Combat Actions and Battle System — Dissidia Final Fantasy NT eGuide

DISSIDIA uses an unconventional health and “lives” system. Party health represents how many lives remain on a team, HP is how much health an individual character has, and Bravery is a character’s current power level.

The Bravery System

Bravery is a unique hybrid power/vitality system (not to be confused with a character’s HP value). Successfully attacking your opponent reduces their Bravery value while increasing yours. Characters have multiple Bravery Attacks, each executed with in some fashion, such as:

while dashing (+ )

Additionally, most characters have an entirely separate set of attacks while executing the above commands in mid-air (for instance, during a jump). These may be referred to as “airborne attacks” in this guide. For comprehensive lists of attacks, refer to specific character chapters.

Understanding Attack Commands

Although most attack commands are simplified to direction+ , the command itself isn’t necessarily the condition for executing certain moves. In rare instances, you may be using the left stick to move in a direction relative to your target that slightly differs from what you’re inputting, and if you perform an attack, you might get an unexpected outcome.

For example, you may get two different attack outcomes executing + , depending on your target’s positioning relative to your character and camera (sometimes you might get the + attack, and sometimes the + attack). This is because the game checks whether you’re moving toward or away from the target, instead of what directional inputs you’re entering. The best way to avoid this is to explicitly use + , + , and neutral commands and avoid using + and + .

Keep this in mind, and be deliberate with your movement before committing to an attack!

Note that this relative command quirk does not apply to “while dashing” attacks, such as Sephiroth’s Hell’s Gate. Attacks like these are executed by explicit input commands while dashing. For instance, as Sephiroth, once you’re in a dashing state in any direction, pressing + executes Hell’s Gate.

Reducing an enemy’s Bravery below zero rewards you with a “break bonus,” instantly boosting your own power by 1000.

However, to knock out (or “incapacitate”) an opponent, you need to successfully connect with HP Attacks, performed by pressing . Scoring a successful HP Attack sets your Bravery value to zero, leaving you break-vulnerable for a brief period while your Bravery resets to 1000.

Anyone who scores a knock out will enjoy a 50% Bravery attack power increase for 5 seconds.

Characters have multiple HP Attacks to choose from during the pre-match Battle Set configuration menu. However, only one HP Attack can be assigned per match. Vaan is the only exception, capable of equipping two HP Attacks. At the outset, only one HP Attack is available per character. The rest of the fighter’s HP Attack arsenal is unlocked by leveling up, which is done through combat in any mode.

HP Attacks and Bravery Management

Bravery management is an important aspect of the game, and one of the inherent risks of going for an HP Attack is that you drain your Bravery upon successfully landing one (although it automatically resets to 1000 after a short period of time). You can take advantage of this fact by going after opponents who’ve just spent their Bravery, which gives you a break bonus. This can swing a match in your favor, as you’re instantly awarded 1000 Bravery points for causing the broken effect.

Of course, this means you also need to be wary when finishing off a foe with an HP Attack (or using HP Attacks in general, such as for breaking guard). Watch the minimap carefully as you deliver your HP Attacks—you may need to immediately dash cancel away to safety!

Another implication of the Bravery-reset system is that it may be more efficient to spend your Bravery on weaker HP Attacks, rather than saving for one big purple-number finisher. Since your Bravery is automatically reset to 1000 after (provided you aren’t being broken by an enemy), you can view the reset as a “free” additional 1000 Bravery points. For example, if you see an opening to spend 1500 Bravery on an HP Attack against a full-HP (3500) enemy, you can opt to take the shot. Since you’re “refunded” 1000 of it, you only need to score an additional 1000 Bravery post-reset to be able to finish off said enemy.

HP Attacks at any strength can be useful for knocking the victim out of the fight temporarily, almost like a “hard knockdown” in traditional fighting games. And, counterintuitively, it can become worthwhile to go for HP Attacks that do almost no damage, if your Bravery is at or near 0. This can happen if hit by Bravery-draining debuffs, like Bio effects. In this case, landing an almost harmless HP Attack can get you back to 1000 Bravery faster than clawing your way back there with Bravery Attacks and risking being broken while doing so.

HP Attacks vary in range and speed and usually have distinct properties, so choose the HP Attack that best suits your planned strategy.

Refer to individual character chapters for comprehensive Bravery and HP Attack listings and descriptions.

Although the Warrior of Light’s Bitter End is an HP Attack, it’s a particularly unique ability that parries enemy Bravery Attacks.

Defending

Guarding

Damage from Bravery Attacks can be nullified with a guard barrier, activated by pressing and holding .

However, you have a limited amount of guard stamina, represented by the color of your barrier.

