Welcome to Into Indie Games’ combat guide for beginners in Shards of Order.
It’s a deck-building RPG where you journey through a dark fantasy world in search of the missing Laws to bring the world back in balance. Along the way, you’ll face hordes of monsters and difficult bosses determined to stop you. The combat system in the game features several unique mechanics that can take a while to get used to, especially during the early hours.
In this guide, we’ll break down the basics of combat and share some handy tips and tricks to help you master it.
This article is part of our Shards of Order – Walkthrough and Guides Hub.
For more information about the game, check out their official website here.
Table of contents
Build A Proper Deck
Shards of Order takes an interesting approach when it comes to building a Deck. Instead of capping your Deck with 10 or 30 cards, the game lets you hold as many cards as you want in your Deck. On top of that, you don’t get a separate Deck for each of your characters. You have to pull from a shared Deck that holds all of your unlocked cards for all your characters.
But that doesn’t mean you have to use all the cards that you’ve unlocked. Having a bigger Deck means you won’t be cycling through the Deck quickly. For instance, if you’ve got only 1 Grit card in your Deck and you go through it the first time you draw your cards, then you won’t see it again until you’re done cycling through the entire Deck.
Take this into account when you’re setting up your Deck. If a certain card doesn’t fit your playstyle, instead of having it in your Deck and inflating your cycle, consider taking it out. The smaller your Deck, the faster you cycle.
Understanding the Time Mechanic
The Time mechanic stands at the heart of combat in Shards of Order. Despite being a turn-based strategy RPG, the game doesn’t have a traditional “enemy turn/your turn” design. Instead, each enemy in the game has a Time Counter on top of them that dictates when they will attack.
Each card you play has a Time Cost, which is marked on the top right corner of the card. The Time Cost of cards can vary from 0 all the way up to 8. Higher Time Cost cards will allow the enemies to act multiple times before it activates. On the other hand, lower Time Cost cards let you keep playing more cards before the enemies get their turn.
This also applies to the Redraw. When the fight starts, Redrawing your hand costs 4 Time. However, as you keep playing cards, the Time Cost of Redraw also goes down. Once you spend cards costing a total of 4 Time, the Redraw becomes free.
Certain cards can also influence the Time Counter of both your party and your enemies. Learn how to play around the Time Counter, and you’ll be able to defeat your enemies before they even get a chance to deal any damage.
Learning the Characters
Shards of Order lets you take charge of three unique characters when you’re fighting the enemies: the Warrior, the Exile, and the Scholar. Not only do these characters have unique personalities, but they also have a very specific way about how they act during combat.
- Warrior (Red):
The Warrior, Lev, is your main character, and the one you start with. The Warrior is a brute that can deal massive single-target damage by stacking Strength and can also tank a lot of hits by gaining Shield. His main mechanic is Rage, which lets him activate unique cards depending on the weapon you’ve equipped.
- Exile (Green):
The Exile, Ayla, is your archer. Her Quiver size varies depending on the Bow that you’ve equipped, and when it overflows, she fires a shot from her Quiver at a random enemy. She can further increase the damage of the arrows in her Quiver by stacking Sharp. She’s a glass cannon, but with the right set of cards, she can dish out a ton of damage quickly and efficiently.
- Scholar (Blue):
The Scholar, Thade, serves primarily as the support, but can also deal a lot of damage if you’re building around his Rot cards. He gains Mana depending on the card you play. If you play a Warrior Card, he’ll gain Red Mana, Green Mana for playing an Exile Card, and Blue Mana if you play a Scholar Card. Some of his cards have specific Mana Requirements on top of their Time Cost.
Learn how the different characters work and experiment with their unique mechanics to figure out how you can get the most use out of them. For instance, I decided to use the Warrior as my main frontline/damage dealer with the Scholar applying Rot consistently.
With the Exile, I just focused on keeping her alive while applying Weakness on enemies, until I built up her Sharp stacks and could deal burst damage if the fight dragged on.
