Combat Rules

Combat Sequence

This sequence documents the current high-level order for a submitted physical attack. Exact server-side random-roll constants remain unpublished.T2

1. Confirm Encounter Eligibility

   The target must be valid, attackable, in the appropriate encounter, and legal for the submitted physical action.

2. Check Active Defenses

   Applicable Block, Dodge, Parry, and Riposte gates are evaluated before the ordinary contact check.

3. Resolve Contact

   Attacker Accuracy is opposed by defender Evasion to determine whether the swing lands.

4. Roll Physical Damage

   A landed hit is placed within its legal damage interval using attacker Offense and defender Mitigation.

5. Apply Critical & Post-Roll Modifiers

   Critical-hit rules and other eligible modifiers alter the landed result in their applicable order.

6. Resolve Triggered Effects

   Eligible procs and other event-driven effects receive their own trigger and target checks.

7. Update Threat & Combat State

   The engine records threat, damage, deaths, debuffs, counters, and other state changes produced by the event.

Attack Resolution

A melee swing is best understood as two independent contests built from four component values:T2

The Inventory window combines these values for display: ATK = Offense + Accuracy and AC = Mitigation + Evasion.T2

Level and class identity affect resolution indirectly by determining available skills, skill caps, attributes, and mitigation soft caps. They should not be treated as a separate undocumented “level roll” unless testing demonstrates one.

Accuracy & Hit Chance

Accuracy

The attacker's contact value. It determines hit probability against the defender's Evasion; it does not determine how hard a successful hit lands.

Evasion

The defender's ordinary miss-avoidance value used after any applicable block, dodge, parry, or riposte gate.

Displayed ATK

A combined summary of Accuracy and Offense. Two characters with the same ATK can theoretically have different contact and damage distributions if the components differ.

Offensive Stance visibly modifies Accuracy by its stated percentage, allowing the modified value to be inspected in the stat window.T2

Avoidance

Active defense skills are separate gates that can terminate a swing before the ordinary Accuracy-versus-Evasion check. The currently documented gate family is Block, Dodge, Parry, and Riposte.T2

An EQL loadout receives the skills supplied by its active classes. The table below lists the current class access level and reference maximum for each avoidance skill. Where several active classes grant the same skill, verify the effective cap in the current client; the table records the individual class entries rather than asserting an unpublished multiclass cap-selection formula.T2

Block

Block negates an incoming physical attack when its skill check succeeds. EQL reference data indicates that Block is a body/hand-blocking skill and does not require a shield; a shield contributes defensive AC rather than granting Block by itself. The current skill reference also distinguishes Block from the other active defenses by allowing it to defend against attacks from behind.T2

Dodge

Dodge negates the incoming swing without returning an attack. It is the broadest class-access avoidance skill in the current reference data, extending to every listed class except Berserker, but caps and acquisition levels vary substantially. Its exact chance curve is not developer-published.T2

Parry

Parry negates an incoming frontal attack when the check succeeds. Current access is limited to Warrior, Rogue, Ranger, Paladin, Shadow Knight, and Bard. It is mechanically distinct from Evasion because it resolves as an active gate rather than part of the ordinary miss roll.T2

Riposte

Riposte negates an incoming frontal attack and returns a counterattack. Current access is granted by Warrior, Rogue, Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Shadow Knight, Bard, and Beastlord. Alternate Advancement can add a chance to perform a second riposte after a successful one.T2

Chance Formulas

Classic-derived models approximate each gate from its skill value and a skill-specific divisor. Those divisors are not published for EQL and should be treated as theorycraft rather than canonical constants.T4

Critical Hits

Critical capability is not assumed for every attack by default. It is granted or improved by class passives, Alternate Advancement, stances, effects, or ability-specific rules.

• Melee: Combat Fury was demonstrated as the AA route that enables or improves ordinary melee criticals.T1
• Direct-damage spells: Fury of Magic increases the chance for eligible direct-damage spells to critically hit.T2
• Damage-over-time spells: Critical Affliction gives each eligible DoT tick its own critical chance, while Destructive Cascade increases critical DoT damage.T2
• Heals: heal criticals exist as a logged event; the July 7 patch fixed a missing client log flag for them.T1

The inherited physical-crit model applies its multiplier after the ordinary damage roll and before the final main-hand damage bonus. This sequencing is useful for modeling but is not yet Tier 1-confirmed for EQL.T4

Damage Calculation

A landed weapon hit has two conceptually separate parts:

1. Variable weapon result. Weapon damage establishes the base scale; attacker Offense and defender Mitigation weight a multi-step distribution between minimum and maximum outcomes.
2. Flat or multiplicative modifiers. Main-hand damage bonus, critical rules, stance effects, skill-ability multipliers, and target-specific modifiers are applied according to their own sequencing.

The current reputable reference model describes a twenty-slot damage distribution. Offense shifts results toward the high slots and Mitigation shifts them toward the low slots; neither value alone changes the nominal endpoints.T2

Reference Damage Model

T4

Main-Hand Damage Bonus

The flat damage bonus is associated with the primary hand and is shown on weapon/stat references. It is modeled as being added after the variable mitigation-weighted roll, making it proportionally more important against high-mitigation targets.T2

Strength

Strength is best treated as an Offense input rather than a direct increase to the weapon's printed damage. It improves the frequency of high damage-interval outcomes instead of changing the item tooltip's damage value.T2

Damage Types

“Damage family” and “resist type” are not interchangeable. A DoT is a delivery pattern, while Magic, Fire, Cold, Poison, Disease, Void, or unresistable status describes how the spell is checked or categorized.

Procs

A proc is a triggered effect evaluated from an eligible combat event. EQL has several proc families—including standard weapon combat effects, buff or reactive procs, and Spellblade—and their rate and trigger boundaries are not necessarily identical.

Dexterity and Estimated Proc Rate

T2Table values are calculated from the EQL Tools reference model DEX / 170 + 0.5 PPM, not from a published developer formula.

DEX affects how often magical weapon effects proc and is currently modeled as influencing Spellblade as well. It does not increase PvE hit chance in the reviewed EQL combat model. Shaman DEX buffs therefore have direct value to proc-oriented melee and hybrid builds.T2

Rate and Trigger Boundaries

• Weapon delay and haste: a procs-per-minute model normally converts the target rate into a per-check probability. The exact EQL conversion, delay normalization, rounding, and haste interaction are unpublished; do not assume that more swings automatically increase normalized PPM.T4
• Main hand versus offhand: the current numeric model explicitly labels the estimate as main-hand PPM. The offhand coefficient, Dual Wield interaction, and whether both hands share the same normalization remain unverified.T4
• Trigger event: reviewed developer discussion suggested Spellblade may check attack rounds rather than every extra hit, but the speakers immediately said the behavior needed confirmation. Standard weapon procs may use a different event boundary.T4
• Successful effect: a proc firing and its spell effect landing are separate questions. Proc level requirements, target immunity, resist type, and resist adjustment can prevent or reduce the final effect even when a trigger check succeeds.

Documented Rules

• Weapon procs are active game systems; an issue preventing them from firing was fixed in the July 14 beta patch.T1
• Combat Innate buffs with procs cast the proc at one-half of the buff's spell-tier level.T1
• Spellblade eligibility compares reuse time to the spell's base cast time rather than its haste-modified cast time.T1

Combat Formulas & Hidden Mechanics