Character Skill Guide

Character Skills are integral to a combat system. Sometimes, a character’s skill set can even determine how effective they’ll be in combat or their ranking in the tier list. The same can be said to the overall synergy of a party; for example, skills that offer party-wide buffs or deal multi-target damage can easily sway victory to your side. In our Character Skill Guide, we will briefly discuss the game’s skill system and how you can efficiently manage your characters’ individual skills.

The Eminence in Shadow is the mobile game adaptation of a popular isekai light novel where players take the reins of Cid, a modern-day teenager who gets transported to a dark fantasy world after death. Players have to collect various iterations and rarities of the established heroines in the game to form their ideal combat parties and proceed through the story.

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Each character has a different set of skills that they can use in battle. Initially, they’ll only have access to their Hidden Technique (special attack) and Strike Combo skills.

Unlocking New Skills

Additional skills can be unlocked by increasing the character’s rank. Your character can rank up once all equipment slots are filled. Since various equipment pieces have level requirements, your character will only be able to equip valid pieces suitable for her level. That said, once all six gears are equipped to the character, you can use the “Increase Rank” button to consume all six gears and permanently raise the character’s rank. This will provide much needed stat boosts as well as unlocking new skills for the character.

Awakened Skills

Once a character is Awakened, all of his/her skills (except Strike Combo) will get significantly boosted. Awakening is a process involving using character-specific (and version-specific) Magic Cores to provide permanent stat boosts. Each character can have up to 5 Awakening levels; as you increase the awakening level, each skill will get significant boosts in their values. At max Awakening level, a character will be able to equip a second Magic Gear.

Hidden Technique

A Hidden Technique is a character’s special skill that they’ll be able to use once the SP gauge is filled up completely. These are usually flashy, animated sequences that deal significant damage to enemies, apply party-wide damage reduction, or party-wide healing. Hidden Techniques will vary, including the various versions of the character. For example, Perform Wisdom: Epsilon (Attacker) and Elegance Now: Epsilon (Healer) will obviously have different hidden techniques even if they have the same character models. Each character only has one Hidden Technique.

Skills 1 and 2

These are the skills that a character will use actively in combat. Since the game doesn’t have an MP or mana gauge, it’s up to the character’s discretion to use it. If you’re using Auto-battle frequently with x2 speed, you might not even notice when a character uses these skills. You can unlock these skills when a character reaches Rank 3 and Rank 4 respectively.

Special Ability

This is considered a passive skill that will activate once certain conditions are met. These conditions can be mundane or complicated. For example, some special abilities get activated as simple as starting a wave or when an ally gets knocked out. Other special abilities are activated by default but will be deactivated if the activation condition is broken (for example, once the character’s HP falls below a certain amount). You can unlock this skill when a character reaches Rank 5.

Strike Combos

This skill is triggered when the character participates in a Strike Combo attack where three or more characters participate in a joint attack once their combo gauge in the lower-left corner is filled. Initially, you can trigger a Strike Combo at LV3 but as you make progress in the main story, you’ll be able to get the ability to launch a Strike Combo at LV5, which will result in higher multipliers and more powerful chains.

The order you select your characters will affect the amount of damage or healing each character can deal, with the last character’s skill getting the highest multiplier. Here are examples of how orders can affect the final multiplier:

The character’s role or class will determine what their Strike Combo skill can do:

This is why if you check the description of the Strike Combo icons in each character, there’s a value range. Remember to select the ideal combo order to maximize the effects of the skill multipliers and turn the tide of battle to your favor.

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That concludes our Skill Guide in The Eminence in Shadow. Please check out our online guide for the game and other articles for more The Eminence in Shadow content!