Maiden and Spell/System
Round Start and Scoring
At the start of the round, both players have full movement but cannot take actions until the round start timer has counted down. During this time, they can try to gain the positioining they want to start with for the upcoming battle. After the timer hits 0, you zero, there is a 100ms period to buffer actions you may want to use immediately, and then the round begins proper. Each player also has a very brief window of invulnerability at the start lasting 200ms beyond the action lock, lasting just long enough to protect against point blank shot with no spawn delay (which would otherwise hit in 180ms).
After a player scores a hit, the game will pause briefly, and then the player who scored the hit will be granted 1.2 seconds of Minor Invincibility to get them out of immediate danger and allow them to reposition and try to set up in safety. The player who was hit will gain 3 seconds of Major Invincibility, but also 1.5 seconds of Move Lock, 1.6 seconds of action lock, and 2 seconds of 50% move speed. In practical terms, they get to make the first attack of the next point, but are stuck in place and unable to move briefly, and move slightly slow for half a second after regaining movement.
After a stock is lost, all shots and effects are immediately destroyed. If it was not the last stock, the round start procedure again from wherever the players currently are.
Competitive play is done with the default settings of 4 hearts per stock, 2 stocks per game.
Targeting Drift
As players move around, their targeting arrows move to follow the opponent on a slight delay. Basic shots and certain offensive specials follow the targeting arrow, while wide shots are always relative to the opponent's actual position and defensive specials are not as a rule affected by enemy positing, except in some cares whether they are towards the left or the right. Because your shot is a bit inaccurate when moving and when often after taking other actions, your straight-forward shots may drift left or right relative to the opponent. While this can be an annoyance that interferes with the ability to hit your opponent, you can also make use if your shot drift to aim away from where your opponent is and towards where you expect them to be.
In addition to slowing you down, holding down Focus will also drastically increase your targeting arrow's accuracy. If your opponent is quickly moving past you, Focus will even aim ahead of them.
Move Conditions
Using any move will instantly apply some amount of conditions to your character, generally slowing her down or limiting when she can take her next action. Some effects can be positive, though, either with a positive multiplier to move speed or with explicitly positive effects.
If you use a move that would give you a condition you already have, you keep whichever one would have higher remaining duration, regardless of the relative strength (Except as applied by a few specific Offensive Specials).
Move Speed Multiplier
The most common condition. Using this move changes your move speed temporarily.
Move Lock
You are unable to move at all temporarily.
Direction Lock
Your targeting arrow won't move, or the rate it will track the opponent is reduced.
With limited, character-specific exceptions, holding Focus will ignore this effect.
Attack Lock
You can't use Basic Shot or Wide Shot.
Spell Lock
You can't use Offensive Special or Defensive Special.
Action Lock
You can't use any actions.
Regardless of the specific attack lock / spell lock / action locks of a move, every move has an implicit Action Lock of 200ms, meaning you can never use a move sooner than 200ms after using another move.
Combo
For a brief period, if you use the same move again, you'll get the next step in a chain of attacks.
Cooldown Hold
The special you just used can be used again, and won't go on cooldown until you run out of cooldown hold time or you use a different move.
Invincibility
You can't be hit. Only granted by Defensive Specials and Hero of Frost's "Dodge Roll."
There's two kinds of invincibility. Most specials that grant invincibility only grant Minor Invincibility; you can't be hit directly, but certain characters can afflict you with status effects. Some moves grant Major Invincibilty, though, which protects both from damage and status.
