Stats

Unit Stats play a bigger role in Metal Slug Attack than they did in its predecessor, Metal Slug Defense, even though stats did not undergo much change in terms of core mechanic. Here stats can be influenced by the player in a number of ways under Customize Unit in Build Up.

Current stat values (C) are determined by the following formula (simplified):

C = ⌊ ⌊ B × T × L + I₁ + ... + I_m ⌋ • (1 + S₁ + ... + S_n + F + R₁ + ... + R_o )⌋

Variable	Description	Note
B	Base value of the stat.
T	Unit Tier-based multiplier.	1 if not affected or if in the (I) Iron tier.
L	Unit Level-based multiplier.	1 if not affected or if Level 1.
Ip p∈[1,m]	Item-based stat increments.	0 if not equipped.
m	Number of items that can be equipped and affect the stat.	If there are several items that increase the same stat, their increments stack.
•	Either used as an addition or multiplication depending on the stat to increase.	+: Time Production, Movement, Load. ×: HP, Attack Damage, Distance.
Sq q∈[1,n]	Unit Skill-based multipliers.	0 if not unlocked ("released").
n	Number of skills that can be unlocked and affect the stat.	If there are several skills that increase the same stat, their multipliers stack.
F	Faction multipliers (HP only).	0.10 if all units in the deck belong to the same faction, otherwise 0.
Rq q∈[1,o]	Support Unit Skill-based multipliers.	0 if not present in the deck.
o	Number of skills unlocked from Support Unit that affect the stat.	If there are several items that increase the same stat, their multipliers stack.

Basic Stats

Level

Serves to indicate how far a unit has moved in terms of progression. Unit level also determines which tier of Items can be equipped, and how far Skills can be upgraded. It can be increased by Powering-Up using MSP, and doing so improves HP and Attack Damage for the unit in concern.

AP

Shows the AP cost to deploy a unit in combat. This can be reduced via Evolution using corresponding unit parts, and in some cases, Team Bonuses.

Health Points

Shows how much base damage a unit can soak up before being put out of commission. Can be improved by Powering-Up using MSP, Evolving with unit parts, or by equipping certain Items.

Some units are capable of increasing the health of their allies (either through Skills or Team Bonuses), capping at 70.0%. There is also a flat 10% health increase if the player's deck contains units of only one faction. Attribute Resistances may furthermore increase or decrease the amount of damage a unit can withstand from certain sources.

Production

Determines how soon a new instance of a unit becomes available after a previous one has been deployed in combat. This stat is displayed as a negative number and the closer it is to zero, the faster it is to deploy the unit again. Production speed can be increased by equipping specific items. The Production time is calculated as such:

Production (B, U) = B × U

Variable	Description
B	Base Production Speed Level multiplier.
U	Current Unit's Production value (frame).

Production Prevention

This prevents the unit from being sent out, halting their production timer for the duration of the effect. This effect activates whenever a unit with production prevention capability lands the killing blow on the targeted unit. When this occurs, chains and a lock will appear on the spot of the slain unit, and an interface will appear near the top-left indicator for the user. The enemy instead gets a lockbox over the locked unit(s) icon on their deployment bar. Multiple units can be stacked on the interface, displaying up to three different units (but can still affect a whole deck), and only shows the timer for the oldest locked unit.

The maximum duration of production prevention is 19 seconds. Production prevention only prevents the player from deploying the unit with AP. It does not work on most event stages (excluding United Battle), and has no effect on summoned units and units possessing multiple forms. Recovery support does not work on locked units, but may be used against the max production timer when it wears off.

Resistance

Influences how easily a unit is staggered by attacks, and is directly countered by the Lower Resistance stat attacks have - whenever it's reduced to zero, the unit is knocked back and regains its initial resistance value again. Resistance can be improved by equipping certain Items.

A unit is immune to damage while staggering. Depending on the function of the unit, this may be desirable (blockers live longer) or undesirable (attackers are interrupted). Some units cannot be knocked back (eg W.Soldier), and some units perform a counter attack instead of staggering (eg Leona).

Movement

How fast a unit moves across the screen. This stat is displayed as a multiplier of the base value (assumed to be shared by all units). Movement can be improved by equipping certain Items. Some units are also capable of increasing the movement speed of fellow faction units of their kind.

Units that buff the movement speed of their fellow units of their faction cap at +2.2 movement. Currently the Regular and Rebel Armies can near this cap, the former having Fio and her Liberty variant, while the latter has Naomi and the Cabrakan.

Attribute Resistance

Determines how good a unit is at resisting damage of different natures:

• Kinetic (melee, firearms, energy weapons, etc.).
• Explosive.
• Incendiary (fire-based).

