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Combat System
April 23, 2026 at 11:29 AM
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Combat in Neverness to Everness is a third-person real-time action system built around fast-paced character swapping, combo chaining, and elemental reactions. Players control a team of four characters and switch between them fluidly during battle. The system rewards aggressive play, precise timing, and thoughtful team composition, blending the responsiveness of action games with the strategic depth of team-based RPGs.
At its core, combat in Neverness to Everness is a four-character squad system. Players assemble a team of four and swap between them during every fight, chaining skills, ultimates, perfect dodges, parries, and elemental reactions by handing control off from one squad member to the next. A single-character playstyle leaves a substantial amount of damage and reaction potential on the table; the squad is designed so that you keep rotating through complementary damage pairs rather than sticking to one active character for an entire encounter.
Swapping is also the primary way to set up reactions. Each character applies their own element through normal attacks and skills, and the incoming character's element reacts with whatever the outgoing character just applied. Building the team around two or three Espers whose elements sit next to one another on the Esper wheel keeps reactions firing turn after turn, which in turn builds break progress and ultimate energy faster than any single-character loop can.
Combat Verb | What It Does | Role in the Loop |
|---|---|---|
Skills | Character-specific abilities on cooldowns. Apply the user's element and fill the Esper Cycle Meter quickly. | The main way to apply your element onto the enemy before swapping. |
Ultimates | High-damage finishers that consume ultimate energy. Often cinematic and always hard-hitting. | Best unloaded during break windows, when damage multipliers are at their highest. |
Perfect Dodges | Dodges executed just before an enemy attack connects. Grant i-frames, slow motion, and a character-specific counter. | Forgiving defensive option that still contributes meter and break. |
Parries | Timing-based deflections using the parry circle. Full Esper Cycle Meter refund on success. | Highest single-action contribution to break, and the fastest way to set up reactions. |
Triggered when two adjacent elements combine during a swap. Produce bonus damage, marks, or debuffs. | The payoff for squad composition. Cycling through characters keeps reactions firing back-to-back. |
Players who treat combat like a single-character action game report noticeably worse results than those who treat the squad like a rotation. Holding down the attack button on one character works, but letting the other three sit idle means their Esper Cycle passives contribute less, their meters never fill, and reaction opportunities disappear. The loop that the game is tuned around looks like: skill, react, swap, skill, react, swap, with dodges and parries filling the gaps.
Players assemble a team of up to four playable characters (Espers). Each character has their own element, attack combos, skills, and ultimate ability. During combat, only one character is actively controlled at a time, but the other three provide support from the sideline. Building a team with complementary elements is critical for triggering Esper Cycle reactions.
The Relay System is the character-swapping mechanic that defines NTE's combat flow. When the player triggers a swap, the incoming character performs an entry attack while the current character is still active on the battlefield. For a brief moment, both characters occupy the field simultaneously, creating a fluid overlap that avoids the rigid feel of traditional tag systems.
This overlap is tied to the Esper Gauge, which builds through combat actions including landing attacks, using skills, and performing successful dodges and parries. When the Esper Gauge is sufficiently charged, eligible squad members glow to signal that they are ready for a Relay swap. The Relay entry attack varies by character, allowing players to choose strategic swap timing based on which entry attack best suits the current combat situation.
When a character swaps in via the Relay System, the type of entry attack they perform depends on the swap context. A standard swap (also called a Fade In) brings the new character onto the field with their default entry animation, which varies per character. Some characters dash forward with a melee strike, while others drop in with an area-of-effect elemental burst.
An Esper Cycle swap triggers when the incoming character's Esper Cycle Meter is fully charged at the moment of the swap. This produces a more powerful entry that simultaneously deals reaction damage based on the interacting elements. The Esper Cycle swap is the primary method for deliberately triggering Duo and Trio Reactions, and it rewards players who manage their meter charging across all four team members.
Both swap types can be combined with a parry. If an enemy attack coincides with the swap timing, the incoming character can deflect it as part of their entry, producing either a Normal Swap Parry or an Esper Cycle Swap Parry. These combined actions are the highest-value defensive plays in the game because they deliver entry attack damage, potential reaction damage, counter-deflection damage, and stagger bar contribution all within a single animation window.
