Health



Health, represented by the red bar in the user interface, represents the character's vitality (often called "hit points"). When a character's health reaches zero, the character dies.

Maximum health
A character's base maximum health (and that of most non-boss foes) is determined by the following formula:


 * $$80 + 20 * Level = MaxHealth$$

This means that a level 1 character will have a base maximum health of 100, while a level 20 character will have 480, and a level 24 foe will have 560.

Various effects can change a character's maximum health:


 * Death Penalty and Morale Boosts can decrease or increase max health, respectively, by anywhere from -60% to +10% of the character's base health.
 * The Deep Wound condition decreases max health by 20% of the character's base health, as well as decreasing all healing the character receives by 20%.
 * Various skills can both increase and decrease max health.
 * Weapon upgrades:
 * Hale staff heads and upgrades of Fortitude by up to +30.
 * Upgrades of Devotion and of Endurance by up to +45 while enchanted or in a stance, respectively.
 * Upgrades of Valor by up to +60 while hexed.
 * Runes:
 * Runes of Vitae increase max health by +10.
 * Runes of Vigor increase max health by +30 (Minor), +41 (Major), or +50 (Superior).
 * All other Major Runes decrease max health by -35 and Superior Runes by -75.
 * Survivor Insignia increase max health by +15 when applied to chest armor, +10 on leg armor, and +5 on other armor.
 * Dervish chest armor increases max health by +25.
 * Many consumables can increase max health.

With the exception of Runes of Vigor, all of these effects will stack when equipped by or applied to the same character.

The highest maximum health that a level 20 character can achieve with equipment alone (weapon and armor upgrades) is 670, or 695 if the character is a dervish, due to their armor bonus.


 * $$480_{base} + 50_{SupVigor} + 4*10_{Vitae} + (15+10+3*5)_{Survivor} + 30_{WeaponFortitude} + 30_{OffhandFortitude} = 670$$

When a character undergoes a change in maximum health (equipping/unequipping weapons/armor, gaining a Morale Boost, suffering a Deep Wound, etc.), that change also affects the character's current health by the same amount. For example, if a character currently has 300 of 500 health when hit by an effect that decreases its maximum health by 100, it would then have 200 of 400 health. If the character later had 50 of 400 health when the effect expired, its final health would be 150 of 500. A decrease in maximum health cannot reduce a character's current health below 1.

Healing
Healing a character causes that player to gain health points, up to their full health. The healing player and healed player see blue numbers showing the amount healed. Blue numbers are shown even when no HP is actually gained (usually because the character is at full health). The size of the blue numbers may be modified through options.

Health gain, health regeneration, and healing
There are three distinct types of health replenishment: health regeneration, healing, and gain health. Healing skills are affected by healing reduction skills while gain health skills give you the stated amount. Health regeneration provides health over time determined by the number of "pips" a character has in the health bar.

Health regeneration/degeneration
The rate at which health regenerates (or degenerates) is represented by pips, or arrows, that appear in the health bar. Each pip indicates 2 points per second of health recovery (arrows pointing to the right) or loss (arrows pointing to the left). Health degeneration usually affects the color of a character's health bar. A pale pink health bar indicates bleeding, while a green bar indicates disease, poison or health degeneration from an environmental effect and a purple bar indicates degeneration from a hex or well. Degeneration from burning and miasma does not affect the color of the health bar.

It should be noted that skills that incur health degeneration ignore armor, and thus are useful against heavily-armored foes, or foes which use armor-increasing skills (such as Armor of Earth).

Health regeneration will stack to exceed ±10 pips, but the effect will be no greater than that of ±10 pips. For instance, if a target has -20 health regeneration they will lose health at the rate of -10 pips, and if they use a +10 Healing Breeze, they will still lose health at the rate of -10 pips.

Natural health regeneration
If a character is not at full health, isn't attacking, isn't using a skill that targets foe, isn't being targeted by a non-party member's spell and hasn't lost health recently (from damage, sacrifice, or health degeneration), then the character will slowly start gaining health regeneration as a form of natural healing. Natural health regeneration stops when any one of the above conditions ceases to be true. It is possible to regain health this way while you're under attack as long as the damage you receive is 0 and any degeneration is offset by regeneration.
 * After 5 seconds you get a health regeneration of 1
 * After 7 seconds you get a health regeneration of 2
 * After 9 seconds you get a health regeneration of 3
 * After 11 seconds you get a health regeneration of 4
 * After 13 seconds you get a health regeneration of 5
 * After 15 seconds you get a health regeneration of 6
 * After 17 seconds you get a health regeneration of 7

Related articles

 * Modify max health quick reference
 * Inflict deep wound skills quick reference
 * Healing skills quick reference
 * Gain health skills quick reference
 * Life steal skills quick reference
 * Regen/Degen health skills quick reference
 * Skills and their efficiency at healing