Bossfights: Combat explained

So here's a quick breakdown of how combat works in ShabtiBot.

The Game

To queue for a bossfight, use the !boss command in chat. If the bossfights aren't on cool down (which is 30 minutes for now), a queue will start for the next bossfight that others can join. A boss is selected based on party size and average party level and the fight begins. It continues to run through round progression until either party has run out of HP. The fight is capped at a hard 50 rounds - if you can't beat them in 50 rounds, it's assumed that you probably aren't going to beat them, so the match is considered a loss. Right now it's just your party against a single boss, but plans are in place to open up fights against several targets at once.

To adjust your gear, abilities, or select classes for your character to use in bossfights, visit the Character page.

Round Breakdown

Each round, combat proceeds as follows:


Player abilities trigger, in the order that players joined the match.

• Each player's abilities trigger in order that they were selected (1-5) and then repeat. The target of each ability is, in order (Enemy with the highest Hate value, Enemy with the highest HP, random)

Enemy abilities trigger

• Same logic as Player Abilities.

Player Attacks Trigger

• The player chooses a target for his standard attack and makes the attack.

Enemy Attacks Trigger

• Same logic as player attacks

Resolution

• Any remaining passives trigger in order of Players > Bosses
• Elemental effects and duration-based effects (dots, buffs, etc) will tick (where applicable) and decrement at the end of the round
• If all of either party's total HP (not counting overkill damage) is below 0, the encounter ends
• Combat ends (as a loss) if 50 rounds have passed.

Attack & Defense

Whenever an attack is made, both the attacker and the defender roll a d20. They then apply their bonuses to the roll, and compare their modified rolls. If the attacker has the higher modified roll, then the difference between the rolls becomes the damage, which is reduced by the defender's AC (or armor) and applied to the enemy.

If the attacker won the roll, the defender still has a chance to avoid the attack. Each attack is given an accuracy score that is compared to the defender's avoidance score. The accuracy score of the attack can vary from ability to ability, but the avoidance score is always based on the defender's agility. If the defender wins the avoidance roll, they successfully avoid the attack. Avoidance is generally pretty harshly slanted towards the higher level player (intended to be a last 'hail Mary'), but it can really shine in builds that play to avoidance specifically.

If the attacker rolls a natural 20 (that is, a 20 before the modifiers are applied) then the hit is a critical hit, and deals double damage if it successfully lands. There are several ways to increase an attack's critical threat range, and several other damage modifiers that can affect the damage of an attack. There are also several ways of dealing damage directly that don't rely on the success or failure of attack rolls.

Stats

Each stat is used for some abilities in some way. For example a strength score may be used for accuracy in standard attacks, while it may be used for damage in a Warrior's Cleave attack, or may be used for both damage and accuracy in a Sword Saint's Slash of Light attack. The same can be said of each stat.

Important for each individual class are that class's primary stats. In addition to being used primarily for that class's abilities, those stats are also weighted more heavily when taken into account for general rolls, based on your class distribution. If most of your levels are in Warrior, your Strength add a bigger bonus to your attacks than it would for a Rogue. Likewise if you are a Cleric your Stamina will add more to your defense rolls. If you have levels in multiple classes, the weighting of the bonuses that you get from primary stats is adjusted for how you have your levels distributed. Unless you're going for a very specific build, it's generally best to put your levels into classes that make use of complimentary stats.

If you are looking for a very generalized guide to stat uses:

• Strength is generally used for damage (even on some casters), and occasionally used for accuracy.
• Dexterity is generally used for accuracy and occasionally used for damage.
• Stamina is generally used for defensive rolls and affects your max HP at the start of a fight, and can do a lot to help your survivability.
• Agility is generally used for defensive and avoidance rolls, and can do a lot to help your survivability.
• Intelligence OR Wisdom is generally used for damage and accuracy on casters

Statuses

Enemies can be afflicted by several different statuses:

Incapacitated: The target is unable to move for the rest of the round. This can represent being held in place by an attack, being stunned, etc. They are unable to do abilities, make outgoing attack rolls, or avoid incoming attacks, but they will still get a defense roll against incoming attacks.

Burning: A burn is a damage over time that applies it's damage once per round. Successive procs of burns do not stack additional instances of the burn, but rather will add their damage to the current instance and refresh the duration if the newly applied duration is greater than the duration of the current proc. If the damage added is less than the current damage, then the added damage is halved before being added. Otherwise, if the damage added is greater than the current damage, the existing damage is halved before the new damage is added.

