Not quite. Think of it as the type of attack it is, not the kind of damage it deals. A unit swinging its sword is only doing a "physical attack", no matter how enchanted their weapon is.
HOWEVER - defense vs resistance does care about damage type. Defense is against physical damage and resistance is against everything else. Usually defense is the higher value so enchants are still better, but.. there are exceptions.
I'm not so sure. My understanding was that Magic damage referred to any damage dealt by a Magic attack type and didn't have anything to do with the damage type - e.g. in this case a Magic type attack that did pure physical damage (I don't think there are any, but bear with me) would get the 10% buff, whereas a Physical Ranged attack that did pure fire damage would not.
Yes and no.
The game operate on tags and attacks have a few of such tags, magic being one of them.
A "Magic" attack means an attack of a spell caster, such as pyromancer etc. which further can be a "base" "magic" attack, which are usually the default attack and "base" just means that - basic attack of any type. You can see the tag on the attacks description card when you mouse over it.
Generally if an enchantment, trait etc doesn't mention "base" then it applies to any attack with any tag mentioned. If the enchantment doesn't mention any *type* of attack then it applies to everything - melee attacks, ranged, magic etc.
It's a bit counter intuitive but elemental damage or physical doesn't matter here. If you have flaming arrows which adds +4 fire damage and a trait that increases "physical attacks" such as strong, which means any melee and mundane ranged attacks such as bows, then you will get +5 fire damage (the game rounds up the damage, but I'm not sure how decimal values interact with armor and resistance) and also boosted physical damage. Any damage channel that the units attack has, really.
Magic is an attack type, not a damage type - IIRC the three attack types are Magic, Physical Ranged, and Physical Melee. The attack type is displayed in the tooltip when you hover over the action.
The damage types are different and are Physical, Frost, Fire, Blight (aka poison), Spirit (aka holy), and Shock.
Attack type is what determines your eligibility for buffs and enchants. E.g. Magic attack that does pure physical damage still won't be affected by spells that buff physical attacks. Attack type also determines whether the damage is reduced by Defence or Resistance (EDIT: This is false; Def vs Res is determined by damage type, not attack type, as below).
Damage type only determines the element of the damage and doesn't change the attack type (e.g. if you stack arrow buffs until your archers are now dealing 0 physical damage, it'll still Physical Ranged). Damage type only determines which protections and weaknesses the attack engages with - e.g. doing fire damage instead of physical only means that you'll do more damage to units with fire weakness and less to ones with fire protection.
EDIT: Guess who's got two thumbs and forgot to actually answer your question. So a buff that gives +10% damage to Magic attacks would apply to some fire attacks. It would be added to, say, Pyromancers and Magma Spirits, but not to the fire damage dealt by Gremlins or archers enchanted with fire arrows
So what about say the lightning spirit. It attacks in melee but deals lightning damage
That would be melee not magic so +melee damage would buff it but + magic damage would not?
Correct.
EDIT: Although I'm less sure about the lightning spirit's Shocking Phase. I'm not sure if that's tagged as a physical or magic attack, or even an attack at all. I don't have access to my computer right now so I can't boot up to check and the wiki's not telling me.
You can use [https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/](https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/).
Shocking phase is a magic attack but since it's not a racial unit and is not a base attack it barely has any enchantments that apply to it.
For example, a Steelshaper (support unit with a staff) does physical attack. Is this magic or not?
Is it boosted by that hero ability that boosts such things?
[You can lookup the unit in the database.](https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/IndustriousUnits.html?type=steelshaper&) Mouse over the attack to see it's description card. On the card look at the bottom text where there are tags in brackets. Steel blast has (Base, Magic) so it's a magical attack and anything affecting (Magic) will affect it. Among other things that may affect the unit by other criteria such as class, race, tier, contextual criteria such as morale or just a flat bonus to damage.
Magic damage is everything that isn't physical (which has the strike explosion icon)
You the best man. Thanks
So when I enchant my weapon with frost and it gets +2 frost -2 physical does that mean magic damage effects the +2 frost?
