While many of us may believe, claim, know or pretend that we are the best in our region, whether it be North America or Europe, many of us oddly might also have trouble passing on our knowledge onto someone with no experience beyond the tutorial, given the rough and cruel way in which some of us might have been forced to learn the game. This guide was designed to help anyone with sufficient knowledge of the game mechanics to project his experience onto a novice who does not have to go through the same arguably inefficient process we did.

I will update this guide as I, myself, learn more about the game and teaching it, and as the game changes (if it does indeed change, patches are not expected). Suggestions on how to improve this guide are always welcome, both publicly and privately. If you are a novice reading this guide and you wish to be taught how to play, feel free to contact the author of this guide.

If your apprentice's latency (ping) is asimilar to yours, all processes in which your apprentice is solely meant to defend must be performed in a server with low latency for your apprentice, and all processes in which your apprentice is solely meant to attack should be performed in a server with low latency for yourself. When you have to spar with your apprentice, perform the processes in a server with low ping for your apprentice (high ping "lag" combat is different from standard combat and should only be taught after your apprentice has learned to take care of himself in standard combat after completing your tutorials).

Make sure to give proper feedback to your student by saying "good" whenever he properly concludes a step, or by saying "no, again" whenever he fails.

If your student gets bored, have him join a battle, or duel him now and then to keep him entertained.

The first character that a new player will have access to is the warrior, who starts with a shield, and given that the game's built-in tutorial does not teach anything about shields, this should be the first aspect of the game that you should teach to your apprentice.

This lesson is to be taught with both of you standing still in front of each other. Use a Default Warrior for this lesson.

1. Instruct your apprentice to right-click to block. Now make him move the shield up to protect his head. Now down to protect his legs.

2. Use a one-handed axe for this step only. Tell your apprentice to aim his shield toward the head of the incoming attacking axe. Make your apprentice block three left swings (head, torso, and legs), three right swings, one vertical swing and one Agile Fighter swing. Teach him how to execute the Agile Fighter move if he asks. You can teach him the details of that move later.

3. Ask your apprentice to stand still. Explain to him that his shield can block blows and throws even while idle. Hit his shield.

4. Ask your apprentice to ready a right swing without releasing or cancelling it. Hit his shield while he is in readied mode. Explain to him about the defensively rich blocking properties of the right swing, and the defensively poor blocking properties of the left swing.

5. Ask your apprentice to release his attack toward your head or toward your legs immediately after you hit his shield. Make him successfully execute this move five times to conclude this step.

6. Ask your apprentice to use his readied right swing to block your swings, namely three left swings (head, torso, and legs), three right swings, and one vertical swing. He must block one of each kind to conclude this step.

7. Have a stationary shield fight with your apprentice. Use feints, passive blocking, but go easy on him. Do not use Agile Fighter back hits on him. Block up and down with your shield in front of his knocked-out body (parry upward and move your weapon up and down with the mouse) if you won the fight, or ask him to finish you off with a special attack (if he somehow won the fight) to end the lesson.

If your apprentice does not aim his swings, he will constantly hit his opponents' shields, for which this shall be the second mechanic that you shall teach him.

1. Explain and demonstrate to your apprentice that the right swing has the lowest starting animation and the biggest swinging arc. Ask your apprentice to hit your legs from a medium range with a right swing while you attempt to block with a readied right swing. After successfully executed, ask him to hit your head from a medium range with a right swing while you attempt to block with a readied right swing.

2. Explain and demonstrate to your apprentice that the left swing has a high starting animation and a short swing animation which makes it faster than the right swing. Ask your apprentice to hit your neck with a left swing while you attempt to block with a readied right swing.

3. Explain and demonstrate to your apprentice that the vertical swing is the most difficult swing to land given its vertical nature, yet it allows him to surprise his opponent. Ask your apprentice to hit your arm while you attempt to block with a readied right swing.

Special thanks to Vash for the existence of this section.

Feinting is, and must be the third skill that we should teach to our apprentices, because regardless of whether your apprentice's favoured method of defence, be it shield blocking, weapon blocking, or both, feinting will always be a useful combat move.

This lesson is to be taught with both of you standing still in front of each other.

1. Teach your apprentice how to cancel a readied attack (i.e. a charge). Show him how it looks, explain him how to do it, and make him do it.

2. After a successful attempt, ask your apprentice to cancel a charge once again, and to follow the cancel with an attack toward yourself. Make sure to mention that following a feint with an attack on the same side can be effective in misleading an opponent.

3. Make him do one feint and one attack on you. Block his attacks with your weapon. Ask him to speed it up if he is being too slow until you judge that his feinting speed is decent. As soon as his speed becomes decent, make him repeat this process ten times before concluding this step.

