Are Attack Buffs Additive Or Multiplicative?

Apologies if this was covered somewhere else, I did a quick google and forum search and didn’t see anything. Most attack buffs are a percentage increase and not a flat increase. Are all of these percent boosts additive or multiplicative or is it a case-by-case basis like true SE fashion? Thanks in advance!

Food and bard songs are additive, but chaos roll and indi/geo fury are multiplicative. The formulas for how much attack you get or how much percentage attack can be found on their respective wiki pages.

Minuet
Chaos Roll
Geomancer Fury

I was entirely wrong about this. Minuet becomes more powerful as you use %-based attack increases. Minuet IV added 228 attack without Chaos Roll, after I did Chaos Roll, it added 322. TIL

While it's true the potencies of each buff is on each page, is there any true formula for what buffs are applied when:

IE: f(f(base attack*chaos)*fury)+food+songs
Or: f(f((base attack+songs)*chaos)*fury)+food
Or: f(f((base attack+songs+food)*chaos)*fury)

Edit: based on the above it looks like this would be the formula

Final attack value = base attack + f(base attack*chaos) + f(base attack*fury) + songs + food + gear(attack+ Stat)?

I'm fairly sure food does not get boosted by multiplicative buffs. Gear attack and attack from STR does.

Confirmed food is a flat bonus and not affected by (at least) Chaos Roll. I assume the same thing applies to Fury, but I don't have a GEO logged in right now to test.

That’s what I was thinking, but wasn’t home to test. Any flat rate boost(minuet, honor roll, maybe food-easy enough to test) is added on to the final number after you apply all the multiplicative percent boosts like Chaos and berserk, etc. I’ve been attempting, very slowly, to build an all jobs dps spreadsheet, and am adding in all the random attack buffs. It’s mostly for personal use but I may share it if I get it to a point I feel good about all the formulas working accurately. Got tired of outdated or non existent spreadsheets for half the jobs out there.

With this the question kinda becomes "do the stats update dynamically based on gear?"

Ie rng with malignance on during buffs gains no gear+atk during chaos, equips Ikenga during midshot so they gain 325 attack and +50‰ ish from fury/chaos?

Vs

If the buff is static, modifications to gear change the fury/chaos values by 0. Kinda like snapshotting in other games?

Still messing around with it: interestingly enough, if you aren't meeting the minimum stat to get the full effect of a food, songs will help you gain more benefit from that. Example: 1201 attack, add Soy Ramen (10% boost, up to 170) and it gives 120 attack. Add a Minuet and you gain the attack from the Minuet (228) PLUS the extra attack from the food for another 10% (up to the cap on the food, of course).

Tested this also, and it's dynamic. After removing Gleti's Knife under the effect of Chaos roll, I lose 115 attack instead of the 70 printed on the dagger.

That's because chaos roll is multiplying the bonus you get from minuet. Food effects are static and don't get multiplied by chaos or fury, but bard buffs do. So if you add 500 attack to your baseline from minuet, a chaos roll that multiplies by 25% would result in a total of 625 attack gained. That's why having both bard buffs AND chaos/fury is so impactful. They play on each other.

Yes all the flat attack bonus's get added together, then each of the multiplicative effects takes place, then food gets added at the very end.

Something like
((Base + STR + Gear + Songs,etc) * Smite * Geomancy * Rolls * Berserk * Last Resort) + Food.

Its why the trinity of BRD COR GEO is so powerful.

This order seems odd to me. Not that I'm an expert or anything.

Wouldn't Job Ability multipliers come before Rolls & Geomancy?

Traits like Smite I can see and understand coming first.

Last thing, is gear attack really multiplied by % buffs. I've popped Last Resort in town with nothing else active or changing gear and the numbers didn't add up...

If it’s multiplicative it doesn’t matter the order. 3 x 4 x 5 and 5 x 3 x 4 both equal 60.

Speaking of Smite, how does it work? Is it a damage multiplier, or is it another attack multiplier? I don’t have access to the game atm or I’d just get on and test.

well its hardly worth mentioning but this game usually truncates after each term in most formulas so you can expect some slight rounding errors if you plug in the wrong order.

Smite is a tiered attack multiplier. The percentages are on the wiki page.

The percentage-based attack boosts I've seen are all additive with each other. Their sum is then used to boost your base attack and additive attack buffs from things like BRD, traits, STR, etc.

My original testing for this was simply to demonstrate that the NIN spreadsheet incorrectly handled Kikoku Aftermath (Attack+10%), but the testing also showed that the percentage-based buffs are additive with each other.




