Dinoblade: Early Game Soul Arts Priority

Dinoblade borrows a lot of elements from other soulslike games, including Soul Arts, special abilities that can help you turn the tide of battle in an instant. Soul Arts can be acquired early on, with the first one becoming available as soon as your defeat Dinoblade’s introductory miniboss, Kira, The Exiled.

There are five types of Soul Arts you can spec into and they can all be upgraded as your progress through the game. Unlocking any of them costs Boss SP, a special currency typically obtained by defeating bosses, though you can sometimes also find it while exploring hidden areas.

While you’ll eventually get to unlock and upgrade every Soul Art, it’s a good idea to prioritize the most important ones early on because you won’t have enough Boss SP to get all of them right away. With that in mind, we've put together a little guide that explains what each Soul Art does, and whether you should prioritize it early on over others.

Meteor Slice

This is your bread and butter right here. Meteor Slice is a fast attack that deals a good amount of AoE damage in a small cone in front of your character. It’s not as flashy as some of the other Soul Arts, but it’s very reliable and difficult to interrupt.

Dinoblade allows you to play around with both light and heavy attacks, however, the former are much easier to use than the latter, especially early on. Heavy attacks with long wind-up times can be interrupted by enemies, and that applies to Soul Arts, too. Luckily, you won’t have to worry about that with Meteor Slice.

Alpha Roar

Alpha Roar is a very useful Soul Art that temporarily paralyzes all enemies in a small radius around your character. This ability doesn’t inflict any damage and doesn’t last for very long in the beginning, but it provides players with an incredible amount of utility.

The great thing about Alpha Roar is that it doesn’t affect just regular enemies. You can use this Soul Art to also freeze bosses for a couple of seconds. During that time, you can launch a quick attack combo, wind-up one of your slower attacks, or pop in some Healing Ore.

Meteor Dash

Meteor Dash works pretty similarly to Meteor Slice, in that it’s fast and reliable Soul Art that deals AoE damage in front of your character. The main difference between the two is that Meteor Dash has a shorter range and leaves you more vulnerable to counterattacks after you cast it.

Choosing between Meteor Dash and Meteor Slice as your core Soul Art is mostly a matter of preference. Meteor Dash lends itself to a more aggressive playstyle and has a shorter cooldown, meaning you can use it more often. However, it is easier to punish if you use it at the wrong time.

Survival Instincts

Survival Instincts is the only passive Soul Art in Dinoblade. It’s also the only one with upgrades that don’t have any level requirements. Survival Instincts may not feel like a true Soul Art, but it is listed under the same menu as all the others and requires Boss SP to unlock and upgrade, so it technically counts as one.

The first level of this Soul Art is pretty neat, but nothing to write home about, making it somewhat easy to ignore early on. However, once you reach the first upgrade, you’ll effectively gain a cheat code that enables you to survive a killing blow during a difficult fight. Since the upgrade doesn't have a level requirement, you can unlock it very early.

Meteor Zone

Meteor Zone is a cool-looking Soul Art, but not a very practical one, at least not in the early game. This ability does a considerable amount of damage and its AoE radius is larger compared to other Soul Arts, but its excruciatingly slow charge time makes it a lot more difficult to use.

Meteor Zone is pretty good at clearing small groups of regular enemies, however, it's effectively useless against bosses. The only way you can land one of these attacks in the middle of a boss fight is by using it immediately after Alpha Roar when the boss is briefly stunned. By itself, it’s much too easy to interrupt and very unreliable in the early game.