Updated 2026-09-15. The vocation domains below come from the 2026-08-11 simulation pass (thousands of hunts and duels across every calling and tier, cross-checked against classic-era server formulas). The hunter auto-attack band landed on 2026-08-16 after players reported paladin shots swinging wildly next to a mage wand. The knight's first war-magic strike moved to level 8 on 2026-08-17 after players reported the Jaguar feeling spell-less next to the other callings. Earthshaker and Quake of Kukulkan switched from earth to physical the same day so mid-game pack hunts no longer bounce off earth-immune prey. Also 2026-08-17: Titan's Blow (level 100) added to the Jaguar's single-target ladder, and mid/endgame war-magic spells now scale noticeably faster with each level gained. Also 2026-08-19: wand and rod auto-attacks documented — they scale with the weapon's Attack and character level, not magic level. Also 2026-08-24: the action bar marks immune and resisted attack spells on a locked monster. Also 2026-08-25: Magic Shield recast mana grows with level (buff window unchanged). Also 2026-08-25: physical attack spells follow fighting skill and meet armor — player-facing guide in four languages: Honest Steel. Also 2026-08-28: a much lower-level opener no longer keeps the same-bracket sponge, and Full PvP cannot run into sanctuary mid-fight — see PvP. Also 2026-08-28: Jaguar pack hunts — vocation HP regen, a hidden hunt stance, a melee min-hit vs monsters, and stronger whirls so a leftover box dies on the spin. Also 2026-08-29: early Jaguar whirls recast faster (Whirling Macuahuitl 2s, Roar of the Jaguar 3s); leftover-box whirls stay 5s. Also 2026-08-31: same-mana single-target beats that calling's area on one foe; the spellbook greys replaced and wrong-ammo spells instead of hiding them. Also 2026-09-15: player fights use the same vocation damage as hunts, then classic 50% — extra PvP-only vocation trims are gone.
"Which calling is the strongest?" — none of them, on purpose. Tikal is balanced by domain, not by sameness: every calling is deliberately the best in the game at one thing and pays for it somewhere else. This page explains exactly what each calling gets, what it pays, and why the numbers are set the way they are.
¶ The four domains
| Calling |
Rules at |
Pays with |
| Jaguar Knight |
Survival & gold — the only calling that never hunts at a loss, at any level |
The slowest leveling pace (~20% more hunting hours to level 200 than a sorcerer) and the weakest attack magic |
| Eagle Paladin |
Versatility — top early damage, range, conjured ammo, solid everything |
Master of nothing: mid-pack gold, mid-pack pace, and the leanest margins early on |
| Sky Sorcerer |
Raw damage & leveling speed — the fastest calling to every level milestone |
A mid-game potion bill that eats the profit of every hunt from ~level 20 to 100, and the thinnest armor in a brawl |
| Jade Druid |
Healing (nobody else comes close) plus near-sorcerer damage |
The heaviest early potion bleed of all, and the same mid-game gold furnace as the sorcerer |
Everything below is the mechanics that make that table true.
¶ Damage: who scales with what, and why
- Mage nukes compound; steel plateaus. Mage (and paladin holy) spell damage grows with magic level, which mages train roughly 8× faster than knights, and elemental and holy spells ignore armor. Weapon damage — and Jaguar Knight war-magic, and paladin obsidian — grows with fighting skill (and, for the knight, the melee weapon in hand). Every physical hit is ground down by the target's armor. By level 200 a sorcerer still deals roughly 3× a knight's damage per second in the open world on the spell side. That is intended — the fat elemental number is the mage domain — and it is why mages also level fastest. Physical war-magic used to skip armor and ride character level instead of skill; that was a bug, not a vocation perk. Full explanation: Honest Steel (EN · Español · Português · Polski).
