Tears of Metal: Beginner's Guide

Dying a lot in the early Acts? This guide is the survival onion — six layers of not-dying, from health management to your army, distilled from the top-rated community guides.

Last updated: Aug 22, 2026 · compiled from top-rated Steam community guides

Layer 1: Health management

Run out of HP and the run ends (solo) or you go down and cost your team coins to revive (co-op). So the first rule is simple:

• Stay above 1/3 HP at all times. Don't top up to full — you'll waste the healing you walk past.
• Keep 300–400 coins in reserve for emergency heals and revives. Nearly everything that heals costs coins.

The healing sources in the game right now:

Almost all healing is percentage-based and can be boosted by the Healing Power modifier.

Layer 2: Block & parry

• Block health regenerates on its own — trade block health instead of HP whenever possible.
• Stagger warning: when block health is depleted you get staggered, and block won't regenerate for a while.
• Parry = block right before the hit lands. Parries don't cost block health — with good timing you can parry forever.
• Block cancels everything — attacks, dodges, any action. It's your universal "abort" button.
• Block and parry work 360° — you don't need to face the enemy.
• Block-break attacks still don't touch your HP — against heavy hitters, eating a block break is better than eating the hit. The stagger just makes it risky.

Layer 3: Don't get hit

• Some enemies use block-breaking attacks — blocking won't save you forever. Learn dodge timing for the heavy telegraphed swings.
• You can block almost all AoE attacks — test each one instead of running.
• Damage-resist buffs: the Alchemist family gives Resilience (cuts incoming damage). Some items trigger similar effects on dodge or on taking hits — read item descriptions.
• Damage-nullification items: a flat chance to fully ignore an attack (yellow circle + small shield visual). Great, but luck-based — don't build around them.

Layer 4: Shrines & events

Optional map events shape your build — and can kill you. Rule: if your HP is low or the event looks too spicy, skip it.

• Horde Shrine — waves of enemies with archer barrages between them. Permanent until cleared. (Shrine ringed by swords.)
• Mother Stone Shrine — stones rain on your head periodically. (Shrine with mother-stone pieces.)
• Broken Bones Shrine — +attack damage, +damage taken, for the whole mission. Purple shrine with cracks. A real trade.
• Slay Challenge — incremental: each completion adds a wave (up to 6), spawning captains of the current Act. Skipping early Slay Challenges keeps the wave count low. Rewards: -threat or a chest with an item + coins per captain.

Shrines award Family emblems for you or your ally; Slay Challenges give threat reduction and loot.

Layer 5: Army commands

Your battalion is damage, not decoration. Key rules first:

• Lock on before calling a command — without a lock, commands can miss entirely.
• Fewer living allies = weaker commands. If every ally of a type dies, that command is disabled. Keep them alive.
• Army bonuses: mixing two troop types gives the strongest bonuses (e.g., 6 infantry + 6 spearmen = King's Guards 3, a big Infantry Command boost). One troop type alone caps at level 2.
• Family emblems activate on ally commands (max emblem level: 5). Allies can't hold hybrid emblems.

Allies also deal passive damage around you (not against bosses) — scale roughly with their run-preparation damage value.

Layer 6: Solo vs co-op

Community consensus: a good co-op run is easier than solo — but dying in co-op actively drains coins from your teammates (revives cost coins), so the first rule (don't die) matters even more in multiplayer.

FAQ

Related:Combat Guide ·Wallace's Secret Weapon ·Achievements Guide