Mechanics

Rally Effect
When you take damage, a mechanic called the Rally Effect activates. This lets you repair some of the damage by dealing damage to enemies.

Upon taking damage, the lost portion of the health bar turns from green to orange, indicating how much health can be regained by dealing damage. This orange portion begins to shrink after an 0.08-second delay, at a rate of 30% maximum health per second until it disappears, leaving only the green portion and indicating the Rally Effect has ended. If the player takes damage again while an orange portion of the bar remains, it is discarded completely for a new orange bar based on the new health loss, resetting the Rally Effect.

While an orange portion of the health bar remains, damaging enemies heals the player for 12% of the damage inflicted, with each hit's recovery capped at 20% of the original health lost.

Total Rally health recovery is reduced by 65% while the player is protected by a force field, such as the one given from taking hits with a Shield equipped.

Sudden Death Prevention
If the player takes a hit that would normally kill them while their health is above 25% of maximum health, that hit instead reduces health to 1 and all nearby enemies will be stunned for ≈1 second. Sudden Death Prevention takes 45 seconds to recharge before it can trigger again.

Weapon Stats-Damage Multiplier and Damage Reduction
Gear with high enough gear levels can have special effects which scale with gear level:
 * Weapons and skills that deal significant damage get a +25% damage multiplier for every 2 gear levels above gear level 1, including the bonus gear levels added by "+", "++", "S", or "L" variants. A damage multiplier increases the base damage dealt by its item, before it scales up to its final value by Stats. It is always shown in the displayed damage output since it's always active — unlike situational damage multipliers like most damage-boosting Affixes.
 * Weapons and skills which do not deal significant damage — usually possessing the No Damage or Negligible Damage tag — instead gain -5% damage taken for every 2 gear levels above gear level 1, called damage reduction. Damage reduction effects stack additively with each other, up to a total limit of -75% damage taken.
 * Amulets start with -10% damage taken at gear level 1 and gain another -10% damage taken for every 4(?) gear levels above gear level 1. Amulet damage reduction stacks with other up to the aforementioned cap.
 * Note: the -75% damage reduction cap only applies to the reductions from gear levels. Damage prevention from other sources is unaffected, such as Shields and damage-reducing Affixes.

Breach
If the player significantly damages an enemy while they are in the middle of an attack or defensive maneuver, the overwhelming force may breach that enemy's defenses, interrupting the maneuver and stunning them for 1.4 seconds.

Basic Breach Mechanics
By default, damage dealt to enemies by direct hits (not damage-over-time effects) is added to an enemy's breach damage. Breach damage, at an enemy tier of 1, decays at a rate of 20 points/second until it reaches 0. Breach damage must exceed 100 to cause a breach. Breach damage's decay rate and the required breach damage to cause a breach both scale with enemy tier using the same formula that increments enemy health.

Breach Resistance
Enemies can be more resistant or more vulnerable to breach during certain maneuvers. The degree of resistance or vulnerability is quantified by the maneuver's breach resistance as follows: In general, larger enemies are harder to breach than smaller enemies, melee attacks have higher breach resistance than ranged attacks, and Bosses and their minions are immune to being breached.
 * If a maneuver's breach resistance is equal to 0, breach damage accumulates normally as the enemy takes damage during the maneuver.
 * If a maneuver's breach resistance is positive (greater than 0), damage taken by the enemy during the maneuver is reduced by (breach resistance x 100)% for the purposes of breach damage accumulation (e.g. if a maneuver has a breach resistance of 0.5, a 40-damage attack would only increase breach damage by 20 points).
 * If a maneuver's breach resistance is equal to 1, the enemy cannot be breached at all during the maneuver due to damage taken being reduced to 0 for the purposes of breach damage accumulation.
 * If a maneuver's breach resistance is negative (less than 0), damage taken by the enemy during the maneuver is increased by (-(breach resistance) x 100)% for the purposes of breach damage accumulation (e.g. if a maneuver has a breach resistance of -1.5, a 40-damage attack would increase breach damage by 100 points, enough to cause a breach to occur if the enemy has an enemy tier of 1).

