Break

Break is a mechanic introduced in Trails of Cold Steel III and used until Trails into Reverie.

Break Gauge

In addition to their health, enemies have a Break Gauge underneath. This gauge takes break damage, derived from the health damage they take from attacks: $Break\ Damage=Health\ Damage\times Sum\ of\ Break\ Multipliers$ Ways to increase break damage include:

• Equipping break damage increasing quartz or master quartz.
• Using a Brave Order that increases break damage dealt.
• Using crafts with a Break bonus multiplier (Break rating above D).
• Using Rush or Burst link attacks, which have a 400% and 900% bonus multiplier respectively.
• Starting a battle with triple advantage by using an Assault Attack deals 50% of each enemy's Break gauge as break damage.
• Dealing damage with arts that the enemy's elemental vulnerability is over 100%, final break damage is multiplied by 1.5 (in Cold Steel III) / 2 (in Cold Steel IV and Reverie), separatedly from other break multipliers.

Break State

Once an enemy's Break gauge is emptied, they will take the following effects:

• They will suffer an absolute AT Delay of 20 AT (in Cold Steel III) / 10 AT (in Cold Steel IV).
• They will lose any positive status effects.
• If they can drop an item after being defeated, they will drop another unit at this point.
• They will enter Break State until their next turn.

While the enemy is in Break State, attacks against them deal bonus 10% damage and are guaranteed to unbalance if they can do so. On their next turn, they will lose their action and Break State, and suffer a base delay of 30 AT.

Enhanced

Certain strong enemies can enter an Enhanced (高揚) state for a certain amount of turns, having the following effects:

• Their Break gauge will be fully restored.
• They will lose any negative status effects.
• They will change attack patterns (such as enabling S-Crafts).
• They will take 50% less damage.
• The break damage they take will be tripled, for a total of 1.5× final break damage compared to the usual state.

Enhanced state can be ended prematurely by emptying their Break gauge and forcing them into Break state.