NARAKA: BLADEPOINT – Ultimate Kurumi Guide

Ultimate Guide to Tsuchimikado Kurumi / The Onmyoji

By Penemue.

Talents

Dodge & Grappling Distance Build:

This is one of the recommended glyph setups for new players. It focuses on dodging / energy. The idea is that you can use SHIFT more to evade attacks, so you can stay alive longer. If you stay alive longer, this will let you do more fighting, healing and supporting in total. The grappling distance is for running away and catching enemies. It’s a good idea to pick at least some, if not max, grappling distance as a beginner.

Dodge & Skill Cooldown Build:

This is also a dodge build, but using skill cooldown instead of grappling distance. I don’t think it’s particularly valuable to be able to use F+RMB faster to burst-heal yourself and your team, because most of your F ability’s healing comes from staying tethered to a teammate and healing them over time. However, the F+LMB can be used as a personal teleport and knockback against enemies.

It can be placed on teammates or on the ground (hold F while casting). As such, it also provides movement and survivability, similar to grappling distance. If you make good and frequent use of F+LMB, this build may suit you better than the previous one.

Note that you can also do hybrid setups (some grappling distance and some skill cooldown).

Example Rage Build:

This is an example of a rage build, using 3 red rage/s and 3 purple rage/damage dealt. There are other variations, and some people even like to take full red, purple, and green rage. However, I wouldn’t advise going full rage. Hybrid builds are better so you retain some ability to dodge. You can start with this build I gave you and experiment yourself if you want to go the rage route.

Shop Discount Build:

A 10% party-shared shop discount build on Kurumi does see some occasional play. You and your team can buy moonbanes, upgrades, and souljades at a cheaper price. You can also buy revives at a discount. In addition, it comes with some built-in luck, which increases the drop rate of good items.

However, note that shop discount was changed recently in a patch. Before, this build would give a 20% discount for yourself only (not for your teammates). Now, it only gives half, but everyone gets the bonus. This means bag upgrades of teammates get a discount now, and you don’t have to spend as much time transferring money anymore. However, if you used to do a lot of shopping, the current 10% shared discount of this build is inferior to the previous individual 20% discount of this build.

Luck Build or Custom Build:

Some people like to run luck or further customize their build. Some glyphs are not worth it (e.g., enemy health bar time, dark tide coins). Talents mostly revolve around energy and/or rage, and some optional stuff (shop discount or luck, for the most part). You can, of course, make your own build. In this thread, I’ve been sharing some common builds that are being used by highly rated players. You are free to do as you choose.

Shop Discount Build for Double Transformers Comp (Tianhai, Kurumi, Yueshan):

Tianhai and Yueshan also have full blue and green shop discount (but they run full rage instead of energy in purple and red). Together, the shop discount of this comp is 54%. This is meta in Chinese competitive play.

Which Ultimate Ability (V) to Pick

V1:

Circle that heals HP over time. Recommended with a Tianhai teammate, viable with some other lineups in competitive trios and best choice for solos. Keep in mind that some elements on your team interact with the circle (Tarka’s fire, Valda’s water, Temulch’s sand, Justina’s ice, possibly Sunwing’s mushrooms: poison circle).

Before the patch, Kurumi players would avoid picking V1 or V2 when they had elements on their team (unless they knew exactly what they were doing). However, the elemental interaction has now been changed; Kurumi’s healing circles no longer lose their healing when turned by an elemental. The elemental change is now just a bonus that’s added on top.

V2:

Circle that heals armor over time. I don’t personally recommend this because the healing speed is slower than V1, but some players / lineups make it work. Elements on your team interact with this circle the same as with V1.

V3:

Combo-breaking burst healing that instantly regenerates HP and armor, 750 in total, prioritizing HP and only healing armor if HP is full. There is also a knockback and a 30% damage reduction for several seconds. The healing amount is too low for competitive play, so you don’t see it in tournaments among top players. There are a lot of other issues with V3.

