How does malaise calculation work?

[TripSin]

It sometimes doesn't have the effect I expect it to on reducing attack damage.

For example I'm fighitng an enemy about to do a 5x2 attack (no buffs besides plated armor). I use a regular malaise with 3 energy to give it -3 strength. Instead of going down to 2x2 and then getting weak on top of that, it only goes to 3x2. What gives?

[Capernaum]

Strength is flat reduction, Weakness is percentage reduction. When there's a decimal it rounds down. Anything that shows behavior not matching that would reflect the enemy being buffed in some way from you using a skill (Gremlin Knob) or a bug.

[TripSin]

I think I figured out where my confusion is coming from. In my example I gave, I think I may have neglected to realize it was weakened first before I applied malaise.

I was expecting the 3 energy malaise to take flat damage off the value I saw in its weakened state (5x2 --> 2x2), but I think what it does instead is take flat damage off the original base attack value which was probably 7x2 --> 4x2 and then it does the weakened calculation last (which took it from 4x2 --> 3x2).