Vaelmark Combat Guide

The core rule

How a hit is calculated

There are no misses in Vaelmark. Every attack connects; your stats decide how hard. Each hit goes through the same steps, in this order:

Roll the damage. A number between your minimum and maximum attack. Attack rating against the target's parry decides where in that range you land.
Absorb. The target's absorb divides the hit: hit ÷ (1 + absorb%).
Defence. Physical defence (PD) stops physical hits, magic defence (MD) stops spells. How much depends on who is hitting whom, see Defence.
Skill power. Each skill multiplies the result, and higher ranks also add a flat amount of damage. On top of that every spec has its own tuning that changes with your level, so the Power on a skill card is a guide, not the final multiplier.
Level advantage. +3% for every level you are above the target, up to +30%.
Balance. Your STR (INT for spells) multiplies everything, see STR & INT.
Floor. A hit never deals less than 5% of the rolled damage × skill power, however much defence the target has.
Critical hit. A crit doubles the damage (×2). See Critical hits for the PvP rule.
Element. Fire, Ice and Lightning hits are cut by the target's matching elemental resistance.

Your two stats

STR & INT

You start with 20 STR and 20 INT. Every level adds 1 STR and 1 INT on its own and gives you 3 free points to spend. Warriors and Archers (Assassins included) fight with STR; Mages and Templars with INT.

STR

Strength

Health: every point is worth 10 Max HP, growing 2% per level.
Attack: your weapon's physical reinforcement adds a % of your STR to its minimum and maximum attack.
Defence: each armour piece's physical reinforcement adds a % of your STR to your physical defence.
Balance: for physical fighters, STR sets your damage multiplier (below).

INT

Intelligence

Mana: every point is worth 10 Max MP, growing 2% per level.
Health too: each INT point also gives 40% of an STR point's health (Templars 60%), so casters are not made of glass.
Attack and magic defence: the same reinforcement rules as STR, on staffs, maces and armour.
Balance: for Mages and Templars, INT sets the damage multiplier.

Balance: your damage multiplier

Balance compares your main stat with a reference value that grows with your level: M = 28 + 4 × level. Physical fighters get 1 − 0.67 × (M − STR) ÷ M, casters get INT ÷ M, and it never goes above 120%. A character who puts every free point into their main stat sits just under 100%; STR or INT from runes, set bonuses and costumes is what pushes you towards the cap.

Level Class STR INT

Accuracy

Attack rating & parry

Because nothing misses, attack rating and parry decide where inside your damage range each hit lands. Your attack rating against the target's parry sets the average position, average = 50% × attack rating ÷ parry, never below 10% or above 90% of the range. Each hit then rolls evenly around that average.

Your attack rating Target's parry Your attack (min) Your attack (max)

More attack rating

Where it comes from

Your weapon's attack rating roll, the Edge rune on a weapon (+% attack rating), and Leather armour (+2% per piece).

More parry

Where it comes from

The parry roll on every armour piece, the Ward rune on armour (+% parry rate), and Leather armour (+2% per piece). Higher parry pushes your attackers' hits towards the low end of their range.

Spikes

Critical hits

Your critical chance is a plain percentage, and a critical hit deals ×2 damage.

Weapon roll: every weapon rolls its own critical chance.
Rarity: Rare +1%, Elite +2%, Shiny +3% on top.
Fang rune: adds critical chance on a weapon.
Against players: critical hits are switched off in PvP, except for Archery Archers (×1.5) and Assassins (×1.3).

Survival

Defence & absorb

Two different things protect you, and they stack. Absorb divides every incoming hit. Defence (PD against physical, MD against magic) then reduces what is left, and how it does that depends on who is attacking.

Absorb

From accessories

Earrings, rings and the pendant carry physical and magic absorb. Every hit is divided by 1 + absorb%: 50% absorb turns a 1,000 hit into 667. It works the same against monsters and players.

Monsters hitting you

Proportional defence

Against monsters, defence works like a percentage that keeps growing but never reaches 100%: damage × K ÷ (K + defence), where K is 10% of the monster's hit. Every point helps, and nobody becomes immune.

You hitting monsters · PvP

Flat defence

Here defence is subtracted: hit ÷ (1 + absorb%) − defence. In PvP only part of the defender's defence counts (60% at level 50) and the result gets a level-based PvP multiplier. The 5% floor always applies.

Monster hits: how much gets through, by your defence compared with the monster's raw hit
Your defence = monster hit ×	Damage you take	Reduction

Limits

Every cap in one place

Stat	Cap	What happens

Levels

Level difference

Being higher level than your target adds damage, +3% per level up to +30%. Being lower costs nothing extra; the target simply has better stats. One exception: you cannot damage a boss more than 12 levels above you. Level difference also scales the experience a monster gives you:

Monster level compared with yours	Experience

Two kinds of fight

PvP vs PvE

Rule	Against monsters	Against players
Critical hits	×2 damage	Off (Archery ×1.5)
Your defence	Proportional, never immune	Subtracted, only part of it counts
Damage multiplier	Per-spec tuning, by level, for damage dealt and taken	By the defender's level (table below) and per-spec PvP tuning
Elemental resistance	Monster affinities, ±10%	Up to 60% from runes, sets and wards
Stun and freeze	Full duration	Cut to 60%, then shortened by stun resistance
HP potion cooldown	5 s	7 s while you fought a player in the last 10 s
Running into a safe zone mid-fight	No effect	Potions and teleports locked for 10 s

PvP by the defender's level: how much of their defence counts, and the level part of the damage multiplier
Defender level	Defence counted	Damage multiplier

Items

Gear & runes

Rolls

White stats

Every stat on an item rolls between its lowest and highest possible value. The item card shows where yours landed as a percentage: 100% is a perfect roll.

