PvP mechanics

The Basics

• PvP unlocks at level 20.
• Bounty/Honor is only gained from players within 25% of your level: a max level player (2800) gains nothing below level 2100. If the gap is too large, the game displays "No reward, Level difference is too high!".
• After dying in PvP, you become invincible for 15 minutes in First Sea (10 minutes in Second Sea), with the message "PvP Disabled - Died Recently". You can disable this protection anytime.
• These mechanics only apply to player-versus-player combat: they almost never apply to NPCs or bosses.

In Combat and Combat Logging

• When you're attacked, an "In Combat" warning appears at the bottom of your screen, next to your health bar. If your Bounty reaches 2,500,000 or higher, it becomes "In Combat - Bounty/Honor at Risk": dying in this state inflicts a Bounty/Honor penalty.
• The attacker also has an "In Combat" panel, but they can reset their character freely as long as neither the victim nor another player has touched them.
• Quitting the game with these warnings on screen is combat logging: you risk losing even more Bounty/Honor. If the victim disconnects during "Bounty/Honor at Risk", the attacker sees the message "[victim's username] left the game and has been penalized!".

Killing a Player: Rewards

• A kill grants a Bounty/Honor amount that varies based on the victim's level and Bounty.
• Killing a player at your level, close to it, or up to 300-400 levels below you restores about 20-30% of your Health and Energy.
• Once you've taken 3/3 Bounty from the same victim, the "At Risk" flag drops for them: you can reset freely after a few seconds, instead of waiting for the "Bounty/Honor at Risk" warning to disappear on its own (which can take a good minute).

Interruptions and Cancellations

• Held Skill Interruption: if you take damage while holding a skill, it activates on its own, with a few exceptions (Bomb's V, or a sword/gun with Unbreakable enchantment for its first 2 seconds). Mobility skills, like flight, are outright stopped when you're hit, except Magma's F (awakened or not) and Mammoth's transformed F. Skills that add hits while holding (most of Spider's awakened skills) cancel like a mobility move.
• Being hit while holding a move also turns off your Instinct, even from an attack that doesn't normally break it (Conqueror's Gun, for example). Human V4 with Psycho Tier 2, and Unbreakable enchantment (for only 2 seconds), let you hold a move without cancellation.
• Attack-Cancel: if you're hit right when you launch an attack, the animation plays but the skill doesn't go off. It's the intended punishment for the attacker... but with lag and ping, the system can cancel an attack when the damage has already arrived after: it clearly favors players with low ping. It's better than before thanks to updates, but still present.

Instinct: Breaking and Tricking

• Some attacks break Instinct in one or two hits. But they can fail depending on the angle (some Saber attacks), range (a long-range attack that only breaks Instinct at close range), or if the hitbox only hits a limb instead of the whole body. Instinct also breaks if you're hit while executing a move.
• The Instinct Trick (or Ken Trick) is a key PvP mechanic: it avoids combos, reduces damage taken, and shortens ragdoll time.
• Simple version, between two moves (easy to impossible depending on the opponent): when the opponent chains into a move that doesn't break Instinct, activate yours at that moment. If it's unavailable because you recently broke it, flee with Flash Step.
• Advanced version, during a move (easy to difficult): activate Instinct during a move that normally breaks it, to dodge the next one. The window is very short, but it usually only costs one or two dodges thanks to the invincibility frames of the dodge animation.
• Bonus: an Instinct Trick frees you from end-lag a bit before your opponent. Chain with a combo starter that breaks Instinct to turn the fight around: the most famous example is tricking Godhuman's Z or Sanguine Art's Z, then responding with Portal's Z or Kitsune's F.
• Learn your opponent's playstyle and loadout: some moves are much easier to trick, and some players chain Instinct-breaks on purpose to stop you.

Hitbox Delay and Pseudo-Hitbox

• Hitbox Delay: your hitbox lags a fraction of a second behind your character. With enough ping, a hard stun placed on the lagging hitbox during a Flash Step or teleportation move can send you back to your starting point and expose you to a combo. Example: you dodge Dark's X while awakened with Flash Step, but their C (hard stun, faster than your hitbox movement) brings you back in place. The less lag you have, the less this happens to you.
• Pseudo-Hitbox: the effective area of an attack doesn't always match its visual. Some hitboxes are smaller than they look, others reach much farther, like Spider's Over-heated Sniper: about 800 effective range (in Second Sea, that's the distance between the bridge separating Kingdom of Rose from Green Zone and The Café), while the projectile stretches even further.

Stuns and End-Lag

Three stun levels, depending on which mobility they remove:

Stun	Effect	Example
Soft	A very brief hard stun (about half a second), or blocking only one type of mobility (skills, movement, or Flash Step)	Rubber C (Rush)
Medium	Blocks two types of mobility; it's the most common	Acidum Rifle X (Acidic Smoke)
Hard	Blocks everything: movement, attacks, and abilities	Ice V (Glacial Epoch/Absolute Zero)

End-lag, on the other hand, prevents you from dashing, chaining jumps, or using moves for a few seconds after certain attacks: it limits rapid move spamming. Examples: after Spirit's Z, you're locked for about 1.5 seconds, making combos harder; Sanguine Art's X is only used at the end of a combo or in spam.

Bounty, Buffs, and Suspicious Kill

• Every 500,000 Bounty/Honor, you gain an extra percentage of damage and defense: a one-shot combo that works on a 2,500,000 Bounty player won't work on a 30,000,000 Bounty player.
• At 10,000,000 Bounty/Honor, you receive an item that summons a Sea Beast. It attacks players who are neither the summoner nor their allies, with fewer HP than a real one (20,000 to 38,250 depending on your level). If the Sea Beast kills someone, the summoner doesn't recover their Bounty and the victim doesn't lose any, as long as they haven't been touched by the summoner or had "Bounty at Risk" on screen.
• "No Reward, Suspicious Kill": appears when you kill someone using only M1 without taking damage. It's a safeguard against cheaters (ultra-fast M1 exploits), but it also triggers in bounty hunting, especially with Buddha: many players stay still against a Buddha to trick the system and lose nothing. If you play Buddha, use sword or fighting style skills in PvP.