Combat is a fundamental aspect of survival games , which gives meaning to the players’ actions. Entering combat is always a big risk since you stand to lose items and experience, and receive penalties whenever you fall in battle. In contrast to other games, dying in Durango—and other survival games—is usually met with harsh penalties. In this sense, it’s in your best interest to always stay alive to fight another day.

However, the combat in Durango, while fairly simplistic, is very hectic in the way it’s presented. The screen shakes whenever you land a critical hit; everything turns red when you get hit; monsters run away only to turn around and land cheap shots on you; combat is very messy in this game. The visual elements help to turn every battle into a brutal and visceral experience, which really makes the primal aspect of Durango stand out. These elements appear frequently in most fights so you’ll have to get used to them, and keep your cool at all times if you want to make the best decisions.

Aside from the visual aspects interfering with your perception of the combat, there are also other aspects that complicate your performance in this area. For instance, while fighting is mechanically simple, most of the underlying systems are not explained. How is damage calculated? Why do some attacks hit for 30, but then others hit for 5? What can I do to improve my performance in battle?

While the first two questions still remain a mystery, we’ve done some digging around to find an answer to the third. In this guide, we’ll briefly talk about how the combat works in Durango Wild Lands , and we’ll also share a few tips to improve your damage and resilience in combat.

The Battle System

Everything starts with a single click—well, technically it’s two clicks. You can engage in combat with any roaming creature in Durango by clicking on them, and then on “attack.” Keep in mind that some animals won’t wait around for you to attack and will immediately charge at you when you get too close. These aggressive foes are the ones you have to keep an eye out for as they usually attack in packs. Similarly, even docile creatures like the Zebraceratops can become hostile if you walk beside them for too long.

Regardless, as soon as the battle begins, all bets are off: It’s you against mother nature in a fight to death. Sometimes you’ll fight against one enemy, and sometimes you’ll need to fend off several angry beasties. During battle, all characters involved will launch attacks as fast as their weapons allow and can weave special skills between every attack. Though it may look as if the characters are taking turns, combat in Durango is almost completely in real time so you’ll have to carefully consider each action and only use them when the time is right. Luckily, you have your trusty weapons and several skills at your disposal for this purpose, which brings us to our next point.

Play Durango: Wild Lands on BlueStacks 4

The Skill System

We’ve already talked about what each skill in Durango does, you can check out the BlueStacks Guide to Skills in Durango here. As you level up in these categories, you will be able to invest more skill points in each to unlock more abilities. When it comes to combat proficiency, you’ll want to invest either in the “melee” or “ranged” categories, depending on your choice of weapons, and in the “defense” tree as well. The first two skills make you stronger in your respective weapon of choice, while the latter skill increases your damage resistance and health, among other things.

However, before arbitrarily sinking points into any offensive skill category, you must decide exactly what kind of weapon you’d like to specialize into. This is because it’s much better to be a specialized killing machine, than to have a little experience wielding multiple weapons, but no real mastery over any of them. In that sense, if you’re going for melee, we recommend going for the 1-handed skill specializations early on. This is a good way to get started since these types of weapons are easy to come by from the very start. Meanwhile, ranged weapons are unavailable until a bit later into the game, so you’ll be a bit gimped if you decide to invest in this category.

But don’t worry, you can refund skill points at any point in the game so feel free to sink some points into melee for now. Specifically, we recommend investing in the “Attack Stance,” “Enhanced Melee Attack,” and “One-Handed Action” categories. These trees will grant you several skills for one-handed weapons, as well as increase your overall damage when wielding the said weapons.

The Fight Itself

At the beginning, your character will auto attack as fast as his weapon allows. One-handed weapons are fairly quick so you’ll likely get a couple of attacks in before the enemy can hit you. When the ground beneath the enemy glows yellow, it means that it’s about to attack. At this point, you can quickly press “Roll” to get out of the way. This skill has a bit of cooldown so make sure to time it properly. Also, if you read our BlueStacks usage guide for Durango , you will likely have your roll mapped to a button on your keyboard for easy access. If you also invested in the defense skill, you might have upgraded your roll, which reduces its cooldown and increases its effectiveness in combat.

After getting the enemy’s HP down to around 50%, a message might pop up indicating that the enemy is losing strength. At this point, it’s your chance to use special skills with a high chance of stunning, as they’ll likely incapacitate the enemy for a few seconds. If you’d want to capture the dino, this would be your chance to do so. Nevertheless, if you hit them with another skill while they’re stunned, there’s a high chance that you’ll knock them down, leaving them helpless on the ground. Once the enemy collapses, defeating it is essentially like shooting fish in a barrel: Just smack them a few more times and they’ll surely go down before being able to get up.

Fighting in Durango is easy, if not a bit unpredictable. While effects like stun or collapsing happen seemingly at random, there are certain skills that have a high chance of triggering them. By combining a good weapon with proper skills, you can defeat most of the wilderness in Durango.

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