Combat Skills
12 ways to fight and survive
Overview
Combat skills are leveled by dealing damage, taking damage, or surviving falls. They offer Damage, Critical Chance, Lifesteal, and Defense rewards, and every weapon skill also unlocks hotbar-castable active abilities as you level.
Weapon Skills
Swords
Longswords and one-handed swords. Balanced damage and crit bonuses.
Daggers
Daggers, claws, kunai. High crit chance, fast attacks, strong lifesteal.
Polearms
Spears and halberds. Reach weapons with balanced offense/defense.
Staves
Bo staffs and melee staves. THE melee mana class - massive mana potential (345+).
Axes
Axes and battleaxes. High raw damage, good health bonuses.
Blunt
Clubs and maces. The highest health bonuses of any weapon skill, alongside the same flat-then-percentage damage progression every weapon skill shares.
Archery
Bows, crossbows, blowguns, and arrows/darts. Stamina-focused ranged tree with damage, crit, and health bonuses.
Magic
Wands and spellbooks. The spellcaster's path - the deepest mana reserves of any skill (390+) alongside damage and crit bonuses.
Artillery
Bombs and guns. Damage and crit-focused tree with health and stamina bonuses.
Unarmed
Fighting without weapons. Balanced offensive rewards.
Combat Abilities
Every weapon skill grants hotbar-castable abilities and triggered passives through its skill tree (ABILITY_UNLOCK rewards), capped off by a level-100 capstone passive. See Abilities for the full roster and how casting works.
Damage Schools
Abilities and native damage carry an optional damage school (a Cause). Six schools exist: Fire and Ice are native Hytale causes; Lightning, Water, Arcane, and Void are MMO-authored sub-types of the vanilla Elemental cause. A hit with no school falls back to Physical.
Lightning has no abilities yet
The skill tree can grant School Resist (SCHOOL_RESIST) nodes: permanent resistance to one school, stacking across claimed nodes and surviving a relog or world-hop. School Resist nodes are owner-config only; a content pack cannot ship them.
Defensive Skills
Defense
Labeled "Block" in-game. Leveled by taking damage from any source. Offers Defense, Health, and Fall Reduction rewards.
Acrobatics
Leveled by sprinting, swimming, and sticking safe landings (including surviving dangerous falls). Specializes in Fall Reduction (up to 60%) and Stamina.
Looking for Taming? It is a Misc skill that ships disabled and turns on only when Alec's Animal Husbandry is installed. See Production Skills.
Gear and Combat Stats
Beyond the skill tree, an item's Armor or Weapon block can grant combat stats directly (per-skill damage, crit chance, crit multiplier, lifesteal, combo damage, and per-school damage bonuses), with zero plugin code. See Gear Stats for the full authoring reference.
Material Tiers
Weapon material affects XP earned per hit:
| Tier | Materials | XP |
|---|---|---|
| Common | Crude, Copper, Tribal | 5-6 |
| Uncommon | Iron, Bronze, Scrap | 7-9 |
| Rare | Cobalt, Adamantite, Thorium | 20-32 |
| Epic | Mithril, Onyxium | 45-55 |
| Legendary | Flame, Void, Spectral | 55-70 |
This table is the site's single owner for combat material tiers; the Skills Overview page links here instead of repeating it.
Skill Tree Rewards
Combat skills offer:
- Damage - Deal more damage
- Critical Chance - Chance for 1.5x damage
- Lifesteal - Heal on hit
- Defense - Take less damage
- Health - More survivability
- Mana - For magical combat (Staves, Magic)
Combat Notifications
Toggle combat effect notifications in Settings. Critical hits and level-ups float as colored text over your character; the rest stay as corner notifications.
- CRIT! - Critical hit, floats in red
- +X.X - Lifesteal heal amount
- Blocked X% - Damage reduction