- The knight's war magic deliberately stays the weakest attack magic in the game. His attack spells scale with weapon skill × the melee weapon he is holding, not magic level (Obsidian Edge, God-Killer's Edge, Titan's Wrath…) — the same logic Tibia uses for melee vocations — so they stay meaningful without ever crowning him: the tank must not also be the nuker. He needs a sword, axe, or club equipped. Those physical casts now meet armor, like a swing (shields still do not block them). His high-level bands (level 110+) were raised ~12% in the 2026-08-11 pass so late steel keeps pace better; the paladin's level-150+ line got +10% for the same reason. As of 2026-08-17 the first strike, Obsidian Jab, unlocks at level 8 (same moment as the sorcerer's Ember Bolt) and hits in the same neighbourhood as the paladin's Sunbolt — it used to wait until 12 and tap for 9–13, which read as "no spells." Jaguar Claw at 20 is still the real step up. The same day, Earthshaker (level 60) and Quake of Kukulkan (level 85) switched from earth to physical — they were the first radius-2 pack buttons, and earth-immune hunts (poison, golems, underworld) were zeroing them until Titan's Wrath at 110. Creature earth immunities are unchanged; that wall is still the druid's. Also on 2026-08-17: Titan's Blow (level 100, single-target) was added to bridge the 80-level gap in the Jaguar's single-target ladder, and Quake of Kukulkan, Titan's Wrath, Fang of the Fifth Sun, and Worldbreaker's Stroke all received higher per-level scaling so mid and endgame war-magic damage grows noticeably with each level gained.
- The paladin's spear and bow shots now sit in a tight band, like a wand. Classic-era distance damage could roll almost anything from a tiny floor up to a huge max — a level-35 hunter floated 7–210, and armor sometimes ate the low rolls to 0, while a mage wand sat in 33–59. As of 2026-08-16 those shots keep the same average damage but roll in a wand-like window (roughly half to full power, e.g. 73–145 at level 35). Hunts feel steadier; the lucky spikes and the wasted taps are gone. Area spells still carry unusually high per-magic-level scaling because the hunter's magic level grows slowly — that keeps pack-farming honest against mages without matching them. Paladin holy still uses magic level and still ignores armor. Paladin obsidian (the physical backup) uses distance skill only and meets armor — it is not a second holy nuke. See Honest Steel.
- Melee autos vs monsters never tap 0 (2026-08-28). A sword roll is at least 10% of its max. Paladin spears stay at 20%. Against players, melee can still roll from 0 — classic Tibia, on purpose. The 1.4× knight steel bonus vs monsters did not move.
- Whirls finish the leftover box (2026-08-28). Jaguar area war-magic steps toward classic Berserk / Fierce Berserk so a Hydra-sized pack dies on Titan's Wrath (level 130, Battle Fury up) instead of living on a sliver until the next cooldown. Single-target stabs did not change. Mages still own pack DPS; paladin holy still owns the hunter's biggest nuke. Early whirls stay below that nuke so the tank does not also become the caster.
- Early whirls recast faster (2026-08-29). Whirling Macuahuitl (level 20) is 2 seconds. Roar of the Jaguar (level 35) is 3 seconds. Earthshaker, Quake of Kukulkan, Titan's Wrath, and Elder Jaguar's Rampage stay 5 seconds. That is snappier than classic Berserk on the first two buttons only — leftover-box whirls did not speed up.
- Same-mana single-target beats the whirl (2026-08-31). If two attack spells cost the same mana, the single-target button must hit harder on one foe than the area spell — Titan's Blow vs Quake of Kukulkan (both 160), Obsidian Edge vs Roar of the Jaguar (both 70), Piercing Light vs Wrath of Itzamna (both 220). Cheaper leftover-box whirls like Titan's Wrath may still hit harder per-target than a costlier stab; they are the pack button. Cheap fillers stay cheaper (Storm Lance 50 mana vs Serpent's Spark 90; Ice Shards 300 so Moonfrost stays the filler). Serpent's Coil unlocks at level 22, before the promotion snare.
