There’s a lot to do in Where Winds Meet. Sure, you could pursue the main story, which is genuinely heartfelt at times, or you could play doctor in online mode. Or go fishing. Or play card games. Or go fight in the arena. Steal from random citizens. Debate people.
The point is, there’s a lot you can do. Though one particular activity you can partake in is wrestling. Like many other activities, it can improve your attributes, though it also has a bit more mechanical depth to it than some of the other minigames, so it can take some timet o wrap your head around it.
What Is Wrestling?
First off, the wrestling minigame is not found at all in Qinghe, so you’ll need to have advanced the main story far enough to have unlocked Kaifeng, as this is exclusively where wrestling is found at the moment.
The first proper instance of wrestling can be found in Kaifeng City, where you will thankfully be able to get a training match whenever you want to introduce or reacquaint yourself with the mechanics.
Like other minigames, wrestling gives you plenty of rewards on victory, though the majority are only gained on your first victory. These include Jade Coins, Five Dynasty Coins (your typical spending money), Commerce Coins, Experience, Exploration Points, and Constitution attribute points.
Where Winds Meet: Complete Guide To Oddities
Well isn’t that unusual?
Mechanics Of Wrestling
Many of the minigames in Where Winds Meet tend to be simple, and just take time to master, like the various instruments you can play or Pitch Pot. Wrestling, however, is more a game of anticipation. If anything, it’s most comparable to a slightly more complex Rock-Paper-Scissors.
The goal of wrestling overall is to fully deplete your opponent’s Fighting Spirit, which is done by using Techniques, or moves, against them. Actions are decided in advance before they are performed, so neither you nor your opponent know what you’re doing before it’s enacted.
Let’s take a closer look at each mechanic below.
Building Momentum
This is the core of how you use moves in wrestling. When you choose to Build Momentum, your turn is used to gain one Momentum point. Momentum is used exclusively to perform damaging techniques.
While choosing to Build Momentum, you are vulnerable to all forms of attack. As such, if your opponent chooses to attack you, you will take the full damage of the attack no matter what. That said, even if you are attacked, you will still gain Momentum.
You also only lose Momentum when using it yourself. Your opponent has no way of removing your Momentum points.
Blocking Attacks
When you are attacked, you will of course want to block the attack, though since you can’t know when your opponent is going to attack, you can only guess when you should block.
NPCs, in general, tend to be quite zealous in their offense, and will attack once they have even a single point of Momentum. As such, it’s always a safe bet to block after they Build Momentum. Successfully blocking an attack will negate the damage entirely, and cause your opponent to use up whatever Momentum they used on the attack.
There are also two types of block:
- Block – This is used to defend against all forms of attack except for Vajra Toss.
- Vajra Block – This can only block against Vajra Toss, and all other attacks will bypass it.
NPCs tend to unleash their strongest attacks when available, so if they have three Momentum points, you should probably use Vajra Block to counter Vajra Toss. In all other circumstances though, make sure you sure the regular Block.
Performing Techniques
If you want to deplete your opponents Fighting Spirit, you’re going to need to perform Techniques on them. Your opponent will never lose Fighting Spirit without being directly hit, so you can’t stall your way through a match, as there are only 20 rounds for you to finish in.
There are four Techniques you can perform. One of them does not require any Momentum, while the following three each require more and more Momentum. Here are all of them:
- Thrust Attack – Deals light damage but requires no Momentum.
- Stake Technique – Deals decent damage, require one Momentum point.
- Pushing Attack – Deals significant damage, requires two Momentum points.
- Vajra Toss – Will immediately deplete the all Fighting Spirit when it lands, requires three Momentum points.
As you can see, getting three Momentum points to unleash a Vajra Toss should be the ultimate end goal as it instantly ends the match, though any opponent will also be looking out for this move as soon as you have at least three Momentum points. This is where the mind games of wrestling come into play.
Action Priority
Since you and your opponent both choose your actions at the same time, you cannot plan out your actions. And this also means that there must be a priority for actions to determine who wins in any given round.
In general, more powerful moves take priority over weaker ones. If you perform a Pushing Attack and your opponent does a Stake Technique, your move will take priority. This means your opponent’s attack is nullified and only yours deals damage.
When you choose to Build Momentum, all attacks will take priority, though you will still gain Momentum. If you Block against Build Momentum, nothing happens.
Block takes priority over all attacking moves except for Vajra Toss, while the opposite is true for Vajra Block. This takes priority over Vajra Toss, but loses out to all other actions.
How To Win At Wrestling
In general, winning at Wrestling is something you can do fairly consistently, regardless of the difficulty of your opponent, and that is down to the predictability of NPC behaviours.
NPCs are very reactionary, and will typically use their next round to counteract what you did in a previous round. So if you Build Momentum, they’ll usually Block in anticipation of an attack. This makes it a good choice to Build Momentum again.
Consequently, if your opponent Builds Momentum, they’re almost guaranteed to immediately follow up with an attack, so you should almost always Block. After this, they’re likely to try Build Momentum again or perform a Thrust, leaving you free to require a Technique that costs Momentum to overpower them.
If you manage to build up three Momentum points, NPCs will almost always assume you’re going to perform Vajra Toss and will in turn use Vajra Block. Because of this, using Pushing Attack when you have three Momentum Points is usually a very good idea to catch them off-guard.
That said, Wrestling can also be played online against other real players. All of these tactics do not so strictly apply in those circumstances since humans are quite a bit more unpredictable than a computer. You just have to play mind games and be a bit more tactical in your actions in those circumstances.
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Zheng E is likely one of the best designed boss you’ll fight in Where Winds Meet, and he also gives you quite a challenge.
