The Different Types of Damage, How to Defend Against Them, and How Does Armor Work?

This will be a short article.  We have a war to fight in 2 & 1/2 hours!  So, let's get to it.

There are three types of damage in Hero Wars.  They are:

Pure Damage, this will be shown as white in battle, and green in your hero's description page.  We are going to return to pure damage later.

Magic Damage, this type of damage will be marked as purple in your hero's description and in battles.

Physical Damage, this will be shown as red in your hero's description and in battle.

At this point, you may be thinking, "Well thanks Captain Obvious! I already knew that heroes did damage."  I hope you do anyway, if not then you might belong in one of those "other" guilds, like the one who's name rhymes with Everyone's favorite tank.

It is important to know what kind of damage is being dealt for a number of reasons.  In my mind the number one reason this is important, is because I play back battles, both training and real, as slowly as possible.  When I do this, I try to watch for what kind of damage this or that hero is taking.  This allows me to better assess where a particular hero is struggling, i.e is Magic Damage killing him/her, or is it Physical, or is it pure?  You can go back and replay all of those Guild War Battles, and Arena/Grand Arena for a reason you know.

Another less obvious purpose, is to go back and watch battles you have fought with opponents (think Guild Wars) and watch THEIR team to scan for weaknesses.  This can give you clues about what to bring to the next Guild War/Arena Battle.  I look for a weakness, and then I make the enemy suffer for it.

So far so good right?  Let's examine further.

Pure Damage is NOT, I repeat NOT effected by armor OR magic defense. That's right, if you're seeing a lot of white damage pop up, you're in trouble, and it's time to look at increasing your team's health glyphs, main stat glyphs, and attack glyphs.  Pure Damage is only defensible by adding health.

Magic Damage can be defended against by increasing your Magic Defense (I know right?) glyph.  You can also choose to add a hero to your team that can boost the team's Magic Defense with their abilities, or their artifact's activation buff.  Offensively, you can increase the amount of Magic Damage that you do, by increasing both Magic Attack, and Magic Penetration.  For teams that have Magic Defense, you MUST have good Magic Penetration.  If you're having trouble with Celeste in Dark Mode, then you need to increase Magic Penetration.

Physical Damage works exactly the same way.  Having issues with you heroes dying from Physical Damage?  Well my friend, it's time to visit the blacksmith and get some Armor.  No Blacksmith?  No problem.  You can increase Armor using glyphs, or by adding heroes that boost the team's armor.  Astaroth is a prime example of this.  Offensively, you can increase the amount of Armor Penetration that your hero has.  Some are better than others, for example Kiera's winter skin provides Armor Penetration, and Qing Mao's Artifact, and fourth skill provide Armor Penetration.

So how much Magic Defense/Armor do we need?  Glad you asked.  We can figure out an estimate with a formula:

Here are some armor values and how much damage they can reduce:

500 - 14%
1000 - 25%
2000 - 40%
4000 - 57%
8000 - 72%
12000 - 80%

If you'd like to stop here, you can.  Magic Defense works the same way.  You can use these values for Magic Penetration, and Armor Penetration as well.  If you want to have a more complete knowledge of what is going on, then fear not and read on intrepid explorer!

We take our Armor value/Magic Defense value (we'll use 3000 for simplicity.), and divide by 3000. We will always divide by 3000, unless the developers change something.  This number is constant.

So,

3000/3000 = 1

We will now add 1.  We will always add one, it is a constant number in the game.

1 + 1 = 2

Now we will divide 1 by our result (2).

1 / 2 = 0.5

Next we will subtract this number from one.  Again another constant.

1 - 0.5 = 0.5

Next we multiply by 100.

0.5 * 100 = 50.

That number is our Armor/Magic Defense value expressed as a percentage.  This means we will block 50% of the incoming respective damage.  Let's try another.

8000 / 3000 = 2.666

1 + 2.666 = 3.666

1 / 3.666 = 0.272

1 - 0.26 = 0.728

0.278 * 100 = 72.8 (This WILL be rounded down to 72)

and we get 72% which is how much incoming Physical/Magic damage that we are blocking.  

So, if we have 8000 armor, and our enemy does 9000 Physical Damage, we will block 72% of that damage.  Our hero takes 2,520 damage!  This is a HUGE decrease in damage.

Armor Penetration and Magic Penetration work in a similar fashion.  If you have a penetration value of 3000 and your opponent has an armor or magic defense value that is 2000, and additional 1000 damage will get through.  Hopefully, this will give you a new way to analyze your battles, and target areas you would like to improve.