- Learned spells stay live; only the loadout greys a button (2026-08-31). A stronger ward, haste, or snare does not disable the older spell — Fleet of Foot still covers the haste gap, Jaguar Guard still casts next to Iron Hide, Serpent's Coil still casts next to Thicket Snare. Cheap fillers stay cheaper (Solar Cataclysm 200 mana vs Frostfire Nova 320; both fire packs stay on the bar). A paladin ammo conjure that does not match the weapon in hand (bow → arrows, crossbow → bolts, thrown spear → spears) stays listed, greyed, with Equip a weapon that uses arrows / bolts / spears. You can still put them on the hotbar. They will not fire until the loadout matches. Empty hands or a melee weapon skip that check so you can stock a bag.
- In your own hands this feels like: the knight presses fewer, cheaper buttons and swings steel between them; the paladin weaves shots and volleys; the mages live on the spellbook (wand or rod between casts) and drink for it.
¶ Wands and rods (mage auto-attack)
Players often ask whether a wand or rod hits harder as magic level goes up. It does not. Magic level is for spells and runes. The wand is the Sky Sorcerer's (and the rod the Jade Druid's) mana-free elemental auto-attack — the cheap bolt they fire between nukes, not a spell.
There is no wand skill. Each bolt rolls in a tight band from two things only: the weapon's Attack value (its tier) and a small character-level floor:
- min = Attack + floor(level / 5)
- max = 2 × Attack + floor(level / 5)
Example: Wand of Inferno (Attack 26) at level 35 hits 33–59. The same wand at level 50 is 36–62. Raising magic level from 20 to 80 does not change that bolt. Upgrade (or enchant) the wand to hit harder — each enchant level is +1 Attack, which is +1 min / +2 max on the bolt.
The bolt is elemental (wands default energy, rods default earth; many later wands are fire or death). It ignores armor and shields, but creatures immune or resistant to that element take 0 or reduced damage — swap wand or use a different spell. It costs no mana and does not train magic level (casting does). Training wands and rods still cap at 1 damage; they are for cheap practice, not hunting.
Creatures often wall one element and leave another open. Sky Sorcerers feel this most — a Dragon eats fire, a Wyvern eats energy — which is why you can keep up to four action bars and switch pages mid-hunt.
Lock a monster and the attack spells and runes on the bar you are looking at are marked:
- × — the target is immune. That button will do nothing.
- ½ — the target resists (half damage or worse). It still hits, but poorly.
Heals and support spells are never marked. Change lock (or clear it) and the marks follow. The full immunity list for each creature lives in the Bestiary.
¶ Sustain: potions, heals, and the vocation split
- Passive HP regen is vocation-ranked (2026-08-28). The server ticks every 3 seconds. Classic Tibia gave Elite Knights ~5 HP/s; Tikal used to give every calling the same trickle (~0.7 HP/s promoted). Live numbers:
| Calling |
Unpromoted |
First oath |
Elder oath |
| Jaguar Knight |
5 |
15 (~5 HP/s in a fight) |
16 |
| Eagle Paladin |
4 |
10 |
11 |
| Sky Sorcerer / Jade Druid |
3 |
8 |
9 |
Resting out of combat still triples that. Rings, charms, and regen buffs stack on top. Mana regen is unchanged (vocation base + magic level).
- Hunts use a defensive shield; player fights do not. There is no stance button on a phone. Against monsters your shield blocks like classic defensive, and your autos swing like balanced (a little less raw swing than an offensive stance). Against players you still swing offensive and block balanced. Wands and spells ignore stance.
- Potions have level gates, not class locks — anyone can drink any tier (20/50/80, and 130 for the supreme bottles). But great, ultimate, and supreme health potions pour vocation-split: full strength (350 / 850 / 1400) for the knight. Paladin drinks 70% of great and ultimate, 55% of supreme (770). Mages drink 60% of the great (210), 50% of the ultimate (425), and 40% of supreme (560). Raw hit-point sustain is the knight's domain; a sorcerer with a knight's blood-draught in each hand was breaking PvP (see below). The bottle's description tells you this in-game, and the shop shows your real number.
