Thread: Turtling guide - the why, the how and the when

Slashley has graciously asked me to post my thoughts here for others as a second take on a guide to Damage Cut. I'll be posting them here for people to also think about. Thank you Slashley.

A How-to Damage Cut Guide for Kamihime:

What Is It:
Damage Cut is one of the most powerful abilities in Kamihime. It works as a percentage and basically does one thing: reduces all damage taken by the percentage amount. If you achieve 100% damage cut you reduce all damage to your Himes (floating damage numbers will be zero when hit). One sub-source of damage cut, elemental resist, also reduces by the percentage amount your chance of being afflicted with a resistable debuff. If you achieve 100% elemental resist any resistable debuff (floating indicator stating miss on an applied debuff). Damage cut as an explicit ability is fairly limited and so most players assume that it's not easy to gain high levels of damage cut. This isn't actually true in Kamihime. There are 3 basic sources for damage cut (with two of them that have two different frames) that are additive, one source that is multiplicative, and one 'hidden' source that is super multiplicative. All told there are 7 unique types of damage cut that you can stack to help get you to that zero damage taken. We'll talk about all of these sources below. Usually for a power that is as powerful as damage cut there is an explicit disadvantage with using it. For a 'defensive' ability the simple idea is that teams that stack damage cut to become super defensive give up offensive capability. This, yet again, in Kamihime is not true. There is a single skill that gives damage cut teams additional damage output over and above basic additive offensive abilities that more than makeup for any perceived loss in damage output. You can have a super tanky super strong team in Kamihime, if you build it right.


Sources of Damage Cut:
The three basic sources of damage cut are damage cut, reflection, and elemental resist. Within basic damage cut there are two frames that stack: A-frame and Stacking Frame. Within Elemental Resist there are also two frames that stack: A-frame and Summon Frame. All of these sources stack with each other additively. For example if you have an ability with 10% damage cut, another ability with 20% reflection and the third ability with elemental resist 20% you would have a total damage cut of 50%. Also note that Stacking Frame damage cut also stacks with other sources of Stacking Frame damage cut. Damage cut and Reflect are applicable to all sources of damage, while elemental resist is only applicable to a single element (i.e. fire elemental resist only affects damage from fire sources/monsters). This covers the basic additive sources. Defense is another source of damage cut, but, unlike the others listed here, is multiplicative in nature (and also affects the amount of damage cut given by its reciprocal). If you had 20% defense, you would have an additional 17% damage cut (reduce damage by 1/1.2 or 0.83 damage taken) that would multiply with your other sources of damage cuts. As an example if you had 20% defense up and 20% damage cut from other sources your final damage would be reduced by 1-(0.83 * 0.8) = 1 - 0.66 = 0.34 or 34%. The defense attribute drops off fairly dramatically (it's reciprocal stacks and then it's multiplicative), but it is a source of damage cut and, more importantly, it's applied prior to the super multiplicative damage cut source. So don't intentionally dismiss it or ignore it. Always check to see if it helps and if it's freely available. You can usually find this ability on a Hime/Soul with damage cut; it's there for a reason! It's another source of damage cut (usually constant as opposed to a set number of turns) and is mostly used to help the super multiplicative source of damage cut.
The last source of damage cut (the super multiplicative source) is just basic healing! You always want strong sources of healing with any damage cut team. Damage Cut multiplies all sources of healing making it an effective 'final' source of damage cut. Consider the following example: You have 10k hit points and are taking 4k in damage per round. If you had nothing else you'd die on turn 3 (first turn of damage your down to 6k hp, second 2k hp, and third turn dead). If you had 50% damage cut you'd be taking 2k damage per round and could survive 5 turns (8k, 6k, 4k, 2k and then zero). If you had 500 hitpoints of healing and no damage cut, you'd also only live for three rounds (6.5k, 3k, zero) and the healing makes no difference. But if you had both the 50% damage cut AND 500 hitpoints of healing, you'd live for 7 turns (8.5k, 7k, 5.5k, 4k, 2.5k, 1k, zero). In essence, your healing is multiplied by the prior damage cut. The 50% damage cut changes your 10% damage cut from healing to 20% damage cut from healing. It's like you have 70% damage cut with both abilities (50% from damage cut and 20% from healing). If you also had an additional 25% defense ability (for 20% damage cut) you would then have an overall damage cut of 1- (0.8 * 0.3) of 76% damage cut. This doesn't seem like a lot more, but as you get to higher amounts of damage cut it stops scaling linearly and starts scaling exponentially. That extra 6% in overall damage cut was basically 25% extra survivability. Stacking as many sources of damage cut and healing is how you make a truly damage resistant team. (As an aside, this is usually the reason our union recommends Andromeda as the go-to soul for a damage cut team versus Joan even though Joan sports damage cut. You really want the healing that Andro has due to its super multiplicative nature with other sources of damage cut. Joan's damage cut isn't constant enough to make it a great source of damage cut. Himes and Eidolons just do it better.)