As you hold your guard, the barrier changes color from green, to yellow, and then to red.

When your guard stamina is completely depleted and your barrier breaks, you’re penalized with a dizzying status effect, leaving you vulnerable to attacks. Note that guard stamina depletes whether you guard attacks or not, so simply keeping up the barrier without blocking an enemy attack can eventually lead to a stunned guard-break.

Sidestepping

Sidestepping can be performed in two ways: by pressing while moving; or by holding to guard, then tapping the left stick in the direction you want to sidestep.

While sidestepping attacks consistently requires practice, it’s an extremely important skill to learn, as it allows you to quickly evade attacks while potentially rewarding you with an opportunity to retaliate against a vulnerable enemy.

Mixing It Up: Bravery and HP Attacks Versus Guard and Sidestep

Whenever a standoff situation comes up between two players, an aggressor and a defender, there’s generally an assumption that the advancing vanguard or assassin is going to go for a Bravery Attack. A natural reaction for the defender is to raise their guard barrier. This negates all damage, and the attacker’s move usually pushes the defender to safety.

But the aggressor can mix up their offense and go for an HP Attack, which is not guardable. This is the paradigm of the attack/defense guessing game. Fundamentally, the attacker’s and defender’s decisions revolve around how they think the other is going to react to this kind of confrontation. To add to this model, you also have to take into consideration Bravery values between both players.

For instance, if you’re the defender and someone with a high Bravery value approaches you, you may be more inclined to go for an evasive sidestep, knowing that you can’t block the likely incoming HP Attack.

On the flip side, you may be an attacker with little to no Bravery, so you know the defender will likely react with a standard guard barrier. You can use this kind of knowledge to your advantage and go for a low-damage HP Attack anyway, which can “guarantee” some damage and a hard knockdown effect, or perhaps hit them with a special HP Attack status affliction.

Keep these things in mind when you find yourself in these situations, as learning to “read” the opponent can go a long way!

After being launched by a Bravery Attack or combo, press to perform a mid-air recovery “flip,” which allows you to immediately regain control of your character, and to prepare yourself for a potential follow-up attack. Note that you cannot recover from HP Attacks.

Air Recovery Implications: Invincibility and HP Attack Traps

An important aspect of the air-recovery flip is the brief invincibility window during the flip animation. For instance, instead of mashing while you’re reeling from an attack, wait and time your recovery as your opponent advances for a follow-up attack. If timed correctly and your opponent commits to attacking your vulnerable state, your recovery-flip invincibility window will prevent any damage, affording you a potential retaliatory attack, as they’re vulnerable from their whiffed attempt.

If you’re on offense, you can exploit an enemy’s air recovery with certain HP Attacks since they’re unguardable. For example, with Zidane, you can follow up an ally’s Bravery combo by closing in on the target and casting Tidal Flame on them. Although the target is invincible for a brief period during their air-recovery flip, your Tidal Flame persists long enough to tag them as they lose their invincibility status.

Wall Rushes

Pinning the enemy to a wall is one of the few ways you can perform true solo combos. In this context, a “true combo” means linking two entirely separate attack series together, such as > > into another > > .

A wall rush, also often referred to as a wall pin or wall hit, occurs when you hit the enemy with a knockback effect while their back is near a structure or blockade. Generally, all melee combos can wall-pin at the end of their series (e.g., the last hit of Cloud’s grounded > > combo, Sonic Break). Most marksman combos and projectiles do not cause a wall pin; however, some ranged attacks may break this rule (like Firion’s Fulminating Strike and Bullseye projectiles, or Exdeath’s Vacuum Wave).

Upon a successful wall pin, you can essentially follow up with guaranteed damage, either with another full Bravery combo or an HP Attack to reduce your target’s HP. You can only take advantage of this guaranteed damage once per sequence, as a subsequent wall pin renders the enemy invincible to prevent “infinite” combos.

Pay attention to your positioning always, especially if you’re on defense. If your back is to a corner, you’re at risk of taking an inordinate amount of damage.

Poise and Interrupting

The poise and interrupt system determines whether your attacks can be interrupted, and whether they can interrupt other attacks. This system is influenced primarily by character classes, with its most important implication being the priority and poise of class attacks in the following order: vanguards > assassins > marksmen. While vanguards are close- and mid-range fighters with generally the slowest movement speed, they have the highest poise and interrupt values, allowing them to blow through assassin and marksman attacks with their own. Poise and interrupt values for specialists vary and are character-specific.

Poise and Interrupt: Rundown

Guarding, sidestepping, dashing, and standing still have default poise, so you can be hit by anything.

