DARKSPINSERVER PROJECT

GAME SYSTEMS // COMBAT RULES

Combat & Resistance

Hero avoidance, resistance caps, NPC defenses, and the diminishing returns behind Darkspin combat.

HERO AVOIDANCE75%

Rating-based dodge or resist approaches this chance.

HERO MITIGATION90%

Combined ordinary reductions and flat armor share one limit.

NPC ORDINARY DEFENSE50%

Rating, passive reductions, and carapace share one limit.

NPC TEMPORARY REDUCTION75%

Timed reduction and area-shift defense share this limit. Scripted immunity is separate.

Two different kinds of protection

Avoid the hit

For heroes, physical attacks use the dodge rating and energy attacks use the resist rating. A successful roll prevents the hit. Rating has diminishing returns: more still helps, but the gains get smaller. Already-attached periodic damage does not reroll avoidance.

Reduce a landed hit

General, physical or energy, science-type, and area reductions are fractional modifiers. Applicable factors multiply the damage that remains, then flat armor is subtracted. NPC ratings also reduce damage continuously, so they do not add random misses to hero attacks.

01

Diminishing returns

RATING → PROTECTION
protection = C × r / (r + C × k)

r = applicable defense rating. k = 100 × the authored conversion for the encounter’s difficulty. C = 0.75 for hero avoidance, or 0.5 for NPC rating reduction.

At r = C × k, protection is half its ceiling. Finite ratings approach the ceiling without reaching it. The same rating gives less protection when the difficulty conversion is larger.

Hero avoidance and NPC rating reduction Both curves rise quickly at low rating and flatten toward their respective ceilings. The horizontal axis is rating divided by 100 times the difficulty conversion. Values are also provided in the table. 100%75%50%25%0%012345Rating ÷ k

— Hero avoidance— NPC rating reductionDashed lines: ceilings

Same normalized rating, different outcomes
Rating ÷ kHero avoidanceNPC reduction
00.00%0.00%
0.2518.75%16.67%
0.530.00%25.00%
142.86%33.33%
254.55%40.00%
565.22%45.45%
1069.77%47.62%
Hero avoidance 42.86%NPC rating reduction 33.33%

A ratio of 1 means your rating equals 100 × difficulty conversion; it does not mean 1 rating point. These normalized examples work at any valid difficulty conversion. The two percentages apply to different targets and are not added together.

02

Hero resistance, stacking & armor

90% COMBINED CAP
  1. Apply passive and aura reductions before equipment mitigation.
  2. Multiply the remaining damage by each applicable general, physical/energy, science-type, and area factor. Each factor is 1 − clamp(reduction, 0, 0.9).
  3. Subtract the non-negative flat armor for the attack’s physical or energy source.
  4. Enforce one floor relative to the incoming hit, including reductions from earlier stages.
D = max(original incoming hit, damage entering equipment mitigation)floor = min(D, max(1, D × 0.10))landed damage = max(floor, reduced damage − armor)

Two 50% factors leave 25% of the damage before armor. They do not sum to immunity. The one-point minimum also means hits smaller than one are never increased by the floor.

Illustrative landed hits before separate shields or sharing
DefensesIncomingAfter factors & armorFloorDamage
50% general + 50% science1000250100250
Same reductions + 100 flat armor1000150100150
Same reductions + 999 flat armor1000-749100100
Small hit with two 90% reductions50.0511
Sub-one hit with two 90% reductions0.40.0040.40.4

Physical and energy are damage-source classifications. Science resistance uses the known science type independently. Area flags can coexist with periodic flags; attached periodic damage skips the hero avoidance roll but still passes through applicable mitigation.

03

NPC defenses & immunity

REDUCTION LIMITS

Ordinary defense: 50%

Physical hits use the NPC’s dodge rating plus its passive physical defense. Energy hits use its resist rating plus passive energy defense; Turtle suspends that passive energy contribution. The curve produces continuous mitigation, including for periodic damage.

