Star Wars Jedi: Survivor expands upon Fallen Order in pretty much every way. More areas, more objectives, more characters…you get the picture. However, some of the best additions Survivor makes to Fallen Order are all the new lightsaber stances you get to play with.
Survivor is a fairly well-balanced game, which means that you will be able to make it through the game using the lightsaber stance you like best. However, my first playthrough of Survivor made it very clear that there are some lightsaber stances that simply perform better than the rest throughout the entirety of the adventure. That being the case, here’s a look at what each stance has to offer and which are the absolute best of the best.
How Do You Change Your Lightsaber Stance in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Before we get started with the rest of this breakdown, you should know that you can only have two lightsaber stances equipped at a time. To change your lightsaber stance, you’ll need to visit a Meditation Point and choose the “Stances” option. There, you will be able to set both your stances and swap between them at will from there.
The good news is that you can usually find a meditation point before many major fights in the game. As such, you will usually be able to swap your stances as needed for the fights that call for a particular kind of stance.
How Do You Unlock Every Lightsaber Stance in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor?
There are five total lightsaber stances in Jedi Survivor, and here is when you’ll unlock them all (Warning: slight story spoilers do follow):
Single-Bladed Stance: Available at the start of the game.
Double-Bladed Stance: Available at the start of the game.
Dual-Wield Stance: Unlocked during the boss fight against the Ninth Sister.
Blaster Stance: Unlocked after reaching Jedha.
Crossguard Stance: Unlocked after the Drya Thornne boss fight.
Single-Bladed Stance: A Solid Fencing Stance With Great Quick Strike Perks
Your standard lightsaber option, the Single-Bladed stance offers about what you’d expect. It’s statistically balanced across every category, and it relies on quick precision strikes that often focus on a single target.
The Single-Bladed stance gets much more interesting once you grab a few key perks. Cyclone Smash, for instance, gives you a much-needed sweeping strike that helps when battling multiple foes, while Aerial Assault lets you take to the skies and escape bad situations.
With the right upgrades, Single-Bladed lets you bounce between multiple targets without sacrificing too much damage against larger, single-target enemies. Again, it’s a really balanced stance that just requires a few key upgrades to shine.
Double-Bladed Stance: The Darth Maul Special That Excels During Group Combat
Returning from Fallen Order, the double-bladed stance functions much like it did in the previous game. That is to say that this “staff’s” quick, sweeping strikes make it ideal against multiple targets and less effective against larger single targets. However, the double-bladed stance has a few more interesting tricks up its sleeve this time around that compensate for that shortcoming.
For instance, Gathering Tempest allows you to deal rapid strikes to single targets while Endless Hurricane allows you to extend your current combo for extra damage. Even Vortex Dive (which sees you launch yourself forward while spinning your blade) can be used to sneak in safe damage against larger foes.
Also, it should be noted that many of Survivor’s toughest fights see you face off against multiple melee targets. In those fights, this stance remains your best option by some distance.
Dual Wield Stance: An Aggressive Stance that Emphasizes High-Risk, High-Reward Play
Though a relatively new stance in Survivor (Fallen Order features a lesser version of it), you’ll actually acquire Dual Wield very early into the game. More importantly, there’s a good chance you’ll be using this stance for quite a long time after you unlock it.
Dual Wield basically turns you into a glass cannon. While this stance strikes a fantastic balance between power and speed, it often leaves you vulnerable thanks to the slightly heavier nature of its strikes and its longer combos. It’s just a little easier to get “caught” in a combo with this stance. As such, one of this stance’s best defenses is its unique Force ability which puts you in a trance that allows you to automatically counter many incoming melee attacks. That ability is further enhanced by perks like Precision Release and Focused Parry.
It will take you quite a while to really master your stance, but the high-skill ceiling pays off when you realize how powerful this stance can be in both group fights and against certain single targets.
Blaster: A Slightly Blasphemous Fighting Style That Offers the Most Unique Way to Play The Game
As the name implies, this stance allows Cal to wield a lightsaber in one hand and a blaster in the other. Yes, a Jedi with a blaster, It’s not unheard of, but it’s not something we see in a lot of Star Wars games.
The basic idea is to use your blaster to reduce an enemy’s guard and then go in for the kill with your lightsaber. Your blaster has a limited number of initial charges, but you can recharge it with melee hits and add additional charges through perks like Improved Clip. Against larger targets, you can use a charged shot to quickly stagger them. Against multiple targets, you can eventually utilize the Quick Draw perk, which lets you enter a kind of “Dead Eye” mode and blast multiple enemies at once.
This is a pretty awkward combat style that takes a lot of getting used to. In the right hands, though, it shines in a lot of situations.
Crossguard: A Defensive Stance That Turns Your Lightsaber into A Broadsword
Clearly inspired by Kylo Ren’s lightsaber design, Crossguard is a very powerful stance that turns nearly every attack into a heavy attack.
No other stance in Survivor can match Crossguard on a power-per-swing basis. Every attack just melts through enemies, and perks like Rending Strike make those blows even more powerful. Unfortunately, Crossgaurd attacks are painfully slow. Some enemies can easily strike you multiple times during your swings. Perks like Greater Cleaving Swing and Impact can give you access to quicker strikes, but there is no real way to compensate for this stance’s generally slow nature.
Anyone who loves playing a tank-like character in Soulslike games may fall in love with this powerful playstyle despite its obvious drawbacks. It really does shred through most enemies in just a few blows.
What is the Best Lightsaber Stance in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor?
The best lightsaber stance in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is Double-Bladed. I spent extensive time trying every stance in the game in a variety of situations at higher difficulties, and the one stance I kept coming back to in a pinch was Double-Bladed.
As noted above, Double-Bladed is the obvious choice when you’re fighting large groups of enemies. Nothing in the game comes close to matching its crowd control and sweeping strike abilities in those situations. The real surprise, though, was how effective Double-Bladed is in boss fights and similar encounters against priority single targets. It turns out that speed is an invaluable combat asset in Survivor, and Double-Bladed blinding speed allows you to get out of a lot of bad situations. Its perks are also amazing.
Simply put Double-Bladed is the one lightsaber stance you should have equipped at all times What about your second stance, though? Well, your choice of second stance will likely depend on the situation and your preferences. However, Dual-Wield and Crossguard certainly stood out.
Both do take quite a while to get used to, but they each offer a vital complement to the Double-Bladed stance. Dual-Wield is great against melee enemies thanks to its parry and counter abilities, and it works surprisingly well in boss fights (if you can master the combos).
I was initially cold towards Crossguard, but it really does just take a lot of getting used to. Once you unlock some of its better abilities and learn to use your Force powers to clear out crowds, Crossguard’s powerful swings become much more appealing. Start learning it early, and you’ll be able to rely on it during crucial fights until the very end of the game.
Single-Blade is fine, but it’s not especially exciting and it doesn’t necessarily excel in any key areas the way that other stances do. It can get you through the game, but it rarely feels like your absolute best option in specific situations. You can’t go wrong with it, but personal preferences will pull you towards other options.
As for Blaster…it’s a tough sell. Try as I might, I just couldn’t consistently get Blaster to work the way it was clearly intended to work. While undeniably useful when you’re trying to break an enemy’s guard, the awkward nature of the blaster itself just gives you one more thing to have to manage during combat against multiple enemies. Blaster is a ton of fun to use, but at higher difficulty levels, the blaster itself too often felt like the least useful tool in your kit.