Axie Infinity – Damage & Shield Explained

While Axie battles can sometimes seem basic at first glance, there’s way more going on under the hood. After you do your first couple battles you start to wonder how you can do more damage and keep your tank alive for a few more rounds. Below I’ll try to break it down as simply as possible.

Topics covered in this guide:

• Calculating Damage
• Rock Paper Scissors Bonus
• Combo Attacks
• Same Axie & Card Class
• Calculating Shield
• Chaining Bonus Shield
• Putting It All Together

Calculating Damage

Theres a couple variables that affect the amount of damage that your axies deal each attack:

• Rock, Paper, Scissors / class advantages
• Combo attacks
• Same Class Attacking Axie & Card
• Critical Attacks
• Does the defending axie have shield? If so, how much?

Rock Paper Scissors / Class Advantages

Axie class advantages are based on the old game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors”. Every class in Axie Infinity has classes that it gets a 15% damage bonus against, and there’s other classes that get a bonus against it.

The most important thing to note about the “RPS Bonus” is that its based on the attacking Skill/Part and the defending Axie body class. The attacking Axie’s body class does not play into the RPS bonus, but it will have its affects in later sections.

Also note that the RPS bonus can work both ways. See the examples below.

RPS Bonus Examples:

• A beast attack card (Imp, Nutcracker, Hero) attacking a plant body axie.

• An aqua attack card (Teal Shell, Shoal Star, Koi) attacking a plant body axie.

• A bird attack card (Kestrel, Little Owl, Pigeon Post) attacking an aqua body axie.

Combo Attacks

Combo attacks are when an axie attacks with two or more cards in a round. Combos will add a little bit of damage based on the skill of the axie playing the combo. The higher the skill, the more bonus damage.

The formula for calculating combo damage is: (attack * skill) / 500

Combo Example:

An aqua with 35 skill plays two cards: Hare (120 damage) and Hungry Bird (110).

Combo Attack Notes:

• The formula isn’t exact. In my testing it can be off by 1 or so (maybe due to decimals and rounding) but it gets you in the general ballpark
• Playing more cards in a combo does NOT increase the combo bonus. The formula is the same for each card played whether is a 2 card combo or 4 card combo

Same Class Attacking Axie & Card

Another variable in the damage calculation is whether the attacking axie is using a card that is in the same class as its body. For example a beast that has Imp, or Goda.

Critical Attacks

Critical attacks are a bit random so I won’t cover them in great detail, but you should be aware of them. Each axie’s chance to get a critical attack is based on it’s morale. The higher the great, the greater the chance to land a critical hit.

If your axie is lucky and you generate a “crit” it will do 200% damage to the defending axie.

Does The Defending Axie Have Shield?

The last piece of the puzzle is whether the defending axie has any shield. If it does not, each attack (plus bonuses) will take away health from the defending.

If the axie has any shield, the attacking axie will take away shield until the shield is gone, then start taking away health. There are a few cards that can ignore shield for an attack (doubletalk and stuns mainly) but thats for a more advanced guide.

Shield Example:

If a defending axie has 80 shield and an axie attacks it for 100 damage, the defender will lose it’s 80 shield and also 20 health.

Calculating Shield

There are two different bonuses that can add additional shields for defenders:

• Same class bonus
• Chaining bonus

Same Class Shield Bonus

This bonus to shield is the “same class bonus” thats similar to attacks. For each defending part you play that is the same class as the defending body, it will get a 10% bonus.

Same Class Shield Bonus Examples:

You are defending with a plant tank and you play Hermit (aqua card) and Carrot (plant card). Only the Carrot will get the 10% bonus since the card matches class

Chaining Bonus

Chaining is when two or more axies play the same class of card in a round. The class of the axie bodies do not matter for chaining. For example and an bqua axie plays Beech (plant card) and a bug axie plays Shiitake (plant card) they would be chained and get a shield bonus of about 5-6%.

Chain Bonus Example:

• Axie 1 plays Carrot (plant) and Hermit (aqua)
• Axie 2 plays Shiitake (plant) and Tiny Dino (reptile)

Carrot (40 base shield) and Shiitake (40 base shield) are both plant so they get the Chain Bonus. Hermit and Tiny Dino do not have any other cards of their class played so they keep their base shield. The shields for each axie is added together:

Putting It All Together

We just covered a lot of different bonus and some different calculations. It can seem overwhelming at first but don’t expect to ever figure out these numbers on the fly during a game. The whole point is so that you can identify the synergies when buying and breeding your next axies.

Any of the attack or shield bonuses stack. So you can get an RPS bonus + a same class card bonus + a combo bonus all in one attack.

Pure beast playing 2+ cards against a plant tank = bad news for the plant.