This ability has a 1-2 second buildup, so it is not really as “instant” as it sounds; your teammates may die while you’re casting it. Like the other ultimates, once cast, it cannot be cancelled. It requires more rage to reach 100%, so you cannot cast it as often as other ultimates.

However, it is okay to play V3 if you are new to the game and playing trios with players you don’t know, or teammates who tend to split up a lot, as long as you have no Tianhai in your team (a Tianhai teammate requires Kurumi V1).

In low-rating games, a lot of deaths happen because the team is split, and V3 is like a corrective for this. Weak opponents aren’t that good at punishing your teammates for being out of position by going 3v1 on them, so the little amount of healing V3 does plus knockback and damage reduction can actually help your teammates survive until you’re regrouped. However, you have to consider that V3 doesn’t 1:1 trade with some enemy ults, e.g., a Zai ult will damage much more than the Kurumi V3 will heal. If you require 1:1 trades, V1 and V2 are better.

How Do Elements Interact with The Circle Ults V1 and V2?

Tarka’s Fire:

Fire circle damages enemy HP over time. Enemy Kurumi can cleanse her teammates who are not standing in the circle to stop the damage. Fire circle used to be a cheesy strategy if it caught enemies off guard, although it was often useless if enemies didn’t step in it or got cleansed. Since the August 4 changes, its offensive potential is even worse: the damage isn’t high enough anymore to have a proper impact on fights.

Valda’s Water:

Water circle heals some extra HP/armor when you step in it.

Temulch’s Sand and Justina’s Ice:

The circle disappears and it turns into a tool to stamina drain / CC the enemy. Not recommended.

Mushroom Poison:

Only the purple mushroom affects the circle:

• It immediately turns it into a poison circle (like how fire turns into a flame circle) that ticks damage and stacks with a current poison debuff.
• Poison circle duration lasts for the original remaining time.

Red mushroom doesn’t do anything to the ult – as for its normal effects, F cleaning only works after the attack buff finishes and turns into poisoning.

Elements on the Enemy Team:

They no longer interact with Kurumi’s circle.

If you know any more interactions, let me know! Despite playing Kurumi very actively for 1 year, I am not familiar with all interactions because it is very uncommon to pick V1 / V2 when you expect interactions to happen. Most of the interactions are undesirable, so Kurumi should pick V3 in such lineups instead.

Which F to Pick

Skill Descriptions

F1:

• F1 LMB: Personal teleport and knockback on enemies
• F1 RMB: Instantly heals 500 HP for Kurumi and the teammate she is tethered to
• F1 tether: Heals teammate’s HP over time

F2:

• F2 LMB: Personal teleport and knockback on enemies
• F2 RMB: Instantly applies a 40% attack buff (duration: 1s) for Kurumi and the teammate she is tethered to, but no instant healing
• F2 tether: Heals teammate’s HP over time, provides 20% attack buff over time

F3:

• F3 LMB: Personal teleport and knockback on enemies
• F3 RMB: Instantly applies very strong damage reduction for Kurumi and the teammate she is tethered to (few seconds duration), but no instant healing
• F3 tether: Heals teammate’s HP over time, provides 20% damage reduction buff over time

Good to Know:

• Tethering with any F now lets Kurumi heal her HP slowly over time. Now she can also do gold focus parries after the sped-up right-click animation.
• You can tether to a teammate’s dead body using any F’s tether and slowly revive them over time. If you have time for it, it’s recommended that you first place it on the ground above them so they don’t instantly get shot upon revive.
• You can hold F to place the parasol on the ground instead of placing it in front of you or on the teammate in the crosshair. This is useful for movement, climbing, and sometimes catching enemies (F-LMB).

Which F is good?

F1: The F practically everyone uses. The F1 RMB healing on yourself and your ally is Kurumi’s bread and butter, very good for sustain => definitely use this.

F2: Very rarely played in cheesy strategies (e.g., use buff on Tianhai while he’s smashing enemies, Yoto while slashing) => not worth it in competitive play.

