Age of Wushu Combat System Guide

Age of Wushu Combat System Guide by Seph

To start things off, I do not declare to have knowledge of every game mechanic within this game. I am still learning new things every day. I am just hoping to share with everyone, the things that I have picked up on while playing. I hope you enjoy this small tutorial all player vs. player combat. Keep in mind that this is a general pvp guide and not meant for any particular school. It also has information on skills that are not meant to be used for pvp.

The greatest thing that I have about the combat in this game is reading your opponent. By watching their animations you can tell what they are going to do right before they do it. So in most instances, out right attacking your opponent is a really bad idea. You can bait them into using certain skills but this kind of fighting will only come with experience. After you fight someone a few times you should start to understand the animations for their attacks and start to develop a way to counter them.

Read your skill descriptions! By simply reading what your skills do, you will learn that many skills have additional effects when used in certain situations.

So lets dive right into our combat trinity. No I am not talking about tank, heals, and dps. I am talking about overt moves(red), feints(blue), and blocks(green). Simply put, attack>feint>block>attack>feint… you get the idea. More to follow on Qi moves below.

Overt Moves
Overt Moves, attacks, are any of your skills with a red ring around them, including rage skills. The majority of skills fall into this category and generally these skills do more damage than the other types of skills. If both players use an attack skill, the person who lands the first blow will cancel out the other persons ability unless the skill cannot be interrupted(see below). So if you can see them using a skill with a long animation, use one with a much faster one to interupt them.

Skills that cannot be interrupted are easy to see as they cause the user to have a blurred/glowing effect around their bodies. These skills make the user invulnerable to all types of crowd control and cannot be interrupted. The best bet against someone using one is to simply run away and wait for the skill to end.

There are few abilities that knock people back regardless if they are blocking or not. The block will still reduce the damage taken but the knockback is still in effect. Do not release block! You will continue to block even though you are knocked back. Beggars are prime examples of this. They have a knockback that they follow up with an aerial slam. If you hold block you will take less damage from both and land on your feet after it is over!

Some skills require or have an additional effect if you or your target are in the air, on the ground, have a particular buff or debuff. This is why it is very important to read all of your abilities.

Rage skills are the only abilities that do no consume your inter force(blue bar) but actually consume rage(flames under blue bar). They are usually a long string of attacks and some cannot be interrupted. Some rage skills do hardly any damage if any at all but provide the user with a substantial buff or debuff their opponents. You build a little rage each time you attack or take damage. The fastest way to build rage is actually by blocking someone elses attacks.

Block
Block can be done by simply holding down the block key (right click by default) but there are also (green) abilities that can be enabled to provide your blocks additional effects. These effects are usually labeled as parry effects. Some fighting styles require that you use the parry effect for its fighting style to enable some of the skills within it. For example: Beggars have a fighting style called Crying Stick, some of the skills require you to be drunk and the parry skill allows you to get drunk when you parry.

Feints
Feints are any skills with a blue ring around them. Every skill set has one of these abilities and they do less damage than real moves do. The main reason to use a feint is for breaking your opponents block. Most feints have an additional effect when breaking someones block such as knocking them down or stunning them. This creates an opening for a follow up attack. Some feints on the other hand do the same effect regardless if they are blocking or not. For example: If using Shaolin Long Style Boxing, using a feint will knock them to the ground regardless if they are blocking or not.

Qi Move
Qi moves are skills with a grey ring around them. They are typically skills which are used to heal, buff or debuff, although certain Qi moves also deal damage. They can be easily canceled by any other attack.

Now that you have a basic knowledge of the skills, lets talk about flying skills and arrays.

Flying Skills
Flying skills are special non combat movement skills. This does not mean they are not useful in combat they just simply do no damage. They use up at special flight meter (green bar), located to the left of the rage bar. They make movement in combat much easier and allow approach skills (see below) to be used more efficiently. They are also very useful to get out of sticky situations where you would of taken damage. These skills are found in dungeons and random encounters, rather than learned from a particular school.

Arrays
Arrays are group skills. They consist of 3 abilities that you learn with the array, and an assortment of other abilities that can be learned from drops. You have to first activate the array and then others will stand in the right positions to help finish it. Doing so will provide the group with a buff and allow the group to use other other abilities for that array.

Out of the 3 basic skills you get with the array, 2 of them are passive buffs, which only need to be activated once while the array is up, and the 3rd is an attack that can only be used while the array is up. The other skills learned from drops can heal, buff, or even debuff. All of the array skills require you to have a specific array active in order to use them.

When an array is active, the person who used the array and the person on the left of them become the keys to the array. They will both have a ring around their feet and the person who activated the array will have an additional large ring to show the area of effect. If the 2 keys get too far apart the array will end.

The array can be cast anywhere as long as you have enough people in your group to complete it. However, some of the skills associated with the array cannot be used outside of forbidden instances.

Now lets talk about different ways to target your opponent.

Normal Targeting Skills
These type of skills require players to click on a target before casting. If there are any obstacles between you and your target, melee targeting skills will not be cast even if you have locked on to your target. If your target moves out of range despite being locked on, the targeting skills can be still used if it is a ranged skill, but no damage will be taken, unless it is an Approach Skill (see below). This means that, your opponent can literally dodge your skills, if they quickly use a flying skill to move out of the way.

Approach Skills
Approach skills are a special class of targeting skills. You can que up ONE of these skills into a “Wait bar” after you have locked on to your target which is currently out of range. The range here, not only refers to the range of you skill itself, but it is the range of your flying skills, as well. When in range, the skill which is in the “Wait bar” will automatically be executed to approach the target when used with a flying skill.

Tips

  • It is more ideal to use flying skills with approach skills but you can just simply jump at them to activate them if you do not have any flying skill yet.
  • Only ONE approach skill is allowed to be qued at a time. The skill will be removed from the “Wait Bar” if any other skills are pressed.
  • These skills can literally miss, if your opponent moves from your target location. So just because you have them targeted does NOT mean that your opponent cannot dodge it.

Non-Targeting Skills
These skills can be used even if you don’t have any target locked-on. Most of these skills hit in an aoe around yourself or in a cone in front of you. All feints also fall into this category.

Targeted Area Skills
These skills are a special class of non-targeting skills. After pressing the skill, you can move your mouse to a certain area before casting it. These skills usually provide a persistent effect at the targeted area.

Skill Groups
All skills belong to a group of skills. These skill groups require you to equip a certain weapons in order to use any of the abilities. There are skill groups that do not require a weapon but do not use the stats of your currently equipped weapon to modify the damage of your skills. Using any skill will lock out the ability to use any other skill from a different skill group for 7 seconds.
There are only 2 exceptions to this rule:

  1. You can use any ability in the basic skills area with any other skill group without the 7 second lockout.
  2. Arrays and their skills can also be used with other skill groups without the 7 second lockout.

Random semi combat related tip:

  • If you dismount your horse while in the air, you will instantly get off it rather than going through the dismount animation!
  • Using any non-targeting skill, usually a feint because they have no cd, while falling will reset your fall speed. This allows you to simply float down off of large cliffs….. Like a ninja

This might be a little bit of a read but if you got this far, I thank you for reading my guide. I will spar with anyone from any school if they wish to learn more. I am much more proficient as a beggar and can provide insight on how to fight as or against one. I do have a basic knowledge of how to play against other schools but I cannot provide a strong basis on how to play as the other schools. However, we have officers for each school if you are looking to learn from them.

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