Phantom Dust Online Strategy Guide (You can play this game on the 360 if
you updated the emulation files.(through Microsoft)
version 1.7 - 6/5/2017
New Updates:
A far superior and easier to read guide has been written by me
and kept up to date at the following location:
https://dustguide.neocities.org/index.html
Seriously its much better and updated for Xbox One.
Consider this a legacy guide. It's available but better can be found.
Updates:
1. I have a new email address since my pr
2. More detail is included on Jumper abilities. AKA Why Freia is
not necessarily inferior jumpers after all. Search "28PD"
of the page. Otherwise just read 1PD-1APD section to see the new
updated information.
3. Game Saves of all the skills that can transfer to an original
Xbox or 360 are now available on the GameFaqs Page. Hidden
Debug Missions are now avaialable.
4. It maybe possible to get the 1.2 update on a 360 without
modding/gettting banned. I have to look into it but you will find more
info on that here at this link location for now(right now its only save
data but if the patch can be done I will update the site link):
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/phantomdust/pdsave.html
5. Phantom Dust 2 might happen and Phreaker has reopened the fan site
find out more on this:
http://phantomdusted.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11231
note: There are links given to other sites that are not created or owned
by this author. I have obviously checked those sites but take no
responsibility for the content of those sites or the content that might
change on it.
By PDfaq
email:
[email protected]
Version 1.5 Copyright 2006(B.G.Ranton) Version 1.6 Copyright
2014(B.G.Ranton)
Who is this faq for?
This faq is for both beginner and experienced players in the online/Lan
experience of Phantom Dust.
If you want to know how skills have changed since the 1.2 update go here:
http://phantomdusted.com/skills.htm
With that being said, this faq is not for the single player game. Try
Atomic Archtype’s faq for that or www.xboxphreaker.com for help. Before
you play online much I seriously recommend you beat the one player game.
Its pretty short and it will teach you a lot of the basics. Most
importantly it opens up all 300 offine skills for purchase and all the
levels. Your arsenals will
struggle against others if you don’t. You will also have many less options.
As long as you’ve beaten the game this is a perfect place to learn how to
get better at playing others.(if you haven’t it still has a lot you might
get) You can also learn the quickest ways to get both offline and online
skills and you’ll find a lot of arsenal strategies, combos, and things you
might not have known that work in this game.
Here is an outline of the topics in the faq. Feel free to skip around
areas. Each topic is listed with a label. If you use the edit > find or
ctrl + F function you can jump right to those sections by typing in the
letter combination.(like 1PD, 2PD, etc)
Sections
0PD Differences between online and split screen play
1PD Choosing your character type. Strengths and Weaknesses of each
character
type. Strategies around each type.
1APD Who's the "best" character
2PD Dodging and Using Attack Types More Effectively
2APD General ways.
2BPD Specific ways of dodging and using each type of attack skill type.
Includes some unique types.
3PD Shields/Defenses, the basics and tips for beating opponent’s shields
4PD Dealing with Erase and using Erase effectively
5PD Environmental Hanging/Floating: How to Do it and Ways to Thwart it. A
brief word on Environmentals
6PD Stat Changers / Benefits and Dealing with them.
7PD Homing
8PD Value of Manual Aim
9PD Skills with Greater ranges then expressed, or skills that work better
at different ranges than listed.
10PD Using Debris as an Attack and as a Defense
11PD Extra Uses of Hit All Skills
12PD Principles of Timing and skill effects
13PD Stages FAQ with locations to float environmentals and glitches.
14PD Getting all the skills.(including online ones) References place
you can see description of all of them and download a save file with all
of them.
15PD List of online skills with personal ranking.
16PD Skills with same animations and partial listing.
17PD General Arsenal Design Tips and Management
18PD Strategies around certain game types.
19PD List and Description of Various Arsenal Concepts: Recommendations
and
Strategies against each type
20PD Skill Combos
21PD All the other things you didn’t know about in Phantom Dust.
22PD Making the most of a situation
23PD Playing people with bad connections. Ways to take advantage of it.
24PD Other places to learn/talk/compete in Phantom Dust
25PD Differences in character types melee moves.
26PD School Auras
27PD End of the Faq
28PD (Updated jumper dodging information)
Whenever "online" play is used, it probably also applies to LAN
situations.(not confirmed.)
Phantom Dust Online Strategy Guide
0PD Differences between online and split screen play
There are a few differences between online and offline split screen play.
1. It seems like some Blade moves are much harder to dodge offline. I
don’t know if its because they changed the quality of the blades in some
way or its just lag. Melee moves are also sometimes dodged due to lag when
they wouldn't be dodged so easily offline.
2. The brush stun effect on Brush defenses against close moves no longer
knocks a player back. If you want a move that does that stun effect use
Sword Slap.(an online skill)
3. When an opponent’s body is on the ground or is stationary you can’t
push it like you can offline.(no more pushing people off cliffs) You can
still run into people to make it harder for them to get somewhere though.
4. In split screen mode there is practically no debris at some levels and
none useable by Power or Psycho Kinesis.
5. Relearn can make another Thieving Imp online but not offline. Very
strange.
6. In tag you don't have to worry about projectiles hitting your teammate
if your locked onto an opponent when you fire and the opponent is still
alive before the projectile reaches him. You can still hit a teammate with
manual shots or if you lock onto him. But you can basically shoot
projectiles through your teammate without having to worry about hitting
him. Just be careful explosions from attacks don't hit your teammate. You
can still hit your teammate with melee moves as well.(basically any move
that’s not medium or long range)
1PD Choosing your character type. Strengths and Weaknesses of each
character type. Strategies around each type.
The type of character and mode of play you choose(Battle Royale, Single,
or Tag) will have an important impact on what strategies will be more
effective for you. There are generally four types of characters worth
considering. There are characters who jump when you press in the Left
analog stick and characters who cartwheel when you press the left analog
stick. The strategies you use with them or against them will be generally
similar to how you would
use a Cartwheeler. Rollers and other variant types will be briefly
discussed in greater detail. From here on any mention of a Cartwheeler
will also be considered equivalent to a Roller. There are also ground
based monster characters like Ommato that are enemy characters in the game
normally. (Hold L+R at the character select screen to pick them if you’ve
beaten
the game or got far enough to fight them, I think…)
28PD
Jumpers
These are characters who jump. Although all these characters jump,there
might be 2 possible distinctions.
When comparing Freia and Tsubutaki to other jumpers they have a delayed
recovery time in moving again after they have jumped. It has to do with
how they were programmed to animate and land.(I guess heels make it harder
to continually jump)
However, they may have a dodging advantage over the male characters. Some
players seem to jump dodge Reincarnation more consistently with Freia and
Tsubutaki. It is not certain if the male characters handle this quite as
well. Here is a youtube video showing how a player named Maalik dodges
Reincarnation by jumping at the right time with Freia.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZqAFdgbyVg
This may also apply to other skills like Blaster, I have heard.
However, the other jumpers in the game do not have a delay in recovering
from a jumps landing.(They still delay when doing high landings from the
sky) The lack of delay makes it easier to dodge certain things. Or set
up attacks This may include Gyne.
Another thing to consider about these characters is the noises they make.
It’s a little silly but certain characters like Tsubutaki only speak every
other time they swing a sword. Whether you want a character that can sound
wimpier, angrier, quieter, or crazier is up to you.
Advantages of Jumping
1) This is perhaps the most important ability Jumpers have and it is not
the
most obvious. The ability to cancel many Status skills that are shot at
them
simply by jumping into them. An example: Someone fires Paralyze at you,
if
you jump into it you will fall to the ground but get up unparalyzed,
temporarily immune as you get up like you typically would when getting
knocked
down.(except against attacks that work while your down)
Personally, I think it was stupid design to do this because of its ability
to
negate so many skills but the importance of this abilty is undeniable.
Many
people set up their arsenals around stunning their opponent with
Erase/Status/Special skills and following up with an attack, if you jump
into
these skills you can nullify many or all of their effects without even
paying
any aura to do so.
Skills/Attack Nullifications
Besides completely nullifying certain skills entirely you can nullify
certain
effects that come with them. Someone may fire Dragon Slayer to erase your
shield(let’s say Glacial Wall). You have nothing to stop the effect.
However,
you can stop part of it. When you are hit by Dragon Slayer you also get
stunned by it, IF you are standing. If you got hit while standing this is
a
perfect chance for your opponent to follow up with an attack you can’t stop.
However, if you see Dragon Slayer coming and you know there is no other
way you can stop the skill, jumping into it will negate the stun effect
that
would normally come if you stood up and got hit. Even skills like Teleport
can be entirely negated by jumping into them, even though there doesn’t
seem
to be any real reason why the skill shouldn’t work when it hits its target.
Jumping can also reduce the amount of damage you take from a barrage of
attacks. If you know your opponent is attempting to fire or hit you with a
move more than once and you see no other way of dodging or stopping the
assualt, jumping into the first attack will cause you to fall when hit,
instead of staying on your feet and getting hit by the rest of the
follow up
attacks. A cartwheeler on the other hand that is hit by an attack is often
vulnerable to several more attacks because you stagger while you get hit by
an attack. A Dragon Slayer that hits a cartwheeler(with a shield) is
normally
a guaranteed chance for you to follow up with an attack your opponent won’t
be able to do anything about.
Dodging Hit All skills
A Hit All skill is a skill that will affect everyone on the field regardless
of any dodging/shield ability. Skills like Mobilize, Still Moment, Amaros
and Quantum Decay fit this description. If you jump into the air at the
right time as the skill is taking affect you will get knocked down. This
is useful for a few reasons:
A) Some skills will affect everyone. Some of the best skills to jump
in the air for when their about to take effect are Mobilize and Still
Moment.
If you stand up and you are not in the air no matter what you will be
affected. Why get teleported to your opponents spawn point by Mobilize
when
you can avoid whatever nasty plan he has by simply jumping in the air? And
although Still Moment will still paralyze you for a very brief second as
you
get up you have a greater chance of not getting hit by the attack your
opponent intends to land on you.
B) By jumping into the air you will avoid the stun affect that comes with
being affected by a Hit All skill. If you are in the air when a hit all
skill
occurs you will get knocked out of the sky. Some player could attempt to
fire
a slow moving attack at you and then cast a Hit All like Fairy Ring that
stuns
you as the attack heads towards you which you will now have little to stop
the
attack with.(only auto shields) If you jump you can avoid the
stun and probably the attack entirely because you will fall and be
invincible
for a little bit. In tag team matches or even Battle Royale your opponents
have a greater chance of setting this up as one can cast the Hit All moves
with a stun effect while the other person fires an attack at you as the
effect
is about to take place.
Note: There will be times when you would rather be hit by the stun effect
but
this is just one more option you have available as a jumper. There is
less of
a delay if you just let yourself get stunned by Hit All moves versus
jumping
to make yourself fall. It maybe
more useful to just let yourself be stunned
when your closely pursuing an opponent.
You will not be able to use these jump tricks on Erase Hit all’s if you
have
a useable Orb or Amulet in hand. Even if the skill really doesn’t effect
anything on you, it will still knock you out of the sky when it takes
effect.
The only exception is the skill called Phantom Dust.
2) Jumpers have an easier time in repeatedly dodging Crawler, Hole, and
long
Range arc attacks. They can still get hit by them but they’ll have a much
easier time dodging them.(Methods of dodging holes, crawlers, and arc
attacks are explained in the 2BPD section on Using and Dodging attacks)
3) Jumpers generally have an easier time to find places to hang an
Environmental skill and its also easier to pick up someone elses
environmental.
( Environmental floating explained further in the Environmental floating
section (5PD) )
4) Jumpers usually have an easier time getting around levels because
jumping
generally gives you more options and places you can go. You can even jump
onto the broken bridge in the middle of the tree in Palace.(explained in
Palace Section) Against a carthwheeler you can escape their pursuits if you
bring them to areas they can’t easily follow you to. Simple example: In
Palace your Cartwheeling opponent is chasing you up the stairs You jump off
in the middle of the stairway, he can not follow you as quickly as he’d
like.
Plus you can dodge attacks like Twister more easily jumping off stair ways
with banisters versus a cartwheeler who might get caught in between the
banisters with no way of escaping.( they could try to cartwheel out of range
though) Jumping also makes it easier to find spots to jump off and fall
off
the level to get yourself back to your spawn point. It does 3 damage to
you
but there are quite a few situations where quickly getting back to your
spawn
point is more important than taking 3 damage. Additionally if you want to
lower your health to take advantage of certain skills its a quick and
fairly
safe way to do so.(athough it maybe an obvious one to your opponent)
Some levels or parts of the levels will be more advantageous for each
character type, be it Jumper or Cartwheeler. Try to find and use the
places
that give your character the best advantage.
5) Jumpers can jump into the air and fire attacks.(for attacks that allow
this) This gives you more ways of attacking and throwing off your opponent.
It is even possible to jump higher than an opponent's shield that only
protects the front parts, and hit them with certain projectiles.(not always
easy though) Jumping and shooting is also an easy way of ensuring you dodge
hole attacks.
6) Jumpers can nullify the stun effects or the entire affect of certain
landmine skills without need for a shield. If you step into the area that
has the mine detonate and jump into the air in time before getting hit by
the
mine explosion, you can nullify certain skills. You’ll fall and not get
stunned on by something like Freeze Gas. Anti Gravity Trap and Teleportrap
can be completely nullified if you jump into their explosions. Some like
Vapor Cloud are a little more difficult but if you time it right, you’ll
fall
down instead of getting stunned. If you use Boost Mine, Jumping into the
mine
is often a safer option than standing there being stunned by the boost
effect,
leaving you open to attacks.
7) If a jumper has been hit by attacks that lower their speed (i.e.
Burden)
Their ability to jump can get them around faster than walking around in
some
cases.(Such as-4 speed.) Note: This is not an advantage over
cartwheelers
but it is another useful trick with jumpers.
8) Jumping can avoid many attacks. More than you might think. There are
plenty of cases where jumping can help aid in diverting and or dodging an
attack. These include many swords, hand to hand skills, and projectiles
among
others. The details of how to dodge each attack with jumping will be
explained in greater detail in the dodging section.2PD) Jumping throws off
the homing of some attacks.
Disadvanatages/Ways of Foiling of Jumpers:
1) They have a much higher vulnerability to a greater number of attacks.
Without a defensive/evasive skill(or speed increase) there are some skills
that are impossible or near impossible to dodge with jumpers, provided they
are shot at the right range. (By impossible I mean a situation where the
jumper can not divert an attack into an object or get themselves out of the
attacks sight) If you end up in a situation where you have lost
your defenses and your opponent has an open enough shot on you, you could
end
up pretty screwed. Skills such as Fire of Gehenna, and Heat from the Void
are
impossible to dodge without a skill if shot at their correct ranges. There
are some skills that are much less forgiving to dodge than if you
cartwheeled.
You will have to rely on greater psych out tactics if you find yourself
without skills or enough aura to protect yourself. Sometimes psych out
tactics are just not enough in certain situations and you are very likely
to
die due to your high vulnerability. A cartwheeler on the other hand,
especially someone good at it, can still have a good chance of dodging a
large amount of attacks.
2) You hate the fact that your opponent keeps jumping into your
stun/status
moves to cancel them out? Well there aren’t too many things you can do.
But there are moves you can do to make a jumper happy opponent pay for
constantly nullifying those affects you try to affect/stun him with. You
can
always use moves affective against downed opponents. Skills like Backdraft
Bullet, Pursuit, Gravity Press, and Geyser Impact are among the choices you
have available. And in some cases you could always use the extra
time on the ground they have to position yourself a little better.
Jumper’s “cartwheel†- A jumper can use the skill Dash to basically fill
in for
the cartwheel ability cartwheelers have.(It is actually superior to
cartwheeling but you have to pay to use it and hold a slot for it) This
is a
great skill for dodging and traveling around faster and is even useeful for
Cartwheeler’s.
This ends the jumper section but its highly recommended to check out the
Cartwheeler section as well to see what other advantages and weaknesses
Cartwheelers have against you.
Cartwheelers
Advantages/Disadvantages:
You may notice that this section is shorter than the jumper section. That
certainly does not negate the importance of the advantages cartwheelers
have
over jumpers. If you skipped down to the Cartwheelers section and ignored
the
Jumper section you will miss out on ways of taking advantage of the fact
your
opponent chose a jumper.
1)Dodging Ability - This is by far the best reason to choose a
cartwheeler.
