Tools of the Trade - Melee Weapons
Melee Weapons Usage 1 | Melee Weapons Usage 2 | Weapon Creation and Improvement Part 1 | Weapon Creation and Improvement Part 2 | Affinity | Sword | Great Sword | Hammer | Lance | Dual Blades | Long Sword | Gunlance | Hunting Horn | Hunting Horn Sheet Music
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | [Weapons Usage -Affinity-]
Hello! I'm sure you've heard about Affinity before! You haven't!? Well then, allow me to take a little time and teach you the joys of a little something called Affinity. It's a topic that applies to both melee and ranged weapons, you know! |
| 2 | With any weapon, there are times when you will cause more damage, or conversely, times when your weapon will not be as powerful as you thought. These times are governed by Affinity. Look at your weapon's equipment details. On the second page, there is an entry for Affinity. |
| 3 | If the Affinity number is positive, there is a higher chance you'll cause heavy damage, meaning your weapon has the possibility of knocking an enemy out in a single blow. For melee weapons, it seems that high Sharpness raises Affinity. This also means you cannot allow Sharpness to fall! There's no chance of high Affinity with your sharpness in the red! |
| 4 | Now if your Affinity number is negative, there is a good chance you'll do less damage than your weapon is capable of. It won't drop to half, but 3/4 damage is a real possibility. Even if your weapon's Attack is high, you must always be aware of your chance of failure at the worst moment. |
| 5 | Some monster's materials have the ability to raise Affinity, while others can lower Affinity. Skills can also raise this number. A perfect example of this is the Expert Skill. Don't forget this golden nugget of information. |
| 6 | It all comes down to using the weapon you have in your hand, otherwise you will never know its true capabilities. Even if your Attack strength is low, a high Affinity may allow you to cause unimaginable damage. Now head out to the field and try as many weapons and materials as you can. |
-NOTE: A critical hit deals 125% damage of its raw damage. Suppose that a weapon does 100 raw damage. A positive Affinity of 10% means you can deal 125 damage from 10% of your total hits. A negative Affinity of 10% means you can deal 75% damage from 10% of your total hits. However, it should be noted that, especially with Tigrex weapons, the negative affinity can sometimes be overlooked as a POSITIVE.
Let's say a weapon with 300 raw had a neg. affinity of 10%. That means it has a chance of only dealing 225 damage. You can instead, due to its high raw power, overlook it and see it as a weapon of 270 raw that has a 90% chance of 300. It's not much, but it does show you the positive side of negative affinity. So in total, you'll deal 9 of 10 hits with 300 and only one hit with 225 (9x300+270=2970).
To see how the chances work out well with -affinity: Your chance in -affinity seen as total damage x0.75 will give you a legit number you have to decrease. For example: If your weapon has 300 damage and -20% affinity, it's like a normal weapon with 285. 300 in 4 of 5 hits will cause you to deal 1425. And 1425/5 = 285.
To calculate the average raw damage of a weapon with 15% affinity you just have to multiply its raw damage with 3.75% (= 1.0375).
It's calculated this way (i.e. 100 raw and 15% affinity):
100 * 0.85 + 100 * 1.25 * 0.15 = 85 + 18.75 = 103.75
To show how you get the multiplier:
100 * 0.85 + 100 * 1.25 * 0.15 = 100 * (0.85 + 1.25 * 0.15) = 100 * 1.0375 = 103.75
The 0.85 states the hits with normal damage and the 0.15 * 1.25 states the hits with affinity damage.
For other affinities you just have to change the 0.15 with your affinity as decimal and the 0.85 with 1 - your affinity as decimal.
Note: Affinity and its relation to attack power and sharpness frequently lead to confusion. The actual rules can be summarized as follows.
- Positive affinity is the chance that a hit will deal 25% more raw damage (attack power multiplied by 1.25)
- The amplitude of negative affinity ist the probability to inflict 25% less raw damage (attack power multiplied by 0.75)
- In both cases, the expectation value of raw damage (average of many hits excluding elemental damage) changes simply by one quarter of the affinity percentage (e.g. -40% affinity implies 10% less damage or a factor of 0.9 in average)
- Wearing down a blade from white to blue or from blue to green sharpness reversibly decreases positive affinity in steps of 5%. Nonpositive affinity (0% or less) will not depend on sharpness.
- Raising neutral or negative affinity to a positive value using the expert armor skill (reckless abandon) will unlock the sharpness dependent affinity summand, i.e. 5% for blue and 10% for white or purple sharpness.
- Red sharpness will always enforce an affinity of 0% (this rule has little relevance, as the other penalties for red sharpness are tremendous)