Tales of Zestiria Advanced Combat Guide

Good Evening. My name is MIDI and I'm doing this small guide to showcase some more advanced features and exploits that I or others discovered in Zestiria and how it can be utilized.

Introduction

Watch this video before reading this guide if you don't know much about the combat.

While the videos and guide will be easy to understand, there will be needing a lot of practice for these techs. This isn't like a total game changer but it does open up the options for combos than the standard options. I'll be using words like "hitbox" and "frames" a lot to explain. Though....I might need to tone down on the uses of them:P

I will be using more images to describe what I'm doing. Right now this is just to get the guide out so people know whats up. Still finding new techs as of now writing this guide, so there will be a couple or a few more sections added later on in the guide.

However, the ones that are "Work in Progress" means I am still figuring out how that said tech works. Because there are a few already that I have queued up as of now...

If you have any criticism, suggestions and whatnot, just comment and i'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Canceling Techs

Spell Canceling

The first tech is one of the more simple ones in the game.

Spell Canceling(SC). has been a tales standard for quite a long time. It started to become obsoulete during the Xilla Era but it's more of use here than there. With Spell Cancels, you can restart you're chain by pressing the spell button and quickly pressing the guard button. So it will look like this:

Martial Arte> Martial Arte> Martial Arte>SC>Martial Arte etc.

This is great for serpahs as they lack Martial Artes. So it helps them a ton to continue combos, use the weaknesses or keep redoing the same martial arte over and over again. This tool starts to be a little less useful when you get eterni or have a ton of Exceed, but it's still viable in the end result.

Spell Canceling reduces lag animation. Same for how Side Stepping does it also..

It's also very viable for Artimaztion as they have spells too. Mostly Fire, Wind and Earth form do a good job with this tech. Water Artimazation is the least useful when SC'ing. Still has uses despite this.
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Artimazation Canceling

It's an older video of mine. I need to really redo it but this video for visual understanding to say the least.

When you press the LB trigger(or where you're artimazation button is assigned to) during an arte, then canceling the frames of the actions. This is called Artimazation Canceling(Or Kamui-Canceling)

Artimazation Canceling ain't a new tech per say, but it's now utilized differently than what you saw how others did it if you saw any videos with Zestiria Combos(and has more potential applications). The tech is reliant on precise inputs. Because instead of JUST canceling the animations, you can utilize the active hitboxes on the character that is canceling. Kamui-Canceling is a good tech for Serpahs as they can cancel on any frame no matter on the lag. Even Cancel Spells!

Keep in mind, most of the Seraph's artes Hitboxes with stay out(depending on the character and timing of the input) during the cancel but not have any animations on the arte. Much like you see in the video when Dezel canceled his martial arte, but the chains kept going.

For humans, they are unable to do this as great like the Seraphs. To a degree but nothing like them sadly...However, there is an exploit...Rose and Sorey can both Kamui-Cancel just like the Seraphs with their air artes(For Sorey, it's only Severing Wind). Sorey the second he's in the air, he can Cancel. Rose is the same way but since she has more artes that propels her into the air, she's much more efficient at this than he is. The only air artes she can't cancel are the ones that send her down to the ground. Like Lighting Tiger Blade for instance.

Artimazation Canceling isn't all that hard and it won't take long to learn it at all. What will take time is the timing of the cancels to specifically utilize the hitbox frames on the artes. Because some take precise inputs
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Partner Blast Canceling

This is where things can get a bit more complex and a little harder to do.

Partner Blast Cancel(P-Canceling) is basically using a partner blast of another team member while you are using an arte(or any action). This will not only cancel the arte you would be doing, it would also teleport you to the position of the enemy and still possibly have that active hitbox.

Some moves will have active hitboxes regardless, some will not for unknown reasons. Instead, it will show the attack's animation but not have a hitbox. The attacks most of the time, can still be used but at times, you'll go into a T stance if you time the attacks too quickly where as, both attack animations conflict and glitch each other. If you saw the move dream slasher, it required timing and precise frame inputs(including Instant BG Blast, which I'll get to later when I figure it out more.) Is very hard to do .It gives you a perfect and faster execution like how you saw Rose doing it the first time of dream slasher. It just takes practice. Even I am unable to get it right(mostly because I need to understand the inputs and how to really use it).