A cartwheeler can dodge nearly any singly performed ATTACK in the game if
he
has the space, reflexes, and the knowledge of how to.(By attacks I mean
only
the red skills) This does not include most erase skills and many
status/special projectiles. When I say cartwheelers can dodge nearly every
attack in the game used just once I am not exaggerating. Currently it
appears
Psycho Kinesis and Power maybe the only attacks they can’t truly dodge when
given enough room.(even when an attack is shot at proper range) At this
time
I’ll put Ricochet Laser in a troubling class of its own. Some crawlers
are also difficult and impossible in the more open spaces where they can’t
be
diverted off ledges or into objects. There are some attacks they will have
greater trouble with but generally the more open a situation the easier it
is
for them to dodge most attacks. *This is in the case of an attack shot
only
once. If you shoot an attack more than once its probably impossible for
some
skills to be dodged. This idea will be covered in more detail in the
“Dodging
and Using Attack Types More Effectively†section.(2PD)
Attacks that are more difficult for Cartwheelers
1)Crawler attacks - Crawler attacks are harder for a cartwheeler to dodge
but
not as much as some would believe. The more open a space a cartwheeler is
in
the harder it is to dodge a crawler.(for just about any other attack the
opposite is the case) It should be noted though that even in many open
spaces
they can be dodged by diverting them off a cliff or into a wall by
cartwheeling
away at the right time. Even the exploding Spore Schism crawler can be
tricked
by it. However if you don’t have a ledge or a wall to divert them with,
some
crawlers will circle you and follow you till they hit. Dodging crawlers is
covered more in the dodging section.(2PD) Depending on the range a crawler
is shot at, a cartwheeler will have to decide on different dodging
tactics.
The good news is that there aren’t a lot of crawler skills and some are
pricey
making them harder to spam without Optimization down. If you can keep your
opponent away from ledges and walls when they’re in the open you will make
it very hard, if not impossible for them to cartwheel out of a crawler.
2) Hole attacks - While its true cartwheelers can dodge hole attacks it is
harder, and you are more likely to get trapped by a well placed one when in
more closed in areas. A jumper can generally jump out of the attack in
most
areas pretty easily once they get the hang of it. For Cartwheelers
troubled
by holes, Absorb and Shelter shield types will protect you from them.
3) Cartwheelers can cover greater distances then a jumper who has reduced
speed. If you cartwheel you can get around faster then a jumper who has
reduced speed. Cartwheeling can also give you the ability to cover greater
distance in an instant. You can’t continually cartwheel around efficiently
though, but for situations where quickly moving out of the way in an instant
this is useful. *While cartwheeling its important to note you don’t
recover
aura.
4) Cartwheeling’s dodging ability is so great that it can dodge many
singly
shot attacks even when an opponent has high homing stats. Further details
will be in the “Homing Section.†That’s not to say homing doesn’t make
attacks harder to dodge. But attacks with boosted homing can get difficult
or impossible for jumpers while even high accuracy moves like Fire of
Gehenna
can be dodged at +5 homing.
5) Because of a cartwheeler’s ability to save aura by relying less on
defenses, in my opinion they can sometimes take greater advantage of
Environmentals like Irregular Rhythm(doubles cost of aura for everyone) and
Memory Lapse.(all skills are now singles use) These skills will curtail
many
of your opponents’ chances to shoot multiple attacks at you. It also
hinders
those who would try to use a skill constantly for its stagger effect like
Dazzle, to then follow up with an attack while your stunned. Since in many
situations you can ideally dodge attacks shot just once you could really
slow down your opponent or render skills that are now single use,
ineffective.
6) If your ready you can cartwheel through landmine explosions as long as
you
stay away from the center part. Cartwheeling will also help you escape
easily out of your own Fast Bomb detonation much more easily than a jumper.
7) Although it is often best to dodge short range melees by moving to the
side, there are also a lot of melee attacks that a cartwheel can have you
escape from just because it takes you a far enough distance away from the
melee moves coming at you. It can also work as insurance in dodging a blade
that your not completely confident moving to the side will dodge. It is
usually easier to dodge blades with a cartwheeler.
Weaknesses and getting around them
A) While most of the red attacks skills can be cartwheeled out of, there’s
practically no cartwheeling out of many erase/ or stun projectiles moves
without a shield or evasion skill. If someone fires a Dragon Slayer at the
right range and you only have a Psychic Wall to protect you, you will get
hit,
and have to suffer the stun affect that comes with it.(there are of
course a
few shields like Gust that can override skills like dragon slayer) You
will
also have to suffer the affects of many skills that a jumper can simply
jump
into, to negate. It is much harder to dodge/negate area affect skills like
Mobilize and Still Moment.
Your only hope in dodging the erase/status projectiles stun effects
without a
proper shield or evasion skill is to cartwheel off of an edge as you are
shot
at. The same goes for dodging skills like Mobilize.(cartwheel off as its
about to take effect) This is much harder to do and potentially more
dangerous because if you cartwheel from a high enough height you’ll take
fall
damage as a result.)
B) If you find yourself stumbling around in a match and you leave yourself
open to a barrage of attacks you may end up getting hit several times from
your opponent despite your best dodging efforts. If you catch yourself
stumbling with a jumper and see you are about to be hit by a ton of attacks
(i.e. several Rapid Cannon, Lingering Flames) you can to jump into the
first
shot to fall and stop the rest of the shots from hitting you.
C) Cornering a cartwheeler into narrow areas can make it hard to escape or
even evade attacks that they would easily dodge if they had more space. In
this way some attacks like flame sword could end up being easier for a
jumper
to dodge in some situations like this you can get away with jumping straight
up even if your cornered.(I find it hard to do though and lag can make
timing
harder to get right) Its best for a cartwheeler to keep in mind whether
going into certain areas will back them into a corner. When you do get
cornered sometimes carthweeling into the opposite direction to the side
around
an opponent can still save you.
D) Although cartwheelers get in situations where they can’t get around with
the same ease a jumper has you will find there are more places you can
cartwheel or walk off of than you think. Cartwheeling off certain heights
can
also get you to certain areas that you thought you would have to spend more
time getting around to. Experimenting will be key in figuring out how to
get
around levels best with a cartwheeler. This may also effect your skill
considerations as you might want more permanent skills that you can easily
use to destroy barriers around you so you can maneuver around the level
more
easily.
E) You cannot not regenerates aura while in the process of Cartwheeling.
If
you cartwheel around continuously and you really need aura you will not be
getting much back till you stop cartwheeling. There are little moments
between cartwheeling where you might be able to regain a small snippet of
aura while you continue to try to dodge while cartwheeling.
F) Dodging the long range arc lasers that curve is to harder to deal with a
as a cartwheeler over and over and may become impossible after awhile. If
a
jumper has the space they can keep jumping their way out of them if they
keep
moving and jumping towards the inside part of the arc. On the plus side you
have a better chance of dodging a laser your unprepared to dodge than an
unprepared jumper.
G) Cartwheeler’s “jump†- Although a cartwheeler lacks the ability to
jump,
they can use skills like Levitate, Skywalk, Jump, and Demon’s wing to make
themselves more mobile. It should be noted with Skywalk, Demon’s Wing, and
Levitate you can simply press the button assigned to the skill to make
yourself float down at any time you choose.
Some attack animations can substitute for jumping. If you hyperkick a
person
on an adjacent platform you can hop on over them.
*Many moves can be dodged without cartwheeling. Don’t use your cartwheel
when you don’t have to. It’ll slow down your aura regen and make it easier
for you to get trapped. You can usually dodge a move once with a cartwheel
but the 2nd time you try to cartwheel you’ll often struggle to
escape.(that’s
why you don’t do it if you don’t have to)
Rollers
Rollers generally have the same abilities and weaknesses a cartwheeler
has, so
read the cartwheeling section. Check 25PD on differences in character
melees
to see one of the few concrete differences.
Their roll might be more useful in dodging certain attacks. At this time I
can not figure out many concrete differences between the two types so you
will have to experiment to see what they are. Some have said their rolls
move faster than cartwheel making it better for pursuing an opponent. Some
also feel they can’t roll out of certain moves as often as a cartwheeler.
You’ll have to see which type your more comfortable with.(or find out
who can’t dodge certain attacks that the other can) Personally I don't
like
the height of some of the rollers and the space they take up which can
make it
harder to see and time when to dodge certain attacks.
Other types - (odd ball characters you can pick if you hold L+R at the
character select screen after you beat the game)
Some hidden characters like Omatto, Ceno, or Catoptro have their own
special
moves when you click in the analog stick. Their almost like a
cartwheel/roll
in the way it sends your character moving but these characters don’t travel
very far when their move is used.(some go further than others) You can
dodge
some attacks with these but not nearly as many as rollers or wheelers
because
these characters go shorter distances. Because of this they are more
vulnerable to holes to the point where their move often can’t escape the
attack.(holes can still be dodged in other ways sometimes) These character
have the hardest times with crawler and arc attack moves.(even the
characters
that float will still be hit by both holes and crawlers)
The disappearing animation some of these characters have may give you the
impression you can “disappear†through attacks. However, it is only an
animation, and attacks will hit a “disappearing†move the same as if you
were
just standing there visible.
Some characters feel clunky but they do move the same speed as the other
characters but some like the Catoptro may have slower turning reactions.
Some of the animations for these characters differ from that of normal
characters. For example the Omatto and Ceno swing swords differently.
Their
bodies also just throw themselves into an opponent with many hand to hand
moves. Hyper kick looks different with a Catoptro as does an Ommato’s
Vacuum Slash. Because of these differences they can throw off opponents
more
accustomed to dodging other character types of close range moves.
Experiment
with characters because some have better animations and start up times then
others.(I think Catoptro kind of sucks compared to Ommato and Ceno)
The ways of dodging the attacks they use appear to be mostly the same
despite
the different animation. (I prefer Ommato for the balls or using Ceno for
different moves)
You may have to move in a different direction though with some swords.
Their
exact differences and how to dodge them are covered more in section
25PD.(the
special ones are Ommatos, Claustro, Scoto, and Ceno)
These characters suffer all of the same vulnerabilities as cartwheelers but
hole attacks and crawlers are even tougher for these characters to deal
with
since they can’t trick them by rolling/wheeling away from a ledge or wall.
They are easily the weakest characters against Arc style attacks. If you do
decide you want to use these characters despite the fact they seem inferior
to the other character types in many ways, you may want to structure your
arsenal to deal with these troublesome situations more easily. Things like
carrying shelter or absorb skills will be important in dealing with holes.
Course defenses will avoid Dragon Slayer problems.
Carrying Levitate or a jumping “equivalent†skill could also aid in
overcoming
their weaknesses. Their biggest strength for some of these unique
characters
is the way their swords/blades work differently. See 25PD for details.
Effects of character Choice on Arsenals
The character type you choose will effect your arsenal choices. A jumper
usually has to dedicate more space to protective skills. Because of a
greater
reliance on skills to protect yourself, you will also generally need more
aura to perform all that you need to do. This can be especially bad
because
a cartwheeling opponent in many situations has much greater potential to
save
aura by simply carthweeling out of your attacks. Depending on you and your
opponent’s character types, certain arsenals and skills will be more or
less
effective depending on the character chosen. Even the random start
locations
are better for some characters than others. There is probably no real way
of
getting out of this. You might desire more moves that stun a Cartwheeler or
carry stagger effects with them more to hit them, because they generally
can’t cartwheel out of those. Many Status/Erase/Special skills simply have
better homing than practically all the attack skills. On the other hand,
against a good jumper you’ll find that stun effect skills are less important
and you can count on many more attacks to hit a jumper without worrying
about
your opponent simply dodging it.
In all honesty I wouldn’t use the special characters(L+R) unless you have
dedicated a good amount of space to sword and hand to hand melee moves.
These are also the characters that get punished most when you don’t have an
arsenal or hand tailored to deal with their weaknesses.
Other reasons to choose a character
Some characters perform moves with different animations and some are more
effective than others. The main places where it matters most is in sword
and
kick moves. (see 25PD for exact details) Rollers seem like the best
kickers. As for swords and the rest, among humanoid characters I believe
their pretty much equal. I have not seen anything else not listed that
makes
any humanoid characters stand out as better compared to others.
Some characters bodies are actually harder to find in tag like the Scoto.
Changing characters to brighter colors can make it easier for your teammate.
Some people are more comfortable controlling certain characters than others.
(personal)
Conclusion on Characters
This finishes off the character type section but a few notes should be made.
The above only explains how someone can negate skills used against them.
Just because someone can cancel out or dodge something doesn’t mean he
always
will be ready to or even know how to. If your not familiar with your
opponent
at all try to figure out what he doesn’t know or has trouble with and use it
to your advantage. Just because he is good at dodging one of the skills your
using, does not mean he’s going to be good at dodging all your other skills.
Many people will not be ready enough or even know how to jump or cartwheel
out
of certain skills. There is of course always the element of surprise as
well.
Although there are many ways of getting out of certain attacks or effects
that
will help you spend less aura and make you less reliant on defensive skills,
that does not mean you shouldn’t think about using defensive skills to help
you against your opponent. It is usually important to have at least some
defensive moves in an arsenal even if you can perform the dodging tricks
mentioned above.
1APD Who's the "best" character?
The first section on choosing your character has the detail on specific
tricks/advantages and weaknesses of the characters.
Debate: Jumpers vs. Cartwheelers
So which one is better? That depends on the situation. One is not
concretely
better than the other all the time. I will say though a wheeler seems
to have more advantages in the amount of attacks he can dodge.(but that
doesn't
really matter if your opponent's not using those attacks) A lot of
it depends on your arsenal, your opponents arsenal, the level your playing,
and sometimes even where you are currently at in the level. You can get a
bad hand and sometimes survive thanks to your cartwheeling ability and
survive where a jumper would get killed. However you're going to wish you
could jump when your opponents using crawlers, stun moves, and some other
attacks your weaker against and you have no defense. A cartwheeler can
lose
out on chances to pursue someone or get away from someone because they lack
the ability to jump.
In tag there are more opportunities to exploit wheelers weaknesses with
stun
moves or double teaming than there are in one on one. A jumper on the
other
hand can jump into most stun moves and avoid the effect almost entirely.
Sure a cartwheeler can dodge Blazing Bullet and many other attacks with ease
that a jumper can't, but a cartwheeler is going to wish they had the
ability
to jump when it comes to dealing with moves like crawlers or even
frighten.
Some levels and places are more manageable to deal with certain moves than
others for each character type.
A special type character that doesn't jump may even prove more valuable
despite its defensive weaknesses if it causes your opponent to mess up in
dodging its swords.(typically though Jumpers and Cartwheelers are better for
your deck than these)
If you really want the best chances to win get good at using a cart wheeler
and learn how to manuever through each level with them. But also build
arsenals more suited for a jumper. Jumping around is generally easier to
pick
up than cartwheeling. Think specifically about what your character's weak
against and how your deck can get around those weaknesses. Then depending
on
your opponent and the level your playing you can adopt your different
strategies and characters to deal with their gameplay style and
characters.
2PD Dodging and using attack types more effectively.
This section explains how to use the attack types more effectively as well
as
how to dodge them. It includes strategies for both Cartwheelers and
Jumpers.
2APD General Ways of Landing your attacks or dodging them.
1)The Importance of Spamming
Spamming is using an attack over and over in succession. It is an
important
tactic to use in this game. Some people complain it is cheap, “noobishâ€
and
wrong but in actuality a lot of the skills in this game are pretty easy to
dodge and sometimes it is only by using them over and over that they
actually
hit their targets. It is your opponents fault if they can’t figure out a
way
to stop you from using the same skill over and over again. It is one of
the
best ways to deal with the excellent dodging ability of a cartwheeler. In
many situations a player can avoid one attack you used on them but dodging
a
second one coming at them can be a real nuisance and even impossible.
Crawlers such as Venom Fang are a perfect example. Mash on the skill
button
your using and you’d be surprised how quickly one can perform certain
skills
over and over again including many sword attacks. Someone might dodge your
first sword swing but they might not be ready or will be trapped by the
second one that comes at them. This goes the same for someone just using
skills to defend in general. If you give your opponent enough time to
recover aura to keep casting his Fortress of Iron and Reverse, you’ll find
that many of your arsenals won’t get anywhere in hitting him.
Having lots of aura as well as cheap costing skills makes it easier for one
to spam. Playing the environmental Optimization will also make it much
easier to spam even more expensive skills. Keep in mind that it will also
make it easier for your opponent to do so as well.
Good ways to stop spammers is to use shields that halt activities like ones
that erase attacks or freeze their buttons.(Glacial wall, Flash Hole)
Reverse is a great way to turn someone’s spamming against themselves.(but
it
can be overcome by spamming) Anything that lowers a person’s aura count is
another way to cut down on a lot of spamming. The environmental skills
Memory Lapse and Irregular Rhythm are other good ways to stop a lot of
spamming. Taking down an Optimization that is out is another way and often
a necessary one to turn the tide. You can also fire your own attacks in
reaction. People who spam often leave themselves open to an attack.
In many situations I don’t think you’ll mind taking two 1 damage Lingering
Flames in exchange for nailing them with Fire of Gehenna.
