1v1 Offense

"Cycles"/"Cycling"

If you are newer to how spell interrupts work, the terms "cycles" and "cycling" are used to describe casting a sequence of offensive spells in order to repeatedly disrupt your opponent's attempt at casting GH. Due to the cooldown of certain spells being able to disrupt again, a successful cycle depends on timing and the order in which you are casting each spell. Spell circles 1-3 that do damage (or poison) will interrupt the opponent's spells but have a 5 second cool down until they can interrupt again.

Most of dueling comes down to deciding when is the best moment to start or abandon a disrupt cycle while often adding potential weapon hits in between spells for more damage, On the defensive side, the goal is to live through a cycle being casted on you with a combination of using certain tactics to either get heals off or do return damage that forces the other player to stop a cycle, and even purposely baiting cycles out to drain their mana. All of this is explained in this section and the defensive section of this guide.

Debuffs

Most players know to start off a duel with Feeblemind/Weaken/Clumsy. I use that order if I am going to start with all 3 spells in a row. Weaken before attempting the initial first halberd hit. Some players hold their Feeblemind to use it later as another interrupt or in emergency defensive situations. I like to use Feeblemind right off the bat and then if the duel lasts longer than 2 minutes (the duration of the debuffs), I will re-Weaken and re-Clumsy the opponent but save that following Feeblemind as a backup to use inside of a cycle where I have heavy damage output or maybe as a fast defensive interrupt against an unexpected EB. Remember that you cannot follow any of the 3 debuff spells with an MA in under 5 seconds due to it being another first circle spell. You can use debuffs right after an MA, as long as the opponent is going from their base stat values to their reduced stat values.  It's powerful to stay aware of these debuff timers mid-duel, since they allow you to use an extra low mana interrupt and gain a potential extra weapon swing, as well.

Burst Weapon Damage into Cycle

There are various ways a player deals enough total damage over a short period of time to result in a kill. The most common way to start this effort is to load an EB or EXP and go for a burst halberd hit. If the halberd hit lands, you drop the spell and move directly into a cycle. There are several cycles you can do at this point, and common ones I like to use are listed below. 

If I am pre-casting an EB, I normally will move into a cycle starting with Nox after landing the weapon hit and dropping the spell, because I like the optionality and decision it forces on the opponent between curing immediately, or healing instead and being conscious of the Poison tick disruption (~5 seconds after being poisoned), and then the ways you can react to either of those decisions. You also sometimes have an opportunity to katana their first Cure attempt depending on the speed of their cast.

If I am pre-casting an EXP, I normally will move into a cycle starting with Harm. If they are an average player, I will follow the Harm with an EB since they will likely go for a GH after the Harm and then be disrupted on their next GH (from the EXP) or be moving into MH spam. If they are an above average player, I will follow the harm with an MA, anticipating they will try to MA my EB and then I will go for weapon swings and try to keep them in a cycle.

When going for burst damage

1. When dealing burst damage from a halberd, you really want to save dropping your EB or EXP until you have a high damage halberd hit. Do not drop a sixth level spell behind a halberd hit that does 13 damage just because you landed the hit. Let your opponent top off their life and go for another, higher damage hit. Since the range of an EB is not quite as absurd as a halberd, you want to secure substantial halberd damage before combining it with the spell damage

2. Try not to load sixth level spells when your opponent’s swing timer is ready. This isn’t always possible, but generally you really want to avoid being on spell recovery if you take damage. It’s a bit less dangerous if you are getting hit with a katana (lower damage) as opposed to a halberd. Ways to help avoid this are to just consciously load EB or EXP at times that your opponent is maybe MHing to top off their life after being hit, or immediately loading the spell after they miss a swing. Find pockets to load your sixth level spells.
   
   

3. I personally do not like being in “jousting” situations, where two players both have a loaded sixth level spell and go for halberd hits at the same time. Again, there are places where I feel this is kind of unavoidable and you just have to go for it, but I would rather bait the other player’s weapon halberd hit and then try to get outside of a jousting situation again as opposed to roll the dice on who hits more dramatically in the same millisecond, because if the situation of you both hitting at the same time occurs, which is 25%, you are often brought into a gamble depending on if you or your opponent decides to go defensive or you both decide to keep each other inside of a cycle, with sub 60hp, which gets more dicey.
   
   

4. Remember that burst damage doesn’t have to be from a halberd or the strongest weapon. You will have situations constantly in which you should attempt swinging on your opponent casting a spell but your axe or viking are the best option because the halberd swing timer hasn’t reset. Those swords can both hit for huge chunks of 25hp+, so if you land a burst from either of those, move into a cycle. This is often how you end up “flipping” a duel (more below).

