tl;dr A hundred attack points boost damage by 4%, while 100 defense points resist 6% more damage; type advantages give a 30% boost to damage dealt and 15% reduction in damage taken; stacking abilities isn't very efficient.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduced a new mechanic called spirits, which can have a drastic effect on how a battle plays out. A team of spirits comes with numbers that are supposed to indicate how good it is. However, besides "bigger number good", not much has been known for what exactly those numbers do. This post aims to rectify that lack of knowledge.
So first off, what are spirits? Spirits are items(?) in the form of characters from other games that you can equip to improve your character. They come in two varieties, called primary and support. Let's look at them separately.
Primary Spirits
These come with a rarity, series, level, numbers for attack, defense and power, a number of slots, a type, and sometimes abilities of their own.
Support Spirits
Support spirits can be equipped to the primary spirit to add additional abilities They come with a rarity, cost, and ability. These do not have a series associated with them that will affect anything.
How do They Affect Damage?
The damage for an attack by you is given by
where
In other words:
Ability Multipliers
This one is a bit more complicated. In general, these stack multiplicatively, so if two different abilities would increase damage by 10% each, then the multiplier would be 1.1×1.1=1.21. However, when multiple copies of the same ability and all come from support spirits, then the multiplier is given by something else. Some of the multipliers are:
Example
Say we are using Shulk's Neutral A (a punch) with the following spirit team:
We have
Putting this all together, the damage is
What if Pichu had only a primary spirit
How to Efficiently Hurt Others
What will dish out the most damage?
I hope this helps with choosing how to get the most out of this new mechanic!
PS: sorry for the uh... research-paper-style this is written in. Old habits die hard, but I at least managed to stop myself from adding in an abstract, a literature review, and a methodology section.
[Edit 12/13] I did a massive re-write and added more information about stacking abilities, spirits in general, and added a couple sample calculations.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduced a new mechanic called spirits, which can have a drastic effect on how a battle plays out. A team of spirits comes with numbers that are supposed to indicate how good it is. However, besides "bigger number good", not much has been known for what exactly those numbers do. This post aims to rectify that lack of knowledge.
So first off, what are spirits? Spirits are items(?) in the form of characters from other games that you can equip to improve your character. They come in two varieties, called primary and support. Let's look at them separately.
Primary Spirits
These come with a rarity, series, level, numbers for attack, defense and power, a number of slots, a type, and sometimes abilities of their own.
- Rarity is displayed as between 1 and 4 stars, with 1 star being the most common and 4 being the rarest. Roughly speaking, rarer spirits are better than more common ones.
- Series is the game franchise from which they come
- The level is a number from 1 to 99. The only effect this has is on increasing the attack and defense.
- Attack and defense are what they sound like: higher attack means you dish out more damage, and higher defense means you take less.
- Power is the sum of attack and defense. It's supposed to be a measure of how strong the spirit is. (It's not)
- Slots, of which there are between 0 and 3, determine how many support spirits you can use.
- A primary can be one of four types: Shield (blue), Attack (red), Grab (green), and neutral (gray).
- These are then used in something akin to elemental rock-paper-scissors: Shield is strong against Attack, which is strong against Grab, which is strong against Shield. This forms a cycle where each is strong or weak against the other two. The last type, neutral, is not weak against any of the others, but neither is it strong against others.
- Even though they're named things like attack/grab/shield, they don't actually affect those things.
- Abilities, which not all primaries have, are additional enhancements that the spirit can grant. These are similar to the abilities that support spirits have, only there is less of a variety.
Support Spirits
Support spirits can be equipped to the primary spirit to add additional abilities They come with a rarity, cost, and ability. These do not have a series associated with them that will affect anything.
- Rarity is the same as for primary spirits.
- Cost is how many slots of the primary it takes up. You can't equip support spirits with a total cost more than the number of slots the primary has.
- Abilities are the main feature of support spirits. A far-from-exhaustive list of the kinds of abilities is
- increase damage dealt or damaged received in various situations
- starting a battle with an item
- changing your speed or jump height
- reducing landing lag or smash charge time.
How do They Affect Damage?