Beyond the standard HP and ultimate gauges, each character maintains an Esper Cycle Meter. This meter is the engine that drives the entire swap-and-react combat loop. There are three primary ways to charge it: continuously landing normal attacks (which fills the meter gradually), using skills (which accelerate the charge based on the skill's Cycle Rate value), and successfully parrying enemy attacks (which can instantly fill the meter in a single action).
The charge speed is governed by a character's Cycle Rate stat. Characters with skills that have a 100 Cycle Rate, such as MC and Fadia, can fully charge the Esper Cycle Meter with a single skill use. This makes Cycle Rate one of the most impactful combat stats for players who want to trigger elemental reactions as frequently as possible.
Once the meter is fully charged, eligible squad members begin to glow, signaling that they are ready for a Relay swap. The glow is the player's cue to swap and trigger a powerful Esper Cycle reaction. Timing the swap correctly is critical: swapping too early wastes meter, while delaying too long can leave damage on the table during break windows.
Method | Charge Speed | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Normal Attacks | Gradual | Consistent but slow; forms the baseline charge during combos |
Skills | Fast (varies by Cycle Rate) | Skills with 100 Cycle Rate (e.g., MC, Fadia) can instantly fill the meter |
Successful Parries | Instant (full charge) | The fastest charging method; rewards precise defensive timing |
Successful Dodges | Moderate | Critical dodges contribute more than standard dodges |
Every playable character has a unique Esper Cycle Passive that activates as long as they are in the squad, even when they are off-field. These passives provide persistent buffs or effects that shape team synergy without requiring the character to be actively controlled. For example, one character's passive might increase the entire team's elemental damage bonus, while another might reduce incoming damage or accelerate energy regeneration for all allies.
Because Esper Cycle Passives function regardless of who is on the field, they are a key consideration when assembling a team. Players should evaluate not only a character's active combat performance but also the passive contribution they bring to the squad. Stacking complementary passives can significantly increase the team's overall output, especially during extended encounters where the cumulative benefit of persistent buffs adds up.
The off-field aspect of these passives is important enough to build a squad around. Because the effect stays active as long as the character is on the team, a support who never actually presses a button during a fight can still be the backbone of a reaction-focused comp. A common pattern is to field one primary DPS, one secondary damage dealer whose element reacts with the primary's, and two off-field characters whose Esper Cycle passives amplify that specific reaction. The on-field actions then feed a reaction engine that is mostly built from passive contributions.
This also means the most efficient teams are not always the ones with the highest raw damage. A squad where all four members share a reaction in common, even if two of them never leave the sideline, can out-perform a team of four strong individual characters that do not overlap. Before committing to a team for a long encounter, check whether the four characters on the roster share at least one Esper wheel adjacency. Shared adjacencies mean every swap has a live reaction available, and every off-field passive has something concrete to enhance.
Attack Type | Description |
|---|---|
Normal Attacks | Basic combo strings of up to 5 sequential hits per character. Each character has unique combo animations and timing windows. |
Character-specific abilities on individual cooldowns. Skills deal higher damage than normals and often apply elemental effects or crowd control. | |
Ultimates | Powerful finishing moves that consume ultimate energy. These deal massive damage and often have cinematic animations. |
QTE Attacks | Quick-Time Event attacks triggered during character swaps. Successfully inputting the QTE prompt during a Relay swap unleashes a bonus attack. |
Support Skills | Assist abilities from off-field characters. These activate automatically or on command without requiring a full character swap. |
Characters can also perform Plunge Attacks while airborne. Pressing the attack button during a jump or fall causes the character to slam downward, dealing area damage on impact. Plunge attack damage scales with fall height, increasing up to 200% of the base plunge multiplier at maximum height. This makes plunge attacks especially effective when initiating combat from elevated terrain or after being launched by certain skills.