Burst Spell Damage into Weapon

There are a few combos you can do to surprise an opponent by dropping an EXP or EB prior to a burst weapon damage hit. Something like this might look like dropping an EXP hoping the other player doesn’t notice a “twitch” in your character, delaying a beat, then casting an EB and hoping the opponent goes for a GH thinking you just dropped the EXP and then they get disrupted by the EXP and now have an EB flying at their face. Throw a halberd hit in that mix, too, and it can be fatal. Some players like to do sneaky offset double EXP casts in the same fashion, as well.

Another combo I also show in the video below is a different variation, using a pre-dropped EXP into a weapon hit then into a Harm.

Whatever the case, I try not to rely on these types of combos because with a meta so dependent on mana and so varied in damage , if your follow up weapons don’t line up (50% chance) after these drops and the opponent heals through (or if they notice the twitch and GH in time), you can be quickly thrown into a disadvantage or mana trap if you end up taking return burst damage right after. With layers of RNG, I prefer to have some certainty of weapon damage prior to spell damage if it’s a choice.

That in mind, I have still won and died in many duels with these lottery combos and they are fun to mix it up if a duel is getting stale or you get a sense the other player will fall for it. Doing the unexpected tactic can be the edge. There are places for them, and when they work, it’s entertaining.

Offensive Cycles

Remember that when discussing GH interrupt cycles, although it can be more efficient from the start to begin a cycle in the exact order it is written, they are just loops, you can start them from any of the spells in the chain and carry on in that loop order from that point. So MA-LIT-Nox-Harm can also obviously be Nox-Harm-MA-LIT, etc.

You normally want to HOLD your interrupt spells until the opponent casting GH has their hands fully extended, maybe even just milliseconds into their arms coming back towards their body before you drop the spell. You do this to both buy time for your weapon timer, and because several opponents, even great duelers, will often self-disrupt early in panic situations. If you catch that early disruption, you can hold your spell and get another free chance of a weapon hit on their following cast. There are some specific spots where interrupting the very beginning of a GH cast can be a better method, one of which I will mention later on. Spells that have a damage delay such as MA, FB, LIT will be a bit harder to time correctly and must be dropped earlier in anticipation of interrupting towards the end of the opponent's cast. 

Try to break the common habit of dropping interrupts on a MH cast by accident, it’s a waste of mana and a lost interrupt. I see this when someone gets their opponent down to low life, they get too excited and rush their cycles in an effort to get the kill. Except in the case of a "predictive MA" attempt, which I explain later. Play at the same, steady pace. 

Please do your own experimenting on TC with a heal bot to understand the many different places you can swing a weapon inside of these cycles (I would practice at 14 dex/self-Clumsied). There are different places to attempt swings on pre-casts within each of these cycles. Hitting these swings helps eat time and reset the 5 second cooldown on interrupts. These might even be pockets you can equip and miss the weapon swing and still have time to react, drop your spell, and continue your cycle. I am not pointing them out specifically because they are based on when you last swung, which specific weapon it was, and where you are in your cycle. Practicing on a heal bot will help you test out swinging between pre-casted spells and get used to these rhythms.

If your opponent is nearing fatal damage, it's better NOT swing a weapon with an MA pre-casted. If they are casting a GH and you miss your swing with a pre-casted MA, the cycle is over, the GH will beat the delayed MA damage. I do think it is okay to swing holding a pre-casted MA if you want to take the risk on dice, hoping for more front end damage before continuing your cycle, but if it is the difference of winning a match due to how low life your opponent is, don’t swing holding an MA cursor.

Here are the cycles I use the most (these are NOT in order of priority, all are used situationally):

1. MA-Nox-Harm

Again, from a rotation perspective, sometimes I start this with Nox-Harm-MA instead. To loop this cycle, it is dependent on weapon hits.

Every cycle is very situational on what your other recently casted spells were and if anything is on the 5 second cooldown. The reason I like this cycle is that I am leading with a spell that is low mana cost (MA). Let’s say I decide to MA, pre-cast the Nox, equip an axe, and then swing on my opponent before dropping the Nox. If the swing misses, I didn’t burn significant mana to attempt a cycle, so I can start over if desired and wait for more damage up front. 

