Combat

Players can attack living monsters and NPCs. Other players and Bard-charmed monsters are protected from player attacks. A targeted attack without a valid target selects the nearest non-hidden, attackable monster within 10 yd if one exists.

The Protect NPCs setting, on by default, stops you, your companions and your mercenaries from attacking friendly NPCs. An NPC without a faction always counts as friendly. A faction's NPC counts as friendly while your reputation is high enough that it would not attack you on sight. You can always fight an NPC that targets you, a party member, or a mercenary, companion or familiar belonging to either.

• A targeted heal can reach yourself, another player, or a mercenary, companion or familiar when the skill permits it. Self-only heals target you.
• With a monster selected, a targeted heal can go to the player, mercenary, companion or familiar the monster is attacking.
• Resurrection targets only player remains or a dead mercenary.

You can use a skill once you have learned it and it is ready. You need enough Mana or Rage to pay its cost, the equipment it requires, and ammunition if it uses any.

When the target is out of range or out of sight, your character moves closer and then casts.

A skill with a cast time lands on the target you had when the cast began. Selecting another target during the cast does not redirect it.

Fear and stun block skill use, except dismissing an active Reaper Form or Fearless Stance.

Bard songs can continue while you move or use combat skills.

See also Bard Songs

Non-spell weapon or shield skills that damage one target, directly or with a debuff, resume your chosen auto attack if your weapon supports it. An already queued auto attack is kept.

Casting an invisibility buff cancels your queued skill and follow-up auto attack.

Direct hits use these steps in order.

Before avoidance

1. Calculate the skill's starting damage.
2. Apply the moving-player damage bonus.

Avoidance

3. Roll to block, miss or resist, adjusted by Combat Advantage. A blocked, missed or resisted hit stops here.

Damage modifiers

4. Multiply damage by a random 90% to 110%, rounded.
5. Apply the from-behind damage bonus.
6. Add 2% damage per level above the target, or subtract 2% per level below it, limiting the adjustment to −20% through +20% and rounding it up.
7. From 10% Slayer mastery, bosses and elites deal 0.1% less damage to you and your mercenaries, companions and familiars per 1% mastery, up to 10% less at 100%. Round the damage prevented up. Your mercenaries, companions and familiars use your mastery.
8. A monster or NPC with Rampage adds a random 50% to 75% damage to its non-spell hits while below 10% of its maximum Hit Points, rounded up.

Damage reduction and critical hits

9. Subtract damage prevented by damage reduction.
10. Roll for a critical hit and apply its bonus.

On-hit effects and Hit Points

11. A non-spell melee hit on a target affected by Root heals the attacker for Root's Heal on Hit percentage of the damage, rounded. Then the target's damage shields hurt the attacker. Neither changes this hit's damage.
12. Warriors and Rogues gain Rage from hits. A Wizard's Mystic Spark restores Mana equal to 35% of its damage, counting at most the target's current Hit Points, rounded down.
13. Subtract Ward, then Mana Shield absorption.
14. Calculate lifetap from the remaining positive damage.
15. Reduce Hit Points by the remaining damage, or let an eligible active Parry block it and counterattack.

Rageblow and Mana Burn bypass avoidance and damage reduction. They still receive random variance, Combat Advantage, level adjustment and eligible critical hits. Ward and Mana Shield still absorb their damage.

For most attacks, take the starting stat in the table below, using Attack Power and Spell Power from your character window. Subtract any weapon deduction, then add the skill's listed damage. If the skill lists a Damage %, multiply that total by it, rounded.

Final Cadence, ground-marking skills, Rageblow and Mana Burn use the whole formula in their row instead. Scrolls use only their own listed damage. Each skill page has a calculator for its damage before defenses.

A magic weapon attack is one magic hit, so Magic Resist reduces all of its damage and Armor Class does not apply. An auto attack empowered by a Ranger's Wild Strike deals magic damage but keeps its own starting damage.

Weapon deductions

Character window Attack Power and Spell Power

A critical hit adds 50% damage after damage reduction. Multiply that extra damage by 100% minus the target's Critical Resist, limited to 0% through 100%.

