As you will see, surviving in Kingdoms Rise is mainly based on parry, rotation and movement.

To parry in Kingdoms Rise, right click and move your mouse into a direction. You will parry any attack coming from that direction, until your right click button is released or until the parry max time is reached.



The parry in Kingdoms Rise may be seen as quiet simple, actually it's really complicated and it's the key to success or fall against anyone.

First of all, when you parry with your right click and chose a direction, you will see an arrow moving, showing you the direction of your effective block.

After installing the game (or a new early patch), always check if that arrow is not moving like madness when you do a directionnal block. Why? Because if so, it means your block won't be solid. Sometimes , it will work fine, other times, you took the good direction but it will still fail. What you have to do if so is simply decrease the mouse sensitivity and test again.

You will sometimes see enemies with an insane mouse sensitivity. They usually do that to turn their character so fast while attacking that you will not even see at all the direction of a hit. You don't have to care about what is good or evil, glitching or not, but care about being good at melee : never rely on a glitch that could be fixed later, so don't try to copy them, you would waste your time learning a pre nerfed glitch instead of having a solid parry.

So, now that you can rely on a solid effective parry in the game, you have to rely on yourself as well. Always put at the same exact position for every game session your mouse on your desk, your body on your chair, your arm and your hand. And don't be sitten as you were tired from life.



If you don't do so, you may have problems to be efficient at parry, even after hundreds of hours.

But.. why? Because you have to be very accurate and fast when doing a parry. So you need your mouse movements to be easilly repeated without having to adapt to a new body/arm/mouse position every day. That is why a pianist will always sit exactly the same when playing, or a smith will always repeat the same exact movements when forging.

Your guard is something you can now rely on. When your opponent does a combo, you always parry in the opposite direction to block the second hit. You have no problems chosing the right direction and it works fine each time. Good.

Knowing when to block is very important too.



First method :
right after you finished an attack, decide to defend. After doing a parry you will have the speed advantage and your opponent don't have other choices than defending for the next m.seconds.
So, basically, you do an attack, then you wait until you parry one, then you do another attack, then you parry again, et cetera.

Second method :
as soon as you see your opponent launching an attack, you have to ask yourself if you have an attack launched already or not. If so, you don't have to parry, because your attack will hit him first and his attack will be interrupted.
If not, you have to parry.

Yes it's as simple as that. But until you are used to the game animations, only use the first method because it's safer.

At a better level, your opponents will try to find weaknesses in your defense. You have to know the global solution, and know all the weaknesses.



Knowing the solution will not let you doing it perfectly. You will probably have to train a bit about it because these are not natural things if you haven't played games like Mount & Blade, Chivalry:medieval warfare, War or the Roses or so.

Global solution to cover your weaknesses :


Turn the camera : you have to keep your opponent right in front of your character to be sure your parry will work. To do that just turn the mouse normally. If you are doing a parry, you can't turn the camera in the same time. So you have to stop parrying, turn fastly the camera where you want, and parry again.

Keep always the same distance with your enemy : if your opponent is stepping at you, you have to step back. If he is stepping back, you have to step forward. So he always stays at your range, and it's easier for you to turn the camera in every circumstances.

Refresh your guard : Always stop pushing your right click after an attack. If the opponent does a feint and a new attack, you stop your parry and you begin a new one in the new direction. Why? Because a parry will stop automatically after a given amount of time.

So now that you know the global solution to follow, here is the list of things the enemy will do and why you have to follow the 3 golden rules you just read :

1) Feinting :
Your opponent will cancel his attack then do another, different or not.

2) False attack :
Your enemy will volontary miss you with an attack, inviting you to respond his miss by attacking. But actually your opponent will continue with a combo, so you will take a hit before you can touch him with your attack.

3) Timing attack :
Your opponent will do long charged attacks until your parry is out of time. After some time, you don't parry any more, the parry is canceled automatically.

4) Hugging :
Your guard is working only if your character is turned/rotated in front of the opponent. So, enemies will try to stick to your character and hit you from your sides or from your back because they moved behind you. That is why it is called hugging. So the parry you will do will not work at all, since your opponent is not right in front of you.

5) Jumping :
By jumping, the opponent may go out of your camera, so you don't see the direction of the attack.
He may do a perfect instant hugging with it , because of the movement speed witch is really increased while doing a jump.

