Understanding Your Enemy

Since EQ2 is an adventure game, sooner or later combat is inevitable. Death has its consequences, so you'll want to choose your opponents wisely.

Selecting a Target
To judge a creature or interact with it, you must first target the creature. Target a creature by clicking on it with the mouse arrow. You can also press the TAB key to cycle through all potential targets in your field of view. Clear your target by pressing the ESC key, or by clicking on the background scene.

Your current target is highlighted in a few ways - a targeting ring rotates around its feet, and a targeting arrow hovers over its head. The name of your target is also shown in your Target Window. The Target Window gives you several pieces of information to help you decide whether to get involved with it:
 * The creature's name and level.
 * Whether it wants to attack you. A red outline means the creature is aggressive toward you.
 * Whether it is unusually weak or strong. (See "How To Judge Your Target" below.)

How To Judge Your Target

 * ''Main Article: Consider Guide

Point your mouse cursor at the Target Window to see additional hints about the creature's strength and disposition. These hints are basically just spelling out the information that was already visible in the Target Window.

Reading the Target Tooltips will help you to judge whether you want to mess with each creature that you run across. Here are some things that you'll want to consider when you read the Target Tooltips:
 * You want to fight creatures who are equal to your level, or weaker.
 * You don't want to fight Heroic creatures unless you're grouped with other players.
 * Some creatures are grouped together into groups; you'll have to fight the whole encounter at once.

What Does Heroic Mean?
In simple terms, a Heroic creature is extra-strong for its level, and will put up a grand fight. A Heroic encounter could also be several normal creatures grouped together. If you were way above its level, then you might defeat it by yourself; but typically players group together to fight Heroic encounters. Heroic encounters are more rewarding than non-heroic encounters, both in terms of experience points and treasure. With great risk comes great reward.

The Implied Target
As an extra bonus, EQ2 shows you who the creature is currently targeting. The Implied Target is a valuable piece of information whenever other players are around, or if you have a pet. It tells you who is the victim of the creature's actions. The Implied Target window only appears when it's useful - generally when the creature is in combat. It'll show up when you target other players, too.

Implied Targeting
Here's something a little more advanced. If you were to cast a beneficial spell on your enemy, EQ2 assumes you want it to land on the Implied Target instead. Similarly, if you were to cast a harmful spell on your friend, EQ2 assumes you want it to land on the Implied Target instead. This is called implied targeting, and it means you're letting someone else choose your target for you. Thanks to this feature, you don't need to change targets to cast a heal spell - and you can assist another player just by targeting them.