How the Advantage System Works, and a Concise Chart for Match-ups

A guide to Advantage, Damage Types and Armor Types, and just generally how it all works. Also a little bit of discussion about my issues with it, because all I ever do is complain.

Quick Introduction

Hey y'all! I've never really used the Steam Forum's before, so you'll have to forgive me if this guide is a little all over the place, but I figured there's no time like the present.

In this guide I will be discussing the Advantage System of Dark Deity and how to read it properly, since I don't feel the game adequately explains it and I want to assist my friends and other possible people who were as confused about it as I was, especially since it plays a big part in your strategic decision making throughout the game. My hope is to quickly explain how this system works, and then I'll briefly discuss my personal issues with it and possible solutions in its own section separate from the actual analysis. Any edits are either for grammatical accuracy or to clarify my points more accurately, so apologies if this guide shifts a bit upon revisits.

For those who already understand the system and just want the match-up chart, it's in it's own section and you can find it there.

Anyways, let's not waste time and get on with it.

(Authors Note: Hey whats up! Future me here. As of me writing this, the developers have actually gone on to place an in game match-up chart for advantage. I heavily doubt this guide had anything to do with it, but the fact that they implemented such an addition is great news. Unfortunately, it also means parts of this guide will be somewhat obsolete since the game has accommodated for some of these changes. I will do my best to update the guide as the game gets updated, but I apologize if there's any irrelevant information here. If anything, I'd like to thank the many kind words and ratings I've gotten for this guide since I posted it. It's been a huge motivator for me and I'm happy I was able to help out newer players in this games first few weeks. Keep playing everyone, and have a rocking day!)

What Advantage Is, and How to Check It

So let's start with the obvious: What is Advantage?

Essentially it is this game's version of the Fire Emblem weapon triangle. For those unaware, the Fire Emblem weapon triangle is a system that series has where certain weapon types will gain advantages or disadvantages based on what weapon type your opponent is holding. It varies from game to game, but the core mechanic is something like this.
Simple, right?

Now, Dark Deity has a very similar mechanic, except this time, there's two factors to consider: damage types and armor types.

In total, there are (to my knowledge) NINE damage types and FOUR armor types. I'll quickly list them now for clarity.
DAMAGE TYPES

• Piercing Damage (Red)
  
• Slashing Damage (Green)
  
• Crushing Damage (Indigo)
  
• Cleaving Damage (Yellow)
  
• Projectile Damage (Blue)
  
• Arcane Damage (Pink)
  
• Storm Damage (Also Yellow?)
  
• Fire Damage (Orange)
  
• Holy Damage (White/Tan-ish?)

ARMOR TYPES

• Rune Cloak
  
• Leather Armor
  
• Chain Armor
  
• Plate Armor

Like Fire Emblem, these will give bonuses and penalties based on what is attacking what, but I'll get more into that later. For now, let's focus on where to find them and what to look for. Every single class in the game has one damage type and one armor type to their name. To showcase this, I'm going to use Sophia. Why? Because I like Sophia.

First, let's click on her and hit Shift (using keyboard controls for this btw) to check up on her stats.
As pointed out by the helpful arrow (whoever put that there must be super nice! :D) these are your DAMAGE TYPE and ARMOR TYPE. Damage Type is on top, while Armor Type is on the bottom. All of it is dependent on the class. As Sophia is a Witch Hunter, her Damage Type is Projectile and her Armor type is Chain Armor. These can be checked via hovering over them with your cursor within the menu. You can also check these on the map by hovering over a unit with your cursor.
Nifty!

I won't get into the Damage and Armor types of every class, since I'm sure people much smarter then me have already listed those out and you can find them very easily. What I will tell you is that, when ranking up, it's worthwhile to check to see how the Damage and Armor type will change upon promotion. Class variance is importance, folks, not just in TF2! You can check these out right here on the promote screen.
(Hint: It's in the blue circle.)

With the basics out of the way, let's delve into the actual meat and potatoes of how the heck these interplay with each other.

What Effectiveness Is, and How to Check for It

With all the boring pre-amble out of the way, let's actually break down what THIS stuff means.
First of all, you can quickly surmise what your opponent is weak too via the map screen. When you hover over a unit, you can check the little arrows that pop up on the top left of the opposing units to see whether their damage will be strengthened or weakened against the enemy in question. Green ▲ means they will deal more, red ▼ means, shock of all shocks, they'll deal less. This can also be viewed for the enemies as well.
Wow Sophia, better not potshot Mr. Arrow Man!

Secondly, weapon effectiveness ONLY applies to pure damage. Any other stat changes, such as accuracy, dodge, crit rate, etc is handled by the weapon system. In other words, effectiveness PURELY deals with damage, nothing else. As an example here, despite having an advantage against the former enemy and a disadvantage against the latter one, Aurima still has better accuracy against the lackey he has disadvantage towards, even when choosing the least accurate option.
Side note: I missed the more accurate attack on taking that screenshot lmao

Third, since it's damage type against armor type, the enemy CAN have advantage over you even if you have advantage over them. In other words, the game calculates this system by doing a check of Damage Type ➔ Armor Type for both sides.

Fourth, let's discuss what Mastery does to affect these values. To put it simply, the higher a unit's Mastery is, the more effective type match-ups will be when they are favorable. In mathematical terms, mastery gives a percentage decrease to the defensive value before the bonus is applied. The letters from the pre-battle screen are essentially meaningless, they just exist to show how good a match up is in the units favor. To TL;DR it even more, if you have better Mastery and a higher letter, your Advantage bonus damage will be increased.

Anyways, with all this out of the way, let me show you all a quick chart I made to concisely illustrate what is good against what.