Dodging is a core defensive mechanic. Players can dodge in any direction to avoid incoming attacks. A well-timed dodge, executed just before an enemy attack connects, triggers a Critical Dodge (also called a perfect dodge). Critical Dodge provides enhanced benefits including temporary invulnerability frames, a brief slow-motion window for counterattacking, and a contribution to the enemy's stagger bar.
Successful dodges, whether standard or critical, also contribute to building the Esper Gauge. This creates a rewarding loop where defensive play enables more frequent character swaps and Relay attacks.
While the existing dodge and Critical Dodge mechanics provide strong defensive options, the dodge counter system adds an offensive dimension to evasion. When a player executes a Critical Dodge (a dodge timed just before an enemy attack connects), they are not only granted invulnerability frames and a slow-motion window but also the opportunity to perform a character-specific counterattack.
Each playable character has a unique dodge counter animation and effect. Some characters launch into a rapid melee flurry, while others retaliate with an elemental burst or a repositioning strike. The dodge counter's damage is separate from normal attack damage and typically applies the character's element, making it useful for building elemental reactions even during defensive play.
Dodge counters contribute to the Esper Cycle Meter and the enemy's stagger bar, creating a feedback loop where defensive play generates offensive momentum. For players who struggle with parry timing, critical dodges and their associated counters serve as a more forgiving alternative that still rewards precise reactions.
Factor | Parry | Critical Dodge |
|---|---|---|
Timing Window | Tighter; requires alignment with the parry circle | Slightly more forgiving; activates just before impact |
Esper Cycle Meter Gain | Instant full charge | Moderate contribution |
Stagger Contribution | High; substantial boost to the break bar | Moderate; smaller but still meaningful |
Counter Damage | Deflection damage plus animation cancel | Character-specific counterattack |
Positioning | Holds ground; no repositioning | Moves the character; can reposition to safety |
Risk | Higher; a mistimed parry results in taking full damage | Lower; even a late dodge may partially avoid the hit |
Best For | Telegraphed attacks with clear parry indicators | Fast multi-hit combos or unfamiliar attack patterns |
Every enemy has a stagger bar (also called a break meter) displayed beneath their health bar. Landing hits fills the stagger bar incrementally, with certain attack types and elemental reactions contributing more than others. Successful dodges and parries also add to the stagger bar.
When the stagger bar is completely filled, the enemy enters a vulnerable "broken" state. During this state, the enemy is temporarily stunned and takes significantly increased damage from all sources. This break window is the optimal time to unleash ultimates and high-damage combos. The break state lasts for a limited duration before the enemy recovers and the stagger bar resets.
When an enemy's break meter fills completely, they do not just take increased damage, they receive a burst of damage at the moment of the break itself. At most overworld enemy levels this burst is large enough to one-shot or very nearly one-shot the target. Building the squad specifically around break damage is therefore a standard way to clear the overworld quickly: rather than chipping an enemy's health down with extended combos, the team races to fill the break bar and lets the break burst finish the fight.
This pattern became significantly stronger in the current beta after a rebalance. Community feedback from the previous beta pointed out that overworld enemies took too long to die. The response was to make breaks more decisive, so the burst now carries enough weight to end most encounters on the first break window. Characters, skills, and cartridges that bias toward break contribution, parry timing, or stagger-friendly elemental reactions are now frontline picks for open-world clearing, not just boss fighting.
Stage | What Happens | Player Focus |
|---|---|---|
Build-up | Attacks, parries, dodges, skills, and elemental reactions add to the break bar. | Stack reaction triggers and parries; these give the fastest break progress per input. |
Break Moment | Break bar fills, enemy staggers, and a burst of damage is delivered in a single hit. | Many overworld mobs are dropped here without needing a follow-up combo. |
Broken State | For higher-HP targets, the enemy is stunned and vulnerable for several seconds after the break. | Unload ultimates, high-damage skills, and Esper Cycle swap reactions for the biggest damage multipliers. |
Recovery | Break bar resets, and the enemy returns to normal guard. Defensive pressure resumes. | Rebuild Esper Cycle Meter, reapply elements, and aim for the next break window. |
For tougher targets like bosses and High Risk Anomaly Fights, a single break will not clear the fight, but the same pattern applies at a larger scale. Every break window is a burst of free damage and a brief stun, so good squads cycle reactions hard enough to force multiple breaks per encounter rather than trying to out-DPS the enemy's health pool directly.