F3: Sometimes used by high-level Chinese teams in transformer comps (Kurumi, Tianhai, Yueshan) to shield against Yoto ult burst damage => has niche uses, but requires playing Kurumi very differently. Most Kurumi players get used to her F1 ability to heal herself, and missing out on that is significant.

Ranked Trio Stats

If you want to improve as a Kurumi player in ranked trios, you should have a goal in mind. One way of setting a personal goal is to envision ranked trio stats you want to reach. In this post, I will share my perspective on what the ranked trio stats of a decent Kurumi player can look like.

First, let’s look at the stats of a player that could be a decent teammate, but not world-class. Their trio rating is anything in between high Solar and low Astral, depending on how many games they play and how hard they grind. They damage around 9000-10000 per game, heal around 4000-5000 per game, and have a KDR that’s greater than 1.00. This is the kind of player that is experienced in Naraka for a few seasons, uses voice chat to communicate with their teammates, and has learned most of the basics.

Kurumi is a bit different in the sense that her damage is likely going to be lower and her healing is going to be higher. One simple thing you could do is add the damage and healing together and just distribute them differently for Kurumi. For example, 9500 + 4500 = 14000 could be distributed as follows for Kurumi: 5000 damage and 9000 healing. Let’s disregard KDR for a moment.

This would probably make you a “decent” Kurumi. But being “decent” is hardly a goal to strive for.

At this point, I want to share how I approach my Kurumi gameplay. I try to deal at least as much damage as someone who isn’t a Kurumi main, but I want to heal people on top of that. This means:

• I want to deal 10000+ average damage per game because that’s the upper limit of what a “decent” teammate damages
• I want to heal 12000+ per game because a “decent” teammate heals a minimum 4000 per game, but I don’t only want to heal myself, I also want to heal 2 teammates. 4000 x 3 = 12000.
• I want to have a KDR of at least 1.00 because it seems unreasonable to die more often than I kill others, even as a healer.

I think damaging 10000+ and healing 12000+ with a KDR of >1.00 in the high Solar to low Astral trio range is a reasonable goal to set yourself as a Kurumi player. If your stats are significantly worse than that, chances are that you are still struggling with some of the basics or you are just a bit too passive.

The biggest danger when it comes to stagnating in your development as a Kurumi player is actually that you don’t participate enough in the fights, i.e., you stay in the background as things are happening around you, not healing, not damaging, not killing, and possibly even getting killed when the enemy is focusing you.

For this reason, I try to set my goal as I’ve described above. A lot of it obviously depends on your team; if you’re carrying two complete beginners, it’s going to be a lot harder to reach these stats compared to when it’s you who’s getting carried. In any case, building a functioning team is part of the trios experience, as well as the Kurumi experience. Try to play with the same people and evolve together.

My Current Status:

• I deal around 8300 damage per game, this indicates I should be more active in fights and/or die less early.
• I heal more than 12000 average when I’m on Kurumi, so I’m good in this regard.
• My KDR fluctuates between 1.30 and 1.50 depending on when I play (we get sweaty Asura lobbies late at night and I tend to play with Solar-Emp teammates)

I think the main reason my damage is lower than I hope to achieve is that I main dagger.
It’s a very unusual pick for a Kurumi main and it’s objectively not one of the best weapons for trios. However, I chose this weapon because I like it, and I need to find ways of making it work if I want to stick with it. Therefore, it’s not a valid excuse.

So for the next couple of weeks and months, I will focus on participating even more actively in the fights and trying to survive tomorrow in situations in which I’d die today (movement, dodges etc. are very important). This will help me reach my damage goal.

What Are the Takeaways for You?

1. Have some kind of stats goal and/or Kurumi gameplay approach in mind, it will give you a direction when it comes to improving. It doesn’t have to be the same as mine, but it can be.
2. Try to improve at the game and reach your goal, but don’t artificially change your gameplay to inflate specific stats. Just improve naturally while focusing on what you’re missing.
3. Don’t be too passive on Kurumi. She’s a healer, but she can also melee, shoot, knockback and teleport. That’s not a stereotypical healer, that’s an all-rounder with a focus on healing.
4. Don’t only focus on yourself, but also help your team improve. If their stats get better, yours will too.
5. Once you reach your goal, set a new one. Never stop improving.

