How to win at Gift of the Gab in Where Winds Meet without tearing your hair out

Gift of the Gab might just be the most annoying thing you'll find in Where Winds Meet. Well, apart from those pesky geese, that is. It's likely that you'll stumble upon this minigame before seeing the proper tutorial for it. Even after the tutorial, it's frustrating trying to actually win a match until you unlock the Scholar profession, which isn't made clear at all.

To save you a lot of rematches, this guide explains how to win at Gift of the Gab in Where Winds Meet by unlocking the Scholar profession, and goes through how Gift of the Gab actually works once you can play it without tears dripping onto your keyboard.

How to win at Gift of the Gab in Where Winds Meet

Let's just get this out of the way first: You're not going to win any Gift of the Gab matches in Where Winds Meet until you complete the Legacy: Scholar's Path quest and unlock the Scholar profession.

Despite the fancy concept of studying your opponent's words and picking the correct comeback cards to win, Gift of the Gab is really a stat-based minigame—which means it's only winnable once you have access to stat boosts, card upgrades, and craftable talismans as part of the Scholar skill tree.

To unlock the Scholar profession, you first have to reach level 13 and complete the Gift of the Gab: Silver Tongue exploration quest, which, weirdly, is also referred to as "Gift of the Gab: Spring" in some menus. If you haven't unlocked this quest yet, speak with Song Jiu in Heaven's Pier, who informs you about a strange pipa player who snatched some important teachings from him.

Once you've completed Song Jiu's exploration quest, all you have to do to unlock the Scholar profession is track the Legacy: Scholar's Path quest in the exploration tab of your journal and head to Deerforage Grove. After you complete this short quest, even without improving your stats or crafting talismans, you'll see that Gift of the Gab goes from basically unplayable to actually winnable. You know, like it should have been from the start.

Gift of the Gab explained

Now that you've gotten over the biggest hurdle, I can explain how Gift of the Gab actually works.

There are two modes: Rhetoric Duel and Free Persuasion. The duel mode is played in the card-battler screen, while the persuasion mode lets you use an AI chatbot to try to convince your opponent in a proper debate. However, Free Persuasion is only available sometimes.

After picking Rhetoric Duel, you can choose between four styles: Bluster, Provocation, Rebuttal, and Filibuster. I've always just used the style suggested at the start of a battle and haven't had any issues, but you might want to check what your opponent's style is and change yours accordingly. Styles work a little like rock-paper-scissors, with each one strongest against another:

• Rebuttal is strong against Filibuster
• Filibuster is strong against Bluster
• Bluster is strong against Provocation
• Provocation is strong against Rebuttal

Once the Gift of the Gab match starts, the concept is supposedly to pick a card from your deck named with a retort that could 'win' an argument presented in the chat box by your opponent. For example, you might pick the "Hold Your Tongue" card against an opponent spouting Confucius quotes at you. However, you should completely ignore this concept and just focus on the actual card effects. It doesn't really matter what your opponent is saying, because it takes you time to read their messages and every Gift of the Gab match is on a timer.

So what should you be doing instead? Play as many cards as quickly as you can to deplete your opponent's mental focus bar, while waiting for your Inspiration points to charge back up. This is because each card costs a set number of points, and the most effective ones cost the most. I like mainly using attacking cards (the ones with sword symbols) while countering with either massive damage, or the silence effect, which stops opponents playing their cards for a brief time.

To counter, press the Q or E keys when they appear on the screen. A pop-up will appear, and you can quickly choose your desired effect. Make sure you try and click on all of these counters, as they're key to winning tough matches.

A Gift of the Gab match only ends when you or your opponent's mental focus is depleted (the green bar at the bottom-left of the screen, and the white bar at the top), or when the timer runs out. If you're defeated, don't worry, as most Gift of the Gab matches are replayable. So have a look at your stats, upgrade cards, craft some talismans, and come back when you're ready to Blue-Eyes White Dragon them, Yu-Gi-Oh-style.