Attacks

 are one of the core components in Brawlhalla. Each player must attack in order to KO their opponents and ensure their victory.

Damage
Brawlhalla's damage system doesn't use health or hit points. Legends instead have a damage meter which shows how much total damage they have taken. As the damage taken by a Legend increases, the Legend is knocked further by each attack, making them easier to KO as the game goes on. Often, players on high damage (red to black; see below) are killed quickly by a single powerful attack. A player therefore has two challenges: firstly to put their opponent into high damage, and secondly to secure the critical KO afterwards.

The damage an attack deals is the same for every Legend, and is only modified by a Legends Stats - namely, a Legend's Strength and Defense stats. Two Legends with the same Strength will deal the same damage with the same attack to the same opponent. A Legend's Signatures are unique, and have individually assigned damage and force values - these attacks are not affected by stats. The damage made by a legend with the same attack stat as his opponent defense is the weapon's base damage value.

The amount of damage a Legend has received is indicated by: The colors can be expressed as white, yellow, orange, red and black (shown below). However, each color has a range of shades on a gradient. For example, a pale orange color denotes less damage than a deep orange color, though each are of course orange.
 * a damage indicator that uses color to show damage (found in the top right of the screen)
 * the colour the Legend flashes when hit which corresponds to the color on the damage indicator

Damage can also be expressed as a number. Colors give an effective system understood by all for expressing damage, which is incredibly useful during the heat of battle. However, numbers can go into much more detail. Only players who are very familiar with the game will be concerned with numerical values.

Damage is capped at 700 damage (according to the game’s Training Mode settings) though reaching close to 700 damage in a real game is unheard of. The majority of KOs happen at around 150-200 damage. Once a player's damage meter reaches red (between 150 to 700 damage), the knockback from each attack drastically increases. The table below breaks down this relationship.

Weapons

 * For more in depth information on Weapons and Weapon throws, see Weapons

Weapons are the best means of dealing damage and knocking out your opponent. They will generally allow a Legend to extend their reach and increase their damage output during a fight, as well as allowing them to instantly change their fighting style mid-match. Weapons can be used to attack your opponent, and can also be thrown to attack your opponent at range.

Gadgets

 * For more in depth information, see Gadgets

Gadgets are various items that appear on a Brawlhalla stage during a brawl.

Most gadgets are throwable items that will deal damage to your opponent, though the Horn, in addition to being throwable, can be used to call your Sidekick across the stage to:
 * bring a weapon to the location you used the item from that you or your opponents can pickup.
 * do damage in a horizontal line, which can be used to damage or distract your opponent

Gadget Catching
By pressing the grab button at the right moment, you can catch any Gadget thrown in the air. This technique is useful against opponents throwing bombs but also risky. To pratice this technique, a special bomb catching training room is available in Training Mode.

Overview and Main Attacks
The primary aim of the game is to attack the opponent. All attacks deal both damage and knockback to varying degrees.

You can attack using: Each Legend has two different weapons, as well as a universal set of unarmed attacks.
 * Unarmed combat
 * Weapons
 * Gadgets

When attacking, three parameters are taken into account. Following these three different criteria, every single weapon in the game has 11 different attacks available to it (there is no Aerial Side Heavy). They can be written in a range of ways, but are mostly described as below. (Sometimes N, S and D denote Neutral, Side and Down respectively). Attacks that don't said 'Air' or 'Aerial' are presumed grounded. † ''There are only two Aerial Heavy attacks. The Aerial Neutral Heavy is referred to as a Recovery, and the Down Heavy is referred to as a Ground Pound. There is no Aerial Side Heavy, and these names better describe the attacks.''
 * Light / Heavy Attacks - two types of attack, each assigned a separate button.
 * Aerial / Grounded Attacks - different attacks according to whether or not the player is in the air.
 * Direction - different attacks according to directional inputs: the assigned Up/Down/Left/Right keys. This produces either 'Neutral', 'Side' or 'Down' inputs ('Up' and 'No Input' are both under 'Neutral').

Legend Specific Signature Attacks
All grounded Heavy attacks are also Signature Attacks. This is because they are utterly unique to a specific Legend and Weapon. For example, the attack produced when Asuri, holding a Sword, does a Neutral Heavy is utterly unique to Asuri's Sword. The same is true for her Side and Down Heavies with the Sword. Hence, every weapon has three Signatures attached to it. By subtraction, every Legend has 6 Signatures attached to them, three for each of their weapons. To write this, one would say the Legend's name and weapon, such as: Asuri's Neutral Sword or Gnash's Down Hammer.

Due to the similarity between the use of the word Heavy and Signature, these terms can be interchangeable. There are two instances where one would call an attack a Heavy but not a Signature. Firstly, there is no Aerial Signature. Every Spear Legend, for example, performs exactly the same Spear Recovery and Spear Ground Pound. The words Recovery and Ground Pound remove any confusion. Secondly, unarmed Heavy attacks are not technically Signatures. Every Legend shares exactly the same set of unarmed attacks. The unarmed Heavy attacks are therefore not unique, and not 'Signatures'. However, all players would understand what an Unarmed Side Heavy was - the difference here is technical, and unimportant.

Stun
In addition to dealing damage to an opponent, successful attacks will also Stun an opponent for a short period of time. While an opponent is stunned, they cannot move or attack - all inputs will fail for the duration of the stun.