If you don’t think spamming is legitimate try just using projectile moves
on
a good cartwheeler and shoot them one at a time in an open area. You’ll
see
him dodge nearly all of them. There are many skills a jumper can avoid as
well if you just shoot only one at them.
Its important to note that spamming doesn’t necessarily mean firing in
succession as quickly as possible. If you give a little time before firing
off the second attack you may also make it harder for an opponent.
Experiment with timing to see where it is better to spam rapidly or to wait
a little before using the skill again.
2) Use Mixed Speed Attacks
Combine attacks in this game that move at different speeds. If you use
attacks that have mixed speeds you can make it very hard for someone to
dodge
them. An example is to combine Demon’s Fire and Fire of Gehenna. If you
fire
a Demon’s Fire at someone and they try to cartwheel away from the move as
your about to fire off a Fire of Gehenna, they will get nailed by Fire of
Gehenna because they won’t be able to recover in time to dodge.
This is also a great way to get past someone using shields with slower
recovery times.(usually anything that’s not a Brush shield) Your opponent
puts up their shield to block the slow move and right as the shield goes
down
your fast move can go right through before they can put their shield up
again.
A well timed combination Seal of Death and Fire of Gehenna can do this as
well.
Even on people with Brush shields they could be too flustered to block both
attacks. The Faith school has a bunch of mixed slow and fast speed moves.
A lot of the Crawler moves can work well with mixed speeds, usually
functioning as slower speed moves to combine with a fast move. El Bomb and
a Vibration Blaster is another example that can work. Something like
Earthquake and a Venom Fang could overwhelm someone too. You could try to
even fire a slow tracking move and follow up with a melee move if your
quick
enough. Its actually really cool when you pull it off. Combining Delay
Bomb or Big Bomb with fast attacks might offer other possibilities. In
tag
you and a teammate can also fire at different times to overwhelm shields.
3)Combo stun moves and attacks.
Status, Erase, and Special skills have some of the best homing in the
game.
They are usually much better at hitting than most attacks. Many of them
carry an automatic stun effect when they hit an opponent that can give you
an opening to hit them with another move.(Dazzle, then use Rail Gun) All
erase moves that effect someone will stun them. A perfect example is to
shoot
Dragon Slayer at someone with a Glacial Wall. When their hit they will be
stunned briefly and you can follow up with a fast enough attack that can
hit
them before they recover. Moves that reverse stats will stun anyone with a
numbered stat(even if its from an environmental). If people aren’t
effected
by a skill like Dragon Slayer because they have no shield, or have an
Orb/Amulet, they will not suffer the stun effects that normally come from
being hit by erase moves. You can still use moves like Dragon Slayer or
Neutralization to knock someone out of the air even if they don’t have
something like a shield or stat.(except if they can use Orb or Amulet)
Moves that carry a stun effect are a great way to connect attacks
cartwheelers might normally dodge with ease. This can be effective on
jumpers too, but jumpers can jump into the air as they get shot by stun
moves,
to fall to the ground and negate the stun effect. You can still use moves
that effect people when their on the ground though like Backdraft Bullet
or Gravity Press. Most stun moves have long range reach even if they state
otherwise.
4) Use the objects around you
There are many objects that you can hide behind to absorb attacks. Many do
not ever disappear. Even something tiny like a pole that remains out can
continually absorb attacks including some melee. Moves that explode or go
through walls can help get an opponent out of hiding. Manually Aimed
attacks
can get around some of these objects by shooting something like an open
foot.
4) Get out of Ideal Range
If you can get out of the ideal range of moves you can dodge/avoid a lot of
attacks. You can do this either by getting too far away so they don’t react
or by getting so close that you can move around to the side whenever a move
is being done. Be aware that projectiles that aren’t attacks usually have
a
much greater range than expressed.(A lot of them can go pretty long
distances
and still be very accurate)
5) Don’t be indecisive
If your going to dodge a move by going to the side of the projectiles don’t
change your mind in the middle of it and try and go in the opposite
direction
to the side. You will often get nailed if you do this. Jump or Cartwheel
to
try and improve your chances of escaping if you do decide to change
direction
to dodge a projectile.
6)Wait for an opening
Sometimes its best to wait for an opponent to make a move and then follow
up
with your own attack as you dodge their own. One example is to dodge a
melee
attack and follow up with your own.(depending on how quick you are it can
be
impossible for them to react with a cartwheel, jump or shield) A great
time
to attack someone is also when their trying to use some move that would
power
up themselves. While their performing that action they are left wide
open.
People who try to use Healing Water right as they get up leave themselves
wide open to attacks.
6)Eye for an Eye
Sometimes its not always possible to dodge and then counter react.
However,
if your willing to risk getting hurt a bit you can connect your own attacks
pretty successfully. One of the times when an opponent is most vulnerable
is
when they are making an attack themselves. If an opponent starts up a move
you can start your own up in counter reaction. Some melee and projectile
moves have quicker start up animations then others so you can sometimes hit
them before they can even use their own attack on you. Other times you may
be glad to risk taking a Psycho Knife hit if it gives you the chance to
connect a Photon Burst. The same goes for projectiles, someone fires a
blazing bullet at you from the sky, you probably wouldn’t mind taking 3
damage to get a chance to shoot a Lack or a Pscyho Spear while their open.
You could also try to carry auto shields to protect yourself as you make a
counter attack. Rail Gun can be effective as a way of firing in reaction
to
someone’s move. Firing in reaction to someone can also be a useful way of
stopping someone who plans on using multiple attacks. If someone is trying
to counter react to your attack, try to cartwheel or use a shield as soon
as
possible. You’d be surprised by how quickly you can recover from doing
some
moves to use a shield or to cartwheel. And if you can’t do either you
might
as well try to jump or move out of the way. You’ll have a remote chance of
dodging and at least be able to stop combo moves or several attacks from
hitting.
7)Change Speed or Homing Ability
Using skills that lower someone’s homing or increasing your speed will
help in
making attacks easier to dodge. You can escape the reach of more attacks
with
higher speeds. On the other hand you can boost your homing or lower their
speed with skills to make it harder for them to dodge. There is a separate
section on homing that talks about what kinds of skills are effected by
losses or increases in homing. Some moves appear to be a waste of time to
spend improving. Increased speeds can also make it easier to set up your
attacks or to pursue someone.
8) See which skills are more reliable
Through experimentation you’ll find that some attacks are simply more
accurate or faster than others whether your using ranged moves or melee
attacks. Keep in mind though that some attacks are effective at slightly
different ranges. A far medium Blaster shot is a lot harder to dodge then
one shot at close medium range.
9) Confine or corner opponent
Generally the more boxed in an opponent is the more effective most attacks
are. However, crawlers can be more difficult to deal with in open spaces.
10) Aim Manually
Sometimes its better to just shoot a projectile manually especially if you
have your homing greatly reduced. It can make you less predictable too.
This is given more attention in the Manual Aim section.
11)Comboing vs Spamming and Mixed Speed Attacks
As mentioned, above comboing stun moves/effects with attacks or spamming or
using mixed speed attacks are all effective ways of hitting someone. When
deciding on using stun moves or not you should consider whether comboing is
even necessary. Spamming and Mixed Speed attacks can be just as effective
in
some situations, and can give you more room to carry other moves. It can
also cost you less aura to do. When considering whether to have a skill
like
Dazzle or Pressure for stunning you should consider if its really going to
be
necessary or if spamming/mixed speed attacks will do the job by
themselves.
I think this especially applies to One on One matches. In other modes like
Tag, stun moves are much easier and useful to repeatedly set up because you
have a teammate who can distract an opponent and also follow up with moves
easily. This doesn’t mean stun moves are useless in One on One. This is
just
something to consider in arsenal design.
12) Always keep moving. This can’t be stressed enough. Simply moving to
the side back and forth can dodge a Rail Gun or a surprise Charged
Particle.
If you can keep moving back and forth side to side while your trying to set
things up you have a greater chance of dodging attacks without having to
cartwheel or jump. It also generally keeps you more awake and ready to
dodge
any surprises your opponent has for you. Many straight on projectiles can
be
dodged simply by moving to the side, so take advantage of this fact.
13) Use your character’s ability - Whether you’re a jumper or a
carthwheeler
you should obviously use your ability if you know there’s no better way to
dodge an attack. Jumping is even necessary for jumpers to even dodge
certain
projectile attacks and well placed melees. You may think your traveling
the
same distance by just walking to the side but jumping to the side sometimes
give you the extra distance you need to escape.(especially if you have had
your speed reduced) This may be because jumping makes you travel a little
faster or it just throws the homing off on certain attacks. If you’re not
using your cartwheeler to dodge, I don’t know why you're even using them.
Cartwheeling on an angle to the side of the projectile into close range can
help easily dodge many projectiles. However, cartwheeling to the side at
the right time will give you just about all you need to dodge nearly all
none
close attack skills in the game.(even if their shot at the right range.)
Even the special characters crappy moves can dodge a few more attacks.
2BPD Dodging and using Specific Attack Types more effectively. Goes into
detail on how to deal with and use different categories of attacks. This
also includes some specialized types.
Parabola attacks - Most parabolas can be dodged simply by moving to the
side.
(Don’t be indecisive) Even as some get higher homing its still quite
possible to dodge with a jump or Cartwheel.(sometimes gets impossible)
These
moves become a lot harder to dodge with increased homing. Sometimes you can
also move closer to your opponent to escape the range of an attack and get
under it. It can be more useful to cartwheel under a Gugnir than to the
side.
Parabolas are generally easy to dodge when given enough space to move
to the side. Firing them at heights where you are higher or lower than
your
opponent can make them harder to dodge though. You can get a very close
medium range with these and be pretty accurate. Skills like Levitate and
Skywalk can work well with parabolas.(i.e Bomb, Big Bomb) Some like Psycho
Spear do not work that well with Levitate and Skywalk. Its possible to
throw
Bomb and some others at close range and have it land on your opponent.
(and even yourself)
Fall Attacks - These are very similar in style to parabola attacks. Some
have
a much better default homing. Going to the side is sometimes enough to
dodge
them but you may need to cartwheel to be able to dodge some of these
attacks.
Moving forward under their range can also help dodge sometimes. Other
times
you’ll run right into it. Jumping can aid in dodging occasionally too,
other
times it will throw you right into the move. These moves are often more
effective when you are at a different height than your opponent.
Experiment
with the places where you can fire these moves. You may be surprised
seeing
where they can work. Like they may appear under the bridges your on and
still hit. Skill examples: Sign of Saints, Meteor, Demon’s Venom,
Arrow of Artemis.
Arc attacks - These include attacks like Laser and Arc of Fire. These
attacks go on an arc of sorts and arrive at their target. It is possible
to
constantly keep running to the side of the arc and jumping to dodge over
and
over each time it is shot.(even on the less forgiving ones like Vibration
Laser) You’ll want to stay on the inside of the arcs when dodging to the
side. Most people whether they cartwheel or jump tend to get caught after
firing a few of them over and over. Jumpers probably have a better chance
of
dodging over and over than cartwheelers. At the same time its easier to
dodge ones you don’t anticipate well with a cartwheeler. A cartwheeler can
get away with cartwheeling on the outside of an arc sometimes.(doing it on
the inside is recommended though) Watch out for players who try to
manually
aim these attacks at closer ranges. They can have a decent shot at hitting
you with these manually. Getting into a closer range can help avoid arc
attacks fired with lock on on. Look for objects that will block the arc
from
reaching you.
Hole Attacks - Moving in one direction and then switching into a different
direction can dodge the hole if you have enough space and are ready for
it.
Jumping out of it is safer and more reliable. Timing is crucial against
hole
attacks. You often have a little more time than you think to jump out of
them,
so try not to jump too early when you think a hole attack will be used. It
is often necessary to cartwheel in a direction out of the holes range to
avoid it when your in confined areas. Hopping off to a lower height will
also
avoid the hole forming over you. If you jump and shoot a projectile you’ll
be pretty safe. I do not believe hole attacks are effected by homing but I
have to admit to not testing this much. Only Shelter and Absorb shields
can
block them. Sometimes you can stand on objects like the tree branch
sticking
out of the ground to avoid the hole forming under you. Its easier to use
all
hit hole attacks with a jumper. Another easy way of using all hit holes is
to use it at a ledge and walk off after using it. You can get hit by
multiple
holes if you and another player are close enough to each other.
Rain Attacks - Most of the time it is possible to avoid these by
continuing
to move in a single direction if you don’t stumble around. Sometimes
changing
in 2 directions(go forward then left) can give you some extra insurance.
Stun moves are often useful in setting these up.(Paralyze is popular) Rain
will often catch people taking air lifts or who are staying within the same
location to do something like walk up a spiral of stairs.(Lucifer’s Arrow
in
Panorama) Some rain attacks seem a little less forgiving than others. I
do
not believe homing effects rain moves but others think it does. The more
you
stumble around when these moves take place the more likely you’ll be hit.
Even when you have reduced speeds you still have a good chance of dodging
rain attacks. Killer Satellite and the Lightning/Thunder rain moves are
covered separately from this section. Shelter shields are the only types
that
can block any rain attacks.
Move Attacks - These are just the 3 tornado type moves. Usually you can
just run to the side or away from them to avoid them. These can work as a
good counter attack on someone walking right up to you or trying to hit you
with a melee, therefore be careful in how you approach someone using
these.
Narrow spots like stairways are good for these moves. The only shield type
that blocks this move are Shelters. It will get past any other shield.
Areas
with lower heights will stop these moves from continuing into an area and
cause them to stick around in a spot or disappear. Be careful not to walk
into your own move. Some people place ones like Whirlwind over an opponent
tag teammate’s body making it difficult to get to. You take extra damage
if
you were knocked high enough by these moves.
Mines - Planting these in areas opponents are likely to overlook is
effective.
It is also effective to plant them at an opponent’s spawn point, a dead
opponent’s body in tag, under an environmental put out, or even your own
spawn point to catch someone carelessly trying to erase your capsules. If
you
see a mine its easy to walk within the radius where they will detonate and
turn back in time to avoid it.(Remote Mine and Timer Mine will not detonate
if you do this though) You can fire projectiles at a spot where any mine is
to set. As long as you don’t cartwheel directly into the core of the
explosion you can go right past them unaffected. If you jump into stun
type
mines like even Vapor Cloud you can avoid the effect entirely by getting
knocked down by it.(Vapor Cloud requires good timing) You can use this
defensively with your own mines to avoid attacks an opponent fires. Some
mines have an obvious circle around them like Freeze Mine. Others like
Teleportrap and Vapor Cloud are very hard to see. They only have a gaseous
form to them. All mines that don’t do damage have a stun effect to them
when
they hit a standing opponent. Attack based mines will knock someone over
no
matter what damage they do. Mines can sometimes be set off if someone is at
a slightly lower height and a part of them moves into the radius of
detonation.
Mines are also a good way to deter someone from following you.
Don’t be lazy about where you place landmines. An opponent who sees them
can
walk up to erase them with some shields or easily block status mines with a
Glacial Wall or Paralyze Barrier without even risking breaking their
shield.
Crawlers - These skills have great homing but they can also be diverted
into
walls or off ledges by jumping at the right time or cartwheeling away from
the move at the right time so that it hits a wall or falls off a ledge
before
it can turn around.(some will still follow quite well though) As long as
they
don’t hit anything they stay out for a while before they fizzle out.(except
crawling bullet and nature crawlers) You can drop crawlers from high
heights
and they’ll follow right after your opponent. The worst place to deal with
these moves is in open spaces. Cartwheelers will have the most difficult
time
with these in open spaces. Try to stay by a wall or ledge to divert these
attacks, though the best approach may be to have a shield or get on a
higher
level. If you have space you can run away from a crawler and create a kind
of a u turn on it so that as you go towards a wall you cartwheel forward
past
the crawler which will then crash into the wall.(This trick may fail if the
crawlers get higher homing) If you’re a jumper in an open space you can
keep
jumping around and running in circles to avoid the crawler. Simply jumping
by a wall so the crawler hits the wall is a good method. But try to move
away from that wall because the crawler Spore Schism explodes on contact.
If your desperate you can try to evade a crawler a little longer by jumping
and shooting a projectile. There’s a good chance slower crawlers will
nail you as you come down though. Turning your lock on off can make seeing
them easier. Sometimes you can fire a few on a lower floor than your
opponent and they’ll stick around for awhile waiting for the opponent to
drop
down. Some will circle the stairways on palace. High speed Nature
crawlers
can clear some rather large gaps to reach their targets on the other side.
(including Entangle) Normal slower crawlers stay out longer and when they
get boosts in homing some will wait right under an opponent who is flying
in
the air. Though this is nice crawlers can be very effective without any
homing boosts. Several crawlers at once can be very difficult to deal
with.
Some crawler moves can climb over some low terrain spots to reach their
target.
All crawlers shot at close ranges can effectively circle around an opponent
and nail them if they have enough open space. You’ll need a little more
open
space with high speed crawlers though.
