How exactly do you find out what each ability does?

[Valkurm Emperor]

Did the first few fights and it doesnt really say what they do. i just ended up using all abilitys and guessing. What you see when you hover over an ability is jibberish to me right now. And looking at them in the hub area i got to shows the same information.
Take your starting chap for example.
I can guess smite one is some sort of basic attack, but whats the damage on it? how do i know if something is stronger? And Bulwark of Faith. Torch+6? what does that even mean?

[Taron]

The abilities aren't that complex so all the information about them really is contained in the little tooltip when you hover over them, the trick is learning what all the abbreviations and such mean.

When you are in the hamlet, there's an icon on the bottom right that looks like a book that's a Glossary of terms that explains what each thing means.

One thing that might help though - when you pick an ability, hover your mouse over an enemy you may want to hit it, but don't click yet. On the bottom panel, over on the far right side it will give you stats on what that attack will actually do based on its properties, including % chance to hit that particular enemy, the range of possible damage it will deal to that enemy, and the % chance of a critical hit.

Beyond that you have to learn what the yellow and red dots mean on the tooltips - yellow dots are what position your character has to be in to use that ability, and red dots are what enemy positions you can use that move on.

Each character has a base damage value dependent on their class, how upgraded their weapon is from the blacksmith, and other stuff like buffs, trinkets, and quirks. The damage of a specific attack is that base damage value from their character sheet and then a modifier. For example, if an ability says "-25% DMG" it means that it will deal the character's damage value * 0.75. If you want to know what that actually is, you need to either do the math yourself by comparing the base damage value on the full character sheet to the % adjustment for that move, or just depend on the trick I said above about hovering over an enemy and letting the game calculate the damage for you (which also will take that enemy's "PROT", or basically armor, into account).

Hope that helps.

EDIT: Oh, Torch+6 means that the move will brighten your torch light by 6 points, meaning you can use that attack to save on having to use actual torches. Hover your mouse over the torch icon on the top of the screen for more info on the effects of your current torch light level. You can also click on that torch icon to increase your light level (by spending a torch item) or shift-click on it to purposefully lower your light level.

If you have another specific question about an ability where the tooltip isn't clear enough, go ahead and ask away.

[wckowalski]

If something has modified damage it will say a + or - % to damage. Smite doesn't list that as it is one of the skills that does 100% base damage (which varies based on class and your amount of upgrades at the blacksmith). As for torch, surely you've noticed the big torch meter at the top of the screen? Mouse over that for info.

[Madmax]

Pro-tip: while in combat, the bottom half of the screen tells you how much damage your hero will inflict on the selected target given the selected skill.

Skill damage is not flat, but rather it modifies the base damage of the hero (which you can see by looking at the information tooltip on the hero's weapon. If there are no modifiers, then the attack does 100% of damage.

In addition, skill tooltips show you where you can cast skills from (the yellow dots) and what are valid targets (red dots). For additional effects, the tooltip will say something like "Self:" or "Target:" This shows what extra effects (if any) you attacks have. For example, the Grave Robber's Thrown Dagger attack boosts the GR's accuracy by five, so the tooltip mentions something along the lines of "Self: +5 ACC"

If you're not sure what the different abbreviations are (ACC, PROT, etc.), there's an in-game glossary

[LaserGuy]

Okay, let's look at your Crusader. He has an attack called Smite with the following stats:

DMG 100%, ACC 85, +15% vs unholy.
At level 0, Crusader normally deals 6-12 damage.
So this ability says that Smite will deal 6-12 damage (100% of 6-12), with an accuracy rating of 85% (meaning that against an enemy with 0 dodge, this skill will hit 85% of the time... if the enemy has a dodge of 10, say, then it will hit 85-10=75% of the time). It will also deal 15% extra damage against unholy enemies--skeletons and things. You'll also see some yellow dots and red dots. The yellow dots indicate the positions you need to be in to use the skill. In this case, you have to be in one of the front two ranks. The red dots indicate the positions that the skill can hit. In this case, you can hit the front two enemy ranks.

Next, look at Stunning Blow.
DMG -75%, ACC 90, Stun 100%.
This ability will deal only 25% of normal damage, so instead of 6-12, you'll be doing (6-12)*0.25 = 1-3. It will hit 90% of the time against Dodge 0 enemies. It will Stun an enemy 100% of the time if the enemy has a Stun resist of 0; otherwise it is subtracted from their resist: So against an enemy with a stun resist of 40, this attack will stun 60% of the time. Like Smite, it hits the front two enemies, from the front two positions.

If you click on an attack and hover the mouse over the enemy, it will tell you the exact damage range and accuracy of the attack against that particular enemy, as well as its resistances.

Torch +6 means that it adds 6 light to your Torch value. Your light rating is at the top middle of the screen, and has a value from 0 to 100. At 100, battles are easier, but you get less loot. At 0, battles are much harder, but you get more loot, with a gradient between them. Each time you use a torch item, you add 25 Torch to your total. So using Bulwark of Faith, in addition to giving you +25% PROT (25% damage resistance), it also increases your Torchlight by the equivalent of about 1/4 of the torch item.