Different attacks stun opponents for different times - an attack that stuns an opponent for a long time may not do a lot of damage or knockback, and vice versa. Certain attacks that "grab" the opponent and move them around when they land will stun the opponent for the duration of the attack.

Knockback
All attacks knock your opponent away - the value of 'how much knockback' an attack has is called Force.

There are 2 different types of Forces:


 * Variable force: Affected by damage, strength, and charge time. Variable force scales with those conditions and is generally responsible for what makes something a good KO attack.
 * Fixed force: NOT affected by damage, strength, or charge time. Fixed force is what is essentially responsible for the base knockback of attacks at white.

Different attacks have different amounts of force that they apply to your opponents. An attack that has a lot of force does not necessarily deal a lot of damage and vice versa - though this is very often the case. Additionally, force is amplified by how much damage your opponent has taken - the more damage your opponent has taken before your hit, the farther they will fly when even small amounts of force are applied to them.

A Legend's strength stat also affects knockback by changing the minimum resulting force of an attack. The higher the strength value, the higher the minimum force.

Startup Time
Startup time is how long it takes for an attack to start after pressing the attack button.

Light attacks generally have a faster startup, and heavy attacks generally have slower.

During startup time, the player can't do anything like the attack they just performed is queued up. A player could take advantage of this time to land their own attack.

Recovery Time
Recovery time is how long it takes for an attack animation to end after the attack has been performed.

Light attacks generally have faster recovery, and heavy attacks generally have slower.

Much like startup time, the player can't do anything during recovery time, making it an opportune moment for other players to strike.

Charging
When holding down on the heavy attack or throw button, the player charges their attack or throw.

Charging makes the attack/throw occur later, and deal slightly more damage. Throws will also launch at a faster speed.

If a player runs off of a platform while charging an attack, they can continue to charge while moving downward. This is called a slide-charged attack.

Charging attacks should be used very carefully, as it gives an opportunity for your opponent to set up and counterattack you.

Gravity Cancel
If a player performs a spot-dodge (dodge without moving) in mid-air, and attacks immediately afterwards, they will perform the grounded variant of an attack while in air. This is called a gravity cancel.

Gravity cancelling can be especially useful for heavy attacks, as recoveries and ground pounds are not always viable attack options.

Unique Attacks
Certain weapons and attacks have unique properties attached to them.

Active Inputs
Active inputs are an attack property unique to the Scythe and several Signature attacks. The core concept of active inputs is that holding a different directional key after an initial hit will result in the attack finishing in a different way. Active input attacks only have two variant outcomes; one for holding the relevant directional key, and one for holding any other directional key (or none at all).

List of Light attacks with active inputs:

Openers, Bridges & Closers
The Greatsword has a unique kit that includes three types of attacks: openers, bridges, and closers. These are light attacks used together to create unique strings only possible with the Greatsword.

Each of these attacks has unique distinctions:
 * Opener: The first attack, has very little knockback and is used to set up a bridge or closer attack.
 * Bridge: Another attack with little knockback, this is used to cause more damage between an opener and a closer. A bridge can only be used after an opener attack if it is a different light attack than the opener.
 * Closer: The final attack, with very heavy knockback. Closers occur after bridge attacks or by using the same light attack as the opener.

In addition to the uniqueness of each attack, each attack will affect what the subsequent attack will be. For example, a Down Opener will cause a Down Closer to be a spin attack, but a Side Bridge will cause a Down Closer to be a ground slam attack. This expands the moveset of the Greatsword and allows it to perform 16 unique grounded Light attacks, compared to the regular 3.

Terrain Impacted Attacks
Usually attacks are not impacted by terrain; most attacks perform the same regardless if they're on the stage, off the edge or into a wall. A certain amount of attacks have unique properties depending on the terrain, however.

List of terrain impacted Light attacks:

Unique Signatures
Given the large amount of Signature attacks in Brawlhalla, many of these attacks have their own unique properties to further diversify the game's roster and their movesets.

To view a list of different Signature properties, see List of Signature types.

Combo
A combo is when a player lands multiple attacks in rapid succession on an opponent without getting hit. Combos are a fast way to build up damage on the opponent.

Generally, combos use light attacks, as their fast startup and recovery times make it easy to chain multiple hits together.

True Combo
A true combo is a type of combo where there are no dodge frames between attacks. This occurs when the stun of the first attack is longer than the recovery time of the first attack and the startup time of the second attack.

True combos can be tested in Training mode with the "Show Stun" option enabled - if no dodge frames appear after the first attack, the combo is true.

Gimping
A gimp is when a player is knocked out, typically at low damage, because their recovery was interrupted by an attack.

Attacking an opponent who is mid-recovery cancels their recovery. If they are low enough on the screen and have no jumps or dodges left, attacking them to block or interrupt their recovery can secure you a knockout.

X-Pivot
An X-pivot is when your momentum is cancelled out by movement from an attack going in the other direction.

To perform an X-pivot, dash or chase dodge and immediately after change directions and attack. If your attack has some forward momentum, your momentum will quickly be shifted to the opposite direction, making it a good surprise attack.

Slide charge
A slide-charged attack is when a heavy attack is performed off-stage by using the momentum from a dash to slide off of a platform.

Unlike a gravity cancel, a slide-charged attack can be charged for the complete duration of the heavy attack. Additionally, the user will fall for as long as they are not atop a platform. Gravity will not affect the user when the attack is active, however.