Castlevania: Circle of the Moon/DSS


 * Type: Category of attack
 * Strike: Modifies the standard whip strike
 * Tool: Useful as a tool for navigating through the castle
 * Healing: Restores HP
 * Projectile: Thrown objects (not necessarily long range)
 * Shield: Blocks projectiles and/or damages enemies at close range
 * Boost: Increases a specific stat
 * Misc.: Something that doesn't fit into another category
 * MP Cost: Cost of MP to use. If your MP recovery rate is greater than or equal to the cost, the combo is basically free
 * Stats: What stats are affected by activating the combo
 * Effects: What the combo does (besides the stat boosts)
 * Description: In-game description of combo

Mercury/Salamander

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 6/Attack
 * Stats: STR +5%
 * Effects: Engulfs whip in flames
 * Description: Fire whip to attack enemies.

Somewhat useful against ice-based enemies, though you're better off using the Venus/Salamander combo to boost your strength by 25% against all enemies regardless of element type.

Mercury/Serpent

 * Type: Strike/Tool
 * MP Cost: 2/Attack
 * Stats: STR -30%
 * Effects: Turns whip into ice
 * Description: Ice whip. Frozen enemies can be used as platforms.

More useful as a tool to use the Brain Floats as stepping stones than as an offensive weapon. In theory it's effective against fire enemies, however the 30% strength penalty completely negates it. You can actually do equal damage to a fire enemy with the Mercury/Salamander combo as you can with this one.

Mercury/Mandragora

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 6/Attack
 * Stats: STR +10%
 * Effects: Turns whip into a bouquet of roses.
 * Description: Whip of Thorns to attack enemies.

Nothing special except it gives your whip the plant elemental. As the number of enemies weak against plant are few and far between, this isn't a particularly useful combo.

Mercury/Golem

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 8/Attack
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Earth based attack and extends the length of the whip.
 * Description: Earth whip to attack distant enemies.

Potentially useful as enemies have this annoying habit of hanging on ledges above you and standing back just far enough that you can't hit them with a normal whip. However, since it also adds the earth element to your whip, it tends to lessen the damage dealt. Most of the time you can just use an axe to hit them instead.

Mercury/Cockatrice

 * Type: Strike/Tool
 * MP Cost: 6/Attack
 * Stats: STR +10%
 * Effects: Stone attack that can petrify enemies when they are low on HP.
 * Description: Stone whip. Enemies turned to stoned can be used as platforms.

Basically the same as the Mercury/Serpent combo, except you get a small strength boost instead of a large penalty. As both combos are fairly useless as attacks and better used as tools, stick with the Serpent combo as it costs less.

Mercury/Manticore

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 6/Attack
 * Stats: STR -10%
 * Effects: Whip upwards to release a small could of poison in front of you that continually damages enemies. Similar to the holy water sub-weapon.
 * Description: Poison whip that will release a mist of poison.

Useful for the occasional time when holy water would be useful, but you can't find one or don't want to give up your current sub-weapon.

Mercury/Griffin

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 10/Attack
 * Stats: STR -13%
 * Effects: Holding the attack button causes continual forward attack instead of circular whipping.
 * Description: Wind whip. Continuous attack will occur while attack is held.

In addition to the strength penalty, the rapid whipping does about half the damage as the initial strike. That said, it's still much more powerful than the circular whipping (which does 10% of the normal damage) and has the full range of the whip. Useful against slow moving enemies such as the Armors.

Mercury/Thunderbird

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 10/Attack
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Lighting based attack when using circular whipping attack. Normal strike is non-elemental.
 * Description: Electric whip. Will electrocute while attack is held.

Potentially useful in areas where you're getting attacked by weak flying enemies (Bats, Medusa Heads, etc.). However, unless you have very low levels, your normal whip will be enough to kill them in one hit.

Mercury/Unicorn

 * Type: Healing/Strike
 * MP Cost: 20/Attack
 * Stats: STR +22%
 * Effects: Strikes with a holy attack and heals you with each swing.
 * Description: Holy whip. Health is replenished with each swing of the whip.

Healing amount is equal to Jupiter/Mandragora, except you don't have to be stationary to use it. It does cost more and is slower, though. Still, a very useful combo in boss fights and times when you are constantly whipping. Note that it only works with whip strikes, circular whipping does not restore any HP.

Mercury/Black Dog

 * Type: Strike
 * MP Cost: 40/Attack
 * Stats: STR +40%
 * Effects: Hitting an enemy leaves a dark cloud on them that rapidly drains their HP.
 * Description: Darkness whip to attack and envelop enemies in darkness.

Costly, but incredibly powerful as the dark cloud drains life several times faster than poison. Additionally, this combo gives you the largest strength boost.

Venus/Salamander

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: STR +25%
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Inflicted damage increases by 25%.

The first combo you'll get, this is useful until the end of the game when you get the Black Dog card.