Applicable physical, damage-over-time, and special area reductions multiply afterward. Carapace’s per-hit limit also stays inside the ordinary budget.

ordinary damage ≥ incoming × 0.5

Temporary reduction: 75% total

Timed damage reduction and the specific area-shift defense can lower damage further. Their combined reduction stays within this limit measured against the original hit.

damage after reductions ≥ incoming × 0.25

A 1,000-damage hit retains at least 500 damage through ordinary defense, or 250 through temporary reduction, before later mechanics. This floor does not apply when a scripted immunity blocks the hit.

What sits outside these caps?

Scripted immunity can fully block a hit

NPC charge protection, Turtle protection against physical hits, and directional shields protecting against the attack’s direction now preserve their immunity behavior. They are separate from the 75% reduction cap, just like intangibility and banishment. Explicit temporary hero immunity is also separate. Scripted defeats still bypass defenses, shields, and phase thresholds.

Absorption, vulnerability & sharing

NPC vulnerability is applied after ordinary and temporary reduction, followed by finite absorption. Damage sharing and encounter health thresholds have separate handling. The reduction floor is not a promise that every hit removes health. PvP honors finite TC shields and does not consume them for rejected attacks.

Why equipment protection changed

The suffix-stat reader previously started five attribute slots too early, which could put Dexterity into damage reduction and shift other modifiers. The corrected suffix offset restores those stats; the server rebuilds its content cache for the change.

Darkspin’s balance policy

The caps and diminishing-return defense curves are server balance decisions. Difficulty conversion comes from authored game tuning. Critical-hit chance is a separate calculation and is not described by this defense curve.

04

Auras, companions & hit reactions

RECENT CORRECTIONS

Crushing Dread uses the strongest aura

Overlapping personal and allied Crushing Dread auras apply once, using the strongest applicable reduction around the attacking enemy. Two 30% auras therefore reduce its damage by 30%, not 51% or 60%. The result remains inside the hero’s combined mitigation cap.

Companion protection has one combined cap

Companions use their own authored defense ratings. Allied aura reduction now shares their 50% ordinary-defense cap, measured against the hit before the aura. A 1,000-damage hit therefore cannot fall below 500 through these combined reductions.

Debuff immunity belongs to the target

In multiplayer, enemy poison, physical and energy vulnerabilities, and control effects check the immunity of the hero actually receiving the effect. Another player’s immunity no longer determines whether that hero receives the debuff.

Thorn Bark reflects the accepted hit

Reflection uses health lost by the surviving hero who was struck. Reflected damage, rewards, and feedback are attributed to that hero in multiplayer. Reflection carries the hero’s position, so enemy directional shields apply correctly. An enemy killed by a damage reaction cannot heal itself afterward through life drain.

Soul Link resolves before a hero replacement

Reserve heroes receive their shared damage before a lethal hit selects a replacement or decides squad defeat. Hit reactions belong to the surviving hero who received the hit, rather than a newly deployed replacement. Defensive on-hit stacks also activate on surviving duel targets that take damage.

Damage classification and catalyst bonuses

Companion attacks carry their own damage classification and position, and Sprout’s poison element reaches resistance checks. Expunge’s single-target remaining-damage burst no longer inherits area mitigation. Catalyst primary-stat bonuses now feed damage and healing; elemental damage and defense-based attack bonuses update with inventory changes, and physical/energy defense-based attack bonuses use their correct attributes.

05

Recent combat changes

COMMITTED HISTORY
  1. b03fc3e

    Add various combat fixes

  2. fe01774

    Fix damage classifiers across board, Scripted deaths now bypass defenses and shields. Pet attacks and burns retain their damage classifications. Area and periodic resistance can apply together. Pets use their own authored defense ratings. PvP now honors finite TC shields without consuming them on rejected attacks. Enemy damage stages use consistent physical/energy classification.

  3. 85120bb

    Add caps to NPC defenses

  4. d048acd

    Fix item stat bug, nerf inc

  5. 77a89f0

    Fix immunity caps and add fullscreen borderless

Reviewed source · b03fc3e

Caps, curve samples, and worked examples are generated from this committed source snapshot. Uncommitted tuning is excluded.