4. Make him do two feints and one attack. Ask him to vary the directions he is using if he starts to frequently feint in a severely predictable pattern. Make him do this ten times, and if he exhibited the aforementioned pattern, tell him about it, and make him do this ten times extra without the pattern. If he exhibits a pattern before the extra ten times are accomplished, reset the value of times to zero and make him start over until he has executed the process without such pattern.

5. Repeat the above process with three feints. Do not forget to praise your apprentice if his speed is acceptable, or if he manages to land a hit on you (no need to be ashamed of being hit).

6. Ask your student to try to hit you with any number of feints he wants. End this step after ten attempts, or after he lands a hit on you, whichever happens first.

Blocking with a weapon, which is mistakenly yet commonly referred to as parrying in this game, is a skill that your apprentice will have to use sooner or later, given the existence of champion specials, fire arrows, javelins, and stamina drains (which you must explain to your apprentice).

This lesson is to be taught with both of you standing still in front of each other. Use a Default Skirmisher for this lesson.

1. Ask your apprentice to block your incoming blows. Do not feint. You should use each type of swing at least once. Start with charged swings, and gradually decrease the charge for each swing. Make him block you until he receives penetration damage, a.k.a. parry damage.

2. Explain to your apprentice how to prevent parry damage. Make him perfectly block (i.e. without penetration damage) six blows in a row to conclude this step.

3. Inform your student that you will perform one feint and one attack. Do this slowly, then at a moderate speed. Make him block ten attacks in a row (ignore penetration) to conclude this step. If he received parry damage, insist that he should rotate more when parrying.

4. Repeat the previous step but with two feints. Warn him to watch out for feints and attacks that are consecutively performed on the same side.

5. Repeat the previous step but with three feints. Make him block five attacks in a row (instead of ten) to conclude this step.

6. Inform your student that you will be executing a random amount of feints per blow. Attempt ten blows. If he blocked four blows out of ten, start over. If he blocked five blows out of ten, attempt one more blow, which if he fails to block, you should start over, and if he succeeds, you shall conclude this step. If he blocked six blows out of ten, praise him and conclude this step.

7. Have a stationary shieldless fight with your apprentice. Ask your apprentice to use a default Warrior and to put his shield on his back if he is not already doing so. Bow in front of his knocked-out body (parry upward and move your weapon up and down with the mouse) if you won, or ask him to finish you off with a special attack (if he somehow won) to end the lesson.

A fighter who does not move gets killed with a special attack or with a ranged weapon.

Use a Default Skirmisher for this lesson.

1. Select the Strand map (open chat window, delete /say and enter: /vote_map strand tdm). Ask your apprentice to put his shield on his back if he has one. Go to either extreme of the map with him, and ask him to move toward the area of the map with the upside-down boats (the closest to whichever edge you are) whilst blocking your swings.

2. If your apprentice failed the previous step, repeat the process until properly accomplished. If he succeeds, repeat the process but with the apprentice having to retreat to the more distant upside-down boats.

3. If your apprentice failed the previous step, repeat the process until properly accomplished. If he succeeded, repeat the process but with the apprentice having to retreat to the other extreme of the map.

4. Repeat the previous step with your apprentice as the attacker and yourself as the defender.

5. Ask your apprentice to use a Default Warrior and to put his shield on his back. Before sparring with him, inform him that if he does not move, you will kill him with a special attack (this should get him to move). Evaluate his feinting and parrying. After the fight, tell him if he needs to practice his feinting or his parrying whilst moving.

6. Teach your student about early hits (i.e. hitting as soon as the swinging animation starts). Use a tree as a target to show him how to do this while stationary, then have him attempt the same until successful. Then do this while moving, and have him do the same until successful.

7. Repeat step five (5), but emphasize step six's (6) early hits.

Teach the following skills to your apprentice after he concludes the previous lessons. Perform them yourself first, then have him imitate you.

You may, or may not – at your discretion – require your apprentice to succesfully perform each of these at least once, except for the ones where otherwise indicated (i.e. necessary skills that require proficiency through consistent performance).


Cushioned Landing
Dodge instead of dropping from a ledge in order to turn an otherwise deadly landing (which immediately kills you) into a crippling landing (which requires someone to revive you, or the Strong Will perk), to turn a crippling landing into a hard landing (which exposes you to attacks for a moment), or to turn a hard landing into a soft landing (no penalty). Your apprentice must learn to perform this move consistently.
From top-left clockwise: deadly landing, crippling landing, hard landing, soft landing.

Dodge Switch
Dodge whilst changing weapons to avoid being hit, given the inability to parry or swing while changing weapons. Your apprentice must learn to perform this move consistently.


Back Hit
Requires Agile Fighter perk. Dodge diagonally (forward and westward with a one-handed weapon, forward and eastward with a two-handed axe) and perform an attack while dodging whilst turning toward the opponent to attempt to hit his back.

Blind Feint
After readying a swing, turn 360°, and whilst turning, change the direction of your swing.

