Fights

Locks on elites

From Act II, a pack's first elite, Champion or Warleader wears a lock, written as a line of words under its health bar. While it is locked the body takes only a fraction of the damage from everyone (35% in Acts II and III, 20% in Acts IV and V, 10% from Pyre I on). Answer its question and the lock opens: the body is Broken, helpless for a few seconds and taking 30% more damage, and then it locks again. A Champion pack shares one lock, so opening it on one opens it on all. Bosses, mini-bosses and Heralds never wear a lock.

• Acts II and III roll only Stone Skin and Warded, Acts IV and V add Possessed, and Cursed waits for Pyre I and Heat.
• Stone Skin opens after 3 payoff hits from a hero, at most one a second. The cracks show as pips.
• Possessed winds up in yellow every 8 seconds. Its Poise fills twice as fast during the wind-up, so a payoff, an interrupt, a stun or a few stagger hits break it.
• Cursed casts a blue curse every 7 seconds at a hero in sight. A hero's interrupt, a hard control or a payoff during the cast opens it.
• Warded carries a ward of fire, cold, lightning worth 40% of its health. Hits wear it down 2 times as fast with its own element and 0.5 times as fast with anything else, and a Break shatters it.
• Left alone, a locked body mends while no hero has hit it for 5 seconds, so waiting for your sellswords to do it never works.

A pack's leader also wears an aura you can read on its line: Might (packmates hit 30% harder), Conviction (the party nearby takes 20% more damage) or Holy Freeze (the party nearby is chilled).

Your hands lead

• Nothing swings by itself. On a phone the attack button holds your main attack, on a mouse you hold the left click on a foe, and on a pad you hold A. Stop pressing and your hero stops attacking.
• Your own hits power your gear. The on-hit powers from gear, the Brand, legendaries, uniques and talents fire from hits you press: your skills and your held attack. Damage ticks, other powers, free casts, summons and pets don't set them off.
• Sellswords support. They no longer make foes tougher by joining you. On a lock wearer, an elite, a Champion, a Warleader, a Herald, a boss, or a pack's healer and leader, your sellswords, pets and summons together may deal only about 30% of the recent damage (40% while the body is Broken), so the finishing is yours.
• Only you open a lock. A sellsword's, pet's or summon's hit never cracks Stone Skin, chips a ward or fills Poise on a locked body, and a sellsword's interrupt is refused on a Cursed cast.

Hits always land, big moves commit

Every attack lands. A roll that comes up under the foe's Armor Class is a graze that does 40% of the damage, a natural 1 always grazes for 50%, and a natural 20 crits with a golden dice pop. Your class's big payoff moves never graze. A foe's rolled blows reach you the same way: armour turns a full hit into a graze, so Armor Class is how often a blow only grazes you. The Fall and Hearthold's siege keep their old hit-or-miss rolls.

Big moves commit. A payoff skill (0.6 seconds), or a big hit on a cooldown of 12 seconds or more (up to 0.8 seconds), winds up first, shown as a yellow bar over your head. You can't move or swing while it fills, nothing is spent until it fires, and a stun or a silence lets it go. Channels, drawn shots, dashes, buffs, heals and summons stay instant. Sellswords and monsters never wind up this way.

Every hero has a Dash. Space, L3 on a controller, a flick of the stick or the Dash button on a phone: a short hop with 2 charges that come back one at a time every 4 seconds. You are untouchable for the hop, and pressing it during a wind-up cancels it with nothing spent.

Your class's own dashes do the same. Cunning Dash, Step of the Wind, Misty Step, Tempest Step, Leaping Slam, Radiant Charge, Called Shot, Bull Rush, Grave Charge and every other dash carry you through blows untouched for their whole flight (at least 0.3 seconds) and cancel a wind-up too. Each keeps its own cooldown. Dash Haste brings every dash back sooner: the "of Quickstep" gear line, and 2.5% for every 1% dodge, up to 50% off.

Two verbs for every class

Every class has two verbs. A primer (one kind of move) lays a keyword on a foe, shown as a chip on its frame. The class's payoff consumes it: that hit lands harder, and the cast gives a little of your resource back. A foe holds one keyword at a time, a new primer replaces it, and it fades after 8 seconds. A payoff never primes, so one button alone can't do both, and the hit that consumes a keyword lays nothing. For most classes a hero's payoff also leaves the foe Vulnerable (taking 20% more damage) for four seconds. Sellswords use the same verbs, inside the support share above.

• A Rogue finisher under 2 Malice is weak, so builders come first; a builder on a Marked foe gives an extra Malice.
• A Monk repeating the same move strikes softer.
• A Barbarian's payoff is any strike pressed at Peak Rage; below it, the Rage you carry buys a share of the bonus.
• A Ranger's shot loosed past 70% of a Full Draw pays 60% of the bonus.
• A Paladin's Hammerwheel and Sunward Disc build no Oathlight, and for six seconds after an Oathmaul the wheel keeps every hammer.

Bosses fight in rounds

The five act bosses fight from a script, in rounds. Each phase (the first from the start, the second below 66% health, the third below 33%) goes round a loop of three beats: adds pour in; a move only you can answer comes; then a window opens in which the boss takes full damage. Outside the window it takes 40% of every blow, and it can't be pushed past its next phase line until you have earned a window, so a party in any gear needs at least two.

• The answers. Stand in the ring with your party, cut down the marked chanters (only your own blows hurt them), interrupt a blue cast, or break a yellow guard. The early phases ask for something any class can do; the class answers come in the last phase.
• Sellswords can't answer. Their interrupts and payoffs don't count on a boss's move.
• Missed it? The boss mends a little, its adds or the boss itself grow stronger, or a missed ring blasts everyone for 15 to 20% of their health. A miss never ends the fight by itself.
• Don't dawdle. From round 6 the boss grows Stoked, a stack a round of extra damage and speed, and the arena begins to burn the party. A fight nobody answers ends in a wipe, not a stall.
• The strip under the boss bar shows the phase, the three beats with the live one filling, the next step and its countdown, and Stoked or Unyielding when they apply.
• Two in the ring. Some rings need two bodies inside when they land, and you must be one of them: a sellsword (one walks in by itself), your pet or a partner is the other. With nobody at your side the ring takes you alone, but the boss is Unmatched, 15% fiercer, for the rest of the phase.
• Last light. Each act boss has a round where it burns at its last light: a white fuse, then the boss at full Stoked and the room burning twice as hot. The strip counts it down from 2 rounds before. Grukk gives you the most rounds, Vhoruun the fewest.
• Recommended Power. Each act boss's dungeon card shows the Power it expects of your class against yours, red when you are well under, gold when you are at or over. A warning, never a gate.
• Featured drops. Each act boss's own legendary is on its dungeon's card, along with the odds of Ember runes.

Other bosses (dungeon bosses, vault guardians, the Crowned) keep their shuffled special decks. Their stats are on the Bosses page.