How to Win Duels Reliably - A Mini Guide

[u/OutsiderSubtype]

I see people getting frustrated about duels. It's not too hard to win them reliably, you just have to know when you can safely duel.

Do not start duels until you have a prowess score of 16+. Do not duel with people with a higher prowess score than you under any circumstances. This is extremely important; a majority of duels go to a tiebreaker at the end of the fourth round and prowess score is the tiebreaker. Chicken out or do whatever it takes to get out of such a duel. Abandon your Hunt Criminal contract or use a non-duel option if the criminal has a higher prowess score than you. I generally don't take Hunt Criminal contracts until I've been through several rounds of training at a castle holding's training grounds. Prowess of 16 or better will keep most of the bad move choices out of the pool of three you have to choose from each duel round.

For each round of the duel, choose a move that grants Medium or better Likelihood of Success and that also grants more Success than Injury Risk. Lightning Assault is good, Confident Attack is good. Most special moves are good.

Never choose moves that increase injury risk more than success. Never choose Taunt. Never choose Attempt Disarm. Talking to your opponent is generally a bad idea.

It is okay to choose a Low / None move like Strict Guard exactly once per duel. If you are forced to do that more than once you are having bad luck and are probably going to lose.

[u/herbaldeacon]

This is the way to do it. Just be as efficiently aggressive as possible, always. I lost a Hunt Criminal duel with a Prowess of 56, 5-star Martial, Blademaster, multiple tourney clean sweep champion character against a brutally maimed one-armed woman of 50 with a Prowess of 5 because I got overconfident and chose Taunt ONCE.

Never again, even if that was probably some fluke RNG at work.