Yep. After a couple months of digging through the mechanics guide and debugger thread on GameFAQs, about half a dozen other Saga Frontier FAQs, building spreadsheets, and doing testing, it's finally done: A Saga Frontier stat topic that finally delivers both precise stats and damage. Status tests still need to come, and there's a very good chance I'm going to hold out for some more information on how they work rather than try to figure them out myself; due to Saga Frontier's delightful penchant for having similar-seeming attacks use completely different formulas, I'd rather not guess the wrong enemy to test on and have to redo everything once I know better. Then again, if I have a lot of free time and you all ask nicely (and/or if it's relevant for a DL match), then it might happen.
Incomplete though this is, this is probably the most difficult stat topic I've ever had to put together, in terms of the sheer scope of things I had to draw on. I won't even pretend that I deserve all the credit for this. Special thanks in particular go to...
-Zaraktheus, who wrote the BMG that made so much of my understanding (and enjoyment) of the game possible. Between that BMG and all his posts on how the game works on GameFAQs, it's no exaggeration to say that without him, this topic does not exist. Zaraktheus, if you ever read this: you are awesome.
-Meeple, who made the original stat topic. His own damage tests gave me a great starting point. Also wrote one of the many FAQs I referred directly to when making this stat topic (armour defences!).
-Djinn, who made the second stat topic. Although it had fewer numbers for me to draw on, he did give me two very important ideas: an effective way to interpret monsters fairly and uniquely in the DL, and the idea that human stats could be calculated using the stat growth formulas and increasing enemy strength.
-Super, who eagerly did all sorts of testing to help me out with this and generally offered a lot of encouragement and sounding out of ideas.
-Laggy, another major person I bounced ideas off while making this. Also for being another man crazy enough to make a Saga Frontier stat topic.
-Neph, who pointed me to the Japanese Sakura Saga Frontier website which has all sorts of highly valuable information, particularly on obscure yet important details such as monster defences, and helped me translate a couple things that Google wasn't up to the task of.
-Ciato, whose copy of the game I played, and without her infectious love of the game and her knowledge which often pointed me in the right direction if I got lost, I'd very likely never have stuck with the game long enough to get to that magic point where the game hooks you and doesn't let go.
Anyway, enough rambling! We're still some 20k from the actual characters, but hey: here's some pertinent stuff about how this topic was assembled, and how the game works.
Averages up top!Since they're the trendy thing to have.
Damage: 2499, give or take ~200 (6248 kill point)
Speed: 77.8 (13.7 standard deviation)
HP: 720
VIT: 61.0
Defences: Slash 62, Pierce 67, Blunt/Fire/Ice 64, Electric 52, Force/Status 56
Assuptions and ExplanationsSaga Frontier is certainly a messy game in the DL, as its seven-year history can attest to. There are many ways to build characters, regardless of their race. As such, some assumptions will need to be stated.
What the stats doHP: Even Saga Frontier doesn't try to make THESE complicated! Or so I thought. One note: higher maximum HP makes the healing spells you
cast more effective. Don't try to make sense of this, it's Saga.
STR: A factor in physical damage, particularly important for unarmed attacks.
QUI: Speed. Makes you act sooner in the round, also increases the chance that enemies will "miss" you with attacks (miss chance isn't very significant with most attacks, however).
INT: Mostly determines chance to learn gun abilities and magic, or in mecs' case, the number of abilities they can set at one time. It's also a minor factor in the effectiveness of magic damage, buffs, and healing.
WIL: A major factor in the damage dealt by magic and guns, and a minor factor in the effectiveness of buffs and healing. Also known to raise hit rate of some status attacks.
PSY: A major factor in the damage dealt by magic, and a minor factor in the effectiveness of buffs. Also known to be a defensive stat against some status attacks.
VIT: Saga Frontier's univeral defensive stat, reduces (almost) all damage received. Also determines the effectiveness of regeneration.
CHA: Affects the hit rate of some charm effects, and is a minor factor in the effectiveness of buffs and healing.
WP: Weapon Points. Non-magic abilities cost these. Costs will be listed in parentheses.
JP: Magic Points, effectively. As WP, but for magic abilities.
