Combat Tips and Tricks - Stellar Blade Guide - IGN (2024)

Stellar Blade is a challenging game that demands split-second precision and the ability to recognize and correctly defend against many different enemies and their multi-hitting combo attacks. Now, some of this will simply come down to memorization and practice, but we can also provide plenty of tips to help ease you into Stellar Blade’s difficulty a little easier. With that said, here are 19 essential combat tips to help you master Stellar Blade’s challenging combat system.

19 Essential Combat Tips and Tricks

Defensive Cancels

Attacks in Stellar Blade are partially non-committal, which means that you can still switch to a guard or dodge during the start-up of an attack, but once the attack can deal damage, you’re locked into that animation until it’s over. This allows you to be fairly aggressive with the ability to switch to defense when the need arises, and you should use that to your advantage, as you don’t have to just trade turns with the enemy.

Let’s use the Square, Square, Square, Triangle combo as an example since it’s easy to see. After pressing triangle, Eve will go airborne for the final attack, and you can still cancel out of the animation. But once you strike the enemy, there will be a brief time when you’re defenseless.

So, be sure not to get greedy and always be ready to block even if you don’t get to land that last hit. To help hone your skills before taking them into battle, we highly recommend spending some time in the training room to really dial in your timing.

Know Your Combos

There are eight unique combo strings in Stellar Blade, and while you don’t need to know or use all of them, you also don’t want to default to just using the same one in every situation, as longer combos will do more damage, but are prone to get interrupted.

Remember the previous tip: once your attack can deal damage, you’re locked in that animation until it’s done, so attacks like the third hit of Incursion 3 (square, triangle, square, triangle) that has you swinging your sword multiple times, is a prime spot for you to get interrupted by the enemy.

The number next to the combo's name also refers to its level, which can come into play with certain Exospines and Gear pieces that grant extra damage for using moves at a certain level and above, so just keep all those factors in mind.

Stamina’s Not A Factor (But Chip Damage Is)

There are a few resources you need to worry about in Stellar Blade; these include Beta Energy and Shield, but thankfully, Stamina isn’t one of them. While there is nothing stopping your use of regular attacks, blocking, and dodging, you will want to keep in mind that blocking will cause small amounts of chip damage, even more so when your Shield is depleted.

While it’s still preferable to taking a hit, you’ll need to mix in parries rather than just guarding if you don’t want your health to whittle away slowly.

You Have to Parry

Like Sekiro, parries in Stellar Blade are not a suggestion but a near requirement. When enemies glow red, they will launch into a nearly uninterruptible string of attacks, and the only way to come out of it without taking heavy damage is by parrying as many of the attacks as you can.

To parry, you have to guard just before an attack hits you. Mashing on the guard button doesn’t help either, so you’ll need to learn and pay attention to the timing of an enemy’s attacks. It’s for this reason that Stellar Blade is a challenging game.

There are two pieces of good news, though: First, every time you parry an enemy attack, you take away from their balance, and once their balance is all gone, you can land a devastating attack of your own that deals massive damage.

Another piece of good news is that if you’re struggling with parry timings, you can invest in a skill on the Survival Tree called Reflex Boost to increase that parry window. You can also equip Gear and Exospines to widen the parry window further. And if all of that isn’t enough, you can bump down the difficulty to Story Mode at any time via the Gameplay settings menu, which slows the action down and turns parrying into a quick-time event to help you get through tough battles.

That said, you don’t have to parry every attack in a sequence. Sometimes, it can be easier to block the first few hits and then watch for attacks with easier rhythms to try and parry. Just be sure you have the health and shields to survive the chip damage from blocking.

You Don’t Have to Dodge (But it Can Be Helpful)

Stellar Blade is a game that encourages guarding more than dodging. The timing of a perfect dodge versus a perfect parry is about the same, but if you’re too early on a parry, you’ll still need to at least guard against the attack, while if you’re too early on a dodge, chances are you’re getting hit. Not to mention that you don’t affect the enemy’s balance if you perfectly dodge an attack.

Nevertheless, specific attacks will require you to dodge out of the way, and when timed just right, you can perform perfect dodges that allow for powerful counterattacks if you can pull them off. Just be aware that trying to dodge out of the way of most attacks is a risky move, and unless you’re low on shields and stamina, you should probably just block an attack if it’s capable of being blocked.

