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Spirit Beast Battle Guide
Title: Spirit Beast Battle Guide
Author: Various
Date Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2023-06-16
This page is meant to help all players understand and win in Spirit Beast battling. Please feel free to discuss any suggested changes on the official Discord channel (find the link to join on the home page of this wiki). Based on original work by Hymore and Obelin.
Overview
Why you should be a Spirit Beast battler
People play with the Spirit Beast system for multiple reasons. One reason is the joy of finding and collecting rare or interesting spirit beasts from various parts of the world. Another reason is for the rewards, which include experience and gems. A full list of rewards can be found here.
Where do I start?
First, make sure you have read the main Spirit Beast page to gain a basic understanding of how the system works. Next, the Spirit Beast stats page has a list of all known spirit beasts to see which spirit beast you might want to use. Finally, you must decide how much you want to get out of the Spirit Beast system:
- If you just want to collect spirit beasts as pets and have fun, then you won't need any in-depth help or preparations. All you need is a talisman! These can be purchased easily from any town for 25,000 silvers by visiting Talondown Arena. From the entrance, go north, through the cross-hatched burnt sienna door.
- If your goal is the daily experience bonus (75 experience per loss or 150 per win, up to 10 times per day) then any spirit beast will do because you gain experience win or lose. As long as you do training matches in Talondown, your beast will not lose loyalty either.
- If you have your eye on the gem pouches sold in Talondown Arena, then you will want a strong, reliable spirit beast to consistently win in the arena to get as many redsteel marks as possible since wins award 48-53 marks while losses award 12-15 marks.
To participate and win the weekly challenge for a gilded lockbox (and another 2300 weekly experience), you will want a high level spirit beast and a reasonable amount of skill to defeat all seven opponents. Using ampoules and armaments are not necessary but can help against bad matchups. A level 16 or higher spirit beast is recommended, and can be a good way to finish leveling a particularly strong beast, but will be especially difficult.
Lastly, to get the gilded lockbox from listed fights (and the final 1250 experience), you need to be in the top three players for the week and can only lose 3 times before you are out. Combined with the fact that the level 20 Spirit Beasts you fight are much tougher than the training and weekly fights, you will need to do everything in your power to win. Having a perfect quality, level 20 Spirit Beast with a potent armament and maxed stats from ampoules is recommended.
Actions
Action | Description | CollapseCost |
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Attack | The default, automatic action. Spirit Beasts will attack every round unless other orders are issued. It can score critical hits and activates certain special abilities, but it can be blocked by buffs (Fortify, Airwall, Bone Shield, Sympathy, Reflect). The ATTACK command is only used to reset an outstanding order. Critical Hits deal additional damage based on your target's maximum Health Points. |
No cost |
Detect | Tells your spirit beast to check for stance advantage. The result is fairly automatic, adjusting to the correct stance on its own. It's important to watch and make sure that your beast is not currently outmatched. This action is very quick, being followed almost immediately by your next action, but you can issue new orders in between if you need to (including a second DETECT). | No cost |
Fortify | Raises your dodge chance against ATTACK only, it doesn't do anything against LASH or SPECIAL, and lasts for three of your actions, including HEAL or DETECT. Dodging attacks has a very high chance of generating Special Charges for the defender. | One Action Point |
Heal | Restores Health Points, works better the lower your health is. Healing while at Critical or Verge of Defeat will heal for up to twice as much. HEAL also has a 1/3 chance of ending a negative status effect (Stun, Bleed, Madness, etc.) and will not activate (or reduce the duration of) the negative effect on that round, but is not generally recommended solely for this purpose. Healing while under a status effect will also override any standing orders issued before the effect began. | One Action Point |
Lash | Deals automatic, guaranteed damage based on spirit beast level, adjusted for stance and attunement advantage and generates one guaranteed Special Ability Charge. | One Action Point |
Special | An ability specific to each spirit beast which is guaranteed to succeed, usually dealing damage based on spirit beast level, and in the cases of some uncommon and most legendary spirit beasts, having additional effects. | Variable Special Ability Charges |
Core Strategies
When to Attack
- You have stance advantage from Detecting.
- You want to generate Special Ability Charges.
- Your opponent is not under the effects of a protective ability (eg. Fortify).
- You have no other choice.
When to Detect
- You think you've lost stance advantage because your opponent's Attack is dealing more damage.
- You KNOW you've lost stance advantage because your opponent's Lash is dealing more damage.
- Before you Fortify.
- Before you Special.
- You're under a beneficial effect that activates every time you take an action (eg. Regen).
When to Fortify
- You think your opponent will Attack.
- Your opponent's Attacks will deal a lot of damage (eg. Attunement advantage or high Power).
