DragonSword Combat: Status Ailments and Signals

Game version checked: 1.0.10 (19 August 2026 patch). DragonSword patches frequently — if a newer version is live, cross-check tuning-sensitive numbers in-game.

Hound13's own description of the system is unusually precise: "Each of the 19 Heroes possesses distinct Status Ailment abilities. Stack Status Ailments with Active Skills, then chain devastating combos with powerful Signal Skills."

Read that as a loop rather than a feature list, because that is what it is:

Apply an ailment → a Signal Skill arms → firing it switches heroes → the incoming hero applies their ailment → repeat.

Everything else in DragonSword's combat is in service of keeping that loop running.

The nine ailments

Confirmed individually across store text, patch notes and hero descriptions:

Stun · Knockdown · Bleed · Burn (Fire) · Shock (Electrocution) · Freeze (Ice) · Poison · Airborne · Break

Break is the odd one out — it is super-armor break rather than a damage-over-time or crowd-control state, and it is itself a Signal trigger. Castella's kit is built on it.

We list nine because nine are individually attested. Hound13 has never published a canonical list, and Poison in particular rests on a passing player comment about team composition. If you find a site listing exact build-up thresholds and durations for each, ask where those numbers came from.

How a Signal actually fires

Signal Skills have no cooldown. They arm when the right ailment lands, and then one of two things happens:

• The responder is on-field → you get a button prompt.
• The responder is off-field → an icon appears next to their portrait, and switching to them fires the Signal Skill as they tag in.

That second case is the whole design. Switching is not a defensive escape or a resource swap, it is the attack. The store calls it "Endless Signal Switching," and with three heroes each holding 2 Active and 2 Signal Skills, you have twelve skills in rotation.

The consequence, which players discover the hard way: teams want overlapping ailment focus, not complementary damage. Three heroes who each apply an ailment nobody else responds to will simply never chain, no matter how good their individual numbers are.

Basic attacks are not filler

Basic attacks do very little damage. They exist to chip skill cooldowns and build ailment stacks. If you are mashing your way through a fight and wondering why your skills feel unavailable, that is the mechanism working as intended — you are meant to be weaving basics between skills, not treating them as a fallback.

The rest of the verb set

• Dodge / dash attack and running attack
• Jump and air attack, gated by stamina
• Grab — WWE-style slams on small enemies, Monster-Hunter-style mounting on large ones
• Air combos, which is why Airborne is a whole build archetype
• Parry — universal, but Alex is built around it and can parry raid bosses

Difficulty rises automatically with your Mercenary Corps rank and can be manually lowered. Content offers selectable tiers up to Very Hard, Nightmare and Extreme.

Team archetypes players actually run

Six recur in community discussion: Bleed, Burn, Shock, aerial (Airborne), summon, and defensive control.

The aerial team is the most self-contained — Astria, Eileen and Aria all launch, so the chain feeds itself. Stun is the most forgiving because Lute applies it and is also the roster's only on-demand heal.

There is no in-game compatibility chart. The way to build a team is to read each hero's skill text and find their trigger, which is exactly what long-time players advise.

Enemies that gate on element

Some enemies take no damage at all until hit with the correct element. Soulwarden Zemoor is the standard example, and the game does signpost it — there is a note on a nearby staircase stating he is weak to shock and burn. Ornette (electrocution) is the usual answer; Kalien is the community's standard pick against undead generally.

If a fight feels like your damage is being ignored, read the environment before you rebuild your gear.

Boss mechanics also key off ailments. Hagen the Dark Necromancer heals, and the counter is exploiting the Break window rather than out-damaging the heal.

What the game tells you, and what it does not

Confirmed tells: an on-screen button prompt when an on-field hero's Signal arms, a portrait icon when an off-field hero's does, visible juggling and launching on Airborne, interruptible boss animations, and damage numbers on every hit.

Not documented: per-ailment icons, colours or sound cues. And critically, no allowed source describes any cleanse, resist stat, or immunity system. We are not going to assert one exists. If you are taking repeated ailment damage, the available answers are positioning and food, not a cleanse button.

Two achievements tied to this system

Status Ailment Master is hidden, with a 10.8% global unlock rate (read 1 September 2026) — low enough to suggest it wants something more specific than "apply ailments a lot." Who Cast the Frenzy? is also hidden. Neither condition is public.

Where this system came from, and what it costs

DragonSword launched in Korea in December 2025 as a free-to-play gacha before Hound13 terminated its publishing deal and relaunched on Steam as a buy-to-play package. The tag-team system survived that transition intact, and it is the thing reviewers consistently praise.

What did not fully survive is the surrounding structure. Only three party slots, only two equipped consumables, and no dedicated healer besides Lute are all constraints that read as gacha-era design in a single-player game. They are worth knowing before you plan a team, because they are not going to change.

A note on the English text

The English localisation has real problems — one 92-hour positive review describes incorrect pronouns and a location called both "Mistflower" and "Mistblossom." Hound13 has shipped localisation fixes in 1.0.4 and 1.0.7 and lists improved localisation as ongoing work. When a skill description reads ambiguously, that is a plausible explanation, and checking the damage numbers on a training dummy is more reliable than parsing the tooltip.