The King of Fighters Allstar just keeps on getting better with each update as more and more players get hooked on its unparalleled appeal. With the entirety of what it offers as an exceptional mix of action RPG, beat ‘em up, and fighting game mashed perfectly together, the variety of teams and customized fighters you can create as well as encounter in matches creates a different experience each session.
While you will hardly encounter a team in matches that is an exact copy of your very own team, there is even a smaller chance of encountering the same fighter on the opposing team that has the same enhancements as your fighter does. Although each fighter’s cores can result in varying stat builds from early to mid-game as a result of prioritization, battle cards are at the center of what makes each fighter in the mix unique from one player to the next.
We have published several guides on the game so if you are just starting out, be sure to visit and read each one of them especially the beginner’s guide. If you have yet to secure a firm grasp of the game’s basic concepts and features, then our beginner’s guide can jumpstart your learning so you can focus on what is more important early on.
Our first guide on battle cards focuses on the basic concepts surrounding it that should help with any and all questions you have about their value and significance. In this new The King of Fighters Allstar guide, we will be showcasing the best battle card combinations we know of that will help you boost your top fighters’ battle prowess more efficiently. As special cards are exclusive to the fighter, we will not be discussing them in the guide.
Likewise, we are inclined as much as possible to go for battle cards that provide boosts that are not very restrictive and do not rely on challenging conditions to be met.
Favorite Thing, Candy-Giving Angel, & Rugal’s Children
One of the top considerations in The King of Fighters Allstar is damage value and when we talk about damage, having higher attack stat values affect it the most. Although the top fighters and teams in game includes a good mix of fighter types, and not necessarily attack types, considering this combination of set and option battle cards ought to be any team’s top pick.
Each Favorite Thing set card provides an option skill boost of 5% attack and when all three cards are equipped on the same character, attack is further increased by 17.8% for 5 seconds immediately following a critical hit dealt to an enemy. While we mentioned earlier that we are not fans of conditional boosts, dealing critical damage is actually not that challenging to pull, even with fighters that do not actually have high critical rates. The initial 5% attack buff form each card is good enough on its own what makes the card hard to pass on is the 17.8% damage boost set effect. The Favorite Thing set is a 6-star set so being able to collect them can be a real challenge.
Moving on to the option card choices, both Candy-giving Angel and Rugal’s Children are 5-star cards. Candy-giving Angel increases attack by 1.9% and critical rate by 2.5% while Rugal’s Children boosts attack by 2% and increases critical rate by 2.3%. As we are banking on critical hits to activate the massive attack boost from our Favorite Thing set cards and while it is still possible to do so without any additional boosts on critical rate, going for it is the best perk to go for to raise activation chances in combat. While there are higher or equally rare cards that also provide critical rate boosts, Candy-giving Angel and Rugal’s Children are our top picks given the comparatively higher increase in critical rate as well as the attack increase boost.
The Start, Strategic Retreat & Unreal Peace
If you have read through our other guides and have played The King of Fighters Allstar long enough, you would know that while attack power is an important stat to build on, it’s not everything you will need to get the job done. While battle cards, among other enhancements can greatly boost how much damage you can deal on enemies, keep in mind that each of your fighter’s skills multiply attack power by several hundreds of percent or more, so banking on them, is also a viable strategy. For one, there are effects and boosts that further increase the fighters’ skill damage, but for this particular battle card combo, we are considering frequency of usage.
The Start is a 6-star set of cards each providing a 5% boost in penetration. The value of this set, however, lies in the set bonus which increases power gained from basic attacks by 4.2%. While Sibling Training provides a 13.4% boost outright at the start of the level, we still prefer the gradual but permanent boost that The Start provides. The end goal is to push for an active ultimate skill at the soonest possible time and while both sets lead to that, with the latter even doing so at a faster rate, The Start can help you push for the second and subsequent ultimate skill usages unlike Sibling Training, which is only helpful on the first go.
For our option card picks, we considered both Strategic Retreat & Unreal Peace, which are both also 6-star cards. Both cards do not actually contribute to earning more power whatsoever in battle but we actually prefer their perks more. Both these option cards decrease skill cool downs by 1.9 seconds in addition to the former increasing health by 3.5% while the latter boosts defense by the same percentage.
