Combat System

Turn-based fights with elemental damage, armor, and capped stats

1. Hit Points

Player HP

At level 1 your hero has 500 HP. Every level adds a flat 150.

Level	HP
1	500
10	1,850
50	7,850
100	15,350
200	30,350
500	75,350
1000	150,350

Enemy HP

Enemies use the same base formula as players, but their HP is multiplied by 0.25 — making them significantly squishier than the player at equal level/difficulty.

Difficulty	Enemy HP
1	125
10	463
50	1,963
100	3,838
200	7,588
500	18,838
1000	37,588

2. Base Damage

Both players and enemies use the same base damage formula. This is added to weapon damage to form total attack power.

Level	Base Damage
1	23
10	50
50	170
100	320
200	620
500	1,520
1000	3,020

3. Damage Pipeline

Every attack passes through a multi-step damage pipeline. Understanding each step is key to gearing effectively.

Step 1: Level Scaling

Adjusts damage based on level difference. Fighting enemies above your level reduces your damage; below your level increases it. The +50 offset prevents extreme swings at low levels.

Step 2: Base Damage

Total item damage is your weapon's min-max damage (scaled by item level) plus your level-based base damage, multiplied by the level scaling factor.

Step 3: Elemental Distribution

Players always have a base of 100% physical. Elemental damage attributes add on top — they don't redistribute from physical. A weapon with 12% fire elemental_damage deals 100% physical + 12% fire = 112% total. Each element's share then runs through the reduction/weakness pipeline separately.

Step 4: Flat Elemental Damage

Flat elemental damage bonuses from gear are added on top, per element, before any reductions apply.

Step 5: Reduction & Weakness

Each element's damage is modified by the defender's effective reduction (decreases damage) and weakness (increases damage) for that element. Reduction is hard-capped at 99% per element — at least 1% of post-weakness damage always gets through. See Caps. 30% reduction with 0% weakness = 0.70x damage. 0% reduction with 30% weakness = 1.30x damage.

Step 6: Flat Reduction

Flat reduction absorbs a fixed amount of damage per element after percentage modifiers but before armor. Unlike percentage reduction, flat reduction does not create elemental weakness.

Step 7: Armor

Armor provides diminishing returns damage reduction. See the Armor Formula section below for the full breakdown.

Step 8: Variance

A gaussian roll with mean 1.0 and sigma 0.1, clamped between 0.7 and 1.3, adds slight variance to every hit. Most hits land near 1.0x but occasional high/low rolls create drama.

Step 9: Minimum Damage

Every hit always deals at least 1 damage. No attack can be fully nullified by armor or reductions.

4. Armor Formula

Armor uses a hyperbolic formula that provides diminishing returns. The ad (armor divisor) value scales with defender level, meaning higher-level defenders need more armor to achieve the same reduction percentage.

Player Armor Effectiveness

Player armor from equipment is multiplied by an effectiveness factor before entering the formula. This reduces the raw armor value to prevent over-stacking.

Difficulty Range	Effectiveness
0 – 149	0.50
150 – 249	0.49
250 – 499	0.48
500 – 749	0.47
750 – 999	0.46
1000+	0.45

Armor Reduction Curve

The chart below shows how much damage armor absorbs at different defender levels. Higher-level defenders have a larger ad divisor, so they need proportionally more armor to reach the same reduction.

At level 50 (ad=2000), 10,000 armor absorbs ~83% of damage. At level 500 (ad=11,000), the same armor only absorbs ~48%. Gear must scale with level to maintain the same protection.

5. Initiative

At the start of each fight, both sides roll initiative. The combatant with higher initiative attacks first each round. Ties go to the player.

