Here are the best combat tips and combos you need to know to take on challenging enemies in Stellar Blade! Check out our beginner's guide to combat in Stellar Blade, best combos, and all combat tips and guides!

Stellar Blade Beginner's Guide to Combat

Stellar Blade Features Fast-Paced Combat

Stellar Blade features fast-paced combat and you'll need to master the basics of combat such as parrying enemies, dodging and blinking, as well as unleashing powerful combos to overcome the Naytiba!

Beginner Tips and Techniques
Read the Enemy's Movements Practice Parrying Enemy Attacks Deplete Balance to Perform Retribution Master Eve's Evasion Skills Utilize Eve's Beta Skills Break the Enemy's Shields Use Combat Consumables Conserve Your HP Change Difficulty Settings Sprint Away From Dangerous Situations Use an Exospine That Suits Your Playstyle

Read the Enemy's Movements

Reading the enemy's movement is important in Stellar Blade since each enemy has its own combos and movesets.

It's a good idea to keep your distance and observe the enemy attacks patterns, especially when encountering a new enemy or boss, and take note of any windows of opportunity to attack them!

Stalker Boss Attack Patterns

Practice Parrying Enemy Attacks

Perfect Parry	Press when enemy lands an attack

Parrying enemy attacks is key to survival since even weak Naytiba Minions can unleash powerful combas that can deal a lot of damage.

Timing your parry to the enemy's attacks will cause Eve to perform a Perfect Parry that quickly depletes the enemy's balance and replenishes your Beta Energy, and give you the chance to unleash a follow-up attack!

How to Perfect Parry

Deplete Balance to Perform Retribution

Retribution	Press when enemy is staggered

Successfully depleting the enemy's Balance, which are the yellow orbs below the shield bar, through Perfect Parries will cause enemies to stagger.

A yellow glow will then appear on the enemy and you'll have the option to perform a Retribution attack by pressing the Triangle Button, inflicting massive damage to the enemy that can instantly kill weaker Naytiba!

Master Eve's Evasion Skills

Color the Enemy Shows	Evasion Skill to Use
Yellow	Dodge / Perfect Dodge ( ) Avoid enemy attacks by dodging. A Perfect Dodge will grant you Burst Energy.
Blue	Blink ( Tilt Up + ) Teleports behind enemy and attacks. Gain Burst Energy when Blink is successful.
Purple	Repulse (Tilt Down + ) Teleports behind enemy and attacks. Gain Burst Energy when Blink is successful.

When enemies emit a certain colored glow, it means they're about to unleash an unblockable attack that's impossible to counter. Fortunately, Eve has plenty of evasive skills to avoid these heavy attacks!

These evasive skills will only activate when the enemy glows a certain color so you'll need to be aware of what color the enemy glows so you can perform the correct evasive skill!

Utilize Eve's Beta Skills

Beta Skills	+ / / /

Beta Skills allow you to unleash powerful attacks and require Beta Energy, which you can replenish by perfect parrying or dodging enemy attacks.

Beta Skills range from defensive, single-target, or AOE attacks and are best used against Elite Naytibas such as Bosses!

List of Beta Skills

Break the Enemy's Shields

Stronger enemies such as Elite and Alpha Naytibas have shields that buff their defense andd make it more difficult to damage.

Depleting the enemy's shield will make these tough enemies easier to handle, and you can do this by throwing Pulse Grenades, using the Shield Breaker Beta Skill, and equiping the Shield Destruction Gear!

How to Break to Shields

Use Combat Consumables

Combat Consumables	Use Combat Consumable Hold to Change Consumables

There are a wide array of combat consumables available, each having its own effect such as destroying shields, immobilizing enemies, and more.

It is best to stock up with Combat Consumables before fighting a strong enemy, such as bosses or quest enemies!

Buy Combat Consumables At Shops

Aside from potential enemy drops, you can also purchase combat consumables at shops available in nearby camps or at the R Store in Xion City.

