Contents
Beginners Guide to Strategy
Introduction
Welcome to The Strategist’s Guide, a compendium of basic and advanced information for Blood of Steel. If you’re interested in playing the game or just starting out, the material within this guide will assist you with your first few hours. Important information within includes server selection, UI details, starter heroes, your first match and hero combat.
Server Selection
Upon installing and starting up the game, the very first screen you’ll be greeted with in the server selection menu. This is the most important decision you’ll have to make when beginning out – All progress is saved per server, which means progress made on, say, the Asian server will be separate from progress made on the North American server.
It is recommended to pick whichever server has the best corresponding ping, as ping is a significant contributor to the melee system. Ping is not as important when commanding your troops, as unit commands are quite responsive.
If you reside in a country that doesn’t specifically belong to any of these categories (Such as Australia), your best bet is to either pick a server that would have the largest collection of players with your native language, or the best ping you can get. In an Australian player’s case, this would either be the NA servers (For language) or Asian servers (For ping). As an Australian player myself, I choose to play on the Asian servers.
Once you’ve picked a server, simply click Login to progress to the game. This menu will appear every time you start the game, so if you dislike the server you’ve chosen, it’d be a good idea to pick an alternate one early on.
UI Details: In-Match
The first time you login, you’ll be greeted with an automatic tutorial. I’d recommend playing through it as the translations are solid and it gives you an excellent introduction to basic controls; almost everything you’ll be taught here will cover the stuff you need to know. The UI Elements are also explained during the tutorial, but this section will give a more broad illustration.
When starting a match, the first screen you’ll be introduced to is Pre-Battle Deployment/Hero Selection. In Ranked matches, this screen will also include the Hero Banning options, but that will be elaborated on further in an alternate guide.
Once everyone has picked their heroes, you’ll be taken to the loading screen. Along with a summary on what heroes your team has chosen, you’ll also see who your enemies are.
When everyone has finished loading, the match will begin. Your camera will zoom in on your hero, and you’ll be able to move and give commands.
This is the Command Bar. Along with basic movement commands, this bar displays how many units are alive, your unit’s individual health values (The white bars) and their ammo capacity (The white circle).
- F1 = Follow. This orders your unit to follow you.
- F2 = Move. A UI display will show up on the ground wherever you are aiming; left-clicking will order your unit to move to that position and hold it.
- F3 = Attack. Similar to the previous order, except units will abandon their formation and attack the closest hostiles, pursuing them should they retreat.
- F4 = Retreat. Forces your units to disengage from combat and follow you. I’d recommend spamming between F1 and F4 as F4 does not always make them follow you directly, instead making them walk backwards slowly. hitting F1 will negate this.
In addition to all of this, holding Left Control on your keyboard will unlock your mouse and show some more UI elements.
UI Details: Out-of-Match
Due to the complexity of the Main Menu’s UI, I won’t be going into too much detail here. If necessary, I’ll add to this category in the future, but here are the basics.
For the purposes of this guide, we’ll assume you clicked on Versus Play.
This will take you to the gamemode selection screen. When you’re starting out, most of these will be locked; Legion War, which is the most basic gamemode, will be unlocked for everyone.
When you’re ready to go, just hit Play and matchmaking will begin. In Asia, most matches take around 1-2 minutes to start.
Starter Heroes
Thus far, you’ve seen a lot of imagery of Caesar, one of the game’s beginning heroes. I’ll be showcasing some of his abilities and strategies, along with the Archer hero Xiao Qiao and the Cavalry hero Deng Ai.
Caesar
Caesar is a tank hero focused around absorbing attacks and dishing out punishment against weakened foes. He and his unit accomplish this with very high armour stats, as well as extremely efficient Roman shields, which are most effectively used in their Testudo formation.
Testudo is an incredibly powerful formation useful in almost every situation; while most effective at near-entirely negating the damage output of enemy archers, it can also be used to give your unit extra protection while in a melee, extending your survivability but lessening your damage output.
Shields Up is the middle ground between full melee effectiveness and damage negation, and is useful when you’re being bombarded by enemy archers during a melee engagement or need to maintain a loose formation during a siege.