I haven't gotten around to testing Smite, but I imagine it gets thrown in with Berserk, Kikoku, Chaos, Fury, etc when using a 2-handed weapon. I'll need to test this when I next subscribe so I can include it in my Python damage simulation GUI.



This will be a very large project. Adding stats and traits for all jobs, modifiers for all weapon skills, and all possible equipment is very tedious. My Python-based damage simulator should work well for nearly all jobs, but I've only added NIN and DRK (without Smite) right now since those are my most common DD jobs. If you wanted to see how I deal with applying buffs and stats, then you could check out my set_stats.py file. At the very least the code should provide hints for your spreadsheet progress.

So I checked in game using the formula you posted with DRK/WAR. ML26. No food or outside buffs. Just normal Attack modifiers.

- Smite is counted in the Attack Multiplier column.
-- Post adding in Smite, result was 11 Attack higher than in-game.
--- Result: 2,021. In-game: 2010.

- Once adding in additional Attack Multipliers (Berserk, Last Resort, Warcry) however, result was 29 Attack lower than in-game.
--- Result: 3,095. In-game: 3,124.

Interesting. The values should match exactly after truncation in the end. Maybe Smite does not get applied to some of the additive terms? This is a good opportunity to confirm how Smite works without having to subscribe to the game yet. Maybe somebody who already knows can post their testing details and results as well.

If you have time and are interested, could you post your exact numbers used? I think the following should be enough:

• Player STR (whatever the menu says; "120+3" for example. I only care about the base value here, without the "+")

• Value used for Smite (304/1024).

• In-game attack with only a 1-handed weapon equipped (provide the item name, augment rank, and relevant skill level. i.e. "Naegling, 430 Sword Skill").

• In-game attack with only a 2h weapon equipped (no other gear equipped)

• In-game attack with only a 2h weapon equipped and Berserk used.

• In-game attack with a 2h weapon and your tested gear equipped (with each piece of gear and their augment ranks listed).

• In-game attack with a 2h weapon and your tested gear equipped and Berserk used.

• Scythe (or Great Sword) skill level (rather than assuming capped with 8/8 merits).

• Preferably with no other buffs used unless you specify their exact potencies (food, BRD, COR, etc)

It looks like DRK gets +96 Attack from the Attack Bonus trait and +106 Attack from JP Gifts. The equation should be Attack=(8 + Gear + 96 + 106 + Skill + STR)*(1+0.25+304/1024) with only Smite+Berserk being the multiplicative terms if Smite is additive with other percentage-based buffs.


The only part of the above equation that I do not remember extensively testing in detail was adding GEO together with everything else.My testing was done as NIN/WAR with a BRD/COR. Note that my numbers matched if Berserk used exactly 25% (0.25), while other multiplicative buffs used %*10/1024 (Kikoku used 100/1024 for +10%).


Edit: I forgot to mention:
Mastered DRK gets +40 attack when using Last Resort from the Job Point Category "Last Resort Effect." I haven't tested Last Resort either, but I imagine this extra +40 is added OUTSIDE all other buffs (similar to attack from food). Otherwise the Last Resort percent-based buff would potentially boost its own +40 flat attack buff, which I suppose is possible.

Attack = (8+Gear+Traits+Gifts+Skill+STR+STR(food)+STR(buffs)+BRD)*(1+COR+GEO+Kikoku10%+Berserk + %LastResort?)+Attack(food) + 40(LastResort)

If you haven't accounted for this extra +40 at the end, then it could explain part of the deficit in your predicted attack vs measured after using Last Resort. Adding this +40 in puts your post-LastResort attack value 11 higher than measured (3135 vs 3124), which matches your pre-LastResort attack difference (2021 vs 2010). It is actually pretty strange that the difference would match after adding more buffs. You'd think the difference would increase as more buffs are added.

I assume any gear with percentage-based attack boosts like Drachenhorn are applied just like Kikoku?

Sure, I'll have to edit in later as I just logged out...

STR (naked): 144
STR (gear): 215
Attack Bonus Trait: 96
Attack Bonus Gifts: 106
Smite Bonus: 29.6% [76/256]

Scythe Skill ML26: 466+269
Sword Skill ML26: 430+250

Attack 1H (naked Naegling): 1,064
Attack 2H (naked Anguta): 1,412

Attack from gear: 246 (corrected for -10 from Dedition)
Attack 1H (geared (Naegling)): 1,495*
Attack 2H (geared (Anguta): 2,010**

Berserk (WAR54): 25+2%***
Attack 1H (gear+berserk): 1,868
Attack 2H (gear+berserk): 2,397

* No shield used for 1H geared. Forgot Naegling has Attack+30 on it!
** Utu Grip included in 2H geared.
*** Keeping +2% in post, but assuming it doesn't transfer from sub.

