Special Damage

Special damage is a special type of damage that ignores the target's defenses.

Mechanics

Special damage is a category of attack that is separate from Physical and Magic damage.

Special attacks:

• Cannot miss.
• Cannot deal Critical hits.
• Calculate their damage from the user's Phys ATK or Mag ATK, depending on what the skill description says (there is no default stat, the skill will always specify which one is used).
• Are not affected by the enemy's Phys DEF, Mag DEF, or damage reduction effects.

Special damage is still affected normally by stat Buffs and Debuffs.

Ignoring damage reduction

Special damage ignores all damage reduction effects that demons can have. This includes:

• Skills or panels which state that they reduce all damage taken (such as Lightning Beast)
• Effects which reduce damage of a specific attribute (such as Drunken Giant against Phys and Fire attacks)

However, certain unique kinds of damage reduction in PVE cannot be ignored, for the sake of balance:

• In Alter-World, enemy elemental shields aren't ignored.
• In Battle Tower, the damage reduction of the Dx2 depending on the number of surviving ally demons isn't ignored.
• In Demon Buster Extreme+, the reduction of damage based on the difference between the level of Demon Allies and the Reference Level isn't ignored.

Boosting Special damage

The following effects work for boosting Special damage:

• Damage boosters that affect skills with a specific type of targeting (such as Master Assassin or Butcher).
• Damage boosters that affect a specific attribute (such as Phys Amp).
• Damage boosters that apply when hitting a weakness (such as Merciless Blow).
• Damage boosters which state that they affect all damage (such as Kuzunoha Spirit or Berserker).

The following effects do not work for boosting Special damage:

• Damage boosters that are limited to Physical damage (like Epitome of Martial Arts) or Magic damage (like Epitome of Witchcraft).
• Charge or Concentrate.
• Damage boosters that apply when landing a critical hit (since Special damage cannot crit).

Reducing Special damage

• Reverse damage boost, which applies a negative amount of damage boost, can be used to reduce Special damage.

Special damage dealers

Skills that deal Special damage

Type	Name	Cost	Target	Skill Points	Exclusive?
Phys	Summon: Yoshitsune	30% HP	Single Target	-	Raidou Kuzunoha & Gouto