- Mana potions are NOT split by vocation. Every calling in Tikal runs a real spell rotation — knight war magic is a designed feature, not an accident — so mana restores stay universal while hunting. (We tested a vocation mana split in simulation: it doubled the knight's hunting potion bill and broke his economy without changing a single same-level duel outcome. It was cut.) In a cross-bracket PvP fight the lower-level drinker's mana pots are trimmed to 80% while marked — the same trim health potions already had — so Magic Shield plus a full Great Mana Potion cannot out-sustain a much higher-level hit.
- The Supreme Mana Potion (level 130+, 800 mana, 450 gold) exists for high-level convenience, not efficiency: it costs slightly more gold per mana than the ultimate, so the big bottle buys fewer taps mid-rotation, never cheaper hunting.
- The Supreme Health Potion (level 130+, 1400 HP for knights, 500 gold) is the knight's matching high-level bottle — at that band an ultimate (850) was barely 40% of a jaguar's pool. Paladins and mages can buy it, but vocation-split keeps their pour well below the knight's so PvP sustain stays gated by the 1s PvP exhaust, not by a mage chugging jaguar draughts.
- Obsidian Retaliation (Jaguar Knight, level 18) returns 40% of the incoming blow (the attack roll before your armor, shield, and ward), so a tank's gear does not shrink their thorns. Against players it returns 20% of the damage you actually take, so standing still never outpaces actually fighting.
- Healing is the druid's crown — his heals sustain at least 2× the paladin's throughput at every tier, and the knight's self-mends are deliberately the weakest per cast (they scale with his level so they never fall off, but they will not out-heal a healer).
- Potions carry a 0.5-second exhaust between quaffs while hunting (you will never notice on a hotkey; auto-clicker chugging is dead), which stretches to 1 second while you are in combat with another player — see PvP below for why.
¶ PvP: why fights end now (and why some don't)
Same-level PvP keeps the classic-era shape: damage is 50% against players (classic Tibia / TFS), and spell group-cooldowns apply in full (no soft cooldown like PvE) — everyone casts at the same tempo, and the fight is decided by per-hit weight and sustain.
Cross-bracket (2026-08-28). The newbie shield already blocks an unprovoked hit on an innocent below your level × 0.67. If a lower-level player opens on you anyway, they no longer keep that sponge on the way back: your hits land at 100%, and their mana potions are trimmed to 50% while the fight is live (health potions already were). Same-level and close-level duels stay at 50%. TFS has no level-gap factor and never trims mana pots in PvP.
Full PvP / Balam. Temples stay sanctuary. You cannot walk into that disc — or take the travel guide — while a player fight is still live. Classic Tibia lets you run into a protection zone unless you are skulled; Full PvP has no skulls, so the fight itself is the mark.
The 2026-08-11 pass fixed the biggest complaint — "potions decide fights, not vocations":
- PvP potion exhaust (now 1s). At two potions per second, any level-80+ player could out-drink any possible burst — our duel simulations showed literally 100% of fights ending in stalemate, with the "winner" being whoever could afford more bottles. The live exhaust is one potion per second in player combat so coordinated burst beats sustain. Pure PvE hunting keeps the fast 0.5s exhaust; the long exhaust only applies for ~10 seconds after a player blow.
- Vocation damage is the same in hunts and player fights (2026-09-15). Extra PvP-only cuts (Sky Sorcerer spells, Eagle Paladin distance, Jaguar Knight steel/war-magic) stacked on the classic 50% sponge and made a hunt nuke read as a tap. TFS uses one formula, then half. Knight 1.4× steel and 1.5× war-magic still apply both ways; the sponge is 50%.
- Magic Shield is 1:1 in PvP as well as PvE. A short-lived 1.25 bonus (2026-08-11) was removed on 2026-08-18 once Emberflesh existed — stacking that discount on a self-heal made the sorcerer nearly unkillable. The mana pool is still the mage's real armor (often 3× or more of their HP). The cast cost is a flat 100 mana (twice TFS Magic Shield's 50), the same at level 65 and level 200.
- What to expect in practice: mage-vs-mage and melee-vs-mage duels resolve; two full-sustain tanks (knight vs knight, knight vs paladin) can still stalemate each other — two walls of hit points healing through halved damage is classic-faithful, and breaking it would break much more. And remember the duel numbers above assume standing toe-to-toe: a mage or hunter who kites — range-7 nukes, haste, terrain — fights a very different fight than the one a knight wants.
