Martial Arts

Martial Arts are arts available to every character in the game without needing to equip weapons to use them. Early in the game, Martial Arts can be vital to survival since weapon durability is a bigger issue before gaining access to repair options and a bigger inventory of weapons to equip. Throw Arts continue to be useful throughout the game for their Stun abilities, and Sinker is the most accessible Strength Down art in the game. Light Martial Arts can be quite powerful and can be used when you don't want to spend weapon durability or if you don't have Weapon Arts Skill Panels on your character. Heavy Martial Arts are unique in that they require the character not to have a related Skill Panel, so while they may be difficult to hit on the reel, they can work well into combos for characters who are heavy and focus their Growth Panel on things other than combat skills.

Each of the three Martial Arts types are divided into three different classes: Normal, Light, and Heavy, though Throw Arts do not have a Heavy set, making for eight different sets of Martial Arts total. Characters will access each line depending on whether or not they meet the requirements described in the next section.

Determining Martial Arts Class

Martial Arts Class uses a special weight ranking that is only used to determine Martial Arts class. If a character is below the weight limit of 15 and has a Skill Panel for a Martial Arts type, that character will have access to the Light version of that particular line. If a character does not have a Skill Panel for a Martial Arts type and is above or at the weight limit of 15, that character will have access to the Heavy version of that particular line. If neither of these conditions are met, the character will have access to the Normal version of that particular line. The class of each of the three Martial Arts types (Punch, Kick, and Throw) are determined separately, so it is possible to have some Normal and some Light or Heavy lines at the same time, such as having Normal Punch with Light Kick and Light Throw, or having Heavy Kick but Normal Punch. Because a character cannot be above the Heavy weight limit and below the Light weight limit simultaneously, it is impossible to have both Heavy and Light Arts on one character at the same time.

Note that the Master Fighter Skill Panel counts toward the requirement, so you can use Light Arts of any Martial Arts Type by having the Master Fighter Skill Panel and meeting the weight requirement. This also means that you cannot use any Heavy Arts while you have the Master Fighter Skill Panel.

The weight ranking to determine Martial Arts class uses the following formula:

[(BaseWeight / 4) + (EquipmentWeight / 8) + PanelBonus]

Equipment Type	Weight Multiplier
Body Armor	8
Axe Bow Gun Shield Leg Armor	5
Sword Spear Head Armor	4
Staff	3
Dagger	2
Accessory Raw Material	1

Base Weight refers to the base weight of the character.

Equipment Weight refers to the total weight of all of the characters' equipment.

Base Weight is innate to each character and cannot be changed or modified. While all characters are capable of using Heavy Arts, only some characters are capable of using Light Arts, as their Base Weight alone is too high. On the Player Characters page, any character with a weight listed with green background is capable of using Light Martial Arts. Anyone without the green background is incapable. Be aware, though, that while some characters may be technically capable, they will have to have little to no equipment in order to meet the weight class requirement.

Equipment Weight is calculated based on both the type of equipment and the material it is made out of, per item. The base weight of the material is multiplied by a different factor depending on the type of equipment. The multiplier used for each type of item is displayed in the table to the right.

The weight of each material can be found on the Materials Page. While Angelite, Demonite, and Feather have a weight of 0, when determining equipment weight, they act as if they have a weight of 1, so the weight of equipment made with those materials will be the same as the multiplier rather than 0.

As an example, Head Armor has a multiplier of 4 and Fur has a weight of 3. So a Fur Hood would have a total item weight of 12. Add the item weight of all equipped items together and divide by 8 to determine the total equipment weight.

It is very important to note that the weight of items crafted by the player are ignored in the calculation. If you have crafted a Lead Axe at the Blacksmith, it will count as a total of 0 toward your calculation, rather than 40. Since the game does not show which items are crafted and which are bought or found, it is important to know the difference between crafting and repairing items. If you have an item that you'd like to equip that wasn't crafted, you can "change" it to a crafted item by using it as the base ingredient for a different type of item, then making the original type of item again. Note that you can lose or change Abilities by doing this, though, so be careful to the secondary materials used if you're wanting to maintain a certain Ability set. You can see more information about this on the Blacksmithing Page.

Panel Bonus is a modifier to weight that awards the character for having multiple types of Martial Arts Skill Panels. For each Martial Arts Type's calculation, you can get a bonus for having Skill Panels of the other two Martial Arts panel. The bonus is -1 for each of the other panels owned. Note, again, that Master Fighter counts as having all three Skill Panels, so you will get a -2 bonus to each calculation when it is equipped. These bonuses do not stack if you have multiples of the same panel, so having three Punch panels will not give you -3 to your Kick or Throw calculation, and having Master Fighter plus other panels will not give you any bonus beyond -2.

Arts List