Combat and aggro

Reach and sight

A blade reaches 2.5 m past a creature's body. Shots, spells and songs reach 30 m, but only with a clear line to the target. If a hill, a cave's roof, a rock or a wall is in the way, the action is refused and nothing is spent. Anything that does no damage, like a song or a hold, reaches as far as a shot. The warrior's Sunder is both: within the blade's reach it hits and taunts, and past it, as far as a shot, it is a shout that taunts and lands nothing, which needs a clear line like a shot does.

You strike only what is in front of you: a foe has to stand at least partly within the 180° ahead of you. Something behind you can't be attacked, with a blade, a shot or a spell, until you turn to face it; until then the action is refused and nothing is spent. This holds for other players in PvP too.

An area round yourself, like the warrior's Whirlwind or Challenging Shout, needs nothing selected: it reaches every foe within its radius of you that you can see.

Heals on other people, and on pets, follow the same reach and need the same clear line. A pure heal on someone out of reach is refused before anything is spent. A drain still lands on its enemy, and its healing comes back to you instead.

When a blow lands

What you do costs you, and starts its cooldown, the moment you press it, but it lands when you see it land: when the blade meets, or the arrow, bolt or song reaches its target. Until then the creature is untouched — it can still hit you, and someone else's blow can still finish it first, in which case yours lands on nothing. A drain hurts as it reaches the creature and heals as what it drew out reaches whoever it heals. Heals that show nothing in flight, like Mend, land at once.

Misses, dodges, parries and blocks

A blow at a single target doesn't always land. Between two of the same level:

Level matters most. For each level the defender stands above the attacker, the miss gets 2% likelier and each of the others 1% likelier. For each level below, they get that much less likely, down to never. Only 10 levels of difference count, and no single chance goes past 50%. Fighting things above your level means a lot of wasted swings.

A miss, a dodge or a parry lands nothing. A drain that misses heals nothing, and a hold, a bleed or a taunt it carried is lost with it. What it cost is still spent and its cooldown still runs. It still picks the fight, so the creature turns on you all the same. A block lands, but 40% lighter.

You turn blows aside the same way: you dodge with any weapon, parry when you hold a blade (not your fists, a bow, a staff or an instrument), and block with a shield in your off hand. Humanoid creatures and anyone fighting in a soldier's kit can parry, and skeleton warriors and the fallen king carry shields. The same rules apply between players, and to pets and hirelings attacking creatures.

A creature's blow from behind you can't be parried or blocked (see Tactics, below).

Some things are never turned aside: an area like a song or a Whirlwind, a bleed's ticks, a boss's heavy move, a castle's ballista, and the arrows a Castellan's archers rain down.

The threat table

Every creature keeps a table of everyone who has hurt it or healed near it, and fights whoever is at the top.

• A blow adds its damage. A warrior's counts 1.5×, and a priest's pet's 10×. So does a warrior hireling's, and its blow taunts whatever was fighting your side first. Other hirelings' blows count as they land.
• A heal adds 50% of what it healed, split among every creature already fighting within 30 m of the priest. A hireling's heals draw threat the same way, on the hireling.
• Walking up to a creature counts as a token quarrel, so the first real damage anyone does pulls it.
• Level matters. Each level you stand above a creature adds 10% to your threat on it, up to 5 levels, and each level below takes the same off. Past that, in either direction, it falls away by 20% a level, down to 0.1×. Far enough out of its range, you barely register.
• A bleed's ticks each count as a blow, so they keep drawing threat after the cast. Recast, a bleed replaces your own from the same ability; a bard's two songs bleed side by side.
• Pulling needs a margin. Someone else takes a creature only once their threat is 1.1× that of whoever it is fighting.
• A taunt — the warrior's Sunder — turns the creature at once and matches the top of the table. The warrior's Challenging Shout does the same to every creature within 10 m that it can see.
• The rogue's Disappearing Act takes the rogue off every table at once. Nothing comes for them until it ends, or until they act.

The threat meter

Under the target frame, every class sees the table of the creature it has selected: up to five names, most first. Whoever it is fighting reads 100% and "aggro"; everyone else reads how far they are toward taking it, which is 100% at 1.1× the holder's threat. A line past 80% turns amber, since one more good blow may pull it. Your own line is marked ▶ and is always shown, even when five others are ahead of you; your pet's and hirelings' lines are marked ▶ too.

Holds

Some actions hold a creature back for a few seconds: a root stops its feet, a slow takes some of its pace, a stun stops everything, a silence stops it casting and throwing, and a weakening takes some of every blow it lands. A warden, a zone's boss and a dungeon's keeper are held half as long. Being hurt does not break a hold, though it does wake a creature from sleep.

The priest's Hurricane spins every creature round them out along a spiral, to 14 m away, and it does nothing while it spins. A warden, a zone's boss and a keeper are thrown half as far, and pets never.

Thrown back and knocked down

Some bosses have heavy moves on top of their blows. A knockback throws you straight away from the boss, out of reach of a blade; your auto-attack stays on and picks up again once you are back in reach. A knockdown puts you on the ground for a couple of seconds: you cannot move, turn or act until you get up. Some moves hit only the one the boss is fighting, so a tank takes them; others hit everyone close to it, so the rest of the party should keep their distance.

