Battle Mechanics

New to the game? Start with the Beginner’s Guide to the Screens, which covers the controls, Arts Cards and Elements.

Attacks and damage

Attack types and range

Arts Cards attack as one of three types: Strike, Blast or Mixed. Each type uses different stats for its damage, so two Arts with the same numbers can still differ in damage and cost between characters. A hit can also be Impact, Slice, Pierce or Explode, which matters against resistances to each.

Attacks have short, medium or long range. Check the character’s Arts for their range. Ranged attacks that draw a Danger Zone at your feet can’t be dodged with a Vanishing Step, so walk out of the area.

Arts that use Ki, such as energy blasts, are Ki Attacks, and Ki Absorption and similar actions can absorb them. Arts that use weapons or rocks are Physical Attacks, which absorption doesn’t touch.

Heavy Attacks

Any of your Arts attacks can become a Heavy Attack for more damage, and a Heavy Attack can sometimes become a Super Heavy Attack for even more damage. The chance is shown at the bottom of each Arts Card while you control your own character, and raising the matching Arts Boost improves it.

Heavy Attacks never happen in PvP, from guest characters, or from enemies (except in Tournament of Power and Guild Battles). Rising Rush, All-Out Rush and Rising Rush Z can’t become Heavy Attacks either.

Some stories set Arts Boost Grade Requirements. If your character’s boost is below the required grade, the Arts it covers deal less damage. The story’s details list the requirements. Guest characters are exempt, and Rising Rush, All-Out Rush and Rising Rush Z are affected too.

Armor

Armor prevents a hit from interrupting your action. You still take damage. A Strike with Blast Armor, for example, isn’t interrupted by an enemy’s Blast, and its description shows an icon for it. Armor Break cancels the enemy’s armor so the hit interrupts them.

Damage Guard and its counters

“Sustained Damage Cut” and “Damage Guard” are the same thing: less damage taken. Damage Guard Penetration reduces the protection from the enemy’s Damage Guard.

Some attacks also deal standby damage, a fixed share of their damage to the enemies waiting on standby. Standby damage can’t defeat anyone and doesn’t set off abilities that trigger on being hit.

Card draw

Arts Card draw speed has six levels and starts at level 3:

Level	Speed
6	Super (faster than level 5 only during combos)
5	Rapid 2
4	Rapid 1
3	Standard
2	Slow
1	Sluggish

Abilities raise or lower it. A card draw effect draws cards from your deck. If it names a type, such as Strike, you get that type whatever your deck holds.

Defence and survival

Not being defeated

Several abilities protect a character when their health reaches 0. Each works differently:

Ability	What happens
Endurance	Once per battle, recover health at 0 instead of being defeated.
Revive	Come back with some health at 0.
Comeback	Stay in at 0 health, interrupt the enemy’s combo and revive.
Succession	A Tag Character turns into a specific character with set health at 0. Some also deal damage when it fires.
Indestructible	Can’t be defeated until the end of the enemy’s current combo.
Indestructible State	Can’t be defeated while certain conditions hold.
KO Guard	Once, stops an ally being defeated: interrupts the combo and revives, or switches in to save another battle member.

Most healing that triggers at the same time as Revive, Comeback, Succession or KO Guard is cancelled. Some of these don’t trigger against an enemy’s Self-Destruct. The character’s details say which. Comeback, Succession and KO Guard don’t work in Hyperdimensional Co-Op or Full Power Battle.

KO Guard doesn’t fire if the ally already has Endurance, Indestructible, Comeback or a similar effect, if they defeated themselves with Self-Destruct, or if both sides fell to wide-range Special Moves at the same time.

Nullify Endurance cancels an enemy’s Endurance, Revive Disruption hits back when an enemy revives, and KO Prevention Nullification cancels every effect in the table above. When it cancels anything other than Endurance, most enemy abilities tied to that effect are cancelled too.

Healing Limit

A Healing Limit caps how much health a character can recover, based on their maximum health. It doesn’t apply to health from Revive, Comeback, Succession or KO Guard, healing from supporters, healing marked “fixed”, or health from breaking an enemy NPC.

Protections

Buff Effect	Stops
Hand Protection	Enemy “Card Destruction”.
Dragon Ball Protection	Enemy effects that take your Dragon Balls.
Ki Protection	Enemy “Ki Reduction”.

Guard, Evade and Autocounter

Some characters react to certain enemy attacks on their own. Most use their Unique Gauge for it, and won’t activate if the gauge is too low or the character is still recovering from a sidestep or attack. Counter damage from any of these can’t defeat the enemy.

• Guard Actions block the attack while you slide or stand still. Type A can counter after guarding. Type B also works right after switching in (but not when changing cover), blocks Abnormal Conditions while guarding, and still lets the damage through, so the guard can end in defeat.
• Evade Actions dodge the attack while you slide or stand still. Type B also counters after the dodge.
• Autocounters hit back against certain attacks. Types A and B work while sliding, standing, sidestepping or being hit, and type B also when changing cover. Type C works while standing, attacking, moving, charging Ki, being hit, after switching, and when changing cover or assisting. Type D is type C without the switching and cover change cases.

