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An overview of the fundamentals of combat in Mordhau.
Most of this information is also available in the combat tutorial, but in a more simpler way.
Basics
You can get an overview of the default keybinds on the Controls article.
Health
Your health bar (red) has 100 hit points. All players have the same amount of health, but some loadouts have heavier armor than others, which reduces damage taken. The perks "Tank" and "Dwarf" also reduce and increase damage taken respectively. Running out of health will kill you.
When you kill an enemy, you gain 25 health back. Having the Bloodlust perk gives you full health on kill.
Stamina
Your stamina bar (yellow) has 100 points. All players have the same amount of stamina, but some weapons cost more stamina to use than others. Running out of stamina will disarm you when you attempt to parry or chamber.
When you hit an enemy, you gain 10 stamina back. Having the Second Wind perk gives you 3 extra stamina back for each hit. When you kill an enemy, you gain 25 stamina back. Having the Fury perk gives you full stamina on kill.
When an enemy becomes low on stamina, they will start grunting, giving you an audible cue that they are close to being disarmed.
Regeneration
Stamina & Health will regenerate if you walk, crouch or stand still after 5 seconds (Stamina will start healing sooner). Running, damage, or any actions that require the use of stamina will stop the regen. Jumping will prevent regeneration from starting, but will not stop it if it has already started.
Insert Gif of the Health and Stamina bar regenning..
Movement
There are various forms of movement and related mechanics in Mordhau.
Jumping
Costs 10 stamina, which can be reduced by 50% using the Acrobat perk. Jumping at a climbable wall will pull your character over the wall. Jumping is useful in combat for dodging swings aimed at your feet (ex. footdrags, underhand accels) or forcing a leg hit
Crouching
Crouching will make you move slightly slower than walking speed. This speed can be increases using the Rat perk. Crouching can be used for Matrixing techniques.
Lunge
Lunge is a very short forward dash (a lunge) that occurs when your attack enters release while you are moving forwards. Lunge also triggers on combo attacks.
Chase Mechanic
This mechanic gives you a much faster running speed when chasing an enemy as long as you're staring directly at them. It is impossible to outrun a player who is using this mechanic.
Footwork
Footwork is a series of movements that are designed to give you the upper hand when dueling against an opponent.
Offense
Melee Attacks
240 vs Binds vs Hybrid, link to a more expanded article about Attack Phases, Stamina Drain, Alt modes, Heavy Weapon Debuff, Hitstop, Flinch, Tracers, Miss Cost, Knockback
Ranged Attacks
There are quite a few different types of ranged attacks in Mordhau, all of them unique in speed, amount, damage, and so on. The Longbow, Crossbow, Recurve Bow, Rocks, Throwing Knives, and Throwing Axes are all ranged weapons that can only be used at some sort of range. Some melee weapons, however, may be used in an alt mode to create a ranged attack, such as the Arming Sword or the Carving Knife, by throwing them at your opponent. Certain weapons allow the player to unscrew the pommel of the weapon and throw it, such as the Longsword. It deals pathetic damage with a very sluggish windup and is rather a taunt than anything effective.
Kicks
Kicks are extremely fast short range attacks, best used as defensive interrupts. Pressing F will start a kick, costing 10 stam on a miss, gaining 10 stam on a hit, and reducing your opponent's stamina by 10.
Kicks are best used defensively vs opponents that aggressively maintain facehug. Kick them during their attack windup, and you will sway the fight in your favor.
You can also kick midair, performing a jump kick. Simply Jump forward, then Kick. Your character will continue travelling forward, sending a slower and unfeintable kick. Jump kicks are far less useful than normal kicks, since you cannot feint them, but they can still be relevant in the right scenarios.
Combos
See Combo Feint to Parry
Morphs
Morphs are performed by inputting a stab during strike windup, or inputting a strike during stab windup. This "morphs" your attack into a different attack, useful for baiting out parries or chambers, at the cost of 7 stamina. You can morph out of a chamber, and you can morph to a kick. Generally, you want to morph as late as possible. The morph window is smaller than the feint window, so morphs are easier to read.
Morph Feinting is when you feint your morph (ex. stab, morph to overhead, feint the overhead). This is most often used as a counter to a technique called "Chamber FTP". This mixup is very hard to read, but costs the stamina cost of both morphs and feints.
