Attack, commonly abbreviated as ATK or ATT, is one of the main statistics found in the majority of Castlevania games released after Symphony of the Night. It determines the amount of damage that will be dealt to enemies when the current weapon is used. This stat is not to be confused with Intelligence, which generally controls sub-weapon and spell damage.
Game specific information
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
- Each point of STR earned by Alucard gives him +1 to his Attack (ATT) rating, regardless of which weapon he is currently wielding. Thus, as he levels up, he may find that weapons with a faster attack speed, like the Alucart Sword, may be more effective, as they may have a higher DPS than a slower weapon, like the Bastard Sword, despite the latter having greater damage per hit.
- However, if Alucard uses a weapon with ATT higher than his STR, he receives an ATT penalty equal to 50% of his STR.
- For example, if Alucard uses the Mormegil (25 ATT) with only 24 STR, his final ATT is only 37 (25 + 24/2), but if he equips the Ring of Pales (STR +1), he reaches 25 STR and can deal 50 (25 + 25) damage instead.
- Enemies who have a degree of DEF simply ignore an amount of damage equal to that value. Wearing the Dragon Helm will halve this value.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
- Even though Attack is not present in Circle of the Moon, it was made up for by Strength acting as a rating against an enemy's Defense.
- Doubling Nathan's Strength rating, if the damage value isn't below one against the enemy, will actually quadruplicate all damage dealt against said enemy.
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
- Each point of Strength earned by Soma gives him +1 to his Attack rating.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
- Attack works completely different in Dawn of Sorrow. Instead of additively increasing damage dealt with the player's weapon of choice, the Attack statistic determines how much of a benefit they receive from Strength. The higher the Attack statistic, the more beneficial Strength becomes.
Later games
No major changes have happened to the Attack statistic since Dawn of Sorrow, so for the most part, the information seen for that game also applies to later games. However, some magical attacks scale with INT instead.