Catch Stance and Combat Role Strategy in Aniimo

Engaging an Aniimo in battle and weakening it improves your chance of capturing it with an Anipod. The obvious problem is that a companion hitting hard will keep hitting until the target is down.

Catch mode solves that. When your active companion is set to catch mode, it stops attacking once the wild target's health drops below a certain threshold. You get the weakened creature you want and keep it standing for the throw.

Use it whenever the goal of a fight is a capture rather than a win. Leave it off when you just need something out of your way.

Two conditions work against you before you throw anything. Being a lower level than the target creature reduces catch odds. Being spotted and engaged by a creature also lowers the catch percentage, so the approach matters as much as the fight.

Level has an upside too. Capturing wild Aniimo after increasing the World Level yields higher-level creatures, which reduces the need to grind experience on the ones you catch. The catch is that those higher-level targets are exactly the ones your own level has to keep up with.

You don't have to do it alone. In co-op play, players can assist one another when capturing wild Aniimo.

Every enemy has a break gauge. Depleting it breaks shields, interrupts attacks, staggers the enemy, and increases the damage it takes by up to 200%. Depleting an enemy's shield or break bar opens a stagger window where you deal increased burst damage.

That same break pays off when you want the creature rather than the kill. Breaking an Aniimo in battle improves your chance to catch it. So a break unit is doing two jobs at once: setting up your damage dealer and setting up your Anipod.

Some Aniimo are built to cash in on that window. Pawney's trait grants up to 30% bonus damage against enemies that are broken or under crowd control, which makes it a natural follow-up to whoever empties the gauge.

An effective early team composition includes a DPS unit, a break unit, and a healer or support. The break unit opens the stagger window, the DPS unit spends it, and the third slot keeps everyone going.

That third slot has two flavours. The Heal role focuses on restoring health to the team. Support Aniimo apply buffs that enhance team performance and amplify outgoing damage. Pick based on whether your team is running out of health or running short on damage.

Don't read role labels too literally. Aniimo have assigned role labels, but their viability is defined by their individual skills, and that is why a non-healer can still heal. Check what the skills actually do before you fill a slot by label alone.

For the DPS slot, Helion is an entirely melee creature built for close-range physical combat, striking targets in a small area with high burst potential, and its Solar Grace passive increases combat damage and boosts its other skills. The starter guide covers how it compares with Lunara. Beyond the early game, certain Aniimo are useful for PvP and for team building, so a creature worth catching is not always one you need right now.

05Where to start

When you want a creature, turn on catch mode, approach without being spotted, and break the target before you throw. Build your team as a break unit, a DPS unit and a healer or support, and choose each one by what its skills do, not by the label.