6) Spinning :
Spinning means making a turn with the character to confuse the defender.

a) Your enemy will use a very high game mouse sensitivity + high mouse dpi to abuse the fact that there is no rotation limitation atm in KR early. You will hardly (or not at all, in the beginning) see the direction or the attack or even the attack if your opponent is moving really fast.

b) Your opponent will turn his character and will try to trick your perception with non logical moves/combos and optical illusions

7) Spell casting :

At the moment, hopefully, only the curse area spell has no counter.

Since there is a really big amount of spells, just ask a vet what is the best defense against each spell annoying you . Spells require some skill and training, so knowing the best defense against a spell doesn't mean you will get rid of it definitely.

Even experienced players can be annoyed by spells, since they rely mainly on their sword training.

Refreshing spells, including them into your fighting style, taking the good choices, are all things taking time, don't think it's just pushing a button. Some good melee fighters are weak with spells. Some weak melee fighters are good with spells. Some are good with both.

Keep in mind that magic is important and can complete or negate totally your chances to win a fight.

I will probably make a full guide about magic surviving later.

8) Disarm
When you are disarmed, run and jump away or use a spell to purge yourself/leave fast. You will hear a particular sound and see a red aura when your opponent will perform a disarm.

If a player tries repeteatly to disarm you, just do attacks in the same time..

Sometimes the 3 golden defense rules you previously saw are not working, because your opponent will perform the technique so well you will have to find another solution. If you already masterised the hard level, you should be able to find your solutions. But it's always helpful to know some shared already found solutions.



The 180° parry :

If your know you will not have the time to adjust the camera and your steps to parry someone (for example, he is already at your side, with an attack he is about to release) :
Don't take the time to chose a parry direction then turn your char in front of the ennemy.

Look at his attack, chose the good direction to parry and turn your char in the same direction (so you only have to do 1 move with your mouse instead of 2, that's faster) until your character is in front of the enemy. The block will work, you just canceled a hugging attempt instantly without moving, just rotating.

The last stand :

You know your parry is about to finish, because you let it pushed really too long. The problem is your enemy has a max charged attack incoming right in your face, it was his purpose to make a timing so your guard will end when his attack will release.

Just lock his attack and force it to go by pressing left click while parrying, in the very last second.

Time punisher :

When your opponent just parried an attack, he knows you are waiting for his attack now.
Sometimes he will try to take a lot of time to prepare gorgeous spins or hugs. Surprise him. Attack when you are supposed to defend, to punish him not following solid combat rules. Since he was preparing spins/hugs and didn't thought you would attack twice in a row, he will very probably receive a full hit.
Don't forget to make an overhead, so he will really take max damages by taking your time punisher attack in the head.

Latency punisher :

Some players have very low latency (10 to 20ms) and they will abuse it. For example, they will not respect at all the priorities made by the parry/attack mechanics from the game, and will try to attack several times in a row, during your combo, or even right after being hit. Yes, they will hit you, it will work.

Just break that method. Do only parries for several seconds. Then sometimes do a little attack for no reason, randomly. Then begin a new cycle of only parries.

Obi-Wan's Anakin cutter :

If your opponent constantly jumps or double jumps with mobility sword, or constantly teleports, just wait for him and charge a diagonal overhead right before he jumps/teleports on you and aim at him + release the charged hit when he is jumping/teleporting. Requires a perfect timing and self control.

Now that you are a surviving master, being able to adapt to almost any fight, you wonder what stuff to take.

As you already figured, it's okay to play with any stuff except the training sword, since you will not be dangerous at all with it.

Never forget the stuff you take will determine how you play and who you are, in the end. You could decide to have the best in all stuff, or the best defensive one, or the worst one, for example.




strong damages and even one shot with a fast hit
Firesword, Duel sword, Lifesteal sword

very hard to see the animations, specially when spinning
Firesword, Duel sword, hammer, bow sword

increase defense
tank sword, shield and sword, lifesteal sword

weak damages
Training sword, bow sword, katana, shield and sword

So for example using a lifesteal sword will give you strong damages (even one shot with a fast hit) while increasing your survivability.


strong defense:
healing trinket

strong damages :
knifes, axe

not really dangerous :
trap, mine, freeze trinket, bow


Best overall ratio : lifesteal sword + healing trinket
Best attack ratio : firesword + knifes
Best defense ratio : tank sword + healing trinket

Thanks for reading.