Aura boosting is often an essential part of building optimized grids due to the 280% threshold present on certain weapon skills. This can be achieved through the use of summon auras & sub auras, character passives and the Exalto weapon skill.
Exalto weapons boost the aura of Omega, Odious, or Optimus weapon skills. For example, Colossus Cane Ira will boost Omega Fire weapon skills, Fienddagger of Prosperity Verboten will boost Odious Fire weapon skills, and Overrider will boost Optimus Fire weapon skills.
Utilizing weapons that allow damage to exceed the damage cap is a core aspect of building optimized grids. This is primarily done through weapon skills that provide the following:
DMG Cap Up / DMG Cap Up (Special)
Supplemental Damage
DMG Amplify
This section covers sources that provide the above bonuses to all types of damage. For sources that specifically affect normal attack, skill damage and charge attack, refer to the corresponding tabs.
DMG Cap
The simplest way to increase damage output is by increasing general DMG cap. This bonus stacks up to a maximum of 20% and any excess will be converted into DMG Cap Penetration via the Overskills system. Keep in mind that increasing DMG Cap is only beneficial if you are hitting the damage cap.
There are many sources that provide DMG Cap and meta weapon options will often also provide other desirable modifiers as well.
Special DMG Cap functions identically as regular DMG Cap, but uses a separate frame and has its own independent maximum of 20%. This means that grids using both regular DMG Cap and Special DMG Cap can have up to effectively 40% DMG Cap Up. Like regular DMG Cap, any excess will be converted into DMG Cap Penetration via the Overskills system.
General supplemental damage adds a flat amount of damage to all damage sources. As a result, it is especially effective for setups with many damage instances, such as normal attack focused teams that stack Bonus DMGDeals bonus DMG for one-foe one-ally attacks or for setups with a lot of multi-hit skill damage.
Different weapons provide various skills that all fall under general supplemental damage. These effects stack with one another up to a maximum of 100,000. The most common skills are listed below:
Craft: 20,000 supplemental damage only applied on critical hits
Persistence: Up to 30,000 staminaScales based on how high a character's HP is-based supplemental damage
Fortitude: Up to 60,000 enmityScales based on how low a character's HP is-based supplemental damage
Q: What makes Pact weapons so good? Not only do they provide 7% Damage Cap Up, their unconditional 50,000 supplemental damage means that allies will always get the boost regardless of HP or critical hit rate. This can then stack up to the max of 100,000 with only 2 copies leaving the rest of the grid open for other useful weapons!
The DMG Amplify modifier applies a percentage increase to your final damage. This bonus is additive with any other weapons or effects that provide damage amplification such as Arcarum Summons and the Seraphic-ATK modifier found on Seraphic Weapons, Ultima Weapons and Destroyer Weapons.
Some weapon skills may provide allies with Bonus DMG (commonly referred to as echoes) to normal attacks. All weapons that grant Bonus DMG provide Bonus DMG corresponding to the weapon's element, with the exception of Destroyer Weapons. Depending on the weapon, this effect may only activate under specific conditions. If there multiple weapons provide Bonus DMG of the same element, only the highest value will apply.
Unlike C.A. Bonus DMG and Skill Bonus DMG, Normal Attack Supplemental DMG is added to each instance of Normal Attack Bonus DMG, making these two modifiers particularly valuable for normal attack setups.
Normal Attack Supplemental (N.A. Supp.) and N.A. Supp. (Sp.) function identically, with each stacking independently up to maximum of 100,000. Because this amount is added to each normal attack damage instance, it is particularly effective in setups that stack Bonus DMGDeals bonus DMG for one-foe one-ally attacks or utilize Flurry. Normal Attack Supplemental DMG can be used alongside General Supplemental DMG, further enhancing this playstyle.
Normal Attack Amplify (N.A. Amp.) and N.A. Amp. (Sp.) function identically with each stacking independently up to a maximum of 30% and 20% respectively. This modifier applies a percentage increase to your final normal attack damage, before supplemental damage is added. This bonus is additive with any other weapons or effects that provide damage amplification such as Arcarum Summons and the Seraphic-ATK modifier found on Seraphic Weapons, Ultima Weapons and Destroyer Weapons.