Crawling Bullet is dodged differently from all other crawlers. If you
dodge a
Crawling Bullet to the side like you might a standard projectile you should
be able to avoid it because it will fade out afterwards. The animation is
also more like a projectile being fired than the usual ground pounding
crawler
animation. Crawlers can be just as effective at medium range than the long
range listing some of them have.
All crawlers besides Crawling Bullet can reach substantial long ranges and
be
effective despite some of them saying they have a medium range.(like
Entangle
and Spore Schism) Basically in the right situation all crawlers except
Crawling Bullet can be effective at short, medium, or long range.
Another excpetional crawler is Young White Dragon, while it has great
tracking can be avoided by just out running it at normal speeds.
It can make a good combination move though.
Projectiles - Projectiles are just that, things you shoot that go straight
on after a target. There are many different types, some more accurate than
others. There are 2 basic types though: General Homing Projectiles and
Tracking Projectiles.
General Homing/Straight on Projectiles
As stated earlier if you keep yourself moving to the side as projectile is
shot, you can dodge many projectiles just by simply doing this. For
Cartwheeling timing is essential for projectiles that are hard to dodge.
Your
timing is key in dodging many higher homing attacks like Giga Ruin, Fire of
Gehenna, and Heat from the Void. Generally the closer a projectile is to
you
the less chance it will have of hitting you when you cartwheel. In a level
open space situation there are practically no straight on projectiles that
are truly impossible to dodge by a cartwheel, if shot just once. As stated
some are more difficult, and boosted homing can make some impossible to
dodge.
(see the homing section(7PD))
If you’re a jumper, jumping when dodging can help save you from some of
these
projectiles that you might not normally dodge by just moving to the side.
When 2 or more of these projectiles are shot some become impossible to
dodge.
Keep in mind that some of these attacks are a lot more effective at hitting
jumpers when done at a farther medium range rather than a close medium
range.
Tracking/Homing Projectiles
These are skills that follow the opponents more rather than follow a single
straight path. They are among the more difficult to dodge skills. Some are
extra effective when spammed. Tracking projectiles include Agonies of Death,
Judge/Joke of Anubis, Demon’s Fire, Will’o the Wisp, and El Bomb. In some
cases rather than trying to dodge these attacks right away, running can be
a
better tactic because some skills are actually slower than your character
so
you can set yourself up in a better dodging situation. It is possible in
open space situations to dodge Judge of Anubis with a Cartwheeler, and
sometimes possible with a jumper. For a cartwheeler rather than dodge to
the side with Anubis attacks you will want to cartwheel on an angle forward
but just to the side of these kinds of attacks. It is hard but possible
to do. I’d generally recommend dodging the really hard ones like the
Anubis
attacks and Agonies of Death as a last resort. Sometimes these skills can
still be dodged by cartwheeling to the side if you time it right (i.e.
Agonies
of Death) but the cartwheeling forward is more necessary with other attacks
like the Anubis ones.(probably Wings of Hope too) The Anubis attacks can
follow you even making 360s. Keep moving away from them if they continue
to
follow you, cartwheel again if you can. Though you may not be able to
throw
off their homing, if you keep away long enough sometimes these skills
disappear before reaching their target.
The same applies with Will’O the Wisp and El Bomb. You can dodge these
more
in the typical fashion side ways dodge but they will often follow you. You
may have to cartwheel a second time to truly throw off the homing. They
can
also disappear after a little bit of following. If someone fires these
moves
at a range that is not really optimal(too close) its possible to cartwheel
around your opponent to dodge these moves.
A jumper can sometimes trick the Anubis attacks as well by running away
with
a bit of a u turn in your direction.(this can be done with a wheeler too)
As the attack follows you in a u-turn-ish direction jump or cartwheel
forward
and you will have diverted the attack if your successful. Experiment with
skills that you think follow like Anubis’ ones.
Agonies of Death is possible in some level open space situations to dodge
with a jumper but are fairly rare when they are shot well.
Jumping down to lower heights can also give you enough time to get away
from
these moves or throw off their homing till they disappear.
Most of the time jumpers have a much easier time with Demon’s Fire, El
Bomb,
and Will’O the Wisp than cartwheelers. You need to use your jumping
ability
when dodging to the side. Sometimes jumping forward past them is another
way
of throwing off the homing after jumping to the side. Jumping in different
ways can throw off the homing of these moves. Experiment to get the hang
of
throwing off the homing with jumping. These moves follow people up in the
air well and can also work well when used in the air.
Scream of Evil is another tracking move that is not too hard to dodge when
shot once, but boosted homing could make these very difficult to deal with.
Projectiles as close range attacks - You’d be surprised the times in which
you can use moves like Reincarnation or Demons Fire up close on someone and
how good they can hit.
List of Some Attacks Jumpers can’t dodge alone when shot just once at the
right range in level open spaces:
Fire of Gehenna, Heat from the Void, Reincarnation(mostly),
Aura Cannon,(can be dodged at Medium) Power, Psycho Kinesis, Giga Ruin.
There are many others but there are probably more you can dodge than you
think.
Near Impossible: Agonies of Death. Judge/Joke of Anubis,
Attacks that Cartwheelers can’t dodge in level open spaces:
Power, Psycho Kinesis. Crawlers will catch cartwheelers who can’t divert
them
off a ledge or into something. They have a better chance of throwing off
high
speed crawlers in open spaces than slower ones.(still a bad situation
either
way) Cartwheelers without defenses are pretty screwed when there’s no place
to divert crawlers into something or off a ledge.
Just because certain moves are dodgeable when done ONCE, that doesn’t mean
you
can’t overwhelm people with spamming. This list of dodging techniques is
written for an ideal situation. Someone that is cornered or just
overwhelmed
will obviously not be able to dodge many attacks. The purpose of the list
is
to just make it known what moves are very hard to dodge and sometimes even
impossible. People usually mess up after a while. Just because someone
can
dodge a move doesn’t mean they always will succeed in doing so.
Hand to Hand, non sword based moves- To dodge these, move to the side at
the
instant the move is done. The closer you are to an opponent the easier it
is
to dodge to the side of the attack. If you’re a jumper and you feel that
moving to the side won’t be enough, jump to the side. Jumping is often
required to dodge moves when you have lowered speed. Do not jump straight
up
in place against a hand to hand attack, it won’t work. Walking away from
the
attack is likely to fail unless you boost your speed or were far from it
when
it started. Unfortunately lag can also contribute to people dodging moves
without even attempting to dodge to the side. Like just walking straight
away
from a melee move at normal speed normally isn't escapable offline, but
online
if your playing with enough lag they can escape some moves without even an
effort. If a cartwheeler has enough space he can usually cartwheel out
of the range of any hand/foot attack. It is probably better to cartwheel
to the side if you feel like walking to the side won’t be enough. Jumping
to the side can also aid you if you feel you’re not going to dodge to the
side correctly. These skills are more effective when you perform them at a
far close range. If you do this some moves can’t be dodged by just moving
to
the side. If your in a narrow area like a stairway you can set up harder
situations for an opponent to dodge. These can be good counter moves to an
opponent’s attacks(even swords) because they often have quick start up
times.
Some are clearly more accurate than others. A lot of faith short range
melees are very easy to dodge. The more cornered someone is, the better.
Persistence sometimes pays off while other times another move that causes
an
opponent to be stunned or stumble in dodging is necessary.
Close up attacks will chase someone who is on a platform at an equal or
lower height then you. If someone is in the sky and gets into close range
you can also perform a melee that will chase them if they were in close
range.
Short Range Melee Sword Moves -
What’s written here is what is effective in online play. In split screen
mode some of these principles are the same but there can be much less
forgiveness. I don’t know if this has to do with a little lag or if they
changed the way swords work online. There are many varieties of swords in
this game. They each have a different radius they can cover. Though some
have different reach and are less forgiving there are really 2 main sword
types that give you different dodging options. There are swords that start
swinging from the user’s left and wrap around to the right at the end.
(Flame Sword, Psycho Knife) Then there are swords that start out on the
user’s right and swing around over to the left side.(Psycho Blade,
Excalibur)
Another way of thinking about it is to move away from the side where the
sword starts up. You’ll see visually there are just two distinct styles of
swords that all the rest are similar to. Since the visual definition of
each can be confusing I’ll just refer to the visual examples.
When you see a sword that swings like a Flame Sword then you use the
tactics
that you would normally use to dodge a Flame sword. When you see a sword
that
swings like a Psycho Blade you’ll use the same tactics you would normally
use
to dodge a Psycho Blade. If you use both Sword types in combination you
will
make it much harder for someone to dodge.(i.e. Flame Sword + Psycho
Blade) If
you see your opponent is moving in a direction to dodge one type of sword
melee your using, use the other type and they will have a lot of trouble
dodging. Cartwheelers usually have the best options for dodging melee. On
the other hand a Jumper has an easier time pursuing people because they
usually get around the Stage more easily.
Dodging/Using Flame Sword Types - When a person starts up a Flame Sword
animation move your character to the left side to dodge the blade. They
will
go flying past you if they used lock on. You need to be close to your
opponent to just walk to the side. If your at a far close range this
method
will not work.(without a lot of lag) Using Flame Sword types from a far
close
range can be a good way of catching people who are lazy about dodging
them.
If you see that an opponent is attacking from a far close range you have a
few dodging options.
As Jumper:
You can try jumping to the left, walking is not enough. Its possible to
jump
straight up to dodge a Flame Sword move if you time it right. You can try
jumping away out of range. The only time you can’t jump a Flame Sword type
is if you are moving towards the right side.(Because that’s where the sword
animation ends.) The timing can be difficult to repeatedly to do. But
there
are some people who are pretty good at this.
As a Cartwheeler:
You can cartwheel to the left and easily escape Flame Sword types when you
can’t just move to the left.. You can cartwheel forward and to the left of
an opponent so they go past you. You can usually Cartwheel away and out of
the reach of Swords if they started at a far close range.(Provided you have
the space)
For catching people dodging swords try to follow up with another sword
attack
if they dodged the first. They may fail to jump the sword this time, or
they
may not be able to cartwheel into an area that doesn’t corner them into an
attack. Being persistent and following up with another strike is often
necessary to catch people. You can also use shields or moves like Tiger’s
strength to mess with their dodging.(use Tiger’s Strength and trick them
into cartwheeling into a corner and follow right up with your sword)
If you turn off your camera lock on, you will stand in place and perform
a flame sword type move. This can catch people off guard trying to walk to
the left of you. Its also valuable to do when an opponent is at a ledge.
An
opponent can try to get you to swing a sword at a ledge so that they dodge
you and get you to fall off as you charge towards them. If you keep
someone
to your right with these swords you have a better chance of catching
them. Try to circle around an opponent and drive them towards walls or
barriers so that they won’t be able to easily cartwheel away. You may have
more time than you think to intimidate an opponent into corners with these
moves.
Dodging/Using Psycho Blade Types
When a person starts up a Psycho Blade animation move your character to the
right of the opponent to dodge the blade. They will usually go flying past
you if they used lock on. You need to be close to your opponent to just
walk
to the side. If your at a far close range this method will not
work.(without
lag) Using Psycho Blade types from a far close range can be a good way of
catching people who are lazy about dodging them. However, Compared to Flame
Sword types you may want to get a little closer but not super close because
you will give your opponent less dodging options. When dodging stay away
keep yourself going to the right of an opponent using Psycho Blade types.
While this does method does work it does not work offline and you do
actually
need some sort of lag or something different online to actually dodge in
this
manner.
Dodging Options As a Jumper:
You can try jumping to the right when walking is not enough. Unlike Flame
Sword types you can’t jump these blades in as many ways. Besides going to
the right you can only jump away from Psycho Blade moves if they started up
at a far close range. Jump as your moving away from the Psycho Blade and
if
you time it right you’ll get past it. This does work reliably offline but
sometimes doesn't online due to lag. The reason I say this is you may think
you're at a far close range but lag may position you closer to your opponent
than you actually think you are when you try this. Sometimes lag will work
for you where your actually farther than close range reach.
As a Cartwheeler:
You can cartwheel to the right and usually escape. You can cartwheel
forward
and to the right of an opponent so they go past you. You can sometimes
cartwheel away and out of the reach of Blades if they started at a far
close
range.(Provided you have the space) This also has to do a lot with lag.
Offline cartwheels do not save you from Psycho Blade attacks as easily.
Cartwheeling away from a far close range does work offline and online.
Online though it isn't always your best option as either a jumper or
wheeler.
Its worth trying if you can't cartwheel/jump/move to the right. The reason
why cartwheeling straight away from far close range isn't always the best is
because an opponent can follow up with a second blade swing as you fail to
recover in time to wheel again or get cornered. Wheeling to the side can
help you continue to escape when your in a condition where it works. Which
it usually does online.
For catching people dodging Blades try to follow up with another Psycho
Blade
attack if they dodged the first. They may fail to jump the sword this
time,
or they may not be able to cartwheel into an area that doesn’t corner them
into an attack. Being persistent and following up with another strike is
often necessary to catch people.
If you turn off your lock on you will stand in place and perform a Blade
type
move. This can catch people off guard trying to walk to the right of you.
Its also valuable to do when an opponent is at a ledge. An opponent can try
to get you to swing a sword at a ledge so that they dodge you and get you
to
fall off as you charge towards them.
If you keep someone to your left with these swords you have a better
chance of
catching them. Try to circle around an opponent and drive them towards
walls
or barriers so that they won’t be able to easily cartwheel away. You may
have
more time than you think to intimidate an opponent into corners with these
moves.
Getting Melee Swords Past Barrier, Brush, and Reflect shields
Barrier, Brush, and Reflect, shields only block Melee moves that hit from
the
front. Because Flame Swords and Psycho Blades can wrap around a target
when
they swing, this its possible to hit people trying to block these moves
with
those shields due to the wrap around. For example, Flame Sword’s animation
starts from the left and wraps around to the right. If you attack someone
so
that a piece of your flame sword wraps around past the shield’s front
you’ll
hit them despite the fact they put up a shield. This is because you got
the
sword to wrap around past their front side. This isn’t always easy to do
but
it can be done.
Sword attacks will chase someone who is on a platform at an equal or lower
height than you. If someone is in the sky and gets into close range you
can
also perform a melee that will chase and can nail an opponent.
If you do use a sword from a higher height on an opponent in close range
at a
lower height your blade might be able to go over certain shields and hit an
opponent.(not sure)
Hiding behind debris can stop sword moves from hitting you sometimes.
Though
its also possible for them to wrap through them.
Sword Fake - If you stand far enough at the edge of a platform you can
perform a sword move that will get canceled. Your character will make an
attack sound and a small animation may start up but it never completes and
doesn’t cost you aura.(it cancels the move) You can use this to fake
someone
into putting up a shield up and then following right up with the a real
sword
slash while their still vulnerable. An example where you can do this is on
the short low level permanent ground platforms you can hop on in the City
level.
Differences in Character Melees explained and Specialized Sword dodging
There is a section (25PD) towards the end of the faq that gives more detail
on dodging specialized swings or melee moves of certain non humanoid
characters. Some characters like the Ommato have confusing change up sword
swings. Some allow less dodging tricks. Whatever side they start on
though, you want to stay away from the side their sword begins on. Jumping
maybe necessary to dodge some of their blades. See the exact details at
25PD if you want to know more. But lag can save you from them too anyway.
Quite aggravating sometimes.
Miscelanneous Attacks -This covers the odd end attacks that are more unique
in dealing with or using.
Photon Wave/Burst - These 2 attacks are considered mine attacks. The great
part about them is that only a few shields in the whole game can erase the
attack.(they’re not considered close range moves) As long as you are
moving
away from the blast of these moves you have a good chance of escaping.
(because they are mine types) It’s important to note that even after the
animation of these moves disappears the attack is still in affect for a
little more time. This means that striking or running into your opponent
right after these moves are done can get you hurt if you move in too soon.
Though a lot of people don’t want to admit getting caught in these,
persistence can sometimes catch people who keep walking away.(especially
the
more cornered they are) Be careful of what debris you destroy around you
with them. These are a great counter to melee and have a good surprise
effect. Be careful, opponents can sometimes still get their attacks in
before being blown away by the move. An opponent who doesn’t know or
suspect
your using these moves can sometimes be beaten to the punch in putting up a
defense since this skill has a quick and surprising start up time. They
could try to block but they are often beat by these moves start up time if
you are close. That is one reason it is wise to maintain space between you
and the person your trying to block. You can block these moves with a
shield and follow right up with an attack without worrying about being hit
by the explosion and its usual carry over effect. Blocking the front of
the
explosion will protect you from any animation that seeps over you. Only
Barrier and Shelter shields work on them. Possibly Reflect shields as well.
Photon Burst is such a popular skill that you should use caution in charging
any Optical school opponent with 7 aura and an attack you don't know he
has.