Follow On Thoughts:

Most people define a damage cut team as a team that can reliably achieve 70-80+% damage cut constantly. I believe that the amount of assault and element attack you give up to do this makes those types of teams useless for most normal play. I don't really build teams like that as they're only truly needed in forced solo content (i.e. tower and that's it). I tend to favor strong utilization of damage cut in teams that, while they could solo content, are actually built to have fun and play in a raid. This will lead to having much lower levels of damage cut (typically 20-40% constant damage cut). Most players can do this and not sacrifice any combat ability (other than having a Hime or two which might not have strong offensive abilities). I am a strong proponent of Dark players to utilize damage cut builds in their teams. They are one of the few elements that have too many sources of damage cut (Nefertem, Pluto, Cernunnos) and their teams can be some of the most durable teams hands down. Having a top tier SR damage cut Hime (Cernunnos) means that every Dark team can be a damage cut team without spending large amounts of money. If you happen to get Pluto or Nefertem, then you're typically golden and your dark teams durability shoots up dramatically. With utilizing Idun (a free just log in Hime also), there is nothing stopping a Dark player from making a viable team that can clear all content (might need help, but won't be completely useless). The only other thing that you need to add is one or two On-Element Resist Eidolons (Kaiser preferred, Dragoon if nothing else) into your 5 sub slots to give an additional source of damage cut for those incredibly dangerous ODs or to give a staggering level of resistance. You might lose up to 1000 attack and like 8% element attack, but that is really very little for the added protection of getting 20% to 30% for 3 or 2 rounds to help reduce an overdrive. This is a viable source that is free for all players (Dragoons come through gacha and everyone can buy a Kaiser for 10k Eido Orbs per element that is needed) in the store. Once you're stronger you can drop this from your builds if you find you don't need it. As an example: I had six thunder teams with Raiko, 1 On Element Kaiser, and Andromeda to fight each Guardian. That was enough damage cut to safely make it through most guardian raids solo or near solo. I have since dropped all of those teams except the Thunder team for Phul (which is now Raiko, Wind Kaiser, Joan with a random spear/Shingen spear, and Dian) as that one is a guardian I try and run daily (and it's usually hard to find tons of players that want to run it).

Can you AAB with a Damage Cut Team?
I do not initially AAB with a damage cut team as none of my teams are constant damage cut teams. You will have to manual a damage cut team in a raid if participation stays low. If players pop in (and some other Andros), you can usually then defer to AABing. Low level of participation forces the AABing. With Trags, I usually have to manual, but once the raid hits 10 or more players, it's safe to move to AABing and you can watch the raid proceed. The point of utilizing a damage cut team in raid content is to enable survivability until you reach critical mass for the raid. While this seems more effort, the added advantage is that your teams are usually very close to your raiding team. As an example: I don't change my grid for my racing team, I usually drop the On Element Kaiser, switch out Dian for Samael, and I switch my soul to Shingen. That's usually it.

What is a Great Grid for Damage Cut?

I build all my weapons grids like everyone else; I build them with whatever I've got. All grids need 100% Exceed (or near if you can break the 2M damage cap on a burst per Hime). After that I'd try and stack to 100% Ascension if you utilize a ton of healing. If not, get as much Vigor as possible. Defense is usually not needed as, by definition, your team reduces damage coming in by large amounts that the need for stacking this ability is basically removed from gameplay. You build defense more efficiently through damage cutting anyway. Pride is also less valuable as you're only getting it when you're giving up on high hitpoints. A strong ascension grid should not need this either.
If this is theoretical, then
a) 3 Sources of Assault/Exceed
b) 3 or 4 Sources of Assault/Vigor/Ascension (to 100% ascension)
c) 2 Sources of Assault/Vigor (M or L)
My current grid is nowhere near this though.



Dejnov.