This style is described as: "The Kahlt Method emerged in the barren mountains of the Tear after the Downfall. Improves mainly Strength and Vitality." with a whopping difficult rating of 1. Now let me describe it to you as you have probably heard or read about: "The worst class in the game."

This my friends is wrong. The Kahlt Method is a great style and is my favorite way to play. I have won far more than I have lost using this style and its do to a lot of learning, understanding, and playing to its strengths.

This style is badass. You are going to be the heaviest hitter, the most aggressive "in your face" fighter, and have seriously badass animations of cracking your knuckles before you beat down your enemy. If you want to pick up this style because it speaks to you, or you are looking to pick it up but are afraid of the bad press...read on and learn my students.

Absorption is the Kahlt ability and is the topic of heavy debate. A lot of people will argue that its useless or pales in comparison to the other style's abilities. They are not wrong, it could definitely use some love, but it is an awesome ability if used correctly. Problem is, there is not much of a tutorial on it and a lot of what you learn from it, in my case, was from trial and error. So first I will describe how to properly use absorption and then I will list out a series of interesting facts you may or may not know about it.

Absorb is used at the flick of the Right joystick (sorry I dont know the keybindings) and thats all it takes. You do not need to consider direction, only timing. Absorb needs to be used *slightly* before the attack makes contact. The move has a startup animation, its quick, but you can be struck *before* the absorption activates which is a bad time. When you use the ability you take "damage" that doesn't count against you until an enemy hits you again. During this time you can earn the HP back by landing a hit of your own. The real bread and butter of this ability is the fact you can use it to regain a lot of stamina and, if you are quick enough, attack the enemy while they are recovering from their own attack.

Be warned. Opponents that attack fast or gold-string their combinations are the bane of the absorption ability and will shut it down. Unless you have your own fast strikes, simply absorb an attack for stamina to keep your guard up until the enemy runs out of stamina.

**UPDATE**: Sloclap released a statement regarding patch update 1.06 and had some aaaawwweeeesome news in regards to absorb.

"Absorb successful

· add +20 protection during 5s (can be stacked)
· increase ghost damage refill speed (x2)
· decrease stamina bonus (50 -> 20)

> Absorb was not so easy to use and required to have very fast attacks to regain quickly the damage taken. With the increase of ghost damage refill speed and the protection bonus we think that this style will be easier to use without fast attacks and corresponds more to the original fantasy of the style. Also it'll be less frustrating when you get hit after several successfull absorbs. Because of these buffs we had to lower its stamina bonus."

This is awesome. So while we lose out on the crazy amount of stamina we where being returned we just got some awesome buffs. The +20 protection that CAN BE STACKED?! I'm so hype about that. This gives both Blitzer's and Bruisers great tanking advantages and allow them to trade blows even better. The ghost damage refill is the natural regen that your health does after absorption. It currently is at a crawl making it almost pointless so I will love seeing how much of a difference that speed will make. This is great news for Kahlt!

Onto the cool facts I will continually update.

1. The absorption damage you recieve is not fatal. Meaning you can absorb a hit that would've killed you otherwise and keep on fighting. You can keep doing this indefinitely as long as they dont land a hit that you didnt absorb or you didnt manage to get a hit off to get that lost hp back.

2. You get bonkers stamina back from using absorb. Keep swinging until your stamina is dangerously low and when your enemy attacks to take advantage, absorb away to keep pressing the assault.

3. You can absorb multiple hits. The 'damage' still stacks and you are going to need to hit the guy to get the hp back but you can absorb multiple times in a row.

4. Your HP regens from the absorb. You get the HP back instantly by landing a few hits but if thats not the case and you are hiding behind a guard your HP will slowly tick back. Its not fast by any means but it does regen.

5. Stagger style ruins absorption. Any attack that attacks twice will give you a bad time, but their breakdance kick and the spinning fist one will totally negate your absorption unless you time it perfectly to last the full duration of the move. I recommend blocking over committing to absorbing the attack.

6. Guardbreaks will smash your absorption. Don't try it against these. On the other hand it works against charge breakers.

7. Gravity. Oh god gravity. This ability is a real mother-f'er. So previously I said you could use absorption multiple times in a row, the damage still stacked, but it allowed you to hit with a combo to get that HP back. Well bad news fellas, if they smack you with gravity it counts as a hit and you lose ALL that HP. Just a heads up.

8. Absorption can absorb shockwave (im assuming earthquake and gravity as well). So you need super human reflexes to do this, mine happened by pure luck, but by activating absorption you will absorb the spell. In the case of shockwave, you will not be pushed at all.