Ethereal Power vs Revive
As you progress through the zones in Shards of Order, the difficulty of fights ramps up significantly. Your characters will fall in battle, and there are two ways to get them back into the fight without having to start the fight from scratch.
The first and simplest way to do so is to just revive them. When a character falls, all of their specific cards turn into Revive Cards that cost 1 Time to play. By playing Revive Cards, you can essentially bring your fighter back into the fray, healing almost half of their total health pool. If multiple characters fall, you’ll have to play the Revive Cards multiple times.
The problem with this method is that it also causes the fight to become Fractured. You’ll know this is happening when you see the screen turn red and a number pop up over the Redraw button. When Fractured, each time you Redraw, all units on the field, friends and foes alike, take health damage depending on the number shown above the Redraw button.
When you revive once, Fracture deals 6 damage, which increases to 12 and 18 the more you revive your characters.
An alternative, less punishing way to revive your characters is to use the Ethereal Power. Doing so not only revives the fallen character to full, but it also heals all your other characters as well. You’ll also get a random Ethereal Power Card (Death, Wheel of Fortune, Judgement, etc.) that you can play right away for unique effects.
You can only use Ethereal Power once per battle. So make sure you use it at the right time to get the most out of it.
Identifying the Important Target
There are a wide variety of enemies you’ll go up against in Shards of Order. When you’re facing a new type of enemy, pay close attention to how they attack. Some enemies apply buffs, some enemies place debuffs, some have multi-attacks, while some deal massive single-target attacks.
Learning what each enemy does is important if you’re trying to avoid using the Ethereal Power too much. Once you identify the attack pattern of each enemy, it becomes easier to figure out which enemies you have to prioritize and how best to deal with them.
Enemies that buff their allies in most cases should be your first target. Typically, these enemies have lower health than the rest, but if left unchecked, can make other monsters a lot more powerful. Ideally, you don’t want to focus on the tank at the start of the battle. Enemies on the backline should be dealt with first.
Equipment Synergy is Important
Over the course of your journey in Shards of Order, you’ll be picking up a bunch of equipment for all your characters. The Weapons and Armor are unique to each character and offer a lot more than just aesthetics. By combining the right Weapon and Armor, you can find synergies that help you find unique setups for your playstyle.
For instance, Thade‘s Crystal Staff Weapon gives you a Boundless Card whenever you redraw that increases his Arcane Bolt‘s damage by consuming Red Mana. The Shifting Fabric Armor, on the other hand, allows you to add up to 8 more Arcane Bolt cards to your deck. By equipping the two items, you’ll be able to significantly buff up your Arcane Bolt and decimate your foes.
Memories, on the other hand, work a bit differently. They are not tied to specific characters, so you can swap them around to fit your build with that specific character. Play around with different Weapon, Armor, and Memories combinations to figure out what works best for each character.
Swapping Your Characters
In Shards of Order, your enemies aren’t targeting a specific character, but rather specific positions. A good strategy to play around this is to periodically swap your characters to tank and spread out the damage. By hovering your cursor over the attack damage of an enemy, you can see which position they are trying to attack.
By moving a character that has Shield or Guard, or just a bit higher HP, to tank the hit, you can protect your other characters. Swapping position costs 1 Time, but if you can apply the Momentum Buff, swapping positions is free.
This concludes our combat guide for Shards of Order. For more interesting articles related to indie games, check out the links below:
- Into Indie Games Homepage
- Lifted Walkthrough Hub
- The Mermaid Mask – Complete Walkthrough Hub
- Dive or Die – Children of Rain: Guides Hub
- Desktop Explorer Walkthrough Hub
Muhit Rahman lives off two things: gaming marathons and endless cups of tea. He writes guides, reviews, and occasionally forgets that real life doesn’t come with checkpoints. His favorite genres are Soulslike and Metroidvania, with Dark Souls III, Hollow Knight, and Dota 2 forever holding top spots on his all-time list.