Depleting an Enemy’s Shield

For enemies with shields, every attack you land will deplete a portion of their shield meter. You’ll do more damage when their shields are gone, but another benefit to removing an enemy’s shield is that the enemy will stagger back when it is depleted. So don’t neglect using moves like Shield Breaker or combat consumables such as Pulse Grenades and Mines that specifically target shields. It will help you out a lot in the long run.

Make Use of Combat Consumables

It’s easy to forget about consumable items, but grenades can be really helpful to use when in a pinch. Pulse grenades will attack an enemy’s Shield, Sonic grenades will attack an enemy’s balance, and Shock grenades will knock an enemy to the ground, buying you time to heal or use one of your longer combos without fear of retaliation. You can also use Mines, which will deal considerable damage to an enemy’s shields and are a great way to initiate fights against enemies that have seen you but are still a ways away.

Combat Consumables can be purchased at most Supply Camps and stores, and can be used by holding down on the D-Pad and then selecting the consumable you wish to use.

Understanding Attack Colors

Every enemy can use special, color-coded attacks that each require a different response to counter successfully. For this reason, it’s crucial that you understand what each attack color represents and how you can successfully defend against it.

Yellow means that an attack is unblockable, and while you can attempt to perfect dodge these attacks, the perfect dodge window is generally pretty small, and we believe it’s a fairly significant risk with minimal reward to go for the perfect dodge. So, to play it safe, we recommend simply running away to avoid any potential damage.

Blue and Purple attacks can be avoided with either a Blink or Repulse, respectively. There are two flashes—the first, when the enemy flashes, and the second when your sword flashes.

The sword flash is when you should input either forward or backward with the circle button. If it’s blue, hold forward and press dodge; if it’s purple, hold back and press dodge.

We highly recommend unlocking the Blink and Repulse abilities as soon as possible. These two abilities will make a huge impact on how you approach combat, especially as you progress to the larger, more expansive areas of the game.

The last color you must worry about is when an enemy flashes red. While you’ll likely think these attacks are unblockable, Red in Stellar Blade indicates that a flurry of attacks is incoming. When faced with this flurry of attacks, parrying or perfect parrying will be your best option.

Beta Skills Are Vital

Beta Skills are special abilities that require Beta Energy to use, and they all have their special purpose. Triplet will stun and interrupt enemy attacks. Shield Breaker reduces an enemy’s Shield, making them more susceptible to further attacks. Shockwave attacks from a distance. And Slash attacks the entire area around you and stuns enemies. These abilities can also be charged—with Triplet being the only exception—and all have unique properties or extra attacks that can be unlocked in the skill tree. Triplet, for instance, becomes Quadruplet.

Burst Skills and Beta Chains

Much later in the game, you’ll gain access to Burst Skills, which are extremely powerful abilities that cost Burst Energy instead of Beta Energy, which is only obtained after using either a Blink or Repulse to avoid a Blue or Purple flashing attack from an enemy or by using a Beta Chain.

Beta Chain can only be unlocked via the skill tree, and we highly recommend acquiring the skill as soon as it’s available. Basically, you can hold down the last button of a combo string to use a more powerful Burst Chain version of that attack at the cost of one point of Beta Energy, but if it hits, you gain a point of Burst Energy.

Burst Chains are also especially good because they will usually interrupt an enemy combo, allowing you to continue your offense. We recommend saving up your Burst Energy for big boss battles, as three of the four Burst Skills will not only do significant damage but also put the opponent on the ground, helpless, allowing you to either follow up with more damage or give you time to step back and heal.

Use Your Gun

Stellar Blade will always be, first and foremost, a melee action game—except in particular moments of the story—so while you should always default to your blade, don’t forget that you also have a wrist-mounted gun that you can use to hit enemies from a distance.

This weapon can be particularly helpful for quickly finishing off weak enemies, dealing with enemies that try to keep their distance from you, or simply dealing high damage to stationary enemies without getting in range of their attacks.

Don’t Be Afraid to Run

When you’re outmatched or low on health restoratives, there’s no shame in running away and living to fight another day. The penalty for death in Stellar Blade is pretty minimal, so you don’t need to worry about losing skill points or anything if you die. However, checkpoints can be relatively far away from challenging encounters. So, know what you’re getting yourself into before you commit to a fight, and if things turn dicey, it’s usually pretty easy to escape just by sprinting away.

