Duelcraft

Read the swing. Parry it. Riposte.

Duelcraft brings Souls-like combat to Minecraft. Swords, axes and your bare fists get a real moveset: light and heavy strings that branch, charge attacks, rolls with invulnerability frames, guarding, parries and ripostes, poise and stagger, and a lock-on camera. Every hit follows the blade's real path and lands with weight.

Fight with a moveset

• Press R to enter combat mode. Tap attack for a light attack, hold it for a heavy one.
• Every weapon has a combo tree: L L L L, L H and L L H are different moves. Press J to see the move list of the weapon in your hand.
• Pause combos, charge attacks with a perfect release, launchers and air strings, and attacks out of a sprint, a jump, a roll or a backstep.
• Kick (V) to break a raised guard.
• Perfect Strike: press the next attack right as your hit lands. It deals 2.5× damage and puts you in the zone.

Defend with timing

• Roll and backstep (Left Alt) with invulnerability frames. Dodge a blow at the last moment for a perfect dodge and a counter.
• Guard with right click. Raise it just as a hit lands to parry: the attacker reels, and your next blow is a riposte for 2.5× damage.
• Stamina pays for attacks, dodges, blocking and sprinting. Block with an empty bar and your guard breaks.
• Poise: every hit wears a mob down until it staggers, and heavy attacks stagger at once. You can be staggered too, unless your move has hyper armour.

Mobs that telegraph

Zombies, husks, zombie villagers, zombified piglins, drowned and vindicators rear back before they strike. Back off, roll through it, block it or parry it.

Hits with weight

• Hits follow the blade: a frontal swing never hits what's behind you, but spins do.
• Impact: hit-stop on both fighters, sparks (metal sparks on armour, a bright burst on a parry), weapon trails and camera punches. Blood is an option.
• A slow-motion finish when your blow fells the last enemy of a fight.
• Lock-on (middle mouse) and an over-the-shoulder camera in third person.

Animated on a real skeleton

Your character bends at the elbows, knees and spine. Your skin, its outer layer, your armour and held items follow every pose. In combat mode you get full-body walk, strafe, run and jump cycles. Out of a fight, you carry your weapon at ease while you walk. First-person animations too.

Training dummy

Craft one from an armour stand and a hay bale. It never dies. It shows a number for every hit, the running combo and its damage, and a posture bar.

Plays well with vanilla

Combat mode only takes over the mouse while you hold a weapon with a moveset. With a pickaxe, blocks or food in hand, everything works like vanilla, so you can still mine and build. A shield, bow or food in your off hand keeps its right click.

For modpacks and mod makers

• Movesets are data-pack JSON. Give a modded weapon its own moveset, or tag it #mcfightmod:daggers or #mcfightmod:greatswords to use the built-in dagger and greatsword movesets.
• Config: gameplay settings (stamina, dodges, parry window, poise, mob telegraphs, slow motion) live in a server config synced to clients. Camera, effects and HUD settings live in a client config.
• A small API lets other mods soft-depend on Duelcraft. DanMachi Craft uses it: its monsters and foes can be parried and riposted, and its weapons have movesets of their own.

Controls

All keys can be changed under Controls → Duelcraft.

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1
• NeoForge 21.1.259 or newer
• Install it on both the client and the server.
• Duelcraft changes how the player is drawn and how melee works. Don't run it alongside another combat overhaul such as Epic Fight or Better Combat.