Stanzas and You: Fighting

Oren pyr, folks!

We continue the Stanzas and You series with a look at basic fighting stanzas. Most are very similar, but some actions and credits can dictate whether your fighting action is universal or more specialized to cause extra damage or status effects. So, we'll review basic fighting stanzas that take advantage of the three different types of physical damage one can deal - slashing, piercing or blunt - as well as a glance at my favorite style, Range.


Melee fighting - getting up close and personal

There's many different types of melee weapons one can use on Atys, but they pretty much all cause one of three types of damage - slashing, piercing, and blunt. Range damage type is the same, but doesn't come with the neat extra effects the melee stanzas offer. Let's look at some basic stanzas that take advantage of each.

Basic melee stanza. Note all
melee weapons are highlighted.

Your basic melee stanza starts with a Default Attack basis as all fighting stanzas do, and all-purpose stanzas which can be used with any weapon typically include an Increase Damage skill and an Accurate Attack skill. But by adding different skills and restricting oneself to certain damage types, a melee fighter can add some pretty neat combat effects into the mix.

Adding the Bleeding skill alters what
weapons can be used with the stanza

Slashers (swords, axes and the like) have available to them the Bleeding skill. This causes the player to open bleeding wounds on their adversaries with their blades, causing said unfortunate soul to begin losing hit points as the fight progresses. This ability is stackable, meaning each time you land a sharp blow you have a chance to open up yet another wound.

Basic Ignore Armor stanza

Piercers (daggers, pikes, etc.) have the Ignore Armor skill available, and it pretty much does what it says - causes the player to deal their piercing damage directly, without figuring in resistances or armor. Naturally, this ability doesn't stack because it doesn't have to - just stab, stab, stab away!

Basic Slow Attack stanza

Wielders of blunt instruments (maces, staves, and - for the bold - magic amplifiers if used in melee combat) get the Slow Attack skill. This helps slow down your enemy's attack rate, helping you do damage to it faster than it can reverse the trend. From what I understand, this is stackable too, but I have no way of being able to tell other than by eyeballing it so your experiences may vary.

"Neat! So, can I..."

Let me just stop you right there - no, you can't combine the abilities. ;-)

Once you select one of the three, then you can't select any others nor can you use any different damage type weapons with that stanza unless you change it. Probably for the best. That would get abused pretty quickly.

Anyway, moving on to my favorite - Range Fighting.

Range fighting - new meaning to the term 'run and shoot'

Range fighting has a lot of downsides that are outshined by one huge benefit - range fighting is the only fighting style that allows the player to attack while on the run. That's right. You can attack while running away, and those slower creatures just toddle along after you taking bullets to the face until you get XP and materials. (So nice of 'em to do that.)

Basic Range Fight stanza

Range stanzas start out with the Default Attack blueprint too, but quickly differ once one selects the Increase Fire Rate skill. You'll notice that, at the top of the stanza creation window, the melee weapons all grey out and all those fancy gun icons become active. That'll be your most important skill as a range fighter - the faster you fire, the faster stuff dies.

Tips and Tricks
- Having trouble hitting your target when attacking bigger opponents? Try adding some Accuracy to your stanza to help land those hits against more skilled monsters.

- The Bleeding skill is exceptionally effective against boss creatures and other monsters with a lot of hit points.

- The Ignore Armor skill has been reported to be quite useful in PvP combat.

- Slow Attack tends to work best on creatures with slower attack rates (like bodoc) as the effect is more pronounced.

That's it for this brief overview of the fighting stanza! Tomorrow is a doubleheader - magic and crafting. The latter's pretty easy to set up; the former, not so much. Until then, keep your sights aligned and powder dry. -D T'k