Combat Mechanism

Introduction

This page will provide information on topics relating to the mechanics of Tainted Book Delves. The first section explains the different states a writer may enter when corroded (damaged, or in other words "tainted") in battle, and the second explains the elements, the meaning of the four weapon classes in the game, along with their pros and cons. The final section explains the statistics writers have, their significance to battle, and ways to increase them.

Tainted Book Delves

To view a general guide on navigating Tainted Books, please see Tainted Book Delve section in Book Delve page.

This section will deal with topics that are important to understand when a player sends a party into a tainted book delve, such as writer "HP", the elements, the different states a writer may enter and how they affect his performance in battle, among other things.

Corrosion Value

All writers have a corrosion tolerance value (侵蝕) of 100. In most games, this is called "HP" or "health."

This value is fixed and does not change for any reason, even should the writer level up. However, blossoming nodes on a writer's Writer's Road which affect defense and evasion helps writers to maintain a high corrosion value.

A writer's corrosion value decreases whenever he takes attacks in battle. When it reaches a certain threshold, he may enter a weakened or breakdown state. The corrosion value (or "HP") is automatically reset after each delve.

The corrosion level at which a writer will have a breakdown depends on his state of mind statistic. The more unstable his state of mind is, the more quickly the writer will have a breakdown. View and contribute to the data on the maximum HP writers enter weakened and breakdown stats here.

Weakened State

In battle, if a writer's corrosion value falls to a certain point (around 10/100 corrosion value), he will go into a "weakened" (耗弱, koujaku) state, indicated by a blue symbol with the accompanying letters (耗弱) above the corrosion value.

Tokuda Shuusei using a Desperation Attack (筆殺奥義).

In this state, your writer can't attack normally for the rest of the delve.

However, exclusive to this state, he may execute randomly a Desperation Attack (筆殺奥義, hissatsu ougi), which deals regular damage to the enemy Taints.

Breakdown State

Subsequently, the writer may enter "breakdown" (喪失, soushitsu) state, indicated by a purple symbol, if he continues to incur more corrosion during the battle.

The writer will be unable to attack at all for the rest of the delve, unless if he manages to fill his Epiphany Gauge and trigger Dual Attack.

Please do note that if a party has all writers in breakdown state, your delve might fail, as all Taints are required to be defeated for a successful delve.

Kikuchi Kan's Final Words scene before 2021 July

Before July 28, 2021 big game update, players could lose their writers permanently if they advanced in delves when their writers were in Breakdown state. This was called Final Words (絶筆, zeppitsu). Now writers can't die gameplay-wise (but lore-wise they are still implied to be able "to die").

Epiphany and Dual Attack

Kunikida Doppo's epiphany (降臨) gauge at maximum.

Epiphanies (降臨, kourin) between writers will occur when both of their Epiphany Gauges (green bar located below their corrosion value) fill all the way up. When it is full, it will turn a bright orange color and begin to pulse.

Every hit a writer suffers will fill the epiphany gauge, but writers with a more unstable state of mind statistic will fill their epiphany gauge faster. Certain Memoria Cards can also be equipped to your team to help fill the gauge faster.

Shimazaki Touson & Ozaki Kouyou's Dual Attack (双筆神髄).

When two writers' gauges are filled to a maximum, they will execute a Dual Attack (双筆神髄, souhitsu shinzui).

The dual attack will launch a consecutive string of up to 3 hits culminating in high damage being dealt on all enemies present. After the dual attack is completed, both writers' epiphany gauges will be completely emptied.

Elements

The Four Elements

Tainted Books screen

There are four elements in the game, which were implemented with the July 28, 2021, big game update. Most of the Taints in the game have elements, so bring a right element party of writers to a delve to easily defeat the enemies. Tainted Books display small elemental icon on right top corner of the book's back to tell the player what element is strong against the Taints lurking in the book.

Events also tend to give points bonus for the featured element, so it is warmly recommended to use the target element.

Sealed Books in the Sealed Library are element neutral, so any element teams are fine.

• Earth (土) = Strong against Water, weak to Air.
• Fire (火) = Strong against Air, weak to Water.
• Water (水) = Strong against Fire, weak to Earth.
• Air (風) = Strong against Earth, weak to Fire. Also known as "Wind" element.

Weapon Classes

All writers, and even enemy Taints are divided into four classes of weapon users – blade, bow, gun and whip. Writers' weapon classes are denoted by one of these four icons:

• Blade
• Bow
• Gun
• Whip

Each class has their own strengths and weaknesses, but the blade weapon type is considered the strongest and most recommended class as of the 2021 July update. Blades overall deal good damage and can tank hits from enemies to the extent that others weapon classes can't. See below further details of the differences:

Class Type	Significance	Performance in Battle
Blade	Indicates writers who mainly wrote "Pure Literature."	The majority of writers in the game are blade-users. Have low evasion but high defense - therefore can "tank" hits from enemy Taints. They take a lot of damage. Reliable hitters, but crit less often than guns or bows. Generally attack the Taint with the lowest corrosion value. Considered the strongest weapon class as of the July 28, 2021, big game update.
Bow	Indicates writers of the "Naturalist" genre of literature. Nagai Kafuu is somewhat of an anomaly for various reasons.	Have high evasion which allows them to dodge most attacks, but when hit, take a lot of damage. Attack the most often out of all the classes during a battle, and rarely miss. Often take MVP for Tainted Book delves due to the previously stated reason, and so level up more quickly than other classes.
Gun	Indicates writers who mainly wrote poetry, fairy-tales, and songs.	Very high attack and crit rate. Only attacks once at the beginning, and once at the end of a battle. It is devastating to the player when they miss, which is often, but devastating to the enemy when they hit because they usually deal the finishing blow at the end of a battle.
Whip	Indicates writers who wrote "Popular fiction", targeted towards the masses.	AoE attacker (hits all the enemy Taints at once), albeit they do less damage. Rarely crit, and actually miss often. Useful for early tainted books where most nodes contain multiple enemies, but are not the best at battles against only one enemy (especially boss battles).

View Tainted Books for information of each regular tainted book.

To learn more about Taints, view Taint Types page.

Writer Statistics

A writer's stats are also some sort of indicator of how he will perform in battle, beside the available Outfits (and the outfits' rarity + level). Note that writers with the lowest stats can still beat the hardest levels in the game as long as they have high rarity outfits, so the player is encouraged to train their favorite writers without worry.

For those who would like to compare the stats of the writers in each class, see Statistics page.

The statistics Attack (攻撃), Defense (防御), and Evasion (回避) in Bungo to Alchemist are derived from the secondary statistics Technique (技術), Talent (天才), Aesthetics (美), Theme (主題), and Realism (真実). The primary statistics affected by upgrading each secondary statistic for each class are listed on the Blossoming page.

To view the writers' base and max secondary statistics, please refer to their profile page (list of all writers).

To view the writers' stat gains when blossoming their Writer's Road nodes, please refer to their individual Blossoming page, which may be accessed directly from their profile page.