How the HSR Damage Formula Works: ATK, Crit, DEF, RES
Final damage in HSR = base damage (ATK times the skill's scaling ratio) × total DMG% bonus × Crit multiplier × enemy DEF multiplier × enemy RES multiplier — all MULTIPLIED together, never added. Every character starts with a base 5% Crit Rate and 50% Crit DMG before any gear; on a crit, the Crit multiplier is 1 + Crit DMG. Against a same-level enemy, DEF alone cuts your raw damage roughly in half before RES is even applied, and most enemies resist about 20% of any element they're not weak to, but only 0% against their actual weakness.
Damage isn't addition — it's a chain of multiplications
New players often assume DMG% bonuses just stack up like 20% + 30% + 10% = 60% extra. That's wrong. HSR's damage runs through several separate layers, and those layers MULTIPLY each other rather than add. Think of it like stacking discounts at checkout: 20% off, then another 10% off the already-discounted price — not a flat 30% off the original price.
The general shape of the formula (no need to memorize it, just the order): Final Damage = Base Damage (ATK, or HP/DEF depending on the character, times the scaling ratio printed on the Skill or Ultimate) × combined DMG% multiplier (elemental DMG, relic sets, and team buffs all ADD UP inside this one layer) × Crit multiplier × enemy DEF multiplier × enemy RES multiplier × a few extra layers like Vulnerability (bonus damage the target takes) and the flat damage reduction tied to enemy Toughness.
The key thing to remember: sources WITHIN the same layer (say, the DMG% layer) add together freely — 20% Physical DMG from a 4-piece relic set stacks right on top of 12.8% from a teammate's buff. But ACROSS layers (DMG% vs. Crit vs. DEF vs. RES), it's always multiplication. Getting this straight is what tells you where a fresh 10% is actually worth putting.
Crit — it's not just a coin flip
Crit Rate is the chance a hit lands as a critical strike; Crit DMG is how much extra damage that crit deals. Every character starts with a base 5% Crit Rate and 50% Crit DMG before any gear at all — relics, Light Cones, and Traces only add on top of that baseline.
On a crit, the Crit multiplier is 1 + Crit DMG (so 150% Crit DMG means a 2.5x multiplier). On a non-crit, the multiplier is just 1 — no bonus at all. Because crits are probabilistic, over enough hits your expected average damage works out close to 1 + (Crit Rate × Crit DMG) — this is the shortcut theorycrafters use to compare two relic loadouts.
One thing that's easy to miss: Crit Rate has a hard, useless ceiling — probability can't exceed 100%, so anything past that is wasted. Also, DoT damage (like Burn or Bleed) and Weakness Break damage can't crit by default, unless a specific effect says otherwise.
Enemy DEF reduction and RES — why hitting the right weakness feels so much stronger
Enemy DEF acts like an invisible shield that shaves off your raw damage before anything else gets applied. The higher the enemy's DEF, the smaller this multiplier gets (the more damage you lose); against a same-level enemy this multiplier typically lands around 50% — meaning your raw damage is already cut in half before RES even comes into play. That's why DEF Shred effects (from certain support Skills/Traces) and DEF Ignore/PEN are so valuable — they push this multiplier close to its maximum.
RES (elemental resistance) is the next layer. Most enemies default to about 20% resistance against elements they're NOT weak to, but only 0% against the element they actually have a weakness to. So hitting a weakness doesn't just break Toughness faster — the damage itself is already higher because you're dodging that 20% resistance tax. A target's RES can never be pushed below -100% or above 90%, no matter how much RES PEN you stack.
One layer people forget: while an enemy hasn't been Weakness Broken yet, all damage against it is reduced by a flat 10%. Once it's broken, that 10% reduction disappears — meaning the exact same hit deals more damage after the break than before it. That's why Break-focused teams always time their combo: break first, then dump the big hit right after.
A worked example: what does 2000 ATK actually deal
Say a character has 2000 ATK and uses an Ultimate with a 100% ATK scaling ratio (so Base Damage = 2000). They're running relics and team buffs that add up to +20% elemental DMG (DMG% layer = 1.2x). This hit crits, with 150% Crit DMG currently on the sheet (Crit multiplier = 1 + 1.5 = 2.5x). The enemy is the same level and hasn't had its DEF reduced, so the DEF multiplier sits at the roughly-50% baseline (0.5x). This isn't the enemy's weakness element, so it resists 20% (RES multiplier = 1 - 0.2 = 0.8x).
Multiply step by step: 2000 × 1.2 = 2400 → × 2.5 (crit) = 6000 → × 0.5 (DEF) = 3000 → × 0.8 (RES) = 2400. That's the number that shows up on the combat log: 2400 damage.
Now flip just one variable to see how much multiplication matters: if this were actually the enemy's weakness element (RES drops to 0%, multiplier becomes 1.0 instead of 0.8), final damage jumps to 3000 — a 25% increase from a single RES layer, without touching ATK or Crit at all. That's exactly why building your team around the enemy's elemental weakness is always priority number one.
Build tip: keep Crit Rate to Crit DMG at roughly a 1:2 ratio
Back to the expected-damage formula, 1 + (Crit Rate × Crit DMG): once Crit Rate is at or near 100%, pouring in more Crit Rate is basically pointless since anything past the cap is wasted — every extra percent should go into Crit DMG instead, since Crit DMG has no real ceiling. On the flip side, if Crit Rate is still low (under 50%), most of your hits aren't even landing as crits to benefit from high Crit DMG, so raising Crit Rate is the better investment at that point. That's the general rule: adding to a layer that's still low pays off more than piling further onto a layer that's already big or near its cap.
For most standard DPS characters, community-tested builds tend to land around 65-70% Crit Rate paired with 130-140% Crit DMG — roughly that 1:2 ratio, because a Crit DMG substat roll typically rolls for close to double the numeric value of a same-tier Crit Rate substat roll. You don't need to hit these numbers exactly; staying in this range is enough damage for the vast majority of content.
The same low-layer-first principle applies to DEF and RES too: if your team already has a DEF Shred character bringing enemy DEF near zero, or you're already hitting the enemy's weakness (RES already at 0%), investing further into DEF/RES reduction is close to wasted effort — put those resources into ATK/DMG%/Crit instead of stacking on layers that are already near their limit.
codes.faq_h
Why does hitting an enemy's elemental weakness feel like such a huge damage spike?
Because the enemy's RES against its actual weakness element is usually 0%, while it still resists roughly 20% against other elements. On top of that, hitting the weakness breaks Toughness faster, triggering Weakness Break and removing the enemy's default 10% damage reduction — so the total gap versus hitting the wrong element is very noticeable.
If Crit Rate is already at 100%, is it still worth building Crit DMG?
Even more so. Once Crit Rate hits 100%, every hit is a crit, so Crit DMG is now the only thing deciding how big your damage actually is. Any Crit Rate above 100% is completely wasted, since probability can't exceed the cap.
What's the difference between DEF Shred and a character's own DEF Ignore/PEN?
Both push the enemy's DEF multiplier toward its maximum, but they work differently: DEF Shred is a debuff applied to the enemy (and some bosses can resist or ignore debuffs), while DEF Ignore/PEN is baked into the attacking character's own hit — it's not a debuff, so it can't be resisted.