Throw Javelins is a powerful yet limited ranged attack. When activated, every individual member of your unit will throw up to 2 Javelins, dealing around 50-100 damage on a hit. They will not be able to throw more Javelins until the ability recharges. Activating the ability also reloads your own Javelin count. Throw Javelins is most effective against infantry units that do not have shields, allowing you to soften them up before engaging in melee; it’s also useful when closing in on archers or mowing down fleeing hostiles, although the inherent inaccuracy of the throwing weapon may not yield fruit at longer ranges.
It’s important to note that Caesar’s strong point is not his mobility. With no movement-related abilities, he’s easily one of the slowest Heroes in the game; good early-game positioning is vital for success. Always make sure to watch the map, and use the ~ tilde key to keep an eye on your flanks.
Xiao Qiao
Xiao Qiao is a mobile Archer hero that excels when positioned well, able to deal significant amounts of damage from a distance. Possessing a low armour value and health pool, Xiao Qiao’s survivability is entirely dependent on the player’s skill, particularly map knowledge.
Volley Fire is a universal archer ability that forces the unit to fire in sync with the hero. This has numerous benefits; it allows you to hold fire, make your unit fire at distances well above the normal, deal massive amounts of damage to singular targets and promote synergy with other abilities.
Fire Arrows is a damage-over-time/debuff ability that’s applied whenever an arrow hits the enemy. This is a very powerful ability due to it being able to spread; even a single arrow will be able to cause a significant amount of damage. The effect lasts 18 seconds (the damage-over-time effect lasts 9 seconds) and consecutive hits refresh the duration. The debuff can still be inflicted even if the arrow hits a shield as of writing this guide.
Cavalry is Xiao Qiao’s nemesis; her mobility can allow her to escape from confrontations with infantry, but horses are significantly faster. Remaining close to your team is a necessity no matter which archer hero you’re playing, as running off alone will get you picked off quickly.
Deng Ai
When you first start the game, you will not have any cavalry heroes; however, Deng Ai is easily the most affordable and versatile of the bunch. Costing a little under 10K silver (Pocket change when you’re starting off), he’s an excellent introduction to the intimacies of cavalry, giving you a taste of mounted archery, infantry harassment and archer annihilation.
Sprint increases the movement speed of Deng Ai and his horsemen for 45 seconds, with a cooldown of 90 seconds. Activating it makes Deng Ai one of the fastest heroes in the game, able to chase down other cavalry and easily run down archers. On the inverse, it also allows you to disengage from combat quickly with fewer losses, should you get caught by an opponent stronger than yourself. It’s important to not become reliant on Sprint, too; there’s a 45-second period where the ability isn’t activated, and this will allow other cavalry and spearmen to potentially catch up with you.
Diamond Formation increases the melee strength of your unit but decreases the charge bonus. When engaging in extended fights, Diamond Formation can be a turning point to ensure a victory; however, it lessens the impact of charging through formations, especially archers. There’s no cooldown for this ability, so it’s up to the player to know when to toggle it and when not to.
Fire-At-Will will make your cavalry fire at opponents with their bows. This is off by default, so make sure to enable it when you plan to attack enemies from range. You will not be able to compete with dedicated horse archers when you’re using this ability, so make sure to use your strong point – melee, in this case – to eliminate them.
Unlike dedicated melee/lancer cavalry, Deng Ai does not have the survivability to deal with heavy infantry in an extended fight. Spears are your nemesis; every spear unit possesses the Scare Horse trait, which stops your horse right in its tracks, usually resulting in death. Cavalry is complex and describing its intricacies is well beyond the scope of this guide; It’s important to stay on your toes, but with the right know-how you’ll be able to rule the battlefield.
Your First Match
Nervous about your first game, worried you’ll let the team down? Don’t fret! Unranked Legion War is very casual, and the chances of you winning – Or at least, doing quite a bit of damage to the enemy team – is quite high. For your first match, I’d suggest picking Caesar as he’s the least punishing and you’ll already be familiar with him after the tutorial, but if you want to jump right into the fire you’re welcome to pick any of the other options you’re given.
