One of the most exciting aspects of Crimson Desert is that you can weave unarmed combat and wrestling moves between your usual weapon swings. By default, you will have a leg-sweep move you can pull with a button combo while dodging towards the enemy (dodge + Circle on PS controller). However, to unlock other wrestling maneuvers and proper barefist fighting, you will need some specific nodes from the Skill tree.

This goes much deeper than a basic one-two punch combo and RKO’ing someone. You can actually take multiple different Skills (some of them magical in nature) to fuel an unarmed combat playstyle. Suffices to say, there are lot of options to flesh out your build in that direction, and the purpose of this guide is to give you a quick overview on these.

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How to unlock the unarmed fighting style in Crimson Desert

In the Top-most path (blue nodes) of Kliff’s Skill tree in Crimson Desert, Unarmed Combat is one of the Skills at the central stem. By default, you’ll already have one point invested here.

To properly unlock the unarmed combat heavy-attack combo, you’ll need to invest 2x Abyss Artifacts in this node, which gives you Unarmed Combat Mastery I, and this unlocks the ability to punch enemies by pressing Triangle.

Putting two more further Artifacts into this node adds even more moves to your unarmed combat repertoire:

• Unarmed Combat Headstart I gives you a gap-closer that then opens into a barrage of slower but more damaging jabs. This is the heavy-attack variant of your barefist moveset, so it can be triggered by repeatedly tapping R2 when you’re punching stuff, and consumes 20 Stamina per punch.
• Unarmed Combat Headstart II requires 10 Spirit rather than Stamina, so it’s a more special attack with a “torrential barrage of punches” that shoves the enemy away after its final attack connects.

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Magic-empowered unarmed combat (Spirit tree)

If you were to try a fist-heavy unarmed playstyle in Crimson Desert, there’s big incentive for you to invest in the Spirit (green) side of Kliff’s Skill tree. Specifically, you are looking at Force Palm, which you can learn by observation very early on instead of spending Abyss Artifacts.

When you have enough Spirit, you can press R3 to trigger the basic Force Palm, which deals damage and pushes back an enemy. You can then further invest into this Skill to get the ability to actually heal other non-hostile characters! This gives a great druidic healer flavor needed for unarmed monk build. The sub-skills are:

• Aerial Force Palm: Press R3 mid-air to use your Force Palm to propel you into the air, which can be used multiple times in succession to keep getting vertical elevation.
• Healing Force Palm: Pressing L3 during a Force Palm will let you imbue it with healing energy and heal the target. We don’t know if you can actually use it to heal enemies, though.
• Additional Palm Strikes I: Force Palm can be used for up to two consecutive Unarmed Combat strikes. Press L3 right after Force Palm lands to trigger this, consuming 10 Spirit.
• Additional Palm Strikes II: Allows you to perform up to three consecutive Force Palm Strikes. Press L3 for the second one as usual, and then R3 for the third one, also consuming additional Spirit.

There’s also at least four more Force Palm-related skills in the Spirit-aligned path, including a punching barrage follow-up with Force Palm Pulse, a charged super-punch while you’re in Focus mode, and even a long-ranged unarmed attack that you can trigger through the Axiom Force.

What’s more, once you get Elemental Imbuement unlocked, Force Palm can also be empowered with various elemental damage types. In other words, it’s fully possible to do an elemental shaolin warrior-type build here.

Also Read: All Crimson Desert Gameplay features revealed so far

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How to do wrestling moves in Crimson Desert (RKO, grapples, dive-kicks, and vaults)

You may have already seen the clips. In case you haven’t: yes, you can RKO outta nowhere in Crimson Desert.

The RKO move itself is called by its official term, the Lariat, unlocked by investing just one Abyss Artifact into the Grappling Skill node right below Unarmed Combat. Further points into this node gives you an uprgraded follow-up second Lariat after you’ve already slammed an enemy, and a move where you can spin smaller enemies around before you throw them into the air.