Disclaimer:

As I said, you can’t judge a player based on their stats alone. Read the context: who do they play with, when do they play, what platform do they play on, etc.

This is the perspective of an EU Kurumi player who plays on PC at Empyrean-Astral trio rating. Our average lobby has 33 players, we frequently get matched with Asura-rated players, and there are no bots in 99.5% of the games. For us, so the skill level is higher than on some other platforms. I’d imagine that the stats don’t translate well to other regions and platforms at all, so try to come up with your own goals if this approach interests you.

Solo: I’d say minimum 10000 / 10000 on EU PC, but stats are a mess since sometimes there’s more bot lobbies, sometimes less, sometimes there’s champion fights, then there’s not. Now we even got revives in solos.

Duo: There is no benchmark because duos is not a competitive game mode. Netease themselves said it’s directed at casual players and there won’t be official duo tournaments.

Best Melee Weapon for Kurumi in Trios

Here’s a list of the melee weapons and their pros and cons for Kurumi.

Longsword:

Pros:

• Focus attacks can realistically hit multiple enemies at once, so the weapon has the potential to turn team fights on its own.
• The only melee weapon in the game that can punish enemy Tianhai / Yueshan in ult without relying on jades (essential for Kurumi in transformer fights).
• B1 (first vertical attack / RMB) can stagger enemies for a long time, setting up team play.
• Carefully placed focus attacks on staggered / unaware enemies can assist in a team fight from a safe distance.
• Has okay-ish movement with running LMB, but not the best protection.

Cons:

• People love to parry longsword focus and it’s quite easy to parry, so you cannot be too greedy and release it too much.
• Largely unprotected movement makes it impossible to run away alone against multiple opponents if there’s nothing to scale-rush on.
• Not that good in 1v2 / 1v3 situations against good players, since light attack stagger doesn’t help much vs multiple enemies, and focus attacks can get parried easily.

Greatsword:

Pros:

• Focus attacks can realistically hit multiple enemies at once, so the weapon has the potential to turn team fights on its own.
• Stoneform offers Kurumi a lot of survivability in team fights.
• High damage weapon with many mind game situations forces enemy to respect Kurumi even as a support.
• Practically no combos, which is good because Kurumi can stop fighting to heal a teammate any time without interrupting a combo.
• One of the best melee weapons for movement due to jump LMB and skywalk.

Cons:

• Can get parried if not careful with blue focus or stoneform release, which is bad for Kurumi, who has no combo breaker F.
• Good players will stoneform you to death, leaving you extremely vulnerable in a 1vX situation.

Katana:

• Doesn’t bring any special traits to the table in trios, so I wouldn’t specifically recommend it for trios, at least not without jades. A good katana player can make it work, but will also agree that there are better options for trios.

Spear:

Pros:

• Focus attacks can realistically hit multiple enemies at once, so the weapon has the potential to turn team fights on its own
• Many options to stay safe in blue focus without releasing
• Light attacks can stagger enemies easily and create a setup for the team
• Possibility of assisting with dragonslayer from a safe distance or use RMB focus “bonk” against unaware opponents
• Running uppercut for safe movement

Cons:

• Greedy / obvious dragonslayers get parried
• Most enemies can F out of Nezha
• Difficult to use (IMO one of the most difficult weapons to train and master on a competitive level)

Nunchucks:

• Kurumi can sustain her HP. Nunchucks meter fills when Kurumi takes damage, so there is a synergy
• Nunchucks without jades are not recommended for trios, though

Dual Blades:

• Holding LMB and running at an enemy who is unaware or staggered by a teammate synergizes with Kurumi fighting from the back row
• Not being able to stay in blue focus during hold LMB can be a problem, so try to hold RMB instead when you need the blue focus to defend yourself against light attack stagger

