Guide

Combat and skills

How fighting works, how the weapon picks your job, and how to raise skills, use auto modes and come back from death.

Combat in Embervale is real time. You lock a target, swing or shoot, and fire skills from your skill bar. Your weapon decides which skills you have.

Attacking

• Lock a target with a left-click or Tab. Its name, level and health show at the top of the screen.
• Press E or Space (or the swords button) to attack. Melee weapons chain a four-hit combo, and the last blow hits hardest.
• Right-click an enemy to walk up to it and attack.
• Every hit can be a critical (75% more damage) or a penetrating hit, which ignores the target's defence.

A monster's name is coloured by its level compared with the level of the weapon in your hands:

Monsters more than 5 levels above your weapon deal 10% more damage for each extra level, up to three times their normal damage. Orange monsters knock you down 15% of the time and red ones 30%, against 4% for the rest. See Levels and experience for how the experience cut works.

Jobs: the weapon decides

There are eight jobs in four groups. Whatever weapon you equip puts you on its job, with that job's six skills. Each job keeps its own weapon level, experience and skill points, so you can raise several jobs on one hero.

To change job, open the bag (I) and equip a weapon of another kind. You can't unequip your weapon without equipping another. The first time you take up a job, its first skill is learned for you. Every skill is listed on the jobs page.

Stats

Open the Hero window (C) to spend stat points. You get 4 when you start and 4 more for each character level: one at each quarter of the level and one when it completes.

• STR: melee damage, defence and penetration chance.
• VIT: health.
• INT: magic damage and mana.
• DEX: movement speed, attack speed and critical chance.

Skills, mana and cooldowns

Skills sit on keys 1 to 4, F1 and F2. Each costs mana and then cools down; the button darkens and counts down the seconds. A skill that hurts enemies can't be cast inside a town.

Mana comes back slowly in a fight and faster out of it. Health only comes back when you're not fighting. Blue Dew Potions restore mana and Red Herb Potions restore health; click or right-click a potion in the bag to drink it.

Raising skills

Open the Skills window (K). Each skill climbs through four grades.

You earn one skill point for each weapon level of that job, plus 2 to start.

When a skill reaches the top of a grade, the To Master (and later To Grand Master, To Supreme Master) button lifts it into the next grade with Soul Stones. It never fails. Leaving Normal takes 1 Soul Stone, leaving Master takes 2, and leaving Grand Master takes 3.

At Master and Grand Master, each level needs as many successful book readings as the current level: one reading to go from M1 to M2, nine to go from M9 to M10. Press Read book to try.

• A plain book takes 60% of the time. A golden book takes 35% of the time.
• The book is used up either way.
• After any reading, the skill rests for 30 minutes. A Scroll of Clarity ends the rest at once (Use scroll).

Every level a skill gains, across all grades, adds 10% damage, 3% to what it grants (buffs, shields, healing), and cuts its cooldown by 1.5%, up to 45% off.

Books and Soul Stones come from curse stones and bosses (see Curse stones and bosses). Soul Stones and Scrolls of Clarity are also sold in the item shop.

Resetting skills: Mira Path in Embervale returns the skill points of your current job for 100 silver100 for every level of that job. Skills past Normal get their ten Normal points back, but the books and Soul Stones used on them are lost.

Auto and Full auto

Press Z or the AUTO button to cycle through three modes:

• OFF: you do everything.
• ON: your hero keeps attacking what comes within reach.
• FULL: your hero guards the ringed area where you turned it on. It fights what enters, uses your skills, picks up drops and returns to the centre when it's clear.

Full auto spends Autoplay Time. When the gauge runs dry, it drops back to ON. The gear button above AUTO opens the Full auto options:

• Skills it may use: switch each learned skill on or off. Fear and Stealth are never used automatically.
• Follow the party leader: your hero copies the leader of your party while you share a map. It never changes map by itself.
• Always Auto-Revive: uses a Revive Potion by itself when you fall.

See While you're away for the gauge and offline play.

Death and revival

When your health reaches zero, the You have fallen screen opens.

If you don't touch anything, Revive to Nearest City is chosen for you after 20 seconds. With Always Auto-Revive ticked and a potion in the bag, a potion is used as soon as Revive Here opens.

Either way, there is a 50% chance to lose 5% of a level's worth of experience on the weapon you hold. You never lose a level.

Revive Potions cost 8 silver8 from general traders (up to 3 a day) or 1 gold coin1 in the item shop.

Luck: toss a copper coin into a fountain (press F next to it). Half the time you get Good Luck, which lowers the death penalty chance to 25%. The other half you get Bad Luck, which raises it to 75%. Either lasts 24 hours, and you can't toss again until it ends.