Combat Guide

Girls’ Frontline 2 Exilium features a turn-based tactical combat system, commonly known as “XCOM-Lite”.

Unlike traditional XCOM-Lite games, Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium does not feature the traditional “hit chance" system, meaning all attacks are guaranteed to hit.

Cover mechanics also differ from traditional XCOM-Lites as it does not provide evasion bonuses and/or Critical Strike reduction bonuses due to the hit chance system not being present in Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium. Instead, it provides a flat 30% Damage Reduction to units next to either Half-Body Cover or Full-Body Cover. Half-Body Cover allows units to jump over obstacles and provides a full range of attacks to occur while Full-Body Cover blocks Line-of-Sight and only allows a partial range of attacks to occur.

Units next to Full-Body Cover when attacking will conduct a “Leaning Attack”. Leaning Attack cannot occur if the tile adjacent to the unit is blocked or occupied.

There are also Special Covers present in the game, called Iron Fence and Energy Cover. Iron Fence can block movement and melee attacks from occurring but cannot block ranged attacks.Energy Cover on the other hand can block ranged attacks but not movement and melee attacks.

In addition to Permanent Covers, there are also Destructible Covers that can be destroyed to remove Cover protection from units by utilizing skills that have Cover Destruction.

The Cover system has also been changed to include a Stability Index system. Stability Index provides a 60% damage reduction when units are next to Cover, on top of the 30% Damage Reduction provided by the Cover. Incoming attacks reduce the Stability Index (indicated by a shield icon) until the number reaches 0, placing the unit in Stability Collapse.

A unit in Stability Collapse will not receive the Damage Reduction from Stability Index. T-Dolls and enemies can recover Stability Index via certain skills. Stability Index does not provide its Damage Reduction when the shield icon has reached 0, if the unit is not next to Cover, or if the unit has been flanked by an opposing unit.

It is important to note that the Stability Index system does not apply to Melee units, who can ignore the Damage Reduction against units next to Cover. The 30% Damage Reduction from having Cover will still apply to the damage.

The Stability Index system also does not apply to AoE attacks, and instead only Cover provides Damage Reduction depending on the location of the AoE attacks. Some AoE attacks can also ignore Cover protection, allowing them to deal full damage.

Attacks from High Ground, unlike traditional XCOM-Lites, can also ignore Stability Index and Cover, allowing the attacking unit to deal full damage. However, if they are not on Perforated High Ground, they cannot target units directly below them.

Another difference from traditional XCOM-Lite games is the removal of the Overwatch function from all units. Instead, Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium introduces a similar mechanic called “Action Support” which is a unit buff that allows the unit to assist friendly units in attacks or counterattack opposing units when a friendly unit takes damage. Action Support is limited to the unit’s range and will not occur if the unit is out of range.

In addition to Action Support, enemy units may have active or passive skills that apply “Surveillance”. Surveillance has two types - Movement and Action, indicated by red icons on the ground. Movement Surveillance will trigger an attack from the enemy if the controllable unit performs a movement in the Surveilled area. Similarly, Action Surveillance will trigger an attack from the enemy if the controllable unit performs an action.

Beside the differences listed here, Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium plays similarly to traditional XCOM-Lites with the addition of RPG-like mechanics.

Each Combat Sequence is divided into turns. Each turn consists of a Movement Phase and Action Phase. During the Movement Phase, units may move a certain amount of tiles depending on their Action Points.

All T-Dolls have their own Action Points that determine how many tiles they can move in any direction every Movement Phase.

While movement can only be done once per turn, certain skills can grant an “Additional Movement” buff, which allows movement once more at the cost of not being able to conduct any other action.

During the Action Phase, combat is conducted by a T-Doll utilizing various skills to deal damage. Every Skill comes with its own range and Area of Effect (AoE), as well as its own Stability Damage dealt.

As Girls’ Frontline 2: Exilium is skill-based combat rather than the traditional XCOM-Lites’ weapon-based combat, T-Dolls don’t need to reload their weapons at all. As such, ammunition and reload mechanics are not featured in Girls’ Frontline 2: Exlilium.

Additionally, each T-Doll has a corresponding Phase Element and each weapon they wield has a Weapon Damage Attribute. There are 5 Phase Elements: Burn, Electric, Hydro, Freeze, and Corrosion. Weapon Damage Attributes are also divided into 5 categories: Light Ammo, Medium Ammo, Heavy Ammo, Melee and Shotgun Ammo. Both T-Dolls and enemies have Weapon Damage Attribute weakness and Phase Element weakness. When exploiting Phase Attributes and/or Weapon Damage Attributes, the damage is increased by 10% and an extra 2 fixed Stability Damage is dealt. Stability Damage will determine the final outcome of the total damage, as Stability Damage Reduction may be negated if the unit enters Stability Collapse.

Aside from a basic attack and passive, characters have two Active Skills and an Ultimate skill - some cost Confectance Index to use while others only have cooldown - this varies from character to character. Confectance Index are basically skill points and some Skills restore them instead of using them.

You can track the character Confectance Index above their HP bar.

Similar to Movement Phase, Action Phase can also be re-initiated through an “Additional Action” buff granted by skills. Additional Action will provide another action to be conducted, but prohibits any movement.

At any point during your turn phase, if the actions you performed last turn or this current turn do not suit you, or if you made a mistake, you may use the “Rewind” feature. Rewind allows you to turn back to a previous turn phase up to 3 times per battle. You may also use the Rewind feature when you have a lost battle by clicking on “Undo”.