Venus/Serpent

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: DEF +25%
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Defense increases by 25%.

As a low cost way of raising defense significantly, this card is very useful if you can't yet use a Neptune combo to completely absorb the element of enemies that cause problems.

Venus/Mandragora

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: LCK + 25%
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Luck increases by 25%.

If you don't think this combo is useful, then you don't understand how the luck stat works. Luck is what determines how often an enemy drops items and cards. The higher it is the fewer enemies you have to kill to get what you want. This is especially useful when going after cards as the base drop rate for them is usually between 1 in 33 to 1 in 100.

Venus/Golem

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 16/Time
 * Stats: DEF + ?
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Defense increases as the % of the map uncovered increase.

Basically, the more you rooms of the castle you visit, the higher the defense boost. You can check your rate on the status screen.

Venus/Cockatrice

 * Type: Misc.
 * MP Cost: 2/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Experience increased by 1 point for ever couple of steps.
 * Description: Gains experience points from walking.

Free experience - sounds great, doesn't it? It's not - this combo is actually worthless unless you play really cheap. By the time you get this card you will need thousands of experience points to gain a single level, which equates to hours of walking. There is a glitch where you can tape down the attack button while Nathan is facing a wall immediately after coming out of a slide attack. This counts as walking, so you gain experience and since your MP recovery rate is higher than the cost to use this, you never run out of magic. At this point you can just walk away from the game and come back in a day to have gotten free experience. You earn about 1exp per second, so that equals 86,400 experience. If you do this at level 1 (which you can if you're playing in Magician mode), you'll get up to level 22.

If you're just going to use the card as it was intended, it's not worth while as you'll gain a trivial amount of experience. The entire game should take less than 10 hours, which means that if you had this card on every second of the game and were constantly walking, you would still only get 36,000 which is only a few levels worth of exp. Fact in that you aren't actually walking through much of the game (standing still while attack and most significantly jumping do not get you exp.). In the end, even if you never unequipped this combo, much less used a different one, you would probably only get a few thousand exp out of it.

Just level up normally. Chances are with the number of enemies that you need to kill to get the twenty cards, you won't have to do much level grinding anyway.

Venus/Manticore

 * Type: Misc.
 * MP Cost: 2/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Gains double hearts.
 * Description: Gains double the amount of hearts received.

The doesn't work with the heart restoring items that you select from the menu - only the small (+1) and large (+5) hearts found in candles and from enemies. Even so, it is a great time saver when you need to restock your hearts after a boss fight.

Venus/Griffin

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: INT +25%
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Intelligence increases by 25%

Like several of the other cards in the Venus series, this gives a flat boost to a stat. Higher intelligence means stronger magic and a much faster MP recovery rate. This is the only magic spell that can actually recover MP.

Venus/Thunderbird

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 16/Time
 * Stats: STR + ?
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Damage increases as the % of the map uncovered increases.

The twin of the Venus/Golem combo, this raises your defense as you explore more of the castle.

Venus/Unicorn

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 8/Time
 * Stats: STR -50%, DEF +100%
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Defense x 2 while inflicted damage is 1/2.

Trading your strength for your defense is actually quite useful at certain times - specifically when you are fleeing for your life to a save room. You won't be fighting much so you don't need the strength and the more defense you have the better.

Venus/Black Dog

 * Type: Boost
 * MP Cost: 8/Time
 * Stats: STR +100%, DEF -50%
 * Effects: --
 * Description: Inflicted damage x2 while defense is 1/2.

The opposite of the Venus/Unicorn combo in many specifically in the sense that while the Venus/Unicorn combo was a good way to stay alive, this combo is a good way to become dead. Since, for most enemies, high strength goes hand in hand with high defense, if an enemy is so powerful that you need to double your strength then chances are halving your defense will just result in you being mauled to death twice as fast. If you need more strength, use the Venus/Salamander combo instead or find equipment that boosts your strength without sacrificing [as much] defense.

Jupiter/Salamander

 * Type: Projectile/Shield
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Two fireballs slowly rotate around you, damaging whatever they hit.
 * Description: 2 fireballs circle you in defense.

The fireballs generally move too slowly to block projectiles, but do a decent amount of damage to enemies. Quite useful when fighting in close quarters.

Jupiter/Serpent

 * Type: Projectile/Shield
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Four ice blocks quickly rotate around you, freezing enemies.
 * Description: 4 ice balls circle you in defense. These can freeze enemies.

Since the ice block move fairly quickly, they do a decent job of blocking projectiles. Additionally, they can freeze enemies which further prevents damage. Very useful for climbing the towers infested with Bats and Medusa Heads.

Jupiter/Mandragora

 * Type: Healing
 * MP Cost: 16/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Heals as long as you remain stationary.
 * Description: If stationary, health will gradually replenish.

