Every starter chimeras has an affinity based on breed and a stoic nature. Cheetahs are fast, so their affinity is speed, wolves have strength, bears have endurance, and foxes have cunning. Once the different breeds begin to intermingle, the affinity can also cross from one breed to another. Affinity gives the chimera a boost during battle, so a speed affinity will boost speed by 10 points. If a chimera is "Fired Up!" it will receive a 50 point boost to its affinity stat.

Nature has an impact on how a chimera reacts in battle. An aggressive will always look for a way to attack and doesn't think much about defense; a playful is evasive and dances around the opponent, but sometimes loses focus; a timid goes into defensive mode right away, but will fight heroically when cornered, and a stoic is neutral and doesn't incur the the penalties or bonuses of the other natures.

The stamina is derived from endurance plus a base bonus. Every action your chimera takes will drain stamina. Lower stamina will make counter attacking and combination attacking more difficult. When stamina is completely drained, your chimera will enter a state of exhaustion and become open to attack. Once attacked, or once the chimera waits the full exhaustion penalty time, the chimera will regain stamina. Every exhaustion will lower the maximum stamina the bar can be filled to. If the bar becomes completely unable to refill, the chimera will hit a second wind; resetting the stamina bar to full.

Battle Spirit is a stat composed of the four basic stats. It is a tool to create a balance among the different specializations of chimera combatants. A chimera’s battle spirit is equal to 100% Cunning, 50% Speed, 50% Strength, and 75% Endurance. Battle Spirit affects your chimera’s elemental healing, elemental impulse, and healing over time. If any of your chimera’s basic stats are 10 points or less, your chimera’s battle spirit will be lowered by 40%.

When training a fighter, you will want to consider a specialization in training. Jack of all trades, but master of none is a saying to keep in mind. The great fighters of the Obsidian Circle often keep a stable of specialists that they use when battling. Consider the nature and affinity of your chimera when devising a training plan. If you see a particularly effective fighter in the wild or in a circuit, don't be afraid to look at its build and ask the trainer questions about their choices in training.

Chimera can have several different natures which affect how they perform during combat. 

• Timid chimera will have boosts to their physical defense by 20%, Instant elemental activation, slower time to action, and increased chances of counter attacking. 

• Playful chimera will have 10% less defense, regeneration of stamina on counter attacks, increase to chances of flanking attacks, regeneration of stamina on flanking attacks, and increased chances of evading. 

• Aggressive chimera will have boosts to their physical offense by 10%, quicker time to action, sooner rage attacks, and will be caught off guard more often.

From the website: "Strength plays a direct role in the physical attack power of the chimera … It affects your time to action, your capability to counter attack, and your physical defensive abilities."

Strength fighters are the bare-knuckle brawlers of the chimera world. They walk into a fight and punch relentlessly. A cunning or endurance fighter will have their paws full fending off the hard hitting attack. However, they are vulnerable to speed fighters, who can overwhelm a strength fighter with a flurry of precision hits.

"Endurance is the major component to physical defense, and also plays into your chimera’s stamina, elemental draining, stumbling, and counter attacking."

The endurance fighter is a tricky specialization, but it can be devastating against the right opponent. When a chimera has endurance as it's highest stat, it can actually reflect damage from its opponents hits back on the opponent. This will cause the opponent to take incremental damage at first, to more devastating damage as the fight goes on. 

Endurance fighters are vulnerable to cunning fighters, who use mostly ranged attacks, but they are superior against speed fighters.

"Cunning is the primary component for elemental offense and defense. Representing the cleverness of a chimera, Cunning will affect drains, offensive accuracy (damage increase), critical hits, time to action, confusion damage, elemental energy build, flanking, evading, and combination attacking. Cunning will also allow a chimera to spot weakness in their opponent and strike with an attack. Additionally, when a chimera has high enough cunning to over defend an incoming offensive elemental impulse, it uses the extra energy to gain more elemental energy to use for itself."

The cunning fighter is an extremely popular elemental build. An element with attack focus can cause major damage to opposing fighters. Elements can fire three times before the chimera must charge in for a physical attack, then it can resume the elemental barrage. Cunning fighters are particularly effective against endurance fighters.

Speed affects the chimera’s time to action. It also plays a pivotal role in stumbling, confusion damage, offensive attack damage, flanking, evading, and combination attacking. Additionally a high speed chimera will have the ability to exceed the standard 3 attack combination and can do a burst of up to 5 attacks.

Speed fighters are devastatingly effective opponents. Consider using speed in combination with one of the other stats to make highly effective killing machines in the wild or in circuit battles. 

Elemental focus was introduced to balance the elemental playing field. There are three foci to every element: defense, attack, and special.

Defensive ← Attack → Special

All chimeras begin life with their elemental focus set as balanced (attack). To change the elemental focus they must meditate at the array. Choosing an inward focus will move your chimera toward the defensive end of the spectrum. 

Choosing an outward focus will move your chimera toward the offensive end of the spectrum. Moving a chimera’s focus from one extreme to the other will require two focus moves.

The Elemental Augmentation Array is used to adjust your chimera’s elemental focus. The spectrum of elemental focus ranges from extreme inward (defensive) to extreme outward (special) with the median between the two being balanced (attack).

Attack takes one energy bubble and causes damage based on your chimera's cunning. (Think magic missile.)

Defense takes two bubbles and will always activate a pillar of defense. Your chimera will take the color of its affinity as long as it is shielded, and it will take reduced damage from both physical and elemental attacks.

Specials take a differing number of bubbles depending on effect and have some are insidious effects. Some cause damage over time, others cause blindness, confusion, paralysis, and so on.

Alchemy from the Atelier Sanctum

Vitality - Adds 20 health points to a chimera (limit 5 per chimera)

Effervescence - Adds 5 training energy to a chimera (no limit)

Training Vaporizer - Resets a chimera to its birth stats and restores training points allowing for the retraining of any non-frozen chimera. Remember that chimeras over age 75 must use the energy transmuter to train at 10L per point.

From the Nile Guardian Event

Crook +10 Cunning

Flail +10 Endurance

Ankh +100 Health

From the King Arthur Quest Event

Excalibur +10 Strength

Sword of Merlin +5 Endurance, +5 Cunning

Enchantress Blade +5 Speed, +5 Cunning

From the Nature vs Necromancer Event

Druid Circlet Accessory +200 Health

Phylactery +25 Strength, +25 Endurance, +25 Cunning, -150 Health