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The combat mechanics of Doctor Who: Legacy involve matching colored gems in combination with the abilities of a team of characters. Combat is turn-based, allowing the player to take his or her time making a move. To make a move, the player selects one gem on the board and drags it around the board for a short period of time, swapping it with other gems as it moves.

Combos

A combo is a group of gems composed of horizontal and vertical lines of three or more gems of the same color in a row. After the player makes a move, all combos on the board will be cleared away; any empty spaces on the board are replaced by gems from above (new gems will also fall from above), then any new combos on the board are cleared, and this process is repeated until no new combos form. Any characters on the player's team that match the color of the combos will get an attack for the turn; a combo of pink gems causes the player's team to gain health based on its combined Heal attribute. If five or more gems are cleared in a single combo that triggers an attack, attacking characters of that color will attack all enemies.

The strength of an attack for a given character is based on its ATK attribute. A group of three gems matching a character's color results in that character getting an attack strength equal to the character's ATK. Each additional gem cleared in a single group of gems adds 0.25 of the character's ATK to the attack strength. The same is true for healing, except it uses the team's combined Heal attribute instead of a character's ATK.

If multiple combos are made in one turn, each additional combo beyond the first made in that turn will add an 0.25 combo multiplier to the strength of each character's attack, as well as to the amount of health gained by matching pink gems.

Character types

Depending on the stats, each character is considered to be one of four different types: tank, offensive, healer or balanced.

Tank

Tank characters have above-average HP but below-average attack and heal. Characters are considered tanks if they have HP > ATK × 3.

Offensive

Offensive characters have above-average attack but below-average HP and heal. Characters are considered offensive if they have ATK > HP. They are the equivalent of DPS characters of other RPGs.

Healer

Healer characters have above-average heal but below-average HP and attack. Characters are considered healers if they have Heal × 1.5 > ATK.

Healer characters shouldn't be confused with healing characters, though some companions are considered both healer and healing characters.

Balanced

Balanced characters have average stats all round. Characters are considered balanced if they don't fit any of the other categories.

The stat comparisons are approximate guidelines, not strict rules.

Character powers

Main article: Character powers

Character powers can be used to influence combat outside of attacking, such as by changing the colors of gems on the board or by inflicting the poison condition. Both ally characters and enemy characters can use powers.

Damage formula

The damage formula for a given character's attack versus a given enemy is as follows.

$\text{damage} = a * (1 + [N-1]*0.25) * ATK * \sum_{m \in M}[(1 + [g - 3]*0.25) * (1 + p*0.1)] - R$

Where a is the affinity multiplier (2 if the gem color of the attack is strong against the target, 0.5 if it's weak) and N is the total number of combos made. The summation represents the sum for each combo m over all matching combos M, where g is the number of gems matched in m and p is the number of powered-up gems (from increased damage powers) used in m. Finally, R is an enemy-specific value which reduces damage dealt to that enemy by each attack by a constant amount (for many enemies, this value is 0); this reduction can't reduce the damage the attack deals to less than 1.

For example, a turn in which two blue combos are made (and no other combos), one with 4 powered-up gems and another with 3 non-powered gems, the summation would yield the result 2.75: the first combo has a multiplier of 1.75 (1.25*1.4), and the second has a multiplier of 1. A blue character would then have an attack strength of approximately 3.44 (2.75*1.25) times its ATK, and the damage dealt to the enemy would be that attack strength modified by the appropriate affinity multiplier and potentially reduced by some amount for that specific enemy.

Against single enemies, this often means maximal damage output can be achieved by making many small combos of three gems rather than fewer large combos. For instance, two combos of three gems in the same color yield a final multiplier of 2.5 (1.25*2), whereas a single combo of seven gems yields a multiplier of only 2 (1+0.25*4). Intuitively, this is explained by the fact that each gem in a combo of three gems contributes one-third of the character's ATK, whereas each additional gem only contributes one-fourth, in addition to the higher combo multiplier obtained by matching more combos.

Notably, damage reduction is applied to attacks on a character-by-character basis; for instance, an enemy that takes 1000 less damage from attacks (R value of 1000) will take 2 damage (1+1) from two characters with neutral affinities who attack for 800 each, rather than 600 (had the reduction been applied to the total damage).

Healing formula

The healing formula is similar to the damage formula, except it uses the team's combined Heal attribute. The formula is as follows.

$\text{health gained} = (1 + [N-1]*0.25) * Heal * \sum_{m \in M}[(1 + [g - 3]*0.25) * \max{(0, 1 - p*Q)}]$

Where, similar to the other formula, N is the total number of combos made, and the summation represents the sum for each combo m over all matched combos of pink gems M, where g is the number of gems matched in m and p is the number of powered-down gems (from enemy powers) used in m. Finally, Q represents the percentage by which the enemy's power reduces a combo's health gain for each powered-down gem used in it; this number varies among different enemies' powers.

Similar to attacks against a single enemy, maximal healing is achieved by matching many small combos of pink gems rather than a large combo of many pink gems. That effect is significantly increased by the presence of powered-down pink gems.

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