A character’s poise increase generally occurs when an attack’s hitting area is extended (not immediately after the input), and ends during the attac k’s recovery.

Sephiroth’s neutral becomes sturdy as he begins to swing his blade, making him uninterruptible to most assassin and marksman attacks. After its active hitbox, his poise is reset to default level and vulnerable to any type of attack.

The gaps between hitting periods have default poise.

Sephiroth’s neutral > has a brief default poise period between the first and second attack areas, so he’s not totally sturdy during his entire combo and can be interrupted at specific points.

Almost all HP Attacks have maximum int errupt potential.

Virtually all HP Attacks in the game can interrupt any other attack, so if you really need to stop an enemy from attacking your teammate, use a well-placed HP Attack (regardless of their class and whether they’re using an HP Attack).

Attack interruption is usually higher than its poise.

This means if you’re a vanguard and an enemy vanguard is attacking your allied marksman, you can always blow through the enemy vanguard’s high poise value with your higher interrupt attack, whereas you might not be able to as an assassin or marksman (at least until the enemy’s attack enters recovery phase). This gives the interrupter an advantage when classes are equal.

Summons have vanguard-type interrupt values.

Summon attacks (e.g., from Shiva), blow through most attacks, except the poise of HP Attacks.

Assassin Bravery Attacks have higher interrupt potential than marksman Bravery Attacks.

Marksman Bravery Attacks have the lowest interrupt and poise of all attacks.

EX Skill attacks vary in interrupt and poise.

Kain’s Level 3 Jump has a much higher interrupt value than his Level 1 Jump.

Specialists can vary on a character-to-character basis.

Exdeath is a heavier specialist, with his moves having higher poise values than their interrupt values. This makes him sturdier than most assassins, although his attacks are spell-based ranged attacks. Bartz’s attacks have lower interrupt and poise.

Projectile Priority

How projectiles interact with each other upon collision varies, depending on the strength of the attack. Most ranged attacks have a projectile strength associated with them. Generally, HP Attack projectiles have the highest priority, nullifying contesting Bravery-based projectiles. Large projectiles like Terra’s charged Fira spell have priority over smaller projectiles like Ultimecia’s Relentless Blades. Some projectiles disregard collision altogether, such as the Emperor’s Blue Soul, simply traveling through all other projectiles.

Hit-Stun Priority

Hit-stun priority affects the target’s hit-stun animation. When a target is hit by an attack, they go into a hit reel where they’re vulnerable to subsequent attacks. This means that in team combo scenarios where multiple players are attacking a single opponent, the attack with the highest hit-stun priority overrides other attacks. For instance, if Sephiroth hits an enemy with > > > and, at the same time, Ultimecia hits the same enemy with her projectiles, Ultimecia will add damage but not apply any kind of hit-stun to the enemy, because Sephiroth’s melee attacks have a higher priority. In this same scenario, if the enemy is hit by an HP-based ranged attack during Sephiroth’s melee combo, they’ll be knocked away in a “hard knockdown” state, since HP Attacks override all Bravery ones.

Generally, HP Attacks have the highest hit-stun priority, with melee attacks in a lower tier, then projectile attacks at the lowest tier. This gives you an idea which attack will “take control” of the victim when several hit at about the same moment.

Canceling Techniques

“Canceling,” in the context of a game’s combat mechanics, refers to any kind of action that interrupts another action, usually in order to minimize downtime and vulnerability. DISSIDIA allows for two distinct types of move-canceling.

Evasion Canceling: Evasion canceling is executed by issuing a sidestep input during the recovery period after whiffing (i.e., missing) or connecting with an attack. For instance, if you lunge at an enemy with Sephiroth’s + attack and miss (either because the opponent sidestepped it or because you misjudged its range), you can cancel part of the recovery animation with a sidestep to mitigate your vulnerability. To cancel at the earliest point possible, hold direction+ after your attack.

Guard Canceling: Another defensive canceling option in addition to evasion canceling. Guard canceling ends attacks early, interrupting their recovery animations with a defensive posture. If airborne, your fighter will begin falling back to solid ground too. To automatically guard cancel an attack at the earliest possible moment, hold during the action.

Since sidestepping has its own weaknesses (remember, sidestepping doesn’t make you invincible), it’s not always ideal to evasion cancel out of a whiffed attack. However, it’s generally good practice to at least guard cancel a whiffed attack to potentially block an incoming Bravery Attack retaliation. Of course, you can always follow up with a sidestep out of the guarding state. Against incoming Bravery Attacks this can be safer than evasion canceling, since there’s no risk of being clipped if the sidestep fails to clear the threat. Against incoming HP Attacks you can’t guard, you must opt to evasion cancel to have a chance of dodging those.

