Benita

Benita is the third playable hero of Pascal's Wager and the only one whose weapon, the Monstrance (a whip), costs her Health to swing. Her normal attacks bleed a few percent of her maximum Health to build Pure Blood, her combat arts spend Pure Blood, and the right arts turn the damage she deals back into Health. On top of that she carries two Elixirs on the Special button (a shield and a Stamina boost). Her talent tree also holds the shared potion talents. This page lists her numbers from the game's own tables and code: stats, growth, the full moveset with costs, the Elixir and bloodsucking statuses, and what her Abnormal state changes.

Overview#

The in-game tutorial introduces the Monstrance as a weapon that turns her own Health into Pure Blood, and her Elixirs as potions that buff her (see also Blessing#Success chance for how potions can be improved). In play she has three layers:

1. Chains that cost Health. Every hit of a Light or Heavy string costs a slice of her maximum Health (2% for Light, 3% for Heavy, 10% for the start of a Counter Attack) unless she is under the Bloodsucking effect. Every hit that lands gives Pure Blood (4 per hit, 6 on a "rhythm" hit).
2. Combat arts paid in Pure Blood (30 or 100): Touch of Whip, Whip of Monstrance, Dance of Whip, Counter Attack and Reclaiming the Pure Blood (a self-heal). See Rage#Gaining Rage for how the resource family works; Pure Blood is Benita's name for Rage.
3. Elixirs. A second gauge (the code calls it Power) pays for the Special button: Wind Breath faster Stamina regeneration, Holy Soul shield, plus two talent moves, Wind Prayer and Annihilation. The Option button swaps between the two Elixirs.

She has no guard or parry stance (inferred: her skill list contains no guard entry). The Special button is her Elixir button. Her defensive tools are the Counter Attack (a pause in a chain), dodging, the shield and healing.

A note on names: the English text calls her Pure Blood resource "Pure Blood" everywhere. It does not use "Soul Dew" for Benita; that word belongs to another hero's talents.

Base stats#

Starting attribute points (HeroData row 10003). The seventh, hidden attribute feeds fixed stats.

Computed with the game's own attribute formula (the same one as in Terrence), these give:

What each attribute feeds#

Benita's rate table is the defining difference from Terrence: Intellect is her damage stat.

What the very top of each attribute is worth, compared with her starting values (only that attribute raised to 99):

So the first ~50 points of Intellect take her from 80 to roughly 200 Attack, while Strength, which is the damage stat for Terrence, hardly matters. Vigor still matters twice: Health pays for her chains, and Skill shield is the base of her Holy Soul shield. The growth curves are shared with every hero; see Attributes#The curves for the curve samples and Attributes#Spending points and Leveling for how points are earned.

Weapons and style#

Benita fights with one weapon, the Monstrance, a whip (the code constant is WeaponWhip). Light attacks are a four-hit whip string, Heavy attacks a three-hit string, and the two can be mixed: a Light string flowing into a Heavy tap triggers Touch of Whip, and a Heavy string flowing into a Light tap triggers Whip of Monstrance.

The in-game tutorial gives the theory in four lines: using the Monstrance turns Health into Pure Blood, hitting enemies gathers more, Pure Blood buys combat skills, and holding Light spends 30 Pure Blood to heal. Everything else in this article is the detail behind that.

Resources#

Health as a cost: the Monstrance tax#

Every move that has a "Health cost" in the tables below removes that share of maximum Health, rounded up, when the swing starts. Examples at 849 maximum Health: Light 17, Heavy 26, Counter Attack start 85. The deduction can never kill her: it leaves at least 1 Health.

The tax is waived while one of the three Bloodsucking statuses is active (see below). Combat arts that cost Pure Blood do not charge Health, except the Whip of Monstrance family (3%) and the Counter Attack start (10%).

Pure Blood#

Pure Blood is the Rage bar (maximum 100). She gains it only by hitting: 4 per Light or Heavy hit (6 for a rhythm hit), 18 for a Backstab or Execution, 20 for the second half of a Counter Attack, 10 when she drinks the shield Elixir and 4 for the other Elixir moves. Talents add to it: Rhythm: Pure Blood (+4 / +8 on rhythm moves) and Forced Bloodsucking (+5 / +10 / +15 on Backstab and Execution).

Unlike Norwood, Jerold and Elena, Benita's Rage bar has no drain: the decay routine is only called for those other heroes' value classes. Pure Blood keeps until you spend it.