LP: Life Points. Every time a character's HP falls to 0, this drops by 1, and if it drops to 0, the character becomes unreviable until visiting an inn. Not DL-relevant, although one character can LP-drain herself to death in a theoretically stupidly long match with one of her abilities.
Defences: Although the game is only nice enough to show you one on the status screen, Saga Frontier has 8 different defensive stats, used against different elements. They're much more effective than VIT at reducing their appropriate type of damage. Unlike other stats, characters have no innate defences, and get defences entirely from their equipment. Monsters, however, have secret, hidden equipment which depends on their current form, so they appear to have base defences.
Primary AssumptionsAll characters are taken on the quest that is most favourable to them. Characters notably affected are Fuse (joins much later on anyone's quest but Red's), Slime (has a much weaker claim to a "competent" form on any quest but Red's), T260G (gets a much more powerful body and associated abilities on her own quest), and Zozma (joins much earlier on Emelia's quest than Asellus').
Damage was tested on enemies who take damage in a roughly average manner compared to other Battle Rank 9 (endgame) monsters. Most damage was specifically tested on the Chimera (except fire and force attacks) and Kraken (except pierce and blunt attacks).
AbilitiesThe DL seeks to highlight what is unique about characters, and this stat topic will do the same.
To do so, an important disclaimer:
nobody will get any ability just because they're a member of a certain race. All humans want DSC and MindHeal. All mystics want GriffithScratch and MagicHeal. All mecs want SelfRepair. All monsters want MightyCyclone (and LifeRain in a team match). Unfortunately, unless they have a unique claim to it, it's not happening. This is a bit of a departure from Meeple's stat topic which allowed all mystics all the mystic absorb skills, and all mecs all mec skills, for instance.
So, here's what people do get!
Humans:Humans have 8 abilities they can set. Setting 6+ physical abilities and no magical abilities lowers the WP cost of all abilities by 1, but also lowers their damage slightly (except gun moves). Setting 6+ magical abilities and no physical abilities lowers the JP cost of all abilities by 1, and similarly lowers their damage slightly. I've assumed characters don't have this "mastery" in the DL (although for mages, since I can calculate their damage directly and more easily, I'll list damage with mastery in parentheses). Note that Asellus' mystic weapons count as neither magic nor physical, so they do not count towards the 6+ but nor do they block mastery.
Humans have the ability to learn sword moves, gun moves, fist moves, and various magic spells. In general, starting with one skill means you have a claim to learn the rest in that category. For magic, it means you have a claim to learn the remaining spells from the magic schools you start with. This is justified because in-game, using a gun move helps you learn gun moves, and so on.
Magic is a little hairier because of the "gift" system. Basically, you can't learn more spells unless you have the gift. However, in the vast majority of cases, characters who start with spells of a school have the gift for said school, and vice versa. There are a few grey area exceptions:
-Asellus starts with no mystic magic, but has the gift for it (and is the only human who can get this gift). I am currently undecided how I feel about this in the DL. (Fortunately it doesn't matter too much, mystic magic isn't great for a Heavy/Godlike.)
-Mei-ling starts with light magic spells, but no gift. However, since it is trivial to get the light magic gift for your entire party (while getting the spells costs money), I definitely do allow her to use endgame light magic.
-Doll has mystic magic and dark magic but no gift for either. Thus she has no claim whatsoever to the gift-only mystic magic. What she is interested in is the storebought GlassShield, which she also gets if you load system data, so you might have mercy on her. Or not! Her claim to gift-only dark magic is similar to Mei-ling's to Light, although the gift is a bit less trivial to get (still pretty trivial if you know what you're doing).
Three characters - Asellus on her own quest, Emelia on her own quest, and Lute - all start with no skills whatsoever. However, on their own quests, Asellus/Emelia get "training" with a sword and gun respectively, and on other quests, they join with sword skills and gun skills respectively, so the game is making pretty clear how they should be built. In Lute's case, loading system data (sort of like a mini-New Game+) gives him some sword skills, and he does start with a Knife in his inventory, so he has a weak claim there.
