Hogwarts Legacy Combat Tips for Beginners

Hogwarts Legacy is one of the biggest new games on the market at the moment, with many nostalgic Harry Potter fans jumping into this 19th Century rendition of the Wizarding World to see how they get on as a Hogwarts Student. 

One area of the game that's important to get to grips with is the combat. While fairly simple in nature, the combat in Hogwarts Legacy can nevertheless conjure up some tricky challenges, especially if you're playing on the harder difficulties, and I personally encountered a pretty sudden and unexpected difficulty spike with one dueling encounter a few hours into the game.

This guide will give you a few pointers so that you have an easier time with the combat. Since this is mainly aimed at beginners, we'll only be talking about spells that are unlocked during the first few hours of gameplay. 

One of the first spells you learn in Hogwarts Legacy is Protego. This is basically a shield spell that gives you invulnerability to most attacks, but it only lasts for a couple of seconds so you ideally want to cast it when you're just about to receive an attack. 

At first it can seem hard to know when you're about to be attacked, especially when fighting multiple enemies, but there are some ways to stay on top of this. 

Firstly, keep an eye on what each enemy is doing. This is harder if there are many enemies, but usually only one or two of them will be attacking you at any given time, and you can judge from their animations what they are about to do. 

Secondly, listening to the game audio is very important. You can tell when off-screen enemies are about to attack you by listening for their attacks. If you hear a spell incantation somewhere off to your left or right, it might be wise to cast Protego just in case. 

Another important tip is to keep an eye on your character and the area around you. There will generally be a visible warning on the ground if an AOE attack is about to land near you for example (its better to dodge out of the AOE rather than using Protego). If an enemy is in the process of casting a spell on you then a large icon will briefly appear above your character, which is a good visual cue to cast Protego. If a red icon is around your character's head, then it means an unblockable attack is being targeted at you, so you need to either dodge the attack or interrupt the caster before they finish casting. 

When you use Protego, it is almost always better to keep holding down the button until the enemy spell has hit you - this will cause your character to automatically cast Stupefy at whichever enemy your character is currently aimed at (not necessarily the enemy who casted the spell that you deflected), which will break through enemy defenses and stun them, allowing you to easily follow up with your own attacks. 

When you're up against multiple enemies or one tough one, its generally a good idea to move around and maintain distance from enemies, or make sure that you're in a position where you can keep an eye on all of the enemies at once. 

You can also use dodge rolls to avoid an incoming attack or move around evasively in combat. If you see a projectile coming towards you and don't think you have time to cast Protego, then it's a good idea to dodge. Dodging is also necessary when defending against powerful attacks that cannot be blocked by Protego - many melee attacks from monsters and other magical creatures fall into this category. 

Enemy wizards will also cast Protego in combat, although it works differently for them than it does for the player. On enemies, Protego is a persistent shield that will block most of your spells (stupefy and ancient magic can both bypass shields). 

Shields have a colour that corresponds to the type of spell you need to use to dispel the shield. For example, yellow shields can be dispelled with Levioso, Purple shields with Accio and red shields with Incendio. 

You may sometimes find it easier to simply use an attack that bypasses the shield, like throwing a heavy object with ancient magic or counter-attacking with Stupefy, but its still worth remembering how to deal with shields normally even if you prefer the other method. 

In Hogwarts Legacy, you can choose four spells from your learned spells to equip at any given time. To give you options in combat, its generally a good idea to have a couple of spells belonging to the Control and Force categories on your bar, such as Accio and Levioso. This is because each spell has a cooldown, so you may find yourself short on options if you only slotted one such spell. 

These spells are great for controlling the flow of combat and can even the odds if you are outnumbered by knocking enemies out of the fight for a few seconds. Alternatively they can be used offensively to leave an enemy vulnerable to your attacks, something which is also essential for the final thing we're going to talk about today: Combos. 

In Hogwarts Legacy, you can make use of combos to deal greatly increased damage to your enemies. The easiest way to pull off combos against an enemy is to keep them levitating in the air with Control and Force spells, and hit them with consecutive basic attacks. The fourth consecutive attack against the same target will count as a combo hit, and will do much more damage than normal. 

After completing a combo against the enemy, you might want to hit them with another Control or Force spell to keep them stunned, and you can then follow up with another combo. 

Learning to chain spells and basic attacks together effectively takes a little bit of practice and muscle memory, but once you get the hang of it you'll start finding it considerably quicker and easier to deal damage to enemies. 

We hope you enjoyed this beginner combat guide for Hogwarts Legacy.