Elixirs (the Power gauge)#

The Special button spends the Power gauge (maximum 100):

At 100 charge that is seven Wind Breaths (the seventh drains the last 10) or four shields (the fourth drains the last 10), because a move only needs 1 charge to start. The Option button (the game calls it the switch-effect button) toggles between Wind Breath and Holy Soul; she starts on Wind Breath. Any amount of charge of 1 or more is enough to start a 15 or 30 cost move, and the gauge simply empties.

None of her base skill rows gives Power back when hitting (PowerAdd is 0 everywhere). The talent Shunt Tubes adds 10 on Backstab and Execution. The gauge value is saved between scenes (the save keeps it with the hero's Health, Rage and Sanity), and the max can be raised by 10% with Optimized Tubes (PropertyAdd 100 per mille on the Power stat, one level). The code I read does not show where a refill happens, so how and where the gauge is refilled is not documented here (not verified).

Potions#

Benita carries 2 Health Potions (Terrence 3); the alchemy talents (Health Potions: Stock) add up to 3 more. Her Reclaiming the Pure Blood heals for 40% of her Attack plus 138 (170 Health at 80 Attack, 223 at 212 Attack) for 30 Pure Blood. In the abnormal sanity state this heal can be halved by Drug Resistance (see Benita#Abnormal state).

Statuses#

Her statuses are all "Benita" entries in StatusData; the data names are Chinese, so the English labels below are the game's talent names.

Details worth knowing:

• Bloodsucking is added on the first hit of Touch of Whip, so the Health tax is waived from the next swing on. The lifesteal value is added to the move's own lifesteal; one hit's lifesteal is capped at 25% of maximum Health.
• The shield amount is her base Skill shield times the percentage, so every Vigor point makes the Holy Soul Elixir stronger. The Annihilation talent turns the shield (plus any Trophy shield she holds) into extra damage on its release hit and wipes both.
• The description of Elixir: Lingering Wind Whisper says the duration grows by 33.3% / 66.6%, but the data goes from 40 s to 50 s to 60 s, which is +25% and +50%. Its other talents match their data: Soul Kiss adds 3 s each level and the shield talent adds 50% each level (200 to 300 to 400 per mille).

Moveset#

Button names: Light, Heavy, Special (Elixir), Option (switch Elixir), Dodge, Interact. A "rhythm" hit (the game's Rhythm Attack talent) is a follow-up pressed at the right moment of the previous swing; the data marks these as separate "enhanced" moves with higher power. The exact timing windows live in the animations, not in the tables.

Inputs and unlocks#

See Benita talent tree for the node costs and prerequisites.

Damage#

"Raw attack" is the flat power plus Attack x rate before the target's Defence and other multipliers (see Damage formula). The two columns assume her starting Attack of 80, and 212 Attack, which is what you get by raising only Intellect to 99. All of Benita's moves deal Physical damage.

The three talent variants Dexterous, Inhibition and Terminate have exactly the same damage numbers as the basic Whip of Monstrance step they replace. Inhibition only changes the stagger values (poise damage 25 to 40, resilience damage 17 to 30; rhythm version 50 and 40). Terminate changes nothing in the damage columns at all; its only differences are in the victim-side Rage and Power gain fields, which matter only for Terrence-style "gain when hit" talents. Its in-game description promises more damage; the data does not show it. Dexterous differs from the basic step only in move priority (the dodge-cancel is an animation property), not in any number.

The Elixir moves hit the enemies around her for a small pulse of damage as well.

Costs and side effects#

How to read it: "Pure Blood needed" is the amount you must hold; "spent" is the amount removed. Poise damage removes the target's Poise, resilience damage fills it towards the Weakened state (Poise and stagger#How a hit is resolved, Weakness and execution#The Resilience gauge). Armour is the temporary super-armour pool that the move opens; 999 means the finishing counter cannot be interrupted. Guard break 999 means the hit cannot be blocked. Light and Heavy strings cost the same Stamina (65 per swing). Armour is the Toughness field of the skill row. The windup step of the Heavy string and the first step of the rhythm Heavy string also carry 64 Armour but deal no damage.

