Combat

Every fight in Duskar is calculated from the warriors’ stats, their attacks, races and auras, and a random roll stored with the fight, so a report always shows exactly what happened. Knowing what makes a hit land and what makes it hurt is what turns a strong roster into a team that wins. This page covers the rules shared by expeditions, the league, tournaments, sagas and sieges.

Three ways to fight

Format	Who fights	How it ends
Duel	One warrior against one	A knockout, or after 50 rounds the higher HP wins
Relay	Two lines of warriors, one duel after another	When one side has no fighter left
Brawl	Two whole teams at once	A knockout of a whole side, or after 30 rounds the higher total HP of the living wins

Where you meet them, and what happens to your warriors’ health:

Fight	Formats	HP afterwards
Expeditions	Duel, relay, brawl	Damage stays, heal your team
League	Duel, relay, brawl	Both sides start at full HP, nothing is lost
Tournaments	Duel, relay, brawl	Both sides start at full HP, nothing is lost
Friendly fight	Relay	Nothing is lost
Masters’ trials	Duel	Nothing is lost
Sagas	Duel, relay, brawl	Damage stays
Planetoid sieges	Brawl	Damage stays

Your team holds five warriors, each of a different species. A warrior with 0 HP cannot fight, and no warrior ever dies in a fight: in Duskar warriors die only of old age.

The seven stats

Stat	What it does
Melee attack	The strength of physical attacks
Special attack	The strength of special attacks
Melee defense	Protection against physical attacks
Special defense	Protection against special attacks
Concentration	Hitting and dodging
Speed	Who moves first and the chance of an extra move
Condition	Maximum HP; it falls with every hit

Every level adds the species’ growth to each stat, and condition grows twice as fast. Training, capsules and masters add more; see warrior life.

Attacks and the rotation

Every warrior fights with exactly five attacks, set in the order you choose. It uses them in turn: the first, the second and so on, then back to the first. An attack with a cooldown is skipped that many times after each use, so the warrior moves on to the next slot.

Type	Uses	Damage
Physical	Melee attack against melee defense	Yes
Special	Special attack against special defense	Yes
Status	No stats	None, only effects

Every attack also belongs to one race. Training the stat that does not match your attacks is wasted: a warrior with physical attacks gains nothing from special attack. The attacks encyclopedia lists every attack with its power, accuracy and cooldown.

Who moves first

In a duel the faster warrior moves first; on equal speed the challenger starts. After both have moved, a clearly faster warrior sometimes gets an extra move in the same round. The bigger its speed edge, the more often this happens, up to a limit.

Hitting

Each attack has an accuracy, usually between 60 and 100; most status attacks have 1,000 and never miss. Your concentration against the target’s moves the hit chance around the attack’s accuracy: more concentration than the target raises it and less lowers it, but never down to zero.

Status attacks roll to hit as well. The six knockout attacks, with power 1,000, hit at most 20% of the time however high your concentration is.

Damage

A hit deals damage from six things:

• The attacker’s level: damage grows with level, so a higher-level warrior hits harder with the same stats.
• The stats: the attacker’s melee or special attack is set against the target’s matching defense.
• The attack’s power.
• Luck: every hit varies a little.
• The target’s resistance to the attack’s race: 0, 0.5, 1 or 2, changed by auras.
• The own-race bonus: an attack of one of the warrior’s own races deals 10% more.

There are no random critical hits. The heavy blows are the six knockout attacks with power 1,000, about ten times a normal hit, but capped at a 20% hit chance.

Pick attacks of your warrior’s own race when you can, and keep an eye on the races your opponents resist.

Races and resistances

Each of the ten races resists some races and is weak against others. The numbers on a warrior’s card say how much damage it takes from each race: 2 means double damage, 0.5 half and 0 none, so a higher number is worse. Humans, for example, take double damage from Navim and Ilyari attacks and half from Humans, Aureli and Umbrai.

A warrior of two races multiplies both rows, so it can take 4 times or only a quarter of the damage from one race. Auras shift resistances too: a positive change means more damage taken. The full table is in the races encyclopedia.

Status effects

A warrior holds one main status at a time; any new main status replaces it, so a burn can turn into paralysis. Next to it, it can carry parallel effects, one of each kind. Durations count the bearer’s own turns, and a turn lost to a status also stops its attack rotation.

