Battle Hall & Action Economy

Entering Battle Hall

Battle Hall supports AI Sparring and direct player battles through lobbies, including team formats and spectation. Ranked matchmaking and seasons remain future work. Battles use committed build snapshots; changing Profile does not rewrite a battle already in progress.

Discipline Mastery Trials

Choose Discipline Mastery Trial. Its opponent uses the server-owned High AI profile. Win using at least two different regular Primary Skills across at least three Primary Skill commands, without a player turn-timer expiry, then claim up to 50 Mastery XP from the result panel. Each battle awards once. Your frozen Primary at battle entry receives the XP.

Stages are Initiate, Practiced at 100 XP, Adept at 300, Expert at 600 and Master at 1,000. Master also requires demonstrating all eight regular Skills across qualifying victories. Mastery makes a Discipline eligible as Secondary. Loadout → Nexus → Manage Disciplines → Discipline Atlas & Mastery shows earned progress, unmet prerequisites and separate testing access. Named Mastery Rites are planned future content.

Advanced Disciplines teach four Skills at Initiate, two more at Practiced and two at Adept. Ordinary AI Sparring, Guided Fundamentals and Passive Training do not award Discipline Mastery. Trials grant no Character XP, loot or Crowns.

Targeting and named effects

New battles calibrate hostile direct damage for approximately twelve-round level-100 direct-pressure reference duels. Hit chance adds −5 percentage points against a target facing you, +5 from the side and +10 from behind before clamping to 0–100%. Builds, terrain, healing and tactics still change fight duration.

Items is the locked coming-soon slot before Inspect, default P. It does not execute a battle action. Existing custom hotkeys are preserved.

New battles pin their effect timing. Effects default to the following global round; direct damage and HP/MP recovery happen instantly. Delayed icons appear immediately as Pending, then become Active. Ordinary non-instant statuses cover their full stated global rounds. Instant timing overrides retain their owner-turn lifetime, and DoTs retain their scheduled affected-turn-end ticks. Hover or select its icon for the meaning and turns remaining. Older battles keep their original timing.

Technique tags show who a Skill targets, its single/area/line shape and its effects. Expand Skill details for exact recipients, range, AP/MP cost and requirements. Current attack-based Burn, Bleed and Poison deal their authored percentage of the original attack’s captured HP damage at affected turn end; Poison ticks once per affected turn, and traversing its configured number of tiles, including Push or Pull, resets its remaining duration to the recorded original duration without extra damage. Reapplication keeps the greater percentage and original duration independently, resets movement progress and restarts that full duration. Partial movement carries between turns; instantaneous relocation does not count. Historical fixed versions and battles retain their recorded damage and trigger rules; Repeated Heal effects restore HP at affected turn end. Slow raises movement AP cost; Rooted prevents movement while leaving other commands available. Cleanse removes all negative debuffs. Conditional Cleanse removes only the debuffs selected for that Skill.

Marked increases its source’s Accuracy against the target by the saved potency. Taunt reduces damage dealt to anyone except its source. Burn Ward reduces damage from burning opponents. Reckless increases both damage dealt and damage taken. Fortified increases Physical and Mystic Defense and reduces outgoing damage by the same saved percentage. Each tradeoff expires or is removed as one effect.

In new battles, Ruin builds one boosted hit from the target’s consumable debuffs when the attack is committed. The first landed eligible hit consumes those captured debuffs, even when a Barrier absorbs the hit; later hits against that target cannot reuse the bonus. Missed or prevented hits do not spend it, and debuffs applied afterward remain. Reversal Strain is protected and does not add to this bonus. The Battle Chronicle records the total applied bonus on the same damage line, such as Ruin +60%. Historical battles retain their captured Ruin rules.

Skill damage checks armor for physical attacks and ward for mystic attacks, separately for each hit and affected unit. Current effect power is authored on a bounded 1–20 scale where applicable, and persistent duration is part of the Skill’s balance budget. Percentage-based statuses can use per-Skill potency overrides; the preview shows the actual value for that Skill version. Conditional modifiers remain bounded to a safe combined range.

Reading the Battle Chronicle

The Battle Chronicle groups short technique scenes and recorded outcomes by character within each round. Damage is crimson, HP/MP recovery green, and Essence or Resonance headings gold. Its header shows the recorded round in gold. Current and previous rounds start expanded; use earlier round chevrons to reveal or hide complete history. The current round stays open, and live updates preserve a round you are reading or deliberately opened. Hover or select a named effect for its standard explanation. The first ordinary movement per character per round remains visible; repeated movement, final facing, end turn and fading effects stay on the board and character rails rather than repeating the story.

Elemental setup and payoffs

Burn, Bleed and Poison are damage-over-time tags. Chilled applies to units; Chilled Ground applies it through icy tiles. Skills can require tags such as Chilled or Conductive; their details explain which setup is needed before a payoff becomes legal.