The beginning
Once the match has begun and you’re controlling your hero, your first objective should be getting your bearings. Check the map to see where your teammates are; archers are identified with a bow icon, and cavalry has a horse icon, while infantry has a shield icon. As infantry, try and stick close to archers and deal with enemy infantry; archers should focus on dealing with enemy infantry, whilst cavalry should try to protect the flanks and harass the enemy’s archers. More advanced infantry and archer players will try and navigate to positions where they can attack the enemy’s sides or rear – Attacking enemies in either direction will allow your units to deal a lot more damage.
The midgame
By now, the armies would have fought for a bit; this is usually the point where objectives become more important, as the losing side will attempt to consolidate their forces and stick together to hold key points of the map. Hopefully by now you haven’t died; stick with your teammates and attempt to surround any hostiles trying to run. Use your superior numbers to deal with smaller targets efficiently and reduce your losses.
The endgame
Either everyone will have suffered severe causalities, or one side will have a lot more men than the other. Focus on dealing with enemy heroes and/or securing the points to ensure a clean victory. If the enemy team’s focusing on you, don’t be afraid to run so you can regroup with your own team. One hero can make all the difference.
Once the match has come to a close, you’ll be presented with the statistics screen. Once you’re done lamenting over your untimely demise/stroking your own ego over how good you are, press escape to return to the matchmaking screen.
If you lost the fight, don’t worry. There will be plenty more matches in the future for you to excel in. Stick to it, find heroes you enjoy the playstyle of, and team up with friends, and you’ll be Emperor in no time.
Hero Combat
Hero Combat refers to the melee system. If you’ve ever played Mount and Blade, you’ll find it very similar in functionality. Like Mount and Blade, the combat is also heavily based on your ping; you’ll find it playable at values under 80, but anything above that, and you’ll start seeing significant delays. For this reason, I can’t give you an incredibly in-depth guide on the many ins and outs of the system, but I can give you basic pointers that’ll allow you to succeed early on.
Blocking
Knowing how to block is one of the most important skills when you’re just starting out. You move your mouse in the direction you want to block and hold RMB. Sounds easy, right? Wrong. The most difficult part of this is actually knowing which way your opponent’s attacking; you have a split-second window to block in the corresponding direction of the attack. Too early, and they might feint, attacking from a different direction; too late, and they’ll land a hit. There’s four directions of attack, however not every weapon uses all four weapons. Most swords make use of all four directions, whereas spears can only attack downwards. Knowing the directions that the enemy’s weapon can attack will help with predicting patterns, resulting in more successful blocks. Shields will allow you to block any attack regardless of the direction; however, they have limited durability. Shields can be repaired with a hammer (usually 8 on your keyboard), but should the shield fully break, you won’t be able to repair it. Don’t want your shield to break? Simply press X to put it on your back.
Attacking
Executed in a similar way to blocking, except you press LMB instead. This will perform a light attack, which is the most basic form of hitting your enemy. There’s a lot of complex mechanics at play here, such as momentum (faster speeds = more damage) hitboxes (hitting the head = more damage) and random critical hits. This applies to both you and all your units, with the only differences being health values and damage values. You can press MMB (scrollwheel) to perform a heavy attack; most heroes have ‘combo’ attacks, which allows them to combine LMB/MMB attacks to deal more complex manoeuvres and attain certain effects. Pressing E will perform a ‘nudge attack’ this will break the opponent’s block, giving you a brief period to hit them. Pressing F will perform a kick; this is similar to the nudge attack, except it lowers the defence value of the opponent for several seconds, allowing you to deal more damage with each hit. Missing a nudge attack will leave you less open and vulnerable than a kick will.
Overall, you’ll become a lot more familiar with the melee system the longer you play. Focus on learning how to block effectively, and you’ll become one of the better hero-centric players out there.
More Guides:
- Blood of Steel – Useful Tips for Archers
- Blood of Steel – Spartacus Hero Guide
- Blood of Steel – Liang Hongyu Guide
- Blood of Steel – Zhuge Liang Hero Guide
- Blood of Steel – Basic Ranked Legion Strategy Guide
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