Shortcut preparations

Some final preparations are in order before you go into battle. You’ll want to have any special attacks for your weapon, and your first aid equipment, readily available. The first aid equipment (First Aid Kit if on Rubi-Ka, Health Spindle if in Shadowlands) is in your inventory, and is put on the shortcut bar like other items.

The special attacks are located on the action menu, in the sub-menu “Attack Actions”. Special attacks are added to the shortcut bar in the same manner as nano programs; move the mouse pointer over them, hold down the left mouse button to pick up the action, move it to the shortcut bar and release the mouse button.

All special attacks can also be accessed by hotkeys on the keyboard, if you prefer not to fill your shortcut bar with them. You can find these, and other keyboard hotkeys, in the Using the keyboard chapter in the manual.

Choosing an opponent

You’ll want to locate a creature of no higher level than yourself for your first battle. To determine a creature’s approximate level, target it and look at its health bar which will show at the top of the screen. If it’s yellow, the creature is the same level as you. If it’s green, or somewhere between green and yellow, the creature is lower level than yourself. If it’s red, or anywhere between red and yellow, the creature is higher level than you.

You can check the exact level of the creature by opening an Information Window about it. You can do this by either pressing t on the keyboard while having the creature targeted, or by holding shift and left-clicking the creature.

Note that you may not attack other player characters in the training facilities, and in most other areas.

Health and first aid

During combat, you should always pay attention to your own health bar. This is the red bar on the left-hand side of the screen, just above the left-hand menu. If this one is emptied, you die. Death isn’t fatal on Rubi-Ka though. More about that in the next chapter.

One way to restore health during combat is first aid equipment. First aid typically restore only a small amount of health, though it’s often the difference between life and death. To use a first aid item on yourself, target yourself and activate the shortcut for the item. You’ll gain a small amount of health back (twice if you’re using Shadowlands equipment).

Your opponent’s health can be seen at the top of the screen. You can’t use first aid equipment on opponents, so don’t worry too much about having the wrong target.

Attacking

To start an attack, target your opponent and either press q on the keyboard, perform a special attack (see below), or activate the “start combat” icon on your shortcut bar. While in combat, the health bar and name (the name now being red) of your combat target will always show at the top of your screen, even if you target something else.

Remember to use your special attacks, and first aid equipment if you take more damage than you appreciate. Note that both these have a certain time between each use (e.g. Brawl can only be used every 15 seconds). If you seem to be losing, consider running to a guard nearby for help.

When your opponent’s health bar is empty, it dies, and you’ve won (unless you’re fighting more than one opponent). You gain Experience (XP) and can loot the corpse of your opponent. More about that in the next chapters.