Battles in Wild Water World play out on their own. Heroes pick targets, walk, attack and cast their skills without input from you, so what you control is the lineup, where each hero stands and how far you have built them up. Every hit goes through the same formula: the attacker's ATK or Skill Power, times a crit multiplier, times the target's Armor or RES reduction, times all the "DMG Increase / DMG Reduction" bonuses on both sides. If the timer runs out, you lose: there are no draws. In most PvP battles the fight escalates after 60 seconds until one side falls.
How a fight plays out
- Each hero walks to the nearest enemy it can reach and makes basic attacks. Heroes cannot attack or cast while they are moving.
- Every basic attack gives the hero 10 Energy. When the Energy bar is full and the target is inside the skill's range, the hero casts its main skill, and the bar goes back to 0. If a hero has both a skill and a basic attack ready, the skill goes first.
- Melee heroes such as Tom have a skill range of 1 tile, the same as their attack, so they only cast next to an enemy. Some skills reach the whole battlefield.
- Stun, Freeze and similar controls cancel a skill that is being cast. When the control ends, the hero goes back to idle; it does not pick the skill up where it stopped.
- Skill 1 also sets the strength of the hero's basic attack, because the basic attack uses the skill 1 level. Skills 2 and 3 are passives and are never "cast". Which star unlocks each skill is on Hero Stars & Skills.
- Karl, Dream Weaver and Kyle, Iron Ruler have no Energy bar and no skill to cast. Their skill 1 works as a passive.
Damage, step by step
Every hit is Physical, Energy or True damage. The battle report (Statistics) splits each hero's damage into those three. The game works a hit out in this order:
- Base damage comes from the skill: usually a percentage of the attacker's ATK or Skill Power, sometimes a percentage of the attacker's or target's HP. Skill levels raise that percentage.
- Crit. If the hit crits, multiply by the crit multiplier (next section). True damage ignores the crit multiplier.
- Armor or RES. Physical damage is reduced by the target's Armor, Energy damage by RES. True damage skips this step.
- DMG Increase and DMG Reduction. Multiply by 1 + attacker's DMG Increase − target's DMG Reduction. This factor never goes below 25% or above 200%.
- Attack or skill bonuses. Basic attacks use the basic-attack damage bonuses on both sides; skills use the skill damage bonuses. Area skills add the attacker's area damage bonus, and Physical or Energy hits add the final Physical or Energy damage bonuses.
- PvP adjustments, only against real players (see PvP rules below).
- Shields soak up what is left. After that the hit lands, the attacker heals from HP Drain, and the target gains Energy from the HP it lost.
Example. A hero with 1,000 ATK makes a basic attack worth 100% ATK against a target with 333 Armor (the base Armor of Super Tom). Armor cuts it to 1,000 × 1,000 ⁄ 1,333 = 750. If the hit crits at the usual 200%, it deals 1,500. If the target also has 20% Crit RES, the multiplier drops to 180% and the crit deals 1,350.
Crit
- Crit chance = your Crit − the target's Crit RES. Crit RES works against every attacker, so 30% Crit into a target with 30% Crit RES never crits.
- Crit multiplier starts at the hero's Crit DMG. Every global hero has 200%, except Super Tom at 250%. Crit chance above 100% (after Crit RES) is added on top: 130% Crit against 0 Crit RES crits every time for 230%.
- The target's Crit RES then shrinks the multiplier by half its value, up to 25%. With a 200% multiplier, each 1% Crit RES takes 1 point off, and 50% Crit RES brings it down to 150%.
- A crit never deals less than 150%.
- Skills can crit as well as basic attacks.
Armor and RES
Armor reduces Physical damage and RES reduces Energy damage, by the same rule: reduction = Armor ⁄ (1,000 + Armor). The first points count the most:
| Armor or RES | Damage taken | Reduction |
|---|---|---|
| 111 (lowest hero base) | 90% | 10% |
| 250 | 80% | 20% |
| 514 (highest hero base) | 66% | 34% |
| 1,000 | 50% | 50% |
| 3,000 or more | 25% | 75% (the cap) |
The attacker can lower the target's Armor in two ways, applied in this order:
- Armor Shred (RES Shred for Energy damage) ignores a share of the target's Armor. A Shred value of S ignores S ⁄ (200 + 2 × S): 50 Shred ignores 17%, 100 ignores 25%, and from 150 on it stays at the 30% cap.
- Armor PEN (RES PEN) then subtracts a flat amount.
If PEN pushes Armor below 0, the hit deals more than normal: −250 Armor means 120% damage, up to a limit of 200%.
Hit Rate and Dodge
- Only basic attacks can miss. Skills always land.
