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, the bar will be 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 normally takes 45 seconds to recharge before it can activate again, but its cooldown can also be reset by drinking a potion or refilling your health completely in any way.

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:
 * 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).
 * 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.

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).
 * 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.

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.

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 Ram 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 Ram 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 the Ram Rune, and 165 with the Ram Rune.
 * Dive attack damage scales based on the highest of the player's stats. Despite dive attack being a melee attack, dive attacks do not trigger the thorn effect of Thornies if hit from behind.

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.

Curse

 * Curse can be attained from:
 * Opening a cursed chest.
 * Breaking a golden door.
 * Having the Cursed Sword in your inventory.
 * Eating food whilst possessing the Acceptance mutation.
 * Picking up a Corrupted Artifact
 * Being cursed makes you die instantly from most forms of damage.
 * Curse death won't be triggered by:
 * Darkness damage.
 * Malaise damage.
 * Curses stack.
 * The Homunculus rune does not work while cursed. However, if you have a Cursed Sword equipped and don't have curse from any other source, Homunculus will function.
 * Curse is reduced by killing enemies.

Enemy Teleportation

 * Starting from 4 BSC, almost every enemy gets the ability to chase after you via teleporting, akin to Elites and worms. Unlike Elites and worms, you'll see a brief red silhouette accompanied with red circle indicating where they will teleport and which direction they will face (though sometimes they face the opposite direction).
 * Enemies lose this ability if they're shielded by something or someone.

Accelerated Movement

 * By killing 9 enemies in a short amount of time, your movement speed is buffed for 10 seconds (30 seconds with the Velocity Mutation), boosting running speed by 40%, rolling speed by 12%, and climbing speed by 50%. Killing an enemy while affected by this buff refreshes its duration.

Falling

 * Unless you fall off of a building in The Ramparts or into the abyss in Astrolab or Cavern (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 duration increases with the distance the player has fallen.
 * Enemies, however, can get hurt and killed from a fall.
 * In addition, if a falling enemy happens to land on top of another enemy, they will both take damage.
 * 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, Burn , Poison , and Bleed.
 * 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 upon getting hit. 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 as 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, making them inoffensive if you attack them from behind.

Burn, Poison and Bleed

 * Burn, Poison and Bleed all do damage-over-time. They can be stacked on top of one another as well as themselves to increase the damage.
 * 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 affected 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.
 * Poison attacks are often accompanied by an area-of-effect cloud that does both damage-over-time and inflicts poison.
 * Bleeding effects usually have to be applied with direct hits from a weapon or skill.

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 12% 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).
 * Spreading oil on enemies in water makes them susceptible to burn damage.
 * Oil explosions, whenever they occur, deal 16 base damage.

Liquid interactions

 * Enemies in pools of liquid are immune to burning effects, unless covered in flammable oil.
 * 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.

Poisonous puddles in the Toxic Sewers and Ancient Sewers

 * In the Toxic Sewers as well as the Ancient Sewers, the player will come across pools of poisonous water, which deal damage to The Beheaded, should he enter them. Enemies will not take damage from these pools.
 * When in contact with the poison, the player starts taking damage equal 10 damage in 2 seconds, divided into 5 ticks per second, each dealing 1 damage.
 * The damage is a damage-over-time effect that refreshes every 2 seconds, should the player still be standing in the poison.
 * It is possible to avoid taking damage, as the contact is only registered if The Beheaded touches the ground of the puddle, so if he runs over a 1-tile broad puddle or avoids contact with the second part of the double jump, which allows him to touch the liquid but not the ground, he will not take any damage.

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 taking damage.
 * The damage is dealt in ticks, with 3 ticks per second. The damage per tick quickly increases and can be lethal if the player doesn't find a light source in time.
 * Entering a lit area resets the 12 second timer as well as the tick damage.
 * Damage from the Darkness will not instantly kill players who are cursed or are carrying the Cursed Sword.

Malaise

 * Taking damage from Key Elites in High Peak Castle causes infection.
 * Key Elites' hits give you 2 points of infection.
 * The maximum level of infection is 10.
 * After reaching the maximum infection level, your current HP is capped at 10% and The Beheaded cannot be healed above this threshold unless infection level is reduced.
 * Drinking a flask charge reduces infection level by 5.
 * This effect can occur from Prisoners' Quarters onwards if 4 Boss Stem Cells are active, where every enemy can trigger infection. Food can also be infected (or cure a certain amount of Malaise).