It sometimes seems like explosions are more forgiving to walk past in laggy
situations. Use caution when dealing with this move because you don't know
how much leeway you'll get in trying to dodge the explosion online.
Killer Satellite - Killer Satellite is a rain attack. If you are moving
in
one direction and then change to another while the red circle is over you,
you can usually cause the attack to miss. Don’t be indecisive. If you
manually aim the attack its homing will not be thrown off by this method.
This only works if Killer Satellite is used on you while you were moving.
If you were standing still when this move was used it stays in one spot
more,
you won’t be able to trick it to go in the opposite direction. Instead
move
in one direction away from the circle as much as possible. Don’t turn back
for a little bit after you think you dodged because this skill can have a
habit of lingering around after it seems done.
Its best to just run away in one direction from the attack if its manually
aimed.(you’ll probably never encounter manually aimed ones…). When it’s
manually aimed it looks different. You could try manually aiming these if
your opponent keeps moving in one direction and going to another when you
use this. If they try that on a manually aimed one they could end up
getting
caught in the circle. Cartwheeling can also avoid this attack when your
lazy about throwing off its tracking. I don’t think this skill is effected
by homing effects.
Lightning Rain Attacks - These are nature rain moves with Lightning
Style animation. It’s less possible to avoid these if you just move in one
direction. Its usually best to move in one direction and shift to another
like Forward and Left, or something like Back and then Right. Its pretty
easy to just cartwheel away from the radius of this attack as well. These
moves do not seem to be effected by homing.
Ricochet Laser - I do not know a whole lot about this move. Its best to
avoid closed in areas where its most effective. It does not have to be in
long range to be effective. It can be effective in close or medium range.
Changing the directions you move in may throw off the homing as well as
jumping on every bounce, but I don’t really know. Homing may help this
move.
Do not run into the front of the move as its activated. You can erase it
with a shield if you time it right.
Impact Burst - This funky skill bounces all over the place till it hits or
flies off somewhere. This skills is easy to dodge where there’s no walls.
The more confined you are the harder it is to deal with.
You have 3 general options when a wall is behind you as its fired:
1. When the bomb is fired at you move to the side. If you are by a wall
get ready to move to the opposite when it passes you. This will often be
enough to dodge it. But watch where this move bounces and move to the side
of it each time it bounces off a wall. Jumping might throw of the homing
of this when its bouncing around like crazy. Changing the height your at
can help a lot too. If your at a higher height going down to a lower level
of the stage after the bomb passes you can make it hard for it to follow
you.
2. Carry a Shelter shield and use it right when you think the bomb will
bounce towards you. You could also use Invulnerability, Void, or let an
Auto
Shield take care of blocking it.
3. This move can hit you straight on if its fired close enough to you. If
it lines up in front of you blocking it before it confusingly bounces all
over the place can be a safer approach than trying to dodge and react to
its
bounces.
4. Another effective way of using this move is to fire down on an opponent
from a higher height. The bomb will bounce off the ground that it hits
and try to hit the opponent. Same directional dodging can be attempted.
3PD Shields/Defenses the basics and tricks for dealing with opponent’s
defenses. There are a variety of shields in the game, and they serve many
purposes. This section covers the basics of shields and some of the lesser
known things about them. If you do more damage than a shield’s defense
with
a single attack it blocks, it will break and leave your opponents hand.
Although some are weak, they usually are cheaper to use or serve some
purpose
like gaining life, freezing or paralyzing an opponent, regaining aura or
erasing an attack. Sometimes these effects are more valuable than a more
durable defense.
Brush - These shields can quickly block several attacks.(if you have the
aura
to use them) Because they block quickly you need accurate timing. There
is
a difference between brush shields between offline and online play. Online
these shields no longer have the stun effect that knocks an opponent back.
(Just like you also can’t push someone’s body on the ground around like you
can offline) Offline its possible to even knock people off ledges with the
brush back effect. The closest thing to the brush back effect online is to
use the online skill Sword Slap. Brush shields can not protect against
explosions.(they can brush attacks to the side before they explode though.)
Its also possible that side way swipes of swords can get past brush shields
if they wrap around past the front part.(See the section on using Swords
in “2BPDâ€)
Barrier - These shields have a slower recovery time than brush shields.
One reason you may prefer a barrier shield is that they can block
explosions,
including Photon Burst. They also protect for a longer period of time, so
you
don’t have to be as exact when blocking. Barriers can protect from flying
debris if it covers where the debris would have hit. Attacks that go over
your head can get past Barriers. Its also possible that side way swipes of
swords can get past barrier shields if they wrap around past the front
part.
(See the section on using Swords in “2BPDâ€)
Course - These shields only work on moves that shoot projectiles or hurl
objects at you, they basically divert a projectile to the side.(watch out
for
explosions) You never have to worry about these defenses breaking. They
can
also divert projectiles that pentrate shields like Dragon Slayer to the
side.
If you turn off your lock on and aim skills manually at some shields like
Gust and Change Course, they will go through the shield and hit the
opponent.
(it doesn’t really make sense but that’s how it works.) If you move to the
side as a projectile is shot at you, you can avoid most manually aimed
attacks without worrying about someone getting past these shields. These
shields do not protect against explosions. If you manually aim at Reverse
you will not be hit by your reversed projectile unless you really try to
line
yourself up with it or get hit by its explosion.(it will always look
close)
Due to the slower recovery time of these shields you can overwhelm some of
them with carefully timed shots. I don’t believe these shields protect
against debris. These shields have a bigger radius of protection than you
may think, and can divert several projectiles that reach it at the same
time.
(like if your triple teamed)
Reflect - These shields are strange. They can block melee attacks and they
also reflect projectiles back at an opponent more quickly then Reverse and
About Face. Their basically like barrier shields that can reflect
projectiles.
The biggest down side to them is that they can only reflect back
projectiles that don’t break the shield. They also are selective about the
kinds of projectiles they reflect. Things that explode don’t get reflected
back. Crawlers do not reflect back either. Other skills like a weak
Finisher will not even get reflected. Dragon Slayer and Shield Slayer can
also go erase them. Reverse and About Face are course shields not
Reflect shields and don't have weaknesses to Dragon Slayer. Compared to
Reverse and About Face the reflected projectiles fly back fast at the
shooter
making them harder to avoid.
Absorb Shields - These shields can only block Hole attacks and Projectiles.
They have a similar recovery time to barrier shields. Besides shelter
shields they are the only type that can block Holes.
Shelter - Unlike any other shield types, these provide 360 degree
protection helping protect you from back and aerial attacks. They protect
from any attack in the game, be it Rain, Projectiles, Melee, Holes, or
Mines. These are the only shields that protect against the Move attacks
Twister, Tornado, or Whirldwind. Erase Shell is the only shield in the
game
that can erase rain and Move attacks. Because of the 360 degree protection
you don’t have to worry about melee attacks hitting you in the back or on
the side. Because of the protection these shields provide, some of them
have a slow enough recovery rate that a second projectile shot(via spamming)
can slip through. Shelter shields can protect against debris.
Auto Shields - These shields are all shelter types and automatically
protect
you from any effect /skill that doesn’t penetrate shields or automatically
Hit All.(also protects against any debris) All of them except Guradian
Angel
are one time use. These are the only shields that can protect you from
attacks when your in the air. None of them really have a delay in the air
but if your hit on the ground there is an automatic protective delay that
usually cancels out any move you’re about to set in motion if you didn't get
much of the moves motion done. If you jump in the air when hit with these
you
will not get the protective delay. Protecting Air(an online skill) lets
you
complete to move even when walking on the ground.(there's no movement delay,
but moves can still get cancelled if the shield is set off early enough)
Dash - This is a great skill. It doesn’t cost much and you can dodge tons
of attacks with this skill provided you Dash correctly.(Don’t Dash into a
wall as your opponent swings a sword at you) Don’t count on this defense
to
do everything for you. Despite that it’s a great skill. Status and Erase
skills can hit you even if you dash to dodge. Lower someone's homing by
3 and you can dodge even these moves with Dash.(Dense Fog or Magnetic Field)
Invulnerability - A decent skill that makes you invulnerable to damage done
by the first attack that hits you. You will still be effected by any
effects
on those attacks and all other status, erase, and special skills will still
effect you when they hit. If your opponent’s attacks are all powerful
enough
to knock you down, you can just keep getting up and making yourself
invulnerable if you have the aura. To counter someone doing this sometimes
you can hit a person with attacks before their Invulnerability is set up.
Other than that grab a skill that is weak enough so that it won’t knock
your opponent over. Be aware that the Succubus moves in faith will steal
aura from you equal to their strength even though they do no damage to you
when they hit. Attacks with erase or freeze effects will still effect
you.
You can use Necronomicon with this skill to protect yourself from those
special
effects.
Void - Makes you invulnerable for 15 seconds against damage. If you get
Neutralized or effected by a skill that resets your status you’ll lose the
invincibility. Just like Invulnerability, you can still get knocked down
by attacks that hit and be effected by any additional effects on them. Be
aware that the Succubus moves in faith will steal aura from you equal to
their strength even though they do no damage to you. You can use
Necronomicon
to deal with this issue.
Charge/Surprise Attack
and Retreat/Return - These moves can teleport you around.
Be careful about timing with these. If you Charge or Retreat right as
a projectile starts up it can still follow you if your remain in its range
and sight. Instead wait a little for the projectile to come at you and
then teleport with these moves if you can. Be especially careful with
Giga Ruin and Agonies of Death. Some attacks like Giga Ruin will
probably still track an opponent teleporting from Teleportrap or Teleport
if they were teleported at the start up of the move and still in the
attack's
sight.
High Speeds - Moves that increase your speed make it easier to dodge or
escape someone. Also makes it easier to pursue someone.
Anti Piercing - Some shields have an ability called anti piercing. Attacks
like Psycho Spear that have piercing will damage an opponent who block with
a shield weaker than the attack. If I block a Psycho Spear(Attack of 8)
with a Photon Barrier(Defense of 1) I will take 7 damage because that’s how
much more powerful the attack was than my defense. If I used a Wall which
has anti piercing none of Psycho Spear’s extra damage will carry over and
hurt me. Necronomicon can negate piercing effects.
Know your shields - That’s right take some time to look at the shields in
the arsenal creation pictures. Getting to know what shields look like and
how powerful they are is very useful. You’ll know when you can break them
and you’ll know when someone’s trying to use one that has a bad effect on
you.
“I keep failing to block†- Everyone messes up sometimes. It takes
practice to get used to timing blocks of some moves. And if you catch
yourself blocking too early try to put your shield up again before a move
hits. Brush skills are the hardest shields to block with because it
requires
good timing. Shelter shields are among the easiest. Make a Compressor
arsenal and put a bunch of shields in.(See arsenals type section if you
need
more details) That should give you some good practice in defending
attacks.
If you think you are going to block a move, move your thumb over to the
button
your about to hit to be ready. After a while you can get an idea about when
your probably going to be attacking and probably going to be defending.
Active Defense
Don’t stand around waiting to block people’s attacks. You should move when
being pursued even if you do want to block an attack. Keep yourself in a
good position to defend an attack so you don’t end up letting someone slip
past your shield. If you just stand around waiting to react to someone’s
attack, you give them a better chance of slipping past your shields.
It also makes you more prone to getting psyched out. You don’t always know
what someone will do either. Sure you can block a lot of attacks with
Photon Barrier but your going to pay for it if you try to block a Psycho
Spear which you probably could have dodged if you kept yourself open to
dodging a move. Why give someone the chance to position themselves over
you and fire a Rock Shot down on you that your Vacuum Wall can’t defend
when their that high up over you?
Beating Shields and other Defensive Moves
For getting swords past shields look up the section “2BPD†Go to the sword
section entitled “Getting Melee Swords Past Barrier, Brush, and Reflect
shieldsâ€.
Note that any close up tactics explained here to fake someone out into
using
a shield can also fake someone into doing a cartwheel or jump when they
don’t need to. This can make them easier to nail as well. Shields can be
a real nuisance to deal with. This is often because someone can erase most
of your attacks simply by blocking with an erase shield. Some decks are
designed to stall you by erasing many of your attacks with defenses and
then attacking you while you have a lacking offense.
Your Many Possibilities:
Carrying some skills with high attack power is one way to break shields.
There are 4 erase skills dedicated to specifically Erasing an opponent’s
shield. These 4 are Dragon Slayer,(the only non online one) Judge of
Ares,
Shield Slayer, and Lost Dragon.
Erase skills like Lack can also stop a lot of shields used on an opponent
if
you get an open shot.
There are also several attack skills in Nature and Ki schools that erase
shields if they hit.(Lightning Sword etc.)
If you carry a move that boosts strength like Trance or Tiger’s strength
you
can make some of your attacks able to break more shields. Even just
raising your strength by one with Lunar Force or Heat will have skills like
Fire of Gehenna take out a lot more shields.
Use Glacial Wall to freeze someone’s buttons and follow up with your own
attack.
Lower an opponent’s level. If you lower an opponents level you can stop
them from continuing to use shields over and over.(especially more
expensive
ones) A Fortress of Iron can block a lot of attacks and not be broken but
if they don’t have the aura to use it over and over they will be
overwhelmed.
You can use Wind Pressure or Turbulence to stop someone who’s using
defensive moves like Dash, Charge, Retreat or Invulnerability.
Special/Erase moves usually have good enough homing to hit people who Dash.
(i.e. Lack)
If you carry moves like Reincarnation or Seal of Death you can use them
without worrying about being erased.(Reincarnation will cost a total of 6
aura to retain if blocked by an erase shield.)
You can use Vacuum Bullet to fake people out with projectiles, so they
either
waste their shields or aura.
The skill Freeze Shot can actually do damage if you give yourself extra
strength. The bonus here is that Erase Shields can’t stop it.
You can fire or use non attack moves in general without having to worry
about
being erased while trying to force an opponent to waste aura so they can’t
defend. The only shield skills to really watch out for when doing this are
Glacial Wall, Paralyze Barrier, Absorb Energy, and Reverse/Reflect shields.
Overwhelm someone with spamming or combination attacks. If you fire one
skill that an opponent blocks and you can follow up with another skill or
the same skill you can sometimes hit an opponent before they can put their
defense up again. This is especially useful when dealing with Course or
Reflect moves.
If you manually aim into Course shields that don’t reverse moves, you’ll
get
past them. Reverse or Reflect moves can’t make projectiles hit you if you
manually aim at them, unless you get hit by explosions or make an effort to
line yourself up with the attack.
Spamming is also helpful in catching people who constantly Dash. Status
and
Erase skills are much harder to dodge with Dash. Some may be impossible
without a person having lowered homing.
You can cause people to waste aura or an entire single use shield by firing
an attack manually away from the opponent but close enough to scare them to
block.(you manual aim by turning lock on off and putting the camera in the
direction you want to aim before firing.)
Sneak up on someone with camo moves like Optical Camo or Demon’s Wing.
Use psych out tactics to avoid getting attacks erased. You can run up to
an
opponent with certain moves like a brush shield or a tiger’s strength and
do
it in front of their faces. You can even Dash into someone’s face to scare
them. Sometimes these things can fool someone to put their shield up
giving
you enough time to follow up with an attack before they can block
again.(some
shields don’t recover in time, or an opponent will not react quick enough
or
have the aura to block again) This can be a great way of getting free
melee shots in. Sometimes you can even get twitchy people to waste a
single
use shield if you just walk in front of their face and do a move like
Purify
for no reason. These tactics would never work on a computer opponent but
can work quite well on people. If you do get fooled try to use the shield
quickly again. It might save you still. On more advanced opponents you may
get into an elaborate psych out game where you'll have to try to psych them
into using their shield twice before striking when they can't get open.
You can use piercing moves or use the environmental skill Berserk to give
piercing to all attacks.
If there are a few shields in a particular school that you hate you can
carry an Anti School Environmental.
Playing Reduce Entropy or Chaos can limit the types of defenses they use.
Chaos can stop both Dash and Photon Barrier from being used.
Memory Lapse can limit their defense a lot. Messing with aura with
environmentals like Irregular Rhythm or Fatigue can be effective.
If someone has Optimization down and their using expensive defenses like
Reverse, Fortress of Iron, take it down. You’ll make it a lot harder for
them to defend or use these expensive moves including Charge and Retreat.
If a person is using Photon Barrier over and over, keep breaking the shield
till they don’t have the aura left to keep it. Taking an Optimization down
can help.
Photon Burst and Wave can surprise a person eager to block the first time.
If you walk up to someone in the face who plans on blocking what they think
is a melee you can often use these moves before they can get their shield
up.
This is because these moves have a quicker start up time.
You can try this with other skills too and succeed sometimes. This could
be
due to lag or the person just not being ready to block in time. I probably
wouldn’t risk it with other attacks if you suspect they have a shield that
will erase your attack.