Main status	Effect	Lasts
Burn	Loses 9% of current HP every turn	1-4 turns
Firestorm	Loses 10-15% of current HP every turn	2-3 turns
Poison	Loses 3-6% of current HP every turn; poisoned again, deadly poison takes 6-12%	Until the end; deadly for 4 turns
Bleed	Six combat stats drop by 2% every turn; bleeding again, by 4%	Until the end; deadly for 3 turns
Paralysis	50% chance to lose the turn	1-5 turns
Freeze	80% chance to lose the turn, takes half damage; Ice Aura warriors are immune	1-5 turns
Unconscious	Cannot act, still takes damage	1-4 turns
Confusion	50% chance to attack itself	1-5 turns
Trap	Loses HP every turn, almost as much as the hit that set it	2-5 turns
Curse	Loses 6% of current HP every turn	Until the end

Some attacks gather energy instead: Channeling keeps the warrior busy for several turns before a strong release, and Rest skips one turn.

Parallel effect	Effect
Tether	Healing works at 30%
Block	Takes part or all of the damage of some kinds of attacks, for a number of hits
Counter	The next matching attacker loses 150% of the damage it dealt
Guard	The next hit loses 70% of its damage
Vulnerability	The next hit deals extra damage
Regeneration	Heals a little every turn
Leech	Drains 3% of the host’s HP every turn
Heal Block	No healing at all
Ward	Clears negative statuses for three ticks
Resistance Shift	Changes three random resistances by 0.5 for five turns
Last Stand	Survives one deadly hit with 1 HP
Delayed Boon	After 10 turns: a full heal or a big boost to attack or defense

The attacks encyclopedia says which attack brings which effect.

Relays

In a relay your warriors fight the other side’s line one duel at a time, in the order of the team. The winner of each duel stays in and carries everything into the next one: its HP, statuses, attack order and cooldowns. A drawn duel counts as a loss for your side. The relay ends when one side has nobody left to fight.

Brawls and roles

In a brawl both teams fight at once. Every round the side whose living warriors are faster on average moves first, then the sides take turns. A side with more living warriors gets more moves, so every loss costs it moves at once. The faster side may also get an extra move, as in a duel. Which warrior attacks and whom it targets is down to chance, and roles shift both.

Every warrior can take one role on its card, or none; roles work only in brawls.

Role	What it does	What it costs
Ranged	Rarely targeted	Gives up most of its melee attack
Tank	Draws attacks: very often at full HP, less as it loses health	Gives up a large part of its melee and special attack
Killer	After every enemy move, strikes the enemy with the lowest share of HP if it has 10% or less	Attacks a little less often
Destroyer	Attacks much more often	Loses some melee and special defense
Supporter	After a teammate’s move, removes its negative main status	Loses a fair part of its speed and concentration

Only one killer and one supporter per side do their job: the last ones in the line-up. Teams of unawakened warriors have no roles.

In a planetoid siege the defenders fight without roles but with the planetoid’s morale, up to +15% to their stats, while the attackers lose a share of their HP to the defense systems before the fight starts. See planetoids.

What goes into a fight

Bonus	Expeditions	Friendly	League	Tournaments
Aura	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Versatile achievement	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Battle armor	Yes	Yes	No	No
Synergy	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Weather	Yes	No	No	No
Upgrades such as Shield or Wonder Water	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

• Versatile adds 1% to six combat stats for every 10 levels of your other achievements, up to +30%.
• Battle armor adds 10 to 110 to melee and special defense, by its level.
• Synergy, when high, noticeably strengthens six combat stats.
• Weather helps some auras on the planet you fight on; the weather encyclopedia lists every pair.
• The level-limited tournament cups also take away every point a warrior got from stat capsules.

Unawakened warriors fight with their bare stats, without an aura or bonuses. Only Dark Night weather makes a lone unawakened opponent much stronger.

When both fall

If both sides fall in the same move, the fight is a draw, unless a recoil attack caused it: then the side that used the recoil attack loses. After the round limit, the side with more HP wins: in a duel the warrior’s HP, in a brawl the total HP of the living.

After the fight

• XP. Only expedition fights give XP, yen and synergy. A won duel gives XP by how hard the fight was: more for a stronger, higher-level opponent. A brawl gives XP to every team warrior by the number of rounds, more for a win; a relay gives each warrior XP for the duels it won.
• The 20-XP cap. The base XP is at most 20 per warrior. The Weighted Suit, Night Storm (×1.5), Stormy weather (a 10% chance of ×2) and an XP surge (×5) multiply it afterwards, so a fight can give more than 20.
• Yen. A won relay pays more yen; a won brawl pays less but gives XP to the whole team.
• Synergy. A win raises the fighters’ synergy and a loss lowers it.
• Health. Expedition damage stays until you heal. A Life Fruit Sack lifts every team warrior back to 40%, 80% or 100% of its HP after each expedition fight.
• A second try. After a lost expedition duel an Elixir of Power heals your fighter and starts the fight again, once per meeting.

Every fight report is kept for 30 days. Save up to 50 fights to keep them for good, and share a saved fight through a public link if you want.