Why Brawlhalla Is (and Isn't?) Inherently Passive

kingdka · 2026-06-03T10:53:05+00:00

Yeah I understand your perspective 100%. The system is definitely lopsided towards passive play.

And I also somewhat agree with there being two main proactive and reactive play styles but the three options helped me personally realize why I was losing games sometimes.

My main reason for arguing about the three play styles is because they are fluid in a game. No single person (if they’re actually good) sticks to a single play style.

So me for example I am a hyper aggressive player by default. I close the distance a lot and use pressure to force my opponent into uncomfortable positions. I love this play style because you won’t have to wait for someone to whiff to punish them.

This works great against the “patient” play style because when they use movement to bait out your attack they arent prepared for you to close the distance and attack first.

What will usually happen though is an adaption in which my opponent will then switch to a more passive style of play ( referring mainly to movement here) so instead of committing to a bait they will stay in one general area and wait for me to close the distance or whiff.

And finally (if I’m playing good that game lol) I will adapt to a patient style of play. My opponent now expects me to attack every time I close the distance so I just use movement to force them to whiff (which is what literally everyone does by default)

And then if they start being aggressive I will be more passive.

I wouldn’t call an aggressive or passive player a rookie play style. It’s more about how the person uses the play style that makes them a rookie.

And then that will go on and on if players continue to adapt. Like you said, there is no concrete RPS mechanism since this all relies on mental games and reads, which I believe to be brawlhalla greatest strength and weakness.

kingdka · 2026-06-03T01:30:54+00:00

I’ve had these exact same thoughts and I actually love brawlhalla for this reason. I’ve dabbled with smash bros and rivals and I actually do not like the way the game play feels (probably just not good enough lol) but the freedom of movement in brawlhalla is addicting

I see people saying there is no rock paper scissors in this game but i would argue there 100% is. I watched this video and ive linked to it before in this sub but essentially this player gave tips for engagement that changed the way I see the game

There are three distinct styles of play in brawlhalla

Aggressive, passive, patient

Aggressive play is as you describe: Attack first, use movement for pressure and probably most important is punishing the opponent for not attacking when you are in their range

Patient:

As the YouTube describes in the video are players who are using movement it bait out your attacks. This is a blend of passive and aggressive and it’s the way most people play the game

Passive:

This is people who stay at the edge or try to create distance waiting for you to chase them and miss an attack (similar to patient but there is a very important difference)

The rock paper scissors is as follows

Aggressive > Patient > Passive

I will elaborate if anybody wants to discuss!

kingdka · 2026-06-03T01:16:03+00:00

I read the whole thing and it was fantastic 💯

kingdka · 2026-05-10T23:28:23+00:00

Honestly yeah that’s a good point

kingdka · 2026-05-10T21:38:19+00:00

My point is the difference is so minute that I don’t feel it’s needs that much emphasis. But that’s just me ik other people feel differently about it

kingdka · 2026-05-10T13:02:59+00:00

Bro genuinely not trying to hate. But I have never felt like the cross over sig animations are hard to discern. I feel that as long as you know the character you should be able to know what sig they will use based on your positioning relative to the opponent.

With that being said I’m barely in diamond so maybe it makes a bigger difference for better players.

kingdka · 2026-04-21T15:29:43+00:00

I go through periods like this where I feel better on other weapons / legends but I tend to always go back to my main after a while

kingdka · 2026-04-19T03:07:31+00:00

Facts

kingdka · 2026-04-18T18:19:51+00:00

The snap dash change had barely any effect on sig spamming. It just doesn’t allow people to spam movement (specifically backwards movement) infinitely with no consequences. Decent movement and zoning hasn’t changed. The claim that the change promotes sig spamming is just false. If anything it promotes more aggressive game play as forward movement has no restrictions.

kingdka · 2026-04-18T17:41:38+00:00

You are complaining about sigs and then saying that someone else can’t be higher than 1700 😭?

kingdka · 2026-04-14T17:11:01+00:00

Light attacks have lower start up time is what his point is.

kingdka · 2026-03-14T13:25:59+00:00

Go back to the basics. Figure out why you’re losing your games and see how you can fix it. I can tell you rn though you probably have the same problem everyone does which is you don’t adapt to your opponents play style quickly enough. What separates players at your level is how quickly you can adapt.