Sometimes using moves with deceptive timing like some crawlers or a move
like
Swarm/Dance of Moths will cause someone to block too early.
Decks that revolve around single use moves or use Recall can worry less
about
getting moves erased.(if they actually break some shields)
Wait for them to make a move themselves if their just going to stand around
defending all day. Erasing capsules of an opponent is one way of forcing
them to do something besides use defenses.
If you can shoot from a high enough height you can sometimes get past the
protective radius of some non shelter shield types. Its possible to jump
and
shoot over someone’s head if your in the right position.
For Gust or Reverse you can either manually aim or fire two attacks at
different speeds so that they can’t recover in time to protect from the
second projectile.
Sometimes firing unexpectedly can mess up those using Change Course or Gust
to fail to block in time.
If you really want to get creative in dealing with course shields in some
cases you could fire a slow moving attack like Dance of Moths and Lightning
Speed past it, to follow up with a melee move.
4PDDealing with Erase Skills and using them to the best of your ability.
Erase skills are great for keeping someone in check by lowering their aura,
getting rid of pesky moves, or just erasing them to death by destroying all
their capsules.
For some people, erase skills can be very difficult to deal with. One of
the
easiest ways of dealing with erase skills is to add the skill Orb or
Amulet in.
(these do not stop capsule erasing or attacks that have an erase effect)
If you really need to stop erase skills you could play skills that knock
erase skills out of people’s hands like Turbulence or Wind Pressure. There
is the environmental Commandments that stops all erase skills from being
used
for one minute. Necrominicon stops attack skills with erase effects from
erasing you when they damage you.(it also stops all other add effects on
attacks)
If you structure your deck around certain erase skills you won’t suffer as
badly. If your arsenal has a mix of one time use skills and infinite use
skills you won’t be crippled as easily by Lack. Carrying skills that lock
to your button like Seal of Death can also help you deal with them.
Photon Barrier, Reincarnation, and Arrow of Artemis will also retain
themselves if you have enough aura to pay for retaining those skills when
your hit by erase skills. Even better is how these skills are often
targeted by skills like Disremember, making it hard for someone to erase
you.(the same applies for locked skills like Seal of Death or Orb)
If you have some space for low costing skills you will not be hurt as badly
by skills that lower your aura. Although its not the end all solution to
everything Optimization will nullify a lot of the harm that aura erasing
skills cause. If there are only certain erase skills that really get to
you, you could even use something like Anti School Enviros, Reduce Entropy,
or Chaos to reduce the choices of erase skills used on you.(Be aware
chaos will negate Orb and Amulet though, but it will screw Vicious Balance
arsenals especially if they don't have a 3 cost anti environmental)
Holding onto aura particles can also help stop Heat from the Void or
Vicious Balance from being as effective. If you have about 7 aura you
probably don’t need to really bring yourself up to 8 right away and if you
find you do you can always use the aura particle any time anyway. Skills
like Disremember can target aura particles in your hand first before going
after more valued skills. This will also have attacks like Psycho Burst do
less damage to you.
As for people who want to erase capsules, one of the best ways is to wait
for
them to try and shoot them when they’re in the act of erasing capsules.
The sound of capsule erasing is pretty loud, so if your away from your
spawn
you are likely to notice that something is going on by the sound going
off.
You can check your skill count to get an idea of what’s
going on. If your capsules have changed in some way that is another sure
sign.
Recall can be effective in dealing with erase decks that don’t lower your
level.
Making sure erase skills work - If your opponent doesn’t have any yellow in
his hand then your erase skill will succeed if it hits. But if he does
have
yellow you will have to think about whether they have Orb or Amulet in hand
and whether using a one time use skill is worth the risk it if it might get
canceled. Retain effects will cancel certain skills from being erased
though.
If you know they have Reincarnation and you want to erase it with Lack you
will have to wait for their aura to get below 2.
If you want to guarantee an erase skill will work on your opponent one of
the easiest ways is to use skills that freeze all their buttons like Ice
Sword, Glacial wall, and Chill Breeze(when timed with a partner). Freeze
someone and then trying to erase a retain skill like Reincarnation won’t
work though.(unless they can’t pay the 2) If you play the Environmental
Chaos you will also guarantee that your erase skills won’t be stopped by
anything like Orb or Amulet. To stop Amulet,(its only 3 uses) you can make
use of skills like Neutralization, Crush and others.(this will also lower
someone’s aura that’s using Orb) Even if there’s nothing to change on the
opponent these moves work cause Orb and Amulet to get set off. After you
get
rid of amulet your free to do as you please. You could also try to create
a
situation where your opponent uses his aura for other stuff and then use an
erase skill so when they don't have enough aura to have orb or amulet
work.
You can use this trick against retain skills like Reincarnation as well.
Your
opponent has 4 aura and fires off Reincarnation. At the same time you fire
Lack at him and cause it to get erased.
You can carry Orb/Amulet yourself to protect against some of your erase
moves(like Reflected Erase moves or Disentegrate, the 1.2 hole version).
It won’t protect against any automatic erase moves like Vicious Balance or
Quantum Decay. Acceleration is sometimes used to speed up capsule
erasing.
Even just erasing some Capsules with a move like shatter can ruin someone’s
strategies against you.
A nice use of Accelerate I saw someone do was to use Call and Speed Ups to
run
away from his opponent and quickly pick up more capsules so that he could
repeatedly Violent Change his opponent who couldn't catch up to him.
5PD Environmental Hanging/Floating: How to Do it and Ways to Thwart it.
A
brief word on Environmentals
Environmentals are the light blue skills that create little blue balls on
the
field. Only one can be down at a time and anyone who tries to put an
environmental down while another is already out will not work. If you walk
up to the ball you can capture it like an aura particle. Environmentals
are
powerful and can be used for many different reasons. They change something
about what’s going on in the game. See the arsenal section and combos
section
for more ideas on them.
How to float Environmentals:
This trick is regarded by some as a cheap tactic and it is one of the
easiest
ways to piss off some people. But many consider it legitimate and it is
available for you to use whether you think it really belongs in the game or
not. It makes some arsenal ideas more feasible and can create some
interesting situations.
Basically one goes on top of a place in a level where there is a
destructible
object or floor. They place the environmental skill over the destructible
area and then destroy the floor or object which effectively floats the blue
ball in the air so it can’t be picked up.(if the object they did it off of
is
high enough) If you jump in the air to try to take down the environmental
ball, you will find that despite the logic of this you can not take it down.
(which is exactly why many people hate it) Pair this up with a skill like
Reduce Entropy, or Memory Lapse and you’ll find you have the ability to
nullify or severely cripple quite a few arsenals with just a single
environmental. There are many environmentals that can take advantage of
this. Keep in mind just because you can hang an environmental, its not
always wise to hang an environmental because you’ll find that it could
actually help your opponent more than yourself.(Optimization)
Since Orb/Amulet will protect against Anti Environmental erase skills, this
can make it even more difficult to take an environmental down.
How to deal with floated environmentals:
1. Put erase skills in your arsenal that get rid of environmentals.
(Judgement, Crush, Starting Point, Return to Nature) You could also try to
erase an opponent’s skills to stop them from ever putting it out. Certain
erase skills like Turbulence will get rid of environmentals in players’
hands.
1A. **THIS IS UNDERLOOKED: If you time the use of your environmental
erasing
skill you can erase more Environmentals than you think. Example: You see
your opponent is carrying an Environmental in his hand. You have Crush in
your hand. Normally that will erase any environmental that is out but one
enviro it can’t stop once its out is the Reduce Entropy which stops any
skill
from being used that costs 3 or more. So… Wait for your opponent to start
up
the animation for Reduce Entropy. As he is in the process of doing the
animation to make it take effect use Crush. If you time it right your
opponent will put the Environmental into play and Crush’s effects will take
effect right after Reduce Entropy has taken affect. Since Crush was done
before Reduce Entropy actually came into effect it will still work and
erase
the Reduce Entropy. You could not have erased it with Crush if you tried to
use it any time after it took effect. While you may not see if the
person’s
environmental might actually be useful to you, generally its better to
erase
someone’s environmental before it takes place than finding out later that
its
really bad for you.
*Note: This will not stop Memory Lapse’s effect of making a skill single
use.
(It will erase Memory Lapse, of course before you lose it unless they had
enough for Orb or Amulet)
2. Use your own environmental skills.(not just Optimization) Even float
them. If you aren’t using an environmental skill in your arsenal then you
should really take a look at it and see if there’s not anything that you
could possibly use for something, even if its Unison.(which if you hide it
your opponent may try to put his out and waste it before he realizes you
have it out) If yours are out they’ll have to come to you to get it or
find
a skill that erases it to put their own out. You could even lay landmines
by
it. Your opponent is likely to not even see ones like Vapor Cloud because
it
only gives off a gaseous affect that the glow of the environmental further
obscures. With Freeze Mine you could help stop your opponent from even
picking up the environmental. If you don’t think your opponent is going to
play an environmental later you could always take down the environmental
for
an aura you need. Cheap costing ones at 2 or 3 aura can often sub for an
aura
particle without too much cost to your arsenal's speed.
3. Destroy places that an opponent is likely to hang the environmental
skill.
You will have to learn the layouts of each level. Depending on the level
this
can be a hard task to complete. You could always choose levels where it’s
not as easy to hang if you really want to avoid it. The Lane levels do not
have any place where it can be hung. There is a section in the Stages faq
that tells where you some of the best places to hang or put environmentals
at
each level.
4. Did the player really hang the environmental skill? Walk towards the
environmental skill if it’s in the air. If your head can touch it while
your
on the ground then you can still pick it up. You’d be surprised the places
where you could position yourself on the ground to reach high enough to
touch
it. See if you can reach at the ledge where it seems to be hanging you
might
be able to reach out and touch it to take it down.
5. If you know your opponent wants to hang the skill get your attacks
ready.(this even goes even if he just wants to use the environmental) The
second he starts up the animation hit him. If your fast enough you’ll
cancel
out the animation. Even if he still manages to hang the environmental
after
getting hit a few times, it could cost him the match.
6. Don’t give up! Your arsenal may get severely crippled but your
opponent
may not actually have a good game plan to finish you off with. You could
always get a draw by dodging everything. And use debris to hurt your
opponent.
7. If your opponent has a yellow skill in their hand they may have orb or
amulet which can protect against Environmental erasing moves. Your best
bet
is to Freeze your opponent’s buttons or wait for them to have 0 aura if
their
using Memory Lapse or before using a one use environmental eraser. For any
other environmental you could try to use infinite use ones repeatedly to
lower their level so that Orb or Amulet can no longer protect against
it.(or
Amulet gets exhausted)
6PD Stat Changers - Benefits and Dealing with them.
There are a variety of skills in this game that changes the traits of your
characters. This includes changes in Strength, Speed, Homing, Aura
Regeneration(how quickly your aura recharges), Invulnerability to damage,
(Void), and Cloaking(Optical Camo among others). Traits that are purely
negative include poisoned buttons, frozen button(s), scrambled buttons,
paralysis, being decoyed(can only lock onto person who Decoyed you).
Having a boost in stats over an opponent can sometimes turn the match
over to you.
All these moves are important to consider in dealing with other people’s
arsenals.
Skills like Purify or Neutralization will negate any of the above effects.
(it also stops Mind Reading) They carry a stun effect with them when they
neutralize any effect.(including Decoy) Sometimes you can use this to your
advantage to stun a person and follow up with an attack. Ex. Neutralize a
person with +1 attack and follow up with an attack fast enough to connect.
You can jump in the air as your hit to avoid the stun effects these moves
have. Jumping in the air is an effective away of dodging the stun effects
of
Paralyze or Dazzle.
Amaros, Amaro’s Watch, and Angel’s Breath will reverse any of the number
based
stat moves. You can also stun people with Amaros moves if an environmental
is out that gives a numbered stat. It won’t reverse the stat created by an
Environmental though, but it still stuns.
When thinking of trying to effect stats don’t forget about using
Environmentals. One Burden combined with Increased Gravity will
dramatically lower an opponent’s speed.
This section will talk of strategies around changes in stats. This may
seem
elementary but there are some things you may not realize that could help
you out.
Changes in Strength - A change in strength will obviously make you stronger
or weaker. This should be especially noted in using attacks that have
cheap
casting cost that are often weaker without stat boosters. Some skills are
much
more effective when they have an extra boost in strength. Tiger’s Strength
and Trance are both great stat boosters that you can use over and over
without worrying as much about being purified or amarosed. Fire of Gehenna
can do 6 damage but with just 1 extra strength it can break a lot more
shields in the game. Other stat boosters include Heat, Stimulate,
Friendship, and Lunar Force. Although Trance and Tiger’s Strength can’t be
used to get +4 strength, other stat boosters like heat and Lunar Force can
be used in combination with Trance or Tiger’s Strength to get more than
+2 strength.(Martials arts scroll can’t be combined with Tiger’s Strength
or Trance either)
Some notable skills to boost strength on are the charge up moves you can
spend 0 aura to use over and over. With a stat buff they will do damage
even though you spent 0 aura. It can be difficult for someone to try to
dodge
several Ki Palms, Ki Cannons, or Gugnirs.
A lot of faith attacks with life penalties benefit greatly from the stat
boost. Scream of Evil isn’t that great a skill without strength boosts.
If you use moves like Pursuit or Backdraft Bullet and stat buffs you can
do a
dramatically greater amount of damage to an opponent. Lets say you use
tiger’s strength and then flame sword an opponent for 5, you can then
follow
up with pursuit to do 5 more damage. That’s typically half someone’s life
with just one connected blow.
2 Gravity Presses with +2 strength will do 20 damage.
With the right numbers you can make some very devastating attack combos.
Another nice example is having +2 strength with Trance and hitting someone
with Greedy Spirit for 4, follow up with Swift Blow for 9 while their
stunned
from greedy spirit and then Sky Pursuit them for 5. This combination does
18 damage for just 2 aura.
“Knockdown†Effect - There is a general rule in this game that any
combination of projectiles that do 5 or more damage will knock an opponent
down. 3 or more damage with any combination of close up attacks will
knock
someone down. The only exception here is the melee skill Hi Speed Punch
which
has to do 5 damage to actually knock someone down. By boosting strength
and
knocking an opponent over you make it easier to continue attacks on them,
plus you bought yourself time to regenerate aura. If you have attacks that
work while someone’s down its easier to set them up. An Ice Sword might
not
take out an opponent with a few hits but if you boost up the strength of
the
sword it becomes that much more realistic to take someone out with mostly
an
Ice Sword.
Some specialized projectiles and melees will knock someone down even if
they
do less than 5 damage(projectiles) or 3 damage(melee). Thor’s Hammer,
Vampire Bats, and Succubus Tempt are some that knock down despite doing
less
than the usual amounts. Explosions will knock someone over even if it does
0 damage.
Loss of Strength - There are also moves that lower your strength. Usually
its
only negative to lose strength. Less moves will knock an opponent down in
one
blow and some moves become pretty useless. There might be an attack that
works better with less strength because it doesn’t knock down with less
strength. On the plus side if your opponent has lowered attack power, your
shields will have a better chance of lasting longer.
Some moves that can have beneficial effects with lowered Strength are by
doing
the combo Earthquake with - 1 strength by something like Holy Ray. You
block
the Earthquake you used with Digestion to gain life. You can do this over
and over and not break the shield where earthquake normally would break it
at
normal strength.
Fast Bomb is another skill you can lower your strength by 2 with and do 0
damage to knock yourself down over and over. If timed right you can avoid
some attacks by blowing yourself up for 0 damage.
Boosted Homing - By boosting homing some attacks become impossible to
dodge
for even cartwheelers. Its also easier to overwhelm someone when you have
boosted homing. Loss of homing can make some skills a lot less useful.
Check the homing section in the faq for more details.(it’s coming up next)
Some skills seem completely unaffected by homing and that is discussed more
in detail there. Combining Traveling Thought with an Acquisition can be a
quick way of giving you very high homing. Combining Dense Fog with a
Magnetic
Field can dramatically lower an opponent’s homing.
Boosted Aura Regen - This makes it easier to do moves over and over again.
Meditation and Etho’s Inspiration are typically the only skills that are
normally positive in aura regen. But its also possible to Amaros yourself
to
reverse the lowered aura regen that comes with Heat or Stimulate. There’s
also Desertification to lower everyone’s aura regen. Basically this will
just change the rate at which someone can do moves.
Speed - Boosted speed can make it much easier to dodge or run from attacks
as
well as to pursue an opponent. Even a +2 boost in speed makes it much
easier
to pursue someone with normal speed. This can help avoid situations like
someone running around the tree all day at Palace.
Lowered Speed does make it harder to dodge. -4 will feel really slow. It
should be noted that if you jump around you can actually move faster than
walking when it gets this low. Cartwheeling also gets around faster than
walking slow speeds. You will still be able to dodge moves with the
cartwheel
pretty effectively still and some with jumps. Still its easier to get
overwhelmed by being slow.
