Sword Skills

Sword skills are Echoes of Aincrad's special attacks. Each of the six weapon types has its own pool of around ten sword skills, unlocked as the player progresses through the campaign.

Equip Limit

Only two sword skills can be equipped on a given weapon at the same time. That limit forces a real choice between offence and utility, since a single slot can be the difference between a reliable gap-closer and a slow-but-devastating finisher.

How They Fit with Combos

Sword skills layer on top of the regular light and heavy attack combos rather than replacing them. They are strongest when used to extend a combo after a successful Parry Slash or Dodge Slash, where the enemy is briefly open to extra damage.

Role in the Combat Kit

Sword skills are the strongest offensive actions in the combat system. They deal more damage than a normal light or heavy attack, and every skill enters a cooldown the moment it is used, so the player cannot simply spam the biggest hit to erase a health bar. The rest of the toolkit, regular attacks, guards, and movement, has to fill the gap between activations.

Pool Size and Equip Slots

Each weapon type has roughly ten sword skills in total across its learnable set, and the player can equip up to two of them at once. The two equipped skills are always visible at the bottom right of the screen, one bound to the right trigger and the other to the right bumper, ready on the primary input. Holding the action-shift button does not surface a third sword-skill slot. Instead it swaps the HUD over to show the current partner's Support Skill and Combination Skill, which are covered in more detail on the Special Skills page.

SP: The Sword Skill Resource

Sword skills draw from SP, a meter that is separate from stamina. Stamina governs regular attacks, dodges, and guards, while SP is spent specifically to fire off a sword skill. SP rebuilds through aggressive play: landing regular attacks on enemies feeds the meter back up, and a specific kind of potion can also be consumed to restore it. The intended flow is that while cooldowns are ticking on your strongest hits, you are still weaving in basic strings to refill SP for the next activation rather than standing back and waiting.

Combining Skills with Normal Attacks

Unlike prior action-title entries set in the same universe, Echoes of Aincrad does not use a dedicated timing-based chain input for linking one sword skill into another. There is no special prompt or cue that has to be hit on the exact frame a skill ends. Instead, basic attacks and sword skills can be woven together freely, as long as the player still has the stamina for normal swings and the SP for the next skill. The pacing of each sequence comes from resource management rather than from a separate chain meter.

Weapon Proficiency

Each weapon type also has a proficiency level that rises the more the player uses that weapon. The developers have confirmed that a proficiency system from earlier titles returns in some form here, and it remains a reason to stick with a given weapon rather than rotating too quickly. It has not been confirmed whether crossing a proficiency threshold is the specific gate that unlocks the full slate of sword skills for a weapon type, so the exact unlock path is best treated as still pending further detail.

Interrupting Enemy Attacks

A sword skill used just before an incoming enemy attack lands can interrupt that attack outright, stopping the swing and leaving the enemy open. This is not universal: it appears some attacks cannot be cut through, which points to a priority system where certain skills or certain enemy moves take precedence over others. When the timing and priority both line up, the result is a mid-combo counter that folds into the wider Parry, Dodge, and Reversal Slash family of counterattacks. The two systems share the same instinct: read the enemy, act at the right moment, and trade their attack for damage on your end.

Stat Scaling

Two stats have a direct effect on sword-skill performance and are therefore worth prioritising on any build that relies heavily on them:

Summary of Key Numbers