The damage for an attack by you is given by
Code:
[Damage] = [Base_Damage] × (1 + 0.0004×[Attack]) / (1 + 0.0006×[Defense]) × [Type_Multiplier] × [Ability_Attack_Multiplier] × [Ability_Defense_Multiplier]- [Base_Damage] is how much the move would do if no spirits were involved
- [Attack] is your attack; if you don't have a spirit equipped then this is 0
- [Defense] is their defense; if they don't have a spirit equipped then this is 0
- [Type_Multiplier] is:
- 1.3 if you have a type advantage (e.g. Shield against Attack)
- 0.85 if you have type disadvantage (e.g. Attack against Shield)
- 1 otherwise
- [Ability_Attack_Multiplier] and [Ability_Defense_Multiplier] are a bit more complicated, and will be discussed below.
In other words:
- every 100 points of attack increases damage done by 4%
- every 100 points of defense increase damage resistance by 6%
- each point in defense takes 1.5 points in attack to cancel out
- a type advantage deals 30% more damage, while a disadvantage reduces damage done by 15%
Ability Multipliers
This one is a bit more complicated. In general, these stack multiplicatively, so if two different abilities would increase damage by 10% each, then the multiplier would be 1.1×1.1=1.21. However, when multiple copies of the same ability and all come from support spirits, then the multiplier is given by something else. Some of the multipliers are:
- Attack Multipliers:
- Slightly increaces the power of _____
- 1 copy: 1.1
- 2 copies: 1.18
- 3 copies: 1.26
- Increases damage dealt to _____ (in particular, Metal Killers)
- 1 copy: 1.4
- 2 copies: 1.45
- 3 copies: 1.5
- Slightly increaces the power of _____
- Defense Multipliers:
- Slightly decreases the damage taken from _____
- 1 copy: 0.6
- Reduces the damage taken from _____
- 1 copy: 0.6
- Slightly decreases the damage taken from _____
Example
Say we are using Shulk's Neutral A (a punch) with the following spirit team:
- Primary: Giga Mac, lvl 45
- Attack: 3193
- Defense: 2041
- Ability: Fist Attack ↑ ("Slightly increases the power of punches and elbow strikes.")
- Support #1: Ricky
- Ability: Fist Attack ↑ ("Slightly increases the power of punches and elbow strikes.")
- Support #2: Fei Long
- Ability: Fist Attack ↑ ("Slightly increases the power of punches and elbow strikes.")
- Support #3: Rock Mario
- Ability: Physical Attack ↑ ("Slightly increases the power of punches, kicks, and bites.")
We have
[Base_Damage]=2.4, [Attack]=3193, [Defense]=0, and [Type_Multiplier]=1. Since the defender has no spirits, [Ability_Defense_Multiplier]=1. Finally, for [Ability_Attack_Multiplier]:- There is one relevant ability on the primary, so we get a ×1.1
- There are two copies of the same ability on supports, giving a ×1.18
- There is another single copy of a relevant ability on a support, giving another ×1.1.
[Ability_Attack_Multiplier] = 1.1 × 1.18 × 1.1 = 1.4278Putting this all together, the damage is
It's more than tripled!
What if Pichu had only a primary spirit
- Primary: Welt, lvl 99
- Attack: 2736
- Defense: 2964
- Ability: None
[Defense]=2964, givingWell, it's bigger than 2.4, but not by much. What's going on here? Going back to the formula, for each point in defense, the attacker would need 1.5 points in attack just to break even! Without all of the abilities (but same attack power), the damage in this situation would only be 2.0.
How to Efficiently Hurt Others
What will dish out the most damage?
- Ability-wise, you want your supports to have as many differently-named abilities that affect the same attack. It doesn't matter if the primary has the same ability since it's still factored in separately.
If you're trying to choose between a primary (call it 'A') with an ability that boosts damage by 10%, or another primary (call it 'B') without that ability, then you would deal more damage with B as long as it's attack is more than 0.1/0.0004=250 of A's.[Not quite right. It depends on what your attack stat already is. More work to be done.]
- As for types, you get a +30% with the advantage.
Not taking the type advantage is only worth it if the other has 0.3/0.0004=750 more attack. - Specifically for Metal Killers: you don't do much more by stacking them. It's best to use one Metal Killer, and other damage-boosting abilities.
I hope this helps with choosing how to get the most out of this new mechanic!
PS: sorry for the uh... research-paper-style this is written in. Old habits die hard, but I at least managed to stop myself from adding in an abstract, a literature review, and a methodology section.
[Edit 12/13] I did a massive re-write and added more information about stacking abilities, spirits in general, and added a couple sample calculations.
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