Battle System

Brown Dust II is a turn-based strategy in which you have ability to position your characters, as well as choose character's skills in order to defeat the enemies.

Basics

Turns mechanic

For all PvE content, you attack on odd turns (1, 3, 5, ...), while enemy attacks on even turns (2, 4, 6, ...).
During turns, you don't have to do anything; characters use skills automatically; all preparation (positioning, skills choices) must be made pre-turn.
You can make those preparations only pre-turns. Enemy turn is followed instantly after yours.
Turn progression only goes after you confirm your choices with "Turn X Battle" button in the bottom right corner of the battle screen.

Battlefield

Grid System

In general content (such a Story or Evil Castle Towers), you have ability to use 5 characters on the field.
Field is a 3x4 rectangular grid, in which you can place your characters however you like.
- To swap character positioning, click and drag the chibi model of a character to the needed tile.

Guild Raid offers 5x5 square grid and 7 characters per team.
Golden Colosseum, on the other hand, has field changing depending on season from 3x3 square to 5x5 square with different amount of characters allowed.

3x4 Grid Image

Targetting Logic

Before understanding where would your character attack land, you need to understand how character targets the enemy.

Each costume has own Range — tiles that are affected by the action of the costume.
For each costume (except supports with Range), there is Main Target which is displayed by down arrowhead.
Main target is the one that actually gets targeted by your character, and rest AoE impact is calculated based on position of that Main Target.

As for Main Target, there are two main types of determining one.

First is Very Front, meaning your character will target the closest enemy in the same column.
Second is Vault, meaning your character will target second closest enemy in the same column, "vaulting" over first one.
- If there's only one enemy in the column, it will be targeted instead.

You can check Target type and Costumes AoE either in Compainion tab or directly in the battle by clicking the character card.

Target type information in-battle

Very Front / Vault difference

Advanced Targetting Logic

There are few ways one can change their targetting logic from "normal" one.

Having Taunt or Concentrated Fire status effects make you attack the enemy with that status effect regardless of your attack type (Very Front, Vault).
Target Avoidance status effect makes your enemy to not target your character if there are other options on the field.
If there is no enemy in the same column as your character, column on the right (to the character) takes priority instead. Thus, it is possible to attack the enemy on the most right column from the most left one.
- If there is no enemy in the right column either, left one takes priority.

Showcase Image

Damage Formula

\(\text{Damage} = \\\\ \text{ATK / MATK / HP}^\text{[1]} \\\\ \times \; \text{Skill\%} \\\\ \times \; (100\% + \text{ATK\% Buffs} - \text{ATK\% Debuffs})^\text{[2]}\\\\ \times \; (100\% + \text{CDMG\%} + \text{CDMG\% Buffs} - \text{CDMG\% Debuffs}) \\\\ \times \; (100\% + \text{Weak Point\%}) \\\\ \times \; (100\% + (10\% + \text{Increase Chain DMG\%}) \times \text{Chains}) \\\\ \times \; (100\% + \text{Target's Vulnerability Debuffs\%} + \text{DMG Increase\% Buffs}) \\\\ \times \; (100\% + \text{Property Damage\%} + \text{Season Buff\%} + \text{Property Damage\% Buffs})^\text{[3]} \\\\ \times \; (100\% - (\text{Target's DEF\%} + \text{Target's DEF\% Buffs} - \text{Target's DEF\% Debuffs}))^\text{[4,5]} \\\\ \times \; (100\% - \text{Target's DMG Reduction\% Buffs}) \\\\ \times \; (100\% - \text{Target's Property Resists})^\text{[6]}\)

[1] Depends on the character. If costume attacks using HP, 50k is max.
[2] Ignored with HP-related skills.
[3] If Target has weaker Property. Imcompatible with Property Resist multiplier.
[4] DEF when attacked with {Physical} Physical Damage, MRES when attacked with {Magical} Magical Damage.
[5] Maximum is 100% (when summary DEF is 0%), minimum is 10% (when summary DEF is greater or equal to 90%).
[6] If Target has stronger Property. Imcompatible with Property Damage multiplier.

Chain Mechanic

Every time the enemy or boss tile is hit, 1 chain stack is applied. Chains increase damage by 10% per each chain stacked on enemy (considering that base damage without any chains is 100%).
Chains are very important for content such as Fiend Hunter and Guild Raid.

Poolside Guardian Zenith increases those 10% to maximum of 20% for the single tile.
Chains last for 1 turn and are reset after, except some seasons of Golden Colosseum.
Chains have cap of 100, except Last Night.
Chains increases are added into same multiplier, thus it is a buff with diminishing returns.
Effect called Chain Reiforcement adds +1 chain per hit.

Example

The Cursed Celia without any buffs hits 7 times and provides 7 chains.
The Cursed Celia with buff from Masquerade Bunny Celia (1 Chain Reinforcement) provides 14 chains instead.
The Cursed Celia with buffs from Masquerade Bunny Celia and Pure White Blessing Refithea (2 Chain Reinforcement) provides 21 chains instead.

Team Setup

As said above, you can freely change positioning of characters and their order before your turn. These are important features to maximize your damage while minimizing enemy one.

To change the position, drag chibi model of a character to desired tile.
To change the order of characters, use Swap Order feature or it's quick shortcut

Why does it matter?

Some supports have limited Range / Aura, meaning you need to fit other units within that range to recieve buff (like Medical Club Teresse, Adventure of the Unknown Diana, Refithea)
Enemy layout can require DPS on different column for better AoE coverage
Enemy can be too strong for some characters to survive but fine for others within same team.