Poison: Poison is a flat damage value that applies it's damage once per round. Multiple poisons with different damage and duration values can stack on an opponent, and will all tick and expire independently of each other.

Low Visibility: An enemy or player afflicted with low visibility will have their accuracy and roll bonuses halved.

Hex: This is a stacking debuff (usually applied on attacks from an evil caster) that cause a -1 penalty to the target's d20 rolls to attack or defend (to a minimum of 1). This penalty is immediately cleared if the target rolls a natural 20 on any attack or defense roll before the penalty is applied.

Loot

Every time you win a boss fight you get experience, Xa, and gear. Gear makes just as big (sometimes bigger) a difference in how your character performs in fights as level does, so you want to make sure to equip newly dropped gear. The amount of experience and Xa that you get from a fight are dependent on the level of the boss, while the level of the gear that drops is scaled to your character regardless of the boss level. While soloing is possible with some classes, these bosses weren't really meant to be soloed and it is easy to find yourself in a situation where you are under-geared - in those situations you'll need to party up and run bosses during streams or with friends to gear up enough to start getting wins solo again.

When it comes to the gear that drops, the stats are decided when the name of the armor is generated, and the name can help show what rolls went into the armor.



The prefix roll represents a larger stat roll, and the suffix represents a smaller one. So in the case of "Champion's boots of the Scholarly" the boots would have a large Strength bonus and much smaller bonuses into Intelligence and Wisdom.

There are also a few additional rolls that aren't covered in the graphic - namely Armored/Defensive, Valuable, and Archon armor. Heavily armored gear represents a roll that affected the HP and AC of the armor. Valuable represents a roll that affects the Xa value of the armor if it is sold, and Archon's gear applies the bonus to ALL stats. The value of gear automatically increases if it has any of these rolls or if it has single-stat rolls (Champion's gear, for example) and this increase in value DOES stack. And finally if gear has matching prefix and suffix rolls it becomes "perfect" gear. So for example if a helmet rolled for Knight stats in both the prefix and suffix rolls, instead of being named "Knight's Helmet of the Knight" it would instead be changed to "Knight's Helmet of Perfection".

Common gear can be any mix of rolls.
Uncommon gear has a single-stat or value roll in the suffix.
Rare gear has single-stat or value rolls in the prefix, or is "Perfect" gear.
Epic gear has matching prefix and suffix rolls at max level, and 1.5x stats.

Generally the higher the rarity of the gear the more "focused" the stats of that gear will be. There aren't currently any plans to allow trading between players, but I have been working on a gear crafting system that can allow you to go for specific rolls. You are going to get gear thrown at you a lot over the course of lots of boss fights, but I want you to be able to plan and work towards a build goal for your character. For the time being if you're interested in crafting your own gear it's best to hold on to gear that has the rolls you want (rather than selling it).

Classes

Just a quick note about classes - they are balanced for a system of play that includes other encounters that aren't in the game yet and are meant to be varied to offer something for everyone regardless of player preference. Right now bosses are just Group vs Solo Boss, but you'll find some classes will really shine in Group vs Group scenarios and some will be good in Solo vs Solo scenarios. Some are meant to synergize well with random party members, some are meant to synergize best when in a coordinated effort with a pre-made party. Some classes are designed to reward heavy investment into a single class, and some are designed to be better for multi-classing. I'll leave that up to you to discover for now.

Worth mentioning is that I do have plans for "legendary" items that will change how a class is played and "unique" classes with interesting/hidden ways of unlocking them. The code for a lot of this is mostly done, but I wanted to mention that not all of the class-affecting mechanics are in the game yet. I'm intending to release them once enough people have worked their way to level cap that I can start getting a good look at game balance.

I am also planning on having dropped items that will allow you to re-spec but am just settling on values for it now. Expect to see more info about that soon.

Achievements

There are several achievements associated with the bossfight system so far. They are:

• Boss Killer: Defeat your first boss
• Big Mimicry: Defeat a Giant Mimic on Floor 10
• IMPOSSIBLE!: Defeat Gauntlys on Floor 15 while the level cap is 10.
• Capped: Raise your total character level to 10
• MAXXED: Equip a full set of level 10 epic gear on a level-capped character
• Do-Gooder: Reach level cap with only good-aligned classes
• Baddie: Reach level cap with only evil-aligned classes

Several of those achievements have world-first achievements associated with them as well for the first player to unlock them. Have suggestions for any more achievements? Feel free to send them to me.