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Boundless growth, relentless hunt

Combat Basics

Combat runs on a timeline where each fighter moves on their own clock, not in turns. Covers how attack order is set and how a single hit's damage is calculated. There are no hit rolls.

Combat doesn't work by trading turns. You, your accompanying souls and your enemies each move on their own clock, and those moments are processed in order along a single timeline. This page explains that flow and how the damage of a single hit is decided.

Attack order — the earliest moment goes first

When a fight begins, you, your souls and the enemy each hold one next action time. The game picks the earliest of these and resolves it, and whoever acted books their next turn one attack interval later. This repeats until the end.

  • The shorter the interval, the more often you hit. "How many hits in the same span of time" decides fights far more than "who hits first."
  • Every class has the same base attack interval. Stats don't make you faster — only the Attack Speed option on gear shortens it. That option also tapers off as you stack it, so there's a limit to how noticeably faster you can get, however much you wear.
  • Enemy intervals vary by monster. Lumbering giants hit hard but rarely; nimble ones pelt you with small, rapid blows.
  • When several things fall on the same moment, attacks go first, then damage over time and regeneration, and finally effect expirations.

Damage over time (Bleed and the like), healing over time and Talent regeneration are all scheduled events on this same timeline. They aren't calculated separately — they stand in the same line.

A stunned fighter skips their turn

Whoever is under a stun-type status effect can't attack when their turn comes and simply passes. Their next turn is still booked normally, so a stun is an effect that "makes them sit out once."

Only enemies get stunned. You will never lose a turn to a stun.

There are no hit rolls

Every attack always lands. Misses and dodges don't exist in this game. "I got unlucky, missed several times in a row and died" simply can't happen.

  • There is no stat or option that raises accuracy.
  • Consumables described as raising accuracy (such as Precision Stimulants) are converted into Crit Chance instead.

Applying status effects, however, is a separate matter. Debuffs such as Bleed and marks do have an application roll. That roll only looks at one side — when you apply one to a monster, only your application chance counts and the monster's resistance doesn't come into it. Conversely, when a monster applies one to you, your Status Resistance is what blocks it. See Status Effects & Reactions.

How a single hit's damage is decided

One basic attack goes through the four steps below, in order.

  1. Variance on base damage — damage wobbles up and down around your Attack every time. That's why the numbers differ even against the same enemy.
  2. Reduced by Armor — the higher the Armor, the more is shaved off, but it caps at 75% no matter how high it goes. Armor alone can never make you invincible.
  3. Multiplied on a critical hit — with no gear, enemies have a bigger crit multiplier than you do. That's why enemy crits hurt so much early on. On your side, though, the Crit Damage option on gear keeps growing it (the enemy's is fixed), and as you gear up, the tables turn.
  4. Elements and buffs come last — hit with the advantage and it hurts more; run into resistance and it hurts less. See Elements & Resistances.

Armor has no cliff

Armor doesn't suddenly get sturdy the moment you pass some threshold. It improves gradually as you raise it, with diminishing returns as it nears the cap. So raising Max HP alongside Armor keeps you standing longer than piling everything into Armor.

Damage over time and Reaction damage follow the same rules

Damage over time such as Bleed, and the bonus damage from detonating a Reaction, go through steps 2–4 exactly the same way. They just have no variance and can't crit. "All damage takes the same mitigation" is a core principle of this game — no damage simply ignores defense.

You have to use skills yourself

Auto-Explore only drinks potions automatically — it never uses skills. When you run into a strong enemy, stepping in and firing skills yourself is overwhelmingly better.

There are exactly two conditions for using a skill:

  • Its cooldown has finished
  • You have enough mana

There are no other restrictions. In particular, skills have nothing to do with your basic attack interval — you don't need to wait for your basic attack turn, and you can unload several skills at once as soon as their cooldowns are back. Unleashing every ready skill right as a fight begins is genuinely the strongest opener.

How auto-potions work

Potions are drunk for you only while you've left things to Auto-Explore. When you walk yourself, you drink yourself.

  • They trigger when HP drops below half.
  • If one bottle doesn't get you back above half, it keeps drinking until you are — up to three bottles at a time.

It stops the moment you're above half, so it won't top you up to full.

  • If three bottles still don't get you above half, it won't trigger again for a short while. This is a safeguard to stop potions from becoming a bottomless pit.
  • It picks the smallest potion that covers the shortfall first. If none of them is enough, it uses the biggest first.

So if the only potions in your slots heal too little for your current HP, you can burn three bottles and still not escape the danger. Swap your potions up as you level.

Enemies use skills too

Monsters have their own skills as well. However, only monsters of level 21 and above use them — below that, they're switched off to prevent sudden deaths. That boundary is why things feel calm early on and then enemy patterns suddenly turn nasty.

Big techniques come with a warning. An enemy that begins casting does nothing else in the meantime, and when the cast finishes, the technique lands. Stunning it won't stop a cast that has already started, so when you see the warning, you're better off bracing for the hit.

When souls fight alongside you

Bring along a soul you've sealed and it acts on its own interval alongside you. Enemies choose between you and your souls when attacking, and there are rules to it.

  • Most monster attacks come at you, the main body. No matter how many souls you bring, this share doesn't shrink.
  • Targets are split only among what's left, and even there you come first. Defensive souls come next.
  • A defensive soul's cover is not constant. It only stands guard for part of its own action cycle, even then only takes hits for you by chance, and once its own HP runs out it can't take any more.

In other words, souls are companions who share the load, not shields that stand in for you. Don't neglect your own HP and defense.

Details are in Soul Legion.

How a fight ends

A fight ends only when one side falls. You don't automatically lose for passing a set number of turns or amount of time.

  • Defeat the enemy and you win; fall and you lose.
  • If a fight goes on for a very long time without a result, it's settled as a draw ("the enemy slipped away"). It isn't a death, and there's no reward. It's a safety net against endless stalemates where neither side can land a finishing blow — and as long as you're still alive, it's never counted as a loss.

There is no way out of a fight once it has begun. Once blades have crossed, it goes on until one of you falls.

Fleeing is a choice you make before fighting

On the tile where you meet a monster, you can choose to fight or to flee. This isn't a way to end a fight — it's the choice not to start one.

  • You can't flee once combat has started.
  • You get one attempt per tile. If it fails, the result is locked in, you can't retry, and you go straight into the fight. Rerolling until it works is impossible.
  • The success chance depends heavily on the level gap between you and the enemy, and some monsters let you go easily while others are relentless.
  • It only works in Explore. The Spire has no flee option at all — once you've stepped in, you keep going until you descend.

You recover a little between steps

Explore is a journey of steps. Every step you take restores a little HP and mana. The mana recovered is more generous than the HP.

That said, a single step's recovery won't always cover one expensive skill. Heavy skills need two or three steps' worth before they're ready again. If you're short on mana, set aside one slot for a mana potion.

HP recovery is stingy. What carries you through back-to-back fights isn't this automatic recovery but potions and good judgment.

In summary

  • No misses — instead, how often you hit decides the fight
  • Damage is settled in the order variance → Armor → crit → element
  • Armor stops at 75% — raise it together with HP
  • Skills only care about cooldown and mana — don't wait for basic attacks, unload them
  • Potions are drunk automatically at half HP only during Auto-Explore — up to three bottles, and skills are always manual
  • Souls are not shields — most attacks come at you anyway
  • A fight ends only when someone falls — time won't solve it

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