Welcome to the world of Mandragora! This series of ‘Dev Diary’ posts will take you behind the scenes and give you a more in-depth look at all the cool features you can expect from our game as we get closer to release.
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Hi everyone!
We hope you’re excited for another installment of our Dev Diary series, where we’re showcasing different key aspects of Mandragora.
Today’s topic: Damage Types and Effects!
We already mentioned quite a few Damage Types as well as some Status Effects in our previous Dev Diaries. You may have also experienced some of them firsthand when playing the Mandragora Demo!
So in today’s installment, we’ll be discussing all those damage types and status effects in further detail!
In Mandragora, your Weapons, Active Skills, and Talents can cause one or more types of damage.
Each damage type has an associated Status Effect which can be applied based on the corresponding Status Effect Chance when dealing direct damage of that type. Some effects may also directly apply Status Effects.
This is the base damage type of all weapons and Combat Skills.
Physical damage can be increased by either Strength or Dexterity which is indicated in the Weapon or Active Skill tooltip.
In the above case, the base damage of the Broadsword (95) is increased by Strength with a C+ scaling quality that increases its damage to 103.
With better scaling, that value would be higher - and with a worse scaling rank, the final damage value would be lower. To help you rank items by their scaling quality, Mandragora uses a ranking system from D to S+, with S+ being the strongest.
Weapons can also scale with multiple attributes. For example, a Copper Straight Sword scales with both Strength (B) and Dexterity (C).
However, damage scaling has diminishing effects, which are separate for each Attribute. So here, even if Strength scaling is stronger than Dexterity, if you put a lot of Talent Points to Strength, you will reach a threshold when Dexterity becomes a better choice.
You can always check which attribute gives you more damage when selecting attributes in the Talent Tree.
Physical damage is mitigated by both Armor and Physical Resistance and can cause 2 Status Effects: Poison and Bleed. Let’s take a closer look at what these entail:
Bleed Status Effect
- Bleed can be applied when dealing direct Physical damage.
- Bleed deals Bleed damage over a short duration and the damage is increased based on the target's maximum Health.
- Bleeding targets also take increased Physical damage.
- Bleed effects do not stack.
- Bleed damage can be reduced by increasing Bleed Resistance.
Poison Status Effect
- Poison can be applied when dealing direct Physical damage.
- Poison deals Poison damage over a long duration.
- Multiple Poison effects can overlap on a target, up to 5 stacks.
- Poison damage can be reduced by increasing Poison Resistance.
Astral, Chaos, Fire, Wyld, Void, and Frost damage are all considered Magic damage.
All Magic damage on weapons can be increased by the Power or Spirit Attribute, indicated on the weapon’s tooltip:
Duskblade deals 70 Physical base damage, which is scaled by Strength (A). It also deals 65 Fire and 55 Chaos base damage, which is scaled by both Power (B+) and Spirit (C+).
Astral Spells, Astral Talents, and some weapons can cause Astral damage by default. You can also apply Astral Oil (consumable) or an Astral Runestone (permanent enchant) to your weapon to add extra Astral damage to it.
Astral Spell damage is increased by your Spirit Attribute and the Spell Buff Attribute of your Off-hand Item:
Enemies’ Astral Resistance mitigates the Astral damage they receive. (Note: Playable characters don't have Astral Resistance.)
Astral damage can cause the Lightbrand Status effect - and some Astral Spells and Talents can also generate Light Barrier.
Lightbrand Status Effect
- Lightbrand can be applied when dealing direct Astral damage.
- Lightbrand lasts a short duration and heals you for a portion of Astral damage taken by the target.
- Lightbrand effects do not stack.
Light Barrier
Light Barrier is a damage absorption effect generated by certain Astral Spells and Talents. Light Barrier absorbs all incoming damage at 100% efficiency. The maximum amount of Light Barrier you may have at any time is limited to 20% of your maximum Health.
By default, Chaos Spells, Chaos Talents, and some weapons can cause Chaos damage. To add extra Chaos damage to your weapon, you can also apply Chaos Oil (consumable) or a Chaos Runestone (permanent enchant) to it.
Chaos Spell damage is increased by your Power Attribute and the Spell Buff Attribute of your Off-hand Relic:
Enemy Chaos Resistance mitigates the Chaos damage they receive. (Note: Playable characters don't have Chaos Resistance.)
Chaos damage can cause the Weakness Status effect.
Weakness Status Effect
- Weakness can be applied when dealing direct Chaos damage.
- Weakness reduces the target's Movement Speed by 25% and increases their Chaos damage taken by 15% for a short duration.
- Weakness effects do not stack.
For those who want to wield the power of fire, remember that Fire Spells, Fire Talents, and some weapons can cause Fire damage by default.
If you’d like to add extra Fire damage to your weapon, you can also apply Burning Oil (consumable) or a Fire Runestone (permanent enchant) to it.
Fire Spell damage can be increased by your Power Attribute and the Spell Buff Attribute of your Off-hand Relic:
Fire damage is mitigated by Fire Resistance and can cause the Burn Status effect:
Burn Status Effect
- Burn can be applied when dealing direct Fire damage. Burn deals Fire damage over a short duration.
- Burn effects do not stack.
- Burn damage can be reduced by increasing Fire Resistance.
To harness the power of nature, you can cause Wyld damage by default with Wyld Spells, Wyld Talents, and some weapons. To add extra Wyld damage to your weapon, you can buff it by applying Wyld Oil (consumable) or a Wyld Runestone (permanent enchant).
Wyld Spell damage is increased by your Spirit Attribute and the Spell Buff Attribute of your Off-hand Relic:
Wyld damage is mitigated by Wyld Resistance and can cause the Root Status effect.
Root Status Effect
- Root can be applied when dealing direct Wyld damage.
- Root snares the target, preventing them from moving for a short time.
- Root effects do not stack.
Only enemies who gain their powers from Entropy can cause Void damage.
Void damage is mitigated by Void Resistance and it is the only damage type without a Status Effect.
Last but certainly not least, we have Frost damage, which is wielded by those who really want to ice their enemy out.
Stay on your toes when facing an enemy using this, as Frost damage is incredibly dangerous - mainly because it can cause the target to be Frozen in place!
Frost damage is mitigated by Frost Resistance and can cause the Chill and Frozen Status effects.
Chill Status Effect
- Chill can be applied when dealing direct Frost damage.
- Frost damage taken is increased by 5% per Chill Stack.
Frozen Status Effect
- At 5 Chill Stacks, the target becomes completely Frozen for 3 seconds.
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And that’s a wrap!
We hope you enjoyed reading this latest Dev Diary and learning more about damage types. It’s really exciting for us to be able to share even more Mandragora with you, and we hope you’re looking forward to the next one!
And if you’d like to take a closer look at the features highlighted in these Dev Diaries, don’t forget: the Mandragora Demo is live here on Steam right now, ready for you to play!
Have anything you’d like to share on this latest topic? Please let us know right here in the comments below or over on our Discord!