Movement and Attacking

## Movement

Movement in the game has certain mechanics that new players need to be aware of. When selecting a hero at turn start, there are two different indicators where a hero can walk. The filled tiles show where the hero can **move**, the hollowed tiles indicate where they can **sprint**. The following mechanics take place:

* a hero can *sprint* after *moving*
* a hero can *sprint* after attacking
* a hero can't *move* after attacking, even if they didn't *move* prior the attack
* the **unbalanced** debuff is applied on heroes after they *sprinted*

Keep in mind that walking diagonally requires more *move* and *sprint* than walking straight. The following examples assume the hero has 0 sprint.

* a hero with 1 move can walk 0 tiles diagonally
* a hero with 2 move can walk 1 tile diagonally
* a hero with 3 move can walk 2 tiles diagonally
* a hero with 4 move can walk 2 tiles diagonally
* a hero with 5 move can walk 3 tiles diagonally
* a hero with 6 move can walk 4 tiles diagonally

Move and sprint are added together when used for one movement action. So a character with 2 move and 1 sprint, like Amras above, can still move 2 diagonal tiles. However, if Amras were to move one square diagonally and stop, he'd be left with just 1 sprint and would not be able to sprint the second diagonal square.

The formula for diagonal movement seems to be

```
**floor(2 \* (move+sprint))/3**

```

so a hero with 6 *move* and 6 *sprint* can walk 8 tiles diagonally.

To move, you need to tap twice on the same tile. The first tap is for selecting the tile and showing which tiles you can attack, the second tap is for conformation.

### Edge Cases

Certain tiles are only reachable if *move* and *sprint* is used at the same time (indicated as bright red). The images demonstrate what happens when *move* (grey blocks) and *sprint* (white blocks) are used individually. Green blocks indicate the hero's position, the red arrows where they move in the examples.

2+1 movement (Amras)2+2 movement (Reynar)2+3 movement (River)3+1 movement3+2 movement
The images show that in most cases, using only move reduces the maximum range. The only exception is when a hero has a multiple of 3 move and moves 45° diagonally.

## Attacking

Attacking works differently depending on your hero's class. Fighters and rogues deal melee damage and can only attack enemies that are adjacent to them, with the exception of the rogue-ability A Thousand Knives, which deals melee damage to all nearby combatants. Archers, mages and priests can deal both ranged and melee damage. However, archers' and mages' melee damage is reduced and they can't use attack-abilities that target adjacent enemies, unless stated otherwise (Dirty Trick). Note that their melee damage is only slightly reduced, so attacking *adjacent* enemies that have high ranged armor but low melee armor could deal more damage than attacking them from distance. Priests are not affected by this damage reduction when performing melee attacks.

When an enemy can be attacked, a red crosshair is displayed, as shown in the image. Should you need to move and then attack, you can view your hero’s attack range when you select the tile you’re considering moving to. The tiles the hero can target will he highlighted in red while enemies in range will have the tile underneath them highlighted in bold red like in the image on the right.

Maximum range behaves similar to maximum movement, with the only difference that a few additional blocks can be hit. For example, **Amras, who has 4 range, can target enemies that are 4.5 tiles away.**

By selecting a hero, you can see their damage and armor, active buffs and debuffs. The color of the damage and armor value indicate whether the value is lower or higher than the *base value*, which is calculated by the base stats and gear of a hero. As shown in the image, River's damage and armor are both shown in green text, because they are higher than the base value. A red text indicates that the damage or armor are lower than the base value.

In addition to buffs and debuffs caused by abilities, permanent class- and armor-abilities are also displayed. Taking River as an example, we can see the buffs that are in effect, represented by white text. Given that Aurai Circlet is grey tells us that its effect is not active, meaning that the condition to grant an additional attack has not been met.
Another important detail are the "+"-signs that indicate how many additional attacks a hero has left. In the case of River, she can attack 3 more times in the turn. Additional attacks are usually granted by abilities like Wings of War, Momentum, Avatar of Gods and gear.

## Targeting Mechanics

As mentioned above, there are additional considerations about your proximity to an opponent (or ally) when attacking or using abilities. Many cards use the terms **adjacent** and **nearby** to determine which combatant is affected by an ability. Adjacent refers to the 8 tiles immediately touching a character (including diagonals). Nearby refers to the 24 squares within two tiles of the character (including diagonals). Spells and abilities that affect an area, and not just a single target, have an icon in either the top right (for attacks) or top left (for buffs) to indicate their areas of effect. See image of Fireball to the right for an example of this.

There is also another key benefit to abilities (in particular, attacks) that affect an area - they do not need to **target** an enemy in order to damage them. Targeting a character means using an ability directly on that character (or their tile). An attack like Fireball can be used on any tile adjacent to a combatant, and it will still damage that combatant. This is particularly important when fighting against enemies with stealth, since they cannot be targeted by an attack or debuff while they have the stealth buff active. However, if they are damaged *by an attack*, it will dispel their stealth and they can once again be targeted. Note that simply dealing damage to a stealthed character will not dispel stealth (e.g. Blizzard) - the damage must be done by an attack.

## Allies, Combatants, and Heroes

There is one more important distinction to be made about abilities and who they affect:

* An **ally** is anyone on your team. This can include summoned units and even stage-specific story characters *that you can control*. It does not include neutral characters you cannot control. You can cycle among allies using the Green and red tabs respectively on the right side of your screen. The white tab is the combat log that shows all the actions taken during the current and previous turns.
* A **combatant** is any character on the battlefield, whether allied or not. Most area-of-effect attacks will affect all combatants, and not just enemies. Keep this in mind before including your teammates in the blast radius of an Orb of Suns!
* A **hero** is one of three allied characters you chose for your party. This does not include any summoned units or controllable story characters.