Penetration & Tenacity System Guide

🦖 Mesozoic Dawn: Penetration & Tenacity

Penetration, Tenacity, and Defense together decide how a hit is divided between the blue Defense bar and red Health bar. Knowing them tells you when to charge, wear armor down, or disengage.

💡 Know the Three Values

• Penetration (Pen): Determines how well normal attacks pass through protection and reach Health. Higher Pen is more likely to overcome the target's Tenacity.
• Tenacity (Ten): Represents the strength of protection. It reduces normal penetration and also reduces True Damage. Skills, effects, and the environment can temporarily change your effective Tenacity.
• Defense (blue bar): This is a spendable layer of protection, not the same as Tenacity. When it reaches zero, Tenacity is temporarily treated as 0, so normal attacks reach Health much more easily.

Growth also affects Pen and Ten: hatchlings are 3 levels below their species baseline, juveniles 2 below, youths and elders 1 below; adults and strong adults use the baseline.

⚔️ Normal Attacks & True Damage

Normal attacks: Penetration versus Tenacity

• Pen at least equals Ten: The attack penetrates protection effectively. Defense is still spent, but Health takes more damage.
• Pen is below Ten: The hit mainly wears down Defense, while part of the damage still reaches Health. Hit locations affect that portion, so there is no universal best body part for every species.
• Never completely ineffective: If a normal attack has damage, it still deals at least 1 Defense damage and 1 Health damage, even to a high-Tenacity target.

True Damage: direct Health damage, not unconditional full damage

• How it works: Skills with True Damage do not spend the target's Defense; they damage Health directly. True Damage is not the same as Full Penetration, so effects that require Full Penetration still need their own condition met.
• Tenacity still mitigates it: Each Tenacity level reduces True Damage by 8%, down to a floor of 60% of its original damage. High Tenacity is not immunity, but it meaningfully reduces the threat.
• Trauma: True Damage adds Trauma based on the Health actually lost, up to 150% of maximum Health. During combat, Trauma reduces healing by up to 90%; out of combat, it fades by an amount equal to 8% of maximum Health each second.

🛡️ Combat Decisions

1. Do not treat the blue bar as Health: Once Defense is empty, even high Tenacity no longer protects against normal attacks. Disengage and rebuild your defenses when the blue bar is nearly gone.
2. Use charge to change the matchup: At 80% or more charge, the attack gains +2 Pen; at 50% or more it gains +1; below 50% it loses 1. Against high Tenacity, choosing a charge window can matter more than rushing repeated hits.
3. Aim for sustainable hits: Body-part damage differs by species and attack. Rather than assuming the head or torso is always best, use a vulnerable point you can hit safely and consistently, then adjust as the enemy's Defense changes.
4. Do not overstay after True Damage: Trauma suppresses healing while combat continues. If your Health keeps falling and will not recover, disengaging so Trauma can fade is usually safer than continuing to trade damage.