Astral Toll (Sky Sorcerer) and Verdant Toll (Jade Druid) unlock at level 65. While up, incoming damage drains your mana instead of your HP, one for one, until the well runs dry — leftover damage still hits HP. You cannot wear this and a Ward at the same time.
The buff still lasts 120 seconds and can be refreshed in the last 10 seconds, the same cadence as Ward and Empower. Hits still cost mana. None of that changed.
The price to turn it on is a flat 100 mana — twice classic Tibia's Magic Shield (50), because Tikal's shield unlocks later (level 65 vs 14) and lasts 120 seconds. It does not grow with your level: a level-200 mage pays the same 100 as a fresh 65.
Haste is still a travel burst with a 60-second cooldown (you are not supposed to walk at haste speed forever). Magic Shield's real tax is the mana it spends when you get hit.
Full numbers: Sky Sorcerer Spells and Jade Druid Spells.
¶ Economy: who earns, who bleeds, and why
- The knight banks gold at every single level band — he is the only calling that never hunts at a loss. That is his compensation for the slowest leveling pace, and it is deliberate.
- Mages pay to hunt in the mid-game (roughly level 20–100): holding a full rotation burns mana potions faster than mid-band prey pays out. The 2026-08-11 pass halved that bleed (cheaper strong/great mana potions at 70/120 gold, and mid-band monsters now carry ~20% fatter purses) but kept a floor of it on purpose: mages level through that band at full speed while paying it, and from level 100 the tax ends — at the top, mages out-earn everyone in absolute gold.
- At level 200 a sorcerer nets about 1.3× a knight's gold per hour — proportional, not runaway (before the pass the same ratio hid a much larger loot gap). The ultimate mana potion went to 250 gold as the counterweight to the richer mid-band.
- The paladin's early rotation got cheaper (Hunter's Mend costs 15 mana, down from 20) — he ran the worst early-level economy of all callings because every mend was potion-funded.
Hours of continuous hunting to reach each milestone (simulated, dedicated-hunter skills — real calendar time is higher for everyone):
| Calling |
→L20 |
→L50 |
→L100 |
→L200 |
| Sky Sorcerer |
~4h |
~25h |
~67h |
~153h |
| Jade Druid |
~6h |
~27h |
~69h |
~155h |
| Eagle Paladin |
~4h |
~25h (fastest!) |
~68h |
~178h |
| Jaguar Knight |
~7h |
~35h |
~79h |
~189h |
- The sorcerer is the fastest to every milestone — that is his domain, and he pays for it at the potion shop through the whole mid-game.
- The paladin is the mid-game star (fastest to 50) whose pace settles once mage nukes triple past level 100.
- The knight pays ~20% more hunting hours to 200 and banks gold the entire way — speed-versus-wallet is the core trade of the game. If you want to race, roll a mage and budget for bottles; if you want to arrive rich and unkillable, roll a knight and enjoy the scenery.
¶ How we tested this — the actual experiments and numbers
Everything on this page came out of a measurable experiment, not a feel. Here is what was run, what it found, and how each finding turned into an adjustment.
- Simulated hunting sessions (PvE). Every calling hunted the real monsters of its level band at levels 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 — and each of those at three training states (under-trained, average, well-trained hunter), with fresh randomness every trial. The simulated hunter plays like a real one: swings on the weapon's tempo, casts its best ready spell on the spell tempo, self-heals below 70% health, drinks the best health potion it can below 50% and a mana potion below 30%, respecting the potion exhaust. Every session tallies experience per hour, gold looted, gold spent on potions, deaths, and where each point of damage came from (weapon vs spell) — hundreds of hunts per calling per pass.
- Simulated duels (PvP). All 10 possible pairings of the four callings fought 30 duels each at levels 20, 50, 100 and 200 — 1,200 duels per pass — under the real PvP rules (halved damage, full spell cooldowns, buffs kept up, potions on exhaust). Each matrix was run twice: with potions (the live game) and without (to expose the raw matchup underneath). Both fighters play mechanically perfectly, so any lopsided result is the rules' fault, not the pilot's.