Dash Canceling: Performed similarly to an evasion cancel, most attacks that make contact with an enemy can be canceled with the dash command. This is primarily relevant to melee attacks and allows for smooth transitions between attacks. For example, if you successfully connect with a Bravery combo that launches a foe away, you can cancel the remaining recovery period with a dash, either toward the same target or another target close by, reducing your downtime between actions.

You can also use this to link together multiple melee Bravery combos if the initial Bravery Attack results in a wall hit. A sample sequence potentially resulting in finishing an enemy would be:

Bravery combo >wall pin >dash cancel >HP Attack finisher

You CANNOT dash cancel whiffed melee attacks or ranged attacks. Additionally, most “while dashing” attacks cannot be dash canceled, or they receive little benefit in terms of recovery reduction.

Wave-Dashing: Wave-dashing is a movement technique taking advantage of the ability to cancel a sidestep with dashing and vice versa. A sidestep cannot be canceled with an attack, guard, or another sidestep, but it can be canceled with a dash. This allows for greater and more fluid mobility and, more importantly, dramatically increases the time you can spend airborne.

For instance, you can double-jump (or wall-run), then cycle between sidestepping and dashing, rhythmically inputting direction+ , , , , repeated until you run out of dash gauge. This greatly extends your flight duration since sidestepping in the air temporarily halts the draining of dash gauge while continuing air mobility. The only downside is that there’s a slight start-up time when dashing, so an enemy can theoretically dash straight toward you to catch you with an attack.

Another way to utilize this dancing maneuver is to smoothly transition a backward sidestep into a retreating dash to create space between you and a potential threat (if you’re a marksman trying to get away from a vanguard, for example). There’s a significant recovery period when using sidestep on its own, so consider dash canceling whenever you sidestep.

Additionally, you can cancel your grounded and airborne dashes anytime with a jump. In the air, you can double/triple-jump to do so.

Mastering Movement

Before you become an expert at any one character, one of the most important skills to hone is movement efficiency. By learning and putting into practice the various movement-canceling techniques, you can fluidly traverse the battlefield.

Default movement (or “walking,” simply moving with the left stick) gives you the most freedom to act and react.

You can occasionally find yourself stuck dashing and sidestepping everywhere you move, due to the potential chaos around you. This can leave you vulnerable in certain situations since you can only cancel your sidestep with a dash, and dashing requires a noticeable time commitment. Additionally, guarding and attacking from a dash isn’t as instantaneous as guarding and attacking from a default walking state. This is particularly important when you’re on defense and you have an enemy or two closing in on you, in case you need to put up your guard barrier.

Dash gauge is limited but regenerates quickly upon touching the ground in a default movement state.

Be mindful of your dash gauge at all times. Running out of dash gauge in the middle of a skirmish can be dangerous. Many of your movement-canceling techniques depend on dash canceling, and if you’ve depleted your dash gauge, you won’t be able to cancel your sidestep to retreat from enemies.

You can cancel a sidestep with a dash, and you can cancel a dash with a jump or sidestep.

If you need to go airborne quickly from a sidestep, you can cancel the tail end of the sidestep with a dash and then immediately jump into the air (both grounded and airborne).

Dashing can be canceled with HP Attacks and EX Skills.

You don’t have to release to transition from dashing into HP Attacks and EX Skills. This is effective for quickly throwing out HP Attacks while quickly traversing the battlefield.

Sidestepping does not consume dash gauge while in the air, preserving your altitude.

Stay airborne by wave-dashing (repeatedly canceling airborne sidestep with dashing, and dashing with sidestep). For characters with strong airborne attacks, you can use this technique to keep a bird’s-eye view on the battlefield with a height advantage.

Attacks that launch the attacker upward have direct implications on mobility and should be treated as an alternative jump.

For instance, characters like Cecil, Tidus, Zidane, and Kuja have Bravery Attacks that launch them into the air. These attacks can be evasion canceled and used repeatedly to climb to essentially any altitude. Incorporate these moves into your gameplay to take a high-ground advantage that your enemies may not be able to deal with.

“Dive-bomb” attacks are versatile, both as attacks and as instant air-to-ground traversal moves.

Attacks like Cloud’s Braver, Noctis’s Heavy Hand, Sephiroth’s Hell’s Gate, and certain HP Attacks like Jecht’s Triumphant Grasp can all be used to give you a mobility advantage. These dive-bomb moves instantly drop you from any altitude straight to the ground beneath you, giving you a way to quickly descend on an enemy or away from enemies chasing you in mid-air.