9. Absorption + Hyperarmor = Love. So absorption allows you to tank a hit but you have to be able to dish just as much damage to get your health back. A jab will not net you back the damage of a haymaker. This combo is brutal for comebacks. Following up an absorption with hyperarmor attack such as haymaker will almost 100% seal the deal that you will get your HP back. For whatever reason, if the opponent hits your hyperarmor you still take damage BUT it doesnt remove the HP you will earn back from absorption. Imagine it like 2 steps forward 1 steps back. This allows you to face tank with the best.

10. Exhaust power is your new best friend. Assuming you are not the healing yourself type in the middle of a duel, or whipping out a weapon, this shard spell is a fantastic option. It syncronizes well with the absorption ability. Takes practically zero cast time, this makes every hit the enemy throws take far more stamina and any hit they block almost feel like a guardbraker. This has shut down spammers for me like nobodies business because it forces them to manage their stamina for once in their life. Between your blocks use absorption on the easily telegraphed moves and continue to block until their stamina wains. Then lay down the smackdown. Smash their guard if they block and laugh as they try to dodge with no stamina.

Let's talk stats. Now a lot of you may be sweating this section, either nervous that the points you have already put in were wasted or that the best places to put your stats in goes against your style of play. Well I have good news.

Honestly the stats allocation is pretty pointless. The only real wrong thing you could do here is dump every single point into one stat and then everything else in will...and even then you wouldnt be that worse off. But hey, you are here for some details.

HEALTH: 1054 [Soft Cap = 1252] [Hard Cap = 1265] [Max = 1289]
STAMINA: 203 [Soft Cap = 241] [Hard Cap = 254] [Max = 258]
STR: 6
WILL: 2 [Soft Cap = 22] [Hard Cap = 26] [Max = 35]
DEX: 3
VIT: 7 [Soft Cap = 16] [Hard Cap = 18] [Max = 39]
END: 6 [Soft Cap = 16] [Hard Cap = 21] [Max = 39]
DAMAGE: 76.8
SHARDS REFILL: X1.06 [Soft Cap = 1.84] [Hard Cap = 1.91] [Max = 2.0]

First up what are soft caps and hard caps? Soft caps are the point when you begin to get diminishing returns on the stat investment. A hard cap is when progress halts to almost a stop. For example, endurance after the hard cap of 21 requires 4 freaking points just to bump the stat up one point. Ouch.

So what do you notice? Well that the soft cap is pretty much the same around 16-20. The ideal way to lay down the stats, since you only have 60 to spend, is to be well rounded making every stat around 18. I imagine this is what most people will do so do not worry too much if you are weaker in one area but stronger in another. The gains are really not that big of a deal.

How to play your Kahlt? Well it depends on what interests you. From my opinion there are really only 2 viable styles of Kahlt, the Blitzer and the Bruiser.

Blitzer
This style caters to quick strikes and utilizing a lot of mobility. You will have to dip waaaay outside of the Khalt moveset for this to be effective. The idea behind this style is you lay down a gold-stringing storm onto your enemy. When the opponent sees that you are out of stamina, the moment he attacks you to take advantage, absorb for stamina, punish, and continue your assault. Rinse and repeat. This can make it seem like you have an endless pool of stamina and will frustrate your enemies to no end. Be mindful of successful dodges and parrys. Learning how to feint and absorb will make you unpredictable and you should always be in your opponents face.


Bruiser
This style caters to defensive tactics and hyperarmor attacks. This is the style of play I personally use. You can almost stay exclusively in the Khalt pool of moves, some Forsaken as well for those heavy hitters, that will allow you maximum damage when you do throw a punch. Lay on the armor, get that blunt defense real high, and prepare to punish mistakes. Use your guard frequently and absorb heavily telegraphed moves to keep the stamina up on your block. Whenever you see the opponent feverishly attacking or gold-stringing a combo, pop a hyperarmor attack like charging haymaker and knock them back. Close the distance and do it again. This sounds almost too easy to be true but honestly, a staggering amount of opponents simply mash the attack button hoping their gold-stringing combo will get them through the fight. Trade hit after hit and you will come out on top.

Lets talk shards. I call them spells because they are basically the equivalent of magic in this game. Let me say this, USE THESE, I don't care what "honor code" you think you are abiding by but use these spells. If you don't, I guarantee you 100% of the time your enemy will use them the moment things stop going there way, so go ahead and use them. The reason why I advocate for the use of shards so heavily is that because of absorption you will almost always have a spell ready or a weapon handy. If you are absorbing correctly, you will have 5 shards easily before the 2nd minute of the fight.

So which ones synchornize best with the Khalt playstyle? Mighty fine question. Let's answer that.