If you properly delay your spell interrupts until the tail end of your opponent’s GH attempts, you can swing on both the Nox and the Harm in this cycle (the latter will need a faster speed weapon). I’m not sure if that is the case if they properly self disrupt their GH attempts in anticipation, but I know that regardless you will have at least one weapon swing opportunity within these 3 spells.

Note that in a 3 spell cycle, you have to either land your weapon hits near the end of their GH casts, or hope the opponent has natural imperfect delays and misplays that eat time in order to “loop” the cycle (which happens 90% of the time when I do this), otherwise the cycle is too fast, and the cooldown period won’t reset to go back to the MA after the Harm, yet. 

The thing is that a lot of the times you can get this cycle to loop without a LIT involved because you have a 50% chance of at least one weapon hit, and most importantly with the Nox element, a lot of players will go Cure, in which you can just allow them to and use that time to reset both interrupt spell cooldowns and weapon timers. If they go GH post being poisoned and you do everything at the right pace, a weapon hit at the tail end of that GH will let you go back to MA right as the cooldown wears off.

I normally do not attempt disrupting an opponent casting Cure by using an interrupt spell (but if a weapon timer is ready I will attempt a swing), I find it’s often better to just let them Cure and use that time for another loaded weapon hit, unless the Cure attempt is closer to the poison tick or if they are sub 40hp and panicking. Sometimes I will interrupt a cure because I notice a player will automatically try to re-Cure again, and I attempt loading an EB while they do the second Cure. If they don't swing on my EB, I now have a timer up and an EB loaded which puts me in a good position. 

2. Nox-MA-LIT-Harm

There isn’t too much to cover in this cycle besides noting that if your opponent goes for constant GH spam instead of curing directly after being Noxed, this cycle will bring your opponent to the poison tick without requiring a weapon hit, but if you have the weapon timer for a katana ready you can go for a swing on their GH (or Cure) before dropping the MA. I try not to use this cycle unless I have a good amount of mana, as I usually prefer to be mana cautious and put cycles behind a combination of weapon hits before continuing, unless the opponent is near 0hp.

Starting this cycle without the Nox and just going MA-LIT-Harm/Nox/EB 

3. MA-Lit-Nox/FB-Harm or Harm-MA into LIT/Nox/EB

Which spell you use to start this cycle can vary from the situation or what recent spells you have casted. 

Very similar to the above cycle, this is a guaranteed loop that will interrupt your opponent’s GH attempts infinitely if you save dropping the spells for the tail end of their GH cast animation, no matter if they are self-disrupting properly or not. Note that Nox and FB are interchangeable here, but I prefer Nox for reasons stated above. FB can be great if they are lower life, though, or to throw in another delayed damage spell.

Update (starting with Harm): 

It feels really stupid that I didn't show this cycle starting at Harm in the video below, which might actually be the most popular spell to start an interrupt cycle with due to having no damage delay and being able to interrupt an opponent's GH attempt even if you cast it directly after they start it.  Based on the situation or what you want to attempt, you would go Harm-MA into any offensive spell from a LIT/Nox/FB or even an EB attempt (which I cover in next paragraph), depending on what's happening in the duel and your mana.

4. MA-EB or MA-LIT-EB or EB-EB or EB-MB

Obviously none of these are actual full repeatable cycles, but throwing in sixth level spells such as an EB inside of some of these above cycles after the MA or a LIT (or even just after an EB) due to their damage delay is often how you have a winning cycle that ends a duel.

Often, an opponent will attempt to run at you to punch/weapon hit an EB cast after a delayed damage spell. They usually do this while attempting a GH. If they have to move tiles to reach you and they miss their swing on your GH, your EB cursor will pop up and you will have the chance to attempt a weapon hit at the tail end of their GH, disrupting it (50% chance), and then you can drop your EB for more damage.

They might not even run at you for a GH attempt, sometimes they start MH spamming if they are low life after a delayed spell disrupts their first GH, which also gives you a free EB load unless they do an MH+punch.

Sure, it’s a risk to cast MA-EB or EB-EB, knowing the second EB is too slow to beat a GH between the two spells if the player decides not to run towards you, but you still have a 50% chance of canceling your EB, running towards them, landing a weapon disrupt, and then reverting back to a cycle spell such as MA/Nox/Harm to make sure you still keep them from GHing.

(The video right below shows examples of everything besides EB-MB, which is kind of self explanatory. The benefit of using MB is it casts faster than EB and is usually a good bet if they are low life. You can often chain it after a delayed damage spell and get a weapon hit chance slightly faster right after the cursor pops up. I think MB could be utilized more often in certain scenarios by more players, but the downside is that it can hit for low damage and feel like it's not worth the mana investment in ratio to the damage dealt.)