Red starts with fist skills, and also has his totally unique Alkaiser abilities. His unique RaySword (Alkaiser's weapon) can also let him learn sword abilities, so he has some claim to those, too. Some have talked about the sword skills not being legal, or only allowing those learned directly from RaySword itself - your milage may vary of course. I'll note specifics in Red's entry. One other important note on Red is Alkaiser itself. Red's final and most important DL skill is Re-Al-Phoenix, an ability he obtains (if certain requirements are met) in the second to last battle. By this point in the game (the final dungeon), Red is forced into Alkaiser for every single battle. As such, I take him as initially Alkaiser in the DL, meaning no AlkaiserChange (which can never co-exist in-game with Re-Al-Phoenix). He likely prefers this anyway.
Asellus also has a weird claim to mystic absorb skills, under the argument that they're unique to her among humans. However, she does share them with the eight mystic PCs, so this is certainly a shaky claim. Of course, she has a clear claim to her mystic weapons and MysticalChange itself.
Characters with sword and fist abilities face an additional complication: they are not "talented in all sword/fist abilities (nobody is). In general, without talent in an ability, the ability is harder to learn... often much harder. I generally don't allow abilities a character lacks talent in. However, since it is certainly possible to "brute force" learn these abilities, I do make an exception, and allow anyone who only trains in ONE weapon type (so swords only, or fists only) exactly one extra ability from their weapon type, the logic being that you can usually get that one with all the extra time you have spamming that one weapon type. It's also a bit of a bone to toss to characters who only have one weapon claim.
Mystics:Mystics can set only 4 magic spells as abilities (so they can't get mastery) and also have their 3 mystic weapons locked. Additionally, Dr. Nusakan and Mesarthim have locked equipment which grants them unique abilities (itemcasts do not count towards the limit of set abilities, it's just that nobody else has any unique ones). Mesarthim further has access to Cockatrice, an itemcast off a storebought sword which requires the caster have the StasisRune spell set, a spell she has a unique claim to (along with Blue) in the DL.
Mystics work the same way humans do for magic (they can't learn gun, fist, or sword skills) and have similar claims. Again, there are a couple characters who start without gifts but do have starting spells:
-White Rose is in exactly the same boat as Mei-ling and the same comments apply: her gift spells are clearly legal in my opinion.
-Dr. Nusakan starts with both a dark and arcane magic spells, for which he lacks the gift. Dark gift is easy enough to get if you know what you're doing (and doesn't matter too much), but the arcane gift requires a major investment of doing four different dungeons (which granted, you might be doing anyway). I consider his claim to further arcane spells quite shaky and am undecided. And unlike most of the other magic interp-splits touched on so far, this one is a BIG DEAL - Shield and especially Tower are ridiculously important spells in the DL. Fortunately they don't affect the damage average!
Otherwise, mystics are pretty straightforward. As per the initial assumptions, I do not allow them the skills from mystic asborbs. I suppose I could be talked into allowing Ildon, Rei, Silence, and Zozma skills from their initial absorbs if they don't delete them for Suzakus, but I somehow doubt they'd want to do this anyway - all of those have mediocre stats and abilities of minimal use.
Mecs:Mecs can set a certain number of abilities that is based on their INT, but ranges from 2 to 8.
Mecs can download a host of different abilities from defeating enemy mecs; these are not unique to the individual mec in any way and thus are not legal. However, all mecs have a list of abilities they will learn naturally, although they too can only be learned after defeating enemy mecs. These lists are unique to each mec and thus are DL-legal. T260G, on her own quest, can change bodies and thus gain access to the download lists of all other mecs. However, for the purpose of this stat topic, T260G only has access to the mec bodies unique to her: her initial body (TYPE1), the TYPE7 body (no other PC mec has access to this), and the OmegaBody. The latter is certainly the most useful and alone has almost every useful skill for T260G in the DL on its download list.
All mecs also of course have access to certain abilities granted by their locked equipment.
Monsters:Monsters can set 8 abilities. Unlike other races they can not remember abilities that are not currently set, so if they want to learn a new ability when they already have 8, it replaces an existing one.
Somewhat like mecs, monsters can absorb abilities from other monsters (which fortunately for them are far more common). However, like mecs, these are not seen as legal, and unlike mecs, they have no other way to get new abilities. So... basically, they're stuck with what they start with.