Dagger:

Pros:

• Can pressure enemies in a team fight and break their blue focus using soulbreak
• Some enemies tend to split from the group fight to 1v1 Kurumi; Kurumi can use dagger to punish that
• Dagger has short animations, meaning there are more windows for the dagger user to parry enemies
• Probably the melee weapon with the best movement in the game due to dagger dashes, reduced dodge cost, focus LMB and focus RMB (the latter is used to recover energy)

Cons:

• Cannot usually carry team fights the way longsword, greatsword and spear can because it tends to only hit 1 enemy at a time
• Takes too much time killing enemies to really impact a team fight, especially if the dagger’s rarity / grade is low
• Long combos introduce a nasty trade-off between damaging enemies and canceling them midway to heal teammates
• In 1v1, releasing an obvious soulbreak means gifting a parry to any skilled opponent, which is especially bad for Kurumi
• Difficult to use in the sense that learning dagger won’t help you very much with learning other weapons and vice versa, you have to train it separately

TLDR:

You can use all weapons on Kurumi, but most people will agree that Kurumi should carry a longsword, at least as a sidearm, to punish enemy transformers.

She should have a greatsword (jump LMB), spear (running uppercut) or dagger (dash and focus LMB), at least as a sidearm, for movement.

She can use nunchucks or katana if she has good jades for them or she is particularly skilled at using them, but there are better options for trios.

Good Trio Lineups

Transformers (Tianhai, Yueshan, Kurumi)

• Tianhai (F1, V1) goes in first and tries to deal some damage with a parry or hold-check, and waste the F of some enemies. Then he transforms and tries to get grabs while his teammates grapple or stagger. He smashes the enemies once they are low HP from shots of his teammates, or situationally goes for double grabs. (That’s pretty much the ideal situation, but sometimes Tianhai needs to ult without first dealing damage or baiting enemy Fs. If he’s ulting too late, the party could lose momentum and it may put too much pressure on Kurumi, who potentially has one or more enemies on her. Important: Tianhai doesn’t always have to be low HP to ult!)
• Kurumi supports Tianhai with healing and shooting. She plays F1 (recommended) or F3 (not recommended, but also viable sometimes, e.g., against Yoto ult). She should carry two ranged weapons (one crossbow for Tianhai’s grabs and one other) and a longsword, at least as a sidearm, if possible (against enemy transformers). She uses V1 ult when Tianhai is getting shot to 66% HP. She also revives dead teammates under the protection of one transformer in ult and she dodges against enemy monk grabs, Viper silence, etc.
• Yueshan is a peeling champion who protects his teammates and covers the retreat of the party. To an inexperienced Yueshan in transformer comp, it will always feel like his ult doesn’t generate much value, but just know that the ult exists mainly for protection, not damage or kills. He plays F1 and V3 (against Viper and Temulch). He shoots enemies in monk hands, just like Kurumi. Yueshan cannot ult while Tianhai is in ult; transformers is based on the idea that one transformer is always transformed to protect the rest of the party. One dead transformer with ult is better than two transformers who’re both in ult. If the enemy team has a Viper or Temulch, Yueshan should go in first and ult before Tianhai to protect against or react to enemy CC with V3+F.

Tianhai, Wuchen, Kurumi

• Tianhai is played the same as in transformers
• Kurumi takes a slightly more active role, going in as position 2 supporting Tianhai, instead of staying at the back for shooting and healing primarily. The rest is the same as in transformers.
• Wuchen plays F3 and V1. He places his teleport and teleports his team to safety if needed. He shoots enemies grabbed by monk, alongside Kurumi. Wuchen needs to make sure to communicate his ult and he should try to avoid ulting while other teammates’ ults are active (this would lead to one ult being wasted or not all teammates being teleported).