Consecutive Blind Swing
After landing an attack, keep turning toward the direction to which the weapon is moving to perform a 360° turn, and whilst turning, release a swing from the same direction you are turning to in order to attempt to perform an early hit.

Dodge Draw
Requires a shield. Dodge whilst drawing your shield (from your back to your hand) to attempt to block a melee or projectile attack.

Early Bird
Requires Agile Fighter perk. Dodge diagonally (forward and eastward with a one-handed weapon, forward and westward with a two-handed axe) and perform an attack while dodging whilst moderately turning away from your opponent to attempt to perform an early hit. Best performed after dodging forward under a swing directed to the head.

False Blind Feint to Blind Swing
After readying a swing, turn 360° opposite the direction to which your readied weapon would move to, and release the swing before or during the end of the turn to attempt to perform an early hit.

False Swing to Blind Swing
After readying a swing, turn 360° toward the direction to which your readied weapon would move to, and whilst turning, release a swing from the same direction you are turning to in order to attempt to perform an early hit.

False Swing to Hit
After readying a swing, turn 360° toward the direction to which your readied weapon would move to, and release the swing before or during the end of the turn.

Jump Switch
Requires Skirmisher class. Jump whilst changing weapons to avoid a low attack while readying a different weapon (without any stamina cost if not jumping vertically), or as a prelude to a boundary bait. Very situational.

Switch Attack
Requires Agile Fighter perk. Change weapon, dodge toward an appropriate direction while changing weapons, and attack whilst dodging. Best performed with both a one-handed weapon and a two-handed weapon equipped, or with a one-handed weapon and a throwing weapon.

Other moves may be performed by combining any of the skills (or parts thereof) above (e.g. False Consecutive Blind Swing to Switch Attack, False Swing to Early Bird, et cetera).

Perform the following procedures on your apprentice, then explain them to him and have him attempt them while sparring and in large battles.

Lead your enemy to a tight passage in order to prevent him from side-stepping an attack.

Lead your enemy to terrain next to a cliff or water to attempt to kick or push him out of the map to kill him. Best performed with a spear because it is the only weapon that allows you to block and swiftly push. Daggers cannot block, and the Shieldmaiden's Shield Bash is slower.

Land a swing coming from behind a corner to attempt to catch the enemy off-guard.

Bandage over a knocked-out ally to attempt to lure and kill an enemy with a special attack.

Perform a cushioned landing to attempt to make the enemy perform a hard landing (which will enable you to attack your temporarily defenceless enemy) or to make him perform a crippling landing (after which you can kill him, heal yourself or focus on other enemies).

Hit the ground with a weapon to end the animation earlier to attempt to hit the enemy with a second attack.

Provoke your enemy into performing a special attack in order to evade it and retaliate without resistance.

Not only should you teach your apprentice how to be an excellent and honourable warrior, but also how to be a good leader.

Teach your apprentice to always select a squad. This will enable him to tag enemies and keep track of their location, as well as to heal squadmates (who will likely heal him back) and to keep track of their location and health to assist them (they may reciprocate).

Instill into your apprentice the habit of encouraging others to join his squad. Teach him to insist to his teammates without a squad (lone wolves) to join any squad, preferably the one the apprentice is in. If there is a clueless (given the language barrier) or stubborn teammate who will not change his squad (because of whatever coloured animal that his squad is named after), that your apprentice should move to that squad (if the squad is not locked) and that he should encourage his former squadmates to move to the new squad.

Sometimes, the only way to win a battle is by carefully selecting your squadmates. Teach your apprentice about locking and unlocking squads, and to judge a player's strength and teamwork before allowing him into the squad. An elite squad can potentially reverse the enemy team's fortune and it can be unstoppable if the enemy team does not have an elite squad of the same calibre to stop it.

An elite enemy warrants an elite warrior to counter, or a whole squad if not. Instill into your apprentice to exhort his squad to assist him in countering the elite enemy (e.g. squad distracting the elite while the apprentice takes down the others, or squad distracting the other while the apprentice takes down the elite). Tagging an elite might, wordlessly, encourage squadmates to attack him (having the Spotter perk increases the odds of them doing so).

Some squadmates or teammates can be trusted to survive longer than others, whereas others cannot. Sometimes, it is only prudent to help an elite when he is surrounded, and othertimes, it is only prudent to help an average player instead. Judgement is not perfect and cannot be easily taught (if it can be taught at all), but it can develop over time and mark the difference between victory and defeat.

Special thanks to Greedy Sheedy for teaching me the basics, to Hoppi for teaching me important skills, to Vash for sharing his knowledge with me and for proof-reading this document, and to all my apprentices for allowing me to teach them, which was also a learning experience for me.

This guide is dedicated to Christian, Dart, David, Dennis, Josh, Marcellus, Marek, Rokas and Selina.