Stamina Management in Arcade Combat

Stamina exists for one reason: to stop attacking from being free. A combat game where you can swing continuously is a game with no rhythm, because there is never a moment where the correct action is to do nothing. The meter creates those moments, and learning to want them is most of the skill.

Four points, and what each move costs

The shared blade carries four points of stamina, regenerating at 1.8 a second after a 0.4-second pause following any spend. From empty, that is about 2.6 seconds back to full.

The moves cost different amounts, and the differences are the whole system. A light swing costs one, so four in a row empty you. A thrust also costs one. A heavy costs two. A spin, which covers the full circle around you, costs three - so a spin and a light swing is your entire budget.

That pricing is doing something specific: it makes the move that solves being surrounded the one you can least afford to use casually. A spin is always available and almost never free.

Swing once and count the refill. That is all the reconnaissance the system needs.

• Light - 1 stamina, 76 reach, 1.5 radian arc, 0.32s total.
• Thrust - 1 stamina, 118 reach, narrow 0.5 radian arc.
• Heavy - 2 stamina, 98 reach, 2.2 radian arc, 3 damage.
• Spin - 3 stamina, 88 reach, the full circle.

The dodge is deliberately not on this meter

This is the design decision worth noticing, because most games in the genre go the other way.

The dodge runs on its own 0.8-second cooldown and costs no stamina at all. So an empty stamina bar takes away your offence and leaves your escape intact - you are disarmed, not trapped.

That keeps the empty state recoverable rather than terminal, and it changes what the meter means. Running dry is not a death sentence; it is a period during which the only thing you can do is move, which is frequently what you should have been doing anyway.

It also means overspending is a much more forgivable error here than in games that pool the two. The punishment for emptying the bar is that you stop scoring, not that you stop surviving.

The two-point rule

Do not start a new attack below two points unless it kills something.

The reasoning is what two points buys: a heavy, or two lights, or the front half of a spin you should not be starting. Below two, your only remaining move is a single light swing, which is 76 pixels of reach against a creature that may have six health.

The specific trap is the golem. Six health means six light swings, which is a full bar plus a refill plus two more seconds - and starting that sequence at two points means standing next to it, unable to attack, for most of the exchange.

Against anything with more than two health, check the bar before you commit rather than during.

Pacing across a wave

A wave is not a uniform demand. It has an opening where enemies are still crossing the floor, a middle where most of the fighting happens, and a tail of whatever is slowest.

Spending stamina during the opening is almost always wrong, because there is nothing in range and the refill you will want is for the middle. Yet it is the most common time to spend it, because the screen looks busy and swinging feels productive.

The middle is where the bar should be doing work. If you arrive at the middle of a wave with a full bar, you have played the opening correctly.

The tail - usually slimes, sometimes a golem - is where you should be refilling in preparation for the next wave rather than chasing the last few kills. A slime that splits is a delay; hurrying it costs more than it pays.

Everything defensive is free

Walking costs nothing. The dodge costs nothing. The guard costs nothing. Not one of the three touches the stamina bar.

So the correct behaviour at low stamina is not to stand still and wait - it is to keep playing, without attacking. Move toward the next arrival, guard the angle it is coming from, dodge when two show up at once. The refill runs the whole time and the position you gain is free.

The 0.4-second delay before regeneration starts is the one detail that rewards restraint here. Spending a single point resets that delay, so a habit of trickling out light swings keeps the bar permanently just below full.

Four swings and a pause refills faster than six swings spread across the same period, which is an unintuitive result and a real one.

Common stamina errors

Listed roughly by how often they cost runs.

• Swinging at nothing during a wave's opening because the screen looks busy.
• Trickling single swings, which resets the 0.4-second regeneration delay over and over.
• Opening on a golem's six health at two points, then standing next to it unable to act.
• Standing still to refill instead of repositioning - the refill happens either way.
• Spending a spin on two creatures when a light swing's 1.5-radian arc would have caught both.

The last one is the most expensive in points. A spin costs three of your four points and reaches 88 pixels; a light costs one and reaches 76 across most of the same front. The spin is for being genuinely encircled, not for being outnumbered.

Why stamina and mana feel different

They are mathematically the same system - a pool, a cost, a refill rate - and they produce very different play, which is worth understanding.

Mana gates a special action. When it is empty you continue to run, jump and dodge as normal; you simply cannot cast. The empty state is a reduction in options.

Stamina gates your offence specifically. When it is empty you cannot damage anything, but you can still move, guard and dodge - so the empty state is being disarmed rather than being trapped.

The design lesson is that a meter's character comes from what it stops rather than from its numbers. If you are judging an unfamiliar meter, do not ask how fast it refills - ask what you cannot do at zero.

Frequently asked questions