Skills that put you in the air like Levitate or Skywalk bypass lowered
speed
stats. You’ll move at a bit quicker than normal speed with these moves.
Invulnerable - Void makes all attack skills do 0 damage. It doesn’t negate
any effects that come with them. (Dragon Punch(erase an attack on opponent
that’s hit by it)). Erase Special, and Status skills still work as normal
on you. Succubus attacks still take aura from you even though they do 0
damage. Use Necronomicon to stop those effects while Voided.
Invisible - If any skill affects or hits you in any way(including hit all
moves) you will be revealed. If you turn on something like Optical Camo
while
a projectile is heading right towards you it will still lock on to you.
Anti
environmental skills will reveal you too if you don’t have orb/amulet.
Scrambled Buttons - The skill Dazzle scrambles button assignment on a
person.
However, if you use your control pad(not the analog stick) you can see
where
the buttons are assigned to till Dazzle wears off by pressing in the
direction.
Movement Paralyzed - Any move like Paralyze or Still Moment has these
balls
that surround you and stop you from moving while effected. However, if you
don’t move(don’t move on the analog pad) you can still use skills even if
they cause you to move. Its also possible to jump in place or cartwheel
while paralyzed.(you won’t go as far though) Melee moves won’t travel very
far when Movement is paralyzed.
Truly Paralyzed - You can’t do anything with this effect and you are
totally
open unless you suddenly have an auto shield you can use. Moves like
Pressure have this effect. Lift up and Anti Gravity trap are similar to
this
except they throw someone up in the sky when they stun.
Poisoned Buttons - Some skills poison a person so that whenever they hit a
button they take 1 damage. You’ll see purple and skulls on your skills
till
the poison clears. If you poison an opponent it can make it easier to
continue to attack them. People often try to avoid using skills when
poisoned.
And if they do start coming after you just avoiding their moves will cause
them damage. If Backdraft is also down someone will take 2 damage when
they
press a poisoned button.
Frozen Buttons - Most moves that freeze, freeze all buttons on a person
they
effect.(Glacial Wall, Ice Sword) This is a great time to pursue someone.
You can also get around orb when its frozen. Frostbite freezes a single
button on a person that can’t be unfrozen unless you use something like
Neutralization. Freeze Shot only freezes one button for 10 seconds.
Decoy - You can only lock onto the person who hit you till the effect wears
off.(10 seconds) If the person is invisible during this time you can’t
lock
onto anyone.
Inverted Controls - While this effect is on you, you will move in the
opposite direction that you push on the analog. The second this trait
disappears you will revert back to normal movement which can throw you off
to
fall off a ledge. If you think the effect is about to wear off it might be
best to stand still.
7PD Increased Homing
Skills like Traveling Thought and Acquisition improve your homing ability.
Improved homing obviously makes your projectile skills more accurate
against
your opponent. However, how important this is, is subject to debate. The
most sketchy area is what homing actually improves. While it obviously
gives
most ranged moves improved homing, what about skills like Holes, Rain,
Move,
and Close up Attacks? Some people believe that boosted homing improve their
chances of hitting but I really don’t think Holes, Rain, Move, and Close up
attacks actually get improvements. It seems like they can be dodged all
the
same. Your best bet is to test improving your homing with these attacks
and
see if you think it helps. But don’t believe it works just because you ran
into someone who probably has trouble dodging whatever attack you used to
begin with.
I really don’t think Close Up attacks, Rain, Move, and Hole attacks get
improved with higher homing. Give yourself +9 or -9 homing and you’ll
probably see these skills will have the same effectiveness. There are
ways to
be more effective with skills like close range moves and that is why I
think
people think they do better because their actually randomly using melee in
a
better way. Or they could just have less lag in some situations.
While I find increased homing raises the effectiveness of some skills
against
a Jumping character, it may not significantly improve much in dealing with
Cartwheeler’s dodging ability, which may make you reconsider if bothering
spending the time boosting your homing is really worth it. Cartwheelers
generally can dodge many attacks much the same as they did before. While
the
attacks track better, even many good tracking projectiles with +5 homing
can
be Cartwheeled out of if the player does it correctly. However, your
opponent
maybe less used to cartwheeling against higher homing attacks and there is
less of a margin of error they can get away with. Increased homing will
help,
just don’t expect most skills to be anything get on par with most status
and
erase skills homing unless you have really high homing. And be ready to
make
rapid use of attacks anyway.(spam)
You should also consider what attacks you are using and how much they
actually
benefit from homing. A Fire of Gehenna does not really need a boost in
homing against jumpers. However, a Scream of Evil may become extra
effective
with increased homing. Additionally a Fire of Gehenna with +7 homing may
be
impossible to cartwheel out of.
On the other hand reduced homing can make you miss your targets quite a bit
more with even a small reduction. You may want to reconsider if using
Acquisition to boost homing is worth the risk of getting Amarosed into
having
crappy homing. Definitely be prepared to have some sort of skill that
resets/reverses your homing back to normal or a positive number if you do
plan
on improving your homing. You may want hold on to an extra acquisition to
offset any reversal. The environmental Dense Fog and the skill Magnetic
Field
directly affect people’s homing in a negative way. Since melee doesn’t
get affected by this, Dense Fog can fit in great with Melee oriented
arsenals.
Dash can also avoid status and erase moves when an opponent has just -3
homing.
This will make a person with Dash hard to touch.
Some projectile attacks seem to not even be affected by increased homing.
Ones such as Rail Gun and Trench Mortar are examples. You’ll have to
experiment to see which ones improve. It’s usually noticeable when the
homing is increased. Rail Gun is more effective homing wise at long range
and when an opponent changes up movement. Some people mistake this
increased
accuracy with Rail Gun as being the result of boosts in homing stats.
Spamming, Combination Attacks and Combos vs. Boosted Homing.
When making an arsenal think about if you really benefit from boosted
homing
or if spamming single attacks, using combinations of attacks, or combo
stuns
will be more effective.
Another idea to consider is whether you would rather use skills that lower
someone’s speed as a way of hitting them easier. Or you could lower their
speed and raise your homing to make things really difficult.
8PD Manual Aiming
Manual Aiming is a skill that gets more and more useful once you start
learning the nature of this game. You manually aim by turning off the
lock on
with the R button. It does not matter where your character is facing, you
will aim in the direction where you have the camera facing. You could run
backwards and have the camera rotated on to the right, the second you
activate an attack your character will turn towards the direction the
camera is facing and fire.(into the air, ground, etc.)
Manual Aiming is good for the following reasons.
1) The easiest use, you can intentionally miss an opponent to psych him
out
and make him use his shields. He’ll waste his aura and if it’s a one time
use
one like Eraser he’ll have wasted it completely. You can use this to avoid
erase shields and still get your attacks through if you have more aura than
he can handle for your attacks. By seeing his shields you can see if your
attack it has what it takes to break the shield.(with experience you’ll
start
to know what shields look like which) By finding out he has a Glacial Wall
or a Flash Hole and you only have a Bullet of Fire its probably not going
to
be worth it to continue to pursue him if you know he’s going to block it.
If
your opponent only has a Reverse then you can avoid sending your attack
back
at you and decide that it would be better to run up to him with the Flame
Sword
you have since he can’t block it.
2) **Under Noticed: Manually aimed projectiles will go through the
defense
skills Gust and Change Course which would otherwise divert any projectile
attack at a very low cost. It makes no sense why it gets stopped but
that’s
how it goes. A manually aimed attack will generally not hit you if it gets
Reversed/Reflected by an opponent. The only times it will really hit you
is if you actually make the effort to line yourself up with the attack you
reflected.(if you don’t try you’ll be fine) That doesn’t mean explosions
these reflected attacks have aren’t going to get you.
3) Explosive attacks like Bomb Shot can be used in new ways. Fire at the
ground your opponent is heading towards and you could catch him in the
explosion. I once saw someone fire a Bomb Shot on the ground in front of
someone using Reverse, the explosion went through the opponents shield and
nailed him. Bomb can be used similarly as an explosion, it’s much harder
to
do since it’s a parabola attack.
4) Some people find skills like Rail Gun more effective when they manually
aim with it. Some have gotten so good at it that you have to put your
shield
up or cartwheel even in close range to hope to dodge them.
5) Manual aiming lets you make the most of what you have. Skills that arc
aren’t usually going to hit someone when they are out of optimal range when
you are locked on to them. However, you can still hit people with Laser and
Arc of Fire type attacks if you aim it manually so the arc the attack has
curves towards your opponent. This can make these attacks quite effective
at
closer ranges.
6) It’s generally a safer way to get rid of someone’s land mines, than
walking close towards them or using a shield if you have trouble with
timing.
(shoot at the ground where the mine is) You maybe able to even detonate a
landmine that is close enough to an opponent.
7) Manual Aim with close attacks works differently. You will perform a
default attack animation and generally not move very far. Usually you go
in
a forward direction about a step. A close up attack like Flame Sword will
have you maybe take about a step and perform the Flame Sword animation in
place. You can do this to try to throw off an opponent who’s dodging your
attack too well with lock on always on. Mixing up lock on with manaul aim
can make close up attacks harder to anticipate. Some of your opponents
will
also try to dodge you while at a ledge to try to lead you to fall off from
the
charging you normally do when lock on is on. If you turn off lock on when
your
close enough you will not be prey to falling off and often have a chance of
hitting anyway.(you’ll only take a step and perform the attack) You could
use
a close up attack at far close range to psych your opponent into using
his shield or aura without the risk of getting affected by something like
an
erase shield or flying into someone’s photon wave. Be careful with this
because its pretty easy for someone to catch many close up attacks that
intentionally stop short with an erase shield anyway.(Especially swords)
8) Parabola attacks no matter how you aim towards the ground or the sky
will
always fire the same distance in the direction you point the camera. Only
jumping and firing will vary the area where parabolas will land.
9) Rain attacks with lock on off will appear at a default distance every
time.
Could someone switch back and forth and place rain attacks well or vary it
with lock on to effectively trap someone? I don’t know. You could always
rain on default locations to destroy debris or potential landmines at
locations though.
10) Hole attacks have a default location where they appear as well with
manual aim off. Hole attacks that target everyone probably go after their
targets in the same way with lock on off.(Tremor, Massive Quake, Jackpot,
Earthquake)
11) If someone has decreased your homing ability, manual aim maybe your
only
chance of hitting your opponent with some attacks.
12) Keep in mind you can shoot normal or arcing projectile attacks
downward
while in the air.
13) Manual Crawlers will just follow a straight path. It might be
possible
to fake an opponent out but its pretty obvious when your firing away from
an
opponent with these.
14) Some people have gotten really good with manual aim where it becomes
difficult to anticipate where to dodge projectiles even at close ranges.
Pitfalls of Manual Aim and X damage attacks relying on an opponent. -
Some
attacks in this game do X damage to an opponent depending on something
about
the opponent. Some examples are do X damage according to how much aura
they
have,(Aura Leak) or how much more life they have than you.(Judge of
Anubis)
If you manually use attacks like this that do X damage it will do
0 damage + whatever extra strength you have.(its dumb but that’s how their
programmed) Example : Fire Heat from the Void manually at someone with no
buttons assigned and it will do 0 damage.(when it would do 8 locked on)
Use tiger’s strength and manually aim and you’ll only do 2 damage with no
lock on.(when it would do 10 with lock on) This rule does not apply to
Finisher, Compressor, Crystallization, Memory of Battle and X skills you
charge up to do damage with.(Ki Palm, Gugnir etc.) Only the ones that
rely on
something about your opponent.
9PD Skills with Greater ranges then expressed, or skills that work better
at
different ranges than listed.
Each skill has a range listed that states when they are best used. In many
cases these descriptions are accurate. Other times these ranges are off in
some way. There are quite a few attack skills that can reach a little past
the listed medium range and still hit. Some have a true long range reach
despite having an incorrect description.(Rail Gun, Spore Schism) I think
Rail Gun can be less forgiving at longer ranges even. All crawlers besides
Crawling Bullet can reach long ranges. An even bigger issue is that most
status, special, and erase skills can go way further than the ranges
listed and have really good accuracy anyway. Manual aim makes some skills
like Bomb Shot and arc attacks feasible at closer ranges. For other skills
its not really going to matter what range you fire at. Most crawlers and a
manually aimed Bomb Shot are just as effective or more effective at shorter
ranges. Impact Burst can be harder to anticipate when its shot at a closer
range. A Bomb Shot is actually probably easiest to dodge at long range.
I have no list at this time of Attack skills that reach longer ranges than
listed, its best to just experiment at this point in time.
10PD Using Debris as an Attack and as a Defense
Using Debris as an attack.
In Phantom Dust there are many destructible things in the environment. Use
them to your advantage and be careful of areas where things are likely to
get
messy. Certain debris will actually float around erratically by simply
being
hit by something. The Dawn City type of levels debris can have a hard to
predict nature for your opponent. Falling debris can do up to 8 damage.
A harmless seeming broken bridge that is barely moving can still hurt you.
A sign floating ever so slowly on Dawn City can knock you over.
Remember it is not just your attack skills that can make debris fly.
Anything
like a status skill will often make debris fly after a single or a few
hits.
Other times a move will require a higher strength to be able to destroy
certain pieces of debris.
Some debris like the bridge pieces in Palace will disappear only after they
start to settle to the ground. People are generally a little more cautious
to do anything when this happens because they don’t want to get hurt
themselves. However, while these pieces are disappearing it’s the perfect
time to fire off an attack that will go through the disappearing debris
your
opponent may not be ready to guard.
If your are disabled by something or you just don’t have anything in your
arsenal left to take care of your opponent try to draw him to locations
where
he could accidentally cause debris to fall on him. Even the smallest bit
of
debris can do damage and it could be enough to end the match in your
favor.
Watch as your opponent tries to Flame Sword you to death as he accidentally
hits something seemingly harmless like a table doing the 2 damage you need
to
take him out.
And although you want to use debris as a weapon, be careful even the
smallest
bits of debris flying at you can do damage.
“Debris†as defense
While its not debris in the same sense as the damaging type, any objects
you
see on the level that are solid and can’t be destroyed you can use to
protect
yourself from attacks. Classic examples are the poles in Palace, where
once
the tops are broken you can stand in front of what’s left of the pole and
anything shot at you that hits it will be nullified.(except moves that go
through walls). This can even make it harder for some melee attacks to hit
you. Destructible debris can also work but be ready to dodge it when it
breaks.
11PD Extra Uses of Hit All Skills
A Hit All skill is a skill that will affect everyone on the field
regardless
of any dodging/shield ability. This description does not include moves
that
create holes or effect capsules. Skills like Mobilize, Still Moment,
Amaros
and Quantum Decay fit the description of a hit all skill. If you jump into
the air at the right time as the skill is taking affect you will get
knocked
down. This is useful for a few reasons:
1)Some skills will affect everyone. Some of the best skills to jump in the
air for when their about to take effect are Mobilize and Still Moment. If
you stand up and you are not in the air no matter what you will be affected.
Why get teleported to your opponent’s spawn point by Mobilize when you can
avoid whatever nasty plan he has by simply jumping in the air? And
although
Still Moment will still paralyze you for a very brief second as you get up,
you have a greater chance of not getting hit by the attack your opponent
intends to land on you.
2)By jumping into the air you will avoid the stun affect that often comes
with being affected by a Hit All skill.(if you have a stat that’s going to
be
changed on you by it, you will be stunned if your standing on your feet)
Some player could attempt to fire a slow moving attack at you and then
cast a
Hit All skill that stuns you as the attack heads towards you which you will
now have little to stop the attack with.(only auto shields) If you jump
you
can avoid the stun and probably the attack entirely. In tag team matches
or
even Battle Royale your opponents have a greater chance of setting this up
as
one can cast the Hit all skill with a stun effect while another person
fires
an attack at you as the effect is about to take place. The bonus of jumping
into a Hit All skill that occurs and affects you with a stun, is that
you’ll
be invincible for a second as you get up.(except on moves that hit you
while
your down) Note: There will be times when you would rather be hit by the
stun effect but this is just one more option you have available as a
jumper.
There is less of a delay if you just let yourself get stunned versus
jumping
to make yourself fall. It maybe more useful to just let yourself be
stunned
when your closely pursuing an opponent.
Hit All skills as offensive moves.
Any Hit All skill will automatically knock an opponent out of the air.
Skills that may not be too useful in a situation get extra uses with this
tactic. Have an opponent who keeps taking to the air, why not use Crush to
knock them out of the air and make them take fall damage? Skills like Orb
and Amulet protect against erase effects but just about any other global
effect skill will knock someone out of the air no matter what.
Off topic: This even applies for erase skills like Neutralization, which
doesn’t really effect someone who has no status effects, yet if someone
takes
to the air without an orb or amulet and are hit by Neutralization they will
be knocked out of the air.