Heal: "Allowing users to heal themselves. Dealing damage accelerates the heal. Heal is interrupted when hit."

Sync Score: 10/10

Oh boy here we go. Half of the class will swear off using this and the other half will swear by it. If you don't want to use it DURING a duel that is your choice. Here is for those who decide to. Heal will give you a smidge of HP and then passively heal you for the duration. By itself its really nothing game changing, but where it absolutely destroys when paired with Kahlt is in absorption and hyperarmor attacks. Absorption will allow you to take a hit without losing the effect of heal, if you have a quick counter combination ready you can land your combos to get almost all your HP. Hyperarmor attacks will also allow you to take a hit without losing the effect of heal, but land you massive HP back should you land a hit. Plays well both offensively and defensively. Remember, it is a gamble to use, and shockwave, earthquake, and gravity will knock away its effects.

Exhaust: "Enemies consume more stamina for their actions during 15s. Affect nearby enemies.."

Sync Score: 10/10 (two 10/10's in a row? Pffft is this guy IGN?)

This ability is awesomesauce for Khalt. It gets almost no play time and I think thats because the other styles don't need it and Kahlt don't know about it. This thing flips the table on your opponent. As a Khalt fighter you have access to stamina whenever you want as long as the enemy takes a swing. This ability makes your opponent have to monitor their stamina for once which will throw many enemies under the bus. Also every single one of your attacks will hit their guard like a mack truck. The opponent will be jealous of your sweet, sweet, stamina pool as they can no longer dodge, string attacks, or block like they once depended on.

Shockwave: "Tension accumulated in the shard is suddenly released, pushing back all enemies around the user."

Sync Score: 5/10

You will see practically 90% of the playerbase with this move, its a classic. For Kahlt however it is not a helpful spell. You do NOT want to distance yourself from your enemy, you want them close to you, a distant enemy is one that will heal or get his stamina back. You also do not want to interrupt their combo because if you absorb correctly you should either be able to land a hit, via jab or hyperarmor attack, or wait them out. This move DOES have a lot of utility to it which makes it a standalone great spell. It can knock people off ledges, interrupt combos, shatter hyperarmor attacks, and cancel out the healing spell. A safe choice, but there is always something better.

Earthquake: "Channeling the Tension within the shard, this power creates a powerful tremor shaking the ground, stunninng nearby enemies."

Sync Score: 7/10
Shockwave with a stun. This is a bit more useful as it can open up your enemy for an attack without pushing them away from you. Also has the utility of canceling healing. Nothing game changing, but for only 2 shards you could find yourself using this one A LOT in a fight.

Shield: "Increase protection and reduce knockback during 20s."

Sync Score: 2/10

Hahahahahahahaha. Honestly this spell is laughable. It sounds like the perfect Kahlt ability right? You are not wrong, thats why it gets at least a 2, but let me tell you why this spell is worthless. You are going to finally earn the shards necessary to cast it (3 I believe), cast it, and watch as your opponent disengages and runs around the arena until the effect runs out. It only lasts 20 seconds and it is rendered useless that easily. Your opponent isnt stupid, they are not going to fight you while you have this buff active. Great way to flush shards.

Gravity: "Stun your target and increase its weight during a short time."

Sync Score: 7/10

Pretty much exactly like Earthquake but with the advantage of insane range. If your enemy runs to practically the other side of the arena to heal, just slap them with this to undo it. Obviously can be used as an opener. Caution about this move is that it can be blocked. The "increase weight" has never, ever, made a difference in my opinion.

Silence: "Freeze the shards of your target"

Sync Score: 2/10

The reason why this one scores so badly is because it doesn't REMOVE your enemies shards. You basically throw away yours so they cannot use theirs for a time. It can be useful if you are nearing the final hits of the fight and you know a shockwave/heal is in the future. Situational and any of the abilities above, besides shield, would be more helpful in that situation.

Onto the strategy my students! What to do, how to play, game theory, all of it right here. Now I will try my best not to double-tap anything I have mentioned previously.

First decide your playstyle, will you be a Blitzer or a Bruiser? If you have your own style in mind give it a shot and let me know how it went.

Secondly decide your gear, mobility for the fast striking builds and armor for the tankier ones. Blunt is the armor type that will protect you from punches and kicks which are about 90% of what you will be dealing with. Cut does have its uses however. It reduces the amount of damage the weapons will deal to you. This is useful because sometimes, as a Bruiser myself, people will whip out a sword because of my excessive guarding. Joke is on them because I have massive cut defense. Not only will they do less damage, but odds are they are less skilled with their weapon than with their combat deck. Often after knocking the weapon out of their hand I will let them pick it back up to continue the punishment.

