NARAKA: BLADEPOINT – Combat Mechanics Explained + Combos

Most Important Combat Mechanics and Their Effects on Gameplay

Tap Dodges

(Tapping Shift + Direction)

Tap dodges have long i-frames but also long recovery frames. They therefore provide relatively high safety during the dodge, but leave you very vulnerable after it. Mainly to be used when you know the enemy is also stuck in some animation or out of range and therefore can’t punish you.

Hold Dodges

(Holding Shift + Direction)

Hold dodges have very short i-frames, but leave you with significantly more freedom to perform follow up actions. Generally used more than tap dodge, as it allows you to react to what your enemy might attempt more freely. Can be caught by light attacks in melee range though.

Note: I-frames do not work against tether effects such as Viper/Tessa ult, or against burn/poison damage.

Almost all interactions in this game are ping and to an extent fps dependent. The game has attacker sided precedence. Some consequences:

Parries

Parries are ping dependent. The higher your ping, the more you have to parry in advance for it to register. However, even if your ping is low, the enemy having high ping can require you to parry earlier as well.

Different types of parries have different start-up frames:

• Jump parries have a particularly large parry window and pull you into attacks, so they can help with consistency. But they also take longer to initiate and thus are a tad bit slower than most other parries, which needs to be accounted for. The vacuum effect can also be detrimental to your parry timing.
• Properly buffered hold-dodge parries are supposed to work on frame 1 and since you’re coming out of i-frames, more or less ping independent. In reality you might still see odd interactions.

Quick Parry and Composite Parry

Quick parry and composite parry are identical in speed except for when you’re running or mid-dodging (just holding shift to dodge), in which case quick parry is ironically slower.

Rubber Banding

Sometimes you dodge but get pulled back into an attack, even though your stamina is consumed. This is because your dodge has not reached the opponent’s screen yet and therefore was overwritten. Again, gets worse with higher ping.

Blue Focus Armor

Holding blue focus makes you immune to stagger from light attacks and reduces their damage by 30%. This is vastly important for combat. How fast your blue focus armor comes into effect depends on your ping and fps.

Some combos are only properly executable under certain ping/fps conditions. The most relevant basic combos are pretty universal though (check pins).

“Soft True” and “Full True” Combos:

• True combo -> Only abilities that can be used under attack can escape.
• Soft true combo -> Abilities that can be used under attack and any ability that grants focus state can escape. However, pure movement cannot.

Animation Speed

Animation speed is fps dependent.

Knowing the range and characteristics of the various light and blue focus attacks of different weapons is extremely important. Spacing properly and knowing how to avoid attacks reduces risks and avoids some of the ping related issues I mentioned. This, in conjunction with ability usage/synergies and resulting player habits, are the “true” depth of the combat system and what you should ultimately pay attention to when practicing.

Buffering

Buffering, i.e. inputting actions while still stuck in animation, is highly important. This will attempt to execute your input on the first possible frame once the animation you’re currently in is over, in particular ensuring trueness of combos/attack strings.

Focuses

Weapons only have access to purple and gold focus in few cases. Abilities more commonly are gold or ultimate focus. Some ultimates give access to purple focus, such as Akos or Zai ult. In some cases abilities are blue focus, which can’t be parried though (i.e. Wuchen F1/F3, Yoto F2 initial cast, Shayol F2 startup frames).

Click to enlarge…

Easy to Learn Combos

Every Current Basic Combo

• The last attack of the spear and staff combo is soft true.
• The last attack of the dual blades combo is soft true/generally iffy.
• The last attack of the nun-chuck combo is soft true.

Dagger Combos

• The first basic chip combo is soft true.
• The last hit of the rmb focus extension is soft true.

Fan Combos

• The first basic chip combo is soft true.
• The final lmb of the last extension is soft true.

Popular Weapon Swap Combos

• Also works with spear instead of staff.