From Dark and Darker Wiki
Stats | Damage | Spell Restoration | Luck |
Enchantments | Health | Impact Power | Footstep Sound |
Healing | Action/Interaction/Cast Speed | Silence | |
Shield | Looted Handled Supplied | Experience | |
Spells |
Impact Power
All weapon attacks and projectiles have Impact Power which is used for both breaking props and also affects the stagger duration for both the attacker and the blocker when blocked by a shield.
The hilt of a weapon attack (not the handle, but specifically the very bottom of the handle) cannot break any props nor stagger a blocker. Hitting a blocking shield with the hilt will make the attacker stagger for the same duration as if they hit an indestructible wall. For example, a Battle Axe can be blocked on its first attack by blocking where the attacker's hand is as they initiate the swing.
Impact Resistance
Impact Resistance represents the amount of Impact Power that is subtracted from each hit. All destroyable props and shields have Impact Resistance, although some have a resistance of 0.
For example, using a weapon that has 4 Impact Power on a prop/shield that has 1 Impact Resistance results in only 3 Impact Damage being dealt on each hit.
Impact Damage = Impact Power - Impact Resistance
When hitting shields, the resulting Impact Damage determines how long both the blocker and attacker are staggered for. See Blocking
When hitting props, the resulting Impact Damage determines how many hits are needed to destroy the object. See Impact Endurance
Shield Blocking
After subtracting the shield's Impact Resistance, if the resulting Impact Damage is:
- positive, the blocker receives a heavy stagger
- 0, the blocker receives a medium stagger
- negative, the blocker receives a weak stagger
This can be rephrased to simply:
- Impact Power > Impact Resistance, heavy stagger
- Impact Power = Impact Resistance, medium stagger
- Impact Power < Impact Resistance, weak stagger
Blocker Stagger Duration
Each of the shields have various Impact Resistances and Stagger durations when they block an attack.
Buckler:
- Impact Resistance: 6
- Block stagger duration:
- Weak - 0.3s
- Medium - 0.6s
- Heavy - 0.9s
Round Shield:
- Impact Resistance: 4
- Block stagger duration:
- Weak - 0.4s
- Medium - 0.8s
- Heavy - 1.2s
Heater Shield:
- Impact Resistance: 5
- Block stagger duration:
- Weak - 0.5s
- Medium- 0.9125s
- Heavy- 1.5s
Pavise:
- Blocking Power: 6
- Block Animations:
- weak - 0.3s
- mid - 0.5s
- heavy - 1.0s
Attacker Stagger Duration
Additionally, each weapon attack has a different stagger duration that also varies on weak/medium/heavy block, though, most attacks have the same stagger duration for all 3 block differences (weak/medium/heavy). There is still much uncertainty with Attacker Stagger works and is still being researched.
Attacker Combo Interrupt
Usually, an attacker can combo from their Primary Attack 1 into Attack 2 if Attack 1 doesn't hit a static object (like a wall), and Attack 2 can be combo'd into Attack 3.
However, when the defender receives a Weak or a Medium stagger (Impact Power <= Impact Resist), the attacker's combo is interrupted, forcing them back to Attack 1.
If the defender receives a Heavy stagger (Impact Power > Impact Resist), the attacker's combo is not interrupted can be combo'd directly into the next attack. This is seen best with a War Maul when hitting any shield.
Weapon Blocking
Parry
When blocking with a Longsword, Lantern Shield, Frostlight Lantern Shield, or Flute, the defender is able to Parry an incoming attack or projectile (magic included, so long as it is a projectile). After entering the blocking stance, the weapon's entire hitbox becomes Parry-responsive, meaning wherever the incoming attack hits, it counts as a successful Parry. It can be additionally re-triggered into Riposte by Right-Clicking. Parry and Riposte can trigger regardless of the Impact Power of the attacker's weapon.
Riposte
After a successful Parry the defender can trigger a special attack called Riposte. Longsword's Riposte has Special Attack 2-hit Combo (Flute has only one). The first one hitting from slightly above defender's left shoulder to center of their screen/crosshair with the second one being mirrored, starting from right shoulder area. To execute a Riposte, the defender has a small window of opportunity to "release" a previously successful Parry.
This small window is actually the animation of the Blocker Stagger Duration mentioned in Shield Blocking. Since the Riposte Attack can be triggered at any point during this stagger duration, longer stagger durations are not actually detrimental to the defender. In fact, it is beneficial, as it gives a larger window to initiate the Riposte. For example, hits by daggers and other attacks with an Impact Power of 2 make the activation time extremely short and hard to execute a Riposte, as Longsword's Impact Resistance is 3.
Impact Endurance
Impact Endurance represents the health that a destroyable prop has for Prop Breaking.
Dealing 2 Impact Damage (after Impact Resistance subtracts from Impact Power) to a prop with 6 Impact Endurance means the prop will require 3 hits to be destroyed.
Prop Breaking
Impact Power is used to break props in the game.
All props have Impact Endurance (health) and Impact Resistance.
Formula
Hits to destroy prop = ceil(Impact Endurance / (Impact Resistance - Impact Power))
or rather
Hits to destroy prop = ceil(Impact Endurance / Impact Damage)
Example
For example, if a weapon has 3 Impact Power and a prop has 6 Impact Endurance and 1 Impact Resistance:
Impact Damage = Impact Power (3) - Impact Resistance (1) = 2 per hit
Hits to destroy prop = ceil(Impact Endurance (6) / Impact Damage (2)) = 3 hits
Props
Impact Endurance/Impact Resistance:
- Druid's Thorn Barrier = 6/0
- Pots/Vases = 3/0
- Crate = 3/2
- Barrel = 4/2
- Spider Pots
- Spider Pot = 4/0
- Spider Pot#Elite = 6/0
- Spider Pot#Nightmare = 8/0
- Chests (only breakable with Crush/Demolition)
- Wood Large Chests = 5/2
- Simple Medium Chest = 4/1
- Simple Small Chest = 4/1
- Wood Medium Chest = 4/2
- Wood Small Chest = 4/0
- Simple Large Chest = 5/2
- Flat Large Chests = 5/2
- Chests of grade Lion's Head (Marvelous, Golden) or greater cannot be broken
- Doors (only breakable with Crush/Demolition)
- Wooden Double Door = 6/3
- Wooden Door = 2/2
- Barricades
- Wooden Barricade Large = 8/0
- Wooder Barricade Small = 4/0
- Deployed Pavise = 3 for Poor +1 for each rarity / 2
All of the above props are destroyed instantly by Demolition abilities, regardless of Impact Endurance, Resistance, and Power values.
Crush
Barbarian's Crush perk adds +1 Impact Power to all two-handed attacks, and allows the following props to be broken.
The following props can only be broken when the Crush perk is equipped (or by Demolition)
- Doors
- Chests
Demolition
The following abilities can instantly break all props mentioned in Prop Breaking, regardless of Impact Endurance, Resistance, and Power values:
- All Monsters' attacks
- Warlock's
- Hellfire
- Hydra's projectiles
- Wizard's
- Fireball's direct and splash
- Explosion
Note: Some exceptions were recently noted such as Kobold Archer's arrows not instantly breaking doors, even though they have Demolition. Additionally, Fireball doesn't always instantly break all props. Further specifics are still being researched.