Xion, the Last Remaining City

Conserve Your HP

Recovery Items	Use Recovery Item Hold to Change Item

During the battle, always make sure that your health is as close as it should be to maximum. There are enemy attacks, especially from bosses, that are continuous, and once you get hit by one of the chained attacks, you may not be able to get out.

Prioritize your health by actively looking at the bottom left of your screen and heal as much as you can.

How to Heal

Change Difficulty Settings

Difficulty	Story Mode
Action Assist	On

If the battles at your current difficulty setting seem are harder than you expect, you can always change your Difficulty Setting by pressing the Start Button in-game and heading over to the Settings tab. From here, you can choose to change from Normal Mode to Story Mode.

Alternatively, you can turn on Action Assist to make your gameplay easier as it will display necessary command inputs whenever needed.

Sprint Away from Dangerous Situations

Sprinting is a good strategy in most combat situations where you need a short pause to heal.

You can also run away from hard-to-dodge and powerful moves that some bosses dish out on you!

How to Sprint

Use an Exospine That Suits Your Playstyle

Exospines are game-altering equipment that empowers and rewards certain playstyles, such as more powerful Combos and better Perfect Parry windows!

Make sure to collect and try out all of the Exospines and use the one you feel is the best for you!

Best Exospines to Equip

Best Combos in Stellar Blade

Best Normal Attack Combos

Normal Attack Combos are standard combos that don't require Beta Energy to use. These are your bread and butter combos that you'll use to stagger enemies, recover Beta Energy, and weave between evasive and defensive skills!

Onslaught IV

Onslaught IV
Command Input	▶ ▶ ▶ ▶

Onslaught IV is a hard hitting 5-hit combo that alternates between heavy and light attacks. The second and third combo has short recovery times, allowing you to cancel the combo if you want to parry or perfect dodge the enemy's attack.

Rush Chain I

Rush Chain I
Command Input	Hold ▶

Rush Chain I is a great opener for other combos and allows you to quickly advance towards the enemy. It's useful against Elite Naytiba and some Bosses that like to dodge or jump away from Eve when they're charging their attacks.

Incursion III

Command Input	▶ ▶ ▶

Incursion III is a fast and simple to use combo that deals medium damage. The heavy attacks of this combo will cause Eve to perform a fast two-slash combo that can hit multiple targets due to its wide hitbox and is best used when surrounded by multiple enemies.

Best Beta Skill Combos

Beta Skill Combos are hard-hitting combos that require Beta Energy to use and are often strong enough interrupt enemy attacks while dealing massive damage.

Triplet to Quadruplet

Triplet to Quadruplet
Command Input	+ ▶ +

Triplet to Quadruplet is an easy to input and fast Beta Combo that is great at interrupting enemy attacks and breaking posture, while also strong enough to push enemies back!

This makes it a great defensive Beta Combo while being strong enough to deal significant damage to enemies!

Counter I

Command Input	After Perfect Parry, Hold ▶

Counter I is an easy to input Beta Combo that you can use after Perfect Parrying the enemy.

The attack comes out fast and only consumes 1 Beta Energy, which makes it a great punishing attack against slower enemies and can often instantly kill weaker Naytiba Minions.

All Combat Tips and Combos Guides

Combat and Combo Guides
How to Perfect Dodge	How to Parry and Posture System
How to Sprint	Best Exospines to Equip
Shield Effect and How to Break	Best Combos
How to Repulse	How to Blink

Stellar Blade Related Guides

Stellar Blade Story Walkthrough

All Stellar Blade Guides

Stellar Blade Wiki Contents
News	Missions
Tips and Tricks	Combat Tips and Tricks
Enemy Naytiba	Items
Exterior (Outfits)	Exospines
Gear	Skills
Collectibles	Maps and Locations
Characters	Puzzles
Hairstyles	Fishing
Shops	-