Guide
Dojo and techniques guide: all six explained
Techniques are the tactical layer of Cromon Quest's Arena, the 3v3 mode of the creature-collection RPG on Cronos. A team stands on a 3 by 3 grid and each Cromon can carry one technique, which fires from the rows it is legal in: Guard, Pierce, Sweep, Ambush, Mend and Gale Shove. Every Cromon knows Sweep at rank 1 from birth; the others are drawn from capsules bought with Shards (1,500, 3,000 or 6,000 for a draft of 1, 2 or 3) and trained at the Dojo: 8 hours to rank 1, 12 hours and 3,000 Shards to rank 2, 24 hours and 8,000 to rank 3. Rarity sets how many a Cromon can know, 2 for a Common up to 5 for a Legendary, never how strong they get. This guide gives every rank number and the row rules behind them.
What does each technique do, rank by rank?
Row 0 is the front, row 1 the middle, row 2 the back. A technique fires only from its legal rows; ready on an illegal row, it stays dormant and the Cromon attacks normally. All coefficients multiply a normal hit, so a technique never bypasses the stat rolls, it stacks on them.
| Technique | Rows | Trigger | Effect and rank numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Guard | front, middle | opening | Intercepts the next single-target hit aimed at the ally behind it, taking 100%, 90% or 80% of it by rank, and swings an opening blow at 30%, 40% or 50% of a hit. Once per fight. |
| Pierce | front, middle | focus | The foe behind the target takes 25%, 40% or 50% of a hit by rank. No foe behind: a normal attack, Focus kept. |
| Sweep | middle | focus | The foes left and right of the target take 20%, 35% or 45% of a hit by rank. Middle row only. |
| Ambush | middle, back | focus | One hit at 75%, 85% or 90% on the middle or back enemy with the highest Attack, ignoring Guard. |
| Mend | middle, back | focus | Heals the ally with the most missing HP (itself included) for 3 + 0.25 × Resolve, 4 + 0.3 × Resolve or 5 + 0.4 × Resolve by rank, instead of attacking. |
| Gale Shove | front, middle | focus | A hit at 90%, 95% or 100% by rank, then pushes whoever took it one row back if the cell behind is empty. |
When does a technique fire?
Two triggers. Guard is an opening: on its first legal action with a living ally directly behind it, it arms its posture once for the whole fight and swings its opening blow the same turn; the posture is spent on the first single-target hit it intercepts. Every other technique runs on Focus, a gauge that starts at 0, gains 25 at the start of every round and 15 the first time the Cromon is targeted in a round, caps at 100, and casts at 100 before resetting: the earliest cast is round 3 if the Cromon was hit in rounds 1 and 2, round 4 otherwise, and it repeats without limit. Interception has rules of its own: Guard catches normal attacks, Pierce's first hit, Gale Shove's strike, a Guard's own opening blow and the bonus strikes a fast Cromon gets from Speed, but never Sweep, never a secondary hit, and never Ambush, which is the whole point of Ambush. Turn order is Speed with a jitter each round, and targeting follows the Arena's rule: the lowest-HP enemy, forced when your type beats it; otherwise a coin flip between the lowest-HP enemy your type beats and the plain lowest-HP enemy, with a 2% chance of the highest-HP enemy that resists you.
How do capsules and the memory cap work?
Pick the Cromon first, then buy and open a capsule on it: Basic at 1,500 Shards draws 1 technique, Premium at 3,000 offers 2 and Ultra at 6,000 offers 3, and you keep one. The pool is weighted, Guard 30 and Pierce 30 against Ambush 15, Gale Shove 15 and Mend 10, drawn without replacement and minus what the Cromon already knows; Sweep is never in it because everyone has it. The capsule is consumed when the draft is created, there is no reroll, and the Dojo refuses to open one when the memory is full or nothing is left to discover. The draw enters memory at rank 0, known but not playable until the 8-hour job lifts it to rank 1. Memory is counted in distinct techniques, innate Sweep included and rank-0 discoveries included: 2 for a Common, 3 for an Uncommon and a Rare, 4 for an Epic, 5 for a Legendary. A full memory is permanent: there is no forgetting, and mastering a technique frees nothing, so a Common has exactly one draw to spend.
How does training work, and what does it lock?
The ladder is rank 0 to 1 in 8 hours for nothing, rank 1 to 2 in 12 hours and 3,000 Shards, rank 2 to 3 in 24 hours and 8,000 Shards: 44 hours and 11,000 Shards from discovery to mastery. One job runs per Cromon and one per Keeper at a time, so whatever your roster size, one rank step advances at a time, and a finished job that was never collected still blocks the next one. A Cromon in training is locked out of every mode until the timer elapses, and a Cromon busy elsewhere cannot start training. Training follows the token: if the Cromon changes hands mid-job, the new owner collects. In the Arena a technique is played at its learned rank, and only rank 1 or higher can be equipped. A fusion carries the base Cromon's techniques onto the new token and drops the two fuels', which is one more reason to train the copy you will keep.
Which techniques go where on the grid?
Think in columns and rows. Guard in the front or middle row, directly in front of the Cromon you most want alive: it only protects the ally behind it in the same column. Pierce in the front or middle, in the column where the enemy stacks two fighters. Sweep needs the middle row and pays when the enemy line is full. Ambush from the middle or back, aimed at the enemy's back-row striker, and immune to their Guard. Mend from the middle or back on a Cromon with high Resolve, since the heal scales with it. Gale Shove from the front or middle to push a front-liner out of Sweep and Pierce range. A team with no techniques fights exactly as the plain 3v3 does, and techniques exist only in the Arena: the Pit, the World Boss and the maze use the technique-free engine. Your defense team plays its saved formation while you are away, so it deserves a Guard as much as your attack does; an unsaved defense is backfilled with your first three Cromons on the front row, without techniques.
Teach your first technique
Free to start: connect your wallet, receive three starter Cromons, and every one of them already knows Sweep.