Project Moon, I think your games are great and all, but everyone knows they have at least one common flaw, and that is... their tutorials are generally pretty bad: whether that be because they are overwhelming or... just bad. Part of this is excused by your games being complicated, but with Limbus Company... I don't know how so many core mechanics were not explained, or just flat out explained poorly. So, today I'll be giving you a general tutorial for how to play Limbus Company: more specifically, the combat portion of Limbus Company, since this seems to be the main point of confusion for a lot of new players. I'll be giving you my overview in three sections: starting with general terminology and skills, then clashing, and lastly EGO resources and EGO. One very important thing to note is that it would be near impossible to actually cover every little thing about Limbus's combat and I want this to be an efficient and reasonable starting point to allow new players to... actually play the game and not just be terribly confused all the way up to Canto III, like I was. So this will be a brief overview of the more simple mechanics, but I'll try to be as in-depth as possible into those mechanics so there's no confusion. Let's start by defining what a skill is Skills are the most integral mechanic to Limbus Company and they all have certain properties: they all have Damage Types, they all have a Sin Affinity, and they all have a Base Power and coins. Now, let's go through [what] all of those mean. Damage types are pretty simple: there are three damage types in the game, and every skill has one of the three. The three are Slash, Pierce, and Blunt. The main point of damage types are to take advantage of enemy weaknesses, as most enemies in the game are Weak or Fatal to certain Damage Types. Damage Type is shown here on every skill. Next, the Sin Affinity, and there are seven of these total: Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Gloom, Pride, and Envy. Like Damage Types, enemies can be weak to Sin Affinities, though generally this is reserved for larger boss enemies. We'll be coming back to Sin Affinities many times since they will be important in the last section. For now, just try to familiarize yourself with the colors associated with the names. Now, Base Power and coins are far more important, and are not explained nearly well enough. The Base Power of a skill is found right here on the sinner's information screen or here in the combat UI. Same for enemy skills. This indicates what your skill's power is by default or without any Coin Power added on. Speaking of coins, every skill has at least one. The number is represented by the coin icon above the skill. Another way to think of coins is just how many hits the skill does. coins add power to the skill when they are flipped and hit heads. The amount added is determined by the Coin Power, seen right here. Before we go any further, let's talk about hitting heads and flipping coins. You flip coins whenever you engage in a clash or attack your opponent. The percentage chance to hit heads is 50% by default and is modified based on this number here, known as your Sanity. It starts at zero and can be raised or lowered in various ways, though I'll be talking about the main way to raise it in just a little bit. For now, all you need to know is that Sanity increases your chance to hit heads by the number that it is. For example, at 20 Sanity you have a 70% chance to hit heads and at maximum Sanity, 45, you have a 95% chance to hit heads. This works the other way around: so at - 36 Sanity you have a 14% chance to hit heads. The minimum amount of Sanity is -45. Now here's an example of Sanity and coins at work. Here is [LCB Sinner] Outis and her Skill 1, [Pulled Blade]. This skill has a Base Power of 3, and three coins each with a Coin Power of +2. Every coin indicates an instance of damage so if Outis is attacking someone unopposed and hit heads, she will deal 5 damage. The actual calculation doesn't quite make it work out like that, but for the sake of simplicity, let's use the raw numbers as damage. So now we have used up one of our coins. The next one is flipped and let's say we hit it tails. Our Skill Power stays at 5 and we attack again, dealing 5 more damage. Then the last coin flips - hitting heads, and we gained 2 more power to our skill and deal 7 damage. Then, since there are no more coins, the skill is over. Hopefully, you're keeping up with this point, and if not, I would recommend just going into a battle knowing this information and seeing it work in real-time. There's still plenty of things to talk about, of course. So you notice how in that Outis example I said it was her Skill 1? Well, there are four types of skills in Limbus Company for your Sinners: the Skill 1, 2, 3, and then the Defensive Skill. Your Skill Deck is laid out like so: you have three Skill 1s, two Skill 2s, and one Skill 3. Defensive Skills can be used at any time by pressing on the center portrait. The in-game tutorial actually explains them in an alright way, but in case you missed