The combat mechanics in Breath of the Wild
can often feel truly limitless. There's so many different approaches a player
can take, utilizing the myriad of different weapons, abilities, and boosts to conjure
up some unique combat possibilities. But regardless of your current skill with
this combat system, what good is being a great swordsman if you don't understand the theory
behind the weapons you use? As in this game, there are dozens of unique
ways to boost a player's damage output OUTSIDE of just using the base weapon, though stat
buffs, elemental effects, critical strikes, and even weapons with SECRET damaging capabilities
- which are all crucial to understand. But the problem is, the game is reluctant
to inform the player on how exactly most of these attributes can affect damage output,
as the only damage stats that are available to the player are the base damages of the
weapons themselfs. So in an attempt to figure all of this information
out, I decided to test out every single one of these damage altering properties, in order
to decode how exactly these things can affect a player's damage output. And the results are...surprising to say the
least, as not only was I able to figure out the exact stats behind every single damage
dealing method in this game, I even figured out how all these attributes can stack on
top of eachother, which allowed me to push damage numbers in the upper triple digits,
and even sometimes passing 1000 - which is absolutely insane for this game. So utilizing this research, I thought it would
be helpful to go over the hidden stats behind EVERY single damage boosting property in the
game, explain how each of them can stack amongst each other to maximize damage output, in order
to ultimately figure out the MAXIMUM amount of damage a player can deal in this game!! So without further delay, lets get into the
hidden damage stats of Breath of the Wild. To kick this off, lets start by explaining
some of the most utilized damage boosting attributes in the game, which are the damage
buffs. This is going to be a bit of a recap from
an earlier video, with a few extra added details. So, the standard attack buff, which can be
obtainable through either food, armor, or a combination of the two - comes in 3 different
potency levels - and each level of this buff increases nearly ALL forms of damage output
by a set percentage level - a lvl one buff increases it by 20%, lvl 2 by 30%, and lvl
3 increases it by 50%. There are also 2 other main damage buffs that
can be found in this game, which are Ancient Proficiency, the set bonus for the ancient
gear, and Bone Attack Up, the set bonus on the radiant and phantom ganon sets. Ancient proficiency increases damage output
for all ancient and guardian weapons by 80%, and bone attack up increases damage output
for all bone and dragonbone weapons by the same 80%. And just like the standard attack buff, they
are allowed to stack on top of just about every other boost in the game - even including
the base attack buff!! So for an example, if we used a Ancient sword
which has a base damage of 40 while we have both the attack up and ancient proficiency
buffs activated, the 50% from the attack up will add to the 40 to create 60, and the 80%
will add to the 60 to create a final damage output of 108!! What's interesting about the way this is calculated,
is that every single buff is factored in on top of the last one to get a higher damage,
opposed to just applying them both to the base value of the weapon and adding them together,
which would in turn net a lower output. This means that all damage boosts stack multiplicatively
amongst each other, which allows for increased damage output numbers the more boosts you have applied. So with this in mind, lets go over another
type of attack boost found within this game, which are the critical hits. Now, a critical hit is defined as a damage
boosting move that is usually achieved by performing a special action, unlike a buff,
that is tied to the player themselfs. And in this game, there are a total of 4 main
ways that allow a player to execute a standard critical hit - 1, Breaking your weapon on
an enemy, weather that be by throwing it or just using up the last hit, 2, getting a headshot
with the bow and arrow, 3, striking an enemy with a weapon while on horseback or the master
cycle, and finally 4, getting the last hit in a combo with the critical hit modifier
applied to your weapon. Each of these moves multiply player damage
output by 2, which stacks with a lot of other damage boosting attributes such as the buffs
we mentioned earlier. So with that ancient sword combo we were using
in the past example, If we were to, lets say, attack with it on horseback with the other
2 buffs applied, the critical modifier doubles our damage output from 108 all the way to
216!! But beyond the main types of critical attacks,
