Flow styles

Overview

Flow styles are combat movesets in Honor of Kings: World that the Flowborn can equip. Each style is based on a hero from the Honor of Kings MOBA and comes with its own complete set of normal attacks, three active skills on short cooldowns, an evasion ability, and an ultimate. Players equip two styles at once and swap between them freely during fights.

The system works differently from character-switching in games like Genshin Impact. Rather than controlling separate characters, the Flowborn adopts a hero's fighting technique while remaining the same character. WCCFTech compared the depth of each style to swapping weapon types in Monster Hunter, where each type has its own timing, combos, and rhythm.

How Flow styles work

Each equipped style has its own independent health bar. When one style's HP runs low, switching to the other gives the player a fresh health pool while the first style passively regenerates. This makes switching a survival tool on top of an offensive one. Cooldowns on skills are also per-style, so players can burn their abilities on one style, swap, use the other style's abilities, and swap back when the first style's cooldowns have reset.

Flow styles are unlocked through story progression and in-game purchases. The developers stated at GDC 2025 that they plan to eventually offer every Honor of Kings champion as a Flow style, though specific pricing was still being worked out.

Primal Flow

Primal Flow is a melee-focused style that lets the player swap between four weapon types: ringblade, lance, hammer, and sword. It has a gap-closing ability for reaching distant enemies quickly. The style plays like a traditional action game protagonist, with tight combos and responsive dodges.

During the Gamescom 2025 demo, Primal Flow was the first style most players tried. Previews described it as the most intuitive starting point, with weapon-switching adding mechanical depth for experienced players. A popular tactic in demo footage was opening with fast ringblade hits to build stagger, then switching to the hammer for a charged finisher once the boss flinched.

Ethereal Mistveil

Ethereal Mistveil is a ranged AoE style. Its attacks launch magic orbs that pull in nearby enemies before detonating for area damage. Standard attacks use magic blasts at range. Ungeek's Gamescom hands-on noted that swapping from Primal Flow into Ethereal Mistveil mid-combo felt smooth, letting the player finish a melee string and immediately shift to ranged AoE to hit grouped enemies.

Ethereal Mistveil works well against encounters with multiple enemies. The pull-and-detonate mechanic gathers scattered mobs into clusters, making it an efficient choice for clearing areas before focusing on a single target.

Chrono Anomaly

Chrono Anomaly manipulates time. The style inflicts slow effects on enemies and lets the player stack attacks into a concentrated "bomb" that stores accumulated damage. Detonating the bomb releases all the stored damage at once, creating a burst window. This style rewards patient, methodical play since damage stacking takes time but pays off with massive single-hit spikes.

Reverse Flow

Reverse Flow transforms the player's kit to mirror Sun Bin's abilities from the MOBA. The style includes bombs that slow targets, homing missiles that track enemies, and other ranged utility skills. Sun Bin in the original game is a support/controller, and Reverse Flow retains that tactical identity while adapting it for action RPG combat.

Hero transformation

Beyond the dual Flow system, the Flowborn can temporarily transform into specific heroes during combat. Becoming a hero grants access to their exclusive abilities. For example, transforming into Kai unlocks his parry skill, which provides full damage immunity during the parry window. This transformation is separate from the equipped Flow styles and appears to function as an additional combat layer on top of the style-swapping system.

Building a bond with a hero through gameplay eventually unlocks a transmog option that changes the Flowborn's appearance to match that hero. This is a cosmetic reward for progression, not a separate gameplay mechanic.

Style synergies

Pairing two complementary styles is the main team-building decision in the game. Examples from preview footage include pairing a melee DPS style like Primal Flow with a ranged crowd-control style like Ethereal Mistveil, or combining two burst-damage styles for all-in offense. The independent cooldowns and health bars between styles mean every pairing plays differently.