That sounds correct to me. This should be easy enough to test using the same method we're doing with Smite. You'll also have to consider that "+5%" could mean "+50/1000" or "+50/1024" if you do try to test it, though.

The ffxiah page has a few comments on the +5% effect, but there are no sources or numbers to back up what's been posted, which makes the claims ambiguous.


Thanks. I won't be subbed again to test this myself until January anyway, so there's no rush.

Looking back, I was not very clear on my request for STR and Skill. I'd prefer to have your base values as listed in the in-game menus (naked, no buffs, subjob=WAR). We'll calculate the total STR and total Scythe skill using the base values and gear equipped in each situation. This is why I also requested a list of gear and augment ranks in each situation to ensure that we don't accidentally double-count things later.

From your original post, we know that your in-game attack values are:

1. Gear+Smite = 2010 attack

2. Gear+Smite+Warcry+Berserk+LastResort = 3124 attack

Because I have some free time while cooking and eating, I've made a few assumptions and was able to match these values based on the information you've provided so far for STR, Scythe Skill, and attack from gear. I'm not saying these assumptions are necessarily correct, just that they happen to work in your previous two situations.

My assumptions are:

• Berserk is +256/1024 (0.25). The extra +2% quoted on BG Wiki may be incorrect or for WAR main only. I also used 0.25 for my Kikoku testing, but I don't remember if I had any ML at the time for /50WAR.

• Last Resort gives +40 flat attack that gets added with other additive buffs like BRD, gear, STR, skill, etc. In other words: the "Last Resort Effect" job point category for +40 attack gets boosted by Last Resort Attack+25%

• You're using 5/5 Last Resort merits (as you should be). This makes the effect +356/1024.

• You overcounted your attack from gear by 10 (or there was a typo somewhere). You recently posted 256, but 246 makes the numbers work. This is a silly mistake that is not likely, but the numbers do work if it is true.

Given my assumptions, we have the following attack bonuses:
Using the above attack bonuses, we can simply plug in to the equation and compare with what we see in-game:

Attack = (8+Gear+Traits+Gifts+Skill+STR+STR(food)+STR(buffs)+BRD)*(1+COR+GEO+Kikoku10%+Berserk)+Attack(food)

1. Gear+Smite = 2010 Attack
   

   • Attack = (8 + 246 + 96 + 106 + (466+269) + (144+215))*(1.0 + 304/1024)
   • Attack = (1550)*(1.296875)
   • Attack = 2010.16 = 2010
   
   

2. Gear+Smite+Warcry+Berserk+LastResort = 3124 Attack
   

   • Attack = (8 + 246 + 96 + 106 + (466+269) + (144+215) + 40)*(1.0 + 304/1024 + 72/1024 + 0.25 + 356/1024)
   • Attack = (1590)*(1.96484375)
   • Attack = 3124.10 = 3124
   
   

However, matching two data points isn't very useful. We'll still need more data points to confirm anything, so I'd still like to see the complete set of data I previously requested. I definitely want to see the list of gear being used with augment ranks just to be sure the attack from gear is 256, since one of my assumptions used 246. Although, it is likely just a coincidence that 246 worked since we only have two data points.

Updated prior post. PM'd gear set.

Thanks for sending the gear set you used. I've checked everything myself and found

STR(Gear) = 215
Attack(Gear) = 246

As we discussed through PMs (and as you mentioned in your post with the details), you simply forgot to include the "Attack-10" from Dedition Earring. The results using my previously posted equation are in the image below. I recommend opening the image in a new tab so the equations don't get cut off.



With this information, we can see that Smite is treated like other percentage-based buffs (Chaos Roll, GEO-Fury, Kikoku AM, Berserk, etc. Their effects are summed and then used as a multiplier to the player's base attack, plus bonuses from additive sources such as BRD Minuets, equipment, skill level, attack traits, etc).

It also appears that the +2% bonus attack to Berserk at Warrior levels 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90 (as mentioned on BG Wiki) only applies if you are mainjob Warrior.

Additionally, because you coincidentally used Last Resort earlier, we also have evidence that the +40 attack from Last Resort (20/20 points in the Job Point category) is applied additively with the player's base attack plus flat attack bonuses (like BRD Minuets) and then multiplied by the percentage-based boosts. Interestingly, this means that the +40 attack from Last Resort gets boosted by Last Resort's standard percentage-based buff.

The updated equation based on what we've explicitly tested so far is:

Thanks for helping me with this. I'll update my Python-based damage simulator later to include Smite when simulating DRK using a 2-handed weapon.

Glad to be of help. Was actually immensely helpful in my own understanding of what I was seeing on screen and not able to properly connect myself.