Breach Bonus
Some of the attacks from the player's Weapons are more or less effective at causing breach damage on all enemies. The degree of effectiveness of breach damage generation for a particular attack is quantified by its breach bonus as follows :
 * If an attack's breach bonus is equal to 0, breach damage is equal to attack damage.
 * Damage from Shields and non-Weapon sources can be assumed to have a breach bonus of 0.
 * If an attack's breach bonus is positive (greater than 0), breach damage is increased by (breach bonus x 100)% compared to breach damage for a breach bonus of 0 (e.g. if an attack with a breach bonus of 1 deals 40 damage, that attack increases breach damage by 80).

In general, breach bonus is higher for melee attacks than for ranged attacks, greater for final blows of weapon combos than for first blows, and larger for slow weapons than for quick weapons.
 * If an attack's breach bonus is negative (less than 0), breach damage is decreased by (-(breach bonus) x 100)% compared to breach damage for a breach bonus of 0 (e.g. if an attack with a breach bonus of -0.5 deals 40 damage, that attack increases breach damage by only 20).
 * If an attack's breach bonus is equal to -1, the attack cannot cause a breach to occur due to damage being reduced to 0 for the purposes of breach damage generation.

Note: The bullet points for breach bonus effects assumed that attacks were occurring during enemy maneuvers with a breach resistance of 0. For cases in which breach bonus and breach resistance are both non-zero, final breach damage is obtained by applying the attack's breach bonus effect first, then the enemy maneuver's breach resistance effect.

Dive Attack
By pressing the jump and down buttons at the same time, a dive attack is performed. This attack negates the stun from falling long distances and deals damage to enemies. Stun still happens if the dive is long enough (like the exit elevator in Ramparts).

3 levels of damage can be dealt with the dive attack. If the distance fallen is at most that achieved by double-jumping from a flat region with no platforms or ledges nearby, the player deals 35 base damage in a 1-tile radius (60 base damage in a 2-tile radius if the player possesses the Belier's Rune). If the distance fallen is more than double-jump height, the player deals 90 base damage in a 2-tile radius (110 base damage in a 4-tile radius if the player possesses the Belier's Rune). If the distance fallen is more than 2.5 stories, dive attack damage is increased by a further 50%, producing final base damage values of 135 (without Belier's Rune) and 165 (with Belier's Rune).

Dive attack damage scales based on the highest of the player's stats. As dive damage comes from a vertical direction, dive attacks do not trigger the thorn effect of Thornies.

Shield Force Field
Having a shield equipped manifests a force field around you for 0.5 seconds when you take damage, protecting you from getting damaged further.

Accelerated Movement
By killing 8 enemies in a short amount of time, your movement speed is buffed for 7 seconds (21 seconds with the Velocity Mutation), boosting running, rolling and climbing speeds. Killing an enemy while affected by this buff refreshes its duration.

Falling
Unless you fall off of a building in The Ramparts (in which case you take 30 base damage, scaled by the monster level of the zone), there is no fall damage in Dead Cells. However, if you fall from a long enough distance, you will be temporarily stunned. The stun lasts longer if you have fallen more. Enemies, however, can get hurt and killed from a fall. This distance is much shorter than the distance that will cause the player to be stunned, so using something that causes knockback such as the Assault Shield or the Spartan Sandals to take advantage of this is a good idea.

Dive attacks prevent the stun caused by falling. However, there is also a limit of how much the dive attack can prevent this stun. Really high heights, such as one found in some safe areas past The Collector, can still cause a falling stun even if the player dive attacks. Rolling in mid air will reset the dive, allowing you to dive again during very long falls.

Parry
Shields can parry attacks, nullifying their damage entirely rather than merely reducing it, and briefly stunning the attacker. Parries can also reflect most projectiles.

More information on parrying is given on the Shields page.