Combo flow#

Counter Attack in detail#

If you pause between hits of a Light or Heavy string, the swing turns into a counter stance (the data flags each string step as counter-capable). If an enemy attack lands during the opening window, the move becomes the Counter Attack: it costs 30 Pure Blood and 10% of maximum Health (unless Bloodsucking is active), and then automatically follows with a finishing hit worth 61 + 160% Attack that ignores critical hits, cannot be interrupted, and gives 20 Pure Blood. The code switches to the "large enemy" variant if the target has a huge body (poise 30, resilience 25 against 20). The finishing hit steps next to the enemy that was struck. The talent Long Distance Counterattack lets normal attacks return ranged projectiles as well (the code plays a parry effect and freezes the animation for 0.06 s).

Abnormal state#

Benita's penalty applies to the player-controlled Benita whenever Sanity is in the abnormal band: at or below 70% of maximum Sanity ("Unusual"), and it stays on at or below 50% ("Crazy", the Lunatic state). The shared rules are in Abnormal state#Effects by hero. The game's description of her state has three parts:

Talent changes (all in the Sanity tab, see Benita talent tree):

• Adapt to Abnormality: Elixir: cuts the extra cost from +33% to +22% (level 1) or +11% (level 2). The text says 22.2% and 11.1%; the data computes 22.0% and 11.0%.
• Adapt to Abnormality: Potion Resistance: each use builds 35 (level 1) or 25 (level 2) instead of 40 stacks, so it takes about 3 quick uses at level 1 and 4 or more at level 2 to reach 100 stacks (inferred, because stacks fade by 2 per second), instead of 3 uses at 40 each. The description speaks of 15% and 35% less resistance, while the numbers are 12.5% and 37.5% less.
• Bloodthirsty Instinct: below 30% Health the bonus rises from +15% to +30%.

No Benita move is disabled or changed in the Abnormal state: all 84 of her skill rows have no sanity restriction. See also Sanity and Abnormal state#How talents reshape these effects.

Hidden mechanics#

• The Health tax is a percentage of maximum Health, charged per swing. Light costs 2%, Heavy and the Whip of Monstrance family 3%, the Counter start 10%. It never kills her (minimum 1 Health). Bloodsucking removes it entirely, which is the reason Touch of Whip into a string is so efficient: the lifesteal both repays the cost and removes the next one.
• Lifesteal numbers are large. Touch of Whip heals 100% of the damage dealt (150% on its rhythm version). Bloodsucking adds 80% / 100% / 120% to everything for 6 / 9 / 12 s. A single hit can heal at most 25% of maximum Health, but lifesteal from periodic (damage-over-time style) hits has no cap; whether Dance of Whip's held part counts as periodic is inferred.
• Intellect is the attack stat. An Intellect point is worth many times a Strength point for her (rate 1000 against 200), and Intellect also raises Crit damage and all resistances.
• Shield strength scales with Vigor. The Holy Soul shield is a percentage of her base Skill shield value. No trophy raises the Skill shield (trophy property types have no Skill shield; trophy-effect shields fill the separate Trophy shield pool). Casting a new shield first clears the old shield and sets Skill shield to zero, so shields never stack: re-casting replaces what is left. Annihilation turns the current shield and Trophy shield into extra damage on its hit and clears both, so it also removes protection you already had.
• Wind Prayer says it needs Wind Whisper. The talent text tells you to hold the button while Wind Whisper is active; the skill data only requires Elixir mode 1 and 30 charge (inferred reading: "Wind Whisper" is the mode name).
• Wind Prayer's upgrade tiers do not exist. Three Perpetual statuses (30 / 40 / 50 s) are in the data but the code and talents only reach the first, because no talent changes the status the move applies.
• Elixirs need only 1 charge. The cost is paid down to zero. Only Wind Prayer actually needs its full 30.
• No Rage drain, no Power drain. Pure Blood and Elixir charge stay until spent. Her Rage bar only fills from hits and from Backstab or Execution. The decay routines run only for Norwood, Jerold and Elena.
• A trophy can force the Abnormal state. The Sanity check returns the "Unusual" band (stage 1, Abnormal but not Lunatic) for the player's hero whenever a trophy with the always-abnormal logic is equipped (outside the Carriage), whatever the real Sanity is. This means Benita's penalties and bonuses apply at full Sanity too (code: AnimalBase_Value:GetSanType).
• Abnormal-state penalties are host-only. The abnormal-state code checks that Benita is the hero the player controls. A Benita controlled by the AI as a team member does not suffer Elixir cost, Drug Resistance or low-Health damage changes.
• AI Benita uses Elixirs only when none is running. The combat AI checks for her Bloodsucking, Rejuvenation and Perpetual statuses before using the Stamina elixirs, and for any Shield before using the shield.
• Elixir pulses hit. Every Elixir move deals a small 61 + 80% Attack hit around her and gives Pure Blood (10 for the shield).

