These tests were designed to test the effects of damage reflection.
Questions/Tests
What does damage reflection do?
Damage reflection adds a specific amount of damage to your next smash (not normals) after you have been hit with an attack. This amount varies according to the smash (one attack used 2 * damage reflection, another used 0.75 * damage reflection). Once applied, the damage reflection wears off until struck again.
Is there a window of time where your smash receives the damage reflection buff?
In terms of if you’re quick enough to attack with multiple smashes, there is no window. Damage reflect is just applied to the first smash. What I’m unsure of is if you have a certain period of time before the reflection wears off (and if one exists, it would likely be 10s, 30s, or 60s).
Does damage reflection apply to SP skills?
Yes, Execution received a damage buff of approximately 6-7x my damage reflection value.
Does getting hit by more than one attack increase the damage of your next hit?
No. Once you’ve been hit, your next smash becomes empowered for your damage reflect value. It doesn’t matter how hard you were hit, or if you were hit multiple times.
Does damage reflect apply to multiple hits of the same skill?
In short, no. In my tests using a particular multi-hit move (where damage is delayed between hits), the empowered hit only took place on the first instance of smash damage after being hit. I cannot verify this across all classes, but I assume it works similarly across all characters. However, I’m unsure what the results would be concerning skills that apply multiple instances instantly, such as Evie snaps.
Does damage reflect apply to blocked attacks?
No. If blocked/absorbed, no bonus is granted. Damage values were noticeably different between runs where I took damage and where I didn't.
Do normal attacks consume damage reflection?
This is a tough question that my initial round of testing was not able to determine. The easiest answer is they shouldn’t, though in some of my tests it seemed the damage reflect disappeared for some random reason and I wasn’t able to pinpoint a direct source to it. I’m lead to believe that normals that crit may apply the damage reflection, and may or may not test this theory later.
If I’m taking periodic damage (poison, etc), does that count to getting the bonus?
No, tested data matched up to regular (unempowered) smash values during a DoT debuff.
Is damage reflection affected by damage amplifiers?
Yes. Damage reflection bonuses can crit, and seem to be affected by other damage amplifiers such as Revenge. Theoretical crit values compared to recorded results were within a couple points of damage, likely just due to rounding.
Unexplained occurrences (likely bugs)
-In some tests, I took damage and immediately followed up with a smash that received no damage reflection bonus.
-After being hit, I swung normals on the boss and the first smash against him sometimes was empowered while other times it was not.
-The damage formula seems wonky. I used 90 balance for nearly all testing, and was under the impression that damage is calculated at every 1 balance step (so results for 90, 91, through 100). I then found out it’s actually 0.5 balance steps… but what became odd was I’d rarely get hits that appeared below the 90 balance range, but lined up perfectly at like an 88, 88.5, or 89 balance value. I have absolutely no explanation for this phenomenon.
Formulas
The following points will be used to explain formulas, since exact formulas are unknown.
-Damage occurs at a random value between your balance and 100 balance, at 0.5 balance intervals. We have estimates of the damage formula, but no exact one is known and is irrelevant for data purposes.
-Base damage (BD) is considered a non-critical occurrence of damage. If you have 90 balance, there should be 21 different base damages.
-Critical damage (CD) is the damage done when a critical strike has occurred. There should also be 21 different values corresponding with the bases detailed above.
-Empowered base damage (EB) is an attack that has damage reflection applied to it.
-Empowered critical damage (EC) is an attack that has critically struck with damage reflection applied.
-Skill Multiplier (SM) refers to the amount of damage reflection that is applied to a particular attack. Although I have no need to test every skill out to find its multiplier, this is a constant.
CD: BD * 1.95
EB: BD + (damage reflection * SM)
EC: 1.95 * (BD + (damage reflection * SM)), or EB * 1.95 for short
Amplified Damage (AD; such as Revenge) is applied to damage reflect, such as empowered critical attack with a damage amplifier looks like: AD*1.95*EB
Execute SM: 2
Massacre SM: 0.75
Execution SM: Between 6 and 7
Edit 1: Further testing showed Revenge does not apply to damage reflection.
Edit 2: Reformatted post and made some slight adjustments to information regarding damage amplifiers
Edit 3: Awakening durability wore off, Revenge damage amplification does apply