy Defense)))
+ Skill Amp - Enemy Skill Damage Reduction)
* (1 + Skill Amp% - Enemy Skill Damage Reduction%)

Defense has a similar impact on skill damage than it has on basic attack damage: the % reduced is the same. However, instead of using only your AP as base damage, it uses your skill damage (base granted by the skill's level, + AP ratio, depending on the skill).

This is one of the reasons why casters (especially casters with low or moderate cooldowns) are decent in early and mid game, as long as they have energy: your base damage is directly increased by leveling up and increasing your skill level, instead of relying on gear (even though gear definitely helps).


It is exactly the same thing than ENAD & NADR. Except these are other stats, that you will find on other pieces of gear.

Example of gear with flat skill amplification.

Except there is no gear granting flat skill damage reduction right now. Meaning low cooldown but low damage skills that are meant to be spammed cannot be completely mitigated by flat reduction.


The formula is the same, but the stats do not come from the same source.
Skill amplification % can also be found on gear, and is a great way to make sure your caster scales decently well. You also find a bit of it thanks to weapon masteries.

Example of an item granting percentage skill amplification.

Please note that % skill amplification coming from masteries do not require you to have such a weapon equipped. Meaning that technically, leveling several weapon types (if your character allows it) will grant a decently higher bonus.

Percentage skill damage reduction also comes both from specific pieces of gear, and from your Defense Mastery.

Example of an item granting percentage skill damage reduction.

It means that with appropriate gear, you will be able to mitigate a substantial amount of skill damage in the late game: your defense will greatly moderate the base damage (including the AP ratio), and then your %SDR will cut another part of the final damage.

It also means that if you are relying on skill damage, having some source of % skill amplification is probably a good idea, considering it will both help you crush squishy foes, and counter the %SDR of tankier enemies.

All of these mechanics position casters' prime time in the midgame, when they have high base damage and everyone else has relatively low defense against them.

Well, I'd like to thank you for reading this.
It took me quite some time and I feel like there is zero depth in this guide, but I still believe (or hope) that someone will benefit from its content.
Formatting is also far from perfect, but I hope information is still presented in a decently clear way.

I will probably update this guide if/when I get new insight.

Until then, best of luck in your games o/

Aramitz