Damage Scaling
When a combo is performed, the amount of damage inflicted by each hit decreases as the combo goes on. This system has been put in place for many fighting games in order to prevent combos from being too powerful by doing too much damage.
Damage Scaling in The King of Fighters XIII is very straightforward for the most part. The first hit of a combo does 100% of its base damage, and each successive hit does 5% less until reaching a minimum (usually 20%). Mathematically, the damage for each hit can be calculated as follows:
Base Damage * (1 - 0.05 * Hit Count)
- Base Damage for any move can be found on the move list found on the page for the character in question.
- Hit Count is usually equal to the number displayed on the combo counter previous to the hit; however, this is not the case for any combos that include a multi-hitting Desperation Move (see below).
- All scaling ends at a minimum of 20% (from the 17th hit). Desperation Moves, however, have a higher minimum (see below).
- The minimum damage possible from a hit is 4, unless it has a base damage of 0.
Desperation Moves
While damage scaling is put into place to keep combos from being too strong, Desperation Moves follow different scaling rules in order to keep them from being too weak.
- Until the end of the DM, the Hit Count used in the damage scaling formula does not increase, despite increasing the combo counter. The entire move counts as 1 hit towards the Hit Count.
- If a DM is Max Canceled, it does not increase the Hit Count for the damage scaling formula, even at the last hit.
- Desperation Moves scale to a minimum of 40%, which is reached at the 13th hit of a combo.
- Neomax DM's scale to a minimum of 50%, which is reached at the 11th hit of a combo.
- Specific hits of a DM can be completely unaffected by damage scaling (i.e. 100% minimum). These hits are usually at the end of a long DM.
Move List Notation
Each character page has a Move List which includes every move available to that character. Under the Damage column, the base damage is listed for each hit of each move.
- Hits are listed in order, separated by a 'plus' (+) symbol.
- If multiple consecutive hits have the same damage value, or if the move includes loops of hits with certain damage values, these are expressed using a 'times' (×) symbol and parenthesized appropriately.
- Hits that are not affected by damage scaling are shown in bold.