The final critical damage is rounded.

• The chance is the attacker's Critical Strike, up to 70%.
• Critical checks require more than 3 damage after reduction.
• Monster area damage skills skip the critical check.

A hit that interrupts fishing, gathering, mining, digging or opening adds 75% to the critical chance after the 70% cap.

Carrying Radiant Aether in your first 24 inventory slots gives each critical hit from a skill other than an auto attack a 15% chance to consume one. That hit adds 200% extra damage instead of 50%, before Critical Resist reduces the bonus.

Damage from a hit or a damage shield that would kill you has a 15% chance to consume one Radiant Aether from those slots and restore your Hit Points to full instead.

Single-target attacks, including targeted skills, targeted projectiles and auto attacks, gain from-behind advantage when attacker and target face the same direction. Hits on a moving player also gain an advantage.

While you move, physical hits from attackers above level 5 add 10% to their stun chance, minus 1% for each level you are above the attacker, but at least 1%. The total chance cannot exceed 100%, and the stun lasts at least 0.5 seconds.

A hit on a player who is fishing, gathering, mining, digging or opening something cancels that action and adds the from-behind damage bonus. It also gains 75% critical chance. Avoidance still follows the attack's position and the target's movement.

Each melee or bow auto attack rolls the weapon's listed on-hit chance, even when the attack then misses.

• A broken weapon never triggers its effect.
• A Rogue's off-hand weapon triggers its effect at half the listed chance.
• A main-hand weapon with a spell-cast effect rolls its chance once when you finish a damaging spell or the last pulse of a channel, and never on auto attacks.

Skills that mark a danger zone before dealing damage hit mercenaries, companions and familiars for half their listed damage, rounded. Players take the listed damage.

Armor Class and Block Chance defend against physical damage. Each other damage type has a resist: Magic Resist against magic, Fire Resist against fire, and so on.

Debuffs without a damage type cannot be resisted, and their damage over time is reduced by Magic Resist.

See also Block, Miss and Resist · Damage Reduction · Landing a Debuff

Block Chance lets you block or avoid physical hits. Magic Resist, Fire Resist and the other resists let you avoid hits of their damage type. Each hit gets one roll. Avoiding it also prevents its stun, fear and knockback.

Your hits roll against the monster's Block Chance and resists, listed on its page.

Combat Advantage then lowers the chance for attacks from behind and for hits on a moving player.

A monster returning home after a chase avoids every hit.

See also Chase limits and resets

Armor Class reduces physical damage by 0.05% per point, and each resist does the same for its damage type. 400 Fire Resist cuts fire damage by 20%, and 499 cuts it by 24.95%. The reduction stops at 90%, which takes 1 800 points.

See also Block, Miss and Resist, for the chance to avoid the hit

Damage that gets past avoidance and reduction is absorbed by a ward first, then by Mana Shield. Only the rest reduces Hit Points.

• A ward absorbs hits and damage-over-time ticks until its pool is empty. Damage beyond what is left passes through.
• Mana Shield spends 1 Mana per point of the remaining hit. When the hit is larger than your Mana, the shield ends and the rest reaches your Hit Points. Ticks pass through Mana Shield.

See also Buff Strength for ward capacity · Damage steps

Your damage shields hurt attackers who hit you with a non-spell, single-target skill whose base range is below 1.5 yd. Weapon on-hit effects and scrolls do not trigger them.

• The attacker's Armor Class or resist reduces each shield's damage, as in Damage Reduction. Shields without a damage type deal full damage.
• The shields' combined damage varies randomly by up to 10% either way. The variation limit rounds up: a 95-damage total deals 85 to 105.
• Damage shield damage passes through Mana Shield.

Players and mercenaries add a Wisdom bonus to a heal's listed healing. Player Rangers use triple Wisdom, while Ranger mercenaries use the ordinary bonus. Healing over time from buffs scales differently, as shown in Buff Strength.