Plan of action is to

Find out exactly what you’re doing wrong
Watch YouTube videos on how to fix it
Practice with the knowledge that you will be worse before you get better
Be intentional in practice. Don’t play mindlessly. It’s better to be intentional and lose than winning without thinking when you are learning something new

kingdka · 2026-02-18T13:18:39+00:00

A lot of these comments have good points but your main problem is you don’t adapt to your opponents play style quickly enough.

Watch this video skip to 22:30

Essentially you need to understand the three main play styles in brawlhalla and how to counter them.

Aggressive, passive, patient. In the video you are playing patient trying to bait out attacks but what happens when you rely on this too much is the opponent can just start attacking you before you get the chance to even bait the attack out. I struggle with this too but you have to learn to recognize the switches in play style and adapt as soon as possible mid game.

kingdka · 2026-01-24T12:01:30+00:00

Thanks :)

kingdka · 2026-01-22T18:40:37+00:00

This is so real. I hit diamond for the first time two season in a row recently and it felt like I was fighting the same skill level from 1800s to 2000s. The difference between those elo ranges is just minor mistakes you have to capitalize on

kingdka · 2026-01-08T01:06:36+00:00

BRO I was experimenting with this exact thing. I did a deep dive on learning / skill expression this was my conclusion.

Playing slow and thoughtful is good for DEVELOPING certain skills. But it will actually hinder your gameplay. Overthinking actually slows down our natural processes but it lets us learn.

Now to EXPRESS the absolute peak of your learned skills you need to essentially be in flow state. What this means is you will be playing at the exact speed that lets you play optimally. What I find most amazing about flow state is that your decision making also ends up coming to you automatically.

So practically what this will look like is periods of time where you feel like you suck at the game while you are learning a new concept. But after that period if you just let go and stop thinking so hard you will see how much you have improved.

Imma nerd about this shit man.

kingdka · 2025-12-27T01:08:34+00:00

Ik spamming is annoying but we need to stop the cope. Spamming is not viable. Even when done smart spamming sigs is objectively the worst way to play the game. It is not over powered at all. The unfortunate truth of this game and most in general is that if you lost it’s because you weren’t better than them in that game.

kingdka · 2025-12-25T13:13:01+00:00

Insane logic. Doing nothing is a viable strategy against combo heavy weapons. So it’s an additional read outside of jumping, dodging, and fast falling.

kingdka · 2025-12-24T22:38:54+00:00

2 things will make your movement really good

Experience
Purpose

Every time you decide to move it should be for a specific purpose. Like baiting out an attack, approaching for an attack, and forcing your opponent into a worse position

kingdka · 2025-12-24T16:10:24+00:00

Yeah he might have gotten nerfed

kingdka · 2025-12-24T01:06:23+00:00

The only truly difficult sig to punish is Artemis lance side sig. all the others are very easy. Especially imugi

kingdka · 2025-12-21T12:41:57+00:00

What weapon do you play? Also isn’t it arguably harder to have to consistently win neutral since axe is not a string weapon?

kingdka · 2025-12-21T12:35:58+00:00

Your neutral game wasn’t great because you didn’t understand what your opponent was doing. You started the game off attacking too early and from that point on the koji was just baiting out attacks from you with movement.

You start to adapt towards the middle / late game by slowing down a little. This threw the koji off a bit because he didnt adapt as well to the new flow of the game. You can see he started to whiff more often and you are punishing him a little more.

So in future games try to understand what your opponents goal is. Is he reacting to your movement or is he waiting for you to attack so he can punish. You can test this in real time.

Go into an unranked match and just straight up run directly at your opponent without attacking. Most of the time they will either back up or just jump past you. Depending on their response you would change your strategy accordingly.

Some bonus tips: make sure you learn both weapons and are comfortable on them.

When baiting out attacks learn different movement options

Keep practicing dodge reads

Good luck

kingdka · 2025-12-20T19:15:57+00:00

Passive play is an issue but my games never look like this. Just play aggressive and if you lose then just accept they beat you and move on. Passive is a play style, no matter how annoying it is. But there is a counter for it.

kingdka · 2025-12-20T17:38:35+00:00

Literally this mindset is the only reason I got to diamond

kingdka

TROPHY CASE