CRIT DAMAGE NERF: MY FAULT?
The damage formula used in Axie Infinity has changed greatly after the recent season 19 update. Some attacks have been reduced while others did not change that much. The stat “skill” now has a bit more impact when compared to before. Furthermore, “morale” now affects not only critical chance but also critical damage. What does this mean? In simpler terms, the more morale you have, the more critical damage you deal.
So why do I say that the nerf for critical damage was my fault? It is not completely my fault to be honest, but that I am one of those people who advocated for a change for the formula used in critical damage. Also, I have sent a feedback a month ago in Axie Infinity Discord server last month. My feedback was completely the same as the effect of the recent patch. Here was my comment:
Why does this feedback of mine feel very familiar. Hmmmm. Oh right, the new substack post! Here is the portion where it talks about the new critical damage explanation:
The Effect
So what are the exact effects of the recent patch? Skill and morale now has different formula. This means that the developers need to balance some cards that would be greatly affected by this. Let me make a comparison between card damages between the old formula and the newest formula.
OLD COMBO BONUS DAMAGE
NEW COMBO BONUS DAMAGE
Combo bonus damage is an additional damage dealt when using 2 or more cards. This added bonus damage was quite miniscule in the past so “SKILL” stat was ignored when choosing Axies. However, the new update has made the Skill stat more useful. If you compare both the new and old formula, you can see that the bonus damage for the new formula is not affected by the amount of damage being dealt of a certain card. Bonus damage will be fixed for each Axie based on their Skill. Furthermore, skill is based on the body class of an Axie. Here is the new data of Combo Bonus Damage for each class:
Based on this data, we can see that Mech Axies benefit greatly from this Skill formula revamp. However the computation for damage is not yet over. Let us not check the changes for the critical damage bonus %.
OLD CRIT DAMAGE
The formula just got more complicated right? In simpler terms, less morale = less critical damage. Here is the table showing the critical damage of each class. Note that I will be using the morale for pure breed Axies. However, since dusk, mech and dawn Axies have no cards from their class, I will be using the data from their popular builds. These builds are Mech-beast(mech using beast cards), Dusk-Termi, and Dawn Bird(dawn with bird cards).
The critical damage before was as simple as multiplying the damage of a card by 2. Now, Morale not only affects critical chance but also critical damage. But the most direct effect that the new formula has brought was the nerf of critical damage for all Axies. Aqua Axies were affected by this nerf of all Axies. They receive a 55% reduction in critical damage! Even Beast Axies were not spared from this nerf. This is also the main reason why the damage of Single Combat skill from Ronin Back part was increased by 5. It was meant to balance the damage of its effect.
The nerf for critical damage for Aqua Axies was so big that expensive build using Ronin on Aqua has been greatly nerfed. However, Aqua Axies should not be underestimated even after all the nerfs. I still think that the biggest capability of Aqua Axies lie on their impressive health and speed. As well as their high damage output skills. The improvement for Beast and Bug Axies are also a big sign that Aqua Axies will be more important as a means to counter them. So if you have been greatly affected by the patch, be sure to be patient while the META is still adjusting.
PS: If you see some problems in my data, feel free to comment below and tell me more about it. Thank you. The formulas that I have used were from a excel sheet linked to the substack post. This is the link for the excel sheet.