Although building up power for an ultimate skill and reducing cool down period for skills are completely different things, these are what we know can contribute the best to unleashing more skills in combat. Having any and all skills at the ready more often than your enemy does can tip the battle in your favor regardless of whether it is a PvE or PvP Battle.
Unwavering Loyalty, Shooting Practice & Vicious Taste
Back to building up raw damage, another set of cards worth taking into consideration is Unwavering Loyalty. For beginners who are not yet that familiar with chaining attacks and skills of their fighters, the 20-hit combo requirement you need to pull prior to activating skills may look like quite a challenge. For experienced players who have used their favorite fighters enough, doing well over a 20-hit combo is actually easier than it seems.
Although each Unwavering Loyalty card provides a 5% defense boost outright, its core value lies in the set bonus. Once your combo reaches the 20-count barrier, damage will increase by 7.4%. While this may be a little more challenging to pull off in PvP matches, it will certainly be a breeze in PvE battles considering that tagging in partners can be used to continue combo chains. Keep in mind as well that unlike actual fighting games, air juggles and long combos in The King of Fighters Allstar does not tremendously decrease damage outputs of each attack. With or without the perks of this set as a reward for 20 or more combos, you do need to work on chain attacks and skills together and develop your ultimate combo.
There are no option cards yet to support increasing damage as a result of building up combo. For a boost in general damage output, however, we choose Shooting Practice and Vicious Taste to add more bite to your attacks. Shooting Practice increases both attack and penetration by 3.5% each. Vicious Taste, on the other hand boost both attack and active skill damage by 3.5%. What we are banking on with this card combination is an overall increase in damage output and with both cards adding up for a total of 7% attack boost, each is actually good enough on its own.
There are numerous option cards that contribute to increasing attack values but these cards’ second buffs are the best for a combo-based damage buff. Every combo naturally includes usage of active skills and with block, dodge, and even emergency dodges preventing or reducing damage, penetration increase helps to chip in an extra bit of damage from time to time.
Another Me In The Mirror, Ladies On The Beach & Solitude
If one of your favorite fighters in the game sports a critical rate that is higher than the usual characters, it is always a good idea to bank on that strength as critical damage in The King of Fighters Allstar can also be a tremendous theme to build on for battles. While investing on attack per se is naturally the pick for almost all types of fighters and team, building on both critical rate and critical damage can have surprising results.
While these builds involve probability to a great extent, especially given that critical rates and everything you can use to enhance them do not raise the percentage that high, take note that its impact cuts across each attack. So even a 10 to 15% critical rate that has a high critical damage packed with it for hits you do whether continuously or intermittently has its overall impact on the total damage you deal.
Another Me in the Mirror has a good base buff with each card providing a 5% boost on attack. With the whole set equipped on one character, critical rate is increased by 2.7%. Again, it may not seem much on its own but added to your base critical rate, as well as other enhancements that can increase it, it will surely yield some results.
Ladies on the Beach also contributes to attack and boosts it by 3.5% in addition to increasing critical damage by 5.2%. Solitude provides a critical rate increase of 2.8% and a critical damage increase by 2.8%. There are numerous other option cards that can further boost critical rate. In this combo, however, we are considering the increase in critical damage as the priority as well as overall damage boost via the attack buffs to ensure damage boost even in the absence of critical hits. For sure, there are other combinations to go for to have a higher overall critical rate, but then this is why we would want to consider this battle card combination most suitable for fighters that already have a good amount of critical rate to begin with.
There are, of course, numerous other card combinations you can mix and match in the game. As some are a lot more specific than others, like damage type boosts and gold gain increases, feel free to use them on fighters that deal largely or entirely those specific types of damages. Take note that there are fighter-exclusive option cards as well that provide 3 boosts instead of the usual maximum of two so if you are lucky to have them in your collection, be sure to consider them.
There are certainly more things to come to The King of Fighters Allstar in the upcoming updates and we likewise expect a good amount of new battle cards to be added to the mix in the future. For now, we will be leaving you with our favorite battle card combinations, which we hope, will not just guide you on what to look for in the card options, but to be driven to read through each one as you try to discover ones that may work for your team better.
Again, The King of Fighters Allstar is a game full of practically limitless possibilities as far as fighter-customizing and team-building goes. So if you find a more suitable battle card combo for the team that you use, we would be happy to know about them. Feel free to share yours in the comments below!