it, there are 3 types of Defensive Skills: Guard, Evade and Counter. Guard is very basic: it gives you a Shield based on the number it rolls. Evade lets you dodge all incoming damage that is equal to or less than the number you rolled on your Evade. And Counter only occurs once you have taken damage , then it attacks unopposed like a normal skill. There's a lot more that could be said about these skills, like how Defensive Skills don't trigger the effects of Bleed, or how they change your Defense Levels to the modifier on the skill, but that's all way too niche and complex for a basic tutorial. More importantly, the Skill Deck setup I mentioned before. You can somewhat predict what you will have coming up on the dashboard based on these numbers. Mostly, you can know how long it will be until you have another Skill 3, since there is only one in your deck. If you have one early on, you need to cycle for a while till you get another one. It's because of this deck system that a strong Skill 2 is generally the best thing for an ID to have, since they are far stronger than Skill 1s and still two times more common than Skill 3s. Before moving on to the next section, let's talk about Resonance. If you've played the Limbus tutorial, you would know that an immense amount of focus was put on lining up multiple skills of the same affinity, since it would massively boost their power. This is pretty much just a blatant lie. Resonance and Absolute Resonance DO strengthen your attacks but it is not enough to really justify specifically chaining skills around it. So, what does Resonance do? Well, to really explain that, I need to talk about Limbus's main mechanic: clashing. Clashing is about as core a mechanic as you can get. It's the main way to avoid damage, and it is also your main way to gain Sanity, which is obviously a good thing. Clashing works differently depending on what kind of battle you're in. In a regular fight, clashing happens by default as you drag the chain across the Dashboard. Focused Encounters are far more interesting to talk about. Clashes are initiated by selecting a skill and dragging it to the enemy's Skill Slot. You'll know you're in a clash with that enemy based on the UI above, and the text by your skill, which will read Hopeless, Struggling, Neutral, Favored, or Dominating, based on your percentage chance to win the clash. In a clash, you roll all of your coins in your skill and so does your enemy. Then the total powers are compared against each other. The total at the end of the clash is your Clash Power. The higher Clash Power will win the clash and a coin will be removed from the losing skill. This process repeats until a skill has no coins left, in which case the winning skill will then roll damage. Let me give some examples. First, a very simple example - two single-coin skills clash against each other: [LCB Sinner] Gregor's Skill 2 is clashing against, uh, this guy, and his single-coin skill. Gregor is at 24 Sanity and, by default, abnormalities have zero sanity, so a 50% chance to hit heads. We will lose this clash if the abnormality hits heads and we do not. We will also lose if the abnormality hits tails and we also hit tails, since our Base Power is lower than theirs. Either way, our coins are rolled. Gregor did end up hitting heads and so did the abnormality, but our final Clash Power is just high enough to win the clash and destroy their coin. Since their skill only had one coin, we now get to attack the enemy. Now another example. [LCB Sinner] Don is clashing against the same abnormality. She is using her Skill 3, [For Justice!], which has three coins and a max roll of 12. The enemy is using a four coin skill which has a Base Power of 3 and Coin Power of +2. Let's assume Don is at max Sanity of 45. We can be pretty confident that Don will win this clash, since our max Clash Power is higher than the enemy's. However, in this example, we lost the first clash because the game is rigged and only have two coins to continue the clash with, making our max roll now only 9. Thankfully, we then proceed to win the next four clashes and our attack continues as normal, but with one less coin. Hopefully, that all makes sense up to this point because we're not done. All these these numbers so far have just been using Base Power and Coin Power, but there's another pretty important factor in clashing, and that is Offense Level. Offense Level is a stat that every ID has, but the formula is very simple. It is X + Offense Level modifier, where X is the identity's level. Every ID has an Offense Level modifier, but the current range is -5 to +5, but no ID actually has -5. What Offense Level does is determine how much damage you do via a very complicated formula, but more importantly it can determine the final Clash Power of the enemy or Sinners. For this next example, let's use a level 10 [LCB Sinner] Ryoshu. She has a + 2 Offense Level, meaning her Offense Level here is 12. She is facing this absolute loser, who has an Offense Level of 5 on this skill. Ryoshu will use her Skill 1, which has a floor of 3 