The Chart of Advantage Matchups

(Note: this chart is rounded around a generic 100% of damage based on Attacker's Power - Defender's Defensive Stat, [the Defensive Stat being chosen via the Damage Type in question being Physical or Magical] in other words anything above 100% is bonus damage and anything below 100% is subtracted damage.)

Updated chart from in-game! It can be accessed by clicking on Damage Charts in the Tutorials menu!
Anyways, this is it for the "tutorial section". For the last segment, I want to quickly discuss what I feel is lacking about this system, and possible ways it can be fixed on the off chance a developer of this game reads this.

My Issues with this System, and Possible Solutions

I'll just list them in a quick numbered list, in order from most important to least important. I don't think all of these are necessary changes, or every change I'm proposing needs to happen, or even in the way I'm describing them, but I think any one of these would help newer players get a grasp on the system.

The number one issue of this system is simple: the game doesn’t explain how it works, and the few tools that exist to help you understand are not clear enough or don’t explain the full system. My solutions are tailored to making the system easier to understand or easier to memorize to cut down on the confusion as much as possible without sacrificing any of the core gameplay of the system.

1) The game really needs a tutorial on this. I know that there's a brief explanation for it in the Tutorial Section, but I think a more detailed version of it should be shown in Chapter 1. Yes, players don't like to have their hands held, but even a simple "Would you like a tutorial on Advantage? y/n" would be very helpful, especially with how much this mechanic affects your units positioning and risk-taking. I believe it's simply too important a mechanic to not be explained in this way.

2) I think exact match-ups should have an indicator on the pre-battle screen. There is an indicator on the map screen, but it still doesn't give you a good idea of how advantaged or disadvantaged you are, and it also doesn't show you the enemies advantage over you. I think a simple arrow showing the bonus or penalty the characters are getting in the pre-fight screen would go a long way in making this concept easier to keep track of. Here's a quick edit I made to show what I mean.
This could circumvent having to keep track of a chart by displaying all the relevant information to the player. Or...

3) Just having a chart like the one I made in-game be viewable at any time, much like Fire Emblem, would be nice. Something you can access via a quick in-game menu or on the map screen would make memorization less of an issue.
(Crossed off due to such a feature being added in a recent patch!)

4) I also think it's possible percentages for these could be streamlined. As I showed in the chart, it seems every weapon was intentionally designed with one minor advantage, one major advantage, one minor disadvantage, and one major disadvantage. I think if these had set percentage values instead of being different for each match-up (i.e. always -10% for minor disadvantage, always +25% for major advantage, etc), it could make them easier to keep track of for players, but this is certainly the least "useful" suggestion.

Conclusion

Hey, you made it to the end! I hope any of this was useful to you, and I hope y'all have a bangin' day/night! Enjoy the game everyone!

[mothballs]

i always thought it was weird that projectile and piercing were separate damage types
seems a bit weird since all the projectiles in the game damage by piercing anyway
plus if you merged them there would be a convenient 8 damage types, and you could have two very effective, two somewhat effective, two resisted, and two extra resisted

[Sukaki]

Mastery also need to be more clearer then a S - F range on adv like it already shows you what percentages are why not show you how much your mastery is contributing to it.

one way I thought about to fix it is changing the 4th weapon group "balanced" which is really just used for boosting true speed double or not be doubled. but have it also give a boost to your mastery as like a training weapon something light wight and easy to use where its not the strongest weapon but it show off that this weapon is good at and who to use it on. as I feel the other 3 weapon types fall under two boxes first being I can't get doubled if you never live for you to hit me. and the other being aim where some characters and classes need them just to get a 80% hit.

[Sukaki]

I fine cleaving also a dead weapon type as you never want or need it as its the pair with holy as arcane is to crushing and no class would want to take it because of other classes do the job of cleaving but better or the cleaving class is the worse out of the four class to pick from.

I feel like they should have just make piercing and projectile the same type because what is projectiles but piercing from range. and make the Adept class stand out a bit more by being a starting weapon being a axes and having all the adept classes ending as true hybrid class like Dragon Knight and Astral seeker. where you start them off as a phy damage dealer with cleave or crushing or make them a mage damage dealer with fire or storm. but when they advance they get the other weapon type of their pair ie holy/cleave fire/slashing storm/piercing and astral seeker they already had a class like this why not make all other like that.

[Sukaki]

I also feel like a problem is the balance of advantage/disadvantage its a cool idea that the weapons goes off armor type, however while some make sense the one I find strange is Piercing. so the first time you get Piercing is with two trash baby that yeah they can be good with advantage but having a 40% on like what 6 damage not that useful and only a few enemy at the first map you get them on all the other they get disadvantage making you think their even worse as they now do like 3-4 damage.

the next problem I see if you always have to double check the enemy armor type on every map as they use different armor sometimes also where you get a class with the same sprite and think oh this person is using the same sprite as Duelist so do they have piercing and chain armor no they have slashing and leather.

[lolo le haricot v4.8]

Sorry for my english, I'm french.
Thank's for the explanation !
I think i found an error : The cleaving damage row and the projectile damage row are inverted in the excel chart.

[Slytherite]

@Aaron Marx, From what I could surmise from the little I played of the game, Power/Red is for pure damage, Finesse/Blue has higher crit rate, Focus/Green has a higher accuracy, and Balance/Yellow is like your jack of all trades, masters of none

[Aaron Marx]

Great explanation, now can someone help me understand the different color weapons? That still evades me and I don't know what weapons to upgrade with my tokens.

[BigCMGN]

Great guide! I'm curious if you publish for any websites? I ask because I work for the publisher (Freedom games) and their gaming site (MGN). I'd like to see if you are interested in publsihing content with us. HMU if interested!

[freaky little cat]

wonderful post!!! thank you tons

[Mitchy]

Excellent post, thank you!