Combat and cards
How the card duel works: crystals, your hand, card effects, class power, stats and consumables.
How combat works: turns, Crystals and your hand
Combat in Zarhold is a card duel: 6 cards in hand, 1 to 10 Crystals, a coin for whoever goes second, a minute per turn — and what if the deck runs out.
How to read a card: crystal color and role
A card's mana crystal color in battle is its role: red — damage, green — healing, gold — shield, purple — buffs and control. Two-colored gems and «⇅».
Card effects: damage, healing, shields, DoTs and control
What cards do: single-target and area damage, healing, shields, DoTs, dispels, stuns. How card numbers grow with Power, what rarity means and what bosses do.
Class Power and Racial ability
Two buttons besides cards: Class Power (E), 1 Crystal once per turn, follows your spec; the Racial ability (Q) differs in PvE and PvP and has a cooldown.
Hero stats: Health, Power, Resilience, Hardiness
Four hero stats: Health, Power, Resilience and Hardiness. How Power strengthens cards, how defence works (capped at 54%) and why there are no crits.
Consumables in combat: bandages, potions, food
One consumable of each kind per fight: bandage, potion, bomb, boost. Bandages heal 15–50% of Health and work in PvP; potions and bombs only against creatures.
Special PvP combat rules
What changes in arena, battlegrounds and duels: max 60% of Health lost per round, healing fades from turn 10, 2-turn shields, fatigue, bandages only.
Your deck: what it is made of
You don't build the deck by hand: every class card goes into battle (at least 30, up to 4 copies), plus cards from learned talents and special cards.