A ripple enters the picture here: in order to get access to new forms, monsters need to learn (and keep learned) new abilities. In order to allow monsters to "level up" and gain access to forms more suitable to endgame, thus, SOME new abilities need to be learned. How the claims to these forms, and thus, these abilities, work, will be explained in the section on assumed DL stats, next. Discussing it in chat, there's some debate as to whether the prerequisite skills for the DL-legal forms are themselves legal in the DL, so they will be listed, but marked with a star. Surprisingly, none of these prerequisite skills are a monster's best damage, so averages will not be affected.
Assumed DL statsIn order to hammer down stats, a big decision must first be made: how long is a playthrough of Saga Frontier? After some discussion, I decided to go with the figure of 250. The reason this particular round figure is chosen is it is high enough to allow the player to reliably reach Battle Rank 9, and thus fight what are seen as "endgame" enemies, such as Chimeras, Dullahans, Suzakus, and Krakens. This is important because these monsters are assumed in order to give humans a decent chance to learn endgame abilities like Lifesprinkler, for mystics to have their endgame absorbs, for monsters to get some abilities they may need for their monster forms, and to have enough money to afford what I view as endgame equipment. It also feels like a decent estimate for a playthrough that features a good number of sidequests completed, though not necessarily all.
Note that some players play faster than this. However, a few common practices also work about as well as simply fighting more battles. One is loading a game with system data, which essentially cuts 32-48 battles off what is needed (since you don't fight earlygame scrubs and start on more competent enemies immediately, and also start with higher base stats). Another is spending more time fighting in areas such as BioLab and Yorkland Swamp, which have
much more powerful enemies than other areas. A few final dungeons are like this, too. Fighting more battles here can make up for fighting fewer battles overall, in general.
Humans gain stats based on three things: their innate stat growths (though these barely matter), the strength of the enemies they are fighting relative to their current stats, and the type of action they choose in battle. Calculating these stats is something that needed a spreadsheet which accounts for the increasing strength of enemies as the game goes on, and so, of course, I made one. It has several tens of thousands of cells in it, but I'm pretty confident in it (if you're really interested, ask me and I'll send a copy your way). Note that choosing sword moves one battle, then magic the next, or choosing both swords and magic in two consecutive battles, will have the same effect: the growths will be the average of the growths allowed by each learning style. Saga Frontier growths are semi-random, and can be influenced by a few other slightly random factors (such as exactly what enemies you fight, and whether you use stat boosts/buffs in-battle) but for the most part these aren't too signifcant unless you do something silly like transform Red or Asellus in a majority of random battles.
Note also that stat-boosting equipment actually slows stat growth, so humans only equip stat-boosting equips in the DL (and presumably in-game, against bosses, since one or two fights makes little difference). Alkaiser also shuts off stat gains entirely, and Red does spend the last ~40 battles in that form, so his stat growth is cut off at that point (he doesn't care, since RaySword's stat boosts are stupid).
Mystics gain some stats similarly to humans (HP, WP, JP, CHA). Their other stats, however, are based on what monsters they have absorbed in their mystic weapons. All mystics are assumed to have absorbed Suzakus, an easily available endgame monster with balanced, high stats across the board.
Mec stats are based entirely on their equipment, so to understand what's allowed for them you should really just read the next section! Note that because of this, mecs can change their stats fairly drastically at a whim by changing their equipment (though only between battles) and if you give them free rein to do so they are extremely versatile in the DL.
Monsters are tricky. With the exception of Kylin and Suzaku, all start in earlygame to midgame forms. In order to let them "level up" and actually appear like an endgame monster, they had to be given endgame forms. But which? Credit goes to Djinn for this idea: he suggested that monsters be given forms which include, as a prerequisite, at least one skill the monster already possesses. In other words, monsters get endgame forms that their initial skillsets give them a unique advantage in unlocking, compared to other monsters. Monsters still need to absorb more skills to get these forms, usually.
However, some monster skills are too tricky to get. Rare skills are absorbed at a 3% or 6% rate, usually from just one or two monsters in the entire game. These skills are not considered. Only 23% and 68% absorb skills are considered, and for RedTurnip, who joins incredibly late, only 68% absorb skills are considered. One exception is Slime, who is given a skill which is a 100% absorb from a boss (Berva, on Red's quest).