Skill DMG Supplemental (Skill DMG Supp.) and Skill Supp. (Sp.) function identically, stacking independently of each other. Skill DMG Supp. stacks up to a maximum of 100,000. Because this amount is added to each instance of skill damage, it is most effective on characters that deal multi-hit skill damage. Skill DMG Supplemental can be used alongside General Supplemental DMG, further enhancing this playstyle.
Notable UnboostableWeapons that have skills that cannot be boosted by any summon aura. Skill Supplemental Sources
Rigor is a weapon skill that adds an additional instance of skill damage whenever skill damage is dealt to a foe. This extra instance deals a percentage of the total skill damage inflicted. For example, with 10% Rigor, if a skill deals 6 hits of 1,000,000 damage, an additional skill hit of 600,000 damage will be triggered.
dy/dk
Editor's Note Rigor is a relatively new weapon skill and this reflects our current understanding of how it works. Please take it with a grain of salt!
Skill DMG Amplify (Skill Amp.) and Skill Amp (Sp.) function identically, stacking independently of each other. Skill Amp (Sp.) stacks up to a maximum of 20%. This modifier applies a percentage increase to your final skill damage. This bonus is additive with any other weapons or effects that provide damage amplification such as Arcarum Summons and the Seraphic-ATK modifier found on Seraphic Weapons, Ultima Weapons and Destroyer Weapons.
Special C.A. DMG Cap Up allows charge attacks to exceed the hard damage cap of 13.1 or 6.6 million present in most Impossible Raids. This bonus stacks up to a maximum of 30%. It is important to note that this boost to damage cap only applies if the hard cap has been reached. Therefore, to benefit from this weapon skill, the grid must have substantial C.A. DMG boosting sources.
Charge Attack Supplemental (C.A. Supp.) and C.A. Supp. (Sp.) function identically, stacking independently of each other. C.A. Supp. stacks up to a maximum of 1,000,000.
Some weapon skills may grant Bonus DMG to charge attacks. This modifier adds an extra instance of damage that deals a percentage of the total charge attack damage inflicted.
Charge Attack Amplify (C.A. Amp.) and C.A. Amp (Sp.) function identically, stacking independently of each other. This modifier applies a percentage increase to your final charge attack damage. This bonus is additive with any other weapons or effects that provide damage amplification such as Arcarum Summons and the Seraphic-ATK modifier found on Seraphic Weapons, Ultima Weapons and Destroyer Weapons.
Charge Burst Amplify is a modifier that applies a percentage increase to your final Chain Burst damage. This bonus is additive with any other weapons or effects that provide damage amplification such as Arcarum Summons and the Seraphic-ATK modifier found on Seraphic Weapons, Ultima Weapons and Destroyer Weapons.
Critical damage is one way grids can increase their overall damage output. While critical hits do not raise the damage cap, they can help reach existing damage caps more consistently. Additionally, some weapon skills may only activate on critical hits.
It is important to note that critical hit rate from the grid does NOT stack additively with other sources like character skills or EMP. For example, having 80% grid crit and 20% crit from EMPs does not mean that you have 100% critical hit rate. Instead, each instance is calculated separately. See Critical Damage for further information.
All types of damage can critically hit, however critical hits can only occur against elements that are weak to your element, as well as against Null element foes.
For consistency, crit grids will often focus on reaching 100% critical rate. By default, critical hits deal 50% increased damage and this value can be increased through the Overskills system.
Crit grids can often be quite restrictive to build as they require numerous weapon slots to achieve a reliable critical hit rate.
Here's a tip! Players can check a grids current critical hit rate with the in-game grid skill boost info menu or by manually calculating it with numbers from the Weapon Skills page. * Note: The in-game estimated damage calculator will not apply critical hit damage unless your critical hit rate is 100%.
Example 1:
This example uses double sided 5★ aura boost from Tiamat which allows for more grid customization but limits the summon options.
Critical Weapons
Aura Boost
+
×
+
= 100.7%
(10% + 10% + 6.5%) = 26.5%
1 + (140% + 140%) = 380%
Example 2:
This example uses a single Lvl 250 Tiamat which requires quite a few grid weapons, but frees up the main/support summon to run something with more utility.
Critical Amplify is a modifier that applies a percentage increase to all types of damage when the attack is a critical hit. This bonus is additive with any other weapons or effects that provide damage amplification such as Arcarum Summons and the Seraphic-ATK modifier found on Seraphic Weapons, Ultima Weapons and Destroyer Weapons.