Status Effects
There are 6 status effects: Stun, Freeze, Immobilize, Poison, Bleed, and Burn. They either prevent enemy action (Stun, Freeze, Immobilize), or deal damage over time (Poison, Bleed, Burn). Additionally, Weapons and Skills can have modifiers that increase damage dealt to an enemy suffering from a specific status effect (though no modifier increases damage against immobilized enemies).

Stun
Stun incapacitates a target briefly and continues regardless of damage taken. The player can also be stunned by certain enemy attacks and from falling large distances.

Freeze
Freeze incapacitates a target briefly. This effect typically lasts longer than Stun but ends when damage is delivered. Enemies that have recovered from Freeze will have slowed movement and attack animations for a brief period. Certain enemies have a chance to resist Freeze, although they may still be slowed even if they resist the initial effect.. Weapons that deal damage-over-time, such a Poison, Bleed, or Burning, will nullify the effect of Freeze with each tick of damage.

Freeze is susceptible to environmental effects.. It can affect water sources, and enemies that are in the affected water source will be Immobilized briefly.

Immobilize
Immobilize prevents an enemy from moving, though it can still perform actions and attack. This effect also prevents most enemies from turning as well, making them inoffensive if you attack them from behind.

Poison, Bleeding, Burning
Poison, Bleeding, and Burning all do damage-over-time. They can be stacked with each other as well as themselves to increase the damage.

Poison attacks are often accompanied by an area-of-effect cloud that does both damage-over-time and inflicts poison.

Bleeding attacks usually must be executed with direct hits from a weapon or skill.

Burning is susceptible to environmental effects. Burning attacks can often cover an area of the floor with fire which deals damage-over-time as well as inflicts burning. Burning is affected by water. Enemies afflicted by burning will have the status removed when entering water and will resist the effect entirely if standing in water.. Any weapons or skills that leave fire will not do so over water, making burning weapons and skills significantly weaker against enemies in water.

Environmental Effects
The environment in Dead Cells can affect The Beheaded in many ways.

Oil-Fire Interactions

 * Enemies which are affected by stacks of oil take 8% more damage from burning effects for each stack present.
 * Creating pools of fire on oil slicks (or vice versa) causes the slicks to ignite, producing blue flames which deal the expected burning damage but last for longer than normal red flames (ignited slicks burn for the duration of the slick while pools of fire outside of slicks burn for a much shorter duration).
 * Oil explosions, whenever they occur, deal 16 base damage.

Liquid Interactions

 * Enemies in pools of liquid are immune to burning effects.
 * Enemies that take damage from ice-element attacks while standing in a pool of liquid cause the pool to chill dramatically, causing all other enemies in the pool to be slowed as if they had recently thawed after being frozen.
 * Enemies that take damage from electric-element attacks while standing in a pool of liquid cause the pool to become electrified, dealing 18 base DPS to all enemies in the pool for 2 seconds. Shock DPS scales with the scaling stat of the item producing the attack that electrified the pool.

Forgotten Sepulcher's Darkness

 * In the Forgotten Sepulcher, the darkness of the area is a threat to the health of the player.
 * Without stepping into a light source for 12 seconds, The Beheaded will start to take damage-over-time.
 * The damage is dealt in ticks, with a delay between ticks equal to 1/3 of a second. The first tick deals 3 damage, each additional ticks damage increases randomly by either 4 or 5. The damage per tick caps out at 157. Due to the fast tick rate, this effect can become lethal very quickly if the player doesn`t find a light source in time.
 * entering the area of a light source resets the 12 seconds timer as well as the tick damage.

Infection / Malaise

 * As of v1.0 this is referred to in-game as 'Malaise'.
 * Taking damage from Key Elites in The Castle causes infection.
 * Maximum tier of infection is 10.
 * Key Elites' hits gives you 2 points of infection.
 * After reaching maximum infection tier, you start taking enormous damage, then you die.
 * Infection tier can be reduced by drinking potion.
 * This effect can occur from Prisoners' Quarters if 4 Boss Stem Cells are inoculated, where every enemy can foment infection.