Hold CTRL. That is the whole of the input, and everything interesting happens in the half second afterwards.
The blow lands when the weapon does
The damage number does not appear when you press the key. It appears on the frame the weapon is out, and anything quick enough to step out of the swing in between gets away with it. That cuts both ways: read what something is about to do and you can be somewhere else when it arrives.
It also means a fight feels the same on a poor connection as on a good one. The swing is late rather than wrong.
You cannot walk out of your own swing
Two rules, and they are not the same rule:
- You cannot attack out of a walk. Stop, then swing.
- You cannot walk out of a swing. Once you have committed, you are committed.
Turning on the spot is free either way, so face what you mean to hit.
Missing still counts
A miss puts both of you in a fight. Swinging at empty air does not, because there is nobody to be in a fight with.
That matters more than it sounds, because health and mana only come back once you have been clear of a fight for a few seconds, and every exchange starts the count again. Disengaging is the mechanic. There is no potion to drink instead.
Poison, fire and the rest
Some blows leave something behind. Poison keeps working after the hit and armour is no help against it at all, which is the point of it: a heavily armoured target is exactly who you use it on. It can finish somebody off on its own, and being poisoned counts as being in a fight, so walking away from one is not a free heal.
Fire burns, a cut bleeds, and a good enough clout leaves somebody unable to move for a moment. What is on you at any time shows as a row of marks above your health.
When somebody comes with you
Everything you kill together is shared out, and the person who landed the last blow is always in on it. Nobody has to hang back and let somebody else finish something off.
Party health sits over each person's head as a name, a level and a bar, so you can see who is in trouble without opening anything. The frames are there to read. The buttons live in the Groups panel.
After the fight
Whatever died leaves something on the floor. Walk over it and take it, or leave it. If your bags are full, the banker in town will hold the rest: gold and the bank.
Then try it on something that fights back properly: your first dungeon.