Mechanics Guide

Health & damage

Every fighter starts a round with the same amount of health.
What changes between fighters is their attack arsenal and how much of a hit actually gets through, and that comes down to blocking and armor, both covered below.

Health is represented by the RED bar, Lose all of it and you are out of the round. If the five-minute clock runs out first, whoever has the highest percentage of health left wins. Not the most damage dealt. The most health kept.

Energy

Energy is the BLUE bar under your health, and it is what every special costs. You start each round with half a bar. It refills on its own, fairly quickly, but only after a short pause since the last time you spent any. Keep spending and it never gets the chance.

If you cannot afford a special, it will not start. No half-cast, no wasted animation. That is the energy gate, and it means the bar dictates what you are allowed to do right now.

A few moves keep draining while you hold them instead of costing once. Some Specials can push you past empty into energy debt. You will not be casting anything until you have climbed back out, and the regen has to fill the hole first.

Blocking & block break

Press D. Blocking lasts for a short window, so time it well!
While you are blocking and facing the attack, most of the damage never reaches your health. Only a sliver gets through. Each blocked hit will also give you a little knockback, which keeps a combo from pinning you to one spot.

Blocking is not free, and it is not total:

• It only works from the front. Hits from behind land in full.
• Certain Special attacks can go straight through it!
• Sustained hits, some heavy hits and clashes cause a block break: your guard drops and you stagger. Leaving you vulnerable.

The block stays up as long as hits keep landing on it, so a well-timed block through a whole chain is a real option. Just know that the person chaining into you can end it with a grab.

Attack chains

Tap A quickly and you throw the first hit of your fighter's chain!
If it lands, the next tap throws the second. Miss, and the chain resets. Every fighter's chain ends in a finisher that hits harder and knocks down. Oh yeah.

Specials can chain too. Kinto and Feng keep throwing Powerballs while you hold the key. Multi-stage specials carry themselves from stage to stage once they connect. And finishers are where you launch into a special, because the knockdown buys you the time.

Each fighter's own chains are on their Fighters Page.

Armour & poise

Some moves carry armour while they run. An armoured move shrugs off any hit that is not heavy enough to crack it: you still take the damage, but you are not interrupted and the move keeps going.

Armour is not unlimited. Every hit it absorbs counts against a poise budget, and once that budget is spent the armour breaks and you go down, no matter how light the last hit was. Heavy hits crack armour straight away. Light hits wear it down.

Some characters (Rostam and Valrik) have idle armour: one charge that shrugs off a light hit while they are just standing, walking, running or jumping. A small chip of damage still lands, and the charge comes back a couple of seconds after the last hit.

Rostam's stops jabs and Powerballs. Valrik's is tougher and stops chain finishers, sprint attacks and Freya's basic arrows too. Rostam's is cracked by those arrows. Both break to the really heavy stuff.

Grabs

Grabs are a class of their own.
Rostam's Grab & Throw and Valrik's Overhead Grab are the two true grabs, and they follow one rule: a grab beats armour. Idle armour, move armour, shields, super-armour ultimates. If the grab connects, the target is grabbed. Be aware!

Three things stop a grab:

• Another grab. If two grabs meet, both fighters stagger and nobody gets thrown.
• Invulnerability. a dodge cannot be grabbed. You're welcome.
• Someone who is already grappled, or already down.

Strike priority

When two attacks land on each other at the same moment, the game does not flip a coin. Every attack has a priority, and the higher one wins.
Roughly, in order: a jab, a mid-chain hit, a finisher, a special, an ultimate.
A finisher beats a jab.
A special beats a finisher.
An ultimate beats nearly everything in most cases.

If both attacks are at the same level, both land. Both fighters take the hit and both flinch. Trading jabs is a real thing and it is usually a bad idea.

Projectiles have their own ladder for what happens when they hit each other. Keep an eye out for how they interact and you'll soon be dominating the battlefield!

Knockdown & recovery

Finishers, sprint attacks and most specials knock down. You are launched, you fall, and you spend a moment on the floor. That moment is the most dangerous part of any round, because the person who put you there is already moving.

Getting hit again while you are still in the air redirects your fall in the new direction, so a group can bounce you between them.
But there is hope! While falling, if timed right, you can perform an air recovery by pressing the Jump key and land on your feet instead of your back.

Fall past the edge of the arena and you are not dead, but you pay for it: a chunk of health and a respawn. Some arenas have solid edges, and slamming into them costs health too. Nowhere is a free corner.