Tianhai, Viper, Kurumi

• I haven’t played this lineup a lot, so I can only provide little first-hand experience
• This is considered the “offensive” version of transformers, that is built around the synergy between Tianhai and Kurumi, with Viper as an offensive position 2 (rather than defensive Yueshan).
• There is normally a dissynergy between Kurumi and Viper because Viper, if she gets revived by Kurumi, can’t participate in the fight since she does not have a combo-breaker F or HP-restoring ultimate. But Tianhai kind of covers for this weakness, being a strong deterrent and big shield to make sure Viper doesn’t get attacked immediately after getting revived.

Bad Trio Lineups

Basically, anything that revolves around elemental interaction (e.g., Kurumi-Tarka fire circle) is not very viable in trios in the current balance. The damage or other benefits the elements add to the circle are weak, and enemies can always just “not stand in it.” Whenever I saw enemy teams use this, I believe it was a product of randomness, and it didn’t notably impact the fights.

So right now, my assessment: if you’re trying to couple Kurumi with champions that have elements specifically to make use of the elemental interaction, you’re doing it wrong, and you unfortunately fell for some marketing bullshit. The only exception I can think of is in the PVE campaign mode.

It’s probably not intended like this by the developers, but that’s how I think it is. If anyone who is more familiar than me with high-level gameplay in China has any evidence that elemental interaction strategies are viable after all, I’m open to hearing it (send evidence from pro-player tournaments).

As mentioned in tip #8, there is also a dissynergy between Kurumi and Viper. If there is a Tianhai on the team, he can cover for it to some extent, but I believe most other lineups will struggle with it.

How to Improve Your Kurumi Gameplay (The Big Picture)

Movement:

You need to learn how to move without getting staggered by light attacks or grapples. You cannot get staggered while you are in iframes (primarily when you dodge with the Shift key) and while you are in blue focus (charging a melee attack or a blue scale rush). You’re also protected from staggers while you are attacking. This is why it’s really useful to have a greatsword and use jump LMB, or a spear and use running uppercut (cancel the landing animation with a hold-dodge and go again). Keep these tips in mind and learn how to move in Naraka from a mechanical perspective.

Against an enemy Tianhai, avoid getting grabbed by watching his grabs and tap-dodging at the right timing. Only shoot when you’re sure not to get grabbed.

The ultimate goal of movement is to never die, meaning you can:

• Tether to a teammate and revive them while climbing something (you’ll be harder to catch this way)
• Run away when your team has fully died and escape from 3 people chasing you (this is required to revive teammates with banners from shop or Morus blessings)
• Stall in a 1v2 forever while your teammates finish an enemy in an easy 2v1
• Lure an enemy team to another enemy team to create an escape for your team if needed

Positioning:

In competitive play, Kurumi is usually (if not always) paired with a Tianhai. You should always stay close to Tianhai so you can use V1 when he’s taking a lot of damage (I often drop circle when he’s on ~66% HP and taking fire). In almost every comp, Kurumi plays position 3, meaning you’re going to be the last one to join melee in most fights and otherwise shooting or healing. Don’t be the first to engage, watch the minimap to stay close to your team, and if you split to loot or quest, call it so your teammates can come with you or at least know about it.

Not going in front is especially important when the enemy team has characters like Viper, Valda, or Temulch, which can catch you and immobilize you. You will die because you have no combo-breaking ability, or be forced to use your ult for yourself (rather than for a teammate).

Some parties believe Kurumi is a good champion to shotcall as, because she can stay in the back and keep the overview, spot incoming third parties, etc. If this is your role, choose favorable positions on the map for your team, such as high ground, buildings you can easily defend, or rotate at the edge of an endgame circle.

Shooting:

Kurumi players need to learn how to use ranged weapons well. When I play with a Tianhai, I always carry a ranged weapon for regular combat (bow, musket, or cannon with meteor or bounce shell) and a crossbow to shoot enemies in his hands. If I have only 3 weapon slots, I carry 1 melee weapon and 2 ranged weapons to avoid running out of bullets when Tianhai grabs someone. I’ll be extra careful not to get parried and try to get a weapon bag ASAP so I can carry a backup melee weapon.