The game uses symbols to represent the modifiers:

• ◎ - Increased (-20% damage taken)
• ◯ - Normal
• △ - Reduced (+20% damage taken)
• × - No resistance (+50% damage taken)

There are units who can who can temporarily lower the attribute to × via special attack. Hathol, Et A Omnis and Odette ver. Innocence are the lone exceptions, being able to lower attribute resistance with auto-attacks. Units hit by an attack that lowers attribute resistance lasts for 4.3 seconds, although Odette's is doubled to 8.5 seconds.

Attack Stats

There are at most three types of attack displayed for any given unit:

• Short (close range)
• Long (long range)
• Special

Extra Attacks, not shown within their stats, may also consist of:

• Suicide Attacks (e.g. SV-001, Mars Mecha, etc).
• Additional Attacks (e.g. Black Hound's mortar, Iron Sentinel's battery, etc).
• Appearance Attacks (e.g. Assy Nero, Paratrooper, etc).
• Counter Attacks (Leona, Augensterm Ver(P.M), etc).

Attack Damage

Represents raw offensive strength that can be improved upon by Powering-Up using MSP, Evolving with unit parts, and by equipping certain Items. Actual damage dealt may be modified by the Attribute Resistances of enemy units and any attack buffing units in the player's deck.

Units that buff the attack of fellow units of their faction cap at 70.0%.

Distance

Influences how far an attack can reach, and can be increased by equipping certain Items or skills.

Lower Resistance

Counters the Resistance stat of the target. When the unit's resistance is completely drained, they are knocked back, making them temporarily immune to attacks. Some units specialize in this, though there are several exceptions such as the Frozen Armor's attacks.

However, some units also possess counter skills where they immediately perform a counterattack should their resistance is completely drained.

Speed

Influences how long a unit must wait after executing an attack before performing another action. This stat is counted in frames and is displayed as a negative number - the closer to zero, the shorter the delay. Speed can be increased by equipping certain Items.

Critical

Absent by default, critical attacks can only be unlocked via Skills (except in rare cases such as Expert Units, who have a 100% critical rate on all attacks at all times). These affect either close range, long range, special, or all attacks, adding a chance of a more powerful strike. When a critical triggers, attack damage is increased by 50% and targeted enemies may not activate any evasion abilities.

Critical damage during attacks is indicated by a yellow numbers against enemies, and purple numbers against allies.

Counter

Some units have access to counter via skills or as a built-in mechanic, which can be triggered either by evasion or their Resistance is lowered to 0. Units performing a counterattack are temporarily invulnerable, these attacks are typically within melee range, though a few units possess ranged counterattacks.

Some units activate their counter upon being stunned. These effects have a short delay upon being stunned to balance out their usefulness. Various effects can occur, such as recovering all lost health, projectile deleting and/or performing a counterattack.

Evasion

Some units have access to evasion via skills, which when triggered prompts the unit to avoid the incoming attack. Evasion is considered as pseudo-invulnerability like those using a counter or stagger. Some units may also have a counter ability when their evasion is triggered. Evasion is overridden by critical and stun attacks.

To balance out evasion's pseudo-invulnerability status, the unit will typically have specific frames in which the attack temporarily disables evasion capability, such as Avvio's long range attack.

There are four different levels with evasion:

• 5.0% base, capping at 17.25%
• 10.0% base, capping at 34.5% - default evasion rate for units
• 15.0% base, capping at 51.8%
• 20.0% base, capping at 69.0%

Stun

Like critical attacks, stuns are only unlocked via Skills, and may affect either close range, long range, special or all attacks. Stuns do not add any extra damage, but instead stop the enemy from performing any action if stunned. This also bypasses any evasion capabilities the unit may possess, but will not affect any unit in a Super Armor or Anti-Stun state. All stuns lasts 90 frames.

Stun comes in three different levels:

• 5.0% base, capping at 17.25% - only used by LV Armors or Paratroopers with stun capability
• 10.0% base, capping at 34.5% - typically used by most stun units
• 20.0% base, capping at 69% - only the Halloween Soldier is capable of such stun chance.

Anti-Stun

Several units possess stun immunity traits which prevents them from being affected by stuns.

There are two categories for this trait: stun counter, and stun immunity.

Stun counter units are technically not immune to stuns (as the stun "sparks" still appear when they are struck by such attacks), but if the said unit is stunned, then they perform a counterattack one second after being stunned. It's possible to stun lock units, although extremely inconsistent because most units typically posses invulnerability frames when their stun counter goes off.