The parry system was added based on player feedback from the first closed beta test. It introduces a timing-based defensive mechanic that rewards precision. When an enemy telegraphs a parryable attack, a parry circle appears on screen. The player must activate their parry when the circle aligns with the outer ring.
A successful parry deflects the incoming attack, deals counter-damage, and provides a substantial boost to the enemy's stagger bar. Parrying also contributes to building the Esper Gauge. The system supports five distinct parry types, each available in different combat situations.
Parry Type | Description |
|---|---|
Normal Attack Parry | Performed during a normal attack combo. The player interrupts their own combo to deflect an incoming attack. |
Plunge Attack Parry | Executed during a plunging or aerial attack, allowing players to parry mid-air. |
Skill Parry | Activated during skill usage. The character cancels their skill animation to perform the parry. |
Normal Swap Parry | Triggered during a standard character swap, combining the defensive parry with a Relay transition. |
Esper Cycle Swap Parry | Performed during an Esper Cycle-triggered swap, the most advanced parry type that combines elemental reactions with defensive play. |
Each of the five parry types serves a distinct tactical role. The parry window is the same across all types: the player must press the parry input when the shrinking outer ring aligns with the inner circle. What differs is the combat state from which the parry is initiated, which determines the follow-up action and its strategic value.
Normal Attack Parry is the most accessible method. The player interrupts their own normal attack combo to deflect an incoming hit. This is useful when an enemy counterattacks during a combo string, allowing the player to seamlessly shift from offense to defense without retreating. The counter-damage from this parry type feeds directly into the enemy's stagger bar.
Plunge Attack Parry is executed during an aerial or plunging attack. This allows characters to deflect enemy strikes while airborne, which is particularly valuable against enemies with anti-air attacks or during vertical combat encounters. Successfully landing this parry mid-air resets the character's aerial state, allowing continued air combos afterward.
Skill Parry cancels the current skill animation to perform a parry instead. This is a high-risk, high-reward technique because it sacrifices the skill's damage and cooldown investment in exchange for the defensive benefit. However, some characters have skills with long recovery frames, making the Skill Parry an essential tool for avoiding punishment after a whiffed ability.
Normal Swap Parry combines a standard character swap with a defensive parry. Instead of simply tagging in the next character, the incoming Esper performs a parry as their entry action. This is valuable during extended combos where the active character is locked in recovery frames and cannot parry on their own. The incoming character takes over defensive duties instantly.
Esper Cycle Swap Parry is the most advanced parry type. It combines an Esper Cycle-triggered swap with a defensive parry, meaning the player simultaneously triggers an elemental reaction and deflects an enemy attack in one fluid motion. This is the highest-value defensive action in the game because it delivers reaction damage, counter-damage, stagger contribution, and a safe character transition all at once.
The stagger system ties together every offensive and defensive action in the game. Rather than being a standalone mechanic, the break meter serves as the convergence point for all combat systems. Every normal attack hit, every skill, every successful parry, every critical dodge, and every elemental reaction contributes to filling the enemy's break bar. This design ensures that no combat action is wasted.
Different actions contribute different amounts to the break bar. Parries provide the largest single contribution, followed by elemental reactions (particularly the Trio Reactions Discord, which directly reduces a percentage of the target's break meter). Normal attacks provide steady, incremental progress. Critical dodges and skills fall somewhere in between, with the exact contribution varying by character and skill.
When the break bar fills completely, the enemy enters a stagger state lasting several seconds. During this window, the enemy is immobilized and takes significantly increased damage from all sources. This is the optimal moment to unleash ultimates, high-damage skills, and Esper Cycle reactions for maximum burst. Advanced players plan their meter management around these break windows, saving ultimates and high-cost abilities for the stagger phase rather than spending them during normal combat.
