While you may think that stealth is always the answer in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, there will be plenty of times where you are either forced, or succumb, to having to actually fight enemies head-on in the game. Combat is kind of basic, but there are plenty of nuances to it that can be a little confusing. This page will go over the basics of combat, as well as how to utilize parrying, and much more.

Combat Basics¶

Whenever you are exploring and an enemy’s awareness goes red, that means they will be coming after you, leading to a fight. One of the first things you should do in a fight is press in the right analog stick to lock onto the enemy. This will make it easier to keep track of the enemy you’re fighting, although it might make it harder when you’re fighting more than one at a time. You have two basic attacks, which are assigned to the R1/RB and R2/RT buttons. They are a Light Attack and Heavy Attack, respectively. Circle/B is used to dodge, while L1/LB is used to block and parry incoming attacks.

An enemy is killed when their health bar is emptied, which is the standard practice for most games with fighting. Most often, enemies will have another bar above their health, which is armor. Typically, attacks sustained by enemies will deplete their armor first, before their health, although there are ways to directly damage the enemy through their armor. Destroying their armor will also open them up to other battle mechanics, which will be described a little later.

Type of Attacks¶

As you’re fighting the various enemies, you will notice that their weapons with glint with a color before they attack you. This actually is a sign of the type of attack the enemy will use, so it’s important to know what color corresponds to which move. It should be noted that all of the attack types can be dodged, so you’re not going to come across anything that will be a guaranteed strike on you. A white flash means it’s a normal attack, so you are able to block/parry it. Should you parry it, then you will stop the enemy from striking anymore.

A blue flash indicates that it’s similar to the white one, but it’s part of a combo. That means even if you block/parry the blue attacks, then you still have to wait until the combo is finished. The last type is ones with a red glint, which means they are unblockable. If you try to block/parry these attacks, then you will take damage. The only way to avoid damage from red ones is by dodging. Of course, there will be enemies not that far into the game that will mix things up, doing unblockable attacks in the middle of a combo.

Vulnerable State¶

Something you might have noticed while parrying and/or dodging attacks, is that enemies will have an orangish glow to them. This is the Vulnerable state, where they are essentially “dazed” for a few second, or until you hit them enough. This occurs when you parry/dodge their attacks at the last second (like most other games with similar systems). There are a number of passive skills and weapon skills that utilize Vulnerable, so make sure you take advantage of it. Note that landing a Light Posture attack on them while in this state will trigger a deadly Weak Point attack.

Posture Attacks¶

While fighting, you can hold down the two attack buttons to charge up a maneuver, called a Posture Attack. These moves are good for enemies that keep blocking, since it will break their guard. It’s always a good idea to end a combo while an enemy’s in a Vulnerable State with a Posture Attack, due to it dealing more damage. They are always important to use in battles, so keep them in mind when you are clashing weapons.

Adrenaline and Skills¶

Adrenaline is basically your meter used to perform abilities with your weapons. It is designated by the little diamond icon above your health bar. To perform an ability, hold down R2/RT while in combat, then press the corresponding button for that skill. You can build up Adrenaline by landing hits, especially with Light Attacks or by Parrying enemy attacks. There are nodes on the various skill trees that will give you more Adrenaline nodes.

Switching Weapons¶

Near the start of the game, you’re only going to be wielding a Katana, but as you complete missions and explore the world, you will eventually unlock more weapon types. Each character has two equipment slots for weapons, a primary and a secondary. Despite the names, you can equip any weapon type in either, but you cannot equip two of the same weapon type at the same time. That means you can’t put a Katana in both the primary and secondary slots, as the game will prompt you about this and unequip the other slot.

The game doesn’t explicitly tell you that you can switch between your equipped weapons, in terms of a tutorial pop-up, but there is one in the Codex that explains how to do it. Whenever you have two weapons equipped, you can simply press right on the directional pad to change between them. This isn’t immediate, though, as it will take a few seconds, so be wary of that. Holding down right will sheathe that weapon, although you probably don’t want to do that during battles.