- Your opponent is out of Action Points.
- Your spirit beast has high Defense and/or Speed.
- Your spirit beast isn't about to die.
- Your opponent is under the effects of Haste.
- Your spirit beast is under the effects of Slow.
When to Heal
- Your condition is at verge of defeat.
- Your condition is at critical and your opponent hasn't used their Special Ability recently.
- Your condition is at critical and your spirit beast is kind of a wimp.
- You are under the effects of a breakable status effect (eg. Stun), low on health, and will definitely lose before it wears off naturally.
- Don't heal at condition bad or better unless it will win the fight.
When to Lash
- You need a Special Ability Charge.
- You need guaranteed medium damage.
- Your opponent has an active protective ability (eg. Fortify).
- You're ahead and want to press your advantage.
- Your spirit beast has low Power and Accuracy.
When to Special
- Using your Special will win the fight.
- You have enough charges to use your Special more than once and using them all will win the fight.
- You have eight or nine special ability charges.
- Your Special will cause a status effect which will give you a significant advantage (eg. Stun).
- You're about to die anyway and it beats doing nothing.
▼Suggested Priority Highlights - Expand/Collapse |
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▼Additional Useful Highlights - Expand/Collapse |
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Selecting a Beast to Train
To start: Capture 10 common spirit beasts and then 15 more common or uncommon spirit beasts. Try to get a variety with different highest stats. Focus on learning the combat system with any of perfect or robust quality first and experiment with lower quality spirit beasts as well. Practice with other players or in training matches at Talondown Arena, learn what the commands do, get your highlights in place, etc. Focus on learning to identify which spirit beast has stance advantage.
Advantage: Beasts that have stance or attunement advantage (or both) will deal significantly more damage on all offensive actions, so learning to anticipate how much damage your own spirit beast will deal when it has one or both advantages is helpful to determine whether your opponent has taken the advantage or is simply more powerful. Lash damage is a reliable indicator because it is guaranteed to hit and only affected by Level, Stance, and Attunement.
ExpandSimple Starters |
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After the Basics: Once you've learned the basics of the battling system, the commands, and the stats, you will want to start working on your first competitive spirit beast. Try to find one that starts with the stat spread you prefer, and obtain the best specimen you can find. A common or uncommon with one of the "standard" special attacks (3 charges for 100% damage) is highly recommended for your starter.
Quality does matter, but not very much. The difference between the worst unimpressive and a perfect is about the equivalent of three levels, so don't hesitate to use a less-than-perfect spirit beast. Merchants and radiant bestial soulstones can be used on any spirit beast to improve it. Focus on earning redsteel marks, getting comfortable, and reliably winning training matches in Talondown Arena.
Advanced Selection and Legendaries: Because starting stats and growth rates are known for most current spirit beasts, it may make sense to select your spirit beasts based on their projected level 20, perfect stats. Aberrations, arthropods, and beasts in particular have significantly weighted growth rates which can cause their most successful strategy to drift as they level up; compare the thrak's defense and accuracy at level 1 (D:112/A:93) and level 20 (D:150/A:150). Focus on reaching level 16+ with a few spirit beasts and completing weekly challenges.
Once you reach Talondown Arena Level 5, you will routinely face legendary spirit beasts, many of which have non-standard special abilities which may do extra damage, have lower costs, or cause additional status effects. While general strategies will remain the same, these status effects will significantly impact your strategy. Two spirit beasts with identical stats, one of which has a 3 cost special that deals reduced damage and grants Regeneration will play very differently from one which has a 4 cost special that deals standard damage and inflicts Bleed.
Before entering listed matches, you may wish to familiarize yourself with the meta (the selection of Spirit Beasts you are likely to face), as of this writing, this is similar to the appropriate Talondown Arena level training meta, but NPC Trainers will use their preferred spirit beast exclusively:
Grandmaster (7) | ExpandPreferred Beast |
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Master (6) | ExpandPreferred Beast |
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Arena Champion (5) | ExpandPreferred Beast |
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Stats
Stat | Description | CollapseSecondaries |
---|---|---|
Power (POW) | Increases ATTACK damage (and the base critical hit damage), minimal effect on LASH and SPECIAL. | Staggering Blows |
Defense (DEF) | Increases HP, but does not reduce incoming damage. Higher Defense makes Fortify more effective. | Health Points, Focused Defense |
Insight (INS) | Increases stance detection and special charge generation. | Stance Detection, Flash of Insight |
Accuracy (ACC) | Increases your chance of hitting with ATTACK and your chances of a successful attack being a Critical Hit. Critical Hits deal damage based on the target's maximum HP. | Hit Rate, Critical Strike chance |
Speed (SPD) | Determines the time between actions. | Surge of Speed, Evasion chance |
Skill (hidden) | Provides +1 to each stat, can be indirectly observed as Quality. | None |
Luck (hidden) | Positively affects every roll, seems to be a fixed value for each type of spirit beast (eg, every Lady of Skulls has high luck). Spirit beasts which appear lackluster on paper may have high luck to offset obvious weaknesses. | All |
Importance of Stat Combinations A spirit beast's highest stats mostly serve to determine the strategy and commands you'll use to generate special ability charges and when you'll want to use your special abilities. The more extreme a spirit beast's stat spread, the more reliable they are with a specific strategy but the less flexible they are in bad matchups.
