Astrae Oratio Combat System Guide

Astrae Oratio uses 3D turn-based combat with real-time reactions. You plan each turn around a pool of action points, try to crack enemy Break gauges, and react to big enemy attacks with a timed parry. Director Lim Jong-gyu summed up the goal at Tokyo Game Show 2026: the fun should come from predicting and planning, not from fast reflexes.

Quick summary

• Turn-based, but enemy attacks can be parried with precise timing.
• Actions cost AP, so you can chain several actions in a single turn.
• Each character has basic attacks, combat skills (with cooldowns) and an ultimate (needs a full gauge).
• Hitting elemental weaknesses drains an enemy’s Break gauge fast.
• Only one character fights on the field at a time; you tag teammates in and out.
• A Dominion Skill fires once its conditions are met, resetting the caster’s cooldowns and adding buffs.
• Every CBT character had one of six roles: Attacker, Breaker, Sweeper, Defender, Supporter or Anchor.

Turns and real-time reactions

Battles are fought in turns, but the game layers real-time elements on top. While the enemy acts, you can watch its animation and respond — most notably with a parry. Tokyo Game Show coverage describes the result as a turn-based RPG with real-time response elements rather than an action game.

AP: chaining actions

The battle screen shows AP (action points) at the bottom. Every action you take spends AP, which lets you string several actions together in one turn instead of being limited to one move per character. Managing that pool — when to spend it, and what to spend it on — is the core of each turn.

Basic attacks, skills and ultimates

Characters have three kinds of actions:

Break

Enemies have a Break gauge. Attacks that target an enemy’s elemental weakness deplete it quickly, and some attacks are designed specifically to cut large chunks off it. Once an enemy is broken, you get a window to deal heavy damage.

The practical takeaway from early footage: time your Breaks so they land just before the turns of characters who can exploit the enemy’s weakness.

Parry

Powerful incoming attacks can be parried by pressing a button with precise timing. There is no timing bar to help you — you read the enemy’s animation cues and react, which is why the developers stress observation over reflexes.

Tag and party

Only one character is active on the field at any time; the rest wait on standby. Swapping who is in front is called tagging, and depending on the character or their role, a swap can trigger tag effects. Standby characters are not completely safe: certain area-of-effect attacks hit them too.

Tokyo Game Show coverage described three-character tag teams. The CBT battle UI showed four portraits at the bottom of the screen, so treat the exact party size as unconfirmed until launch.

Dominion Skill (Declaration of Dominion)

The official CBT guidebook explains the Dominion Skill (領地宣言, “Declaration of Dominion”):

1. Each character has activation conditions. Once they’re met during battle, the Dominion Skill becomes available.
2. Tapping it fires the skill immediately.
3. On use, all of the caster’s cooldowns are reset and additional buffs are applied.

Tokyo Game Show coverage adds that a Dominion Skill also recovers AP, which makes it a natural turning point in a fight. The name comes from the lore: magicians draw power from their dominion.

Artifact Liberation

In a TGS 2026 interview, the developers named Artifact Liberation as another way to turn a battle around, alongside the Dominion Skill. No further details have been published. In the lore, Artifacts are the weapons that give form to a magician’s will.

Roles

In the CBT build, every playable character carried one of six role labels. NC has not published official definitions yet, so the right-hand column is our reading of the label, not official text.

Roles matter beyond flavor: TGS coverage says tag effects can depend on a character’s role class.

Combat content and difficulty

The CBT offered battle quests in Minato and Shinjuku at four difficulty levels — Normal, Hard, Very Hard and Challenge — plus:

• Score Trial — boss fights under varying conditions.
• Simulation Room — a dungeon for growth materials.
• A raid mode that was newly revealed for the test.

Practical tips from the CBT era

These are general pointers based on how the systems are described, not a meta analysis:

• Do the Training mode. Basic Training covers the fundamentals and Advanced Training walks through specific characters — the fastest way to learn each kit. See Training.
• Plan around Break windows. Line up your Breakers first, then swap in the characters who hit the enemy’s weakness hardest.
• Spend basic attacks deliberately. They shorten skill cooldowns, so they are not wasted turns.
• Hold your Dominion Skill for a moment that matters. A full cooldown reset is worth the most right after you’ve used your best skills.
• Watch, then parry. There is no timing bar, so learn each boss’s tells.

What we don’t know yet

• Final party size and how many characters can be on standby.
• The full element list and how weaknesses are shown.
• What the Anchor role does, and official definitions for all six roles.
• How Artifact Liberation works.

We will update this page as official information or launch-build testing fills these gaps. Meanwhile, the glossary collects every system term in one place.