EX Skills

EX Skills are high-impact abilities that can be used once the corresponding gauge is filled.

EX gauges are filled over time and have varying regeneration rates, depending on the skill (this total fill time can be considered the “cooldown” of the skill). EX Skill gauge timers range from 10 seconds to over 100, depending on the specific skill. Additionally, EX gauges are slightly boosted upon landing attacks.

Each character has their own unique EX Skill (or several), further differentiating their proficiencies in combat from those of other characters. Unique EX Skills are assigned to while left stick is neutral.

Two other common EX abilities can be assigned to + and + in the Customization menu. These support-type buff and debuff skills can be used by any character and should be chosen carefully depending on your team’s battle plan. Each character can have up to 10 sets of EX Skills preset in the Customization menu.

See the “Common EX Skills” section for details and specific cooldown timers. Unique EX Skills are detailed in each character’s chapter.

Summons

Summons provide a boost to your team’s combat prowess, such as increased health or increased Bravery regeneration.

In a standard match, your team’s summon is selected before the match starts, determined by a simple vote system. If two or more of your teammates vote on one particular summon, that summon is chosen. Otherwise, a random one is chosen among the three summons voted on by your team.

A summon’s pre-summoning effect refers to the combat bonus that affects your team for the entire duration of the match, while the post-summoning effect kicks in once your team successfully calls its summon, which then lasts for the remainder of the match.

The in-game post-summoning effect description includes the pre-summoning effect as well as a bonus effect and does not necessarily mean that the pre-summoning effect is further enhanced, only that there’s an additional separate bonus for successfully casting your team’s summon.

Summon gauge is accrued by attacking summoning cores that appear periodically during a match, so pay close attention to the on-screen indicating message. Summoning cores are targeted by holding / while one is in play, and they take damage from Bravery and HP Attacks. Each attack grants an increment of summon gauge for that player’s team. Summoning cores break after a certain amount of damage, but respawn after a period has passed (default is 25 in-game seconds once destroyed).

Vital Sub-Objective: Summoning Cores and the Summon Gauge

Manifesting a Summon is a crucial element of a match. Not only do they deliver a plethora of attacks that help set up kills for your team, but for the rest of the match, your team enjoys an extra bonus (see “Post-Summoning Effect” in the Summons chapter for details).

When a summoning core appears in a match, controlling the area around it is vital, and the core shouldn’t be ignored since there’s a strong advantage for the team that can complete the summoning process first. Summoning cores should be treated as a sub-objective, since they indirectly encourage conflict as both teams jockey to land hits to build their summon gauge. This adds another layer of complexity to your strategy, as attacking a core leaves you vulnerable to enemy attacks, so communicate with your team to coordinate your strategy around the summoning aspect.

Summoning cores can be targeted before they physically appear, meaning you always have a small window to target and make your way to a core before anyone else can begin damaging it. This is important for certain characters, such as those with trap-based spells they can use to pre-set a trap or persistent damage effect around an arriving core. Pay attention to the various incoming core indicators (Moogle’s chat box, the audible indicator, and HUD illumination) to get an early advantage of controlling the area around an arriving core.

Summoning cores and the summon gauge have a unique health and value system. Although these exact values are hidden, there are several useful facts to keep in mind:

A full summon gauge consists of a total of 5000 points.

Bravery Attacks on enemies increase the summon gauge by 25% of the attack’s Bravery damage.

HP damage on enemies rewards roughly 80 summon gauge points.

Summoning cores have a unique hidden health value.

It takes around six basic attacks (standard neutral attacks) to destroy a core.

Core damage taken does not necessarily correlate to the character’s damage output.

After taking a certain amount of damage (around two to three basic Bravery Attacks), the next hit inflicted on the core rewards the attacker with a huge boost of gauge (about five times as much).

Some attacks are better than others for extracting summon gauge from summoning cores (e.g., Cloud’s Braver and Sephiroth’s Hell’s Gate are excellent core attacks).

Once your team’s summon gauge is completely filled, press and hold the touch pad button to start the conjuring process, accompanied by a progress gauge. Completing the incantation for a single player requires about nine seconds of casting. However, your teammates can join in to expedite the process, filling the progress bar at an enhanced rate. Two fighters summoning together builds progress much faster than one; the entire team summoning at once fills the bar instantly. The progress bar’s speed depends on the percent (not the sheer number) of team members who are casting. If you’re alone on a team, you can summon instantly by yourself. A coordinated team of three summoning at the same time can be difficult to pull off, as your opponents generally won’t stand by to watch it happen, but it can be preferable to leaving a single person vulnerable. Make sure to communicate your summoning plans with your team!