Part of the Sea of Conquest Mechanics Series — this is the hub:

Impact Explained: The armour-penetration stat.

Attack vs Damage: Two multipliers, two jobs.

Captain Equipment: Trinkets and gems.

Behemoth Guide: Your Kraken companion.

Quick Answer

Combat resolves on stats and positioning, not reflexes. The pieces that decide fights:

Five damage types in two classes. Artillery (multi-target), Cutthroat (single lowest-HP target) and Strategic (general) deal direct damage. Blazing and Drowning deal damage over time — and Drowning ignores armour, which is why it dominates against heavily defended targets.

Rage is a shared pool that gates every hero skill. More rage means more skill activations, and skills are where the disproportionate damage lives.

Two combat modes rank differently. Naval Warfare fields up to 3 heroes per ship against monsters, forts and ships. Close Combat is 5v5 turn-based. A hero excellent in one can be unremarkable in the other.

The Five Damage Types

Type	Class	Behaviour
Artillery	Direct	Hits multiple targets / fleet-wide
Cutthroat	Direct	Hits the single lowest-HP enemy
Strategic	Direct	General mid-ground
Blazing	Over time	10% of attacker's ATK per second for 8 seconds, stacking to 10
Drowning	Over time	20% of attacker's ATK per second for 5 seconds, stacking to 10 — ignores armour

Three consequences worth building around:

Cutthroat is an execution tool. It targets the lowest-HP enemy, not the nearest or biggest. Superb alongside anything that softens a target; unreliable alone against a healthy fleet.

Drowning ignores armour. This is the single most exploitable line in the damage system. Against a heavily armoured target, Drowning does full damage while direct types get reduced — which is why it is the answer to sea monsters and armoured player fleets.

Both DoT types stack to 10 and need time. Blazing runs 8 seconds and Drowning 5. In a fight that ends in three seconds neither has done anything, which is why damage-over-time underperforms in PvP and overperforms in long PvE.

Full per-type detail, including which heroes and hulls suit each, is in the damage types guide.

Rage and Skill Activation

Rage is a shared pool that builds through combat. Hero active skills cost rage — heavier skills cost more, and some carry cooldowns on top.

Anything increasing skill frequency is worth more than a comparable damage increase, because skills scale far above auto-attacks. That is why heroes who manipulate rage punch above their tier:

Oscar reduces skill cost by 2 early in the fight
Wanda accelerates rage generation
Jango boosts rage
Laila restores rage as part of her support kit

If your fleet feels like it never gets to use its skills, the fix is a rage hero, not more attack — see the hero tier list.

Critical Resistance

Alongside per-type resistances there is Critical Resistance, which reduces the impact of incoming critical hits.

At higher levels, prioritise Critical Resistance over raw armour. Once opposing fleets are landing consistent crits, the crit multiplier is doing more damage to you than the base hits are, and armour does nothing about the multiplier. This is a defensive priority that most players get to late and should get to early.

Green gems supply Critical Resistance — see the captain equipment guide.

Infamy: Costs of Attacking

Attacking players and merchant ships raises Infamy. It is a real progression brake, not flavour:

Infamy	Rank	Consequence
300	Risin' Urge	10,000 gold bounty
500	Cursed Path	30,000 gold bounty
1,000	Butcher o' the Seas	50,000 bounty + you appear on the Wanted List and become trackable
1,800	Foul Stench	100,000 bounty
2,800	Monstrous Sins	200,000 bounty + you can no longer loot players or merchants

That last row is the one that matters. At 2,800 Infamy you lose the ability to loot at all — the exact activity that earned you the Infamy. Farming merchant ships aggressively for crafting ingredients walks you straight into it.

Sinking merchants also lowers your Guild Relations, which affects your standing with the game's factions.

Clearing Infamy

Heart of Atonement items from the Dock Merchant:

Green: −100 Infamy
Blue: −300
Purple: −500

Roughly one purchase per day, and the 80%-off green is the value buy — check the discount before reaching for purple.

The community alternative: strip your flagship of anything valuable and deliberately get sunk until Infamy drops. Free, effective, and exactly as undignified as it sounds.

Radiance Enhancement

An account-wide enhancement system. Its most useful known effect: at a threshold level you can assign up to two non-deployed heroes as Navigators, extracting value from heroes sitting on your bench.

Behemoth talents function on the same principle — see the Behemoth guide.

What Actually Decides Fights

Ranked by real impact:

Composition. Having damage, defence and support at all. From Season 3 a support ship is a required role, not a luxury — see the crew combinations guide.
Star level. A 6-star Epic beats a 2-star Legendary. Depth over rarity.
Damage type versus target. Drowning against armour; Cutthroat against a softened target.
Skill frequency. Rage generation and cost reduction.
Hero-ship matching. Correct placement grants a significant attribute bonus — see attack vs damage.
Raw power score. Real, and the worst single predictor of who wins.

Every Mechanics Guide

Damage Types — all five, with exact numbers
Impact Explained — armour penetration
Attack vs Damage — the two multipliers
Captain Equipment — trinkets and gems
Sailors — the combat stat hiding in your cabins
Stargazing — the Astrologer's Chamber
Might and Radiance Enhancement — Navigator slots
Behemoth — your Kraken companion

FAQ

What are the damage types in Sea of Conquest?

Artillery, Cutthroat and Strategic deal direct damage. Blazing burns for 10% of ATK per second over 8 seconds; Drowning deals 20% per second over 5 seconds and ignores armour. Both stack to 10.

Which damage type is best?

Against armoured targets, Drowning — it ignores armour entirely. In fast fights, direct damage, because DoT never gets time to stack.

How do I remove Infamy?

Buy Heart of Atonement items from the Dock Merchant: green −100, blue −300, purple −500, roughly one per day. Or strip your flagship and let it be sunk.

What happens at high Infamy?

At 1,000 you hit the Wanted List and become trackable. At 2,800 you lose the ability to loot players and merchants at all.

What is rage?

A shared combat pool that gates hero skills. Increasing skill frequency is worth more than an equivalent flat damage increase.

Should I build armour or critical resistance?

Critical Resistance, at higher levels. Armour does nothing about the crit multiplier, and crits are where high-level damage comes from.

Key Takeaways

Drowning ignores armour — the most exploitable line in the damage system.
Cutthroat targets the lowest-HP enemy, making it an execution tool.
DoT needs time. Strong in long PvE, weak in fast PvP.
Infamy 2,800 stops you looting entirely. Watch it when farming merchants.
Skill frequency beats flat damage. Rage heroes are undervalued.

Sea of Conquest Combat Mechanics: Damage Types, Rage and Infamy