and Coin Power of +7. Since the enemy has a skill with a ceiling of 5, it would normally be possible for us to lose this clash. However, for every three points of difference in Offense Level, and only every three points of difference in Offense Level, the one with the higher offense level gains +1 Clash Power for that clash. Meaning, in this case, our skill effectively has a floor of 5, since we have 7 Offense Level over our opponent, translating to +2 in total Clash Power. We could always hit tails, and the enemy could always hit heads, and we would never be able to lose this clash due to the Clash Power boost from Offense Level. Offense Level can vary per skill, but in combat, you can always find it next to the skill description or up here. So long as you can recognize multiples of three, you can understand Offense Levels. Offense Level is also where Resonance actually has a use. Specifically, Absolute Resonance of three will raise the Offense Level of all skills in the chain by three, effectively raising their Clash Power by one. Alright, last thing on clashing for now: Sanity gain. You gain Sanity either by killing higher-level enemies or by winning clashes. In harder content, the much easier option of those two is winning clashes. The formula is incredibly simple. Since every skill has at least one coin, winning a clash against a single coin skill gives you 10 Sanity. That is the base amount of Sanity yield a clash can give you, since every clash must "clash" at least once. For every clash beyond one, you then gain 20% more Sanity. This translates to being two more Sanity for every clash above one, meaning clashing twice and then winning would give you 12 Sanity, clashing three times would give you 14, and so on. Ties are included in this, and do not lead to coins being destroyed on either side, so if you tie against your opponent in a clash, and still end up winning in the end, you basically gained a bit of extra Sanity for free. There are other factors that can affect clashes, such as [Attack Power Up] and [Attack Power Down], but once you understand the core mechanics of clashing, everything else should come pretty naturally. Sometimes, though, there are clashes that you just can't win, because the enemy rolls too high, and in those cases it's best to use EGO. EGO are strong skills that cost EGO resources and Sanity to use. EGO resources correspond to Sin Affinities. This means that if you use a skill with a Pride Sin Affinity, it will give you one Pride EGO resource. You can see what an EGO costs in various places, but the most common place will be here, once you have opened the EGO menu by holding down on the center portrait. There are five different levels to EGO, generally indicating how strong they are, but currently only three of them actually have EGO: those being ZAYIN, TETH and HE, though that will change very soon. Everyone starts off with 12 EGO, all at the ZAYIN level, with one EGO per Sinner. These are referred to as the Base EGO, and you can see them all on screen right now. For further examples, I'll be using Don Quixote's base EGO, [La Sangre de Sancho] and Hong Lu's base EGO, [Land of Illusion]. Starting with Don's Base EGO, we can see that it costs 10 Sanity, as well as two Lust and two Pride EGO resources. At Threadspin Level III, which will happen automatically as you progress through the story, Don's Base EGO has a floor of 12 and a Coin Power of +11. This means it has a ceiling of 23, which is far more powerful than the majority of skills. Important to note is that so far every EGO is a single-coin skill, meaning if you happen to lose a clash with it even once, it will be immediately used. Of course, while the actual effects of the ego are one of the main benefits of them, it would be difficult to talk about every effect and what they do in this tutorial, so instead I'll talk further about their mechanics in battle. The biggest misconception by far is about how EGOs spend Sanity. They only spend Sanity once you use them to attack. So, for example, if you are at 45 Sanity (or max Sanity), and you use [La Sangre de Sancho] in a clash, you have a 95% chance to hit head still. Then, once you win the actual clash, 10 Sanity is spent, and you have an 85% chance to hit heads on the actual attack. Something else to be aware of is that EGO themselves give an EGO resource meaning EGO that cost four resources are technically only a net loss of three. Now, let's use a different example. Hong Lu's [Land of Illusion] EGO is much more unique. It costs five Gloom and one Lust resource to use, meaning it costs six resources total. More importantly, this EGO has three Attack Weight. Attack Weight works as an AOE mechanic, where every enemy's Skill Slot has a certain amount of weight, and you hit as many targets as your Attack Weight allows. For a very simple example, you have three enemies you are facing, and they all have one Skill Slot, with one Slot Weight. If you use [Land of Illusion] or any three Attack Weight EGO, you will hit all three targets, since you have just enough Attack Weight to hit