VIDEO NOTE:
Some of the cycle demonstrations in the video above are done against a heal bot character to give basic examples. You should set up a heal bot character if you want to practice gaining the muscle memory and timing on your own time, outside of live dueling. To learn how to set up a heal bot, read Spooj's guide.

Nox Tick

It should be implied that anyone reading a more advanced guide on dueling probably knows how the poison tick works, but for reiteration, a poison tick will interrupt an opponent's spell while doing a small amount of damage at ~5 seconds after the Nox is dropped. In all of the above cycles I listed, anywhere that you are using a Nox, you are also trying to push them into that poison tick afterwards if possible when they are unable to cure it in time. 

You should almost always go for an EB during that tick. Although many smart players will use a defensive MA to interrupt your EB, depending on the cycle and the circumstance, even top players will forget to MA or be in a situation where it doesn't take priority in their mind. If they don't forget to MA, often you can cast that EB, bait their MA, and then still have time to cast a follow-up FB right after the tick to keep them cycled longer, or even go for a LIT instead, depending on the timing. Some players even try to count up to the 2nd tick in their head (~10 seconds) if their opponent hasn't cured after the first one.

Starting Cycles Over

Many times when I am cycling an opponent, if there are times where they decide to swap to MH spam in concern of dying, I will be conscious of which spell I have casted in the last 5 seconds and which spell I am holding a cursor on. So if I am holding a LIT and my MA/Harm timer is ready again, I’ll cancel the LIT at a moment they are MH spamming (since casting a LIT on MH spamming is normally worthless) and then go back to an MA/Harm to start the cycle over, preparing for their next GH attempt. There are other spells you can do this with, too. Basically, if you are landing repeated hits, start a cycle over when they MH if the cooldowns are reset, unless the spell you are holding is going to create fatal damage.

Trading Hits Offensively

Your goal when cycling players with interrupt spells and combining weapon hits is to deal your damage on their GH attempts, if possible, and run immediately outward from your opponent in hopes they do not trade back the damage. Although it seems obvious that they could just swing back when you swing at them to keep up with trade attempts, this is not the case if they are mid-casting a GH or a spell where a weapon trade would cancel their cast. Therefore, you sometimes can out-trade them with 3-5 weapon hits in a row, taking no return damage back, depending on how your cycles and weapon hit attempts align with their GH attempts. You basically look like you are doing zig zags around the ring, staying far enough from the opponent to avoid a trade, but close enough to get adjacent in time to take a swing on a cast.

Maintaining Offensive Cycles

Once the above cycles become natural to you, you will need to learn the key points in how to attempt continuing a cycle despite one of the spells being disrupted. A good dueler will either defensively trade damage to push you into going defensive or go for GH+punch while they are being cycled. You should clearly not maintain a cycle if your opponent is dealing heavy weapon damage on you that puts in you in risk territory. I don't even like to continue cycling if I am brought down to 70% hp unless the opponent is really low and also low mana.

You obviously need to consider what previous spells you have casted in these scenarios for these to work. Feel free to experiment and send any corrections to me, sometimes the difference of when you are disrupted in a cast changes the result.

If disrupted:

• MA is never disrupted, anyone swinging on your MA is wasting their time (unless their goal is just doing weapon damage).

• If your Harm is disrupted by a weapon, you just re-cast Harm.

• If your Harm is disrupted by a GH+punch, you just re-cast Harm.

• If your Nox is disrupted by a weapon hit, Re-Nox (or Harm if interrupted in early cast).

• If your Nox is disrupted by a GH+punch, attempt 50% weapon hit, then re-Harm or re-Nox if it lands.

• If your LIT is disrupted by a weapon, you can either Harm/Nox/MA unless LIT is interrupted in early cast.

• If your LIT is disrupted by a GH+punch, attempt 50% weapon hit, then re-Harm or re-Nox if it lands.

In many of the above scenarios, if the opponent times their punch at the very tail end of your spell and their GH cursor pops up in that same moment, they may succeed in GHing, it’s just not very common and normally the above bullet points work.

You should always be prepared to be disrupted and have your finger on the key in anticipation, whether it’s the same spell or a different spell based on the situations I listed, just be ready to press it as a fallback. I often cast a spell and hold down the alternative key (or sometimes the same one, whatever applies based on the rules above), just in case.

