Combat Basics
You fight with four weapons: swords, axes, wands and bows. Swords and axes are melee and work on players and monsters. Wands and bows are ranged and only hurt monsters. This page covers base damage, crits, how melee swings work and where to read your own numbers.
Weapon tiers
A sword and an axe of the same tier have the same base damage. What sets them apart is their enchants and trims.
| Tier | Sword or axe | Wand | Bow | Level to use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wood | 2.40 | 0.85 | 1.23 | 1 |
| Gold | 2.91 | 1.03 | 1.48 | 30 |
| Iron | 3.83 | 1.35 | 1.94 | 60 |
| Diamond | 4.95 | 1.74 | 2.50 | 100 |
| Netherite | 5.31 | 1.87 | 2.68 | 102 and Ascension II |
The level column is for swords and axes. A worn weapon hits as hard as a fresh one: durability never lowers damage. Gear & Armour covers where each tier comes from and how to level it.
Critical strikes
Every player starts with a 5% chance to crit, and a crit deals +50% damage. Enchants, jewels and the Hunter Tree raise both.
Increased and more
- Increased bonuses add together into one pool. Two 20% increased sources give 40%.
- More bonuses multiply. Two 20% more sources give 44%.
Ailments & Combat Keywords explains Shock, Poison, Ignite, Bleed, Low Life, Leech and the other words on your items.
Melee
Combat is 1.8 style. There is no attack cooldown, so every click swings at full damage, and there are no sweep attacks.
Against monsters, melee has three extras. None of them apply to a hit on a player.
- Hold to swing. Hold right click with a sword or axe and you keep swinging. With AncientsMod you can hold left click. On Bedrock, hold the attack button.
- A missed swing still lands. If nothing is under your crosshair, the swing hits the nearest monster in front of you.
- Melee attack speed. Each monster and boss has its own melee hit cooldown for you. Melee attack speed shortens it. It comes from the Hunter Tree, sword and axe jewel lines and the Rampage axe enchant.
Hold to swing and the nearest-monster swing both stop while you are combat tagged from a fight with a player.
Wands and bows
Wands and bows never damage players. Right click fires and holding right click keeps firing. Each shot spends Ancient Energy stored on the weapon, so no arrows are needed. They hit less per shot than a sword, shoot faster, and keep you out of reach.
Wands & Bows has the energy cost per shot. Their enchants are on Wand Enchants and Bow Enchants.
Defence
Armour is your damage reduction. Every worn piece adds to it, and it works against players, monsters and bosses.
Your numbers
With AncientsMod, /buffs opens a breakdown of your weapon damage, crit chance, crit multiplier and Armour by source. Without the mod, /buffs prints your pickaxe bonuses in chat.
Fighting other players has its own rules. See PvP Basics.