what the

[SimonPhoenix]

can anyone explain this progression system? im double my opponents level with more specialties and i get rekt

[Yo]

You gotta understand the energy and hp system, the way turns work (initiative), the way abilities interact with each other and pick the appropriate skills to counter the enemy's skills as well as making a good general build that you then tune to your enemy

[Yo]

Stats will carry you in the early game but if you wanna progress higher you need to understand what to do and what skills to use, you cannot just train stats and expect to win fights by picking whatever

[󠀡󠀡]

Stats don't mean everything this time around.

While you can win a lot of matches just from having better stats, you need to equip the proper skills to combat opponents that have high offense/defense.

[Fringehunter7719]

Red = Strength -> Increases max HP, increases damage slightly, increases energy costs moderately. Values are shown on each skill, but the first few levels radically change most of the early skills.

When you get higher up the tree the cost scaling becomes proportionately much smaller. Avoiding levelling past 1 until you've strengthened the other areas of your fighter makes the early fights much easier.

Blue = Agility -> Increases your initiative bars. Fights progress like this: You attack until your initiative is exhausted, then the other fighter does, then it's your turn again.

Early on attacks will just use 1 initiative each, so if you have 2 initiative and so does your opponent you take half the attacks. If you have 4 and they have 2 then you will take two thirds and they will take just a third. Dominating the combat time like this means they deal less damage and have less opportunity to force you back if you use dodge. Equally it means you can force an opponent who uses dodge back repeatedly. When they are backed to the corner their dodge no longer works (until later on when they might get return abilities).

This has the opposite effect to strength, in a sense. Moving from 2 initiative points to 3 takes only a little training at early levels and makes a BIG percentage difference in your damage and control of a fight. Later when you move from, say, 6 to 7 it takes more levels, each of which requires a much greater time spent training and delivers a much smaller shift in what percentage of the fight you spend attacking (e.g. both fighters have 2, then 1 extra initiative means the fight goes from 50:50 to 60:40 but if both fighters have 6, then 1 extra initiative moves the ratio from 50:50 to just 54:46).

Green = Endurance -> Increases max stamina, increases stamina regeneration. Basically a necessity as a primary or secondary stat as this allows you to load up with more/better attacks, defences and utility skills.

On top of these basics, you have fighting styles, which offer 4 bonuses each, that are activated by plugging in the correct number of skills of the matching colour. You can see how many skills are needed by the bars to the left of the skill icon.

Not all your skills will need to match your stance, but often you will want to make sure you have enough to activate all four skills. There are examples when it won't pay off though, for example if you're not going for knockdowns and your stance offers knockdown bonuses.

Fights are subdivided into rounds (usually five). At the end of each round three things happen:
(i) You are returned to the centre of the ring, so anyone backed into a corner by dodging gets a reprieve. It can be worth balancing the number of dodges (without return) you have in your skill set around who will be attacking first and how many steps back you can afford. Similarly if you can string a long combo together against a dodge-style opponent and will be acting first with your initiative (as is common in round one) you can plan to spend extra stamina to fill all your attack slots with moderate-low cost attacks to back them into a corner.

(ii) You can select skills for the next round. It can be useful to swap out attack skills for rest skills and press harder in rounds where you will be attacking first. Attack order always picks up exactly where it left off, so if your opponent has 4 initiative and spent 2 when the previous round ended, now they will start attacking with 2 initiative before it's your go again, with your full initiative.

(iii) You regenerate some stamina and/or health based on your currently equipped fighting style and its activated skills. You can change style specifically to get a different regeneration bonus if you need the extra HP or energy.

It may also be worth considering knockdowns - if you or your opponent hits 0 energy they lose any remaining initiative (if it's their go) and fall to the floor, taking damage, before standing back up and restoring a small amount of stamina.