Battle Technique buttons and their skill pickers show target, shape and effect tags from the build committed to that battle. Immediate Damage shows [Instant]. Compact effect durations use Turns; effect details identify whether expiry counts affected character turns or global round boundaries. These labels do not change captured timing or duration rules. Tags describe the full Technique; the informational target forecast shows its effects, costs, cooldown legality and requirements while you aim. A deliberate execution gesture submits directly to server validation without waiting for a matching forecast. Dispel removes selected buffs. Cleanse removes all debuffs; Conditional Cleanse removes selected debuffs.

Ice Skills with an explicit Chilled tag apply it after positive hostile HP damage. Chilled locks final facing to the current direction; movement still faces normally. Water Skills with an explicit Drenched tag apply it after positive hostile HP damage, reducing effective Initiative by the saved percentage per application while active, capped at 100% reduction (minimum 0 Initiative), including current-round tempo. Future unacted turns reorder safely; the active character keeps their turn, and nobody gains an extra turn. Pending effects grant no Initiative change.

Drenched adds its strongest active saved Storm damage bonus. Storm consumes an old Conductive charge for its captured bonus and applies a fresh charge only when the Skill has an explicit Conductive tag. Repeated damage in the same cast cannot consume the new charge. Conductive and Drenched each contribute their strongest active captured bonus once per recipient per command. These debuffs require positive hostile HP damage after Barrier; misses, fully absorbed hits and lethal hits grant no new debuff. The separate status row owns its captured potency and duration. Their default Instant lifetime is two affected turns from damage settlement; explicitly configured Normal or Delayed timing uses full rounds as shown in Skill details.

Current Fire Skills use Conditional Cleanse selecting only Chilled on Self; other statuses remain. Its default Instant timing applies on a legal cast, including an empty Ground cast or a miss; authored timing overrides are shown in Skill details. Drenched and hostile recipients’ Chilled remain until their normal expiry or explicit removal. Select an enemy or ground tile with the ordinary board controls for Fire Skills; Ground intent preserves the same costs and geometry and misses Airborne. Historical battles keep their captured elemental rules.

Ground targeting and temporary terrain

Ground previews are orange and show only the authored footprint. Single Ground Skills select one tile, including empty ground. Current Line Skills choose a cardinal direction; Circle Skills immediately preview around the caster; All Ground previews every eligible battlefield tile. Choose the Skill and confirm deliberately. Detecting a target does not hide other potential tiles. An explicit Line aim may focus one complete lane; leaving or canceling that aim restores the potential lanes. Previews spend no AP or MP and stay silent. A Skill’s affected-team rule governs its unit effects; temporary terrain follows its own team rules.

Ground Skills keep their marked tiles for the stated global-round duration. Field activation follows the authored Instant, next-round or delayed timing; pending tiles show a clock. Active fields immediately affect eligible occupants and contacts. Each character receives each logical effect type once during its own turn cycle across tiles and overlapping casts. Damage and Slow have separate allowances; repeated movement or overlapping Damage does not grant another attempt. Later turns use ordinary refresh and stacking rules. Push/Pull checks each traversed tile; relocation checks the landing tile. Contacts repeat no command costs or cooldowns. Unit statuses can outlast the field. Source-only effects keep their ordinary targets.

Chilled Ground uses icy tiles to apply Chilled’s facing restriction without increasing Skill AP costs. Recipient effects such as Damage, Pierce, defenses, recovery, debuffs, removal, Reveal and Push/Pull can use Ground. Targeting, team rules, resistance and Airborne still govern contact. Historical battles retain their recorded Frozen Ground and Fire-to-Steam rules. Steam: Blocks line of sight through this tile for either team. Preserves base terrain.

Airborne makes every Ground-targeted Skill miss its holder, including area activations and entry effects. While active, the holder’s Jump is 3 for entering elevated tiles, and only their Attack Skills have Target Elevation 3. Both return to their normal values when Airborne ends. Slow and base-terrain AP costs still apply with Airborne, and Rooted still prevents movement. Inspect the tile and movement preview for its current cost and remaining duration. Your Movement allowance remains a separate limit even when AP is available.

Single-unit Resonance payoffs wait for a unit-targeted Skill. Ground casts preserve that setup for a later eligible action, and empty ground cannot generate an actor reward. Current Skill versions use authored 1–3 turn cooldowns rather than the retired consecutive-repeat falloff. Cooling-down actions show grey artwork and a remaining-turn number in the cockpit. They cannot be selected or cast by click or hotkey until the authoritative cooldown clears; the number advances on your turns, not on a wall-clock timer.

The Terrain Key lists every terrain type, one per row. A green dot marks Active terrain present on the battlefield; a red dot and greyed texture mark Inactive terrain. These markers update as terrain overlays appear or expire. Select a terrain to read its effects.

Protection, concealment and displacement

Damage Up increases outgoing damage by its saved potency. Healing Down reduces HP and MP recovery by its saved potency, including periodic recovery. Blindside activates only on a successful side or rear Skill hit with a modifier above 100%; front hits and misses do not grant or refresh it. Its side and rear percentages are set separately for each Skill; front hits are unchanged. It expires at the end of its holder’s turn and does not enhance Basic Attack. Master can edit each Skill’s side and rear Blindside percentages. Perfect Opening uses one power-20 hit plus Blindside. Invocation creates an allied summon combatant with its own turns; other current Skills cannot summon.