Nullify wide-range Special Arts cancels an enemy’s wide-range Special Arts while you slide, stand, sidestep or are being hit, but not during a Cover Change.

Combo-Breaking Action Nullification cancels enemy Autocounters, Evade and Guard Actions, and actions that fire on a Cover Change.

Switching and cover

Cooldowns

After you switch a character out, they must wait before returning. Four effects change this cooldown:

Effect	What it does
Substitution Count Shortening on Switch	Your character’s wait after switching out is shorter.
Substitution Count Shortening	A standby ally’s wait is cut right away.
Substitution Count Infliction on Switch	A downgrade: the character’s wait after switching out is longer.
Substitution Count Infliction	A standby character’s wait grows right away.

Special Cover Change

A Special Cover Change breaks the enemy’s combo when you change cover against certain attacks, and some characters follow it with Arts. Most can also do it while assisting. Special Cover Change Nullification cancels the enemy’s version.

An Anti-Cover Change Attack cancels the enemy’s Special Cover Change against your Strike or Blast Arts and damages both the character coming in and the one leaving, then can combo into certain Arts. Its damage can’t defeat anyone.

Switch Attack

With a Switch Attack, after an ally lands a Strike or Blast Arts, tap the character’s icon mid-combo to switch them in with an attack. It can’t be answered with a Cover Change, can’t follow an ally’s counter, and can’t defeat the enemy.

Summon Backup

Summon Backup brings in a specific character to fight as. The backup has its own Tags and stats. If the backup meets an equipment’s Tag, Episode or Character condition, the summoner can wear it, and Z and Zenkai Abilities that match either character’s Tags apply to both.

Sealing

A seal blocks a card, a card slot, the Main Ability or Rising Rush for a while. Only one card slot can be sealed at a time, and some seals show as status icons on the enemy team. Seal Removal undoes a seal, except a character seal.

A character seal keeps an enemy on standby. It ends when the character who sealed them is defeated, or when the sealed character is the last one left. A temporary seal does the same for a set number of timer counts. A sealed character isn’t defeated and is still hit by effects that target all enemies. An enemy team can only have one sealed character at a time.

Final Counter

Final Counter deals damage when the character is defeated, as long as another battle member is left. It can’t defeat the enemy, doesn’t fire against Self-Destruct, and doesn’t work in Hyperdimensional Co-Op or Full Power Battle.

Extra gauges

Unique Gauge

Some characters use a Unique Gauge to activate their abilities. Each gauge fills or drains differently:

Icon	Type	How it works
	Attack	Fills when the character uses Arts.
	Sustained Damage	Fills when they’re hit by enemy Arts.
	Charge	Fills while they charge Ki on the field.
	Ki Consumption	Fills by the Ki your allies spend on Arts.
	Evade	Spent on Evade against certain attacks while sliding or standing still. Some evades counter.
	Guard	Spent on a Guard Action against certain attacks while sliding or standing still. Some guards counter.
	Counter	Spent on a counter during certain actions.
	Time	Fills over time. For some characters it pauses or drains at times.
	Switch Ability	Fills each time they use their Switch Ability.
	Dragon Ball	Fills each time you get a Dragon Ball.
	Release	Drains over time. Its effects last until it falls to a set point.
	Evolve	Levels up when its conditions are met, and the abilities tied to it get stronger with each level.
	Confrontation	Fills each time the character faces an enemy.

Synchro and Active Gauges

Some Tag Characters have a Synchro Gauge: tap it when full for a special effect or action. Some characters have an Active Gauge: tap it once its conditions are met for a special action. Their details screen explains what fills each one.

Arts Actions

During some Arts, a character shows extra inputs on screen. Get them right and the Arts’ effect changes. The details screen lists the inputs.

Starter Abilities

A Starter Ability fires right at the start of the battle.

Rising Rush rules

Some abilities change the result of a Rising Rush wager. Only one type can take effect per Rising Rush.

• RR Disrupt: a character on standby stops the enemy’s Rising Rush if you lose the wager. Some also deal damage, which can’t defeat the enemy.
• RR Defeat Nullification: if you land your own Rising Rush and lose the wager, you deal damage instead of taking the counterattack. It takes priority over a supporter’s effect that turns a loss into a win, and the supporter’s use isn’t spent.
• Dragon Ball Stealing: takes Dragon Balls from the enemy and adds them to yours. You can’t take more than they have, and it does nothing if you already hold 7.

RR Disrupt doesn’t work in Hyperdimensional Co-Op or Full Power Battle.

Other battle settings

Auto Mode plays the battle for you while it’s on. You can still give commands, and tap the button again to turn it off. It isn’t available in modes against or with other players, such as PvP and Hyperdimensional Co-Op, apart from Auto Match Rules.

Quick Battle skips straight to the results. In the ZENKAI Rush Battle the result is worked out from your characters’ Elements, Health and Strike and Blast stats.