Which weapon works with your style or art

Breathing: hold a katana

Learn Wind while holding the Cutlass from Zuko and the key row shows only the Cutlass’s own skills, with no Wind bar. Swap to the plain Regular Katana from the shop and the Wind keys and a Wind Mastery bar appear. If your breathing moves will not work, use a katana, not the Cutlass.

Bare hands, the Spear, the Tanto, the Gauntlet and the Shotgun are untested with breathing styles, so stick to a katana. The style list is on the breathing styles page.

Blood Demon Arts and their weapons

A demon’s art attaches itself to a weapon that carries it. Unlock Blood Manipulation while holding War Fans and you get no art bar and no moves; pick up Sickles and the moves and a Blood Manipulation bar come straight up.

Blood Manipulation is the one art that needs Sickles. Plain Sickles from Hoyuzo work as well as Gyutai’s Blood Sickles, and the Damascus pair reportedly works too. Every other art reportedly takes Claws or the Gauntlet instead.

Shockwave is not an item in your bag: it goes on your bare hands, so use your fists. Some Shockwave and Reaper players carry Sickles as a second weapon, for the Sickles’ own skills.

Bare fists carry the rest too: Dream, Obi, Arrow, Tamari and Pyrokenesis have all been cast with the fist slot selected, and the Combat card says most demons cast their Blood Art through bare fists when no weapon is drawn. Tamari has also been seen on Claws.

The Gauntlet is sold by the Black Marketer, and demons reportedly can use it. Every weapon source is on the weapons page, and every art on the Blood Demon Arts page.

At launch, arts reportedly could not be used with weapons yet. That has since changed, so an answer saying fists only is out of date.

Weapon skills live in the same tree

Most weapons you own add their own branch to your skill tree; the tab lists them, for example Flame, Spear and Cutlass together. With a demon weapon and an art, the key row runs to eight: the art on Z to B and, it appears, the weapon’s own two skills on N and K.

Some weapon skills are a boss drop you then buy in the tree. The Cutlass’s second skill, Quick Draw, is a 25% line on Zuko’s bar, and you must still unlock it in the tree after it drops. Hoyuzo’s Sickles skill is struck through with Missing Sickles until you own Sickles.

Why the last move will not drop

A style’s fifth move needs three things: mastery 53 on that style, the move’s scroll from its Hashira, and the skill points. The scroll only drops for a player who qualifies, and the line under the boss’s bar tells you which part you are missing:

• Must be Slayer

  You are a demon, or have no breathing yet. (Demon arts print Must be Demon.)

• Missing Stone

  You have not learned the style or art this scroll belongs to. The same shape names a weapon: Missing Sickles.

• Unlock Previous

  You know the style but have not bought the moves before this one in the skill tree.

• Already Have

  You own the move already.

Unlock Previous is the trap: farm while it shows and you can spend hours on a Hashira for a scroll that probably cannot drop. Buy moves one to four first, then farm. Even the first move is not free: after training it costs 3 skill points in the tree. How much mastery each move takes is on the mastery page, and which Hashira drops which scroll is on the bosses page.

The scroll rate itself went up. Seven of the eight Hashira scroll lines went from 5% at launch to 10% after the v.09 patch, while the katana and uniform lines on the same bars did not move.

The 35-kill pity

Yes, for skill scrolls. The V0.135 change-log reads Added pity to skills unlock (35 kills). Kill the same Hashira 35 times and the scroll is guaranteed; Thunder and Insect last moves and Illusory Light have all been reported to land at 35.

No bar shows the counter, and it may not carry over between servers. The pity covers skills only, not katanas or outfits. Some scrolls have taken 50 or even 100 kills, one of them before the pity existed. Kills made while the line reads Unlock Previous probably cannot drop the scroll and may not count towards the pity, so buy the earlier moves first.