I noticed a few people posting threads about spar, and asking for advice for improving their skills in the arena. I may not be regarded as one of those amazing sparrers, but I am sure you'll appreciate what I have to say, and I hope you can take the time to read my guide and hopefully learn something new which in turn will help you get better, or understand a mechanic which could mean you may be able to alter your technique and sharpen your sparring.

If you want to know about anything else, just leave a comment and I am sure I can ask around if I cannot give you a decent enough answer myself, enjoy!

INDEX:

1. Style Technique
2. Predicting Styles (Countering, Counter Attacking, Combos)
3. Mechanics (Blink, Advantages)
4. Swords
5. Spar Etiquette
6. Motivation

Style and Technique

Spoiler

Everyone should have their own unique style; some may be similar, but in reality, everyone spars slightly differently. There are many techniques people use, many are based of shapes to describe the pattern in which a player spars (e.g. O is a circular motion, C is a half circle motion, W is a mechanical C technique and so on). There is also rushing, which involves putting constant pressure on the opponent by chasing and quick sword slashes. This may make for an entertaining spar, yet is incredibly hard to master and can be costly as you are more likely to make mistakes early on.

Develop your style, and work out how you will best use it to your advantage in spar; at what point should you slash, how will you disguise your style so you aren't predictable?

This is a massive one as I always get people saying "I am trying to do _ style yet they always know where I am going to go!" so you need to wiggle, use fakes and dodges to get the most out of your spars and hopefully once you have figured out what style you are most comfortable with, you can start using it on others, and of course every spar will be different, so you will need to learn to counter other peoples techniques. See spoiler below:

Countering and Counter Attacking

Spoiler

So you have a style, yet have you thought that others have their own style too? They want to hit you more than you hit them, obviously. So if they are using an O style, then you may want to try a W-similar style, as it may make it harder for the to circle you as you will dip in and out of their range. You need to quickly work out what they're trying to do, which gets easier with experience, and then you can try to predict what tile they'll be on and in which direction they will be facing, or which way they'll sword. Then you can focus on doing the most damage without putting yourself in danger.

Countering their style means you can counter attack your opponent; if you know that they'll more than likely slash inwards, (still using O style for example) then you can cut round to their side, or more ideally their back, and slash them while the player is exposed as they use their sword. You can then retreat to near a wall, where they cannot complete the full O circle around you, meaning you have stopped their move and you have done damage without receiving any yourself. Do this all in a quick motion means you may do damage consecutively, giving you an instant advantage of at least 1 HP. This can immediately demoralize your opponent and then you can play safe and even trade hits until you get the win.

Mechanics

Spoiler

When you are hit, your player flashes, and you are invulnerable for a few seconds unless you change direction. This is known as blinking. There are two main uses of blink in spar, and this becomes a major factor of high level spar.

• Agressively - You take damage, and while blinking, attempt to run straight at your opponent without changing direction to get a hit on them. This can be risky, as you must be sure your blink will last long enough, and also you must act fast and be sure of where they'll be as you cannot chage direction, otherwise blink autoatically ends.
• Defensively - When hit, you may be at risk of being hit again if your opponent has predicted you well. So to avoid this, do not change direction and run run to the opposite side of the spar. This can stop your opponent getting a massive advantage over you if you instead panic and lose your blink.

The only other mechanic I can mention myself is thanks to Thallen.
Your sword has a longer tile reach when slashing downwards, and to the right. This means if you are winning in a streak room, or joined first, you straight away have a slight advantage.

If you aren't doing any of the above, consider these points when trading hits, because when timed well you can appear to trade yet only damaging your opponent and not yourself.

Swords

Spoiler

According to the game, all swords have exactly the same speed, reach and effect. Yet there are three main categories of swords which can define your style, and may help depending on your internet connection because some are harder to load on a slow ping.

• Stab - These only have 4 frames, so are quicker to load, and seem to have a quicker response. Such as droid-slxstabsword1.png.
• Small Swords - Again, these seem to have a quicker reaction times, as they have very basic GFX level. Swords like sword1, sword2 and sword3.png
• Longer Swords -This doesn't affect your reach in a spar. They just make it easier to distinguish how far you reach is, and does not extend it in any way at all. These can be a tad slower, as there is more of a sword to load, but can make it easier for you to see how close you need to be to your opponent. Try: droid-sabersword1.png .

Or you can use any other sword available, and there are some swords which don't really fit into any of the above or cross between more than one, such as nosword.png, but that isn't really a sword, is it?

Spar Etiquette

Spoiler

Basically, I always want to encourage a positive community. Cheap shots are always part of spar, yet you join to spar, not to AFK or talk, if something happens and you have to AFK, it is your own carelessness rather than the other player being unsporting.

GL and GGs are always nice to see.

Laggers and Delayers can be super annoying, especially if they knock you off a streak. Yet you must remember that Graal also has a young player base also, and we have players from the all over the globe. Many people have o control over their latency/ping/delay. Just learn to counter them as mentioned previously. Unless you are 100% sure that is deliberate, report it as soon as possible as those are the people that deliberately cheat for an unfair advantage.

Never send angry PMs or offensive messages, because this makes you look extremely childish, its just a game; get over it, have fun and enjoy the ride. If you get angry often, sparring is not for you.

Motivation

Spoiler

Sparring with friends is really good fun, means you can have a laugh and not be too serious about it. Set yourselves goals e.g "Racing to X000 wins". This means you have a low key target to aim for while being sociable.

Music is also a good thing for sparring alone; certain genres I wouldn't recommend personally, like fast rap. Personally, this causing me to rush, just like any thing that has a really really fast tempo/beat.

I can recommend Three Days Grace album Human as this is the one I currently use as it is soft rock, house music is also quite good as long instrumentals allow you to get into your zone, such as Avicii and Rudimental. But whatever music you like, try it.

I hope you found what you were looking for, and I hope this will positively influence more sparrers to come join the amazing spar community on Classic. Thanks you taking the time to read some, if not all my guide, and a +rep would be amazing! Have a great day.  

some stuff I already knew but I like the spar etiquette part gj  

kewl

how do u make a card?  

+rep
a very helpful and orangized guide for newbies. I like the disguise your style to make it not predictable part especially. It is one of the most important thing IMO.  

Posted by Chun

+rep
a very helpful and orangized guide for newbies. I like the disguise your style to make it not predictable part especially. It is one of the most important thing IMO.

Tyvm.
Anything else you feel you think deserves a place on this guide?  

wow Droid dood and i thought yo were a noob because you always wore Dem's stripping dress...but i was wrong... +rep  

This is extraordinary, I love this, I knew alot about spar but this makes me think of simpler. Shoutout to Thallen for the last tip aswell. +Rep for both.  

Good Job!
+rep  

good guide  

+Rep Very organized and helpful!  

This a great guide.
I actually learnt a lot, thanks.  

nice post

the one thing holding me back from expanding or continuing on with my spar guide is that I am not good at all with video editing, and videos are basically essential to explaining some of the more advanced mechanics  

Posted by Thallen

nice post

the one thing holding me back from expanding or continuing on with my spar guide is that I am not good at all with video editing, and videos are basically essential to explaining some of the more advanced mechanics

I can help you out a lot there, I can record and manipulate the footage for you, if that's what you require?  

Would you guys think a Graal channel with regular sparring videos explain key concepts would be helpful?  

Posted by Droid

Would you guys think a Graal channel with regular sparring videos explain key concepts would be helpful?

Very :o