Combination | ExpandDescription |
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Intermediate Strategies
Automatic attack/Crit Fishing
- Detect to gain/maintain stance advantage, rely on Attack for most actions.
- Good for spirit beasts with high Power and/or Accuracy.
- Rely on Attack or Fortify to generate special ability charges.
- Use action points primarily for Fortify or Heal because Attack will deal more damage than Lash.
- Weak against Fortify, Reflect, Airwall, and Bone Shield.
Detect/Fortify Loop
- Detect, Fortify, Action, Action, repeat.
- The action following Detect happens very quickly, but orders can be issued in between.
- Fortify lasts for three of your actions. If you know that your Fortify will expire on your next action, you can Detect and then issue a Fortify order immediately after in order to maximize time Fortified.
- Weak in early combat, when opponents mostly Lash.
Aggro Lashing
- Lash, Lash, Lash, Special, repeat (or Lash x6, Special x2)
- Good for low Power, low Accuracy or high Insight spirit beasts.
- Good for applying fast, high pressure.
- Weak against high HP, healing, or other attrition spirit beasts.
Armaments
Spirit Beast armaments come in three tiers; lesser, sturdy, and potent, and are largely restricted to specific classes.
Class | ExpandArmament |
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Lesser armaments are usable at any level and provide a net +5 to stats. Sturdy armaments are usable by level 10 or higher spirit beasts and provide a net +10 to stats. Potent armaments are only usable at level 20 and provide a net +20 to stats.
The ring appears to be a potent Spirit Beast armament. It's in excellent condition. While worn by a Spirit Beast, it will: Increase the bearer's Power by 10. Decrease the bearer's Insight by 5. Increase the bearer's Accuracy by 20. Increase the bearer's Speed by 5. Make the bearer feel oddly drained. It has the following stipulations for use: Intended for use by Humanoids. The beast must have at least 20 trains.
Special Effects
- Leech's hunger has a 20% flare to return half of ATTACK damage (including criticals), and costs 10 stat points. Has no effect on LASH or SPECIAL.
- Troll's tenacity has a high chance of reviving your beast by healing a substantial portion of HP if it would be knocked out, and costs 10 stat points. Has no other effect.
- Feeling oddly drained occasionally causes your beast to take extra damage, and grants 10 additional stat points.
Armaments can also grant, remove, or change elemental attunement.
Which Armaments to use
Armaments are cheap, reusable, and have a high chance of being generated for the class of your selected spirit beast when purchased. Since they will always offer a net positive, you should always have an armament equipped on a beast you intend to battle with, even if it's not ideal. Equipping an armament will also prevent you from accidentally releasing a spirit beast.
Armaments should be selected to either emphasize a beast's strengths (adding power to a beast with an already high power) or to shore up significant weaknesses (adding speed to a particularly slow beast). Because leech's hunger is proportional to ATTACK damage, it should only be used by spirit beasts with especially high power or accuracy, or the berserk status effect. Similarly, the oddly drained effect is best-suited to beasts with particularly high defense and healing specials.
Ampoules
Color | Effect |
---|---|
Red | +1 Power |
Orange | +1 Defense |
Yellow | +1 Insight |
Green | +1 Accuracy |
Blue | +1 Speed |
Black | Reset stat potion boosts |
White | Bonus experience |
Which stats should I boost?
Ampoules are limited to +20 total, with no more than +10 to a single stat. Similar to armaments, ampoules should be used to emphasize strengths or offset weaknesses. Adding +4 to each stats provide an effect similar to gaining a level, for example. When in doubt, add +10 to your spirit beast's highest stat and +10 to speed or insight, whichever is lower at level 20.
Status Effects
Detailed explanation and strategies can be found at Status Effects.
Positive Status Effects
- Airwall
- Berserk
- Bone Shield
- Haste
- Regen
- Reflective Shield
- Rebirth
- Stat Boost
Negative Status Effects
- Bleed
- Distract
- Immolate
- Madness
- Slow
- Dazed
- Sympathy
- Unconscious