Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a proper roleplaying game, and that comes with some baggage - namely there are a variety of stats that help define your character’s capabilities in combat. Much of this will be pretty self-explanatory for seasoned veterans of the genre, but for more casual fans or players moving from the Yakuza games, these stats and their functionality may be a bit obtuse, since the game doesn’t go out of its way to tell you what they do. Even for RPG fans, every game has its own system and while HP and MP are fairly ubiquitous, many games try to reinvent the wheel. This page will help provide some clarity on the issue, explaining what the character stats are and what they do in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
The vast majority of your stats will increase as you level up. Gear and buffs will also increase these stats.
Character Stats Explained - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth¶
There are quite a few stats that define your character’s combat capabilities in LIke a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which are split into two unequal categories: stats that change with growth and stats that don’t change with growth. The former category are the ones you’ll be dealing with most often, including HP, MP, Attack, Defense, Magic, Willpower, Agility, and Range, which increase as you level up, increase your Job Rank or change your gear. The other two stats, Critical Hit Rate and Evasion, are purely a function of what gear you have equipped (well, and any buffs/debuffs that may be in effect).
Health Points (HP)¶
One of the most pervasive stats in any game, Health Points (HP) measure how much damage a character can withstand before being KO’d. Should your HP become depleted by any means that character will be KO’d and unable to act in combat unless revived by specific skills or items. If your entire party is KO’d you’ll lose the battle.
Mental Points (MP)¶
MP often stands for Magic Points, but in a (only slightly) more reality-based game like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth it instead stands for Mental Points. No magic in this game, nosiree. Not like there’s a whole category of skills that deal magic damage or anything. In any event, MP powers your skills - most skills have an MP cost associated, usually between 10 - 65, and using a skill will deplete your MP by the corresponding amount. Run out of MP and you can’t use skills anymore, which is bad, obviously, since skills allow you to buff, debuff, heal, revive, and dish out tremendous damage. MP are restored whenever you make a basic attack, so if you can find some weak enemies to bully you can recover MP just by smacking them around. Failing that, some armor/accessories can recover your MP at regular intervals (every turn, at the end of battle) or you can use consumables to recover MP. Running out of MP will hinder your combat capabilities, but it’s not quite as catastrophic as running out of HP.
Physical attacks (even hybrid elemental skills) use Attack to determine damage, which Defense mitigates. These attacks can be dodged by characters with high Evasion.
Attack¶
This stat is simultaneously self-explanatory and a bit obtuse. Attack increases the damage you do, as the name implies, but only with physical attacks. There are broadly two major damage types in the game, physical and magical. Physical attacks are split into three categories, blunt, blade, and gun, and any skill with one of those icons in front of it (a fist, a sword or a gun) is physical. If the skill also has an elemental symbol by it (fire, electric or ice), it still counts as a physical attack, albeit one that can also be affected by an enemy’s elemental resistances. Attack is directly opposed by Defense when it comes to determining how much HP damage is dealt by any physical attack.
Defense¶
Reduces damage taken, but only from physical attacks. All basic attacks deal physical damage, as do many skills - any skill with a blunt, blade or gun icon deals physical damage, regardless if it also has an elemental component. The higher a character’s Defense, the less damage they’ll sustain from any physical attack. Defense is directly opposed by Attack when it comes to determining how much HP damage is dealt by any physical attack.
Magical attacks cannot be dodged, but cannot Critically Hit. Only skills with a fire, electric, ice or staff icon count as magic attacks.
Magic¶
Like Attack, but Magic determines the damage of magic skills. These constitute any skill with an elemental icon (fire, electric or ice) that doesn’t also have a physical attack icon (blunt, blade or gun), or any skill with a staff icon, which indicates that it deals non-elemental magic damage. Magic attacks are notable in that they are not subject to Evasion, and hence are good for damaging overly dodgy enemies. Magic is directly opposed by Willpower when it comes to determining how much HP damage is dealt by any physical attack.
Willpower¶
Similar to Defense, Willpower opposes Magic, reducing the damage a character sustains from any magic attacks in the game.
Agility¶
While not as flashy as the other stats, you’ll notice when Agility is incredibly high or low, as it determines when each character takes their turn in combat. Characters with higher Agility will take their turn sooner and characters with lower Agility will get to act later. If there are incredibly high discrepancies between Agility scores, a high Agility character may get to act twice before a slower character gets a turn. There is no correlation between Agility and Evasion.
Range¶
Characters in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth shuffle about quite a bit in combat, and during each character’s turn a blue ring indicating their movement range will appear on the ground. Positioning matters, as getting behind an enemy will allow you to perform a back attack, and getting close will give you a proximity bonus, both of which enhance the damage you deal (these bonuses stack). Also, characters who can move further can sometimes target themselves with an AoE heal or buff and position themselves for maximal effect. While your movement range is limited, only increasing slightly when you level up, there is no range limit on attacks or skills, so you can never be too far away to take an action, only too far away to enjoy location-specific boosts.
A few stats - like Critical Hit Rate and Evasion - do not increase as you level up, being influenced by gear and buffs.
Critical Hit Rate¶
There’s a chance that any physical attack will critically hit, dealing significantly increased damage to an enemy. You can only increase your Critical Hit Rate via gear and buffs, and it generally only applies to physical attacks, not magic attacks.
Evasion¶
Physical attacks seem to have a bit of an edge - they can critically hit, while magic attacks generally cannot. Evasion is the downside, as physical attacks can be dodged, while magic attacks, again, generally cannot. There is no accuracy stat in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, instead some characters and enemies are just particularly dodgy and prone to avoiding physical attacks, a stat that can be improved by gear or buffs (although enemy Evasion rates seem to be largely latent). If you’re having trouble landing a hit on an enemy, switch to magic skills - these will have a fire, electric, ice or staff icon. Hybrid damage skills (anything with a physical attack icon - blunt, blade or gun - and an elemental icon) count as physical skills for determining Evasion, hence the 
Samurai’s Burning Arrow skill can be dodged by the 
Housekeeper’s Power Wash skill cannot.
Now that you know how stats work in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, check out the following pages for more basic info:
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