Combat

From Veloren Wiki
A fight againt two giants
YAAARRRRRR !!!

As you wander the world of Veloren, you'll encounter all manner of animals, monsters, NPCs, and maybe even players. In general, predatory animals and monsters will attack you on sight, while docile creatures and NPCs will ignore you unless attacked.

Each weapon has a left-click basic attack and one or more skills on right click and the hotbar. Skills usually use stamina or another resource; basic attacks regenerate stamina. Each weapon has its own playstyle, and serve to replace conventional 'classes,' in a sense.

Using more than one weapon by equipping it to the 'offhand' will increase your combat options immensely! Switch to your offhand weapon by pressing Tab.

Dodging enemy attacks is important. Middle-click will swiftly roll you out of the way. Use sideways movement to avoid ranged attacks while closing in or returning fire. If you use ranged weapons against a melee attacker, try to keep your distance.

Use a training dummy (found in towns) to familiarize yourself with your weapons' attacks and abilities. Try to avoid groups of enemies before you get better armor and upgrade your weapons.

Basics

Draw your weapon either by attempting to attack or use an ability or by pressing the wield key, which by default is ⌨️ R.

🖱️ M1 (left click) is the basic, stamina-free attack. It is used to regenerate stamina in combat. The basic attack for all the weapon types are as follows:

  • Axe - Double Strike: A horizontal swing followed by a concussing overhead blow when unlocked.
  • Bow - Arrow Shot: Aim and shoot from afar. Hold down M1 to charge a more powerful shot.
  • Hammer - Single Strike: A powerful hit that easily crowd-controls single targets.
  • Staff - Fireball: An arcing projectile. Unlocking its explosion gives it an AOE, but direct hits still deal the most damage.
  • Sceptre - Lifesteal Beam: A beam of magic that deals damage from foes and returns a portion of it as health.
  • Sword - Triple Strike: Hold M1 to perform a three-hit combo ending in a stab. This attack can scale with combo.

🖱️ M2 (right click) is a skill that is unlocked by default. It varies with each weapon type, and usually costs stamina.

Other skills, when unlocked with skill points, will be bound to the first slot of the hotbar (when equipping two single handed weapons the second skill goes in the second hotbar slot). This unbinds any item previously attached to it, so it is recommended to keep the 1 key free for an eventual skill unlock.

Health and Stamina

Obviously, when a player or NPC reaches zero health, they die. There are many ways to prevent this.

Consumables, those being food and potions, can be crafted or gathered. Food (and beverages) heal the player over time. You can consume a second item during the first's buff duration, which "pushes back" the first so you receive the benefits of the second. Potions give a burst of health after a short pause, and will not replace a food buff.

The Sceptre is currently the only weapon that heals players directly. However, its healing requires combat to occur.

It's recommended to always have high-yield food/drink (such as Apple Sticks and Sunflower Iced Tea) and some potions in the hotbar at all times, especially if attempting a dungeon.

Max health can be upgraded with General Combat skill points.

Stamina is used for activating skills, rolling, climbing, and activating the glider in midair. It regenerates naturally after a short delay and accelerates its regeneration as it remains unused. Hitting with basic attacks also returns stamina, and the amount can be upgraded via skill trees.

Stamina management is important in combat. If you don't have enough stamina, you may not be able to roll out of the way of an attack on time, you may leap off a ledge and fail to pull out your glider, etc. Currently, there are no items nor abilities that grant stamina directly, either. It's either wait for it to regenerate or take the offensive.

Poise

In combat, there is a hidden stat called Poise, which constantly changes over the course of a battle. Poise governs stuns and interrupts during combat. Both you and your enemy have and are affected by Poise. Different NPCs may have different starting Poise values. Humanoids have an initial poise of 100. When your character is hit, you will likely take some poise damage as well as regular health damage.

If an attack brings you under a certain threshold, depending on the severity of that attack, you will suffer one of the following poise state, in order of severity: `Interrupted`, `Stunned`, `Dazzed`, and `Knocked Down`.

When you are dropped down into a poise state, you will suffer a stun with time duration and movement limiting effect corresponding to the poise state. Whenever you hit a poise state, your poise is reset to its maximum value and you become immune to Poise damage for the duration of it. The poise state cut-offs may change, but are currently at 70%, 50%, 40%, and 20% of an entity's maximum poise.

You can take advantage of this by whittling down poise to just above the first poise state before hitting with a strong attack to drop your target to a lower poise state and stun them for a longer period. Unlike health, poise passively regenerates.

Combo

Each separate hit from your weapon adds to the combo counter. Different weapons use combo differently depending on what upgrades you take. In general, your offensive capabilities (e.g. attack damage, speed) increase with the combo counter. The sceptre uses combo to heal with its 🖱️ M2 skill.

Status Effects

Main article: Buffs & Debuffs

Currently, there are only a few status effects in the game. The most common is Bleeding, which has a chance to activate when you are damaged by any melee attack. It drains health for a period of time; the amount of health lost each tick is dictated by the strength of the attack that triggered the bleed.

Burning is similar to bleeding in that it inflicts damage over time, but instead of coming from melee damage, it is caused by being hit with a fire attack or from contact with something else that is burning, like a campfire. Unlike bleeding, you can instantly cancel the burning effect by rolling (stop and drop are taken for granted).

Blocking

By holding the Left Alt key with a melee weapon equipped, you will block with your weapon. Starting to block will consume a small amount of energy, will prevent energy from regenerating for the duration, and will slow your movement speed.

Any melee attack that hits you from the front while blocking will have its damage reduced, however if you block right before the attack hits you, you will negate the attack completely by parrying it, signified by a BLOCKED message in the scrolling combat text.

Blocking does not affect ranged projectile attacks and magic attacks. You must also face the melee attack to block it.

Dodging

🖱️ M3 (middle click) activates a roll in the direction of movement. At first, rolling serves as a self-positioning maneuver. However, with upgrades, it can grant invincibility frames and keep space between the player and the enemy extremely effectively.

Rolling quickly becomes important in combat as you learn to predict and dodge enemy attacks. Its stamina cost can be swiftly refunded with well-aimed follow-ups. Therefore, it is recommended to take a couple upgrades in the dodge roll early in the playthrough.

Sneaking

A screenshot of a player crouching down in a forest
If you crouch, you'll make no noise and be able to sneak around enemies!

You may have noticed that you're able to crouch with ⌨️ Shift This is more than just an animation ! Walking from this position is called sneaking. If a threat is in your path, consider sneaking around it. While sneaking, you can roll or draw your weapon while remaining stealthed. Things you cannot do while sneaking (which will automatically make you stand up) include : jumping, swimming, and becoming airborne for any length of time.

Sneaking will limit the detection range of hostile NPCs. You cannot sneak right up to them, but you can maneuver across a dungeon floor with relative ease. Stealth is a valuable tool to have both when exploring the wilderness and running a dungeon.

Combat rating

Players and NPCs have a combat rating that measures how effective they are in combat. The combat rating is based on the health, the energy, your poise, the crit multiplier and you total skill in ability and general combat.

An icon next to their name indicates the range in which their combat rating fall, using the same colors as the item quality. For players, the highest attainable level is Epic.

Combat rating colors
Low Combat rating between 0 and 20
Common Combat rating between 20 and 35
Moderate Combat rating between 35 and 65
High Combat rating between 65 and 85
Epic Combat rating between 85 and 104
Legendary Combat rating between 104 and 1220
Artifact Combat rating between 1220 and 2000
Debug Combat rating from 2000 and up

Source: Combat rating colour table

Combat rating formula

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