Weapons

Tap a gathering node to get a weapon. Nodes are scattered throughout the map in addition to the respawn platform, so it’s pretty easy to reroll into your desired weapon, but at round start you’ll probably want to keep the one you get, just to keep pace with your team in the initial fight. The “UPDATE!” cue means that the available weapons have been upgraded: reroll at your earliest convenience for more attack power and some bonus stats.

Scoring

Emblems of your color are worth 1 point. Emblems of the opposite color are worth 5, and rainbow emblems are worth 10. A single row of emblems is often worth as much as a kill, and you can pick it up for way less work, so controlling map space is important. Respawning players will want to grab their team’s emblems unless there’s an active fight they can get to: the single point isn’t much, but denying them from enemy flankers is important.

Killing a player steals a portion of their total points, making players on hot streaks more valuable. A team’s top 3 players are marked with overhead badges.

This makes them visible to both teams no matter where they are, including through walls or other obstructions. If you’ve got one, you have to play honest: try to stick near other team members to protect yourself from ganks.

If you’re leading, the best way to help your team is to avoid dying. Reroll into Rifle, stick with a buddy, and play it lame. If you’re falling behind, rerolling into Sword and going for quick flank kills is a solid way to put yourself back on the board. Just don’t play like a potato.

Netcode

If you see it hit, it hits, unless you die before the server gets the chance to catch up. There’s no need to lead attacks, but timing evasive actions or guards early can sometimes get you good results. Yes, this means you will die to things that didn’t happen on your screen sometimes. Good positioning and awareness can mitigate this somewhat, but it’s still silly.

Forest

This map is small and dumb. Almost everything is centered around the rainbow emblem spawns in the center area: sword users should focus on stealing team emblems and killing stragglers, while rifle and rod users should try and control the center intersection. There’s a huge pack of team-colored emblems near each spawn: control these whenever possible.

Volcano

At preset intervals, the lava level rises. You have until shortly after the third “WARNING” call to get out of the way. Lava will instantly kill you on contact: you can’t bunnyhop through it like in PvE, and it does over 4000 damage. If you’re on high ground when the lava rises, players who are trying to get out of danger are usually easy targets.

Sword

This weapon makes people angry.

Nova Strike has much shorter range than you might be used to. The hitbox is almost 1:1 with the visual, like the pre-buff PvE version. Rising Edge has a noticeable forward disjoint, but the horizontal disjoint seems a little tighter than the PvE version: still fairly easy to connect with, but you do have to pay some attention. Neither PA can be charged.

Any knocked-down player will die to meaty Nova Strike guaranteed. Just park on top of them and activate Nova Strike as they’re rising for an easy pickup. As far as I can tell, no wakeup options are frame 1, so they just kinda die.

As far as I can tell, neither PA gives a fuck about walls or corners: if you don’t have a marker, it’s possible to do some pretty grimy stuff with your camera in the right position. If an attacker is trying to peek around a corner to chase, you can often blow them up for it.

If Step Attack connects, unless you’re completely out of PP, they should die every time. Both PAs combo from it, and the combined damage should kill even sword users.

Guarding is almost entirely useless, and usually does nothing but delay the inevitable. This may be different on native ping.

Versus ranged attackers, keeping your run speed is key. If you swing early, chasing them with step attacks will get you nowhere: just run at them, wait for the panic dodge (they sort of have to), and blow them up while they’re recovering. If you’re too far out of range when starting a fight, back up and find something else to do ' you can sometimes strafe around rifle and rod users while closing distance, but it depends on their PA/tech and ping, so it’s usually better not to risk it.

Sword duels are fucking stupid. Your best bet is to see the other guy first. Rising Edge is stronger than Nova Strike in these situations (faster and more range) but the netcode is so wacky that in practice it often doesn’t matter. Just hit the other guy.

Rifle

Don’t neglect your normal attacks! Rifle’s normals are the most usable out of any weapon here: a few taps will do sizable damage. Great for finishing weak opponents from any position. This also makes it the only weapon that can easily regenerate PP without too much risk.

Piercing Shell doesn’t quite link into itself, but at mid range, they will have to buffer a dodge or get hit. Two hits and change will usually kill. In larger fights, the stun shuts down sword players pretty hard, so prioritize them whenever possible.

Spamming Dive Roll can actually be surprisingly effective, especially against overaggressive Sword players. The invincibility isn’t instant, but it is active for surprisingly long, and the movement is quick enough that it can sometimes be obnoxious to track. Mix up your movement and you can sometimes survive for unusually long.

Rifle has extremely poor vertical tracking on default camera. You may need to switch to TPS and manually aim if you’re trying to get kills from higher ground.

Rod

Megid feels shitty to use, but it’s actually pretty effective when spammed into large fights, and can zone Sword effectively at mid range. Foie is easy to aim, with a generous hitbox, and two-shots most opponents.

Uncharged techs aren’t usually great option, but if you need to finish someone, it’s definitely better to go for uncharged Foie than let them duck behind a wall. The damage is actually okay.

Mirage Step is easily chased: if you’re in a position where you’re forced to use it, you are probably dead unless your team is with you.