Combat styles

A combat style decides how your character fights. Set yours with combatstyle <name>, or use battle -c <name>. The style stays in effect until you change it.

There are twelve styles plus the default normal. Each one trades some things off for others — fast styles swing more often but defend less; defensive styles survive longer but kill slower. The right style depends on the fight, your guild, and your party role.

Battle strategies

The bonuses each style gives at full mastery are not just the style's own contribution. They include the contribution of a battle strategy — a separate skill you train. Without the matching strategy you still get the style, but only the base portion. With it you get the full bonus shown below.

Each style is bound to one of three strategies:

• Offensive battle strategy — used by Berserk, Assailing, Savage, Accurate, Forceful, Aiming and Offensive. Adds +5% speed, +5% hit chance, +10% damage and -10% defence on top of the style's own numbers.
• Defensive battle strategy — used by Warding, Defensive and Deft. Adds -5% speed, -15% hit chance, -5% damage and +15% defence on top.
• Martial arts — used by Offensive flow and Unbending defence. Adds +5% speed, +5% hit chance, +3% damage and +5% defence on top.

Most warrior guilds teach offensive and defensive battle strategy at higher levels. Monks gain martial arts the same way. If you switch to a style without its strategy trained, the bonus you actually get on the field is weaker than the table promises.

Hit styles by weapon family

Each combat style maps to a specific hit style for each weapon family. Hit styles produce the actual combat messages you see — the slashes, thrusts, pounds and so on.

Type	Slashing	Piercing	Bludgeoning
Accurate	cleave	pierce	pound
Aiming	slash	impale	crush
Assailing	cleave	pierce	flail
Berserk	chop	thrust	crush
Defensive	swing	pierce	flail
Deft	swing	pierce	flail
Forceful	slash	impale	crush
Offensive	swing, cleave	thrust, pierce	swing, flail
Savage	chop	impale	crush
Warding	swing	thrust	pound
Offensive flow	hand and feet maneuvers (crush) *
Unbending defence	hand and feet maneuvers (crush) *
Normal (default)	—	—	—

* Martial-arts styles use hand and feet maneuvers, not weapon hit styles.

Combined effect at 100% skill

These are the values you can expect at full mastery with the matching battle strategy trained. Bonuses scale linearly with skill from about 50% (at minimum trained) to the listed amount (at 100%).

Type	Weapon speed	Hit chance	Damage	Dodge & Parry
Accurate	0%	+20%	+10%	-10%
Aiming	+10%	+15%	+15%	-20%
Assailing	+25%	-5%	+10%	-20%
Berserk	+15%	-5%	+30%	-30%
Defensive	-10%	-20%	-15%	+20%
Deft	-8%	-15%	-8%	+20%
Forceful	+10%	-5%	+30%	-20%
Offensive	+5%	+10%	+15%	-10%
Savage	+5%	0%	+25%	-10%
Warding	-10%	-20%	-10%	+30%
Offensive flow	+10%	+10%	+5%	-10%
Unbending defence	-10%	+5%	0%	+30%
Normal (default)	—	—	—	—

The per-skill help (help skill berserk, help skill aiming, etc.) shows each style's own contribution before the strategy bonus is added. The combined number above is what you actually feel on the field.

Choosing a style

Faster swings hit more often per round but each hit is a little less reliable. Heavy-damage styles trade defence for punch — fine for parties with a tank, dangerous when soloing an opponent your size. Defensive styles let you stand against bigger foes by surviving rather than killing quickly.

A few common picks:

• Berserk — fast kills against weaker monsters where taking hits is acceptable.
• Aiming — a balanced offensive option that keeps a reasonable hit chance.
• Warding — when you need to stay alive and let the party finish the fight.
• Offensive flow / Unbending defence — for monks, depending on whether the monk wants to attack or tank.

See also

• Combat
• Combat points
• Weapons, Weapon types
• Armour