The combat of World of Warcraft pits your character's skills, spells, and abilities in real time against both human and computer-controlled opponents. Here is an overview of some of the basic mechanics in World of Warcraft's combat system.

Attack Range
You must be in range of your targeted enemy to begin attacking it. If you are out of range, you will see an error message on your screen when you select a melee attack. For melee classes, the auto-attack will always be in close proximity to the enemy, and most melee abilities (such as Sinister Strike, Heroic Strike, and Shield Bash) have a maximum range of five yards. Certain abilities (such as Blind and Intercept) are usable outside of the standard 5 yard attack range. For ranged attacks, such as with a gun or bow, the standard range to shoot is from 8-30 yards. Hunters can fire their ranged weapon up to 35 yards away, and even farther with certain talents. For spells, every spell has its own maximum range which is displayed on the spell's tooltip.

Cooldown on Attacks, Spells, and Abilities
While World of Warcraft has a real-time combat system, weapon users must wait their turn to swing again based on the delay or speed of their weapon. Likewise, casters must wait for the length of the spell's cooldown until they can cast a spell again. Many abilities have such cooldowns, and the length of any cooldowns are displayed on the ability's tooltip. However, many abilities with no listed cooldown are still subject to a 1.5 second cooldown that affects all of a character's abilities. This is known as the global cooldown. You will see this effect on your spell and skill icons as they simultaneously display the global cooldown after using an ability.

Health
Health points represent how much damage a character can take in combat before dying. Your health is visually represented on the upper left corner of your screen next to your character portrait, and numerically represented as well when you open your character panel and/or hover your mouse over your health bar. You can increase your maximum health by leveling up, increasing stamina through talents, abilities, and spells, or by equipping items that increase stamina (1 stamina = 10 health). During combat, you can restore your health most commonly by being the recipient of a healing spell, drinking a healing potion, or using a bandage. After battle, you can accelerate the healing process by eating food or simply waiting for your health to recover on its own. Under certain conditions, such as a warlock under the effects of Demon Armor, health will also regenerate while you are in combat.

Non-combat Spells or Abilities
Some abilities and spells will not work while your character is in combat. If this is the case, you will see an error message on your screen informing you that the action is not available during combat. For example, Warriors cannot use their Charge ability in combat, and no character can eat or drink while in combat.

Facing the Right Direction
Which direction your character is facing in relation to an enemy is important for certain abilities and spells, which may require you to be facing the enemy head on or from behind. An example is the Rogue's Ambush and Backstab abilities, which require the rogue to be behind his target. If you are not in the proper position you will receive a warning message when you attempt to use the ability.

our character can fall prey to an assortment of negative status effects, each of which have their own methods for removal. Here are some of the most common negative status effects you may encounter.

Daze
The daze effect causes your character to suffer from reduced movement speed. While movement is reduced, casting and attack speeds remain unaffected. The most common situation where a player character can become dazed is when running away from an enemy, such as riding or running through a group of monsters. In addition, some player abilities can daze targets under a variety of circumstances. Daze expires on its own after a set duration.

Defense skill will not reduce the chance players have to receive the Daze effect when attacked from behind by enemies. The best thing you can do to keep from being dazed is to simply avoid the aggro radius of mobs you don't intend to fight.

Stun
If you are stunned during battle, you cannot move or act. Outside of special abilities and items such as the PvP trinket for some classes and a Paladin's Divine Shield, you must simply wait out the duration of the stun. If you place your cursor over the stun's icon in the top right of your screen you will see its duration.

Fear
Fear causes you to lose control over your character, unable to control their movements or actions, as they flee in panic. They may run off in a random direction for the duration of the fear. Outside of special abilities and items such as the PvP trinket for some classes and the racial ability Will of the Forsaken, you simply have to wait until the fear effect has worn off. If you place your mouse cursor over the icon for the fear effect, you will see its duration. While in a party, it's also common and expected that you inform your party members that you've been feared.

Mind Control
When mind controlled, you will lose control over your character. You will become hostile to your party members and may attack them. Other party members can also target and attack you. Inform your party members that you are "MC'd!" This effect can be removed by Dispel Magic and Cleanse if cast by an enemy Priest character, and the latter two spells may also remove mind control cast by computer-controlled enemies. It may be a good idea to attack the source of the mind control directly as well. Left unchecked, mind control effects will expire after a set duration.