- Hit chance = the attacker's Hit Rate − the target's Dodge. Dodge counts for at most 75%, so a hero with the normal 100% Hit Rate lands at least 1 basic attack in 4.
- Dodge above 75% (compared with Hit Rate 100%) also weakens the attacks that do land: at 100% Dodge they deal half damage.
- Hit Rate above "100% + the target's Dodge" turns into bonus basic-attack damage at half rate, up to +50%.
- The four Lab Guard world bosses and the Mechanical Slug have 200% Hit Rate. Dodge does nothing against them.
Faction bonus
Every hero belongs to one of three factions: Brotherhood, Freefolk or Cybernetic (shown on the hero list). Deploy three heroes of the same faction and the whole lineup gets a bonus to HP, ATK and Skill Power:
| Requirement | Bonus |
|---|---|
| 3 heroes of one faction | +10% |
| 3 Epic or better of one faction | +15% |
| 3 Legendary or better of one faction | +25% |
Only the best tier you meet counts; the tiers do not add up. Exotic heroes count as Legendary or better. Two Legendary and one Epic Brotherhood heroes get +15%, not +25%.
There is no faction or class advantage in the damage formula: no faction deals extra damage to another, and Tanks, Warriors, Mages and so on are not stronger or weaker against each other by rule.
Energy
A hero gets Energy four ways:
- +10 per basic attack, or a net +7 if the attack misses (the attacker loses 3 when dodged).
- Energy Recovery every 2 seconds, if the hero has that stat.
- Getting hit: every 10% of max HP lost gives 10% of max Energy, up to one full bar per battle in total.
- Some skills that grant Energy directly.
Heroes start a battle with some Energy (0 to 60) and need 30 to 100 to cast. Casting resets the bar to 0.
Winning, losing and the time limit
- You win when every enemy hero is down, and lose when all of yours are. Pets do not count either way. Summoned units do: as long as one of your summons is standing, you have not lost.
- Running out of time is a loss for the attacker, which is you in every PvE mode. The limit is set per mode by the game server; when none is given the battle allows 180 seconds.
- If both sides fall in the same instant, the attacker also loses.
- For Exploration, the win or loss screen follows the game server's result. The battle you watch is a replay played on your phone, so on rare occasions the replay and the result screen can disagree.
PvP rules
A battle counts as PvP only when the other side is a real player: Arena, Cross-server Point Match, Peak Clash, City War and similar modes against someone's team. The same modes against a computer-controlled garrison follow the normal rules.
PvP adds these stats to the formula:
- PvP DMG Boost and PvP DMG Reduction scale every hit.
- Burst DMG DEF shrinks any single hit bigger than 25% of the target's max HP. Chip DMG Boost raises any hit smaller than 5% of the target's max HP.
- Flat DMG Increase and Flat DMG Reduction add or subtract a fixed amount, but the hit can only end up between 33% and 300% of what it was before them.
- ATK PEN and Skill Power PEN make the target ignore part of the attacker's ATK or Skill Power before the hit is worked out.
Overtime
Single-wave PvP battles (such as Arena, Point Match and Peak Clash) last 120 seconds according to the in-game tooltip, and overtime starts at 60 seconds. The countdown at the top switches to an overtime display. From then on, both sides keep stacking these effects:
| From | Every second, each side gets | Stops at |
|---|---|---|
| 60 s | +10% final damage | +200% (20 stacks) |
| 60 s | +10% ATK Speed and MOV Speed | +100% (10 stacks) |
| 60 s | −10% healing and shields received | −80% shields; healing stops at −75% |
| 60 s | +50 Control RES | 500 (10 stacks) |
| 85 s | loses 5% of max HP | — |
| 95 s | loses another 10% of max HP (15% a second in total) | — |
The HP loss ignores Armor, RES and DMG Reduction, but shields still absorb it. Without healing, a team at full HP is gone by about 98 seconds, so a PvP battle rarely reaches the time limit. City War and other multi-wave battles have no overtime.
World battles: carried-over HP and Durability
Battles on the World map (City War, pirates, resource points, Radar targets and similar raids) remember damage. Heroes start with the HP they had left from earlier fights, and healing can only bring them back up to that starting HP, not to full.
Your fleet's Durability also matters there. Below 1,600 Durability your heroes deal less damage, get weaker heals and shields, and take more damage:
| Durability | Damage dealt, shields received | Damage taken |
|---|---|---|
| 1,600 or more | normal | normal |
| 1,500–1,599 | −10% | +20% |
| 1,300–1,399 | −30% | +50% |
| 1,000–1,099 | −50% | +300% |
| 700–799 | −70% | +800% |
| 500–599 | −90% | +1,000% |
| 1–399 | −99% | +10,000% |
| 0 | no damage | effectively instant defeat |
Healing received drops by the same percentage, but never by more than 75%, the general limit on healing reduction. The steps in between follow the same curve; the tooltip on the Durability icon in battle shows your current step. Every step is listed under Durability and repairs.
