SimpleMMO stats: Strength, Defence and Dexterity
Every character has three stats. Strength sets your damage, Defence cuts the damage you take, and Dexterity decides whether your hits land and whether your quests succeed. The community wiki documents the actual combat formula, which tells you more than any rule of thumb.
The combat formula
Each turn, both fighters attack once. For your attack against an opponent:
- Max hit = your Strength − 9/11 × their Defence (rounded, never below 20)
- Min hit = your Strength − 11/9 × their Defence (rounded, never below 1)
- Chance to hit = 3.5 × your Dexterity ÷ their Defence (capped at 100%)
Damage is rolled between min and max. Totals include gear, profession bonuses and buffs, not just the points you assign. A special attack costs 1 energy and adds 25% Strength for one turn (more with crit gear).
What that means for each stat
Each point adds 1 to both your max and min hit against everyone. It's the simplest stat, and the one that shortens fights. Until your Strength is well above 9/11 of the target's Defence, your max hit sits on the floor of 20, which is why low-Strength fights drag on.
Each point takes about 0.82 off your opponent's max hit and 1.22 off their min hit. It also lowers their chance to hit you, because Defence is the bottom of the hit-chance formula.
In combat, Dexterity only matters until you hit 100% of the time, which happens once your Dexterity reaches about 29% of the target's Defence (Defence ÷ 3.5). Past that point it adds nothing to a fight. It still drives quest success, which is why new players stack it.
Worked example: where 20 points do the most
The same character with 20 points moved into each stat, against an opponent with 70 Strength, 60 Defence, 50 Dexterity and 1,500 HP. Both sides have 1,500 HP. Calculated with the formula above:
| Build | Your hit | Your hit chance | Your turns to kill | Their hit | Their hit chance | Their turns to kill |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Even split (60 / 60 / 60) | 1–20 | 100.0% | 143 | 1–21 | 100.0% | 137 |
| +20 Strength | 7–31 | 100.0% | 79 | 1–21 | 100.0% | 137 |
| +20 Defence | 1–20 | 100.0% | 143 | 1–20 | 100.0% | 143 |
| +20 Dexterity | 1–20 | 100.0% | 143 | 1–21 | 100.0% | 137 |
Strength is the only one that moved anything here. With stats this even, both sides are pinned to the 20 max-hit floor, so extra Defence barely helps (their max hit only drops from 21 to the floor of 20) and extra Dexterity changes nothing because both sides already hit 100% of the time. +20 Strength lifts you off the floor and almost halves your turns to kill. Try your own numbers in the combat calculator.
A sensible stat plan
- Early game: Dexterity. Quests are your main XP and gold, and Dexterity decides whether they succeed.
- Once your quests pass reliably: Strength and Defence. Strength shortens fights, and Defence makes you take less damage and get hit less often.
- Keep checking the Dexterity breakpoint. If you fight something with much higher Defence and start missing, you've dropped under the ~29% line. Top it up.
- Count gear and profession bonuses. A profession that gives a bonus stat changes which stat your free points should go into. See jobs and professions.
More SimpleMMO guides and tools
Sources
- SimpleMMO Fandom wiki (community-maintained; parts are out of date) — read 2026-09-30
This is an unofficial fan site. We do not scrape SimpleMMO or use its account API. Community-documented numbers can lag behind the live game; if something here disagrees with what you see in game, trust the game and tell us.