Stats, Scaling, Blood codes, Blood veils and weapons

Understand Code Vein stats like Strength, Dexterity, Mind, Willpower, Vitality, and Fortitude, and how they affect damage, HP, Stamina, and Gifts.

Stat Definitions:

• Strength: Along with Dexterity, determines physical attack power. Along with Vitality, affects HP.
• Dexterity: Along with Strength, determines physical attack power. Affects drain rating.
• Mind: Affects Stamina (along with Fortitude) and drain speed. Affects light gifts.
• Willpower: Affects Elemental resistance (along with Fortitude to a small extent) and dark gifts.
• Vitality: Along with Vitality, affects HP. Also provides physical damage reduction.
• Fortitude: Along with Mind, affects Stamina. Along with Willpower, affects elemental resistance to a very small degree.
• Stamina reduction: The amount of stamina reduced when blocking with a weapon.
• Drain rating: Amount of Ichor (used for gifts) obtained when attacking or guarding.
• Weight and total weight: All weapons and Blood Veils have weight. Total equipped weight determines your mobility (slow, normal, quick).
• Balance: Resistance to staggering; higher balance makes you harder to stagger.
• Mobility: Changes speed of movement and dodging (slow, normal, and quick) depending on weight.
• Gifts (Light/Dark): Determines damage of gifts.

Stat Origins and Leveling:

Stats in Code Vein are not purely numeric; many values are derived from non-numeric letter grades or are unrelated to base stats. Your character's core stats originate from their Blood Code, which functions as their class. Each Blood Code has letter grades for the six main stats (Strength, Dexterity, Mind, Willpower, Vitality, Fortitude) that translate into the Blood Code's Max HP, Stamina, physical attack damage, Gift damage, and more. Blood Codes also provide base values for Balance, Max Ichor, Mobility, resistances, and defense stats. Later Blood Codes are generally superior stat-wise. When you level up at a Mistle (a type of checkpoint (an auto-save point you restart from on death)), you spend Haze (experience currency) to gain stat boosts to HP, Stamina, specific weapon types, and gifts. Importantly, these boosts are reallocated based on the currently equipped Blood Code; for example, a physical damage boost gained as a Fighter might become a Gift damage boost if you switch to a Mage Blood Code.

Weapon and Blood Veil Stats:

Your gear significantly impacts your stats. Weapons have an attack type (Slash, Pierce, Crush), may have elemental damage, and a drain rating for Ichor recovery. They also provide defense stats when blocking, drain rating for blocking, and stamina reduction. Some weapons can inflict status effects. Weapon weight, combined with your Blood Code's maximum weight, determines your mobility. Weapons have required stats; failing to meet these requirements with your current Blood Code severely reduces the weapon's effectiveness. A weapon's physical damage is its base damage plus its scaling damage. Scaling damage is determined by the weapon's Stat Scaling stats (usually Strength and Dexterity, sometimes Willpower and Mind), displayed as letters. To maximize scaling damage, these stats should be close to or lower than your Blood Code's stats. Scaling is also affected by weapon weight: heavier weapons with good Strength scaling gain more scaling damage, while very light weapons (allowing quick mobility) lose scaling damage. Weapons that are excessively heavy also have lower scaling. Weapon scaling and associated stats only affect weapon attacks and blocking, not Gift damage or drain attacks.

Blood Veils function similarly. Their weight affects mobility. Their stats (scaling, base damage, drain rating, resistances) work like a weapon's but apply differently. Physical damage affects drain attacks and attacks using the Blood Veil. Defense stats apply to damage taken when not guarding. Gift information applies to gifts.