Action | Break Contribution | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Normal Attacks | Low (per hit) | Adds up over long combo strings |
Skills | Medium | Varies by character; some skills have enhanced break values |
Ultimates | Medium to High | Best saved for damage during break state, but do contribute |
Successful Parry | High | Single largest contribution from a defensive action |
Critical Dodge | Medium | More accessible than parry but less stagger value |
Medium to High | Duo reactions contribute moderately; Trio Reactions like Discord directly reduce break meter | |
Relay Entry Attacks | Low to Medium | Varies by incoming character's entry animation |
The elemental reaction system in NTE operates on two tiers: Duo Reactions and Trio Reactions. Duo Reactions occur when two different elements interact, while Trio Reactions require three distinct elements applied in sequence. Both tiers contribute to the break bar, but Trio Reactions have a pronounced impact on stagger progression.
Discord is a Trio Reaction that directly reduces a percentage of the target's remaining break bar, making it one of the fastest ways to force a stagger state on tough enemies. Because Discord scales off remaining break meter rather than applying a flat amount, it is most effective when used early in the stagger cycle before the bar is nearly full.
Charge is the other Trio Reaction. Instead of targeting the break bar, Charge grants a burst of ultimate energy to the team, accelerating access to high-damage ultimates. During fights where the break bar is already close to full, triggering Charge to fuel ultimates is often the better play, since the team can then unleash those ultimates during the upcoming stagger window for compounding damage.
Experienced players alternate between Discord and Charge based on the flow of combat. If the enemy has a large break bar that needs depleting, they prioritize Discord rotations. If the break bar is nearly full and ultimates are not yet charged, they switch to Charge-oriented element application. This decision layer adds strategic depth on top of the moment-to-moment action of attacking, dodging, and parrying.
Every character in Neverness to Everness has a set of combat-relevant stats that determine their effectiveness in battle. These stats can be increased through character leveling, Arcs (weapons), Disks and Drive Blocks (equipment), and Awakening upgrades.
Stat | Effect |
|---|---|
Base ATK | Determines raw damage output for normal attacks, skills, and ultimates. ATK% bonuses from equipment multiply this value. |
DEF | Reduces incoming damage. Higher DEF lowers the proportion of damage that penetrates to HP. |
HP | Total health points. When HP reaches zero, the character is knocked out and must be revived or swapped. |
CRIT Rate | The probability that an attack deals critical damage. Base CRIT Rate starts at 5% for most characters. |
CRIT DMG | The damage multiplier applied when a critical hit occurs. Base CRIT DMG is 50% for most characters. |
Cycle Rate | Determines how quickly a character's Esper Cycle Meter charges. Higher Cycle Rate means faster access to swap reactions. |
Elemental DMG Bonus | Increases damage dealt by attacks matching the character's element (Cosmos, Anima, Incantation, Chaos, Psyche, or Lakshana). |
Energy Recharge | Affects how quickly the character's ultimate energy gauge fills. Higher values mean more frequent ultimates. |
The general damage formula follows a standard pattern for action RPGs: final damage is calculated from Base ATK multiplied by the skill's damage multiplier, then modified by elemental bonuses, critical hit multipliers, and enemy defense reduction. During the stagger state, enemies receive a significant damage vulnerability multiplier that stacks with all other bonuses, making break windows the most efficient time to deal damage.
A typical combat encounter in NTE follows a loop of attacking to build the Esper Gauge, swapping characters to trigger elemental reactions and Relay entry attacks, dodging and parrying enemy counterattacks, and filling the stagger bar to create break windows for maximum damage. Mastering this flow requires reading enemy attack patterns, understanding which parry types are available at any given moment, and managing the Esper Gauge across all four team members.
Beyond the fundamentals, experienced players employ several advanced techniques to maximize damage output and maintain combat momentum.
Many attack animations in NTE can be cancelled into other actions. A common technique is cancelling the recovery frames of a normal attack string by initiating a dodge, a skill, or a character swap. This shortens the time between offensive actions and keeps pressure on the enemy. Parries also serve as animation cancels: using a Skill Parry, for example, cancels the skill's recovery animation while simultaneously deflecting an incoming attack.
