Stats
Stats, short for Statistics, determine certain aspects of battles in the Epic Battle Fantasy series. A character's vitality, damage output, and chances to successfully hit or dodge the adversary are all determined by their stats in specific categories. For simplicity's sake, this article only covers the JRPG-style games of the series.
All stats increase automatically each time character levels up, but they may be also affected by, among others:
- Stat-increasing food (or Steroids) which permanently improves certain stat by a set percentage.
- Equipment which boosts the wearer's stats as long as they are equipped.
- Buffs and Debuffs which temporarily modify stats during battle.
There are eight main statistics present in the Epic Battle Fantasy series:
Health Points (HP) — increase the amount of damage character can take before dying.
Mana Points (MP) — increase the amount of skills character can cast during battle (only before EBF5).
Attack — improves character's physical damage output.
Defence — reduces the amount of physical damage dealt to character.
Magic Attack — improves character's magical damage output.
Magic Defence — reduces the amount of magical damage dealt to character.
Accuracy — improves the chance to successfully hit a target.
Evade — improves the chance to successfully dodge incoming attacks.
Health Points (HP)
Health Points (HP for short) determine how many points of damage a character can receive before finally falling in battle. The more total HP the character has, the more durable they are.
During battle, Health Points are represented by a bar and a pair of numbers. The first number displays the current HP, while the second the maximum HP the character may have at the moment; in later games, reaching too high of an HP value will hide maximum HP to make room to display the current HP. The bar shows the percentage of HP the character currently has, with an emptier bar meaning lower HP.
When a character's HP reaches 0 (its HP bar is empty) it dies. Foes (except some bosses) are removed from the battlefield, while player characters will lie on the ground until they are revived (HP restored depends on revival method) or a checkpoint is reached (EBF1&2)/the battle ends (EBF3+), at which point they will be brought back to life with 1 HP. When all party members die, the game is over and it will be necessary to resume from the previous save file (or the beginning of the game in EBF1, due to a lack of save files).
Health Points can be recovered in-battle by the use of various healing skills, life-draining effects, and items. Out of battle, they regenerate automatically each time a checkpoint is reached (EBF1 & 2), a player takes a step (EBF3), or over time (EBF4 & 5); the process may be sped-up by taking a nap in the inn located in The Town (EBF3), or by interacting with Slime Bunnies hidden in some water buckets and ponds (EBF4 & 5).
Temporary in-battle (de)buffs that affect maximum HP are rather uncommon, with buffs staying exclusive to items labeled as "very rare" (until EBF5), and debuffs are used primarily by a small number of late-game enemies and bosses. EBF5 also introduced Scorch, which slowly debuffs HP over time, and Stuffed, which prevents HP debuffs.
Among player characters, Matt traditionally has the highest base HP, while Natalie has the lowest. In EBF5, however, NoLegs replaced Natalie as the character with the lowest base HP.
Mana Points (MP)
Mana Points (MP for short) determine how many skills a character can use during a battle. Each skill requires a certain amount of MP to cast; more powerful skills are usually more expensive. MP are only used by player characters; foes do not have nor require any MP to use their attacks.
As with HP, Mana Points are represented by a bar and a pair of numbers in battle. The first number displays the current MP, while the second the maximum MP the character may have at the moment; at some point, maximum MP can be hidden to make room for the current MP. The bar shows the percentage of MP the character currently has; an emptier bar means lower MP. MP bar is usually the thinner one, placed right below the HP bar.
Running out of MP usually won't be a nuisance, as most normal battles end before spending too much MP. However, it may happen during prolonged encounters, such as boss battles and most fights on Battle Mountain (EBF4).
Mana Points can be recovered in-battle by the use of mana-draining effects and certain items. Like HP, out of battle they regenerate automatically each time a checkpoint is reached (EBF1&2), a player takes a step (EBF3) or over time (EBF4); the process may be speed-up by taking a nap in the inn located in The Town (EBF3), or by interacting with Slime Bunnies hidden in some water buckets and ponds (EBF4).
There is no way to temporarily (de)buff MP, though EBF4 featured four foes had an ability to drain most of a player's MP. The Mana Points stat only existed up to EBF4. In EBF5, it was replaced by a Cooldown system.
Among player characters, Natalie usually has the highest base MP, while Matt has the lowest.
Attack
Attack (sometimes referred to as Physical Attack) is the statistic responsible for the amount of damage characters deal with their physical attacks, multiplying the attack's power. As with other offensive stats, Foes do not have their Attack shown in the Bestiary.
EBF4 introduced the Weaken status, which gradually lowers Attack every turn. In EBF5, a Brave character cannot have their Attack debuffed.
Among player characters, Matt traditionally has the highest base Attack, while Natalie has the lowest.
Defence
Defence (sometimes referred to as Physical Defence) is the stat responsible for reducing the amount of damage received by characters by physical attacks, dividing incoming damage.
EBF4 introduced the Curse status, which gradually lowers Defence every turn. In EBF5, Morale prevents a character's Defence from being debuffed.
Among player characters, Matt traditionally has the highest base Defence, while Natalie has the lowest. In EBF5, however, the newly-playable NoLegs became the character with the lowest Defence.
Magic Attack
Magic Attack (also called Magic Power in EBF) is equivalent to the Attack stat in terms of function, but responsible for empowering magical attacks instead. As with Attack, it isn't displayed in foes' bestiary entries. Healing skills also scale with Magic Attack.
EBF4 introduced the Weaken status, which gradually lowers Magic Attack every turn. In EBF5, a Brave character cannot have their Magic Attack debuffed.