Invisible prevents ordinary hostile direct unit selection. Ground effects and Reveal can still hit the concealed unit. Taking positive damage or making a damaging command breaks concealment, including a missed basic attack.

Reveal can target Invisible and Covert units. A successful hit against either removes both and applies Revealed for the set duration. Incoming attacks then have 100% accuracy and deal the saved extra damage.

Reflect returns a set percentage of actual HP damage and damage absorbed by Barrier to its source. Historical encounters retain their captured HP-only rule. Physical Reflect responds to Physical damage, Magical Reflect to Mystic damage, and Full Reflect to both, including damage over time with a known source. Potency may exceed 100%. Reflected damage never triggers another Reflect.

Push moves the target away; Pull moves it toward the caster without entering the caster’s tile. Each follows its authored tile distance and stops at board edges, obstacles, living occupants, illegal elevation or Rooted. No additional status is applied, and resources are not refunded. The preview and Chronicle show the actual movement.

Action Economy

A turn starts with 100 AP. Normal ground costs 20 AP per tile; rough ground has terrain weight 2 and costs 40 AP. Basic Attack costs 30 AP; HP Recovery and MP Recovery cost 50 AP. Every ordinary walking tile entered spends 1 Movement, including rough or Frozen Ground; terrain, Haste and Slow change AP cost, not the number of Movement steps. Walking obeys your remaining Movement allowance, even when AP remains. Skill Move is independent: it uses the Skill’s authored distance and total cost without spending ordinary Movement. Movement starts at 2 and caps at 4; Jump starts at 0 and caps at 3.

Choose one Support action: HP Recovery, MP Recovery, Pilfer, Fleetstep or Invocation. HP and MP Recovery share a two-turn cooldown and restore 10% of the maximum resource.

Pilfer costs 15 AP, deals 4 base Pierce damage to an adjacent enemy and has a one-turn cooldown. Its Loot tag grants no items, currency or rewards. Fleetstep costs 30 AP and moves up to four extra legal tiles without spending ordinary Movement, with a two-turn cooldown.

Invocation costs 45 AP and 10 MP, has a four-turn cooldown, and summons Vesper, a silver-blue moon drake, for four completed summon turns. Only one Invocation summon may be active or pending per character.

Guard is retired as a Skill; defensive status effects remain available. Captured reports show the actual authored values.

Selecting a legal action proposes the AP spend before commitment. The AP bar shows the proposed segment with a temporary glow; after confirmation the authoritative committed value becomes the new solid remainder.

Skill cooldowns and requirements

Current Techniques and Essence Skills use authored cooldowns from 1 to 3 turns based on their total power, coverage, utility and duration. The server advances cooldown state on owner-turn boundaries.

A Skill with an explicit use Requirement has no cooldown; satisfying that prerequisite is its limiter. The previous consecutive-use 50% effectiveness rule is retired for current versions. Basic recovery actions keep their separate timing rules.

Reversal arms immediately after paid Controlled preparation. It prevents the first qualifying hostile front/side direct hit in its chosen Physical or Mystic family and returns the saved percentage of prevented HP damage. It stays armed until triggered or cancelled; Reveal, defeat or battle end also disarm it. Offensive attacks are unavailable while armed. Ending causes Reversal Strain, and cancellation refunds nothing. Historical battles retain their captured lifetime and maximum-HP caps.

Choose first — nothing is forced

Choose a cockpit action or press its hotkey to select it; aim forecasts are informational. Click a valid target or use WASD in its direction to submit the selected intent directly to the server. For a Skill aimed at yourself, press its hotkey again to cast. The server validates the current battle version and every action rule before accepting it. The action stays selected while the same turn continues. Move highlights the full legal destination range and can cover a legal path in one click; Movement allowance, AP, terrain, elevation and active statuses still apply.

Cancel Action clears the selection without committing it. Surrender ends the practice battle as abandoned.

Final facing and the opponent turn

Finish Turn asks for north, east, south, or west facing. Choosing the direction commits that facing and ends your turn. The AI opponent then resolves its server-authoritative turn before control returns to you if the battle is still active.

Reading the battlefield

Combatant cards keep only high-value information visible by default. Click a combatant to inspect Initiative, Movement, Jump, Physical Defense, Mystic Defense, Evasion, and current facing. Status icons open above the battle layer so their details stay readable.

In new battles, entering a raised tile requires Jump at least equal to its absolute height. Height 1/2/3 grants 15/20/25 percentage points of Evasion and reduces both defenses by 20% while you remain there. Skill Target Elevation at least equal to target height bypasses only the terrain Evasion bonus. Active rail icons explain these effects; leaving the tile removes them.

Hit chance is Accuracy minus target Evasion, with authored accuracy/status modifiers and a final 0–100% clamp. Status Resistance can cancel ordinary hostile Skill debuffs while damage still applies. Essence, Resonance, Ascension and Severance effects bypass it. Saved historical battles keep their pinned rules.

The Combat Log groups the sibling events from one committed action into a single action entry. Solo Battle Chat is also available for self-notes and interface testing.