The Head-Up Display (HUD) — Dissidia Final Fantasy NT eGuide

Becoming familiar with the HUD is essential to optimizing your decision-making. The HUD provides comprehensive details on almost all relevant aspects of the match and should determine how you approach certain situations. Data such as enemy Bravery/HP values should be considered in your actions and strategy.

However, the area your eyes should be focused on the most (and perhaps even more important than the actual battlefield) is the minimap. An exceedingly important skill to master in this type of game is called map awareness—the complete understanding of who and what is where—so make it a point to look at the minimap often.

General HUD Elements

Party Health
Summon Gauge
Match Time Remaining
Player Team Bravery, HP, Targeting Info, Status Effects
EX Gauges and Timers
Player Bravery, HP, Status Effects
Communication Controls (Quick Chat Messages)
Enemy Team Bravery, HP, Status Effects
Minimap
Break Bonus

Party Health: The party health “gauge” is represented in three segments. Essentially, it shows the lives remaining of both teams. Your team’s health bar is blue, while the opposing team’s is red.

Summon Gauge: Above the party health bars is your team’s summon gauge. The gauge underneath the red party health bar is the enemy team’s summon gauge. Once filled, the gauge radiates brightly, indicating your summon is ready for the incantation process.

Match Time Remaining: The winner and loser of a match ending in a “Time Is Up” depends on match settings. With the “Most Points Wins” setting, the time remaining can be used to leverage mistakes from the opponent by a team who’s leading in party health. However, with the default “Double Loss” setting, both teams accrue a loss.

Player and Enemy Team Info: Your teammates are listed on the left-hand side of the screen, while the enemy team is listed on the opposite side. In addition to Bravery and HP values, the party HUD elements indicate all status effects on all players, as well as pertinent targeting information. For example, a red “5” next to your teammate’s HP bar means the second player of the enemy team is targeting this teammate. Pay close attention to this info (especially the enemy’s data), as much of the data can help guide your decisions.

EX Gauges: EX gauges are represented by an incrementally growing circle around the corresponding EX Skill icon. Skills awaiting their cooldown timers are grayed out. Note that some characters have multi-tier EX Skills (such as Kain’s Jump I/II/III, and Noctis’s multiple stocks of Warp) that can be used before being maximally charged.

Minimap: The minimap is the most important part of the HUD. In addition to showing the locations of players around you, the minimap displays targeting information, revealing how players are targeting each other.

Using the Minimap Range Indicator Circles

Since attacks widely vary in range, learning to accurately judge attack distance for certain moves is key. An excellent method to gauge whether you’re in range for an attack to hit is by using the convenient range indicators on the minimap. These indicators are represented by the several tiered circular lines. Each circle on the minimap represents another 10 meters of gamespace. When this guide references a range of 1.0, that’s the distance of one minimap circle away, or 10 meters; 3.5 means three and a half minimap circles away, 35 meters. Getting comfortable with spacing is simply a matter of memorizing specific move ranges, plus match experience. If you know your long-range projectile attack connects when the opponent is within the fourth minimap circle, it’s just a matter of maneuvering within that range and firing.

Individual attack listings in the character chapters of this guide are accompanied by a visual minimap range diagram.

Close Range: When this guide talks about close range, this usually means within one minimap circle, or at most around 1.5. At close range, characters are typically within immediate melee striking distance.

Mid-range: Around one and a half minimap circles away is the very beginning of mid-range combat. Very few melee attacks are quick threats from this range. Mid-range is more about maneuvering strategically, trying either to close into melee range with an opening, or to keep someone at bay with ranged attacks and spells. Mid-range’s full extent is a bit muddy but tends to stretch to about 3.5 or four minimap circles away.

Long range: For the purposes of this guide’s discussion, long range begins around four minimap circles away, a range of 4.0, and extends basically for the rest of the arena. Most characters don’t have any attacks that are credible threats at long range. Marksmen are obvious exceptions, and the chief advantage they have over other fighters is that they can generally target anyone they see on the minimap. While the minimap ends at a range of 5.0, five circles away, the very longest-reaching attacks in the game travel an equivalent of 55 to 60 meters, or as far as a sixth minimap circle, if it existed. Beyond that distance, combatants are essentially not sharing a local battlefield, and are irrelevant to one another until getting closer.

Linear: The attack travels forward from the character in a line. Anything in the way will get hit. This describes most attacks. The range of linear attacks runs the gamut from point-blank to all the way to the edge of the minimap. Indicated as lines on range diagrams.

Conal: The attack swells outward from the character, covering a wide area in front. This doesn’t include melee attacks that swipe horizontally while moving forward; this is for scattergun-style effects. Conal attacks are very rare and tend to have short ranges. Indicated as spreading cones on range diagrams.

Focused: Some attacks are localized on one spot, usually the target’s location, or as close to the target’s location as range allows. If the target moves outside of that spot before the attack, they won’t be harmed. Focused attacks include many spells and leaping/warping attacks that condense, gather, or appear in a spherical strike zone. Indicated as circles on range diagrams.