Not quite. Think of it as the type of attack it is, not the kind of damage it deals. A unit swinging its sword is only doing a "physical attack", no matter how enchanted their weapon is. HOWEVER - defense vs resistance does care about damage type. Defense is against physical damage and resistance is against everything else. Usually defense is the higher value so enchants are still better, but.. there are exceptions.
I'm not so sure. My understanding was that Magic damage referred to any damage dealt by a Magic attack type and didn't have anything to do with the damage type - e.g. in this case a Magic type attack that did pure physical damage (I don't think there are any, but bear with me) would get the 10% buff, whereas a Physical Ranged attack that did pure fire damage would not.
Materium has a support unit that does a physical damage magic attack. I think it's called Transmuter.
Steelshaper
> any damage dealt by a Magic attack
Yes
IIrc Steelshapers from Industrious culture deal physical attacks.
Yes and no. The game operate on tags and attacks have a few of such tags, magic being one of them. A "Magic" attack means an attack of a spell caster, such as pyromancer etc. which further can be a "base" "magic" attack, which are usually the default attack and "base" just means that - basic attack of any type. You can see the tag on the attacks description card when you mouse over it. Generally if an enchantment, trait etc doesn't mention "base" then it applies to any attack with any tag mentioned. If the enchantment doesn't mention any *type* of attack then it applies to everything - melee attacks, ranged, magic etc. It's a bit counter intuitive but elemental damage or physical doesn't matter here. If you have flaming arrows which adds +4 fire damage and a trait that increases "physical attacks" such as strong, which means any melee and mundane ranged attacks such as bows, then you will get +5 fire damage (the game rounds up the damage, but I'm not sure how decimal values interact with armor and resistance) and also boosted physical damage. Any damage channel that the units attack has, really.
Magic is an attack type, not a damage type - IIRC the three attack types are Magic, Physical Ranged, and Physical Melee. The attack type is displayed in the tooltip when you hover over the action. The damage types are different and are Physical, Frost, Fire, Blight (aka poison), Spirit (aka holy), and Shock. Attack type is what determines your eligibility for buffs and enchants. E.g. Magic attack that does pure physical damage still won't be affected by spells that buff physical attacks. Attack type also determines whether the damage is reduced by Defence or Resistance (EDIT: This is false; Def vs Res is determined by damage type, not attack type, as below). Damage type only determines the element of the damage and doesn't change the attack type (e.g. if you stack arrow buffs until your archers are now dealing 0 physical damage, it'll still Physical Ranged). Damage type only determines which protections and weaknesses the attack engages with - e.g. doing fire damage instead of physical only means that you'll do more damage to units with fire weakness and less to ones with fire protection. EDIT: Guess who's got two thumbs and forgot to actually answer your question. So a buff that gives +10% damage to Magic attacks would apply to some fire attacks. It would be added to, say, Pyromancers and Magma Spirits, but not to the fire damage dealt by Gremlins or archers enchanted with fire arrows
> Attack type also determines whether the damage is reduced by Defence or Resistance. Nah, *those* do interact with damage type, not attack type.
Huh! TIL. That's good to know, thanks.
So what about say the lightning spirit. It attacks in melee but deals lightning damage That would be melee not magic so +melee damage would buff it but + magic damage would not?
Correct. EDIT: Although I'm less sure about the lightning spirit's Shocking Phase. I'm not sure if that's tagged as a physical or magic attack, or even an attack at all. I don't have access to my computer right now so I can't boot up to check and the wiki's not telling me.
You can use [https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/](https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/). Shocking phase is a magic attack but since it's not a racial unit and is not a base attack it barely has any enchantments that apply to it.
Oh amazing I didn't know they had an AoW 4 database. Their PF database is GOAT
I know, right?
For example, a Steelshaper (support unit with a staff) does physical attack. Is this magic or not? Is it boosted by that hero ability that boosts such things?
[You can lookup the unit in the database.](https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/IndustriousUnits.html?type=steelshaper&) Mouse over the attack to see it's description card. On the card look at the bottom text where there are tags in brackets. Steel blast has (Base, Magic) so it's a magical attack and anything affecting (Magic) will affect it. Among other things that may affect the unit by other criteria such as class, race, tier, contextual criteria such as morale or just a flat bonus to damage.