I don’t like pistols on Kurumi because they’re not that strong over long range. But they’re good with thundercall and/or detonating rounds, and a lot of it is personal preference.

I can’t really teach you how to improve your aim in Naraka. IMO, Naraka is not a friendly game for learning ranged because the fights are fast-paced and if you miss your shots, you are objectively useless to your team; you might as well do nothing. The aim training mode (in free training) is not helpful because bots move in a randomized way. It doesn’t teach you how to predict a player’s movement.

I learned aiming in other games by just shooting a lot, and I apply it in Naraka. Ranged weapons are comparably easy to aim in Naraka compared to, e.g., Mount & Blade and similar games because the trajectory is fairly straight and the missile speed is high, so you don’t need to make any special calculations to land your shots. What’s important, though, is to know when to shoot.

Examples:

• When an enemy uses grapple, they stop in the air and you can get a free headshot
• When your teammates grapple an enemy, they get staggered unless they move in blue focus, another free headshot (coordinate this)
• Most weapons, skills, and ults have punishable frames at the end of the animation where the enemy stands still or barely moves
• When an enemy is slammed to the ground, you can shoot them easily by aiming low
• If you can avoid it, don’t shoot enemies while they are attacking, as this gives them protection

Important – Weapon Switching:

A good way to switch to a ranged weapon is by holding LMB with your melee weapon (this will make you go into blue focus), pressing C (this will cancel it), and pressing 2 or using the mouse wheel (this will get the ranged weapon out and shoot or charge it immediately without using stamina since you’ve been holding LMB all this time).

To switch back to a melee weapon, you can hold-dodge backwards and press 1 or scroll with your mouse wheel (and you’re in melee again). Then you can immediately charge a blue focus to be protected from staggers.

You need to become fluent with this. If you forget to cancel your current animation with C or hold-dodge, you won’t be able to switch weapons fast, and your shooting/fighting will be delayed. If you don’t manage to kill someone your monk grabbed because of this, it is a very big misplay. The same applies if you have your ranged weapon out by accident and an opponent staggers you for free in melee.

I sometimes still struggle with weapon switching because I didn’t practice it the right way when I was a new player.

Communication and Awareness:

• Be on voice chat with your team
• Use short, clear callouts (long sentences consume too much attention). Repeat important calls. It’s your responsibility to be heard; you can’t expect everyone to always listen and understand things the first time
• Call out the enemy composition before the fight and decide on a priority target
• Call which enemy to focus, when to go in, when to regroup, when to retreat
• Call out important events in fights (parries, your F, your V, enemy F, enemy V, when you’re low and need peeling, when an enemy is low, special souljades, greatsword drop, spinning with spear or nunchucks)
• Don’t tunnel vision
• Watch out for third parties and call them out
• Watch out for ballistas, plaques, ice cones, etc.
• Don’t be a loot goblin
• Share items with teammates
• Immediately regroup in a hotdrop after finding weapon, armor, grapples
• Coordinate going to shop, moonbane, and morus

This list isn’t complete, and these things are not specific to Kurumi, but are also important for other characters and/or the party leader. However, you could argue that Kurumi has a special responsibility here. Because she stays in the back more and watches her teammates anyway, she sees more than her position 1 / position 2 players.

Fighting:

Learn every weapon on a basic level. Go to free training and watch YouTube videos for combos, go into custom rooms to apply it and learn tech chasing / avoid getting staggered. If you easily die in a 1v1, this means you haven’t understood a lot of basics, and you’re ultimately going to let down your team while you could be carrying instead. Trios is different from 1v1 and revolves more around parries, blue focus, group staggers, ults, and abilities. But you still need to be able to win a 1v1 against most players in the community if you want to be good.

Improve Your Kurumi Gameplay by Not Playing Kurumi

This may sound strange, but one of the ways to get better at playing Kurumi is by playing other characters.

