Editing Mnemon Explains Solar Combat (section)

====My first Persistent Defence====
''Flow Like Blood''

You don't need to start with a persistent defence (in fact, it's less efficient than using your bonus points to buy high Abilities and then picking up Essence 3 and Flow Like Blood with XP), but they're so staggeringly useful that if you fancy yourself a combatant at all, you should get one as soon as you can.

Chances are, the one you'll pick up is Flow Like Blood. While Fivefold Bulwark Stance has some key advantages, Flow Like Blood is much more reliable, and is useful for every character. Flow Like Blood protects against attacks you're unaware of, and also allows you to dodge when you wouldn't otherwise be able to (for nasty fun, lure an enemy onto a narrow ledge or tight corridor where he can't dodge but you can).

Its key weakness is that as a Simple charm, it consumes an action to activate, and can't be activated before your initiative. Combined with the fact that as a non-Instant charm it can't be placed in Combo, this means you won't be doing anything else on the turn you activate it. Hence, the key is to activate the charm BEFORE combat - generally at the first sign of trouble. Even if you don't actually end up in a fight, you should be able to stunt back the WP quickly, and regenerate the motes via hearthstone or rest before the next scene.

For Melee fighters, the beauty of Flow Like Blood is that BOTH your defences can come from charms, leaving your action entirely for attacks. Generally you'll use Flow Like Blood straight away against any incoming attack, and then Dipping Swallow Defence against anything that gets through that. If your initiative comes up before you've been forced to use Dipping Swallow, you may feel confident enough to use an offensive charm instead, especially if all your enemies have already acted (otherwise, save a parry or two). Ranged fighters who aren't in melee can emulate this without using a charm at all if they have a Windhands Gem, which will give them a parry against any ranged attack made against them.

For those unable or unwilling to use Dipping Swallow Defence, remember that you can use Reed In the Wind to add dice to your Flow Like Blood dodges - which, if you're willing to invest the motes, can be sufficient to not worry about parries at all, and save your entire action for attacks. Archers and Thrown users will probably want to use the terrain and other passive defences to cut attacks down to size, and use offensive charms rather than Reed In the Wind.

Finally, this is one of the most stunty charms you dastardly Anathema have. Have you ever stuck a daiklaive into someone only to have them slip off it effortlessly, unharmed? Well, neither have I, but I had an underling do it, and he didn't look happy.