In the case of Kylin and Suzaku, due to Saga Frontier being the lovable glitchy mess that it is, their starting stats are actually not the same as the stats of the forms they are in should be. The glitch is corrected when they transform into something else and back. Since they will inevitably do so in-game, they are considered to have their "fixed" stats.
Finally, all monsters additionally level up by gaining 4 HP each time they absorb a skill they have never absorbed before (note that some monsters are considered to have "pre-absorbed" skills they don't start with some time in their past, however). They are assumed to do so in the DL, even if most individual skills are not legal. Monsters are assumed to absorb a new skill in 30% of battles. If this would get them above 75 absorbed skills, then the average of the resulting number and 75 is taken (since the more skills a monster has, the harder it is to find new ones). This results in numbers which fit my in-game experiences.
Finally, for humans, mystics, and monsters, the number of battles they fight is of course significant. Characters who don't join at the start of the game are thus at a disadvantage. For humans, this is basically entirely moot; no human joins particularly late, and joining slightly (e.g. up to 50 battles) late does not significantly impact a human's or mystic's stats due to how Saga Frontier stat growth works. To give you an idea, even TimeLord, who is assumed to join 125 battles in, is only about 20 HP down of where he would be if he joined at the start.
However, for monsters, every battle counts (missing earlygame battles actually tends to mean missing some skills forever) and some mystic PCs (I'm looking at you, Princess Rei) join late enough to really impact their stats. As such, treating the game as 250 battles long, I have assumed that each PC listed below joins after the following number of battles are already complete:
Zozma: 100
TimeLord: 125
Ildon: 150
Rei: 200
Cotton: 10
Slime: 50
Sei: 75
Suzaku: 100
Kylin: 125
RedTurnip: 200
Post-Dark Labyrinth PCs are not happy, and Zozma is overjoyed Emelia's quest exists.
EquipmentSome well-known glitches aside, money doesn't precisely grow on trees in Saga Frontier, and some endgame equipment is expensive. Fortunately, most quests supplement equipment somewhat with good stuff from the final dungeon, which eases the cash crunch somewhat. Otherwise, although I took a fairly generous line with storebought equipment, I felt I had to place a cap somewhere, namely:
-Each character has a 15000 credit budget for equipment, and
-No more than 7500 can be spent on any one piece (which mainly serves to make the obnoxiously spoilerific WonderBangle illegal).
The 15000 figure was arrived at as being a nice round number that allows one common equipment set that has been talked about on Saga Frontier characters in the DL: an endgame sword or gun (~4000 credits), second gun for TwoGun (~300), shield (500), PoweredSuit (5200), and BloodChalice (4000).
Otherwise, initial equipment is allowed, but initial accessories tend to end up worthless for a few reasons (mystics have better things to put in those slots, humans see their stat growth get slowed by keeping them equipped), so they aren't considered. Other initial equipment matters little, but a couple mystics do start with ShadowDaggers (which have a small PSY boost) and a few mecs start with circuitboards, which allow them to use Shoot-All (not that I've really tested Shoot-All much thus far).
Also, for general limitations: humans and mystics can each equip four "hand" equips (swords, guns, shields, and battle items, though the latter aren't legal). Weapons granted by spells (LightSword and RaySword) don't count towards this. They can also equip up to four defensive equips, though no more than one of each type (armour, clothes, gloves, boots, helmets) except accessories. Equipping a suit (PoweredSuit is the relevant one) counts simultaneously as an armour, glove, boot, and helmet, so it can not be equipped simultaneously to any of those. Mystic PCs all have one forced equip, and in all but two cases, this prevents mystics from using PoweredSuits, which is unfortunate for them).
Mecs are not bound by these rules and can equip almost anything, including multiple armours or suits, for instance. They have a number of free equipment slots determined by the mec, but usually 5. In addition to everything humans and mystics can wear, they can also equip circuit boards, but none of these are storebought and the initial ones are probably only useful for Shoot-All.
One type of equipment that deserves special note is the shield. Shields in Saga Frontier are very useful. There are two storebought ones:
-The Buckler, which grants a 32% evade rate against slash and blunt attacks, and
-The ShellShield, which grants a 25% evade rate against slash, blunt, and pierce attacks.