Speed and skipping
- The speed button toggles between 1× and 2×, but 2× actually runs at 1.5×. The game remembers your choice for the next battle.
- Skip appears after a wait that depends on the mode: Arena 5 seconds; Exploration, Trial and Expedition 10; Hero Themed Dungeon 15. Battles on the World map and against world bosses can be skipped right away. VIP 9 (Quick Battle Skip) removes the wait everywhere.
- Skipping does not decide the result. The game plays the rest of the battle instantly and shows the same outcome you would have seen by watching.
Full damage formula
Attacker stats are marked A, target stats T. D is the skill's base damage.
- Crit multiplier C = max(1.5, (A Crit DMG + max(0, A Crit − T Crit RES − 1)) × (1 − min(0.25, T Crit RES ⁄ 2))), or 1 without a crit.
- General factor I = clamp(1 + A DMG Increase − T DMG Reduction, 0.25, 2). In PvP, also × (1 + A PvP DMG Boost ⁄ 10,000) ⁄ (1 + T PvP DMG Reduction ⁄ 10,000).
- Effective Armor R = T Armor × (1 − min(0.3, S ⁄ (200 + 2 × S))) − A Armor PEN, where S is Armor Shred (Shred only applies while Armor is 0 or more). Same for RES with RES Shred and RES PEN.
- Armor factor M = clamp(1 − R ⁄ (1,000 + |R|), 0.25, 2).
- Basic attack: D × C × M × I × (1 + A basic-attack bonus − T basic-attack reduction), then × (1 + min(0.5, (Hit − Dodge − 1) ⁄ 2)) if Hit − Dodge > 1, or × (1 − e ⁄ (e + 0.25)) with e = Dodge − Hit + 1 − 0.75 if that is above 0.
- Skill: D × C × M × I × (1 + A skill bonus − T skill reduction).
- True damage: D × I.
- Then × (1 + A area bonus) for area skills, and × (1 + A final bonus − T final reduction) of the hit's type (Physical or Energy).
- PvP only, with H = T max HP: ÷ (1 + Burst DMG DEF ⁄ 10,000) if above 0.25 × H; × (1 + Chip DMG Boost ⁄ 10,000) if below 0.05 × H; then + Flat DMG Increase − Flat DMG Reduction, clamped to 33%–300% of the value before this step, and never below 0.
- Afterwards: per-hit caps on some bosses; damage based on a % of HP is capped by the attacker's ATK and Skill Power (150% of each, added together, unless the skill sets its own cap); shields; HP Drain heals A for damage × HP Drain × (1 + healing bonus − min(0.75, healing reduction)).
Notes
- "2×" is 1.5×. The button shows 2× but the battle speed is capped at 1.5.
- Healing reduction tops out at 75%, not the 66% the overtime tooltip says. The overtime effect can stack to −80%, but the game never lets healing drop by more than 75%. The −80% shield figure is accurate.
- Control RES works twice. It shortens controls on the hero by Control RES ⁄ (Control RES + 750), with a 1-second minimum, and gives the same chance to ignore a control entirely. After an ignored control the immunity chance is off for 10 seconds. At 750 Control RES both are 50%.
- An immunity blocks the whole effect. If an effect stuns and slows at once and the hero is immune only to stuns, the slow does not land either.
- The "DMG" and "Block" bars in Statistics are higher than the HP actually lost. Damage soaked up by a shield counts toward both the attacker's DMG and the target's Block.
- Hero stats in battle are calculated server-side. The game data only holds level-1 base values, so this wiki cannot give a hero's exact stats at a given level, star or gear set.
- Unconfirmed: click damage. Some battles store a tap damage value, but the logic that uses it is not part of version 1.3.4, so this page does not cover tapping during battle.
- Unconfirmed: the Mechanical Slug and factions. That boss's data has three effects that double the damage it takes from one faction each (Brotherhood, Freefolk or Cybernetic). When and how each one is switched on is not published.
- Unconfirmed: Exploration waves. The battle system can run a stage as several enemy waves, with heroes keeping their HP and Energy between waves and fallen heroes staying out. Whether live Exploration stages use more than one wave is decided by the server, and version 1.3.4 never uses the wave logic.
- Unconfirmed: PvP time limits. The overtime tooltip and the game settings say 120 seconds, but the actual limit is sent by the server with each battle.