- A classic baseline. Every combat formula (weapon damage, defense, armor, the halved PvP damage, the old ranged min-damage floor, the experience curve) was diffed against the classic-era open-source server formulas (The Forgotten Server 1.6), so every place Tikal deviates is a listed, deliberate choice — not an accident. The 2026-08-16 hunter shot band is one of those listed deviations: same average as the classic roll, much tighter window.
- PvP was literally unwinnable. With potions, all 40 duel cells — every pairing at every level — ended in a draw at the 5-minute cap. The math: a level-80+ player could drink up to 1,400 HP per second of potions, while the strongest possible halved burst landed a fraction of that. The only thing duels decided was the bar tab: 47,000–137,000 gold of bottles per 5-minute "fight", cheapest for knights, dearest for sorcerers. "Potions decide fights, not vocations" was mathematically true.
- Without potions, the knight won almost everything: 83–100% of cross-calling duels from level 50 up. His steel bonus, armor, and biggest health pool had no counterweight once sustain was equal.
- The sorcerer collapsed at the top: roughly 100% losses to knight and paladin from level 100, with the smallest health pool in a halved-damage world.
- Mid-game mages hunted at a heavy loss: at level 50 a sorcerer netted −106,000 gold/hour and a druid −126,000, while a knight banked +63,000 — the mage rotation drank its own profit.
- The top end overcorrected the other way: by level 200 mages dealt 3.1–3.4× a knight's damage per second, reached level 200 in ~23% fewer hunting hours, and out-earned everyone — no counterweight left.
- Nobody ever died. Every PvE cell, every tier: 0% deaths. The open world's difficulty is economic, which is exactly why the potion economy mattered so much.
¶ The adjustments, and the re-runs that checked them
Each change was made, then the entire test suite above was re-run to see what actually moved:
- PvP potion exhaust 0.5s → 1.5s (in player combat only) — re-run: duels finally resolve. At level 200, melee-vs-mage fights end in 26–54 seconds and mage mirrors resolve too; the bottle bill for a decided duel fell from ~50–137k to ~5–10k gold. Live exhaust is now 1 second (tightened after that pass).
- Health-potion vocation split (knight 100% / paladin 70% / mages 50%) — re-run: removed the "everyone is a knight with enough bottles" sustain that the exhaust alone didn't fix.
- We also tested splitting mana potions the same way — and the test rejected it. The re-run showed it doubled the knight's own hunting potion bill (352,000 → 742,000 gold/hour at level 200) and dragged the paladin into the red, while changing zero duel outcomes. It was cut. This is the clearest example of why every change gets re-measured instead of shipped on theory.
- Knight steel 1.4× → 1.25× against players only — re-run: his lopsided low/mid-tier duels softened (e.g. knight-vs-sorcerer at level 50 flipped from 60/40 in his favor to 40/60) while his monster hunting was untouched. Reverted 2026-09-15 (same vocation multipliers both ways; classic 50% is the only sponge).
- Magic Shield absorbing 1.25 damage per mana in PvP — re-run on 2026-08-11: sorcerer survivability improved where he was the universal loser. That 1.25 bonus was later removed (2026-08-18) once Emberflesh existed; absorb is 1:1 again. The 2026-08-25 recast tax does not change absorb — only the mana to turn the shield on.
- Cheaper mid-tier mana potions (70/120 gold) + ~20% fatter mid-band purses + a 15-mana Hunter's Mend — re-run: the level-50 mage bleed halved (−106k/−126k → −52k/−69k gold/hour), level-20 sorcerer and knight flipped profitable, and the early paladin hole shrank. The ultimate mana potion rose to 250 gold so the top end didn't inflate.