• Monsters, NPCs, companions and familiars add no Wisdom bonus to their heals.
• Death Bloom adds no Wisdom bonus. Its healing instead grows by 0.1% of the Hit Points spent per point of Intelligence above 0.
• Runed Scroll of Restoration (Major Restoration) heals your mercenary using your Wisdom bonus, tripled for a player Ranger, and can be critical. Ordinary scroll heals omit Wisdom.
• Final Cadence ignores Wisdom.

See also Final Cadence song power and Melody

A heal's critical chance is the caster's Critical Strike.

• A targeted heal can be critical only if the skill can heal other characters, even when you cast it on yourself.
• Area heals can be critical without that targeting requirement.
• On a critical heal, 90% of rolls double the healing and 10% triple it.
• Final Cadence uses one roll based on the Bard's Critical Strike for all recipients.
• A critical healing-over-time tick heals 150% of the normal tick, rounded. The chance is the caster's Critical Strike when the buff starts.
• Only buffs with a base duration below 30 seconds and more than 3 healing each second can tick critically.

Lifetap restores Hit Points without reducing the hit's damage. Overkill damage counts toward the healing.

A buff or debuff lasts its listed duration unless something removes it. Reapplying the same effect replaces it and restarts its duration.

The Bard passive Lingering Melody lengthens your Bard songs by 4% per rank, and Tavern Spirit lengthens your food and drink buffs by 10% per rank.

Buffs and debuffs in the same group replace each other, even when the new effect is weaker. Divine Shield and Shield of Faith share a group, so each replaces the other.

• Effects in different groups, or without a group, stack.
• Area buffs from mercenaries, companions and familiars do not replace existing buffs in the same group. Player casts do.
• Different damage-over-time skills stack their layers separately.

See also Bard songs

Non-song buffs add part of an attribute from their caster to each effect. The tables below show which attribute each caster uses and how much it adds.

Both beneficial and harmful Bard songs grow stronger with the singer's Charisma. This applies to Bard mercenaries too.

• Fear Resist from Ballad of Courage stops at the song's listed limit.
• Cacophony deals its listed damage each second plus 75% of Charisma above 0, rounded.

A debuff or dispel with a damage type lands only if the target fails the resist roll for that type. Defense by Damage Type shows which stat resists each type.

Malosi, Spellrend, Withering Hex, Crippling Refrain and Refrain of Frailty subtract 30% from the target's chance to resist them, to at least 0%. Other debuffs that lower resists get no such bonus.

Monsters whose pages list Immune to Debuffs ignore debuffs, with these exceptions:

• The five skills above and debuffs that grant positive Health Regeneration still affect such a monster unless it is a boss.
• Debuffs whose only effects are damage over time and optionally a slow still affect such a monster.

Bosses and monsters with Immune to Debuffs ignore the slow.

See also Root, for bosses and slowing debuffs

Your Strength, Dexterity or Intelligence strengthens your debuffs, depending on their damage type. Bard debuff songs use song power.

Players and mercenaries use their own attributes. Debuffs from monsters, NPCs, companions and familiars add nothing.

Defense by Damage Type shows which stat reduces damage-over-time ticks.

• Reaper Form and Deathly Focus add their bonuses only to ticks of a debuff a player applied, and only while that player is online.
• The chance of a critical tick is the caster's Critical Strike when the debuff starts.
• Only debuffs with a base duration below 30 seconds can tick critically, and only for more than 3 damage after reduction, layers and bonuses.
• Damage based on a percentage of the target's maximum Hit Points gets neither bonus and is never critical.
• Ward absorbs the final tick before the target loses Hit Points.

A cleanse removes layers from debuffs of the types it lists: disease, poison, cold, fire or magic. Physical debuffs, which Armor Class resists, cannot be cleansed. Each debuff starts with three layers and ends when the last one is removed.

A debuff deals 85% of its damage over time with two layers left and 70% with one, rounded up.

• Cleanse (Cleric), Purify (Druid), Purifying Winds (Ranger) and Nullify Magic (Wizard) affect you and every visible player, mercenary, companion and familiar within 10 yd, in your party or not.
• The Druid's Remedy is cast on yourself or an ally.
• A limited-use cleanse item works only on a target with a matching debuff it can remove. A cleanse skill can be cast without one.

