Strength
Strength is the raw-power branch of VV: Ultimatum's universal skill tree, home to nine documented pure Strength abilities - posture breakers, armored lunges, and low-health executions - plus the in-development Guillotine Drop.
The Strength tree is the universal skill line for players who want to break guards and bodies rather than dance around them. Its pure Strength abilities range from simple tools - Heavy Kick knocks the target away for decent damage, Thrust lunges forward with light posture damage that accelerates the longer it travels - to genuinely frightening top-end options with execution upgrades.
Posture pressure is the tree's identity. Overhead Strike deals poor health damage but extremely high posture damage, and its upgrade ladder is one of the deepest documented: it restores your posture even when blocked or parried (Level 3), gains hyperarmor for the first 0.75s of startup (Level 5), inflicts bleed (Level 6), and deals 2x posture damage to enemies under 30% health (Level 7). Brutal Force guards your body behind your blade, cutting incoming damage by 90% before reflecting it all back in a spinning hurl - upgraded, the returned damage bypasses riposte frames, and at Level 8 you slice the heads off low-HP opponents if you absorbed any damage at all.
The rest of the kit rounds out mixups and finishers: Vault Slash rolls into an overhead cut that can be feinted, Piercing Draw erupts ground shockwaves that hit ragdolled and crumpled opponents, Skyscraper launches enemies skyward with hyperarmor for a rushdown (with a shunpo follow-up slam at Level 5), and Impale slams targets down with bleed and can auto-execute at low HP with Level 6. Guillotine Drop appears in the documentation only as a work-in-progress entry with no details yet.
Details
| Tree group | Universal Skill Tree |
| Abilities documented | 9 (+ Guillotine Drop, WIP) |
| Specialty | Posture damage, hyperarmor, executions |
Pure Strength abilities
Heavy Kick kicks the target away for decent damage; Level 3 makes enemies concussion-prone. Thrust lunges forward dealing light posture damage, with travel speed increasing over time; Level 6 makes it rotatable during startup. Vault Slash rolls into an overhead slash; Level 6 lets you feint the slash and Level 7 grants dodge frames at the move's start.
Overhead Strike trades poor damage for extremely high posture damage. Its upgrades: Level 3 restores posture whether it is blocked or parried, Level 5 grants hyperarmor for the first 0.75s of startup, Level 6 inflicts bleed, and Level 7 deals 2x posture damage to enemies under 30% health.
Piercing Draw strikes the ground to send rippling shockwaves that can hit ragdolled and crumpled opponents; Level 3 makes its superarmor linger so it is hard to whiff-punish, and Level 6 enables rushdown off ragdolled opponents it affects. Brutal Force guards with your blade, reducing all incoming damage by 90%, then reflects the damage back in a spinning hurl; Level 3 makes returned damage bypass riposte frames, and Level 8 slices off low-HP opponents' heads if you absorb any damage at all.
Skyscraper winds up an upward sword lunge with hyperarmor that launches the opponent for a rushdown; Level 4 grants riposte frames on startup, Level 5 adds a shunpo follow-up that slams the airborne opponent into the ground and crumples them, and Level 6 amplifies that follow-up against opponents below 40%. Impale spears an opponent and slams them back down, crumpling and inflicting bleed; Level 6 lets it automatically execute low-HP opponents. Guillotine Drop is marked as WIP with no documented details.
FAQ
Which Strength skill breaks posture fastest?
Overhead Strike - its damage is poor but its posture damage is extremely high, doubling against enemies under 30% health at Level 7, and it refunds your own posture even when blocked or parried from Level 3.
Can Strength skills execute?
Yes, with upgrades: Impale auto-executes low-HP opponents at Level 6, and Brutal Force at Level 8 decapitates low-HP opponents if it absorbed any damage.
What is Guillotine Drop?
A work-in-progress entry in the community documentation - the name is listed but no effect, cost, or requirement has been published yet.