Combat Basics

This page covers the fundamentals of melee and ranged combat: switching to war mode, holding a weapon, attacking a target, and getting away. For hit-chance, damage formulas, special moves and resistances see Combat (advanced). For staying alive see Healing and Death & resurrection.

War mode vs peace mode

Your character is always in one of two states:

Peace mode — the default. You can walk past monsters and other players without swinging at anyone, even if you double-click them.
War mode — you will automatically attack your current target. Your character closes the gap and swings on its own as fast as your weapon allows.

To toggle war mode: click the war/peace button on your status bar (the toggle that shows a peace or war icon), or press the war-mode hotkey (default Tab in most clients — Tab toggles, hold-Tab behavior is client-configurable). When you are in war mode your character’s frame/health bar typically turns red.

You only deal blows while in war mode. If you are in peace mode, double-clicking a monster just selects/opens it; it does not start a fight.

Equipping a weapon

To equip a weapon:

Open your backpack (double-click the pack icon, or use the paperdoll).
Double-click the weapon, or drag it onto your paperdoll’s hand slot.

A one-handed weapon uses one hand; a two-handed weapon (most axes, spears, bows, and staves) occupies both hands and prevents holding a shield. To unequip, drag the weapon from the paperdoll back into your pack.

Your character must meet the weapon’s Strength requirement to equip it at all: if your Strength is below the requirement you simply cannot wear it — “You are not strong enough to equip that.” (BaseWeapon.cs OnEquip). There is no “swing slower / weaker” under-strength penalty in the source; it is a hard equip gate. Browse weapons in the weapons catalog.

Weapon choice maps to a combat skill

The weapon you hold determines which skill governs your accuracy. Every swing trains that skill (see using & training skills):

Swords, axes, large blades → Swordsmanship
Maces, hammers, staves → Mace Fighting
Daggers, kryss, spears, fencing weapons → Fencing
Bows and crossbows → Archery
Throwing weapons (gargoyle) → Throwing
No weapon (bare hands) → Wrestling

If you are unarmed, you fight with Wrestling automatically — there is no “equip” step. Wrestling also has defensive value even when you carry a weapon (it can be used to parry/block in some rules; see Combat (advanced)).

Regardless of which weapon skill you use, two support skills increase the damage you deal: Tactics is the universal melee damage multiplier, and Anatomy adds a further damage bonus. Train both alongside your weapon skill for maximum output.

Attacking a target

To attack a monster or player:

Hold a weapon (or go bare-handed for Wrestling).
Switch to war mode.
Double-click the target, or use a target cursor / “attack last target” hotkey to designate it. You can also single-click a creature’s health bar to target it in war mode.

Once a target is set in war mode, your character moves toward it and swings automatically. You do not click for each swing — the engine paces your attacks by the weapon’s speed (see weapon speed below). Movement and targeting are covered in Movement & travel and Targeting.

When you successfully designate a hostile target, attacking it may flag you for criminal/aggressor notoriety depending on the target — see Notoriety & PvP before attacking other players or “innocent” (blue) NPCs.

Range: melee adjacency vs ranged line of sight

Melee weapons (and Wrestling) require you to be adjacent to the target — one tile away, including diagonals. Your character walks into range on its own when you set a target in war mode. (The bandage/beneficial action range in this shard is 2 tiles, per Bandage.cs; melee attack reach is the adjacent tile.)
Ranged weapons (bows, crossbows, throwing) hit at a distance but require a clear line of sight — no wall, tree, or obstacle directly between you and the target. If line of sight is broken, your shots miss or do not fire until you reposition.

Archers and throwers must stand still briefly to fire: a ranged swing only lands once you have been stationary since your last move (about 0.25 s on this SE/EJ-era shard — the delay is 0.25/0.5/1 s by era), so moving resets that timer and delays the shot (BaseRanged.cs OnSwing). See Archery and Throwing.

Switching and “last target”

You can change who you are fighting at any time:

Switch target: double-click a new enemy (or target its health bar). Your character immediately redirects its swings to the new target.
Last target: most clients support an “attack last target” and a “set last target” hotkey, letting you re-acquire your previous target without clicking. Razor/assist tools add more target macros. See Targeting.

Weapon speed, stamina, and range

Weapon speed sets how often you swing. Faster weapons (daggers, fencing weapons) swing more often for less damage per hit; slow weapons (war hammers, two-handed axes) hit hard but slowly.
Stamina directly affects your swing speed: the swing-delay formula divides by your stamina, so as stamina falls your swings come slower (BaseWeapon.cs GetDelay — the SE/ML path subtracts Stam/30 swing-ticks, faster the more stamina you have). Swing speed is capped at one swing per 1.25 s no matter how high your stamina or Swing-Speed bonuses. Running and being hit drain stamina; eat food and rest to recover. Detailed swing-speed mechanics are in Combat (advanced).

Packs are far more dangerous than the stat block suggests

A creature’s bestiary entry shows its stats one-on-one. Damage from a group stacks because every member swings on the same window, so a monster that is trivial alone can overwhelm a fresh character in seconds when it spawns in numbers.

Worked example (anima foundry warrior evals, 2026-06-11): a Headless One is a pushover singly, but eight spawned together killed a Swordsmanship/Tactics/Healing-35 warrior — katana and 100 bandages — in under ~110 seconds across multiple fresh characters. With four of the same creature, that build survives and trains safely. The rule of thumb that held in testing: trivial 1-on-1, lethal at ~8-up against a ~35-skill melee character, roughly 4 concurrent is farmable.

Practical takeaway for low-skill characters: pull packs apart, fight in a doorway or chokepoint so only one or two reach you at a time, and keep an exit — see Fleeing below. The danger scales with count and your skill, not with the single-target numbers on the page.

Fleeing

To break off a fight and run:

Switch to peace mode so you stop auto-attacking.
Run away — click far ahead repeatedly to keep running (running costs stamina).
Use terrain and line of sight to break a ranged attacker’s shots, or Hide once you have a moment out of sight.
If you have travel magic, Recall to a safe rune (see Movement & travel) — but note casting can be disrupted if you are being hit (see Combat (advanced)).

A fleeing target that out-distances its attacker will eventually be left alone, since melee enemies must stay adjacent to swing and ranged enemies need line of sight.