Unarmed

Unarmed is the "punch things to death" skill. With nothing in your hand you turn your fists into a real weapon: you hit harder, knock items out of your enemies' hands, swat arrows out of the air, and, with the Berserker super ability, temporarily smash weak blocks instantly while dealing bonus damage.

You train it the obvious way: by punching mobs and players with an empty hand (or while holding any item that mcMMO doesn't count as a weapon or tool). The more you fight unarmed, the more its sub-skills scale.

Earning XP

Unarmed is a combat skill, so XP comes from the damage you deal with your fists. mcMMO takes the damage dealt to the target, multiplies it by the mob's combat multiplier from experience.yml, then by 10:

Unarmed XP ≈ damage dealt × (mob Combat Multiplier) × 10

A few examples of the per-mob multiplier (Experience_Values.Combat.Multiplier):

XP is awarded based on how much health the target actually lost (overkill damage is not rewarded). With ExploitFix.Combat.XPCeiling on (default), a single hit's damage is capped at 100 for XP purposes.

Berserker: the super ability

Berserker is Unarmed's super ability. While it's active you deal +50% damage and your empty fists can instantly break weak materials like dirt, sand, gravel, snow, glass, leaves and similar "soft" blocks.

Activating it

1. Make sure your hand is empty (Unarmed mode).
2. Right-click to "ready" your fists (you'll see "You ready your fists.").
3. Left-click a block or mob within a short window to fire Berserker.

You need the mcmmo.ability.unarmed.berserk permission and at least Berserk rank 1, which unlocks at Unarmed level 5 (Standard) / 50 (RetroMode).

Duration

Like all super abilities, Berserker's length grows with your skill level:

duration (seconds) = 2 + (Unarmed level ÷ IncreaseLevel)

So a level-50 standard player gets 2 + 50/5 = 12 seconds, and a level-100 player caps out at 22 seconds. The Max_Seconds.Berserk config option (default 0 = no extra cap) can shorten it further.

Cooldown

Berserker has a 240-second cooldown by default (Abilities.Cooldowns.Berserk).

The +50% damage

The bonus damage comes from BERSERK_DMG_MODIFIER = 1.5, applied as:

bonus damage = (base damage × 1.5 × attackStrength) − base damage

attackStrength is the vanilla attack-cooldown charge (0–1). A fully-charged swing gets the full +50%; spamming attacks before the cooldown refills gives less. This is the same attack-cooldown scaling that affects most mcMMO combat skills (controlled by Skills.General.Attack_Cooldown.Adjust_Skills_For_Attack_Cooldown, default on).

Steel Arm Style: bare-fist bonus damage

Steel Arm Style is your passive fist-hardening: as it ranks up, every unarmed hit deals flat bonus damage. It has 20 ranks.

Bonus damage per rank

By default mcMMO calculates the bonus from your rank rather than using the override table:

bonus = 0.5 + (rank ÷ 2)        for ranks 1–17
bonus = 0.5 + (rank ÷ 2) + (1 + rank − 18)   for ranks 18–20

That gives this curve (the default, with Damage_Override: false):

The Steel Arm bonus is also scaled by your attack-strength charge when it's applied in combat.

Disarm: knock the weapon out of their hand

Disarm only works against other players. On a successful hit, the item in your target's main hand is dropped onto the ground.

Your chance to disarm

The chance scales linearly from rank 1 (unlocked at level 25 Standard / 250 RetroMode) up to the cap. From advanced.yml:

Unarmed:
    Disarm:
        ChanceMax: 33.0
        MaxBonusLevel:
            Standard: 100
            RetroMode: 1000
        AntiTheft: false

Disarm's roll is multiplied by your attack-strength charge, so a fully-charged punch disarms more reliably than a spammed one.

Anti-theft

With AntiTheft: true (default false), a disarmed item can only be picked back up by the player who was disarmed. Nobody else can scoop it. By default anyone can grab it.

Disarm is blocked by the target's Iron Grip (below).

Iron Grip: resist being disarmed

Iron Grip is the defensive flip-side of Disarm. When another Unarmed player tries to disarm you, Iron Grip gives you a chance to keep your weapon.

Iron Grip's rank 1 unlocks at Unarmed level 60 (Standard) / 600 (RetroMode). At the cap you're effectively immune to Disarm. From advanced.yml:

Unarmed:
    IronGrip:
        ChanceMax: 100.0
        MaxBonusLevel:
            Standard: 100
            RetroMode: 1000

Note: Iron Grip is checked on the defender's Unarmed skill. You need to be training Unarmed yourself to benefit from it.

Arrow Deflect: swat arrows away

While unarmed, you have a passive chance to deflect incoming arrows, taking no damage from them.

Arrow Deflect's rank 1 unlocks at Unarmed level 20 (Standard) / 200 (RetroMode). You must have an empty hand for it to work. From advanced.yml:

Unarmed:
    ArrowDeflect:
        ChanceMax: 50.0
        MaxBonusLevel:
            Standard: 100
            RetroMode: 1000

Unarmed Limit Break: punching through armor

Limit Break is mcMMO's anti-armor scaling. It adds flat bonus damage that grows with rank, specifically to keep your fists relevant against heavily-armored opponents. It has 10 ranks, one every 10 levels (Standard) / 100 levels (RetroMode).

Bonus damage

Limit Break bonus = rank × armor-quality modifier

The base bonus is simply your rank (1–10), then reduced based on the defender's armor:

So Limit Break gives the most against well-armored targets and very little against an unarmored one, by design. Against mobs, mcMMO treats armor quality as 1000 (full effect).

Commands & permissions

Note the real permission nodes have no underscores (steelarmstyle, arrowdeflect, unarmedlimitbreak). Ignore any wiki that writes them with underscores. See Permissions for the full list.

Quick reference