Typing System

The Types

There are five elements/types in Spiral of Fate. Firstly there are Spirit, Matter and Void.
They are each assigned to a button, respectively S, M and V.
In general moves of a types tend to follow certain trend. Which are:

• Spirit (S) moves: tend to have a lot of range and give a lot of mana, making them especially good in neutral.
• Matter (M) moves: tend to be slow, however they hit hard and are more likely to have armor or properties to cover their slowness.
• Void (V) moves: tend to be fast and be generally useful in advantage states.

Then, there are Non-typed (NT) and Neutral (N) moves which are on the N button. Those moves tend to be less specialized than their elemental counterparts, and have more balanced characteristics in general.
However, what is described above are nothing but tendencies and depending on the character, might be more or less true.
Each character have one speciality among those elements. Characters with certain type speciality will have more moves of said type.
Also, some characters might have a secondary speciality, giving them access to more moves of that type than normal.

The Elemental Wheel

The "elemental wheel" describes which elements beats which. As you can see below, it is pretty much a rock, paper, scissors, with Non-Typed losing or not interacting with other elements and Neutral winning against all but Non-typed.

In effect, the wheel doesn't interact with most moves, as a Void move will not necessarily "beat" a Matter move. However, it does interact with some special properties of moves.
For example, invincibility and guard points are generally Typed, which means you can be hit during those moves by the stronger type.
There are two important system mechanics that are influenced by the wheel, parries and defensive overdrives. Even if it is good to know that the wheel exists as to not be too surprised when it comes into play, it is only worth mastering for optimisation; ignoring it won't deprive you of any essential tool.

Type Status Effects

When any typed move connectsTyped move with an opponent (regardless of if they blocked the attack or not), they will be inflicted a status effect depending on the move type they've been hit by.

• Spirit all move that connects will give 2 times more mana for its duration.
• Matter guard bar cannot regenarate for its duration.
• Void inflicts damage over time (this damage cannot kill) for its duration.
• Neutral removes the Typed properties of all your moves which are now considered Non-typed for its duration.
• Non-typed doesn't inflict any status but it also won't replace or remove any status effect already in place.

When someone inflicted by a status effect is hit by another move of another type, the new status effect will replace the one already in place (except for Non-typed).
How long the status effect will linger depends on how high in the cancel tree the move that inflicted the status is (so jab don't inflict it for long and things like specials or supers inflict it for much longer).

Type Switch

You can press A + S/M/V even during another move to do a type switch for 10% of meter.
after a type switch your next moves for a 1/3 of a second will be of the type of the type switch (S for Spirit, M for Matter, V for Void).
This will only change what the type of the hit of a move, as such it will inflicts the status effect of its new type but, if the move that has been typed switch has Typed armor, invincibility or other specific typed properties, they will not change.
Think of this mechanic as an option to apply a certain status effect when you can't just use a move of the type you want or, more importantly, as an answer to any Typed defensive option.