everyone. In a different example, let's say the first enemy has two Skill Slots, both with one Attack Weight, and the other enemies have one Skill Slot each. so the first enemy is the first target. In this case, you use two Attack Weight on them, and then your last Attack Weight is wasted on the second enemy, meaning you only hit two. There is a lot of nuance to Attack Weight, and plenty of tricks to it, but this is a simple overview of how it functions. So far, I've only talked about Base EGO, but let's use a non-Base EGO for an example, since they have a mechanic that Base EGO just straight up don't. I'll be using Outis's [Ebony Stem] EGO as an example here. First of all, this is a HE EGO. Tt costs 20 Sanity to use, and 10 resources total: four Pride, three Gluttony, two Lust, and one Gloom. You can see the effects of the Awakening version of the EGO on screen now, but what we care about is the other kind of version: the Corrosion version. Every non-Base EGO has both an Awakening and Corrosion version to them. The Awakening is the default version of the EGO and the Corrosion version can be accessed in a few ways. Number one: corroding entirely by reaching -45 SP. This is very rare, barring some exceptions, but yes: once you reach -45 SP, you lose control of your character and they will use the corroded version of the EGO. Number two: attempting to use an Awakening EGO below zero Sanity. This leads to a percentage chance for your EGO to corrode, shown here. And three: the most popular way by far is Overclocking. You see, most Corrosion EGO have this pesky little red text that says [Indiscriminate], meaning you cannot control where it aims. This is a problem because, well, hitting your team with strong attacks instead of the enemy is generally very counterproductive. The other two ways to activate corrosion lead to most EGO being [Indiscriminate] but Overclocking removes that downside. To Overclock an EGO, you simply click and hold on it. This will cost 1.5 times the resources and Sanity. This gives you access to the sometimes-very-powerful Corrosion versions of EGO with control over their targeting. However, you do only remove the [Indiscriminate] text. If the Corrosion has the specification of targets randomly, like Faust's [Hex Nail] EGO, it will still target randomly, but it will not target allies. Two more small things for EGO. Firstly, every EGO comes with a set of resistances to Sin Affinities. By default, your Sin Resistances are based on your lowest level EGO, so for most Sinners that will be your Base EGO. you change Sin Resistances the moment you use another EGO, and they can always be seen on this menu, or on the Sinner tabs menu. Lastly, EGO passives. These activate the turn after you use an Awakening EGO, or immediately upon using a Corrosion EGO. Then, they will be active for the rest of the fight, and you can stack as many as you have unique EGO to use. And that's about everything important for EGO. Now, I'll talk a bit more about EGO resources, since being used in EGO is not the only thing they are good for. Once IDs reach Uptie II and III respectively, they gain Passives and Support Passives. These come in two flavors: Resonance Passives and Owned Passives. Resonance Passives are pretty simple and relate to Resonance. They require the listed amount to be present on the dashboard per turn to activate, but they do not require to be right next to each other. Owned Passives require the amount of resources to be present in your EGO Resource Bank. There are a number of EGO that gain benefits based on your stored resources as well, but outside of EGO, Passives and Support Passives are the main mechanic that rely on your stored EGO resources or the Affinities present on the dashboard. And that is it. About as brief an overview as one could really give for Limbus Company's combat. There is still plenty I could talk about, like how [Final Power], [Skill Power], [Base Power], and [Attack Power] all essentially mean the same thing, despite being used interchangeably for some reason (just to be confusing) or more importantly, how you can choose which Sinners would will get an extra Skill Slot in combat based on the order you choose them in, but honestly I wanted this to be even shorter than what it is now. So if you still want to learn more about Limbus, I can recommend some of my other videos that talk about other mechanics - specifically, "What Makes a Tank?" talks about the Tank role in Limbus at large, and my video on Sunshower Heathcliff explains one of the more complicated IDs in the game, and if you're at that point in the game, Uptie IV Tier List is a good way to get an idea of what Upties are valuable. If enough of you want, I may make a follow-up to this video explaining more intermediate or advanced level tricks, and if you still have questions, leave a comment below. I know there are a lot of people who are willing to show off their game knowledge, and "humble brag" by helping out new players, so feel free to ask for clarifications. But with that, thank you for watching. This tutorial... ends no-