Limbus Battle For Dummies

Limbus battle for Dummies

In the following, I will try to explain the Limbus battle system as good as I can. As you might've seen, this is a turn-based game, but before y'all leave: this isn't turn-based in the way you might think. You 'share' your turn with the enemy. Both you and the enemy will act at the same time. Sort of.

This will digest regular combat. I will probably make a post about Abno combat later. This is also written with an audience in mind that has not played the previous game, so no knowledge about that game's battle system is needed.

Before the battle

Before you actually go into the fight, you will be able to choose the members of your team on the field. The amount of members allowed in depends on the level. Those not on the team will contribute with their passives that can activate alongside those of your fielded ones.

Battle command

In combat against anything but Abnormalities, you command your Sinners by forming a chain from the left orb to the right orb you see. This is what I call, 'Skill Linking'. When you reach the end, you can start the battle and see the results of your Skill Linking. The fight will go from left to right, so those leftmost on the board will act first, etc. The order is determined by their speed values (which you can see above their portraits and above their sprites). This really is just a number that determines the order, don't think too much about this. By default, they will attack the foremost enemy first.

The Skills are not colored for no reason. Should you manage to connect multiple Skills of the same color, then you will activate Resonance. This increases the damage you deal - even more so when you connect 3 of the same color in a row, in which case it's named Absolute Resonance. Start out by just thinking of it as increased damage, the exact percentages I don't really have up-to-date info on. Resonance can also activate passive abilities.

When Skills are used, they are turned into a resource that matches their color. You keep track of this resource at the right side of the screen. This resource is important in the activation of E.G.O.

After Skills are used, new Skills will fill their column to fill the void. Skills are randomly selected from their own kit. You can't use a Skill again until you've used the others first. When you have used their entire kit, they empty the bag and put them in (again, randomly chosen).

As battle continues, a new column will be added for a random Sinner. This allows them to act twice. In the image above, note the column next to Yi Sang.

When enemy and ally meet - or not... (Or: On Clashes and Attacks)

Every attack is either Blunt, Slash or Pierce. Enemies and allies have different resistances to them. This should be easy. An enemy can be weak to Slash, but be normal to Pierce attacks. This can be utilized to both attack the enemy's weak point, and to prevent an attack to a Sinner's weak point.

Now to the meat of the theory.

Coin flipping and Clashing

Gear up, because if you don't pay attention, this will seem gibberish.

Every time anyone attacks, a coin is flipped to determine its result. You will also be able to hear the result. There are two types of bonuses: Positive (+) and Negative (-) ones.

If the coin lands heads, the Skill will get power added if it's a Positive bonus. If it's not, then power is subtracted. You get nothing extra if you land tails. The outcome of a coin landing influences the following ones (if there are any left).

Each Skill has its base damage, which will be your base number.

When anyone attacks someone without the target having an attack set in that slot, it'll be one-sided. When ally and enemy target eachother, the two will engage in a Clash. I said before that the default targeting is for the enemy nearest to them; so naturally, they will end up meeting now and then.

When you clash, you roll all of your coins into one big number. All your bonuses you may or may not get (depending on the coin flip) gets added into that number. Naturally, the one with the higher number wins. The loser gets 1 coin removed from them. In the image above, you can see the enemy losing 1 coin.

For example: you start out with 3 as your base power, with 3 coins, and a +3 bonus if you roll heads. You do so, so now you're on 6. Then you roll tails. You have 6 again. You roll heads again. You're now on 9. All these numbers are added: 6+6+9 = 21, which is your final number.

Should both you and the enemy still have coins to flip, you go through the motions again. This clashing ballet, however, is not eternal as the dancing will stop when either you or the enemy runs out of coins or either of them gets their attack canceled (more on the latter below). The side that can still move will continue to attack and also gains an additional bonus based on clashes won. You really, really want to win here, but this should go without saying.

AoE Skills

AoE Skills damage multiple enemies. (I put that in for the people who didn't see that coming.) One will be the main target, others will be the sub-target. Said main target will (in normal combat) be determined by the 'range' of the skill itself. Think of it as in how in Magia Record, the Magia have different ranges.

