Melee

The term, melee refers to combat performed in close range. Typically, the skills that are considered melee skills are Blunt Weapons, Brawling, Edged Weapons, Polearm Weapons, and Two-Handed Weapons. In fact, the only weapon skills that are not melee weapon skills are Ranged Weapons and Thrown Weapons, which are both considered ranged attacks.

Attack Strength

The attack strength of a melee attack is a relatively simple calculation.

Attack strength = Weapon Skill + STR Bonus + Weapon Enchantment + Spells

There are many spells and abilities that can provide a bonus to attack strength. The societies, the Council of Light and the Order of Voln increase attack strength through the signs or symbols they teach their members. Additionally, Spirit Strike (117), Bravery (211), Heroism (215), Elemental Targetting (425), Strength (509), Phoen's Strength (606), Empathic Focus (1109), Dauntless (1606), and others provide a bonus to attack strength. Certain spells or abilities will hinder one's attack strength, such as the Cheap Shots maneuver, Templeshot, and Elemental Focus (513) (which lowers physical attack strength, but raises magical attack strength).

Defensive Strength

Melee defensive strength and ranged defensive strength are both calculated differently. Melee DS is calculated by combining all three elements of the evade/block/parry system.

Evade

Main article: Evade

Evading attacks are attempts to outright dodge them. A moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one, and therefore, being more skilled in dodging and evasion increases defensive strength.

Base Dodge = Dodge Ranks + (Agility Bonus) + (Intuition Bonus ÷ 4)

Stance Modifier = 0.75 + (Stance ÷ 4)

Dodge DS = Base Dodge × Stance Modifier × Shield Penalty × Armor Hindrance

Training in Dodging increases evasion defensive strength by 1 per rank, minus a penalty if the character is wearing armor or holding a shield. The penalties for armor are half the armor's action penalty in percentage. The penalties for carrying a shield are 20% for a small shield, 30% for a medium shield, 40% for a large shield, and 50% for a tower or wall shield, thus, it is better for a character fairly skilled in Dodging to use a smaller shield. Although, all defensive strength granted from skill in dodging is negated by ailments that completely stop a target's movement, such as from the spells Bind (214) or Web (118).

Block

Main article: Block

Blocking attacks refers to the use of a shield, and therefore, in order to benefit from this portion of the EBP system, the character must possess a shield in his or her left hand.

Base DS bonus = (Shield Ranks + (STR bonus ÷ 4) + (DEX Bonus ÷ 4)) ÷ (1.5)

Stance Modifier = 0.5 + (Stance ÷ 2)

Final DS bonus = Base DS bonus × Stance Modifier × (1.0 + Shield Size Modifier) + 20 + Shield enchant

A medium shield has no modifier. Small shields reduce the overall benefit of the shield use skill by 15%, where large shields increase the benefit by 15% and tower shields increase the benefit by 30%. All shields impact evade negatively, making characters skilled in dodge better suited to using small shields.

Generally, a shield gives a +20 bonus to defensive strength, plus the enchant of the shield, plus 67% of their ranks in the Shield Use skill.

Parry

Main article: Parry

Parrying is the act of actively deflecting incoming attacks using your own weapon. This is the most stance dependent of evade, block, and parry, where only 20% of your skill is applied while in an offensive stance, although only 70% is applied to defense in a full defensive stance (50% of your skill is still applied offensively in a defensive stance).

Primary Hand DS = (Weapon Skill + (STR Bonus ÷ 4) + (DEX Bonus ÷ 4)) × Stance Modifier × 1.5 (if two-handed) + (Stance × 25)

Off-Hand DS = (TWC Skill + (STR Bonus ÷ 4) + (DEX Bonus ÷ 4)) × (Stance Modifier ÷ 2) + 5 (or 15 if sai or main gauche)

Stance Modifier = 0.20 + Stance ÷ 2

Characters that use weapon skills that require both hands make up slightly for the loss of defense of not having a shield by either receiving a 50% bonus to parry DS from using a two-handed weapon, or by the addition of the off-hand parry DS. However, since parry DS is ignored when defending against a ranged attack, characters without shields are at a disadvantage against ranged attackers, although runestaves are magically enchanted to be a factor when parrying ranged attacks.

External Links

• Combat Guide: Combat Factors, on Play.net