The box in Sonny 2 that shows the Piercing and Defense.
Piercing and Defense are minor attributes in Sonny. Although they cannot be directly increased by leveling up, certain passive abilities, items, and buffs affect them. The different colors stand for different elements: red is Physical, pink is Magic or Cosmic, blue is Ice, orange is Fire, yellow is Lightning, brown is Earth, purple is Shadow, and green is Poison.
Piercing
There are eight different types of Piercing, one for each element. Piercing increases the chance that an attack of its associated element will have a critical hit, and adds to the damage of any such attack. Note that piercing bonuses applied through skills affect critical chance, but do not add to the skill's base damage.
Defense
There are eight different types of Defense, one for each element. Defense decreases the chance that an attack of its associated element will hit the user critically, and decreases the damage of any such attack.
Elements
There are eight elements in Sonny, and every attack has an element. The element serves little purpose other than the calculations involving Piercing and Defense. Buffs also have an element, which may affect whether certain abilities can dispel them.
Physical
This is a very common element, and is the element of standard physical attacks. In every ability tree except the Psychological one, Physical skills are the most common.
Magic/Cosmic
The Magic element was commonly used in Sonny, although Sonny only had a few moves that used it. As of Sonny 2, the element was renamed Cosmic, and it only appears used by enemies, as Sonny doesn't have any ability using it.
Ice
The Ice element is a rather passive element, typically associated with spells that debuff the target, rather than dealing large amounts of damage. It is heavily associated with the Hydraulic class. In Sonny 1, Shatter Bolt was the only move available to Sonny with this element.
Fire
Despite being the antithesis of Ice, the Fire element is similar, although it is somewhat more active. Sonny had a few Fire skills in Sonny, but in Sonny 2, Sonny cannot deal fire damage, only other characters like Roald or ZPCI Elites can.
Lightning
A moderately common element. Somewhat associated with Focus regeneration, used frequently by the Psychological class and includes Veradux's signature spell, Electro Bolt Med/Dux Electro. It focuses on immediate focus regeneration and high direct damage.
Earth
Earth is a rather rare element, as neither Sonny nor any of his allies has ever been able to use an Earth skill. In fact, only two skills scaling with Earth piercing currently exist: Sonny's Earth Smash and Sonny 2's Spire. No equipment has ever offered Earth Piercing, although the survivor's armor in Sonny 1 gives Earth Defense. The only 4 moves that use the earth element in Sonny 2 are the Mayor's enrage, Spire, Nostalgia's Earth Titan, and the Twin Guardian's Guardian Shield.
Shadow
Shadow is the most common element in the Psychological tree, and tends to be associated with power at a price. The only offensive ability in the skill tree in Sonny that uses this element is Void. The Shadow element contains abilities with very low focus cost that tend to debuff the opponent. It is mostly indirect but once the opponent has been set up, its damage output becomes threateningly high
Poison
The Biological tree is the only one to contain any Poison spells. The skills tend to focus on damage over time rather than direct damage. In Sonny, equipping Galiant the Paladin's armor on Veradux would massively boost his Poison Piercing, allowing him to deal extreme damage with his Zombie Poison skill.
Healing
It is also possible to deal critical healing. Healing skills have elements just like Damage skills do, although this is not apparent in-game. Healing critical hits are not affected by the target's Defense.
Ally Skills
The following table shows which skills belonging to each ally benefit from each type of piercing.
Gallery
Trivia
- Some Unobtainable Items give Earth defense.
- Due to how in Sonny, piercing damage increase the lower level a character is, Omen takes more damage from Zombie Poison by Veradux the lower level he is.