Stand still, get healed. The usefulness of this combo should be really obvious. When it says stationary, it means stationary - no whipping or using sub-weapons. This means that you can't use it if you are in the middle of a fight, but it is very useful as a way of healing up after you've cleared out a room. After using this, switch to the Venus/Griffin card to restore your MP more quickly. The amount of HP recovered is small, so it's unlikely that you'll be able to fully restore your HP even if you drain your MP completely, however it's still better than nothing.

Jupiter/Golem

 * Type: Defense
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: The amount of time you remain invincible is quadrupled.
 * Description: If damaged, the invincibility duration is x 4.

This does not absorb any damage or prevent you from being thrown, however it is very useful against bosses like Adramelech and Death who like to blanket the entire area with projectiles.

Jupiter/Cockatrice

 * Type: Defense
 * MP Cost: 8/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Immunity from petrification, but at the cost of your speed and jumping ability.
 * Description: Transform into stone and become invulnerable.

The in-game description is a flat out lie. You take just as much damage as you do normally. There big differences are that you can't be thrown and you are immune to petrification. However this comes at a high cost as you can't run, can't double or kick jump, normal jump at about half the height, and walk at half speed. Since the vast majority of times when you have to worry about petrification is when you need to run and jump between platforms, the lose of your jumping ability renders this card almost useless. It can be useful in the rare occasion when you want to stand in front of a stationary enemy and attack constantly without worry about your HP.

Jupiter/Manticore

 * Type: Projectile/Shield
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Poison clouds quickly burst out of you hitting anything at close range.
 * Description: A cloud of poison spreads to protect you.

One of the most useful shield combo, this does a very good job of blocking projectiles as you are almost completely covered in clouds. Doesn't offer full protection, however it is more than enough until you can use the Jupiter/Unicorn combo.

Jupiter/Griffin

 * Type: Projectile/Shield
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: An energy barrier is projected in front of you while dashing, damaging enemies.
 * Description: While dashing, a sonic wave appears to protect you.

It could have been useful, except that it's not. It works wonderful if you can kill all of the monsters that you run through in one hit, but you'll still take damage if you run into something without killing it. It also does less damage than your kick-slide, so you might as well just slide your way through and area instead of using this.

Jupiter/Thunderbird

 * Type: Defense
 * MP Cost: 4/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: Cuts damage in half, but every hit will throw you, even ones that normally don't.
 * Description: You will be sent flying when damaged, but takes 1/2 damage.

Very useful because it doesn't actually cause you to be thrown any further than normal. However, every attack, no matter what kind or how weak, will throw you (including running into things). So, if you're fighting something that always throws you anyway, you have a way of doubling your life with no noticeable drawbacks.

Jupiter/Unicorn

 * Type: Projectile/Shield
 * MP Cost: 8/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: A barrier will surround you, blocking most projectiles and damaging enemies.
 * Description: A circular barrier will surround you.

This does what the Jupiter/Griffin fails to do - work as a shield that allows you to run through a room without worry to much about enemies. The barrier blocks any destroyable projectile and does the same about of damage as a whip strike so if you can defeat the enemies in one hit, you can just dash through the corridor. It also makes a perfect barrier for climbing the towers.

Jupiter/Black Dog

 * Type: Jupiter/Griffin
 * MP Cost: 8/Time
 * Stats: --
 * Effects: A barrier surrounds you, damaging enemies and blocking projectiles, but drains your HP.
 * Description: A black hole barrier will surround you, but HP is drained.

Much like the Jupiter/Unicorn shield, but with two differences. First, it does about twice as much damage and second, it puts you in a poisoned state. It's a trade-off that is occasionally worth it, but most of the time you should use the Jupiter/Griffin shield instead.

Mars/Salamander

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Mars/Serpent

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Mars/Mandragora

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Mars/Golem

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Mars/Cockatrice

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Mars/Manticore

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Mars/Thunderbird

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Mars/Unicorn

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Mars/Black Dog

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Diana/Salamander

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Diana/Serpent

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Diana/Golem

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Diana/Cockatrice

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Diana/Manticore

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Diana/Griffin

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Diana/Thunderbird

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Diana/Unicorn

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Diana/Black Dog

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Apollo/Salamander

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Apollo/Serpent

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Apollo/Golem

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Apollo/Cockatrice

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Apollo/Manticore

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Apollo/Thunderbird

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Apollo/Unicorn

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Apollo/Black Dog

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Neptune/Salamander

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Neptune/Serpent

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Neptune/Mandragora

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Neptune/Cockatrice

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Neptune/Manticore

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Neptune/Unicorn

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Neptune/Black Dog

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Saturn/Salamander

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Saturn/Cockatrice

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Saturn/Manticore

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Saturn/Griffin

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Saturn/Thunderbird

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Saturn/Unicorn

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Saturn/Black Dog

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Uranus/Salamander

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Pluto/Salamander

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Pluto/Golem

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