Each AoE skill has a max amount of enemy 'attacks' it can target. Certain 'attacks' it targets though, will take up more 'space' in that amount.

Fail an AoE in a clash, and you fail all clashes against those targets. Be careful.

Doing anything but attacking?

But what if you DON'T want to attack?

Listen, I know it's very enticing to keep attacking. But sometimes you just gotta...not do that.

Defense is purely a reaction. It doesn't have any set target, so they can't cause clashes. They protect against incoming attacks (according to their times of usage).

To defend, you can either Guard, Evade, or Counter.

From left to right: Defend, Evade, Counter.

Defend is simple. It's a shield (based on an amount of HP) that protects against incoming attacks. It reminds me of a certain skill in a certain other game I can't name here, but it works like that. The amount of shielding HP is set and not influenced by anything like passives or any status effects they might have.

Evade is trying to avoid to be attacked entirely. This is also fairly easy to understand. If you roll a higher evade number, then congratulations, because you've succesfully evaded that attack. The upside of this is, I think, that if the enemy has nasty shit that activates 'on hit' (no matter whether it deals damage), you will be able to avoid those effects. The other upside of this is that, if you win, your evade is 'stored' so you could possibly dodge multiple attacks. If you're lucky.

Counter happens after you're attacked. Out of the three Defense types, only Counter has a color like the Skills do and can generate resources (and engage in possible Resonance). From what I see, it's exactly what it sounds like - a counter-attack, a retaliation.

Sitting ducks are tasty!

Did you notice the yellow lines in the health bars? Those are Stagger tresholds. If anyone takes damage past the yellow line, they will be rendered Staggered. I can best describe it as, being rendered a sitting duck. Your damage resistance is all set to Fatal (x2.0, I assume) and you can't attack. If you get Staggered in the middle of a Clash, then yeah, you lose either way from that moment on as you will stop doing anything but taking damage.

Stagger lasts until the end of the turn. Breaching multiple tresholds can further increase damage, but not the duration. Even so, Staggering the enemy is a perfect way to really get to pop off any battle.

Remaining Sane

Unlike what it seems like, your Sinners do have a certain amount of Sanity. It's a number that ranges from 45 to -45, and can be seen in the blue orbs on their portraits. You enter each battle tabula rasa, at Sanity 0 (Sanity amounts is carried over in Story and Mirror Dungeons, the only occasion where it is).

Sanity fluctuates depending on the course of battle. Should a Clash be won or enemy be killed, then Sanity goes up. Should allies die, then Sanity goes down. Think of it as becoming more hopeful and positive, or progressively crazier and desperate.

Positive Sanity increases the chance of coins landing on heads, and the inverse is also true: Negative Sanity causes more coins to land on tails. As certain Sinners gain a negative bonus on Heads, you may take this into consideration.

Enemies, except Abnormalities, have this Sanity, too. When they're at low Sanity, they will Panic. It's not explained what this is, but it will make fighting against them easier.

The Master of this emotion...

Now on to my favorite parts of the battle system, which are...

E.G.O Skills! These are your Magia/Ultimate Skill/etc. They cost an amount of resources (the one that you gain by using Skills, remember? You will be able to check which you need) and take a toll on the user's Sanity. They, however, are very powerful and they can be viewed as equipment. Yes, you read that right - in contrast to most 'Ultimates', they come with their own set of Resistances and can make weaker Resistances strong. This is advantageous, especially in prolonged battles.

These skills can, should you have the resources, be used anytime, anywhere. They can be used when Sinners are at low Sanity. Should you do that...

E.G.O can go wrong and Corrode. This will result in a different, usually stronger attack. The closer the Sinner is to negative values, the larger the chance is that this happens. You might be wanting to keep Sanity levels low to get more damage out of E.G.O. - if their Sanity isn't the lowest of the low, then they will continue as normal, after all... The bad thing is, that when Sanity is absolutely in the gutter, then the Sinner themselves will remain stuck in their Corroded state, and paint the City red with anything that moves, regardless whether it's ally or enemy. It's Doppel on steroids, essentially (as well as sorta kinda how it should work there, lore-wise).

With all of this, this has become quite the long post. I hope it's still readable enough (also because English isn't my mother tongue) to be digestable. And, finally...