The Relay System enables a technique where players chain entry attacks from multiple characters in rapid succession. By swapping characters as soon as each entry attack completes, the team can deliver a concentrated burst of multi-elemental damage in a short window. This is especially effective during stagger windows when the enemy cannot retaliate. Pairing swap combos with Esper Cycle reactions compounds the damage further.
A strong rotation in NTE follows a repeatable loop:
Open with normal attacks and skills to apply your character's element and begin charging the Esper Cycle Meter.
Parry or dodge incoming enemy attacks to build meter faster and contribute to the stagger bar.
Swap into the next character the instant they begin glowing to trigger an elemental reaction.
Repeat or layer into a Trio Reaction if conditions are met (e.g., applying Blossom to a Remora-marked target to trigger Charge).
During the stagger window, unleash ultimates and high-damage abilities for maximum burst damage.
Each character in the squad needs adequate field time to maintain their Cycle Rate. If a character sits idle on the sideline for too long, their contribution to the team's overall Esper Cycle output diminishes. Effective rotation ensures that all four characters see regular field time, keeping the team's reaction engine running smoothly. This also prevents over-reliance on a single character, which can leave the team vulnerable if that character is knocked out or caught in a long recovery animation.
At launch, the character roster leans melee-heavy. Most playable characters are close-range fighters with swords, fists, or other melee weapons. While some characters offer mid-range or area-of-effect options, players seeking a primarily ranged playstyle may find fewer options available at launch. Hotta Studio has indicated that future character releases will expand playstyle diversity.
The combat pacing that players encounter today is specifically the result of beta-to-beta rebalancing. In the previous beta, overworld enemy health pools were large enough that casual exploration felt grindy: even trash mobs could take a long time to finish off, which discouraged stopping for side content. In the current beta, open-world enemy HP has been dialed back and the break burst has been made more impactful. The practical effect is that overworld combat now flows at a speed closer to the game's moment-to-moment exploration pace, rather than bogging it down.
This rebalance is why break-centric squads feel so strong for overworld clearing. It is not that damage scaling changed dramatically; it is that the overworld is tuned around the new, shorter break cycle. Anomaly-only combat encounters from the prior beta have also been joined by gangs and other criminal activity in the city, so the overworld's enemy pool is both larger in variety and faster to defeat than it used to be.
Boss encounters stand out as a particular strength of NTE's combat within its genre. In a category that tends toward repeated boss archetypes, NTE's boss fights are frequently cited as unique among anime-styled open-world gacha action titles. Each boss tends to have a distinctive moveset, telegraph pattern, and required counterplay, so fights demand actual pattern recognition rather than just rotation execution.
This variety pairs well with the break system. Because every boss has its own parryable tells and its own preferred break window, squad building for bosses leans more toward specific reaction routes than generic damage. Fights can also break out cinematically on the road during Hethereau exploration, so overworld driving or fast travel sometimes transitions directly into a scripted boss encounter without a loading screen.
Relative to its own open world, exploration systems, and activity design, NTE's combat is characterized in community discussion as the safer of the game's pillars. It is a solid action-combat system that uses already-established ideas, squad swapping, elemental reactions, break meters, parries, rather than introducing a combat concept that has never been seen in the genre. The novelty in Neverness to Everness sits primarily in its overworld and its activity breadth, including anomaly commissions, events like The Hospital, and the Pink Paws Heist extraction mode, while combat delivers a familiar but well-executed foundation for every one of those activities to plug into.
In practice, this means combat does its job without being the main reason to play the game. Players who came to Neverness to Everness for a genre-first open world still have a combat system that is responsive, readable, and deep enough to support end-game content, boss variety, and Trio Reactions. For most players the friction points are elsewhere, in systems like police AI or driving feel, rather than in the core squad-swap combat loop.
Esper Cycle: the elemental reaction system and its six elements.
Parrying System: in-depth guide to parry mechanics and timing.
Stagger System: details on break meters and vulnerability windows.
Characters: the full roster of playable Espers.