Trivia#

• The English tutorial calls the stamina elixir Wind Breath, but the talent tree calls the same effect Wind Whisper.
• Terrence starts with three Health Potions; Benita starts with two, and Health Potions: Stock in her tree adds up to three more.
• The two bottles on her character model fill with the Rage and Power values; the code swaps the second bottle's texture whenever she switches Elixir.
• The Option button state is stored on the hero: switching back and forth sets the Elixir mode condition for her four Elixir moves at once.
• Her parry effect plays a short freeze-frame (0.06 s) when a counter connects with a ranged attack.

Sources#

• Hero data: es_herodata.lua row 10003 (attributes 11/12/14/15/10/9/1, HpAddNum 2, UISanityDescription); HeroPropertyData rows for hero 10003 (rates); HeroAttributeData curves; start stats computed in build/wiki/data/characters_a/hero_stats.json.
• Moves: es_skilldata.lua rows with HeroId 10003 (84 rows, SkillIndex 1-40, 102-113); es_skillchaindata.lua rows for hero 10003; fields mapped as Attack = flat power, BaseRate = rate, ToughnessSub = poise damage, WeaknessSub = resilience damage, RageAdd = Pure Blood gained on hit, SubHpByStatus = Health cost per mille, SuckHp = lifesteal per mille.
• Talents: es_herotalent.lua rows 101-114, 116, 118, 201-216, 301-317, 401-409 for hero 10003; reports/talent_trees.md lines 157-228.
• Statuses: es_statusdata.lua rows 10013-10024 and 10044-10046; logic/status/status109.lua (shield), statusbase.lua:226-232, 284-345, 477-490 (stack, value, decay); structdata/ms_statusdata.lua:20-42 (logic types).
• Code: logic/player/hero10003.lua:9-37 (starting skill conditions, default Elixir mode), 75-92 (Bloodsucking on Touch of Whip hit), 98-137 (counter, parry), 251-291 (Option switch, Health tax), 334-405 (Elixir triggers, Annihilation), 408-414 (shield check); logic/playervalue/hero10003_value.lua:79-118 (lifesteal and 25% cap), 120-125 (shield to damage); logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:913-928 (Elixir cost, +33% lunatic), 1586-1600 (Rage and Power decay), 1663-1686 (sanity bands), 2624-2633, 2814-2823 (low-Health bonus), 2995-3035 (heal and halving), 3097-3115 (basic lifesteal); logic/player/animalbase.lua:6612-6652 (potion use and resistance), 17214-17224 (host-only abnormal check); gamedata/playerdefine/hero10003_define.lua (all constants); animalbase_value_define.lua:13-17 (Sanity bounds); logic/ai/behaviour/attack/attack10003.lua:290, 518, 570 (AI elixir rules).
• Text: StoryTutorial 1048-1050, 1996 (Benita and Blessing tutorials); HeroData 10003 English sanity text; HeroTalent text for the talents above.
• Drug Resistance (heroes_a pass): StatusBase:AddStack (statusbase.lua 226-232) turns the status on only at 100 stacks, and the heal-halving test AnimalBase:IsHaveStatusById (animalbase.lua 5353-5359) and statusbase.lua 338-342 count only an active status, so loose stacks below 100 halve nothing. Optimized Tubes: HeroTalent TalentPos 210 (Condition 12 = Power, Value 100, one stone level).
• Marked "(inferred)": the number of potion uses needed to trigger Drug Resistance, and the timing of the rhythm window (in the animations, not in tables). Not verified: where the Elixir gauge refills.
• Verification pass: reference/lua_src/luascript/structdata/fs_herodata.lua:573-604 (stat formula), logic/status/statusbase.lua:284-345 (shield, stamina and heal values), logic/status/status109.lua:7-55 (shield replaces and clears), logic/player/hero10003.lua:340-395 (Elixir triggers, Annihilation), logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua:1663-1681 (Sanity bands, trophy override), gamedata/playerdefine/animalbase_define.lua:543-547 (SkillSanType), animalbase_value.lua:1594-1600, 1618-1624 and logic/playervalue/hero10004_value.lua:15, hero10005_value.lua:15, hero10007_value.lua:19 (decay callers).