Wiki / Skills
Skill families and Arts
The planned full picture: 20 families. An Art family has five pieces (ultimate, attack, defence, self-support, passive) and two second forms per skill; Fighting is whole.
Status: Planned (Fighting is built whole; ten first-form skills exist in all) · Last checked: 14 Nov 2026
A family is a group of skills that belong together, like Fighting or Ember. This page describes the plan. Ten skills exist in the game today: Fire bolt, Hush, Mend and the seven newer Arts. One family, Fighting, is built whole. Names of things not built yet are working names from the design and may change.
How families will work
- Three kinds of family: Weapons, Armour and Arts.
- A hero fills each of the three skill slots from any family it is allowed to use.
- A weapon family's skills need that weapon in hand. An armour family's skills need that armour worn. Arts are free for everyone.
- An Art family has five pieces: an ultimate, an attack, a defence, a self-support skill and a passive. Each skill and the ultimate has a first form and two second forms, A and B: trades, not upgrades.
- The aura: a family's aura shows when the hero carries at least two of its pieces (and the family is mastered and its passive is built). The passive's small bonus follows the same rule and works in single player only.
- An Art ultimate may be carried in the place of the weapon's own ultimate. The weapon's own stays the free default.
- Everything is available from the start for now. A levelling system that unlocks families comes later.
- Different, not stronger: every skill is built from the same budget.
The six Art families
The families' names are our own: Fighting, Ember, Sunlight, Stone, Dusk, Shadow.
| Family | Attack | Defence | Self-support | Ultimate | Passive | Built today |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fighting | War leap | Shove | War cry | Warpath | Drilled | All five, and every second form |
| Ember | Fire bolt | Heat wave | Overcharge | Wildfire | Kindled | Fire bolt, Overcharge |
| Sunlight | Sunburst | Sanctuary | Mend | Golden hour | Sun-warmed | Sunburst, Mend |
| Stone | Stone fist | Root | Light step | Rockrise | Grounded | Root |
| Dusk | Shiver | Hush | Calm | Nightfall | Quiet | Hush, Calm |
| Shadow | Backstab | Trade places | Mark | Long shadow | Low sun | Nothing yet |
In the character sheet a piece the fight does not have yet is greyed and says "Not built yet".
Control effects
A control effect limits what the enemy can do. They live in the defensive slot. There is no true stun in the game. Every control effect can be avoided, and they cannot be chained: after one ends, the fighter is protected for a moment.
| Effect | What it does | Built? |
|---|---|---|
| Silence | No skills and no ultimate; weapon and guard still work | Yes (Hush) |
| Root | The enemy cannot walk or jump; can still attack and guard | Yes (Root, on the seven newer Arts) |
| Slow | The enemy moves slower | Planned |
| Pull | Drags the enemy toward you | Planned |
| Poise break | A short stagger that interrupts | Staggers exist on some weapon moves; no skill yet |
Nerd section: the exact numbers
Where the shape lives
src/sim/families.ts lists all six Art families with their five pieces by name. A piece the fight does not have yet is marked as not built. Each skill in the fight's list says its family and kind: "Art".
The exact aura rule: a family's aura shows when the family is mastered, its passive is built and the fighter carries at least two of its pieces. This replaces the earlier idea "two skills of the same family give a passive and an aura". After a control effect ends, the fighter is protected for 3 seconds.
Names
On 14 Nov 2026 five of the six Art families were given our own names (Ember, Sunlight, Stone, Dusk, Shadow; Fighting stayed). The words are "family" and "second form". The earlier working names are kept only in the change log (docs/tracking/game-changes.md), not here.
The design's wider list (working names, planned)
These tables come from the design (docs/design/, src/herolab/data.ts). They are older than the six families above and do not agree with them everywhere (for example the Ember, Stone, Dusk and Shadow rows): where they differ, the table above is what the game's data says. The difference is listed in To check.
Weapon families
| Family | Special attack | Defensive | Self-supporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hand and shield | Shield charge | Rampart | Steady breath |
| Dual wield | Flurry | Hamstring | Blood rush |
| Two hands | Earthsplitter | Tremor | Momentum |
| Bow | Power shot | Pinning shot | Hunter's focus |
| Staff | Bolt | Pulse | Channel |
| Punches | Rising uppercut | Catch | Second wind |
Armour families
| Family | Special attack | Defensive | Self-supporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robes | Mana burst | Blink | Meditation |
| Normal | Flying kick | Tumble | Fleet foot |
| Heavy | Shoulder ram | Bulwark | Iron will |
Arts
| Art | Special attack | Defensive | Self-supporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fighting | War leap | Shove | War cry |
| Assassination | Backstab | Trade places | Mark |
| Ember | Fire bolt (built) | Frost wall | Overcharge |
| Sunlight | Sunburst | Sanctuary | Mend (built) |
| Stone | Stone fist | Root | Featherfall |
| Shadow | Spirit wolf | Spirit chain | Bound blade |
| Dusk | Fear | Hush (built) | Calm |
| The Voice | Force shout | Ghost form | Battle shout |
| Beast blood | Rend | Thick hide | Howl |
| Blood magic | Drain | Leech guard | Blood price |
| Alchemy | Fire flask | Oil slick | Draught |
This older table marks only the first three skills as built; War leap, Shove, War cry, Sunburst, Root, Overcharge and Calm are built too (see the table of the six families).
First families to build, as decided: Hand and shield, Staff, Heavy, Robes, Fighting, Ember, Sunlight.