damagedealing

Damagedealing refers to the act of inflicting damage on a target within games, simulations, and other fictional or virtual settings. It is a central component of combat systems across many genres, including role-playing games, real-time strategy, shooters, and fighting games, where targets such as characters, monsters, or objects can lose health or hit points as a result of attacks, spells, traps, or environmental hazards.

Damage can originate from various sources and can take multiple forms. Common categories include physical damage from weapons, magical or elemental damage from spells or abilities, and true or bypass damage that ignores certain defenses. Targets may have defenses such as armor, resistances, shields, or barriers that reduce or negate incoming damage. Interactions between damage types, such as elemental advantages or vulnerabilities, are also common, along with mechanics like armor penetration and damage amplification from buffs or debuffs.

In most systems, damage is calculated by combining a base value from the attacker with modifiers from skills, equipment, and situational factors, then applying target defenses. Some damage is delivered instantly, while others occur over time (damage over time) or affect multiple targets in an area (area-of-effect damage). Critical hits, which temporarily increase damage, and various uptime constraints like cooldowns or resource costs are frequently used to balance output and pacing. Metrics such as damage per second (DPS) are used to evaluate and compare effectiveness.

Damagedealing shapes gameplay balance, pacing, and character or unit progression. It is distinct from healing and shielding, and its design often emphasizes strategy, timing, and resource management within the game's rules.