Skirk Build and Guide

Being her primary means of executing her cancels, her Dash has a few additional quirks to take note of. These are especially relevant when performing N2 Dash cancels:

• The Dash should be tapped and not held for any prolonged amount of time,

• The Dash should be performed while the player is not holding a movement key.

Furthermore, when properly cancelling Skirk’s N2 on repeat - as is the case for almost all of Skirk’s best combos - players will run into the Dash cooldown after doing so twice due to how fast they can be performed. This is then circumvented in one of the following ways:

• Using her special Burst instead of her Dash. This is typically done the first time Skirk hits the Dash cooldown to ensure she still receives the full benefit of her special Burst buff. Not applicable for Hybrid Skirk rotations.

• Using her Charged Attack instead of her Dash. While this does not cancel the animation per se, Skirk’s Charged Attack needs to be used at least once during her Combos to absorb Void Rifts regardless.

• Continuing her attack string, then cancelling it on a later hit. This is the default option when she does not need to use her Special Burst or Charged Attack.

Skirk’s Walk Cancels are typically used to reset her attack string, most commonly used after her 3rd Normal Attack when it sees use. It can be performed with a well-timed single tap, a well-timed double tap, or by spamming the forward movement input until Skirk moves; for her N3, the timing tends to be as soon as Skirk touches the ground after her backflip.

An important facet of Skirk’s first Normal Attack is that the attack only starts when the button is released, and not when it is input. This is because it shares an input with her Charged Attack, with the game waiting till the input is released to decide whether a Normal or Charged Attack was input.

Skirk is especially impacted by this, with her N1 coming out noticeably quicker when the tap for its input is performed as quickly and as briefly as possible. Since Skirk can end up using her N1 multiple times in her best combos, a delay in executing her N1s can add up! Her Tap Skill has a similar mechanic for the game to decide whether her Tap or Hold Skill is being used, meaning shortening the time on her tap is also relevant for it.

For players using a keyboard and mouse, one trick is to bind the Normal Attack input to the mouse’s scroll wheel due to it typically having a quicker input. However, this is not necessary, and her N1 can be executed well with practice on any device.

Since Skirk does not rely on precise reaction timings, her combos are optimized purely based on maximizing the total multiplier on her attacks delivered during her Seven-Phase Flash state. Furthermore, as the input times on her combos can vary, players may find more success by repeating a basic set of attacks within the general framework of her combos.

At a fundamental level, Skirk’s advanced combos centre around maximizing N2 usage. However, as covered above, Skirk has to find an alternative to her Dash when hitting the cooldown - her special Burst or Charged Attack are both options, but are often only used once a rotation. Generally, she instead defaults to extending her attack string and cancelling it at a later point. This gives rise to two options as the building block of her combos: 223 and 225.

Both do two sets of Normal Attacks; the former follows it up with an N3 alongside a walk cancel so as to not hit the Dash cooldown again prematurely, while the latter, using a full N5 string, gives enough time to allow Skirk to simply use a Dash to cancel it. The inputs are laid out in full below. 

When subsequently incorporating her special Burst and Charged Attack, the general framework for Skirk’s combo thus goes as follows:

• Opener: Tap Skill → N2D → N2D → N2  → Special Burst (for on-field) OR Charged Attack (for Hybrid Skirk),

• Repeat 223 or 225 strings in full. At any point when Void Rifts are available and before Serpent’s Subtlety expires,

• N2D → N2D → N2  → Charged Attack,

• Repeat 223 or 225 strings until Serpent’s Subtlety expires,

• Optionally, if Serpent’s Subtlety is just about to expire, extend the current attack string and swap cancel the next hit to restart your rotation.

All combos covered above are dependent on the player’s execution; while they can output around 30% more damage than the easy combos mentioned at the start, attempting them can also easily perform worse if not properly using the various techniques covered that are required to achieve it. 

Due to Skirk’s extremely fast attacks and the aforementioned behaviour of her only registering input when releasing the Attack button, Skirk has limited time to “buffer” her inputs - that is, queueing her next input in advance during her current input. This makes it so that extremely precise clicks can speed up how quickly her attacks come out even before cancels are considered; the more realistic alternative to this is spam clicking, using quantity over quality to get as close to the timing as possible. 

This quirk means that Skirk’s combos also depend on the device’s frame rate, as these can impact when the input is registered. It can be advisable if looking to maximize Skirk’s damage to crank the game’s frame rate as high as your device can handle; if necessary, graphics quality can be reduced to enable this smoothly. 

The difference in doing so can be an extra N2 on Skirk’s combos - for example, 11N2 4N3 instead of 10N2 4N3. While seemingly minor, when considering the damage each Normal Attack deals the difference can be noticeable. Nonetheless, she performs well even without such optimizations. 

Finally, some players who use mouse and keyboard opt to bind the Normal Attack input to the mouse’s scroll wheel due to it typically having a quicker input. However, this is not necessary and her ceiling can theoretically be reached on any device.