Thirdly pick your shards. Decide what abilities best sync with you. I personally go with Heal and Exhaust. I use heal between rounds or whenever I see my enemy use it mid-round. Exhaust opens multiple opportunities, in my opinion, rather than earthquake or gravity that only opens up one per cast. If you absorb well you can usually net 2 exhausts per round.

Fourthly pick your moveset. If you are going to be a fast build mix a series of quick punches followed by sweeping kicks. The reaction your opponent will have to a gold stringing combo is to try and get out of the way, the sweeping kicks will keep them in your path and continue raining down blows. For both Blitzer and Bruiser I recommend having hyperarmor attacks as your "alternate" move so you have it ready at the push of a button to shut down fast strikes. *A note about hyperarmor attacks, if you see someone using one, pause a second before using yours, by using yours after them you will both deal damage but they will be the one staggered*

Fithly? Prepare mentally for the current combat trends. The odds are staggeringly high that you will be facing a fast build. It is currently the best style of fighting due to its high damage, low stamina management, and the fact it almost completely shuts down absorption. Keep low sweeping attacks in mind, any attack that avoids vertical attacks, and hyperarmor moves to interrupt the assault. Also, prepare to be parried, a lot. You will need to learn how to feint effectively to defeat skilled Forsaken players. My personal tip? Do not alway gold-string your moves, sometimes mess up intentionally to throw off the timing, especially if they have blocked a series of attacks in a row.

As a final word (I will continue to update this guide) your strategy should be based around taking full advantage of absorption. If you find yourself not using it in a fight you are gimping yourself heavily. Kahlt style moves are great damage dealers but typically terrible openers. If you must open with Kahlt because you are a mo'f'ckin purist like me, I recommend the body blow move or the sweeping kick to dodge the typical jab enemies will throw.

Thats it for now, drop by once a week to look for changes, I look forward to your comments and your successes. If you have success stories please leave them for me to read. Good luck students!

So how do I play Kahlt? I use a Bruiser style combat that is defensive, slow but hard hitting, that I use openings in my enemies combos to attack. Here is the deck so far, this is very subject to change.


First thing you might notice is that the deck is absent of guard breakers. This is because most of the time the enemy will be on the offensive and rarely will I be the one bashing against my enemies guard. If I am, most of my skills are hard hitting alone to break it. I as well use exhaust to make up the difference.

The first row of my deck is my basic combo. A ducking body shot that allows me to dodge quick jabs or any other high attack my opponent might use. This carries into the rest of the combination that can be looped. The sweeping kick at the end is to keep my opponent from sidestepping away from me. The alternate attack is the charging haymaker that brings me from FR to FL.

The second row of my deck has a rolling uppercut followed by a charge breaker. (I initially did not have this but added it thanks to the advice of SaltyDwarf, thanks!) The charge breaker is useful for when your opponent attempts to use a charging attack in the middle of the combo. Finally it is topped off with a high kick for loads of damage. This combo can also be looped. The alternate attack is the charging uppercut that brings me from FL to BR.

The third row of my deck is my quick attack when I need it. Sometimes the enemy will attack too fast to get the body shots in so this way I can start off with a fast low kick followed with a quick knee and quick elbow. The alternate attack is an even faster elbow that brings me from BL to BR. This row is arguably the weakest part of my deck and I will be looking to revamp it. Elbows in my PvP experience have been hardly reliable.

The fourth row of my deck is my ranged attack. The double fist attack travels a very large distance and is a great opener since most opponents will underestimate its range. Also very good at chasing someone down who is backing up to heal. The final attacks in the combo are a quick elbow and a strong punch that loops the combo. The alternate attack is the slow swinging fist that brings you from BR to FR. This attack I have a love hate relationship with. It lands about 20% of the time but when it does it hurts, players do seem to struggle on the timing for parrying it and judging the distance for a successful dodge. The real bread and butter of this row is to attack with the double fist and immediately press the alternate attack button which will use the FR charging haymaker instead, bringing you back to the front where you want to be.

This is a very front heavy deck and you will want to stay in that position. The rear two rows should function more like a utility, using them where they are needed in a fight.

So first and foremost let me say that this is not the most optimized or "the best" deck that will net you wins simply using it. This deck works the best for me and my fighting style. I recommend if you are trying a bruiser build or a heavy hitter style to use this as sort of a foundation and then make it your own from there.

This is all for now, I'll try to add gifs, videos, or whatever else to make this section more informative. Thanks for reading and thank you guys for your comments!

Here is a couple lil gifs of it in action.
https://gfycat.com/UnsightlyUglyGermanshepherd