Combat Tips And Tricks For Tails Of Iron 2: Whiskers Of Winter

As a Soulslike Action RPG, Tails Of Iron 2: Whiskers Of Winter offers challenging but fair combat encounters where you’ll face monsters much larger than your protagonist, Arlo. Luckily, as a 2D experience, Tails Of Iron 2 keeps things relatively simple, as nuanced concepts like dodging and parrying enemies become straightforward when the two directions to focus on are left and right.

However, despite the theoretical simplicity that Tails Of Iron 2: Whiskers Of Winter’s combat employs, timing and quick decision-making are what will separate success from failure. Practice your reaction time and we’ll help you understand the tools at your disposal and how to use them in this combat guide.

What Are The Combat Controls?

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details that you’ll require as you fight tooth and tail for survival, these combat controls are essential to know.

These basics are everything you need to master combat in Tails Of Iron 2, but the trick is learning how and when to employ each weapon and ability at your disposal.

What Powers And Weapons Can You Use?

There are three major weapon categories in Tails Of Iron 2: one-handed, two-handed, and ranged.

One-handed weapons swing quickly and deal moderate damage, while two-handed weapons swing slowly and have increased recovery time while dealing heavy damage.

What Melee Weapons Are There?

In addition to these major categories, there are three major weapon types for each category:

For melee weapons, the types are:

1. Swords
2. Spears
3. Axes

Swords have moderate swing speed and damage.

Spears have a greater range, moderate swing speed, and slightly less damage.

Axes have slower swing speed but higher damage.

Using weapons infused with the element that exploits your enemies’ weaknesses is more important than the weapon’s base speed or damage.

What Ranged Weapons Are There?

For ranged weapons, the types are:

1. Bows
2. Crossbows
3. Guns

Bows have the fastest recovery time but the least damage.

Crossbows have moderate recovery time and damage.

Guns have the slowest recovery time but the highest damage.

What Are Elementa?

In addition to your standard weapons, you’ll also gain access to special magic abilities called Elementa.

There are four types of Elementa in the game – Fire, Ice, Poison, and Electric – and each can be used as a magical ability.

However, these effects are also applied to certain weapons, which each enemy has distinct strengths and weaknesses against.

Enemy weaknesses can be found in your Bestiary once you’ve encountered a certain enemy or once Arlo finds a clue on the ground, at which point a prompt will appear on the upper right of your screen.

Before you can unleash your magical powers on your enemies, you must progress through the following main quests to earn each Elementa ability:

1. Fire Elementa – “Recruit Chef”
2. Ice Elementa – “Recruit Smith”
3. Poison Elementa – “A Builder’s Yard”
4. Electric Elementa – “Return Of The Bats”

Once you complete these quests, you’ll have access to every major combat ability in the game; so, how do you use them?

How To React To Your Enemies

Tails Of Iron 2’s combat centers around three core tenets: careful timing, reaction speed, and decision-making, which you must combine to master the combat.

Once you’ve prepared your weapons and armor to capitalize on your enemies’ weaknesses while negating their strengths, you’ll need to employ the three tenets above to master the art of war.

The Two Kinds Of Enemy Attacks – Parry Or Dodge?

If you pay attention to the windup of each enemy attack, you’ll notice two distinctly colored markings that appear around them as they prepare to unleash on you: yellow markings, and red markings.

• Yellow markings are typically less dangerous attacks and can be parried if you properly time your counter.
• Red markings indicate powerful attacks that can only be avoided using spacing or dodged.

Parrying can be executed with a simple button combination (LT+RT or L2 + R2), but requires careful timing to execute. While each enemy has unique timing and parry opportunities depending on the attack, the important thing to remember is patience.

As a rule, you want to hold down the parry buttons but do not release your parry until the moment before the enemy is about to hit you.

This timing will require you to study your foes’ attack patterns, so it’s advised not to attempt parrying until you have seen an enemy use a given attack at least once.

Learning when to parry and when to dodge is the most important key to survival. Use this knowledge and exploit your enemies’ weaknesses, using your weapons of choice to master combat in Tails Of Iron 2.