Predictive MA (offensive)

You should constantly be anticipating when your opponent is going to cast a GH, but the spot in duels where it is really effective to use a predictive MA is when you are both taking damage and you suddenly get a GH off right before they do, so in return they need to go defensive but at this point you have a slight lead on them in pacing (see video) and can either be ready to cast MA pre-emptively or instantly after they cast GH with enough time to disrupt it, taking the damage delay in consideration.  

Another little trick that I don't show in the video is that if you are both low and MH spamming and your opponent hasn't gone for a GH yet, you can cast MA on them and then GH yourself immediately after, the delay of the MA damage will allow you to get your GH off and go for a weapon swing attempt on the GH they try to cast right after your MA damages them. This allows you to get a full heal off and keeps them in a cycle.

There are also times when I will drop an MA on a target while they are MH spamming at moments that I am confident they will switch and cast a GH as the arrow is in mid-travel, thus disrupting the very beginning of their GH spell and putting them on a long spell recovery they didn’t expect. Usually if this happens, they get a bit confused and within that delay of realization, you can cast a sixth level spell because they often feel it’s too late to cast another GH so they revert to MH. I do not show this in the video directly below, but if you go to both 1:05 and 1:34 duration into the "POV 1v1 Match Moments" video further down, you will see me cast MA on opponents right before they cast a GH, so the damage delay catches them, resulting in a super long spell recovery where I get off an EB that wins the match. Although this can work, it's a bit of a risk since if they don't end up casting GH because you just wasted MA, essentially, but it can be a game changer.

Evaluating Intelligence & Interrupting Meditation

Most top duelers are consistently evaluating the intelligence of their opponent to see their mana level and make decisions based on that, whether offensively or defensively. If you have a big mana lead on your opponent after they failed a cycle and you survived, you may take this opportunity to try to continually interrupt their meditation right when they begin, or always let them be the first to initiate a meditation so you can disrupt it and keep them locked. You can interrupt meditation with a weapon or use an MA.

You can't eval with a spell cursor up or you will drop the spell on the opponent. The best place I like to eval is a couple seconds before I plan to meditate or right as I am coming out of meditating. Sometimes I use it if I don't have spell up and am just chasing the opponent with a weapon.

In general, if the opponent is ~20 or under mana and I am ~50 or over, I might stay hyper aggressive. If the opponent is ~30 mana higher than me, I have to be careful on burning offensive mana, I may try to get hits in to make them heal, and try my best to get meditation off after they miss a swing and hope they miss return swings. It can be a grueling climb and won't always work based on dice, but sometimes you are just buying time in a mana trap to get to Sudden Death and you can get lucky at that point (I cover this later).

There are some players who will cast EB and go for cycles even when they know both you and them are have ~30 mana or lower. This usually creates very dicey, RNG based matches that have more to do with weapon hits than strategy, because that player risks not being able to secure a kill and you will get in these silly scenarios of both ultimately being around 10 mana and someone deciding to force weapon trades over and over, leaving it largely up to dice.

Streak Entropy System

I am putting this in the offensive tactics section but it applies in general and defensively, too.

There is a streak entropy system in Arena that works like so: 

After 3 consecutive hits or 3 consecutive misses, there is a 10% chance increase in ending that streak for each continuing hit or miss until the streak is over and then it resets again. For example, if I miss 3 times, my 4th swing has a 60% chance of hitting, my 5th swing has a 70% chance of hitting, and whenever I do finally hit, it goes back to 50% hit rate again (assuming you both have GM weapon skill). If I hit 3 times, my 4th swing has a 60% chance of missing, my 5th swing has a 70% chance of missing, and whenever I do finally miss, it goes back to 50% hit rate again.

The idea with the entropy is to lower the amount of egregious continual hits and misses that would happen in succession. Now, in almost all matches, the high streaks of hits or misses are often 4-6, and more rarely 7. 

The main thing to keep in mind here is that yes, if you miss 3 or more times in a row, you could potentially swap over to a halberd or higher damage ranged weapon, knowing the odds that you land your next attempt are boosted. On the contrary, if you hit 3 or more times in a row, you may decide to throw in a faster katana in a spot during your cycle that you think is a good place to quick burn a swing and go back to reset a 50% hit rate before going for a more impactful or important hit on a spell cast or using a stronger weapon again for more damage.

Although the streak entropy does lower the odds of seeing ridiculous streaks, it does not necessarily remove the opportunity for really lop-sided matches in RNG, because you still have lots of pockets where your swing patterns between you and your opponent look like XXO, XOX, OXX, vs OOX, XOO, OXO before entropy even kicks in.