Combat Arts/Wave Guard

There are five Wave Guard Combat Arts available to Spheromancers: two first-level, two second-level, and one third-level art. You can have only one of each level active at a time.

## Pain Grip

*Block one attack and regenerate part of the blocked damage.*

Lea waits ~1 second for a guardable attack, while emitting small waves in front of her. That attack deals minor damage and Lea recovers health proportional to it.

This triggered guard art shows a tiny amount of damage getting through, indicating the strength of the attack. This is important because it heals Lea more if the attack would have dealt more damage. Reserve this against single, hard-hitting attacks.

## Guarding Gale

*Spawns aura that pushes away nearby enemies for several seconds.*

Lea emits a Wave aura for 6 seconds that pushes away and slightly damages enemies near Lea.

Guarding Gale does not guarantee protection, as a determined enemy can dash against its pushing force, but helps Lea in a few subtle ways. It deflects enemy advances, making evasion easier, and can be used offensively to push them into hazards. It also quickly clears plants.

## Circle of Valor

*Block all attacks for a few seconds and regenerate part of the blocked damage.*

Lea waits 3 seconds for guardable attacks, surrounded by a large Wave aura. She takes minor damage from enemy attacks until this time expires, then heals by an amount related to the damage absorbed from those attacks.

Circle of Valor is much more useful than Pain Grip because it mitigates damage from several enemies at once, and attacks that hit multiple times. Flamethrowers, swarms of balls and area attacks can be blocked for high healing, although the art is wasted against single-hit attacks. Be aware that this doesn't prevent status effects and Lea can be interrupted.

## Poltergeist

*Spawns aura that pushes away nearby enemies and throws projectiles for several seconds.*

Lea emits a Wave aura for 6 seconds that pushes away and slightly damages enemies near Lea, and throws out small Wave balls in random directions that home in on enemies in their path, knocking them back.

Aside from the additional balls, Poltergeist is nearly identical to Guarding Gale. The balls reach past the aura and deal more damage per hit, supplementing the pushing force.

## Karma Scale

*Enter critical mode but become invincible. Absorb any enemy attacks for a short time. The more absorbed, the larger the ending explosion and the more HP healed.*

Lea immediately loses *all* HP. She concentrates for 3.5 seconds, surrounded by a huge Wave aura. During this time, Lea absorbs all damage, rendering her *completely immune* to attacks. If she was hit by any attacks, she then pulls in enemies within a large radius, releases a huge Wave explosion hitting several times, and recovers a large amount of health. Each attack she withstands increases the number of times the explosion hits, but the HP restoration is exactly proportional to the damage she absorbs.

Karma Scale works best when Lea already has low health and is surrounded by a large number of enemies, reversing the situation: nullify enemy attacks, hit them hard, and restore lots of HP. If no attacks hit Lea, the ending explosion and healing *NEVER HAPPEN*, and Lea stays in critical mode. Thus, don't use this when enemies are least eager to attack. While she is immune to attacks, some enemies (such as Shokat) are able to push / pull Lea into environmental damage (water, cliffs, etc.), which immediately kills her.

### Critical Mode

The HP bar flashes bright red, and the word CRITICAL replaces the number. When this happens, Lea's HP has gone down to less than 1, but some condition prevents her death. Perfect guards and hits dealing 0 damage keep her alive, but anything greater immediately kills her, even 1 damage. However negative your HP, the game stores the value even though it is hidden from you. Critical mode ends as soon as you dig yourself back up above 0 HP.

Karma Scale is the most direct - though expensive - way to achieve this state, but you can do it with the Once More modifier or any reduction to your Max HP. Removing equipment, switching element modes, and buffs expiring can all make this happen. Berserker will always be active.