Some Examples:

• Play Viper to experience what it’s like to have no combo breaker, just like Kurumi, but play as a frontline character with no way of quickly restoring HP mid-fight (no healing F, no healing V). This will teach you to take less unnecessary damage in fights and improve your overall movement, positioning, and survivability, which will benefit your Kurumi gameplay too. Besides, you learn how Vipers think and how they try to, e.g., stagger into silence, silence bomb (grapple F), Viper bomb (drop down on someone with ult), and hit risky Fs. If you’re more familiar with Viper’s ult visuals and sound, you can also F-LMB dodge it on Kurumi more easily.
• Play Matari to learn how to play a support that doesn’t have notable healing capabilities, thus being forced to deal more damage, for example, by flanking or using ranged weapons. This will help you be less passive on Kurumi, too. Playing Matari can also help you understand that her dashes in ult are only useful when you have an ally with you, so when you’re facing a Matari in ult as a Kurumi, you should try to ult yourself and/or be close to an ally or far from Matari’s allies. In this way, the enemy Matari won’t inflict significant damage with her ult.
• Play Justina to understand common priority targets for her dashes in team fights (e.g., Justina ults against Kurumi’s team to either force Kurumi ult or Yueshan ult). Forcing these ults can drastically reduce the survivability of Kurumi’s team against Justina’s allies later in the fight. Playing Justina also teaches you to play faster and more proactively, which can get your Kurumi gameplay to the next level.
• Play Tianhai to familiarize yourself with his grab animation. When you’re on Kurumi, you’ll have an easier time shooting an enemy in his hand while he’s trying to go for a double grab. Also, pay attention to how you’re taking damage as Tianhai against ranged or melee weapons. Once you’re back on Kurumi, you’ll have a better understanding of when you should V1 on your Tianhai ally. And if you’re playing V2, you can call your Tianhai ally to turn small sooner before he takes lethal damage.

There are countless examples like this; I think you get the idea. I’m not particularly interested in any character’s gameplay except Kurumi’s, but I’m still playing other characters at the moment because it will help me become a better Kurumi player. I accepted that I need to learn at least two champions to compete in the finals of big tournaments (due to the hero score rule), but I’ve only recently started to play more than two for the reasons I described above. If you really care about improving your Kurumi gameplay, you should do the same.

Kurumi Positioning

Kurumi positioning is a lot about having the discipline to not go in first when an enemy is overextending, or frontline when you see a juicy opportunity.

Example Situation:

1. Enemy Tarka is 80m away from his team, jumping into the air and trying to fireball us from up close (giga noob Tarka).
2. I call “focus Tarka.”
3. Nobody does anything due to a 3-second brain lag on comms.
4. So I go and catch Tarka, getting some RMB stagger with dual blades going.
5. My Monk doesn’t ult; Yueshan and he only follow up super slowly (I’m still on the Tarka).
6. Tarka’s teammates come from 2 different flanks; I die 100-0 in 2 seconds.

Whose fault is it? Everyone’s a little bit, but mostly mine and our Monk’s. Why?

• I am not disciplined enough to let my teammate decide the pace of the fight. Even if they are really slow, it’s not my job to attack, and it’s better to let the Tarka go than to overextend as Kurumi. I also should be turning my camera while performing simple combos to see the other enemies coming and get away before it’s too late.
• Tianhai should be in ult already. You don’t want to fight neutral as Transformers when you have ult. Tianhai needs to ult with full armor so he doesn’t die when he turns small and gets focused later. He needs to ult at the start of the fight, and an overextending enemy is the perfect opportunity. His alarm bells should be ringing when he sees Kurumi making a positioning error or getting chased down.
• You can’t sleep on an opportunity like this as a team.

Quite frankly, there is a limit to what you can do as a Kurumi when your teammates don’t ult. Bonus tip: If you have a Kurumi on your team, ult earlier. If you don’t, she will most likely die. You also want to sacrifice yourself for the Kurumi most of the time if it’s either you or her dying. If your team cannot make that work, you can play Temulch in the Kurumi slot (not recommended in tournaments though due to hero score; there you could go Valda if nothing else works).