Block and hit back
Hold a sword, axe or maul in the path of a strike and it is turned aside with a clang. Swing into the blow and the attacker staggers and is left open, and your next hit lands harder. Bare hands never block, and a very big body is never fully stopped.
Knock arrows away
An arrow that meets a blade or a held tool is blocked and does no harm. A swing across its line bats it away. This is how you deal with a Hollow archer when you cannot dodge.
Shove
Drive both palms into a creature about your size and it stumbles back. Lunge or run into it and it goes over, and over an edge it falls. Something huge hardly budges.
Knockdowns
A heavy blow, from a maul, a blast hammer or a hard punch, lifts a creature off its feet, off a ledge or into a pit. It gets back up limb by limb. A Hollow's blow knocks you back in turn.
Throwing
Swords, axes, mauls and other tools can be thrown. A thrown blade slices leaves and strikes the wood, stone or machine it meets, and a plasma blade can be called back. Thrown bombs are on Bombs and blasting.
Hit numbers and cubes
Every hit on a creature pops up its damage number, with more sparks the harder it lands. When you are hit, cubes spill from the spot with a number beside them. Pick the cubes' colour or turn the numbers off in Settings under Graphics, on the Hits tab.