Wo Long Fallen Dynasty Spirit Meter, Explained

The Nioh games were Team Ninja's take on FromSoftware's SoulsBorne games. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, on the other hand, is the evolution of the Nioh games, with sprinkles of inspiration from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. 

Like the Nioh games, there's one mechanic in Wo Long around which the entirety of the game's combat revolves. Team Ninja describes this parameter as 'Spirit.' Before you dive into Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, here's everything you should know about the game's Spirit mechanic. 

How does the Spirit Mechanic work in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

The Spirit in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is your's character stamina, which governs your ability to dodge, deflect, perform melee attacks, use Martial Arts abilities, and cast Wizardry Spells. It's like the Ki from the Nioh games. 

You gain Spirit by attacking an enemy or by successfully deflecting their attacks. Spirit attacks, whether through Martial Arts abilities or Wizardry Spells, does more damage than regular attacks and shrink the enemy's positive and negative limits of their Spirit Gauge.

 Your character as well as every enemy in the game, have a Spirit Gauge. Dealing damage will increase the positive limit of your Spirit Gauge. The positive Spirit will be consumed to increase the power of your attacks.

When you take damage, your character's Spirit will venture into the negative limit of the Spirit Gauge. You can't perform Martial Arts abilities or cast Wizardry Spells while your Spirit is negative. In fact, if your character's negative meter gets full, you will become completely defenseless for a few seconds. 

If you don't perform any actions, and your Spirit remains unchanged for a while, it will return back to its default state. In this state, your negative Spirit will increase, and your positive Spirit will decrease.

The enemy's Spirit Gauge works in a similar fashion. When you deal damage to them, their negative limit will start to fill. When the meter is full, you can perform a Fatak Strike to deal massive damage. It's a handy maneuver, especially when fighting bosses.

The easiest way to fill an enemy's negative Spirit Gauge is by deflecting their critical blows. These are dangerous moves that, if not deflected properly, will deal massive damage and reduce your Morale. Every time an enemy gears up to cast a critical blow, you will notice a red symbol on the screen. Deflect these attacks properly, and their negative Spirit Gauge will be full in no time. 

Guarding works differently than deflecting in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. However, much like every action in the game, guarding an enemy's attack costs Spirit. 

And that's pretty much everything you need to know about Spirits in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.