As far as I can tell these two options are basically balanced as defaults. Importantly, however, the evade granted by shields is only valid if the PC takes certain actions. Thrusting sword attacks, attacks which require two swords, and all "throw" attacks except DSC (for fist-users) all make the character unable to use a shield for that entire round, both before and after the attack itself takes place. Additionally and unfortunately, so does
all magic, so shields are pretty much only useful for fighters, and fighter/mages can't use them while they spend time healing, for instance. Strangely, TwoGun does not disable shield use.
Saga Frontier elements and damage typesIt wouldn't be Saga Frontier if it weren't confusing!
First of all, Saga Frontier does not have physical defence in magical defence in the traditional sense. Instead, it has one universal defensive stat (VIT) and then individual defences against different elements which have a much larger impact. The elements are:
Slash
Pierce
Blunt
Fire
Ice
Electric
Force (a catchall for "non-elemental" magic, typically)
There's also status, but that is, predictably, used only for status attacks. (And not all status attacks even check it.)
Attacks can have multiple elements (but always at least one), and if they do, they always count as the best element against any target.
PC armour will be listed with these 8 elements, in this order. Since a few different sources use different orders, note that I use the same one the game uses, and in particular, Pierce comes before Blunt (which IIRC is different from Meeple's FAQ).
In particular, this means that the line between physicals and magic in Saga Frontier are blurred, and it's unclear which attacks should hit magical or physical defence in the DL. I've assumed the following:
-Saga Frontier has a variety of attacks classed as "magic", vulnerable to PsychicPrison and costing JP instead of WP. All of these will be assumed to hit enemy MDef in the DL, regardless of their elements, even the ones with "physical" elements.
-Otherwise, if an attack contains any "physical" elements (Slash, Pierce, Blunt), it will be assumed to be physical and hit defence.
-If an attack contains ONLY "magical" elements (the other four), it is assumed to be pseudomagic (akin to Sabin's blitzes, DQ breath attacks, etc.) and hits magic defence despite not being truly magical.
Obviously your milage may vary, so I'll list all elements present on each attack and you can take them however you will.
Additionally, Saga Frontier has a few damage types which are not elements. These are tags that may be present on attacks in addition to any elements they already possess. All attacks possess at least one element, these damage types are optoinal and additional, and are either subject to an immunity or not affected at all. They are:
Water: Water attacks. Can reasonably be seen as water-elemental in the DL.
Ground: Attacks which miss flying enemies. Some of these can reasonably be seen as earth-elemental in the DL (e.g. Quake), but others can not (e.g. TailHit).
Sonic: Attacks involving sound. Can be seen as another rare DL element.
Gaze: Attacks involving STARING. Yeah.
Throw: Attacks involving throwing the enemy. Enemies rooted to the ground or just way too massive are immune.
Also, a few attacks have a property called "Anti-Air", which means they ignore defence against flying enemies. Note that ground immunity and anti-air vulnerability are one and the same, in-game.
Miscellaneous---Reloading: Guns have a certain number of bullets. If an attack requires more bullets than the gun has remaining, the character will automatically reload the gun before the attack takes place. The act of reloading, however, causes the character to go last in the initiative order for that round, even if the character has QuickDraw. Heavy weapons (such as the HyperBlaster) also have bullets, but can not be reloaded.
---The passive reaction abilities Deflect, Kasumi, SwayBack, KO Throw, and DragonTurn all work roughly the same way: they have a chance to kick in (checked in AFTER shields, but the ones which do damage are checked before the ones that do not) to any applicable attack; however, like with shields, there are restrictions as to what attacks can be used in that round that allows them to be triggered. For Deflect and Kasumi, the character must be using a sword attack that turn. For SwayBack, KO Throw, and DragonTurn, the character must be using a fist attack. Alkaiser moves do not count as either sword or fist abilities for these purposes.
---One documented status formula in Saga Frontier is the "coup de grace", inflicted by a few different attacks. Functionally its instant death, but its hit rate is calcaulted roughly as follows:
[Target's lost HP / Target's remaining HP] * 90% + 9%
This means that below half HP, success rate becomes 100%. However, at HP scores above that, the instant death rate falls off fairly dramatically. At 60% HP, it's only 69% accurate. At 70% HP, the hit rate is only 48%, and against a max HP target it's 9%. All coup de grace checks are made using the HP of the target before it is damaged by the attack triggering it.
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