How damage works in AION 2: the formula, and what each stat is really worth

AION 2 shows dozens of offensive stats and never says how they combine. Players in Korea have worked most of it out by testing, and the result explains a lot of otherwise strange advice, like why Double Chance beats Damage Boost or why Penetration is nearly worthless. This is that model in plain language.

Important: the per-stat values below were measured on an ideal Korean end-game build at the start of Season 1, with support buffs. Global characters have far fewer stats, so diminishing returns bite less and the numbers will differ, sometimes a lot. Use the order, not the decimals.

Diminishing returns in one example

Double Chance gives a chance to deal double damage. With none, 100 hits deal 100 damage. At 1% they deal 101; at 2%, 102. Going from 0 to 1% is a 1% gain, but going from 1% to 2% only takes you from 101 to 102, a gain of about 0.99%. The more you already have, the less each extra point adds. Bosses from Dying Dramata on resist 30% of Double Chance, so a sheet value of 80% plus 12% from support buffs lands near 62% in practice, and at that point another 1% adds only about 0.62% damage.

The damage formula, simplified

Damage is built in stages, and every stat lives in one of them:

• 1. Pure Attack (not an official name): Attack from your weapon, guard, accessories, Attack stat lines, Manastones and the Closet. This is multiplied by Weapon Damage Boost, then by Multi-hit and the Power Shard bonus.
• 2. Add Attack Bonus, then multiply everything by Attack Increase %.
• 3. Add the situational flat attacks: PvE Attack, Boss Attack, Species Attack and Front/Back Attack.
• 4. Multiply by the skill's coefficient, add the skill's flat damage, and subtract 10% of the target's Defense after Penetration (1% in PvP).
• 5. Multiply by the sum of Damage Boost + PvE Damage Boost + Boss Damage Boost + Species Damage Boost, then by Critical Damage, Double, Front/Back Damage Boost and the skill's specialty bonus.

Everything has been tested except where Multi-hit sits exactly; it may turn out to be outside Attack Increase. One practical consequence: the "Attack" on your stat page does not include Weapon Damage Boost, which you can check by removing Weapon Damage Boost on your Marchutan board and watching Attack stay the same.

What 1% of each stat is worth (Korean end-game)

• Double Chance: about 0.6 to 0.65% damage per 1% (about 0.8% at 50% Double Chance, 0.65% at 70%, 0.6% at 80%). The strongest offensive stat in the game right now.
• Front/Back Damage Boost: about 0.57 to 0.65%, assuming you land the positional three-quarters of the time. It starts at 0 and has its own multiplier, which is why even ranged classes stack it.
• PvP Damage Boost: about 0.6% (in PvP).
• Weapon Damage Boost: about 0.5 to 0.55%, and it grows with your Pure Attack.
• Critical Damage Boost: about 0.4 to 0.6%. It starts at 50%; classes with critical-damage passives sit near the low end, classes with guaranteed crits near the high end.
• Damage Boost: about 0.35% (0.3% for classes with lots of it). End-game totals pass 180 to 200%, and it shares its bucket with PvE, Boss and Species Damage Boost, so each point dilutes.
• Multi-hit: 1 to 4 extra hits of 5% damage each; around 36 to 40% chance, 1% is worth about 0.33%.
• Perfect: makes hits roll your maximum Attack, and also carries a small hidden damage bonus; about 0.1% per 1%.

Flat attack, per 10 points: Attack about 0.17%, Max Attack about 0.13% (it raises the top of your weapon's range and so its average), Attack Bonus about 0.1%. Then come PvE and Boss Attack, and last the conditional ones (Front/Back, Species, Critical Attack), which sit outside Pure Attack. Two yellow Attack Manastone lines are roughly one Damage Boost line.

Short version: Double Chance, then Front/Back Damage Boost, then Weapon Damage Boost, then Critical Damage Boost, then Damage Boost. For flat stats: Attack, then Max Attack, then Attack Bonus, then everything else.

Accuracy, Block and Critical Hit

Accuracy cancels the target's Block (Parry) point for point; cover it fully and every hit lands. The gap is capped: a target can parry at most 80% of the time, reached with a 1,200-point difference, so each 100 points of the gap is worth roughly 6 to 7% chance. Critical Hit against Critical Resist works the same way, with the same 80% ceiling. Skill passives add to your crit rate directly, so if a skill already crits 80% of the time, do not spend a perk on more crit.

Defence stats that matter, and some that do not

• Penetration subtracts from Defense, but Defense only removes 10% of its value from damage in PvE (1% in PvP), so 100 Penetration is worth very little.
• Damage Tolerance cancels the matching Damage Boost. Against bosses only plain, Boss and PvE Damage Tolerance count: bosses have no Weapon or Front/Back Damage Boost, no crits and no Multi-hit, so those tolerances and resists do nothing.
• Endurance is the chance to take half damage. Bosses have no Endurance Penetration, so the number on your sheet is exactly your chance.

Speed, ping and shards

Combat Speed is the stat to stack without thinking, but it is tied to your connection and frame rate: in community tests, 150 to 200 ms of extra ping cost on the order of half or more of the damage, about the same for every class tested. Power Shards are a flat win: a regular one is worth about 4.7% damage, a Superior one about 8.9%.