Weapons

Every weapon in the game goes on a mitten, and every mitten has two buttons' worth of behavior: a click and a hold. The equipment window's card tells you which is which for whatever you are holding.

Swinging

A sword, dagger, cudgel, wrench, sickle, club, axe, mace or blade all swing the same way -- the staff does too, for less -- see Staves.

• Click for a quick swipe. Everything in the arc ahead takes a blow, props are batted away, and a bridge tie-off the blade sweeps through is cut.
• Hold to charge a bash: the blade goes up over the shoulder. Let go to chop for a multiple of the swipe's damage and knockback, scaled by how long you charged -- and a full charge floors the target outright.

A dropped weapon's rolled damage and knockback come on top of the base swing, so a Rare axe with a good damage affix genuinely hits harder than a plain sword. See Equipment.

The swipe is predicted on your own machine the instant you press, so the blade turns, the whoosh plays and the camera leans without waiting for the server -- and the swing is only ever seen once.

	Item	Kind	Buttons	What it is
	Sword	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to charge a heavy bash. (30 damage)	Steel: a sweep at whatever is ahead.
	Dagger	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to grab what is ahead, let go to throw it. (16 damage)	A thin quick blade. Rogues carry them in pairs, one to a fist.
	Cudgel	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to grab what is ahead, let go to throw it. (20 damage)	An iron-shod club: an honest knock, and mercy afterward.
	Wrench	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to grab what is ahead, let go to throw it. (14 damage)	A heavy spanner, made for bolts. It settles other arguments too.
	Sickle	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to grab what is ahead, let go to throw it. (18 damage)	A curved harvest blade. What it reaps, the circle eats.
	Club	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to charge a heavy bash. (30 damage)
	Axe	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to charge a heavy bash. (30 damage)
	Mace	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to charge a heavy bash. (30 damage)
	Blade	weapon	Click to swipe. hold to charge a heavy bash. (30 damage)

Staves

A plain quarterstaff is a stick: it swipes on the click and grabs on the hold, like a bare mitten. Nothing is bound into it.

An imbued staff is the other kind, and it is a piece of gear like a helmet or an axe -- a base and a seed. It still swipes on the click, but its hold is a cast: charge, release, and one of the simpler spells leaves the mitten along your crosshair. Which spell is part of the roll, the same way an affix is, so two Rods off the same floor can be two different weapons. The staff's name says which: a Rod of Frost casts a ray of frost, a Scepter of Storms chains lightning. A Rare staff takes a two-word name of its own like any other Rare, so read its card instead.

A staff casts for 60% of what the same spell does out of a book, before its own Spell Power.

A staff is not a spellbook and is not meant to replace one: the same bolt out of a staff lands a fraction of what the book's does. What buys that back is the staff's own Spell Power, which is -- with the backpack's Capacity -- one of the two rolled stats the game actually applies. A Rare or Unique staff with a high roll casts near a book's weight and still swings; a plain Rod does not.

The circles, the blinks and the bursts stay with the books. A staff only ever carries something that flies out of the mitten and strikes what it hits.

	Item	Kind	Buttons	What it is
	Staff	staff	Click to swipe. hold to grab what is ahead, let go to throw it. (12 damage)	A quarterstaff: a knock, and a mitten's reach. Nothing is bound into this one -- an imbued staff casts where this grabs.
	Rod	staff	Click to swipe. hold to charge the spell, let go to cast. (12 damage)
	Stave	staff	Click to swipe. hold to charge the spell, let go to cast. (12 damage)
	Scepter	staff	Click to swipe. hold to charge the spell, let go to cast. (12 damage)
	Archstaff	staff	Click to swipe. hold to charge the spell, let go to cast. (12 damage)

The bow

The bow never runs dry. Hold the button to draw -- the mitten comes up to the eye and the string pulls back -- and release to loose along your aim. A tap is a lob; a full draw is full speed. The shot drops over distance, so distant targets need lift.

What it looses depends on your belt. With no quiver at all it looses a basic arrow: free, endless, and a sting rather than a wound. With a quiver on the belt it looses that quiver's type, one arrow off the stack per shot, and destroys the quiver with its last arrow.

Arrow types

The quiver decides. A quiver's arrows all do the same thing, and it is the thing past the damage that matters.

Basic

What the bow looses with nothing on your belt. Free and endless, and it stings rather than wounds. It exists so that a ranger who has run out is still a ranger -- you are never disarmed, only weakened.

Normal

The plain arrow, and the one a ranger starts a full quiver of. No payload, no trick, just the best damage-per-arrow of anything you will have in bulk.

Heavy

Hits like a dropped anvil and throws its victim with it: the most damage and by far the most knockback of anything a quiver holds. A heavy arrow into something standing near a chasm is a legitimate plan.

Fire

The hit itself is modest; the fire is the point. What it strikes burns for several seconds, taking damage on a tick -- and a wizard takes heat on the lifebar with it. A bat caught anywhere in its path catches light, and becomes a fire bat.

Bomb

The touch is small and the blast is the payload -- a fireball in miniature, damage falling off from the center to the rim, with a shove that throws props. The one arrow that does not need to hit its target: put it at their feet.

Thunder

The touch is small and the chain is the payload: the strike shocks every enemy within its radius, however many there are, each for the full amount. Against one target it is the worst arrow in the quiver. Against six it is the best.

The shield

The warrior's offhand, and the only thing in the game that turns a blow away without moving you.

Hold its mitten's button to raise it. It comes up the instant the button goes down -- a quick tap is the shield bash instead -- and it stays up as long as the button is held. While it is up, any blow that comes at your front -- within an arc of your facing -- and that its source marked as blockable is turned: no damage, no stagger, just a knock backward.

What it costs is stamina, in proportion to the damage turned. And the block that empties the bar breaks the guard: you are staggered, the shield drops, and it stays down until the winded rule lets you use stamina again. Holding the button through the break brings it back up the moment it can.

What a shield does not stop: the spikes, standing in a fire, a cloud you are inside of, the pit -- anything with no bearing to face. It is a shield, not immunity. Click the shield's button to bash with it.

Shield

shield

A round shield. Held up, whatever comes at you from the front is turned aside, off your stamina; run the bar dry and you reel.

• Click to punch
• Hold to raise the shield