Should you run away during a battle, enemies will continue to chase you for a considerable range before they eventually retreat to their initial location, becoming unaggressive. Now, you can use this to your advantage to reposition and hit them all with a Crescent Slash to take them all out at once.

Alternatively, if you have invested in the Ambush skill, you can carefully follow an enemy back and take them down for instant kills if you manage to remain unseen.

Lastly, if you're in a tight spot and need to create some distance in the middle of a fight, remember that you can still run during combat. This can help mitigate your reduced movement speed while locked on, as sprinting works while you're targetting enemies. You can also heal while sprinting, which can come in clutch during those more formidable battles where space is limited.

Strategize Which Enemies You Want to Take Down First

Combat can be pretty unforgiving in Stellar Blade, especially when battling multiple enemies at once, as it’s easy to become overwhelmed and fall victim to their onslaught of attacks.

For this reason, it’s crucial to carefully assess each battle and strategize which enemies to take down first.

Generally, we recommend dealing with ranged-based enemies first with either drone shots or by tactically maneuvering around other enemies to reach them first, as their projectiles can easily interrupt your combos or hit you as you’re trying to parry and evade other enemies.

With that said, you can use range-based enemies to your advantage, as when fighting a melee enemy, you can wait for the ranged enemy to throw a projectile, and when perfectly dodging the incoming attack, you can use Triangle to counterattack, dealing more damage and allowing you to gain a better position.

As you progress through the game, you’ll also eventually encounter Skull Gunners and Skull Berserkers. Upon defeating them, a smaller enemy known as a Skulling will appear, which we highly recommend always prioritizing, as they’ll actively seek out nearby dead bodies to control. Knowing always to target these Naytiba minions will make many future combat encounters much less overwhelming.

Prioritize Ammo Unlocks

Your wrist-mounted gun is a powerful weapon that can help take down enemies in a pinch, but one of the biggest issues you’ll face is having enough ammo to use it consistently. Thankfully, there’s a way to combat this, as when unlocking the combat options for your drone, we highly recommend prioritizing ammunition unlocks as much as possible. These upgrades will allow you to carry more ammo and ammo types, leaving you less likely to run out during the heat of a battle.

Use Tempest to Gain a Brief Immunity

When you find yourself in a pinch, we highly recommend unleashing the Tempest (R1+ O) Burst Skill, which will perform a devastating storm of blades that will temporarily grant you brief immunity as your enemy is pushed backward. It will also take a considerable chunk off your enemy’s shield, making this ability a real lifesaver, especially if your health is running low. While it takes a little longer to charge than other burst attacks, its benefits outweigh the slight attack delay.

Balance Doesn’t Always Reset Between Phases

Every boss in Stellar Blade has a maximum amount of damage they can receive during any given phase. But, one thing that doesn’t always seem to change between phases is their balance.

You can take advantage of this by reducing a boss’ balance to one or two points just before a new phase begins and then depleting their remaining balance once they get to the next phase to avoid wasting any Retribution damage.

Take Advantage of Stun-Locking Bosses

You can stun-lock bosses for a considerable duration by knocking them down with skills such as Dual Breaker, Finishing Blow Increase, and Cross Wave. These skills allow you to interrupt unblockable yellow attacks, giving you time to heal or follow up for more damage. Remember, you’ll want to wait until the enemy fully recovers before hitting them again to maximize the opportunity fully.

Always Stay Locked On for Maximum Accuracy

It's advantageous to always be locked on to enemy targets during combat encounters, as many abilities will automatically hone in on your target when locked on. When not locked in, your attacks will become drastically less accurate once you lose that targeting, so we recommend staying locked on at all times unless you’re trying to escape.

Keep Your Eyes Peeled for Red Barrels

As you explore the vast environments that Stellar Blade offers, you’ll encounter explosive red barrels, which are often marked orange when scanned with your drone. Hitting these barrels will set them alight, and after a few moments, they'll explode, damaging any nearby surrounding enemies. Luring enemies towards these explosive barriers can be a great way to deal passive and helpful damage to more challenging enemies.