Combat

Not every blow lands

Attacks can miss, and they can be dodged, and the enemy's can too. Two more answers belong to players alone: a warrior can turn a blow aside with a parry, and a warrior or paladin holding a shield can blunt one into a block, both only against what comes at them from the front. The creatures of the world do neither, so a swing at a monster either lands, misses, or is dodged. Spells play by their own rule and never miss at all: they are resisted instead. Fighting close to your own level is what keeps your hits connecting; the wider the level gap, the more you swing at air.

Armor and health keep you standing

Armor softens physical hits, so better armor is your main source of staying power in melee. Magic is another matter: you weather spells with a deeper health pool and the chance to resist one outright, not with armor. Heavier armor classes shrug off more, but nothing makes you untouchable.

Every class has its own rhythm

Warriors build Rage in the thick of a fight, rogues spend Energy that steadily returns, and casters manage a pool of Mana. Learning your resource is half of playing your class well.

Your next move is already loaded

You do not have to time your presses to the frame. Press your next ability in the closing moments of the current cast and it is queued, firing the instant the cast completes, so practiced play flows without gaps. A press too early is simply refused, so nothing is wasted. Some melee strikes work the same way, riding out on your next weapon swing.

You grow stronger every level

Each level makes you tougher and unlocks new abilities, all the way to the cap of level 20. Questing is the fastest way up; hunting, dungeon runs, delves, and the professions you work as you travel round it out.

Buffs, debuffs, and crowd control

Many abilities apply an effect that lingers. Helpful ones (buffs) raise your stats, shield you, or heal you a little at a time; harmful ones (debuffs) drain your health with damage over time or weaken you. Watch the small icons in the top corner of the screen, beside the minimap, to see what is on you and how long it lasts.

Crowd control is a special kind of debuff that limits what a target can do: stuns, roots and slows, silences that stop spellcasting, disarms, fears, and transformations that turn a foe harmless for a moment. Against other players most control wears thin with repetition: fears, polymorphs, roots, and spell-school lockouts reapplied too quickly grow shorter and then fail outright, so nobody can be held helpless forever. Stuns are the deliberate exception, since they are already short and sit behind real cooldowns, so repetition never shortens them, though gear that cuts control durations still trims them. The creatures of the world hold no such grudge: control never weakens with repetition against them, though many of the mightiest foes, named elites and the strongest bosses among them, cannot be controlled at all.

Curious how a fight went? Press Shift+H to open the party meters, which tally damage, healing, and threat for your group, encounter by encounter.

Who the enemy hits

Every enemy keeps a private tally of who has annoyed it most. Damage adds to it, and so does healing: a heal puts threat on the enemies already fighting the person you healed, shared out between them, so the safest heal is one on someone the tank has already taken hold of. Tanks turn on a guarded stance or a protective form that multiplies everything they generate, while the druid's Wolf Form sheds threat instead, and a taunt lifts the caster straight to the top of the tally and pins the enemy on them for a few seconds. Enemies do not switch the instant somebody passes the tank: it takes a clear lead to pull one off, and a bigger lead at range than in melee, so a little patience at the start of a pull keeps the fight where it belongs.

Pulling yourself up a ledge

Ledges are not walls. Jump at something too tall to step onto and your character catches the lip near the top of the jump and hauls up onto it, with no key of its own to press. Anything low enough to clear on your own goes by without ceremony; the full pull-up is saved for lips above your head. It is brief, and it takes the reins while it runs, so you cannot steer out of it partway. A stun catches you mid-pull and you let go and fall, measured from where the jump left the ground, and a stun or a root stops a climb starting at all, which is worth remembering when you are trying to get out of a bad spot in a fight.

The water can kill you

Deep water is swimmable, and you can dive under it. While your head is under, a blue breath bar appears near the top of the screen and drains; break the surface and it refills far faster than it emptied. Let it empty while you are still under and you begin to drown, losing a chunk of your health every second until you reach air, so keep an eye on the bar on a long dive. Death clears it, so a corpse run always starts with a full lungful.

The sea has no wall. The crossings the world means you to swim, the straits and meres between one stretch of land and the next, and the inland lakes, are safe to cross however long they take. Strike out past the shore into genuinely open water instead and it starts to sap your strength: a warning appears, you get a real window to turn around, and after that the sea deals steadily heavier damage that nothing can prevent until you head back toward land. Drown or wear yourself out that far from shore and you release like any other death, so treat the horizon as scenery rather than a destination.

When you fall

If your health reaches zero you are downed where you stand, and your body stays there. Release your spirit and you rise as a ghost at the nearest graveyard: faster on its feet than the living, beyond the reach of your enemies, but unable to fight, loot, or speak with anyone except the Pale Keeper hovering over the stones. From there you choose. Run your ghost back to your body and you revive on the spot with part of your health and mana restored and no penalty at all. Or take the Pale Keeper up on an instant raise where you stand, at the price of the Keeper's Toll: a temporary weakening of all you are that lasts longer the more seasoned you are, and spares brand-new characters entirely. Fall inside a dungeon and your spirit waits at the graveyard outside; walk your ghost back through the door and you revive at the entrance. Delves are the exception: fall there and you are simply set back on your feet at the delve's entry, though a second fall ends the run. Either road, you lose no experience, gear, or coin. Between fights, sit to eat and drink so you start the next one at full strength.

When an ally can raise you

You do not always have to walk back. An ally with a resurrection spell can raise you instead, and it comes to you as a prompt you accept or decline; leave it sitting and it expires, so answer it while it is there. Accept and you rise beside the friend who cast it with part of your health and mana back. Some healers can offer the whole downed party at once, though each of you still answers your own prompt. Thornhollow Fields is the exception: no resurrection spell reaches you there, and you wait for your team's next wave.

When you are truly stuck

If the world traps you somewhere you cannot get out of, type /unstuck. You need to be out of combat and standing still, not held by a stun or a root, and not in a duel or an arena match: a short countdown runs, and moving or taking damage cancels it. When it finishes you are set down at the nearest graveyard. It never kills you and it leaves no corpse, and if you were already down it raises you there instead. The price is Unstuck Sickness, a temporary weakening of all you are that has worn off by the time you could use the command again, and like the Keeper's Toll it spares brand-new characters entirely.