Rarity

Rare, Elite, Shiny

A rarer item has the stats of the same item several levels higher, plus extra critical chance on weapons.

Enhancement

+1 to +10

Each + adds attack to weapons, defence to armour and absorb to accessories.

Runes: best value by item degree

Only the strongest rune of each kind on an item counts. Elemental and stun runes are covered further down.

Typical characters

For a sense of scale: each class in the best standard (Normal) gear for its level, average rolls, +3, with every free point in its main stat, next to a monster of the same level.

Try it

Damage calculator

Put in numbers from your character sheet and the target's, and see the damage per hit the way the server calculates it. It starts with a level 50 Warrior hitting a level 50 monster.

Fight Attack min Attack max Attack rating Target parry Skill power × Balance % Target absorb % Target defence Levels above target Defender level (PvP)

Not included: per-spec tuning (it changes your real numbers noticeably, most of all for monster hits on cloth wearers), flat skill damage, buffs and debuffs, elemental resistance. When a monster hits you, use the monster's attack and your parry, absorb and defence; balance does not apply to monsters.

Basics

The three elements

Fire, Ice and Lightning. Elemental damage comes from two places:

Spells

Mage skills carry their element

A Fire mage's skills deal Fire damage, an Ice mage's deal Ice, a Lightning mage's deal Lightning.

Weapons

Elemental weapons

An elemental weapon (the glowing unique variants) hits like a normal weapon: its hits and the skills used with it are not elemental and resistance does not reduce them. Its element is in its effect: Fire weapons can set the target on fire (burn damage), Frost weapons slow and Lightning weapons stun.

Everything else

Physical hits

Weapons and physical skills are not elemental, with one exception: the Archer's Fire Arrow is a Fire skill. Elemental resistance does nothing against the rest.

Player vs player

Elemental resistance

Each 1% Fire, Ice or Lightning resistance reduces damage of that element only by 1%: elemental spells, Fire Arrow and every burn (from Fire weapons, fire spells and Fire Arrow). It does not shorten slows or stuns. Resistance stops counting at 60%, so a fully resistant player still takes 40% of that element's damage.

Where resistance comes from

Runes

Ember, Rime and Storm runes

Socketed into accessories: Ember gives Fire, Rime Ice and Storm Lightning resistance. The amount depends on the rune's tier and the accessory's degree (table below). Several accessories add up.

Crafted sets

Set bonus

Wearing several pieces of the same crafted armour set adds resistance to every element.

Skills

Ward skills

Flame Ward, Frost Ward and Storm Ward add temporary resistance against their own element.

Elemental rune resistance by accessory degree

Accessory degree	Tier I	Tier II	Tier III	Tier IV	Tier V

Is it worth it? Against a player who deals mostly one element (an elemental mage, or a Fire Arrow archer), every point of that resistance is a straight 1% cut until the cap. Against physical attackers it does nothing, so match your runes to who you fight.

Player vs monster

Monster affinities

Monsters can be a little weak or a little resistant to magic and to specific elements. The effect is small on purpose: at most 10% more or 10% less damage. Pick the element you like to play; against monsters it never decides a fight.

Party support

Defence buffs

Templar and Guardian defence buffs also cut the damage monsters deal to you.

Gear

Armour lines

Plate, Leather and Cloth trade physical defence for magic defence, and each line adds its own bonus for every piece you wear. Mix pieces freely: each piece counts on its own.

Full Standard set, average roll, +0
Line	Phy. def.	Mag. def.	Per piece	With 6 pieces

Crowd control

Stun resistance

Stun resistance shortens stuns and freezes: each point cuts the duration by 5%, up to 30% shorter. It comes from Steadfast runes socketed into a pendant.

Stun and freeze duration with one Steadfast rune
Pendant degree	Tier I	Tier II	Tier III	Tier IV	Tier V

Quick answers

Questions players ask

Can I miss an attack?

No. Every attack hits. Attack rating against parry only moves your hits up or down inside your damage range.

Should I stack attack rating or attack?

Attack raises the whole range; attack rating moves you towards its top. Once your attack rating is about 1.8× the target's parry you already land at the 90% cap, so more attack rating does nothing against that target.

Is there a cap on defence?

No hard cap. Against monsters each point helps a little less than the one before, but you are never immune. Against players defence is subtracted, and every hit still deals at least 5% of its rolled damage.

Why did I deal tiny damage to someone?

Their defence after absorb was close to your hit, so you dealt the 5% floor. Use stronger skills, more attack, or bring their defence down.

Do crits work in PvP?

Only for Archery Archers. Everyone else's critical chance counts against monsters only.

Is STR useful for a Mage?

A little: STR adds Max HP. Your damage, mana and magic defence all come from INT, and INT gives health too.

How do I get above 100% balance?

You need more of your main stat than your level's reference value. Free points alone keep you just under it; STR or INT from runes, set bonuses and costumes pushes you over, up to 120%.

Does elemental resistance help against Warriors?

No. It only reduces Fire, Ice and Lightning damage: from elemental mages, the Archer's Fire Arrow and burns.

Do I lose experience when I die?

Above level 10 you lose a small share of a level, except in safe zones and to bosses.