Stun immune units are units that are completely immune to stuns; such attacks are treated as normal attacks (with critical rates still applying if applicable). Examples of stun immune units are OneMan Army Ralf and Immortal Allen's final forms.

Health Recovery

Some units possess a means of recovering health. Health recovery as a special attack is indicated as this icon ().

• Auto-attack recovery: Most units typically heal with a 100% damage:health ratio, though older units generally possessed a 50% damage:health ratio.
• Special attack recovery: The unit recovers a set amount of health whenever they perform a special attack, which can be increased with attack buffs. Mars Gigantalos and Purple King's special attacks follow the auto-attack recovery option however.
• Passive healing: The unit restores a set amount of health after a specific amount of game ticks pass.

Load (Special Attack only)

Influences how quickly a unit readies their first special attack, and has no relation with the following specials' recharge time. This stat is counted in frames and is displayed as a negative number - the closer to zero, the shorter the charge period is. Load can be improved by equipping certain Items or skills.

The Regular Army is the only faction to possess a unit that decreases the load of allied units, that unit being Eri.

Type

Determines how good an attack is at dealing with crowds. Even though attacks can be extravagant and work differently, they are broken down in two types:

• Single means that the closest enemy will absorb the entirety of a fired projectile, and the latter will not go through the target.
• Spread means that all enemies within the area of effect will take damage, even behind other units.

Attack type cannot be altered.

Buffs

Some units are capable of inflicting a buff to themselves as well as to the allies, while some can be picked up by allied units. These status each last a few seconds:

• Attack Damage: Increases the attack power of affected allies by 30%. Can be a buff or Heavy Machine Gun supply that can be picked up on the ground.
• Medicine: Heals a unit upon picking up a Medicine supply on the ground.
• Reload: Instantly readies the special attack of a unit that picks up a Bomb crate on the ground.
• Super Armor: Gives temporary immunity against stuns or knock backs.
• "Death" Armor: Allows the unit to continue finishing its attacks, even if they run out of health.

Debuffs

Some unit attacks are capable of debuffing enemies. These status each last a few seconds:

• Attack Damage: Lowers the Attack Damage of afflicted enemies.
• Attack Speed: Decreases the Attack Speed of afflicted.
• Armor Break: Sets the afflicted enemies' Attribute Resistance to ×. Introduced in 3.13.0 by Kelly.
• Silence: Prevents afflicted units from activating special attacks.
• Poison: Poisoned enemies a fraction of their max health (2% of max health every few seconds) as damage for a brief period of time. If the enemy is poisoned again while it is under the effects of poison, the poison resets and deals poison damage immediately on the spot. Poison can damage invulnerable enemies (provided they were poisoned first), and ignores attribute resistance effects such as those generated by Teleko and Geweih Metzelei. Introduced in 2.4.0 by Percier.

Special Stats

Special stat-negating items can be used to further boost the strength of your units. Introduced in 4.9.0, they were first obtained in the Extra Ops "Task Force 1st".

They are applied under "Unit Strengthening" in each unit. The frames of the selected unit depends on how many of these items can be applied; 2 at iron, 4 at bronze, 6 at silver, 8 at gold and 10 for platinum framed units. Each of the four items listed below apply a 7% resistance chance against the said status, so the unit will have 70% resistance on the value of the said status. For example, if a unit has been equipped with ten stun resistance items (for a total of 70% resistance) and is hit by an attack with stun capability, then the said attack has a 10% chance of stunning that unit.

Apart from being limited by the unit's frame, it also costs an increasing amount of MSP for every additional item added onto the unit.

So far only four of these items exist in game:

• Stun Resistance: Reduces the chance of the unit getting stunned by attacks with stun capability. This resistance cannot be applied to units with the stun immunity icon.
• Silence Resistance: Reduces the chance of the unit getting silenced by attacks with silence capability.
• Poison Resistance: Reduces the chance of the unit getting poisoned by attacks with poison capability.
• Critical Resistance: Reduces the chance of the unit taking a critical hit by attacks with critical capability.

As of Task Force 2nd, two new skill strengthening items were introduced: Attack and Health items. They are obtained in the same manner as the four items mentioned above. However, they cannot be freely placed on any unit. Instead, only specific units may equip these items, with each new update also adding anywhere from two to six units applicable for the items.

Along with being limited to specific units, the bonuses provided by the item varies depending on the unit receiving it, which can be rather minuscule (although still noticeable) or massive. Status buffs are also calculated before the items are applied, and not after for balancing reasons.

• Attack: Increases attack damage of the unit.
• Health: Increases health of the unit

See Also

• Unit Stat Calculator by Alcantha