This tech allows more freedom of the manipulation hitboxes. It's a very fun tech that is dependent frames and the timing of the cancels. For example: Canceling Sorey's Searing Gale right when he reaches the air will result in the attacks hitbox being above him. Inputting the cancel on the precise moment of the very beginning of Searing Gale's startup, will have him cancel the attack all together without the final blast. Another example:

Rose's Esper Dream. In the video, you saw how when she P-Canceled then went into Esper Dream, she and her attack went behind the enemy. However, you can reverse that arte by positioning yourself behind the enemy.

To have Esper Dream be reversed, you need to factor in the positioning of Rose and the Seraph. So lets look at it like this:

Think of this as a 3D Plane, and imagine the enemy is in the middle of the battlefield.

[Laliah]---[Rose]---Front/Enemy/Behind-----[ ]

This position will result in the same thing as you saw in the video. Rose will instead face away from the back of the enemy and cast her arte. But by having Rose in this position while P-Canceling:

[Laliah]-----Front/Enemy/Behind-----[Rose]

Will result in the arte facing the enemy rather than the opposite way.

The arte will also be different affects in direction of the cancels. Meaning, you can have the arte coming from the right, front, behind, left etc!

Last thing to touch upon is the "Air detection" aspect. So when you P-cancel when you're using an air arte, you will do the usual attack. But the difference is what the game is registering afterwards. On most accounts when using air artes and P-Canceling them, you will see Sorey or Rose standing on top of the air just by few feet. What does this mean? Well, you can then do follow ups that would be impossible if it were done by normal combos. Since the game understands that the character is still in the air, you can use air artes! They will teleport to the position of their air artes(Sorey's Runic Circle will transport him back in the air as if he used that arte with Severing Wind). This also isn't restricted by air artes. Weird huh? Even Steel Render and Starfall can do this. All you have to do is P-cancel the move when they haven't touched the ground yet. For Steel Render, It's towards the very early frames of the attack. For Starfall, it's during the frames right when he disappears. You have to be quick on knowing what frames does what and have fast input timing. Of course, a will do an advanced guide very video soon when I have more time(this is something that I had to squeeze time on). I know some of this might be a bit hard to understand and do(could be my explanations too) but I promise that it's easier than it sounds.

There is something though I want to cover. While the tech may be very interesting, it takes resources(as you pretty much know). It's a bit impractical, but it's not hard to fill BG. So if you're looking to use this tech a lot, I would suggest you utilize the skill system to stack more BG skills

Partner Blast is an underrated tool for combos, and Partner Blast Cancel will really give you a lot more interesting things to do with the combat.

I advise everyone to experiment with this tech as there is a lot to do with it. What you saw in the video wasn't quite half of what can be done. Ton of moves have different results upon the frame cancels, so give it a whirl!

Spell Transportation

With Spell Transportation, you basically have a few frames before Partner Blast activates to execute this. Within those few frames, one or two things could happen

-The spell will stay at the position where you cast it.

or

-The spell will be taken with you. Normally, it places itself towards the middle of you so if you ever need to know(if you're up closer towards the enemy) when you're doing it right, just look at the character models and spell to see if they both are sort of "lined" up.

You would have to let go of the spell just right before you vanish.

Spell Hold Tech(Almost finished)

Exclusive to only Laliah until further testing..

Holding a spell then A-Canceling will release the spell. But it has no hitbox sadly...However, Laliahs Pyrogenic Ring works....And it's the only one to do that.

Not sure if it's just laliah or a special input I have to do with the rest of the spells.

Gotta do more testing perhaps with Partner Canceling and Learning about her frame data..

EDIT: So I figured out that the spell hold can only be done if it's a spell that is instantly released within a few frames. Like Laliah's photon Burst, and it must be used up close. Also found out something interesting with Edna's trigger artes but there needs to be more testing.

Instant BG Blast

Instant BG Blast. Super tricky tech..

Extremely hard tech to do....It's basically taking all the stutter you get from BG blasting and does it instantly. The frames of those attacks are reduced than when you usually do it.

With this tech, you must do a BG Blast, quickly switch to a character then switch back.

(Starts at 0:54)

You don't have that many frame windows to do this. If you look on Sorey's HUD, I switched from Laliah to Sorey instantly. What I do to get it down is I have the left back button as guard. When I use the BG blast, I quickly hold the guard button down and use the D-Pad to switch characters and I DON't take my thumb off the D-pad button. Use it by still keeping my thumb on the D-Pad.

[FatalFury386]

Great guide! It help me a lot.

[Toviyyah]

As I said before, I will add things that is needed in this guide like more images and videos. I'm sorta busy at the moment so it'll be some time but they will be uploaded.