there are MANY other unique ways a player can obtain a critical hit depending on the
weapon or circumstance - despite sometimes boasting a different damage modifier. Boomerangs, for an example always deal 50%
more damage when thrown at an enemy as opposed to directly striking one, and hammer type
weapons such as the boulder breaker and stone smashers, deal double damage when used against
Talus enemies. The only exception being the standard Iron
Sledgehammer, which instead deals 4 times the normal damage...which is super good if
your trying to take these baddies down early game. There's even a special damage modifier when
landing headshots on enemies that spawn on archery towers, that increases damage output
by a whopping 10 times - which basically guarantees a one shot KO to any enemy in this position. And just like the others, they are allowed
to stack with any of the other buffs or critical hits that we mentioned earlier!! So in reality, all of these damage boosts
should be quite simple to understand, because as long as you know the values of the boosts,
calculating them together to figure out the damage output is really straight forward!! However, there are some types of critical
attacks that don't quite work as normally as you would expect, and feature slightly
altered rules on how they can be stacked with other boosts. One of them being shattering a frozen enemy,
which multiplies damage output by 3, and another being performing a sneak strike - which multiples
damage output by 8. What makes these so unique, besides their
high multipliers, is that they override any and all critical hits that would otherwise
be applied - so shattering a frozen enemy with a headshot or breaking a weapon during
a stealth strike will not deal any more bonus damage - but they still can be stacked with
all damage buffs such as attack up or ancient proficiency. Other than that, these critical hits are still
a great way to drastically increase the damage output of a weapon, and understanding them
will lead us one step closer to figuring out the maximum amount of damage that can be achieved
in this game. But moving on, the next set of damage boosts
we should talk about refers to a very specific set weapon type practical to the mid/late
game - which are the sheikah ones. We already discussed how the ancient proficiency
buff increases damage output of all sheikah weapons by 80%, but most of these weapons
also receive many boosts of their own that can stack even further. In this case, when facing any guardian type enemy, all guardian
type weapons deal out 30% more damage, and for the ancient weapons, aka any of the ones
you can buy at robbies tech lab, deal out 50% more damage. These 2 types of criticals can stack with
any type of attack buff or critical hit - with the only exception being ice shattering critical
we mentioned earlier, which completely overrides it. And this brings us to the final type of sheikah
weapon to discuss - the ancient arrows - which contain a lot of unique and hidden properties
that differentiate them from most other weapons. Its most obvious capabilities being its ability
to one shot a guardian when fired in the eye, 3 shot it when fired at the body, and even
their ability to instantly vaporize any non boss type enemy in the game - at the cost
of it not dropping its loot. However, when this arrow is used against
any boss type enemy such as a Talus or a Hinox, these arrows boast a different effect - by increasing
the base damage of the attack by 50%! On top of this, since ancient arrows are classified
as a type of ancient weapon, you can even use the ancient proficiency buff to get an
extra 80% power added to your attack, along with any other buffs or criticals you apply
with it. Now using them against these bosses may not
be the most cost effective use for this item, but by far its most practical application
is when it's used against a guardian scout, as these arrows deal an additional
30 damage to the base attack of the arrow before receiving most of its buffs - which
really helps its damaging potential. To put this all in perspective, let's utilize
an ancient bow, which has a base damage of 44, with the arrows and all possible damage
boosts, to see how much damage we can crank out. First we will add the ancient arrow bonus
of 50% to get 66, then the attack up bonus of 50% to get 99, next, the 30 bonus damage
for hitting a guardian scout gets added to create 129, then since its an ancient weapon
used against a guardian we can add another 50% to get 193, and finally, with the ancient
proficiency buff we can add 80% to crank this all the way to 346 - which is insane for a
single attack in this game!! Oh and yeah - if that shot was a headshot,
the entire thing will be doubled to be 693 - which is in fact the second most powerful
