Combat Basics

“Cut them down without guilt — their last thread is residue, not life, and cutting it is the kindest act left.” — The Seamkeeper’s Codex, the Bestiary of Echoes

Every battle in Ethereal Gate — monster nodes and the world boss alike — resolves through one deterministic round-based engine. The same engine runs in your client for the send-sheet preview, which is why the preview is not an estimate: what it shows is what the server will decide.

The shape of a battle

Each side is a Force:

• Front line — your Vanguard Guardians plus all your troops. The wall. It deals and absorbs most of the damage.
• Rear line — your Mystic Guardians, protected behind the wall, contributing attack every round and a special strike every 3rd round.

Rounds alternate until one side breaks or the round cap (8) is reached.

The damage math (readable version)

Each round, your damage output comes from:

• Troop stacks: count × per-troop attack × tier scaling × synergy × triangle
• Guardians: attack × triangle, plus the rear line’s special burst every third round

Synergy — each Guardian in your formation boosts troops of its own element by +8%. Stack two Earth Guardians with Ancient Guardian troops: +16% on your core stack.

The triangle — Earth → Water → Fire → Earth. Attacking into advantage: +30%. Into disadvantage: −20%. Applied against the defender’s dominant element, so a mixed force is judged by what it’s mostly made of.

How battles end

1. Rout — a side whose remaining strength falls below 15% of its starting strength breaks and the battle ends immediately.
2. Decision — if nobody routs within 8 rounds, the side with more remaining strength wins.

Routing early is dramatically cheaper than losing late — which cuts both ways. Overwhelming force doesn’t just win; it wins cheap.

Casualties: wounded vs dead

• Win: ~85% of your losses are wounded → they go to the Healing Font.
• Loss: only ~55% wounded — defeat kills nearly half your fallen outright.

This asymmetry is the engine’s central lesson: a fight you might lose is a fight you can’t afford. The margin between an 85% recovery and a 55% recovery is your whole army over a bad week.

Guardians in battle

Guardians take part but never die and never need healing — they earn XP from every fight, scaled to enemy power, at full value on a win and 30% on a loss.

The one-line doctrine

Check the preview → confirm your Font has room for the expected wounded → prefer fights the triangle favors → bring five Guardians. In that order, every time.