Combat

Ordinary expedition, Arena and guild-war fights run for up to 15 rounds and resolve automatically on the server from your gear and attributes. Dungeons and raids use the same strike rules inside a separate tactical, round-by-round action system.

The style triangle

Your equipped weapon sets your style. Beating the matchup is worth +3 to hit, losing it −3.

melee › ranged › magic › melee

How a swing resolves

• Hit chance is 80 % at equal stats and moves 2 % for every point of Skill over (or under) the defender's Agility, up to 95 % and down to 50 %. Past those it keeps creeping — about 0.015 % per point upward and 0.051 % per point downward — until the hard limits of 98 % and 40 %, which only a maxed stat against a starting one (210 points apart) ever reaches. The triangle modifier and any hit bonuses are added on top, inside the hard limits.
• Crit chance is 5 % plus 1 % per 4 Skill up to 35 % at Skill 120, then 1 % per 19 Skill up to the hard cap of 40 % at Skill 215 (max stats). Crit bonuses add on top, up to the hard cap. A crit deals ×1.5 damage.
• Damage is your weapon roll plus 1¼ damage per point of your style stat, and the style stat also multiplies that hit: +0.6 % per point, +130 % at max stats (215). Arrows, elixirs and talent damage are added after that, and then the defender's armour reduces it. The half point rounds down on your minimum and up on your maximum, so no point is ever wasted.
• Initiative goes to the higher Agility; Skill breaks ties.
• Unarmed is a 1–3 melee fallback — always carry a weapon.

When the rounds run out

Most fights end when someone falls. If both are still standing after 15 rounds, the fight is decided on the spot: the win goes to whoever has the larger share of their own maximum health left. A dead-even share goes to the defender.

Share, not raw damage. A fighter with a much larger health pool can take more total damage and still hold the greater share, so the winner of a decision is not always the one who dealt the bigger number. Your battle report says so directly whenever a fight is settled this way. Dungeons and raids do not use this rule — there, running out of rounds is a defeat for the party.

Elements and states

Each of the four elements has a state that a hit can leave on its target. A state takes hold in the round after the hit that left it, and landing it again while it holds renews it rather than stacking. No state changes who strikes first. New gear can roll one element line (see Affixes): a chance on every hit to leave that element's state. Every element has one. The chances from all your gear add up, and with a Battle Art that leaves the same state they add to the art's own chance, up to the cap in the table. Burning can also come from a Battle Art, and the art's line below gives its chance and its numbers.

The battle report, Arena and guild war duels and the dungeon and raid logs say when Frozen, Poisoned or Shocked lands, for how many rounds. Burning shows as its damage at the end of each round. Poisoned shows as its damage at the end of each round too, and armor and damage reduction do not lower it: each tick is a share of the hit before armor.

Resists and fears

Some expedition monsters resist or fear an element. The monster's card in Expeditions says which before you spend energy, and so does its page here. The word changes only the state that element leaves: on a monster that resists the element the state has 50 % of its strength, and on one that fears it 125 %. The hit itself is the same against every monster: chance to hit, crit, damage and the art's own bonus do not change, so an art that leaves no state loses nothing to a resistance. Nothing is immune: a resisted burn still ticks for at least 1.

No monster leaves any of these states. They reach a player only from another player's art or gear, in the Arena or a guild war.

States need rounds, and a strike on Ladon is a flurry without rounds, so no state lands on him. There an art gives only its always-on part: Ignis Vestae +1.5% damage. The element lines on your gear do nothing there either.

Tactical dungeons and raids

In a dungeon or raid, you choose an action each round and, where the action needs one, a target. Your equipment sets your role and therefore your action bar: a shield makes a Tank; a tome with an active healing art makes a Healer; other setups use the Damage kit.

Momentum is the tactical resource, capped at 5. Basic actions build it; stronger attacks, taunts, heals and shields spend it. A cooldown counts rounds before that action can be chosen again.

This is why tactical combat can heal in the middle of an encounter: Mend, Suture and Sanctuary restore health, Mending Light persists over several rounds, and Aegis absorbs incoming damage. Consumables are still not actions on this bar.

What armour is worth

Armour has diminishing returns and is measured against the attacker's level, so a set that carried you at level 5 is worth far less at 40. Damage reduction:

Penetration and damage reduction

Armour penetration does not add damage. It takes its share off the defender's armour before the table above is read, and because that curve flattens, the damage you gain is always smaller than the number printed on the item. Against 200 armour at level 40:

• 6 % penetration is worth +2.9 % damage.
• 35 % penetration is worth +19.7 % damage.

Penetration from every source — arts, sets, gems, talents, weapon type — is added up and clamped at 35 %.

Damage reduction — the “% less damage taken” carried by warding gear, armour sets and talents — is a different thing entirely. It is not armour and it does not touch armour: it is a separate multiplier applied after mitigation. That is why it never suffers armour's diminishing returns, and why 2 % is worth exactly 2 % whether you stand in 40 armour or 400.

Every style also has a Battle Art — a passive that shapes each swing for free. See Bosses for what you will be swinging at.