Combat: Elements & Weapons

Despite the colorful spell names, damage in Dungeon Settlers is binary: everything is either Physical or Magic. There is no Water (or Fire/Nature) combat element for mitigation purposes - the element labels on spells are only a UI color, and enemies have just two defensive stats, Physical Resistance and Magic Resistance. A "water" spell simply deals Magic damage; ice- and frost-flavored abilities are Water Magic flavor, not a separate damage type.

Weapons come in one-handed and two-handed types. Two-handed weapons - the Greatsword, the Bow, and all three elemental Staffs (Fire, Water, Nature) - occupy both hands and block the shield/off-hand slot. One-handed weapons (Sword and Blunt, plus the gated Dagger, Axe and Spear) can pair with a shield for sword-and-board play. This means a shield can never be combined with a bow or a staff on the same unit.

A few combat constants worth knowing: attacks split between head and body hit locations (about 30% head, 70% body), a successful guard cuts incoming damage by about 50%, and a critical hit deals 1.5x damage.

Positioning matters through the encirclement rule: for each unit surrounding a target, attackers gain a +10% hit-chance bonus (GAMESYSTEM_Combat_StrategyRule_Encirclement_BonusHitRate = 10) and a +5% critical-chance bonus (GAMESYSTEM_Combat_StrategyRule_Encirclement_BonusCriticalRate = 5) against it. Surrounding a dangerous elite turns your whole squad more accurate and deadlier - and conversely, letting a swarm ring one of your own units makes every incoming bite likelier to land and to crit.

You can still hand a unit a weapon or magic school its background doesn't grant by using a skill-tree inscription - that is how a caster can pick up, say, Water Magic. Training a tree is separate from what a unit can physically wield at once, though; an inscription can't let a unit hold a two-handed staff and a shield simultaneously.