Feints
Feints are performed by pressing Q during windup. This pulls your weapon back to a neutral state, and is useful for baiting out parries, at the cost of 10 stamina. You can feint during any windup, meaning swings, stabs, Morphs, chambers, and Kicks can all be feinted. Generally, you want to feint as late as possible. The Feint Window is open until the last 50ms of windup.
Swing Manipulation
Swing Manipulation is a key element to fighting in Mordhau, the two most common ways of manipulating your weapons are drags or accels. Dragging your weapon causes it to move slower, forcing your enemy to parry early enough to be hit at the end of the strike. Accels are attacks that are faster than your opponents ability to react and parry, causing them to parry too late and be hit. These attacks can be alternated to mix up your opponent so they don't know what the expect, which allows for more consistent hits to land. For more advanced information on Swing Manipulation, just follow the link!
Defense
Parrying
Parrying blocks all incoming attacks in front of you. Right clicking instantly raises your parry for a third of a second.
diagram showing the parrybox and extended parry
Shields
Held mode vs Parry, Increased Parry Window.
Ripostes
A "Riposte" is when you click any swing button immediately after parrying an opponents attack, including parry's from any form of projective. "Ripostes" give you the quickest form of attacking the opponent immediately after parrying, stopping them from being able to gamble on you. During a "Riposte" you are unable to feint due to there being no initial windup window like a standard attack, meaning that once you "Riposte" you are fully committed to the attack from the beginning. "Ripostes" also give you the 'Hyper-Armour' which means that you are unable to be staggered during the full release period of your attack. This means that if somebody hits you or you take any form of damage during your "Riposte" you will carry on with the swing until it is fully completed. Allowing you to swing through opponents attacks. This can be very useful during 1vX scenarios because with multiple people swinging at you, you are able to just take a hit whilst also attack other people causing your stamina to regen whilst also hopefully killing the person. "Ripostes" are also unable to be morphed. At higher level play drags and accels are incorporated with the "Riposte" to throw off the opponents parry timings and to make their attacks harder to read.
Clashes
Forcing clashes
Initiative
Initiative is the concept of alternating offense and defense. While Mordhau is a real time game, combat flows back and forth, as each player "takes turns" attacking and defending. This happens because after an opponent parries or chambers you, there is a short period where you cannot input an attack, but they can; meaning, if they attack ASAP after blocking, and you attack ASAP after getting blocked, they will hit you first 100% of the time unless something happens to delay their attack (ex. feinting). This creates "turns", the concept of initiative. Initiative is not an absolute rule, rather a framework for looking at combat.
Initiative can be stolen. If your opponent swings, you Chamber, and they feint, they are now forced to parry or eat your hit. This is one example of stealing initiative. Another is kicking a player in windup.
As a rule of thumb, if you Parry, Chamber, or land a Kick, you have initiative. Initiative is a blurry concept when more than two players are involved, so stealing initiative becomes crucial.
Gambling
When fighting with an opponent who has the initiative, gambling is when you strike to steal the initiative from them because you believe you can land a hit first. There are times when gambling can be good or bad. A good time to gamble would be if you notice your opponent is Feinting pretty consistently, you might think that you can land a hit. A bad time to do this would be if your opponent is actively swinging, they'll hit you because their swing was already being committed when you tried to seize the initiative.
The term "gambling" can also refer to a more general definition, being any action or tactic that "rolls dice", is dominantly random, 50/50, or not significantly in your favor. Some players may accuse others of "gamble parrying" (sometimes called "fake reading"), essentially accusing them of guessing when or if to parry an attack or feint.
However, before considering using these terms, please consider that Mordhau is a very liquid game, and nothing is ever 100%. A failed defense is a failed defense, a successful defense is a successful defense, no matter if it was a guess or not. Improving your ability to read is not as simple as reaching 100% consistency against any given offense. Nobody is 100% consistent, no defense is definitive, guessing will occasionally be necessary. If you need to guess more often than not against a very strong opponent and you win anyways, you remain the stronger combatant.
Perks
Talk about the various Perks and talk about how useful it is to have them.
Support Roles/Items
Horses
Describe and link to expanded Horses article.
Other vehicles
Catapult, Ballista, Mortar
Engineer
Structures, Toolbox, Wooden Mallet, Blacksmiths Hammer, also mention Poleaxe being able to repair.
Healing Items
Bandages, Medic Bags, and helping your team.
Bear Traps
How to hide, where to place, link to the Bear Trap item.
Instruments
Talk about the Lute I guess?
Advanced
Miss Detector, Spin Reductor, Conditioning, Timestops, Mindgames?