By default, this five-point Grappling node gives you various ways to take hold of, slam, throw, and manipulate enemies, so they’re all worth talking about in this context. Sub-skills in Crimson Desert have to be unlocked in the exact clockwise order presented in the node, so here they are in the correct order:

• Throw (unlocked by default): Press Triangle + Circle next to an enemy to grab and throw them, consuming 40 Stamina.
• Restrain (unlocked by default): During a Stab or Charged stab, pressing Triangle + Circle restrains the enemy by their neck, taking them hostage. You can move around during this, as long as you can sustain the 10 Stamina per second cost.
• Lariat: The RKO move that slams the enemy into the ground, activated by pressing X + Square next to them. Consumes 60 Stamina.
• Back Hang: When you’re next to a large enemy, pressing X + Square will instead quickly latch on to them, and Kliff will swing to their back, hanging on to their neck. Consumes 10 Stamina per second.
• Giant Swing: During or right after a kick, press Triangle + Circle to grab smaller enemies by the legs, swing them around (20 Stamina per second), and then throw them with great force.
• Lariat Follow-up: During a Lariat, press X + Square again to follow up with another Lariat (Consumes 60 Stamina like usual).

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All other wrestling/kick moves in Crimson Desert

If you’re doing unarmed combat in Crimson Desert, you’ll already have unlocked some takedowns (the default Leg Sweep and the Scissor Takedown) through that Skill node, which also sort of count as wrestling maneuvers. The top-most rows of Kliff’s Skill tree involves almost exclusively various kicks, aerial kicks, slams, and other wrestling moves.

On the same row as Grappling, you can access:

• Clothesline: Pressing X + Circle while running into an enemy will grab their face and slam them into the ground. Costs 60 Stamina.
• Body Slam: Pressing X + Circle mid-air after a double-jump or Aerial Force Palm will have Kliff stretch his body and slam into the ground, stunning enemies caught in the wake. Costs 60 Stamina.

Here’s what the top-most row of kick moves do, per in-game description:

• Pump Kick: Leap high and deliver a powerful double kick to send enemies flying. Can be learned by observing Mattias, an early boss in Hernand City.
• Dropkick: Launch your body forward and strike the enemy with both feet to send them flying.
• Vault: Step on a nearby enemy to leap over them and land behind their back.
• Flying Kick: Fly toward the Enemy in midair and kick them twice.
• Meteor Kick: Slam your foot down with precision from high above. Meteor Kick can be augmented with elements, too, if you have unlocked Elemental Imbuement in the Red tree.

A special mention also goes to the Winch node on the Red tree, which lets you use the grappling hook (Axiom Force) to bring enemies closer and slam them.

That’s all we know about unarmed combat and wrestling move Skills, but only on one out of three playable characters in Crimson Desert. Oongka and possibly even Damiane may also bring their own twist to wrestling moves and fisticuffs through niche Skill nodes on their Skill tree.

At the time, we know for sure that Oongka has his own variant of the RKO (Lariat) move. For a more comprehensive answer, we’ll report back after the game launches and we get that far ourselves.

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Can you do an unarmed-only build in Crimson Desert?

If you’ve read this point, it should be evident to you that there are a huge number of non-weapon moves at your disposal. So, could you do a weaponless build in Crimson Desert with Kliff? The answer is unfortunately a vague “maybe” till we get to take this into the lategame.

Theoretically, the flexibility and number of moves you get through the Blue tree and the implied damage of Force Palm alone should warrant a full build. The issue is we can’t vouch for the damage numbers on these skills yet.

If there is unique boss gear effects that either boost your unarmed combat damage in Crimson Desert, or other ways to scale it against the tougher enemies outside of Hernand, you absolutely can string together a wrestler Kliff build.

Otherwise, these moves will range between useful control tools and flavor attacks to flesh out your playstyle, while weapons remain your mainstay for dealing with most of the game’s 76 bosses.

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