Combat Guide: Energy, Weather & Star Magic

Roco Kingdom's combat is a budget puzzle in a turn-based coat. You get a fixed Energy allowance each turn, one action per Jini, and a speed order that decides who resolves first; most losses come from spending that allowance badly, not from a missing Jini. This guide covers what the CN build demonstrates, flags the one system we cannot source, and ends with a boss-attempt checklist.

Turn order and the 10-Energy budget

Speed decides the default order

Within a turn, the faster Jini moves first. Speed is a real stat, not a tiebreaker: the S1 Speed Wolf shell only works with a +Speed nature or IV on its carry, and Fire's 130 Speed at final evolution is explicitly called out as the reason it holds up in PvP (CN build, Season 3). Priority moves override that order. The CN posts describe a "first strike" skill on an Iron Beast that kills a slower attacker before it acts, and warn that firing a slow skill into it is fatal. Against a priority threat, switch or use your own priority.

Ten points, spent before you commit

Each Jini gets 10 Energy per turn (CN build, Season 3). Every skill has a cost, and that cost is the real constraint. Hidden Clause costs 8, most of a turn; Water Bubble Shield costs nothing, which is why the guides call it premium on a Water tank. A Jini that runs dry cannot act, so the turn after a big skill is usually a Charge turn or an Energy Flask turn.

Energy recovery is where traits matter. A Leader-form Qili Hua refunds 7 Energy per turn, Dimo refunds while attacking, Vargyr's lifesteal keeps it topped up, and a sacrificed Kaka Bug does not tax the next Jini. Those refunds are why the CN PvE carries are the ones with built-in recovery.

Price the whole turn before you lock it. If your plan costs more than 10, you are charging, not attacking.

Morale: the bar we cannot source

Morale appears in this page's title and in our glossary, and it is marked as a working translation for a reason. None of the 54 CN sources we indexed explains how Morale is gained, spent or capped. There is no documented comeback mechanic and no UI screenshot. We are not going to invent one.

Treat Morale as a bar to watch in the CBT, not a resource to plan around. If a fight seems to hand you a free swing after a knockout, test that hypothesis. Any guide quoting exact Morale numbers today is guessing.

Weather and field effects

Rain is a real build-around. One of the three S1 PvP shells that reached the top is a rain team for a special-attack Wing King, and the CN write-up treats rain as the condition that makes it work. Weather also has world effects, such as an Electric Giraffe shocking itself, confirming it is a field state, not a damage modifier.

What is missing is the multiplier. No CN post gives a percentage, or says whether weather changes accuracy, Energy costs or damage. Measure it in the global client.

Switching: the turn most players waste

A switch consumes the active Jini's action. That sounds expensive until you compare it with the alternative: a knockout. A planned switch avoids the hit, resets a bad type matchup and can pass a buff. Crested Lady is the clearest example; her trait hands her accumulated buffs to the next Jini, which is why CN PvE teams open with her and then bring in Dimo. A knockout, by contrast, costs you the Jini and usually taxes the replacement's Energy. The Kaka Bug sacrifice line exists specifically because its death does not.

Switching is also a boss mechanic. The Duckiji Leader Trial script uses one Leader Unicorn plus five blank Lats, switching a Lat every single turn so the Unicorn never takes a bad hit. That is not a gimmick; it is the fight teaching you that a switch can be a defensive move with a body attached. The boss guide walks through that script turn by turn.

Three rules of thumb: switch before the hit, not after; switch to pass a buff, not only to escape; and never switch blindly into an unscouted priority move.

Defence skills: the cooldown is longer than the icon says

The defensive skill shows one turn of lock after use, but the underlying cooldown is two turns (CN build, Season 3; single community source, not stated in official text). The difference decides whether you can hold a turn or not.

A turn resolves in three stages: both sides choose, skills resolve in speed order with priority modifiers applied, then end-of-turn effects fire. The defence cooldown drops by one only at that third stage, and only if the user is still alive and standing on the field. If the defensive Jini left the field, the reduction lands on whoever replaced it, which does nothing for the skill you actually want back.