Among player characters, Natalie traditionally has the highest base Magic Attack, while Matt has the lowest.
Magic Defence
Analogous to Defence, Magic Defence is responsible for reducing the amount of damage received by magical attacks, dividing incoming damage.
EBF4 introduced the Curse status, which gradually lowers Magic Defence every turn. In EBF5, Morale prevents a character's Magic Defence from being debuffed.
Among player characters, Natalie usually has the highest base Magic Defence, while Matt has the lowest.
Accuracy
Accuracy is the statistic increasing the chance of characters successfully hitting their targets with their attacks. Similarly to Attack and Magic Attack, foes' bestiary entries do not display their Accuracy.
Besides using this statistic, some attacks also have an extra Accuracy multiplier. Those with a greater difference are usually marked as high/low accuracy attacks in their descriptions.
To guarantee a hit, an attack's total Accuracy must equal or exceed the target's Evade (described below). Raising it further will have no additional effect.
EBF4 introduced the Tired status, which gradually lowers Accuracy every turn.
Among player characters, Lance traditionally has the highest base Accuracy, while Matt has the lowest, with Natalie only slightly above him (or, in the case of EBF3, slightly below).
Evade
Evade is the stat responsible for increasing the odds of characters successfully avoiding an incoming attack, preventing any damage and possibly status effects from being inflicted.
Evade is typically ignored by abilities with positive status effects and stat buffs, as well as any statuses self-inflicted through equipment effects; in EBF5, certain enemy abilities also ignore it, and so do summons that apply a status on the whole party.
As with Accuracy, the Tired status introduced in EBF4 will gradually debuff Evade every turn.
Among player characters, base Evade was nearly the same for all characters through EBF3 (albeit in slight favor of Lance). In subsequent games, Lance has the lowest Evade, while Anna has the highest in EBF4; in EBF5, NoLegs has the highest Evade by a large margin, over 1.5x as high as the others.
Summon Points (SP)
Summon Points (SP for short) are special points introduced in EBF4 to use Summons. SP aren't character specific, but rather a party wide stat shared by all members of the group. The maximum amount of SP the player may have at the moment is based of the average level of all group members. Just like MP, SP are a stat exclusive to the players, and are not utilized by foes.
SP do not regenerate with time (except with the use of a specific flair in EBF5) nor are they replenished by items, instead, every foe yields some SP upon killing, similarly to Ability Points and Gold. SP gained updates during the battle, thus enabling to make use of them instantly during the same encounter if needed. For instance, if the player uses the Gem Idol summon and uses up most of their SP, but then defeats a foe before the battle ends, they can potentially reuse Gem Idol before the battle is over.
Summon Attack
Summon Attack is a hidden statistic introduced in EBF4 as part of the summoning mechanic. It is an equivalent to an Attack/Magic Attack stat that is used instead of the user's usual statistic when summoning a creature. Same as SP, Summon Attack is a shared statistic among all party members and is based off either party average level in EBF4, or Matt's level in EBF5. Thus, no matter which party member performs the summon, the damage will generally be the same.
In EBF4, the "damage source" stays the same when summoning a creature: this means that the summons' damage can be increased by having the summoner equip a weapon that boosts the summon's element, the Brave status impacts their critical hit rate, and Accuracy buffs help them miss less; in EBF5, damage source is changed to the "Player weather" entity, so summons are now completely independent of players' stats and equipment.
In EBF4, except for the NoLegs summon, all offensive summons scale with half of summon attack (NoLegs scales with full summon attack). In EBF5, offensive summons scale with full summon attack and healing ones scale with half of summon attack.
Before the v2 update, clicking on the Summon button in-battle in EBF4 switched the strength gain part of the damage formula to summons' one, reverted back only when you go to player select (or after the battle). As such, clicking on it and then backpedalling and using a skill instead would have the latter scale as if it was a summon — it wouldn't depend on your offensive stats. This was typically beneficial early in the game, when summons' variant ends up more productive due to lack of upgraded equipment and buffs, but harmful later in the game, when you maxed equips, constantly have buffs and accumulated a lot of permastat food.
Hit2HP
"Hit2HP" is a hidden stat that originated as a way to configure how much HP % an attack has to take away to play the "strong hit taken" animation, but is also used in EBF4 and EBF5 for status damage and certain healing skills, with higher Hit2HP meaning higher damage/healing. Bosses usually have it several times lower than weak foes, resulting in less damage/heal even if all other conditions are the same.
Cooldown
Cooldowns were introduced in EBF5 as a replacement for MP. When certain skills are used, they are put on a cooldown for several turns and cannot be used in the meantime.
Cooldown length depends on the skill, varying from 1 turn for slightly above-average skills to 10 turns for exceptionally strong ones; most skills do not have a cooldown and can be used without restrictions. Skills currently cooling down are grayed out, and display how many turns are left until they become usable again.
After finishing a battle all currently active cooldowns are reduced by 2, and when outside of battle cooldowns will be decreased by 1 around every 7 seconds; several Food items can be used to decrease all of a character's cooldowns by a specific amount of turns, in-battle or in the overworld.
Notes:
- The cooldown is technically always 1 turn longer than in skills' descriptions — the untold extra turn covers the current turn.
- Skills with no cooldown can be used multiple times in the same turn through the use of Haste and the like.
- Extra turns spent through Haste will not decrease cooldowns.
- The instantaneous Disable status puts random skills on cooldown, and can affect even those that don't normally have cooldowns .
- The Berserk and Confuse statuses ignore cooldowns and don't affect them, i.e., not only can they initiate a skill that is currently cooling down, but they also will not put skills in cooldown after using them.