Mechanics

Regenerating Health
When you get hit, by dealing damage, you can regenerate health. The amount of health lost turns orange and slowly drains. By hitting enemies you can gain that health back. However, if you get hit again, all orange health you had before disappears, preventing you from gaining that health back.

Dive Attack
When falling from any distance, by pressing the jump and down button at the same time, a dive attack can be performed. This attack negates the stun from falling down long distances and deals damage to enemies.

Three 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-attacks scale their damage based on the damage bonus granted by the highest of the player's stats. As damage to enemies comes from a vertical direction, dive attacks do not trigger the thorns effect of Thornies.

Shield Force Field
If you have a shield in your inventory, when you get hit, a force field appears around you for half a second, preventing you from taking damage.

Accelerated Movement
By killing multiple enemies in a set amount of time, your movement speed increases. This effect wears off if no enemies are killed for a while.

Falling
Unless you fall off of a building in The Ramparts, 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.

Parry
Parry is a mechanic that applies to blocking with shields. It protects/reduces damage from attacks and deflects projectiles. Depending on how many survivability runes you have collected, parry also grants a temporary damage boost.