6. Combat Mechanics

Mechanic	Effect	Details
Critical Hit	2.0x base (physical only)	Base multiplier of 2.0x, plus crit_multiplier_bonus from gear. Only applies to the physical portion of damage. A weapon dealing 60% fire + 40% physical with a 3.0x crit multiplies only the 40% physical part by 3.0x.
Dodge	Avoids all damage	Checked before block. If dodged, can trigger a counterattack.
Block	50% damage reduction	Shield block_chance (5–20%). Checked after dodge fails. Can trigger shield stun.
Reflect	Excludes + bounces % back	Per-element, pre-pipeline. Reflected portion is excluded from incoming damage AND dealt back to the attacker. Amplified by Elemental Damage Boost. See below.
Elemental Dmg Boost	Amplifies elemental output	Per non-physical element (5–20% per attr). Applied to outgoing damage after calc_damage, before crit. Also amplifies reflect (both exclusion and reflected damage). Softcapped at 150%.
Heal over Time	Heals HP per round	Applied at the start of each round, before any attacks. Both sides benefit from their own HoT.
Life Leech	Heals % of damage dealt	floor(damage × leech% / 100). Only triggers on successful hits (not dodged/blocked to 0).
Summon	Extra attack (item_level × 2)	Procs per attack based on weapon's summon chance (20–50%). Single-element. Amplified by Elemental Damage Boost. Max 1 summon attribute per weapon, max 1 proc per side per round.

Reflect Exclusion Model

Reflect operates pre-pipeline — before the defender's resist, weakness, and armor are applied. The reflected portion is simultaneously excluded from the incoming hit and dealt back to the attacker.

Resist and reflect stack multiplicatively: 20% exclusion + 30% resist = 44% total reduction for that element. This gives two distinct paths to elemental mitigation.

7. Shield Stun

When the defender blocks an attack, there is a chance to stun the attacker. Stun has two effects: an immediate shield bash and the attacker skips their next attack.

Trigger

Stun chance comes from the stun_chance armor attribute (2–10% per attr, all armor slots) and the Resilience skill (+1.0% per pick). No softcap on stun_chance — block_chance is already softcapped, and the multiplicative gate limits effective rates.

Shield Bash

The bash uses the shield's effective armor value as its damage input. Resistance attributes on the shield add elemental damage to the bash — a fire-resistant shield hits with fire, an ice-resistant shield hits with ice, and so on.

Property	Bash
Damage input	Shield effective armor
Elemental distribution	Physical 100% base + shield reduction attributes add elemental %
Flat elemental damage	Shield flat_reduction attributes add flat elemental damage
Elemental boost	Yes (uses blocker's elemental_damage_boost)
Crit	Yes (uses blocker's crit chance and multiplier)
Life leech	Yes
Summon	No
Enemy can dodge	No (reactive hit)
Enemy can block	Yes
Enemy reflect	Yes

Stun Effect

The stunned enemy skips their next attack opportunity. Stunned enemies still receive HoT healing.

Stun creates a self-limiting steady state: stunned rounds have no enemy attack, so no chance to trigger more stuns.

At 22.7% block × 55.1% stun = 12.5% effective stun rate: 11.1% of rounds are stunned, enemy attacks in 88.9% of rounds.

8. Dodge Counterattack

When the defender dodges an attack, there is a chance to immediately counterattack with a full weapon strike.

Trigger

Counterattack chance comes from the counterattack_chance armor attribute (2–10% per attr, all armor except shield) and the Evasion skill (+1.0% per pick). No softcap on counterattack_chance.

Counter Strike

Property	Counterattack
Damage input	Full weapon damage (same as normal attack)
Elemental distribution	Same as normal attack
Flat elemental damage	Yes
Crit	Yes
Life leech	Yes
Summon	Yes
Enemy can dodge	No (too fast to react — prevents infinite chains)
Enemy can block	Yes (blocking a counter can trigger stun)
Enemy reflect	Yes

9. Momentum

When a counterattack lands, the attacker gains a Momentum buff — a burst of speed that grants one bonus weapon attack per round for a short duration.

Activation

• Triggered when a counterattack successfully deals damage.
• Cannot activate while already active or during cooldown.
• Both the player and enemy can independently gain Momentum.