bow attack possible in this game - right behind shooting a normal guardian in the eye! In fact, this exact combination is so powerful
that the devs even applied a hidden nerf to it - by reducing the ice shatter multiplayer
with an ancient arrow blow from 3 down to 2, so its best to not to use ice with this
combo. But enough talk about what the maximum bow
damage in this game is...becasue, what about the maximum amount of melee damage? This information may come off as a huge surprise... So in order to figure out the maximum possible
melee damage in Botw, lets first try to figure out what the highest damaging weapons are. In terms of raw attack power, the most powerful
weapon someone can find is the attack boosted Royal Guards Claymore, which can deal up to
116 damage with the max modifier. Utilizing everything we discussed about buffs
in criticals earlier in this video, there's 2 boosts we can use in tandem to maximise
this weapons damaging potential - the attack up buff, and the sneak strike critical, which
does 8 times the damage Using this combo, we are able to crank out
a total 1392 damage while sneak striking - which can basically one shot just about any normal
enemy in the game. However, considering that the Royal Guards
claymores are both rare and weak on durability, a much more realistic option would be to use
the Savage Lynel crusher, which is much more common late game and boasts vastly higher
durability. Although the base damage of this weapon is
only 108 instead of 116, with the 2 previous buffs applied we are still able to deal 1296
damage - which is enough to take out any normal enemy in this game excluding the gold moblin
- which boasts a crazy 1620 hp. So the question becomes - is there a way we
can deal even more damage to possibly one shot this type of enemy? Fortunately, there is one more weapon we can
test out - which is the Guardian axe ++, which has up to 75 base damage with the max modifier. Although this damage is significantly weaker
than the other 2, there is one VERY important buff this weapon can utilize that the others
cannot - ancient proficiency - which gives a crucial 80% buff that adds to the other
2. So for the moment of truth, if we use this
weapon to sneakstrike the moblin with both buffs applied, we will deal exactly 1616 damage
- which is in fact the maximum possible damage in this game!! It’s unfortunate that this number is only
4 short of being able to one shot this type of enemy, but it at least it brings it down enough
to guarantee that your follow up hit will kill it. So, now that we know how to create the highest
damaging combos in the game, keep in mind that a lot of these setups are rather situational
- but a great understanding of all the different buffs and criticals that we went over so far,
along with how they stack will allow you to increase your combat efficiency by drastic
levels!! But beyond just the typical melee and ranged
weapons, there are many other ways a player can deal damage to an enemy - through things
like bombs, elemental effects, and powers, that are all viable means of attack, despite
never showing any proper damage indicator like the other weapons. Although none of these attacks can be boosted
by any form of buff or critical, I thought I would take a minute to run through some of these hidden stats. One of the big ones being Urbosas fury, which
deals 150 damage to any enemy in its influence regardless of type. The only exceptions being Taluses and Hinoxes,
which get dealt 300 instead, and Lynels, Moldugas, and Guardians - which each get dealt 500 when
in the influence of one. The remote bombs each deal 12 damage, with
the upgraded variants dealing 24. Shield surf spinning and swim dash spinning only deal a mere 5 damage so these attacks aren't
really viable at all Trampling an enemy with a horse always deals
a flat 30 damage, and running over an enemy with the master cycle deals 5,
Master sword beams deal 10 damage at its base state, or 20 when powered up - which can each
be increased by 50% with the beam up buff And last but not least, the lynel shields
deal damage while parrying in multiples of 7 - with the base variant dealing 7 damage, mighty
dealing 14, and the savage dealing 21 The only bonus stats we aren't covering are
today are the Elemental ones, as we already made a huge video about them and the multishot
bows a few months back - which I highly recommend that you check out after this one!! The only reason why that info wasn't covered
today is because the stats behind those are FAR more complex and time consuming than anything
we have discussed in this video, but Ill leave a card in the upper right if you would like
to increase your knowledge on this subject further!! But with that said, thank you so all much
for watching!! I am so proud to announce that my channel
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