Three families behave differently:

Plain defence. Successful or not, the cooldown still ticks at end of turn as long as the user survives and stays in. Switching the user out forfeits that tick.
Escape defence. Some skills leave the field on success, one always leaves, and the emergency cover swaps the user out immediately. In all three cases the user is absent at end of turn, so the cooldown does not tick on it.
Priority defence. A wind-wall style skill auto-casts when you manually switch, even off a failed read. It is the strongest pivot tool in the game, but only while it is off cooldown. A pivot that re-enters with the wall still locked is just a free hit.

The rule to remember: manual switches resolve before skill actions, and a turn where both sides switch is decided by speed. If you want a defensive loop, keep the user on the field at end of turn. If you want a pivot, check the wall icon first.

Status effects that decide fights

The corpus documents a handful cleanly, and the rest you should verify in the client.

Burn stacks, ticks percentage HP, and is the core of the Emberkind Bug line. Its trait converts Burn decay into growth, so long fights get better rather than worse. Fire-types are immune, which is why Burn cheese fails into a Fire boss.
Poison is the anti-buff status. Dudu Pot's signature move converts an enemy's buff stacks into poison, which turns a boss's setup turn into your win condition instead of a race.
Freeze is a tempo lock. Snowshade Frostling applies Freeze on entry and makes frozen targets pay more Energy for their skills, so it attacks the same budget this whole page is about.
Stun comes from Star Magic and matters most in capture, where it is a large catch-rate multiplier rather than a damage tool.
Sleep and Parasite are flagged as boss-capture tools in one route guide; the corpus does not give durations or success rates.

Boss-specific twist: negative statuses on a boss refresh every 4 turns (CN build, Season 3). Reapply on a schedule. A Burn you landed on turn 1 is gone by turn 5, and a lot of failed boss runs are just a player assuming their damage-over-time is still running.

Star Magic: use it before the fight, not during it

Star Magic is the one system that spans exploration and combat. The confirmed use is the capture loop: charge Star Magic, stun the target, walk behind it, start the fight, and throw a ball while the target is stunned and back-struck. The catch-rate bonus is described as large, and it is the standard route for high-level or already-evolved targets.

In combat, the sources only demonstrate the stun side; they do not give a damage-spell rotation. That matters for timing. A charge turn is a turn you did not attack, and against a boss with a telegraphed hit, that is often the turn you lose. Use Star Magic when the fight is already decided and you want the capture, or as setup before the first hit, not as a mid-boss flex. If a global-build skill description shows a combat effect, test it; until then, budget it as a capture tool.

How boss fights differ

Bosses are not just HP sponges. The CN build changes four things.

Tiers: Destined Flower Seed elites, Leader Trial Alphas, Territory Trial scored fights and legendary encounters. Each has a different failure condition. The Territory Trial scores Recognition, so speed and clean turns matter as much as survival.
Telegraphed skills: the boss's next move is readable under its HP bar. A status move into Wish Strike is an instant kill, so the correct play is to skip the buff that turn.
Co-op aggro: in multiplayer, one player can send a defensive Jini to eat Wish Strike while the carry sets up. Solo, you wait for the NPC ally to eat it, then act.
Consumables: Energy Flasks are allowed in boss fights, which is why the trial scripts can run 7 to 11 turns on a fixed budget.

The full fight scripts live on the bosses page. The point here is that boss combat rewards information and turn pricing more than raw level.

The turn checklist

Who moves first, and does either side have priority?
What does the turn cost in Energy, and can I afford a defensive skill as well?
Is a switch better than a hit, for type, for a buff pass, or to dodge a telegraph?
Is my status still applied, or does it refresh this turn?
Is the boss's next move a Wish Strike or a buff-clear?
Am I saving Star Magic for the capture instead of spending it mid-fight?

Run that list for three turns and the fight stops feeling random. The rest is team building, which starts with the type chart and continues on the PvP page if you want to test your turns against people.