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1-Stamina in The Relic: First Guardian behaves differently from many games in the soulslike space, and it is one of the combat system's signature ideas. The short version: stamina is for staying alive, not for attacking.
1+Stamina in The Relic: First Guardian works the opposite way round from most action RPGs. It is never spent on attacking. The gauge exists strictly for high-stakes defence, which the developers summarise as freedom in attack, intensity in survival.
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3-Attacks Cost No Stamina
3+What Stamina Is For
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5-Attacks are relinquished from any form of depletion. Swinging a weapon does not drain stamina, so a player can keep pressing an offensive without the meter emptying mid-combo. This removes the usual penalty for aggression and is central to the game's goal of unrestricted, flowing combat.
5+ActionStamina CostLight and heavy attacksNone. Attacks cost zero resourcesSkillsNone. Skills run on cooldownsHigh-power magicNone. Uses cooldowns and a dedicated meterDodgingSpends staminaBlockingSpends stamina
6+The practical consequence is that you can strike continuously with relentless creativity and consistency, and the only real resource decision is defensive. Emptying the gauge on a mistimed dodge leaves nothing for the attack that follows, which is where the tension in a fight comes from.
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7-Stamina Is Reserved for Defence and Dodging
8+Dodging and Parrying
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9-Instead of fuelling offence, stamina is reserved for defence and dodging. Blocking and evading draw from the stamina pool, so survival becomes the place where resource management matters. The intensity of an encounter comes from deciding when to spend stamina on a dodge or a block, rather than from rationing how often you can attack.
10+Dodging is the primary evasive option, and parrying sits alongside it as a timed defensive answer. Encounters are designed around dodge, parry, and weapon mastery rather than around statistics, so learning a brutal's timing matters more than raising a number. Since no two brutals fight alike, the defensive rhythm has to be relearned per encounter.
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11-Why It Matters
12+Changes Since Launch
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13-ActionStamina UseAttackingNo depletion. Attacks are free of stamina cost.DodgingUses stamina. Reserved for evasion.Defending or blockingUses stamina. Reserved for defence.Using skillsRun on cooldowns, not stamina or a resource pool.
14-This split keeps offence and defence on separate budgets. Because skills also run on cooldowns rather than a resource pool, the only thing the stamina bar gates is the player's ability to defend. The developers present this as a way to let each player set their own rhythm: lean fully into attacking when the moment allows, and hold stamina in reserve for the dodges and blocks that keep the Guardian alive.
14+Two adjustments made defence more forgiving than at release. The player character's parry timing window was extended for smoother combat, and base defence was increased by 30. Player targeting was also fixed, having previously caused in-place movement glitches that could interfere with evasive movement. Details are on the Updates and Patches page.
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16+Exact stamina values, recovery rates, and invulnerability windows have not been published, so this page covers the confirmed design rules. The wider ruleset is on the Combat System page.