Dodging

Dodging is every hero's main defensive move. A dodge costs Stamina and is invulnerable only during part of its animation, its i-frames (the game's data calls them muteki). The windows differ a lot between heroes. Jerold gets no i-frames from his basic dodge at all; he relies on a hidden perfect-dodge system instead.

How the data works#

Each animation state lists events at normalized times: 0 is the first frame and 1 is the last. skillMuteki = 1 makes the hero immune to all hits until the event that sets it back to 0. The tables below give these windows as a percentage of the dodge animation. The clip lengths in seconds are not in the game's script data, so absolute durations are not listed.

There are two dodge entries. Dodge (skill 102) starts from neutral. Dodge-cancel (skill 101, named DodgeSpecial in the code) interrupts an attack. Only Terrence, Norwood, Jerold and Elena have a skill 101 in their config and skill data; Viola and Benita have a leftover animator entry for it but no config or cost row, so they dodge-cancel with the normal dodge (inferred). Pressing dodge again during a dodge chains into the second combo step.

Invulnerability windows#

Perfect dodges (Jerold and Elena)#

Jerold's and Elena's dodges have a beat-back window at the very start (skillBeatBack; the same system also drives the counters described in Parry and counter#Beat-back (Elena, Jerold, Norwood)). If an enemy attack touches them during that window, the game counts a perfect dodge:

• the dodge jumps to a follow-up step that has i-frames and costs no stamina (Jerold: step 1 → 3, step 2 → 5, step 4 → 5; the leaping dodge → its step 2);
• time slows to 0.32× (0.1 s ramp-in, 0.35 s hold, 0.2 s ramp-out) when you are the player;
• with the trophy Wheel of Reversal, Jerold also restores a flat 50 stamina.

The window only works if a talent of type SkillBeatBack covers that exact move. For Jerold that is Evasion: Ensuing (talent 15208, open by default), whose condition list names skills 101 and 102 plus four combat arts (25, 28, 47, 50) but not the leaping dodges 117/118, so the leaping-dodge perfect dodge is unverified. The talent's in-game text only talks about chaining quick evasions, not perfect dodges. For Elena the default-open talent Parry (17204) carries the same beat-back type for her dodge (skill 102) and several single-blade arts. Her perfect dodge needs the dual-blade dodge data.

Other invulnerability#

• Parry counters: Terrence's, Viola's and Norwood's parry counter-attacks are invulnerable for the whole animation. See Parry and counter#Counter Attack.
• Backstabs and executions: while you perform one, other enemies cannot hit you. Only the victim's own hits can land.
• Being knocked down: while flying back or lying on the ground you cannot be hit again until the getting-up phase starts.
• Cutscenes, dialog, falling and forced movement are always invulnerable.
• The trophy Marcion Puzzle Ball makes you immune to pierce damage, both hits and pierce statuses (Damage types and resistances#Ways to change resistances).

Hidden mechanics#

• Jerold's dodge only works if you time it. His basic dodge has no i-frames. Its protection comes from the perfect-dodge follow-up, so a late dodge with Jerold is just a quick step.
• Viola's unused longer roll. Viola's dodges have a second, longer i-frame track (skillMuteki2: 0%–60% instead of 0%–46%, and 0%–41% instead of 0%–31%) that turns on with a "SkillMuteki" talent. No talent in the data has that type, so the longer window is never used (cut content).
• Norwood's i-frames start late. His dodge is vulnerable for its first 7.5%, so very late dodges can still be hit.
• Dodge cost is fixed at 65 (Elena 48) and does not scale with equipment weight. Trophies reduce it: Eternity and Concentration Rune −15%, Broken Eternity −9%, Chaos Silk −20%. These reductions apply to dodge moves only, and only for the hero you control (see Stamina for the stamina rules).
• Jerold's dodge chain counter. Jerold counts consecutive dodges. After 3 in a row, the game changes his dodge's skill condition until he has gone 1 second without dodging (DodgeResetCntMax = 3, DodgeResetCntTime = 1). The exact in-game effect of the changed condition is inferred to be a different dodge variant.
• A dodge needs only 1 stamina. Like every action, a dodge can start with any stamina above 0.

Sources#

• reference/lua_src/luascript/logic/player/animalbase.lua: 5855–5934 (IsMuteki, IsMutekiForSkill, talent-gated skillMuteki2), 11311–11333 (animator params), ~17480–17507 (IsSkillBeatBackStart).
• luascript/structdata/ms_animalanimator.lua: 169–200 (times are normalized 0–1).
• luascript/logic/player/hero10005.lua: 283–352 (perfect dodge, Wheel of Reversal), 384–419 (dodge counter), 480–503; gamedata/playerdefine/hero10005_define.lua: 168–174.
• luascript/logic/player/hero10007.lua: 115–201; gamedata/playerdefine/hero10007_define.lua: 39–42.
• luascript/logic/playervalue/animalbase_value.lua: 866–873 (dodge trophy reduction), 2136–2141 (pierce immunity).
• Tables: es_animalanimator.lua rows hero10001–hero10007 (skill101, skill102, skill117, skill118, skill105, skill19: skillMuteki, skillMuteki2, skillBeatBack, runExit); es_skilldata.lua rows 35, 36, 249, 336, 444, 558, 724, 728 (EnergySub); es_herotalent.lua TalentId 15208 (DefaultOpen 1), no rows of type 32; es_trophydata.lua rows 13, 25, 49, 66, 75, 78.
• Raw extract: build/wiki/data/resources/anim_dodge.txt.
• Verified in a second pass: es_herotalent.lua TalentId 15208 (Type 33 = SkillBeatBack, condition 101/102/25/28/47/50) and 17204 (Elena, Type 33, condition starts 102), gamedata/playerconfig/hero10002_config.lua and hero10003_config.lua (no DodgeSpecial entries), ms_herotalent.lua line 46.