How your Damage is actually calculated in Raid: Shadow Legends

In this article, we are going to break down the maths that goes into your damage output in Raid Shadow Legends so that you can have an understanding of how to output the most amount of damage from your champions.

This excludes certain champions who’s multipliers are based on multiple base stats, and also excludes Enemy Max HP damage.

This is the formula for how damage is really calculated.

Total ATK (or HP or DEF for HP or DEF champions) x Skill Multiplier x Increase Damage from Books x Crit Multiplier x Mastery Bonuses x Chance of Affinity Bonus x Buffs x Passives x Defense Mitigation

• Total Attack = The total attack stat shown on your Champion page, any attack gained from an aura is also accounted for here, so x% of base Attack + shown total attack.
• Crit Multiplier is 100% + Crit Damage % assuming you always crit.
• Skill Multiplier is looked up from a Data Mined Source
• Increase damage provided by books is found on the ability description
• Buffs (example 50% Increased attack – 60% Increased Defense)
• Passives such as Bad-El’s 20% increased damage to enemies under poisons

Above is the total formula, the Defense Mitigation is a little harder to explain, so let’s focus on the pre-mitigated damage breakdown.

Total Attack x (1 + Crit Damage%) x Skill Multiplier With Books x Mastery Effects x Buffs, Passives, Affinity Multipliers

From this formula, it is clear that books and masteries are of significantly more value than previously anticipated.

For example, for a champion with 250% damage, a 10% Damage increase from a skill book is 1.1 x the above formula.

Whereas +10% Crit Damage is only turning your crit multiplier from 3.5 = (1 + 250%) to 3.6 = (1 + 260%) which is only a 3.6/3.5 = 2.8% increase in damage.

For example, with numerical values:

Let’s take Kael and his A2 – Acid Rain – 100% Crit rate vs Void Affinity.

Kael has 1,200 base attack and his A2 has a multiplier of 4.65 x ATK and can be booked for 20% more damage.

If you build your Kael with 3,000 attack and 180% Crit Damage – No masteries, his damage would be:

3,000 [Total Attack] x 2.8 [Crit Multiplier = 1 + Crit Damage % / 100%] x 4.65 [Skill Multiplier] x 1.2 [Additional Damage from Books]

3,000 x 2.8 x 4.65 x 1.2 = 46,872 (Damage before Mitigation)

Now lets say, you roll an item and it gains +5% attack
5% of his base attack is +60 attack so his new damage breakdown is:

3,060 x 2.8 x 4.65 x 1.2 = 47,810

Instead of that +5% attack, let’s compare +5% Critical Damage, which changes the Critical Multiplier to 2.85 instead of 2.8, his new damage would then be

3,000 x 2.85 x 4.65 x 1.2 = 47,709

So:

5% C.Dmg gained us 837 damage
5% Attack gained us 938 damage

Now as a comparison – instead of adding stats, we will add the 5% damage gain from Heart of Glory mastery (when attacking with full hp)

3,000 x 2.8 x 4.65 x 1.2 x 1.05 = 49215.6
So a 5% Damage mastery caused a 2,343 gain in overall damage.

How do buffs/debuffs affect this?

Just as examples:

A 50% Increase attack buff, would further increase the total attack value by 50%
Bad-El’s passive is a straight 20% increase on this damage
25% Weaken debuff on the enemy, is a straight 25% increase on this damage.

In this case with Kael, it’s clear +5% Attack is better than +5% Crit Damage. With 180% Crit Damage, the point at which Crit Damage and Attack are equally valuable is when Kael has 2.8 x 1,200 Attack or 3,360 Attack.

Summary:

The perfect build is to aim for the ratio between Total Attack to Base Attack to be 1+ Crit Damage % / 100%

The damage from booking a champion likely will increase damage more than adding more base stat to your champion.