Final Tips


Combat tips

• When battling monsters like werewolves or trolls, use tactics that fit how many enemies are on the field. If there's only one enemy left on the field or if you're trying to put a single big monster down quickly, focus on staying on top of it. Keep bashing away at it with your sword. These enemies suffer a certain amount of hit-stun after they've taken a blow, so you can use repeated quick blows to keep them locked up in staggering animations. This lets you finish off a potentially deadly opponent with relative ease.
• Although this isn’t included in the Prima sample build, it can be extremely worthwhile to invest in Aard while in the arena. You can use Aard to blow enemies off the edge of the arena, which lets you get a point bonus and eliminate an enemy very quickly. If you find this approach suits you, invest in Aard instead of the Axii-related abilities.
• Using Axii to dominate an enemy removes it as a threat for a short time, while also giving you another ally. This is not a good tactic if you want to get a lot of time-based bonuses, but if you’re just trying to survive it works wonderfully.
• Before each fight, you can check to see what you’re fighting in the next round and, more importantly, what your specific rewards will be. Simply click on the arena door, see what you will be facing and the possible rewards, and then back out. This way you can better plan which reward to take when you succeed.
• The potions you use early on in Arena mode aren’t necessarily the ones you want for later battles. Some potions that are useless early on become extremely useful during later rounds, when you gain access to boosted stats and strong gear. A good potion combination to use early on is Rook, Swallow, and Golden Oriole. A good combination to use later on is Virga, Thunderbolt, and White Raffard’s Decoction.
• The arena merchant doesn’t work quite like the merchants in the main game. He never restocks if you, say, meditate to pass the time. The stock of items he has after you finish one round is all you can attempt to take into the next round. The store does not restock until you complete another round, whether you win or lose it. The arena merchant slowly restocks over time. For some items, the available quantity only increases by one after each fight.
• Dodge, dodge, dodge. You still take damage when blocking, so keep moving! Keep rolling until the opportunity to strike presents itself.
• If you must block, then invest in Riposte. Not only is using Riposte successfully worth bonus points, but it prevents you from taking damage and deals heavy damage to the enemy who has to soak up your counterattack.

gear tips

• Know your equipment. Make sure you upgrade important equipment like armor and swords regularly. It's hard to plan an upgrade path for your gear since the selection is random, so focus instead on just not falling behind the game's power curve. If you haven't upgraded your steel sword for a while, then focus on finding a replacement for it.
• Make sure to check the stats of a new piece of gear you’re interested in against what you’re using already. It’s not worth spending a huge outlay of orens on incremental upgrades. It’s best to spend your orens on gear choices that let you get the most bang for your buck.
• When it comes to selecting armor, focus on high armor value, vitality and vigor bonuses, and higher critical effects resistances. Resistances to incineration, poison, and bleeding are most useful since these are the effects enemies are most likely to try to inflict on you.
• While you should try to slot out equipment if you can, how many rune slots a blade has is far less important in the first 30 waves of Arena mode than it is in the main game. Runes are too expensive to buy a full set for each sword you use, and you don’t get a lot of runes as loot until you’re into the second 30 waves. Judge swords by their base stats only. If a new sword has better stats than your current sword, but fewer slots, it’s still an upgrade.
• Be sure to read the entire stat block of a piece of equipment before making a choice. You may see that a piece of equipment is “epic” or has a high resell value and assume it’s really powerful, only to find out that it boosts something like maximum load that’s useless in Arena mode.