A zone's Dragon buffets everyone near it back with its wings, and knocks its tank down with its tail. A warden swats its tank aside. Of the dungeons' keepers, the fallen king bashes its tank back and slams the ground under everyone, the Warren Boss headbutts its tank down, the Rime Tyrant stomps everyone down, and the Forgemaster's hammer throws everyone back. The Heartwood, atop Gravenwood's world tree, quakes the ground to knock down everyone near it and, near its end, sweeps whoever stands close across its chamber. Veterans, a keeper's guards among them, have one such move each, which comes about half as often as a boss's and throws or fells for less.

A castle's Castellan changes as he is worn down: he calls his archers, then his guards, and at the last throws people off his keep. See Castles.

Packs

Out in the open, creatures come in packs of up to 6. Pull one and every packmate within 22 m that is not already busy or asleep comes too. Below ground there are no packs: anything within 22 m that can see the fight joins it, which usually means the whole room. A castle's soldier who sees you sounds its horn, and every soldier of it within 70 m comes. A creature turns on anyone it can see within 8 m of it: a hill, rock or wall between hides you, however close you stand, though its pack still comes when a packmate who did see you does. It gives up the chase past 35 m. Brigands, who look like hirelings but fight you, spot you from 24 m. Neither will follow you into water too deep to wade: swim out of reach and only something that shoots can still hit you. Some talents change who notices you: Subtlety and Dread Reputation, Parley to talk one creature down, Distract to send idle ones off to look elsewhere.

Creatures in a fight keep a body's width apart. The first to reach you holds its spot at your side, and the rest fan out round you or wait a step behind, so running from a pack and turning to fight does not leave it stacked on one spot.

Packs do not stand still. A pack strolls together within 50 m of where it came up, and packs gathered at a ruin, a bridge, a lake or a ghost-town's lots pace round it, never more than 8 creatures to one place. About 50% of the rest roam: they walk their region in legs of up to 90 m, rest a moment, and set off again. A patch you have just cleared may not stay clear for long. Roamers keep away from graveyards, outposts, castles and the town.

A few castles stand out in the open, held by veteran soldiers under a keeper. Each soldier keeps to its post and comes for you only once it sees you within 12 m, then walks back when the chase is over. A post you have cleared is held again 5 minutes later, once nobody is near it; the keeper's and its guards' after 20 minutes.

Nothing walks through a graveyard's railing or its crypt, a dungeon gate's pillars and portal, or a signpost: a creature chasing you goes round, or in by the graveyard's gate, the same way you must. Nor does a lake, a cliff, a house or a bay of rock shake one off: it finds its way round as you would. Stand where it cannot follow, out in deep water or up on rock it cannot climb, and it comes as near as it can and waits there.

Some creatures throw things or cast from a distance. Each one's page in the bestiary says so. What they throw hurts when it reaches you, not when it leaves their hand, and the same goes for your hirelings' arrows and spells; step out of the zone, or into a dungeon, while it is in the air and it misses you.

Tactics

The higher a creature's level, the smarter it fights. Bosses, castle soldiers and brigands keep to their own ways.

• From level 4, a pack avenges its fallen. When one of a pack falls, the rest fighting near it hit 1.25× as hard for 10 seconds. Below ground, anything fighting in sight of it does.
• From level 7, the worn down run for help. An ordinary creature under 20% of its health breaks off, once, and runs for the nearest creature not already fighting. After up to 4 seconds it cries out, and anything idle that can see it within 25 m joins in. Finish a runner before it gets far, or fight away from other packs.
• From level 10, packs pick off the hurt. A packmate coming to a fight goes for whoever is most hurt within 22 m, if they are under 50% of their health, and holds as much threat on them as the top of its table. A tank has to pull it back.
• From level 13, a pack's first mends the rest. The first of a pack of three or more heals the most hurt creature beside it in a fight, 5% of its health every 3.5 seconds, in place of its swing. Silence, stun or sleep it to stop it.
• From level 6, packs keep formation. A pack strolls in a wedge behind its first, and a pack of casters fans out round you at its range, 30° apart, so one area spell catches fewer of them.
• From level 9, packs flank you. Once one creature holds your front, the rest of the pack go round, the side nearer them, to your back.

Any creature that strikes you from behind, more than 110° off the way you face, can't be parried or blocked, at any level, though you can still dodge it. Running from a fight gives it your back. So does letting a flanking pack get round you: keep your back to a wall, or turn to face whoever is behind.

The kill

A kill is yours whether you landed it, your pet did, one of your hirelings did, or your bleed did. It is not only the killer's: everyone within 40 m of where it fell, alive or dead, who did something in its fight in its last 5 seconds or fought it for 30 seconds earns it too, and healing someone fighting it counts. Each of them rolls for loot of their own, and their quests count it (see levelling). Out in the open it counts toward the region's escalation ladder; below ground nothing does. What a kill pays depends on the creature's tier and level: see gear and loot, trade for money, and gathering for cloth.