Avatar Combat: Basic Strategy 
Movement is Important
Most of your skills are able to hit multiple targets in front of you. To get the most out of these skills, you should try stepping away from your enemies to encourage them to bunch up in front of you. This is particularly true when some enemies circle behind you. Your enemies receive no particular bonus for attacking you from behind, but when they’re behind you, you can’t hit them, and you want to hit as many targets as you can.
Look at Your Skills Carefully
Many of your skills can apply negative effects to your targets. For example, enemies who are afflicted with Off-Balance are much easier to hit, and enemies that are Weakened will do significantly less damage to you. By keeping these types of effects active on your enemies at all times, you’ll greatly increase your chances of winning, even against four or more opponents.
Similarly, you may have buffs available to you that will increase your odds. For example, Intensity will make you deal more damage, and Precision will improve your chances of hitting an enemy. The highest-level skill in each Defense chain will greatly reduce the damage you take from attacks. Nearly all these skills last a long time, and can be kept up indefinitely. Make sure that you’re always using any available buffs you have.
You should also look for chains of skills that complement each other. You may have a skill that applies the Off-Balance effect, and another skill that will do increased damage to a target who is Off-Balance. Using those two skills together will increase the damage to your opponent substantially.
Even the Odds
It’s always easier to fight a small number of enemies at once. When you first engage a group of enemies, keep your eyes open for additional opponents who might join your fight. Watch for patrolling enemies who may wander through your battle. If you can, slowly back off, drawing the enemies with you, until you’re fighting in a safer spot.
Gun skills are an excellent way to bring enemies to your location; use gun skills to pull enemies away from their starting location.
You can also use your skills to even the odds. Several effects can all be used to keep enemies from attacking you for a short while: Stunned, Crippled, Staggered, and Knockdowns.
The gun skill Knockback Shot will allow you to attract enemies while leaving one of them behind for a few seconds. Stunning one or more enemies and then backing away from them (so as not to wake them up with additional damage) can substantially reduce the number of incoming attacks you have to deal with.
Crippled and Staggered will cause an enemy to move more slowly. You can use these abilities to quickly move away from some of your opponents, spreading them out so you fight fewer at a time.
There’s no better way to even the odds than to kill an opponent. When fighting multiple targets, look for the ones that are the closest to death, and focus on those. If you’re in a tough fight against a Lieutenant and two Grunts, consider killing the grunts first, as they’ll go down faster than the Lieutenant. You might also try Stunning the Lieutenant and using an attack like Knockback to pull the Grunts away and deal with them before the Lieutenant wakes up.
Get a Group!
Allies on your side can make hard fights trivial, especially if your skills are complementary. For example, if you’re focused on defense and your ally is focused on offense, use your defensive Taunt skills to encourage enemies to attack you while your ally cuts them down from behind.
Split up groups to maximize your total damage, and work together to cut down tougher enemies before they can kill one of you.
Also be sure to check for chains that you can do together. For example, if your ally can apply the Off-Balance effect, and you can do additional damage to an Off-Balance target, the two of you can inflict substantially more damage together.
Pay Attention to Your Enemies
Many enemies have unique attacks that you’ll come to recognize as particular to that type of enemy. Many of these unique attacks have specific counters that you can use to mitigate the impact. For instance, some enemies will wind-up to deliver a large attack (pause and do some pre-attack motion). If you can strike the enemy while they’re still winding up, you’ll interrupt their attack and avoid the damage from it entirely.
Practice!
Obviously, there are many more possible strategies and approaches than a brief guide can cover, meaning the only way to really learn the system is to try it out for yourself. There are Sandbox missions available where you can test your skills against a variety of opponents at a variety of difficulty levels. Take advantage of them to learn your capabilities and weaknesses.
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