A debuff's skill page shows its Cleanse Resist and whether one cast removes it.

Dispels remove beneficial buffs unless the target resists them. Bard songs cannot be dispelled.

A single-target dispel scroll uses the rank set by Scroll Mastery.

• A feared target cannot be stunned.
• A new stun can extend an existing one, but their durations do not add up.
• Bear Mount resists 90% of stuns. If the mount resists a stun, the same hit cannot fear or knock you back. If the stun lands, it dismounts you.

• After a failed stun roll, a hit can fear its target. Fear Resist gives the target a second chance to avoid the fear.
• Fear lasts a random time between half and all of the skill's listed fear duration.
• Monsters and companions whose pages list Immune to Fear cannot be feared. Every boss is immune, and so are the Necromancer's undead companions.
• Equipment and skills add Fear Resist up to 100%, which makes you immune. Fear dismounts a player.
• A monster or NPC feared by a Necromancer player runs at half its Movement Speed.

• A hit can knock its target back only after failing both its stun and fear rolls. Already-stunned targets cannot be knocked back.
• It pushes the target the distance listed on the skill and stuns it for 0.25 seconds.
• A target pushed into an obstacle takes 1.25% of the hit's damage, rounded up, at least 1.
• It fails against a target 15 or more levels above the attacker, unless a boss monster casts it.

A debuff that brings Movement Speed to −10 or lower, such as Root or Immobilize, roots the target. Damage does not end it.

Bosses and elite monsters automatically resist debuffs with a base Movement Speed bonus below −10, except damage over time with no other effect besides a slow.

Bosses and monsters with Immune to Debuffs ignore every slow. Elite monsters ignore Movement Speed bonuses of −10 or lower.

A debuff that brings Movement Speed to −50 or lower puts the target to sleep instead of rooting it.

• Any hit or damage-over-time tick ends it at once. The drain of Reaper Form does not.
• Every 6 seconds, a sleeping monster makes the same Magic Resist roll to break free as a rooted one.

Haste changes weapon waits or non-spell cooldowns, depending on the attacker. Spell Casting Haste changes player and mercenary spell casts.

Every skill you finish starts a wait before your next auto attack: 0.75 seconds after a spell or a skill that needs no weapon, or the weapon wait below after a weapon skill.

Haste shortens the weapon wait. Haste above 80% counts as 80%, and below −80% as −80%.

The wait delays only the next auto attack. Other ready skills can be used right away.

Spell Casting Haste shortens player and mercenary spell casts without changing cooldowns.

Spell Casting Haste above 50% counts as 50%, and below −50% as −50%.

Warriors and Rogues gain Rage by dealing auto attacks and receiving targeted physical melee hits.

Charge, Frenzied Vigor and Prowess also restore their listed percentages of maximum Rage each second.

Dealing an auto attack

Receiving a targeted physical melee hit

Projectiles and area attacks give no received-hit Rage. Warrior and Rogue mercenaries follow the same Rage rules.

The Ranger's Wild Strike empowers the next melee auto attack (Swift Slash) or bow auto attack (Archer Shot).

Wild Strike multiplies the auto attack's starting damage by 100% + 10% per rank, rounded, so rank 5 deals 150%. It adds no flat Attack Power.

The whole hit deals magic damage.

See also Defense by Damage Type

A Warrior can cast Parry, a veteran skill, while targeting the attacker. During the cast, Parry blocks a single-target physical melee hit from that attacker.

Your Ward and Mana Shield still absorb the hit first. Parry blocks the rest and returns half of it to the attacker, rounded, at least 1 and at most 5 000. For example, 101 remaining damage returns 50.

The Rogue's Assassination requires the target's current Hit Points to be at most 25% of its maximum Hit Points, rounded.

Reaper Form drains its listed percentage of your maximum Hit Points each second, rounded.

The drain ignores Armor Class, resists and Ward, is never critical and gets no Deathly Focus bonus.