Skills, techniques & Glyph Powers

Two kinds of growth

Combat skills improve through use. Successful melee hits train Attack and Strength; arrows train Ranged; damaging spells train Magic. Accepted incoming damage and successful physical parries train Defense. Misses and rejected contacts do not train an attack skill.

Character experience is a separate track, awarded for enemy defeats, rewarded quests, and first-time codex discoveries. Character levels grant technique points. They do not automatically raise combat skills or your health and Breath caps. There is no stamina resource.

Attack supports melee accuracy, Strength supports melee damage, Defense opposes accuracy and supports health, Ranged supports bows, and Magic supports spells and Breath capacity.

Read the Skills views

Open Skills and press H or controller Y, or click the view control, to cycle Stats, Techniques, and Glyph Powers. Stats shows individual skill progress. Techniques lists character-level and prerequisite requirements. Confirm learns an eligible technique or selects an already learned one for its weapon family.

Points are shared across families; changing weapons does not erase unlocks. Basic attacks, eligible heavy attacks, quick and charged bow shots, dodge, and known spells remain available without buying a technique. K or controller RB resets technique points outside combat once the current action has recovered.

Current techniques

Later techniques can require an earlier technique in the same family; use the Skills details to check the prerequisite.

Bind and empower Glyph Powers

The Glyph Powers view shows acquisition reasons, source, Breath or health offerings, cooldown, and oath state. Discover a power before binding it. X cycles the destination slot; confirm binds the chosen power to one of four slots, or unbinds it if already in that slot. Default keyboard activation uses Z, V, B, and N for slots one through four. Follow controller prompts for power chords.

O or controller LB toggles compatible powers between standalone activation and empowering the next compatible action. Glyph Anchor, Shell Ward, Feather Breath, and Sun-Glass Edge support augmentation. Priming is free; the compatible committed action pays once and consumes the prime, even if the attack later misses or is interrupted. Hurt and blocked input clear a prime.

Animal Echoes keep their hunt requirements. Story powers use their own quest, item, glyph, trial, or boss conditions. Offerings and oaths matter: a shrine contribution can settle debts and mutations, while power history and spent shards remain. Check the selected power's details rather than treating every power as an ordinary spell.