ATTENTION NEW PLAYERS: Basic combat system guide

[Apheirox]

What I've noticed is most players play as if they hadn't used the tutorial: Players are simply running around using the horizontal slash attack (very dangerous near teammates!) and aren't making use of the many other attacks. Here's a few pointers to move your game onto a more advanced stage - which will see you shooting up the scoreboard.

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- First of all, if you haven't played the tutorial, do so. While it's very buggy (you may get a hangup, particularly during the 'advanced combat' part - shame on Torn Banner for not testing properly) it teaches you quite a few tricks.

- The horizontal swipe should be avoided near teammates, it will create too many teamkills. Use the overhead or stab attacks. The overhead is the more skillful attack anyway since it's harder to land and will reward you with greater damage output.

- Don't just keep bashing the shield of somebody who's constantly blocking: Move in and kick their ♥♥♥ - literally! Use the kick move to break blocks and, as a very cool feature, push people into traps and off cliffs for environmental kills.

- I've only seen one player so far who uses the feint maneuver. Learn to feint properly and you can cause all sorts of confusion to opponents, typically making them block prematurely so you can put them to death. It is also highly useful to use with the slower weapons where it lets you cancel failed attacks that otherwise would have left you wide open - basically, an emergency block move.

- As you'll also learn during the tutorial, COMBOing and especially deliberate missed combos (where you miss the first strike in order to land the second or third) are extremely useful, especially with slow weapons. Learn to 'fail-combo' with a deliberate air swing to surprise your opponents!

- You have to be quite precise with your facing when you're blocking. Simpy facing the opponent and hitting block often won't be enough if he's using an overhead attack. As the tutorial says, you must keep facing the tip of the weapon in order to block properly. Doing so you will be 100% effective, however.

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TLDR: Don't just run around swinging your weapon wildly with left mouse button, play intelligently and make use of the detailed combat system - doing so will provide an enormous edge over your opponents. Play the tutorial, incorporate the tricks you're taught into your play.

[Adinbei]

Hit trading is popular among messer and maul players, because they can attempt to gamble and either win the HTK or just one hit you. I wouldn't say it's the meta though.