Auto Eat uses selected food after damage lowers a surviving character to its healing threshold. It cannot heal a character already killed by the hit. Food quantity and protection from a lethal hit are separate requirements.
Read the health-bar markers
The meat marker shows your current Auto Eat threshold. The sword marker shows the enemy’s maximum hit. Keep incoming damage comfortably below the threshold before treating an ordinary fight as suitable for unattended training, and account for special attacks or changes of enemy.
The demo’s base threshold is 25% of maximum HP. Use the value on your current health bar rather than assuming an upgrade or another character has the same threshold.
Why a food stack is not enough
Consider an illustrative character with 1,000 maximum HP and a 250 HP threshold. At 260 current HP, a 300-damage hit kills the character before Auto Eat can respond. Holding hundreds of meals does not change that order.
A larger food stack extends the time that healing supplies last. Raising maximum HP, changing defensive equipment, or choosing a weaker enemy addresses a different problem: surviving each incoming hit.
Select food before starting
Cook the raw ingredient, put the finished food in a food slot and select it. Confirm that its count is visible while fighting. A raw fish in the bank is not the selected cooked food.
A food’s attached bonuses apply while that food is selected and at least one remains. Changing food can therefore change more than healing per meal. Compare the current food’s effect with what your combat or Thieving setup needs.
Manual eating and attack timing
Manual eating restarts your attack turn. It can rescue an actively watched fight, but repeated manual eating can delay your own attacks. Do not estimate an unattended kill rate from a fight where you are constantly intervening.
Check the whole session
Watch several attacks before leaving. Then consider whether Auto Slayer may move to a stronger target or whether a dungeon includes multiple enemies. A safe opening enemy does not establish the safety of every later one.
Keep a food reserve when preparing offline training. Running out does not guarantee that combat pauses before death.
If the fight ends in death, the equipment penalty draws one combat slot and treats stacks differently from ordinary items. For preparing replacement meals, Cooking proficiency explains why raw ingredients are not a guaranteed meal count.
Sources
- Demo 0.11.4 healing and death rulesBase Auto Eat threshold and random equipment-slot penalty, including partial stack loss.
- hookshot24’s combat and UI notesHealth-bar markers, food preparation and the importance of incoming maximum hits.
- Food exhaustion discussionFirsthand corrections to the assumption that combat stops safely at zero food.