- Late-game steel raised (~+12% knight level-110+, +10% paladin level-150+) — re-run: top-end knight/paladin damage rose 4–6%. The honest finding: the remaining ~20% leveling-speed gap barely moved, because it isn't a damage problem — mages kill in one nuke and melee kills are paced by swing tempo, so no fair damage tweak closes it. That's why the gap is paid for in gold instead: at level 200 the sorcerer now nets about 1.34× a knight's gold (previously the same-looking ratio hid a much larger loot gap), and the knight profits at every level band.
- Hunter auto-attack band (2026-08-16) — players reported paladin shots swinging from a tap to a spike while mage wands looked the same every time. Distance damage now rolls in a wand-like half-to-full window around the old average. Average DPS and the vocation gates did not move; the wasted near-zero hits (and the 200-damage lottery) are gone. Mage pack-clearing is still the spellbook's job.
- Cross-bracket PvP and Full PvP sanctuary (2026-08-28) — same-level stays 50%. Hitting a victim below attacker × 0.67 lands at 100%; that drinker's mana pots take the 50% health-pot trim. On Full PvP you cannot walk into sanctuary while the fight mark is live. Same-bracket burst rules (2s attack lock, 1s potion exhaust) did not move.
- Same hit, then half (2026-09-15) — extra PvP-only vocation damage trims (sorcerer 0.72, paladin distance 0.85, knight melee 1.25 / war-magic 1.0) stacked on the sponge and made hunt floats unreadable in player fights. Live PvP uses the hunt formula, then 50%.
- Jaguar hunt-feel (2026-08-28) — players said pack hunts felt much harder than paladin/mage. 1v1 gold/h was already fine; the gap was standing in melee of a box. Four classic-era pieces landed together: vocation HP regen (promoted knight ~5 HP/s), hidden hunt stance (defensive shield + balanced autos vs monsters), melee min-hit 10% vs monsters only, and whirls toward Berserk / Fierce Berserk so Titan's Wrath still one-shots a Hydra leftover box. Automated vocation and hunting gates stayed green (mages still ~2× knight pack DPS; paladin still owns the hunter nuke vs knight stabs). PvP autos and melee floors did not move.
¶ Where the final state landed
| Question |
Before |
After |
| Do PvP fights end? |
0% of duels decided (all 40 cells drew) |
Mage matchups & melee-vs-mage resolve in 26–54s at the top; only tank-vs-tank still stalemates (classic-faithful) |
| Level-50 mage hunting |
−106k / −126k gold/h |
−52k / −69k (a deliberate floor — they also level fastest through that band) |
| Level-20 economy |
everyone underwater |
knight & sorcerer profitable, paladin halved his hole |
| Top-end gold gap |
mage income masked a 2× loot gap |
1.34× sorcerer-over-knight, proportional |
| Knight duels |
83–100% wins without potions |
dominant-but-beatable low/mid; top-end melee edge remains in a stand-still fight (kiting is the mage's answer) |
| Deaths in PvE |
0% everywhere |
unchanged (by design — difficulty is economic) |
Tikal's balance isn't vibes — it's enforced:
- The combat formulas (weapon damage, defense, armor, the classic 0.5 PvP factor, the experience curve) match The Forgotten Server 1.6 classic formulas; every deliberate deviation (Tikal same-bracket 0.45, the cross-bracket 1.0 lift, potion exhaust, the soft PvE spell tempo, vocation multipliers, the potion split, the hunter's wand-like shot band, vocation HP regen on a 3s tick, the hidden hunt stance, the PvE melee min-hit) is documented and simulated.
- Every game update runs the full balance simulation — thousands of seeded hunts and duels per calling per tier — plus automated cross-vocation gates in the test suite (e.g. "the knight's attack magic is the weakest at every shared level", "the druid out-heals everyone 2× or better", "no calling's sustained damage crowns the hunter's band"). A change that breaks a domain does not ship.
- When the numbers and the fantasy disagree, we retune the numbers — the potion changes, the PvP exhaust, and the top-band raises on this page all came from exactly that process, with the receipts in the simulation reports.
Think a matchup or a hunting band feels off anyway? Bring the numbers to the Tikal Discord — real player data is exactly what re-triggers a simulation pass.