Poison
Poison is one of the most common negative status that can affect your character. Many monsters, particularly naturally poisonous ones such as spiders, will add a poison effect to their attacks. Most poisons will damage your character slowly over time, but other poisons may have different effects in addition to or in lieu of this DoT effect. Enemy player-controlled or computer-controlled rogues have a wide variety of poisons that they may use with different effects, such as causing instant damage, reducing healing effects, reducing movement speed, increasing casting time, and others. Poisons can be cured by spells available to Paladins, Shaman, and Druids, by antitoxins created with First Aid, and other means. Left unchecked, poison effects will expire after a set duration.

Curses
Curses can inflict your character with a wide range of effects that range from irritating to deadly. The main way to remove a curse will be from a player ability - Druids and Mages can remove curses from players. The fact that some curses can last quite some time, combined with their often debilitating effects, will make their removal a high priority.

Disease
Diseases, like curses, have effects that vary widely in severity and type. Also like curses, they can persist for a considerable left of time if left uncured. Some diseases can actually spread to other players by proximity. Priests and paladins can cast spells that can remove diseases.

Silence
Silence renders you unable to cast spells. They are usually short duration, and can be dispelled before their duration ends with spells such as Cleanse and Dispel Magic.

Polymorph
Polymorph will turn you into a harmless creature such as a sheep or pig, unable to move or act for the duration. Certain classes can remove this effect on themselves with their PvP trinket, and spells such as Dispel Magic and Cleanse can remove this from other players. Polymorph is typically a mage ability, but some computer-controlled enemies will use it as well.

Disarm
When your character is disarmed by a monster or player, you will begin fighting hand-to-hand which you might notice will likely greatly reduce your damage. You can only be disarmed when wielding a weapon, and will disarm the weapon in your off-hand if there is no weapon in your main hand slot.

Miscellaneous Magic Effects
Your character can also be afflicted by a wide range of magic effects that do not fall under any of the above categories. These magic effects will expire after a set duration, or can be removed with a Priest's Dispel Magic or a Paladin's Cleanse.

he enemies you encounter in World of Warcraft, both human and computer-controlled, will exhibit a variety of behaviors during combat that you should be prepared to handle. Some of these are unique to either human or computer-controlled opponents.

Spell and Ability Resists
Every time you use a spell or ability on an enemy, such as a Mage's Frostbolt or a Priest's Psychic Scream, there is a chance that it will be resisted. When resisted, an enemy either completely negates (fully resists) or partially negates (partially resists) the attack. The level of your enemy in relation to yours is one of the main factors governing resists. Enemies of higher level than yours have a higher chance to resist your spells and abilities. Inherent resistances, such as fire resistance, will increase the chance that spells of that type will be resisted. However, having more of certain character attributes such as Spell Penetration will reduce your target's resistances, lowering the chance that your spells are resisted.

Spell Interruption
If you are attacked while casting a spell, there is a chance that your spell will be interrupted. When this occurs, your casting bar will be seen to "roll back" slightly, lengthening the time it takes to successfully cast the spell. Some classes have talents that reduce the chance that their spells will be interrupted, and a Paladin's Concentration Aura has this effect as well.

Learn more about spells.

Enemy Immune
Some enemies will be completely immune to the spell or ability you are using against it - if so, you will see "immune" display over the enemy. This means the enemy cannot be harmed by whatever ability you are attempting to use. It is possible that this immunity is only temporary, and/or only to a particular type of magic (such as Fire or Frost), particular effect (such as Fear or Polymorph), or damage type (physical or magic). For instance, some monsters have the ability to cast a temporary anti-magic shield on themselves.

Fleeing Enemies
Humanoid and certain other types of enemies often run when they are about to die. In some cases, such as the infamous murlocs, they will run for help. However, you can stop them from fleeing with the aid of abilities and spells designed for that purpose - or simply kill them before they can get far. Examples of abilities and spells that have a snaring or rooting effect include Engangle, Frost Nova, Hamstring, and Earthbind Totem. These abilities are also effective against human opponents who try to flee in PvP engagements.

Enemy Spellcasting
Enemy spells can be interrupted in the same way that your own spells can - by inflicting damage on them. If a monster starts casting a spell, such as a healing spell, you can damage it to slow down its casting time. Certain classes have abilities to interrupt spellcasting, such as Kick, Counterspell, and Silence.