Duration & Cooldown

Parameter	Value
Duration	3 rounds of bonus attacks (including the proc round)
Cooldown	10 rounds after the buff expires before it can proc again

Bonus Attack

Property	Momentum Attack
Damage input	Full weapon damage (same as normal attack)
Crit	Yes
Life leech	Yes
Summon	Yes
Enemy can dodge	Yes
Enemy can block	Yes
Triggers counter on dodge?	No (prevents infinite chains)
Triggers stun on block?	No

Stun Interaction

If the Momentum holder is stunned, the bonus attack is skipped for that round. However, the Momentum timer still ticks down — stun effectively wastes a round of the buff.

10. Fight Flow

1. Initiative roll — determine who attacks first this fight (persists all rounds).
2. Each round:
   1. First attacker swings — the full attack sequence (below) plays out. If stunned from the previous round, their attack is skipped.
   2. Second attacker swings — if still alive, the other side attacks. If stunned, skipped.
   3. Momentum bonus attacks — if either side has an active Momentum buff, they get one extra weapon attack (no counter/stun chain).
   4. HoT heals — both sides heal from Heal over Time.
3. Per attack:
   1. Check if attacker is stunned → if yes, skip attack (stun consumed)
   2. Pre-pipeline: reflect exclusion (boosted by defender's elemental boost)
   3. Check dodge → if dodged, roll counterattack
   4. Calculate damage through pipeline (boost → physical-only crit → elemental distribution → resist/weakness → flat reduction → armor → variance)
   5. Check block → if blocked (50% damage), roll stun → shield bash
   6. Apply damage → life leech → check summon proc (boosted by elemental boost)
4. Fight ends when either side's HP drops to 0 or below, or the round cap is reached.
5. Round cap: 500 rounds (PvE) / 50 rounds (PvP). If the cap is hit, the player (or challenger in PvP) loses — stalemate counts as a loss.

11. Soft Caps

Several combat stats use soft caps to prevent extreme stacking. Above a threshold, each additional bracket of effective value costs increasingly more raw stat points.

Chance Stats (Crit, Dodge, Block)

Threshold: 50%. Bracket size: 10%.

Raw Value	Effective Value	Ratio
0 – 50%	0 – 50%	1:1 (no penalty)
50 – 70%	50 – 60%	2:1
70 – 100%	60 – 70%	3:1
100 – 140%	70 – 80%	4:1
140 – 190%	80 – 90%	5:1
190 – 250%	90 – 100%	6:1

Getting from 50% to 60% effective costs 20 raw points. Getting from 80% to 90% costs 50 raw points. Reaching 100% effective requires 250 raw points — five times the no-penalty threshold.

Resistance % (per element)

Hard cap: 99%. No soft cap — every point of raw reduction applies 1:1 up to the cap. Capped per element independently (Physical, Earth, Fire, Ice, Magic, Energy).

Raw Value	Effective Value	Notes
0 – 99%	0 – 99%	1:1 (no penalty)
99% +	99% (hard cap)	— no benefit from extra raw

The hard cap applies symmetrically to both players and enemies. At 99% effective resistance, at least 1% of post-weakness damage always gets through. Stacking beyond 99% raw has no benefit.

Flat reduction (absolute points per hit) is not capped — it already has a natural per-hit floor at 0 and doesn't benefit unboundedly from stacking.

Crit Multiplier

Base multiplier: 2.0x. Threshold: 5.0x (300 raw units above base). Bracket: 1.0x (100 raw units). Same diminishing pattern as chance stats.

Soft Cap Curve

Below 50% raw, the curve follows the 1:1 diagonal exactly. Above the threshold, each successive bracket requires more raw stat for less effective gain. At 200% raw, you only get ~91.7% effective — still short of the theoretical 100% cap.

Elemental Damage Boost (per element)

Threshold: 150%. Bracket size: 50%. Applied per element independently. Same diminishing pattern as chance stats.

Natural drop dilution keeps boost well below the softcap for most players. The cap primarily prevents extreme attune-smithing abuse.

Uncapped Stats

Stun chance and counterattack chance have no softcap. Their primary trigger stats (block and dodge) are already softcapped, and the multiplicative gate limits effective rates. Even at 50% block × 100% stun, effective stun rate is 50%. Double-softcapping would make these builds unviable.

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