Combat Tips and Tricks

Control Resonant ditches the guns and (most of) the telekinetic rock-throwing of its predecessor in favor of a melee combat system. However, studio Remedy Entertainment didn't create your typical action game: it's a brawler with a unique flow and flexible combo system. That's why you'll need some sweet combat tips and tricks to get the best out of it.

For players looking to get a better understanding and appreciation of Control Resonant’s combat, here’s a quick guide breaking down everything you need to know about your weapons (Aberrant Forms), special abilities (Combat Abilities), and more.

• All About Aberrant
• Finding Your Synergy
• Enemy Weaknesses
• Dodge Offsetting
• Animation Cancelling
• Your Combat Abilities

All About Aberrant

First, let’s cover the basics. Control Resonant’s combat system is unique in that your light attacks, heavy attacks, and the last few hits of your light attack combo all utilize different weapons. We already have this article (Which Starting Weapon Should You Choose?) going over each type of weapon in-depth, but below we will leave you a quick summary.

Primary Weapons

Strike does fast, weak attacks that don’t build a ton of Falter (stun damage), but make up for it with additional critical hit damage; Glaive focuses on AOE damage with large sweeping attacks; and Cleave strikes a balance between the two in terms of speed, but deals additional damage when attacking from behind.

Secondary Weapons

Crush is a giant hammer that excels at inflicting Falter, but is very slow; Extend is a long-range attack that can be charged and released with precise timing for extra damage; and Drill can be held to inflict some extra damage over time.

Combo Finishers

Concussive Beatdown focuses on inflicting falter; Uppercut Surge also does solid Falter damage, but is more focused on knocking the opponent into the with the Lifted status effect, which restores Power (the resource used for combat abilities) whenever they’re hit while they’re still affected by the status; Wide Edge focuses on raw damage and AOE; Spin Edge does the same but uses multiple spins instead of just a big one; Split Pivot does good single target damage and has a very strong upgrade that inflicts the Burning status ailment; and Split Orbit sends rings around Dylan to do AOE damage around him.

Finding Your Synergy

The most important thing to know about Control Resonant’s combat is that regular attacks don't deal much damage by themselves, pretty much regardless of what weapon you’re wielding. The thing is, you need to focus on increasing your default damage, critical hit chance, and Falter damage, and also inflict status ailments as much as possible.

You wanna make sure that your build synergizes together. The first step is to go down the skill tree of each weapon. For example, if your primary weapon is Cleave, you’ll see that your first upgrade enables you to easily inflict the Lifted status effect, while the next one underneath grants a bonus of more damage and Falter to Lifted enemies.

To follow that line, you can pair those Cleave upgrades with the Concussive Beatdown Combo Finisher, which deals large amounts of Falter right from the get-go.

With the recent patch that reduces enemy health, that’s really all you need for most enemies, but for the really tanky unique creatures, or if you wandered into an area with a higher level than you, you can pair it with the Drill as your Secondary From, which inflicts Weaken, a status ailment that causes enemies to take more damage and falter buildup from your combat abilities.

If you choose Strike as your primary weapon, Falter is going to be a little tougher to build up with regular attacks, but you’ll quickly get a skill that lets you build up Power for your Combat Abilities much faster than the other weapons. So with Strike, you’ll want to adopt a playstyle that’s a bit more hit-and-run, using your main weapon almost like a battery to power your combat skills, which themselves can focus on inflicting Falter or Burn.

The Glaive is best suited for fights against a lot of enemies, but one crucial skill you can unlock for it increases Combo Finisher Damage against enemies that are afflicted by Burn, Poison, or Astral, which would encourage you to pair it with combat skills that apply and spread those ailments.

So make sure to read each skill carefully and don’t be afraid to spend a Reset Item to respec your skills to better suit your preferred playstyle, or to better target the weaknesses of enemies in the upcoming area.

Enemy Weaknesses

Speaking of enemy weaknesses, the game doesn’t make this super clear, but each weapon has a damage type which determines how effective it is against certain types of enemies.

• Raw Damage is neutral, and it's what all of the Primary Form types deal.

• Blunt Damage is very effective against armor, but not effective against Mold enemies.

• Sharp Damage is effective at breaking Hiss shields.

• Fire Damage is exceptionally strong against Mold enemies.

So if enemies feel like they’re taking an incredibly long time to bring down, check your damage types, and again, consider using a Reset Point to respec yourself into a build that’s better suited to taking down the specific enemies you’re facing.

Dodge Offsetting

Much like Bayonetta and other action games that include progressively stronger attacks the further you get into a combo chain, Control Resonant allows you to dodge mid-combo and pick it back up right where it left off. This lets you still focus on defense without requiring you to start the combo string all over again.

Why is this important? Combo Finisher attacks are so much stronger than those from your primary weapon, so make sure that you’re always ready to dodge out of the way, but don’t let up your aggression once you're out of danger.

One quick caveat regarding this system: Every primary weapon has an upgrade that lets you perform a dodge attack by pressing the attack button while you’re still in the dodge animation. If you’re too quick to attack after a dodge, you’ll do a dodge attack instead, which will reset your combo.

If you want to avoid this, you need to make sure you slightly delay your attack out of the dodge to make sure that you continue the combo instead of cutting it short by inputting a dash attack instead by mistake.

Animation Cancelling

Another important technique, especially if you’re using something like Crush as your secondary weapon, is cancelling the recovery animation of an attack. To illustrate why this is useful, think of the standard three-hit combo you can do with Crush. It's usually pretty slow, but if you perform a charged attack, jump right when the attack hits, immediately go for another charged attack, and repeat until the enemy is Faltered, you'll notice that this is much faster.

While this is most useful with Crush, it can be applied to anything that has a lengthy recovery; just dodge, jump, or use a Combat Ability as soon as the attack lands, and you’ll be able to do another attack right after, which is much faster than just mashing the attack button. Pretty much the only thing that you can’t cancel the recovery animation with is another attack.

Your Combat Abilities

The final piece of the combat pie in Control Resonant is your Combat Abilities. You can equip up to three at a time, but only one from each grouping of Powers. You can have a second set of three that you can swap between with a press of right on the D-Pad.

Once again, pick powers that synergize with your current build and how you want to play the game. Each of the CA within a grouping kind of do the same thing, but in different ways.

For instance, the first group of Combat Abilities focuses on dealing Falter damage. Barrage can attack enemies from very far away, but doesn’t inflict all that much Falter per hit and requires you to charge it up to inflict any sort of respectable damage. Shield, on the other hand, does a lot of Falter Damage, but is a bit of a resource hog and requires a lot of power to both raise the shield and dash through enemies. Volatile Anomaly requires a bit of finesse in keeping an eye on its health so that you can get the maximum amount of damage when you throw it and detonate it.

Both Push and Ground Slam are all about area-of-effect damage, so it's really just a matter of whether you want your AOE to target enemies in a cone in front of you, or in a circle around you.

Those are just a few examples of Dylan’s powers and how they can be used to bolster your preferred style of combat. Every time you defeat a new Resonant, take some time familiarizing yourself with what each power does and test out some combos in the practice arena to pick the one that works best for you.