If you've ever tried to make a fighting game, you know that setting up a functional roblox battle script is easily the most frustrating part of the process. You want your players to be able to swing a sword or throw a punch, and you want it to feel snappy, but instead, you end up with weird lag, hits that don't register, or even worse, exploiters ruining the fun. It's a lot to juggle, especially when you're just trying to get the basics down so you can actually start playing your game.
The thing about combat in Roblox is that it isn't just about one single script. It's really a conversation between the player's computer and the server. If that conversation is slow or messy, the whole game feels like junk. We're going to break down how to structure a battle system that doesn't fall apart the second two players start spamming buttons at each other.
Why hit detection is the hardest part
When you're writing a roblox battle script, the first big decision you have to make is how the game actually knows when a hit happens. Back in the day, everyone just used the .Touched event. It's built-in, easy to understand, and requires like three lines of code. But let's be honest: .Touched is kind of a nightmare for serious combat. It's inconsistent, it relies on physics parts actually overlapping, and sometimes it just doesn't fire.
Most modern creators have moved over to Raycasting or ShapeCasting. Think of a Raycast like an invisible laser beam. When a player swings their sword, the script shoots out these "lasers" from the blade. If the laser hits a limb, boom—damage. It's way more precise and feels much more professional. You don't have to worry about the physics engine catching up with a fast-moving sword; the Raycast checks the exact path of the swing.
The trick is making sure you don't overcomplicate the Raycast. You don't need a thousand lasers for a single swing. Usually, just three or four points along the length of the weapon are enough to make it feel accurate. If you're doing a hand-to-hand combat system, you might just cast a small sphere around the player's fist. It's all about finding that balance between "it works perfectly" and "it's not lagging the server into oblivion."
Keeping the server and client in sync
This is where things get a bit technical, but stay with me. You can't put your entire roblox battle script inside a LocalScript. If you do, the player might see themselves hitting an enemy, but the server won't know about it, and no damage will be dealt. Even worse, if the damage logic is on the client, a script kiddie can just change the damage value to 999,999 and one-shot everyone in the lobby.
The standard way to handle this is by using RemoteEvents. Your LocalScript handles the input—the player clicking the mouse or pressing 'E'. The LocalScript then tells the server, "Hey, I'm trying to attack now." The server then checks if the player is actually allowed to attack (checking things like cooldowns or "stuns") and then performs the hit detection.
It sounds simple, but you have to account for latency. If a player has a high ping, there's a delay between them clicking and the server seeing the attack. To fix this, a lot of developers use a "client-side visual" approach. You show the animation and the effects immediately for the player so it feels fast, while the server does the "boring" math in the background to confirm if the hit was legal. It's all smoke and mirrors, but that's basically what game development is.
Handling damage and health the right way
Once your roblox battle script detects a hit, you need to actually do something with that information. Most of the time, this means lowering the "Health" property of a Humanoid. But don't just subtract a number and call it a day. You should always check if the target is even alive first. There's nothing weirder than a "Death" sound effect playing five times because you kept hitting a body that was already at zero health.
You also want to think about "tags." If you want to give a player a point for a kill, you should probably insert an ObjectValue called "creator" into the enemy's Humanoid when they take damage. This way, when the Humanoid dies, the game knows exactly who to credit for the kill. It's a classic Roblox trick that has worked for years, and it's still the most reliable way to handle leaderboards in a combat game.
Another thing to consider is knockback. Combat feels pretty stale if the enemy just stands there like a brick wall when you hit them. Adding a LinearVelocity or an older BodyVelocity object to the target for a split second can make a huge difference. It gives the combat weight. Just make sure you clean up those velocity objects quickly, or the characters will just keep drifting off into space like they're in low gravity.
Adding juice and visual feedback
Let's talk about "juice." A roblox battle script that only changes a health bar is technically functional, but it's boring. You want the player to feel the impact. This is where things like camera shakes, particle effects, and sound variations come in. You don't want the same "slash" sound every single time; maybe have three different sounds and pick one at random.
Animations are obviously a huge part of this too. If your script triggers a sword swing, make sure the animation's "keyframes" align with when the Raycast is happening. If the hit registers before the sword even moves, it looks broken. You can use AnimationTrack:GetMarkerReachedSignal to trigger the damage logic at a specific point in the animation—like the exact moment the sword is fully extended. It makes the whole experience feel way more polished.
Don't forget about the UI, either. Small things like a "Damage Indicator" (those little numbers that pop up over an enemy's head) give the player instant gratification. It confirms that their attack worked. Without that feedback, players might think the game is lagging or that their attacks aren't doing anything, even if the script is working perfectly.
Protecting your game from exploiters
We have to talk about security because, well, it's Roblox. If you have a roblox battle script, someone is going to try to break it. The most common exploit is "Reach," where a player can hit someone from across the map. To stop this, your server script needs to do a distance check. If the server sees a hit but the two players are 50 studs apart, you should probably ignore that hit.
Another common issue is "Auto-clickers" or "Spamming." You absolutely need a "Debounce" (a cooldown) on the server side. Even if the player's client says they attacked ten times in one second, the server should only allow one attack every 0.5 seconds (or whatever your swing speed is). Never trust the client to tell you how fast the player is allowed to hit. The server is the boss, and the client is just a suggestion.
Lastly, try to avoid passing too much data through your RemoteEvents. You don't need to send the damage amount from the client; the server should already know how much damage a sword does. All the client needs to send is "I am attacking" and maybe "Who I think I hit." The server verifies the rest. Keeping your scripts tight like this makes it much harder for anyone to mess with your game's balance.
Putting it all together
Writing a roblox battle script is definitely a learning curve, but it's one of the most rewarding things to get right. There's a specific kind of magic when you finally see two players dueling and the hits are registering exactly when they should. It transforms a project from a collection of parts into an actual game.
Start small. Don't try to build a complex combo system with elemental magic and parrying on day one. Just get a basic script that detects a hit, applies a little damage, and plays a sound. Once you have that foundation solid, you can start adding the fancy stuff like Raycasting and custom animations. Just keep testing it with friends—or even just two game windows open at once—to make sure it feels right. You'll get there!