Usually supports should go before DPS to maximize your damage, however not every support is just a support, meaning order sometimes is required to be changed.
Some unique conditional abilities such as of Laid-Back Lifeguard Nebris require fine tuning the team order to receive better buff.

In-Battle Information

In the battle, you can obtain a lot of information about your units and enemies. Moreover, there are a lot of small QoL features which ease your understanding of the battle, as well as mechanics which may be useful for completing the stages overall.

Character / Enemy skills, stats and status effects

To access the information about skills, press on either chibi model or card, and press the skills under "Basic Attack" and "Knockback" options to learn more about them on top of the screen.
When you do so, you can view raw damage (with no calculated impact from actions in the turn) and highlighted area of effect on the field.
- If, instead of damage, K.O is displayed, it means raw damage is enough to kill the opponent.
- Magic Damage is displayed in magenta color and Physical is displayed in yellow.
- This way, you can switch actions for your characters as well.

Skills screenshot

Skills Cooldown

Each costume has some cooldown, during which you cannot use it again. Cooldown for any costume is displayed in its description, and active cooldown is displayed in place of a costume button, covering it.

Image Display

To access the information about stats, press on the chibi / card, then press plus icon in the top corner of the screen (left for your units, right for enemies).
Displayed information includes all stats at the given moment (with all current buffs applied), gear and bond.

Stats screenshot

To access the information about status effects, do the same thing except instead of clicking on the plus, click on the icons right below, such as (which is the Taunt effect) or others.

Status Effects screenshot

Property

Property is displayed in 3 ways.

First, it is shown near character name as a icon ( Water, Fire, Wind, Light, Darkness and Neutral).
Second, it is displayed as a light tint on the character's card. According to the property, tint is changed to resemble main color of the property.

Tint display: All 5 properties on our side and Water & Fire on the enemy

Third, it is displayed as glow under character / enemy whenever they are going to use the ability (skill). Similar to tint in cards, this glow also changes the color depending on property, but is more bright in a sense.

Glow display: Light, Water, Fire and Darkness

Property advantage / disadvantage also is displayed during skill / damage preview, and are shown as and accordingly. If you have neither advantage nor disadvantage, no icon will show up, similar to attacking neutral character.

Advantage, disadvantage and basic damage display

Knockback

Knockback is one of possible actions for a character for a turn. It exists in some skills, but, generally speaking, every character has a knockback option regardless. It allows you to move enemy on the battlefield to create more comfortable setup for your DPS.
There are few rules to it:

Each character has different knockback for 1 tile and applied to 1 enemy. Furthermore, there are some costumes that can target more enemies or have bigger distance.
Knockback always deal 1 DMG to the Main Target no matter the buffs applied.
If the tile to which you try to knockback into is occupied by enemy or tombstone, knockback will not take effect.
If the basic knockback results in an enemy colliding with another, latter one recieves damage equal to 25% Max HP of knocked back enemy. Different costumes which utilize knockback will have greater numbers.
Knockback shares the same damage type as character; meaning, Diana will have Magical Damage from knockback, and Teresse will have Physical Damage.
Knockback damage (for the one bumped INTO) is affected by Crit (Rate / DMG), Property (dis)advantage (DMG / Resist), DEF/MRES, Augmentation / Enemy Vulnerability, Chains and Weak Point bonuses.
Knockback damage (for the one bumped INTO), as any other HP-related skill, has 50k cap taken before applying any other buffs. Means, if knocked back enemy's HP is 2,000,000, only 50k will be taken into calculations instead of expected 2m.
Knockback adds Chain to main target, similar to basic attack, although the one bumped into DOES NOT recieve a chain stack.
Knockback damage (for the one bumped INTO) cannot be evaded. However, Main Target with Evade active cannot be knocked back.
In Fiend Hunter / Guild Raid, you cannot knockback (move) boss tiles. Also, some enemies have knockback immune which negates knockback action on them completely.
Attempts to knockback enemy out of grid (out of bounds) will have no effect.

Knockback showcase

Knockback damage

62,500 damage in the first image is shown due to cap of 50k HP, mentioned above, mulitplied by 125% (Teresse Skill %).
\(50 000 \times 1.25 = 62 500\)

Targetting Lines

Pretty small and slightly underappreciated feature that tells you who is given character targets and by whom they are targeted.

Green lines are related to actions from teammates / your characters, aka supports.
Red lines are related to enemies who will hit your character with their skill in the following round
Colorful lines are related to main target of an attack. Their color depends on property (see above).

Targetting Lines display

Tombstones

Tombstone is created when character on the field dies (becomes fatigued) in a place of that character.

Tombstones are created only for initial units on the battlefield. That means that summons do not create tombstones.
- The only exception for this rule are explosives which do not leave tombstone upon being destroyed.
Self-destruct skills, as well as death from counter creates the tombstone on the place of where character was last pre action.
Tombstone cannot be knocked back.
Tombstones prevents enemies to pass through them (with knockback skills)
Tombstones do not suffer damage / deal damage to knocked enemies.

Tombstones on the field

Battle System

Basics

Battlefield

Team Setup

In-Battle Information

Battle UI

Environmental Effects

Auto Skill

Auto Battle Feature

Game Speed Feature

Autofeed Feature

Pause Feature

Replace Feature

Borrow Feature

Swap Order Feature

Preset Feature

SP Bar

Rotate View Feature

Rotate Feature

More Advanced Battle Features

Death Time

Set Costume order

Status Effects

Different Damage Types

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