*The only hit all skill that will not knock you out of the sky as it takes
effect is the skill Phantom Dust.
If you carry Orb/Amulet you can protect yourself from getting knocked out
of
the sky by any Hit All erase move that would knock you out of the sky.
12PD Principles of Timing (i.e. Crush vs. Reduce Entropy. Chaos +
Vicious
Balance, Chill Breeze + Neutralization)
This section maybe a little confusing to some, so if your new to this you
might want to skip this section. Coming back to it may give you new ideas
in
the game though.
This idea was explained already in dealing with Environmental Hanging 1A),
so
go there if you need more explaination.(Section “5PDâ€) But basically the
idea of timing global effects can give you new ways of bypassing people’s
arsenals or other effects. In the environmental section it explained how
Crush is able erase Reduce Entropy in the right situation. Here’s another
use of timing skills to work together. This principle of timing can often
be
taken advantage of more easily in a tag team match.
Example: Chill Breeze, this skill freezes everyone’s buttons for 10 seconds
automatically. Kind of limited in use, huh? However, if you take a
teammate
and have him fire neutralization at you right as the Chill Breeze is about
to
take effect. You will be hit by Neutralization and unfrozen while everyone
else runs around frozen. This opens a lot of options for you. Some powerful
things can be done with everyone else frozen. If you really want its
possible
to Neutralize your teammate and Annoying Gift Neutralization and Chill
Breeze
over and over to freeze your opponents infinitely. I’ll talk a little more
about strategies with this in the arsenals section.
Another Example: Say you and your tag teammate are running arsenals that
make use of Vicious Balance heavily as part of your strategy. Your running
arsenals that are Ki and Faith only. You already tried to Vicious Balance
your opponents once only to find that both their Orb and Amulet skill has
stopped it. You really need to lower their Level but you can’t seem to get
them to lower their aura down to a point where they couldn’t use
Orb/Amulet.
You just got another Vicious Balance which costs 2 to use. Your teammate
has
been holding onto Chaos(Enviro which makes skills that cost 2 or less
unuseable) With these 2 skills you can actually override your opponents
Orbs
and still use Viscious Balance on them to harm them.(even though Vicious
Balance costs 2 itself) If you coordinate with your team mate where as
he’s
placing Chaos down you use Vicious Balance while he’s already doing the
animation to put chaos out, if all is timed right not only will Chaos stop
your opponent’s Orbs/Amulets from protecting them but your vicious balance
will still carry through and harm them. This is because with correct
timing
Chaos’ restriction on 2 cost skills takes effect before the use of Vicious
Balance actually takes effect. With Chaos actually out you can’t use
Vicious
Balance but since you used it right before Chaos actually takes effect you
overrode its restriction while still managing to negate your opponent’s
Orbs/Amulets from protecting them against Vicious Balance. I don’t think
you’ll want chaos down the rest of the match so pick it up. There are
quite
a few other ideas you can try around this timing principle. Try to think
of
them as they could yield new combos or ways out of things you never thought
would work before. Some like the Chill Breeze + Neutralization combo can
be
very powerful.
Chill Breeze timed with a useable Environmental Erasing move will erase any
environmental out even if your opponent has orb.
13PD Stages - Provides details, tricks, hanging locations recommendations
and glitches, at each level.
Here are two threads that talk about glitches at levels Palace, Highway,
Panorama, and City. If you know of any other glitches not listed in these
threads or the rest of the stage faq you can send them to my email
address.
[email protected]
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544
Palace
This level is the most popular. It is pretty well balanced. Depending on
the version you pick there will be breakable bridges in the middle or they
will already be broken down. You’ll find a wide range of skills here can
be
effective though some of the long range moves can be harder to negotiate.
There are a lot of permanent debris spots that you can use to divert
attacks
like poles. There is a tree branch that touches the ground that you can
walk
up along. Be wary that normal attacks can go through this branch. You can
also use hole attacks on this branch without worrying about being hit by
the
Hole attack you use as it forms on the ground below. A lot of the
breakable
guard rails on the 2nd floor can protect you from projectile attacks if you
stand behind them. As a cartwheeler you may find it beneficial to break up
some of these rails to make getting around easier.
There are more places to hide from rain attacks than you may think here.
It
can be possible to get situations where you are chasing an opponent around
the tree all day. To help avoid this you could use skills that make you
faster or attacks that go through walls. You could also use capsule
erasers like Diabolical Trick to try force them to come towards you.
Lesser known details:
1. If the bridges are broken it is still possible to get up on the middle
part of the level with a jumper. It doesn’t seem possible with non jumpers
without a skill that brings you into the air.(Levitate) Here is a thread
with pictures that shows one way you can climb up to the middle platform:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4316
2. It is possible to cartwheel or jump across the gaps where the bridges
are
broken up against the side walls. If you move your characters up against
the
edge of the walls you’ll see you can walk on those small gaps. Its
easiest to
see this at the Noble Palace Version.
3. You can Skywalk up to a high part of the tree in palace. Go to the
middle
section of the second floor and if you Skywalk up along the branches your
character will start to move up along the branch till you find a spot with
a
branch you can land on.
4. This is just a bug of sorts but there is a corner you can go jump into
in
one of the walls that causes you to fall through the level. You’ll return
back to your spawn point for 3 damage. Here’s a thread with some pictures
of
the location.
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3492
5. More glitches:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544
Environmental Floating Locations:
If you put the environmental far enough in the middle of either of the 2
breakable bridges you can float an environmental. By the 2 escalators
there
is a box or 2 that you can float an environmental off of.(there are some
benches surrounding them. If you don’t do it on one of the high boxes here
its still possible for someone to walk under the environmental and pick it
up.
There are 2 boxes in the back walls by the regular stairways closer to the
tree. There are also some skinny signs that you can hop on, place an
environmental there and break the pole and it will hang. You could also
try
Skywalking up the tree or putting an environmental in the middle gap
between
the 2 breakable bridges to make it hard for most people or arsenals to pick
up.
Highway
Depending on which version you pick there will be more breakable walls
around.
Some of the sections of the ground are breakable when falling from high
heights so be careful. On the road part where the broken down car is,
there is some debris you can use to throw at someone with Psycho Kinesis or
Power. Longer range attacks have more room to be effective than at most
other levels. The open part by the building is a bad place for a
cartwheeler
to deal with crawlers. However, most of the rest of this location is
pretty
accomadating to cartwheelers.(aside from laser spam on the open 2nd level
bridge) You can also break portions of ground platforms to make them take
the longer way around to get to you.
Hanging Locations:
There are tons of locations to hang here. Any breakable floors or walls
out
of standing reach will work. There are also some overhanging bridge pieces
you can hop on and then later break.
Lesser known Details:
There are ways to get around some invisible barriers and hide see these
glitch threads:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544
Panorama - This level is more closed in than most levels. There is not a
lot
of space for you to use normal rain attacks.(not really recommended here)
The outside part of the building that shows a view on the outside world is
where normal rain attacks can still work. The ceiling does not protect
from
Rain at this area, but the stairway structures do. However, Lucifers
Arrow can be good here since it’s a rain attack that goes through walls.
There is a lot of debris especially on the middle interior. You can use
Power or Psycho Kinesis with the debris. Parts of the second floor can
collapse when hit by enough attacks. Because of the closed in nature and
boundaries here, moves that go through walls can be extra effective.(Thor’s
Hammer) This is also a great level to set land mines around. Watch the
door
entrances for them. Unlike most other levels there is no pit here.(there
maybe a glitch that you can fall into though)
Lesser Known Details:
1. This level has some issues. Ricochet Laser can bounce through walls
sometimes making it a difficult skill to deal with here. I’d get rid
Optimization if its being used here and it doesn’t help my arsenal much.
Erase shields will be very helpful for dealing with Ricochet Laser.
2. In the middle interior first floor there are some unbreakable shelves.
On the side of the wall that is by one of the inner narrow stair ways you
can
Skywalk through that wall and shoot attacks through at your opponents.
Here is a link to a thread about some glitches at the level you can try
out.
I’m sure a lot of people will frown upon using them but some people enjoy
competing in glitchy ways.
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544
3. Getting past the outside barrier. I know there is a way but I don’t
know
how to do it.
Floating Locations:
There are tons of places to hang here. Find a high enough piece of debris
and your pretty much set for hanging the environmental. You can also break
the 2nd floor level where you place an Environmental.
City Levels
On the whole this level and Highway are the most open spaced levels in the
game and can be the most punishing to people without defenses, there are
some
spots you can seek shelter behind. The pink air lifts are often set up at
this level but other times there are none. This level can be noticeabley
more difficult to get around with a non jumper.(Especially when there are
no
airlifts) Its possible to roll off ledges to get around more quickly. If
you are a jumper facing a wheeler there are spots you can jump to that a
wheeler won’t be able to chase you to and will have to walk a longer
distance
around to get to you. It is possible to jump across a corner edge in the
level by the one of the floating trucks. Debris that gets destroyed can be
hard to predict how to dodge. The air lifts can be a helpful aid to fire
attacks down on someone with or to fly up and dodge moves. Sometimes
you’ll
find there’s a suprising amount of signs up in the air that you can destroy
and have fall on your opponent due to the weird ways they move.
Lesser Known Details:
There are supposedly ways to make debris do no damage here. See threads.
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544
2. Besides those glitches I’ve heard you can fly up really high in the sky
to avoid attacks. You can use hit all skills to knock people out of the
air
that do this.
3. There is an indestructible platfrom against a wall you can hop on via
air
lift that a Whirlwind can reach up and still catch an opponent standing on
it.(it goes through the platform)
Floating locations:
There are a lot of places. Many pieces of signs can be hopped on to float
an environmental. Some are not actually high enough so look around
carefully.
There are also a few floating pieces that you can place an environmental on
and then destroy. There are also a lot of places that can be hard for
people
to reach without levitate or skywalk especially if you have no airlifts at
the level.
Acid Refinery - This is another level that can be challenging to travel
around in as a carthweeler. This level provides a mix of fairly closed in
areas as well as some narrow open spots. There is lots of destructible
material here. Because of the mixed nature of this level having a great
variety of moves can be helpful. There are some poles close to ledges you
can jump around that you might not normally think you could get around.
Firing moves through walls can be more effective here. Reverse Gravity can
be
difficult to deal with here.(inverted controls) Be ready to turn you lock
on
off to make moving around narrow areas easier.
Lesser Known Details:
?????
Floating Locations:
There’s tons of breakable materials to float an enviro on. Besides the
usual, the big green boxes that are being held on a crane can be destroyed
if
you damage it enough or fall from a high height onto it a few times.
Lane - This can be a difficult level to use skills in. The high ground is
pretty open. The lower level has a lot of narrow areas. There are some
fences you can hop over. As a cartwheeler you probably want to get the
hang
of just moving around in this level. There are some parts of the houses
that
you go on that seem like you can get trapped in but there are inclines you
can walk over to exit them. The closed in nature of the lower level makes
moves that go through walls more effective. This can be a difficult place
to remember where your spawn point is or to find a dead teammate. If you
think he’s going to die keep an eye on him.
Lesser Known Details:
?????
Floating locations:
There is no location where you can hang environmentals here. There are
some
hard to reach high spots that may only be accessible by a jumper or someone
with air moves that you could place an environmental at. You can also try
to
make enviros harder to find by putting them behind areas like some of the
air
lifts or behind walls. You’d be surprised how difficult it is for people
to
find them like this. People may become too distracted to realize a
landmine
is there too.
Sein - A variety of tactics can be used here. The level breaks apart as
the
match continues on, making skills that give you greater mobility more
useful.
(Skywalk) The high part of the tower can be a difficult place to be
attacked
from especially if you have Hit All skill to knock people out of the air
with. As the level falls apart it can become increasingly difficult to get
around. Some people have built arsenals specifically around knocking you
out of the sky with something like Judgment while they stay up on the high
tower with Called capsules and cast Violent Change.
Floating Locations:
There is no debris to hang off of here. But since the level falls apart if
you place an environmental at one of the spots where the ground will fall
apart it will be floated. Watch them to flash yellowish around platforms
that are about to break. You can also put them on higher or difficult to
access platforms to make it harder to get to.
You can also check out Quadrasonic’s stage faq for some other ideas and
details. I have to admit some of what I wrote is pretty similar or
inspired
by what he has written. The Lane level description might help you find the
high spots more easily. You may find his style more concise.
http://xboxphreaker.com/stage-strategy.htm
14PD Getting All the Skills (both offline and online ones)*** Important
Update.
There is now a super quick way to get all the skills.
There is now a save file available that works on unmodded xboxes that has
all
the online skills with the game completed. Use an Action Replay or whatever
other file transfer program you might use for it. ou can play with this
file
online like a normal profile and even retransfer it. There is 3+ of all
skills except only 2 Vapor Clouds. There is also millions of credits too
on
the file.
Go to the following site and read the disclaimer first about it:
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/phantomdust/pdsave.html
If you want to see descriptions of all the skills available to you go to
this
link:
http://xboxphreaker.com/pd_skills.htm
It is undeniable that having all the skills in the game can give you a
greater advantage over other people who don’t have many skills. It can
open
up new arsenal possibilities and give you ways of being more experienced in
dealing with certain skills. It can be really hard to build arsenals that
are effective online if you only use the starting skills that are available
at the beginning of the game. It is highly recommended that you beat the
game
before you play much online because all 300 offline skills aren’t available
till you do. The game is not that long and there are other faqs out there
that
can help you.
Once you beat the game all 300 of the games offline skills are available
for
purchase at Mac’s skill shop.(you can’t buy Orb till you beat the game)
If you go to the one on Xbox live you can keep opening and closing the shop
to refresh new random available skills. This can really speed up the
process
of picking up the rarer skills you want. You can also buy junk over and
over
without having to complete another mission by buying from the online shop.
It refills junk every time you reenter. To increase your money I recommend
going to the Single Death shot scenario on Panaorama. Just bring an
arsenal
with a bunch of 5 or more damage dealing skills like fire of gehenna, swarm
of moths, blazing sword, vacuum slash. You’ll beat it really fast.
It gets a little less money than some other scenarios but this is easily
the
shortest one to complete over and over for money. Just don’t miss with
your
attack. Other than that if you make friends with someone who has a lot of
spare credits you could ask if he could hook you up with some credits.
Thanks to the Action Replay there are quite a few people running around
with
tons and tons of credits to spare, so you may find some people willing to
share the wealth.
Other Ways of Getting the online skills besides the Action Replay save:
1) You can get a random online skill for every 30 wins you get in standard
battle matches that are One on One, Tag Team or Tournament. Wins in Quick
Battles and Ante battles also get counted toward the 30.(and affect rank)
Any other mode of play that you win in doesn’t count towards the 30 wins
needed to get an extra online skill. This method can take a really long
time,
even if you're good, to get anywhere near the skills you might want. You
can
also get online skills randomly if you play ante matches against anyone
stupid
or apathetic enough to play with an online skill.(and even then you have to
randomly win it)
2) You can also try to trade at message boards like the ones listed at the
end of the faq. There’s rarely someone just waiting around to make trades
with you at the online room.
3) The second quickest way to get online skills is through duplication.
(the quickest way being to the download the game save file and transferring
it to the Xbox via Action Replay) Some players despise duping either
because
they think they should be the only people privileged enough to play with
certain skills because they’ve been around longer, or they hate the fact
that
it throws off the accuracy of the rating system.(by giving dupers high
ratings at least for a little while)
(SKIP the next paragraph passage if you don’t care about why
people hate it and you just want to know how to dupe)
START PARAGRAPH
I think its absurd that certain people should get undeniable advantages
over
other players simply because they have been around longer. While not all
the
online skills are awesome, some are very useful and some of them are more
fun
to play with depending on your tastes. You paid for the game and Xbox live
why shouldn’t you be able to enjoy the game to its fullest? You may not
like
standard match style, why should you miss out just because you prefer
something like Heavy or KO Battles? 30 wins also takes a long time to get
for
a random skill you might not even want or just got 5 of already. Trading
can
be a hassle too because you could have simply won some fairly unpopular
skills that no one really wants to trade to you anything good for. The
system
of getting skills is totally arbitrary and it’s not like your truly getting
an unfair advantage. Duping actually levels the playing field in this game.
As for ranking, it really doesn’t say a whole lot about the player. You
could
run into a player with a rank quite below yours that is actually a really
good
player. While you may find other players with higher ranks that really
aren’t
that good, and some could have even got the rank partially by only playing
opponents they could consistently beat or by duping themselves. Ranks can
swing around a lot, there is little benefit for someone concerned with
rank to
risk playing a low ranked player, because if he loses, his rank will drop
much
more than even if he won a few matches. The ranking system in this game
will
never be accurate and the system set in rewards people for avoiding lower
ranked players who could actually be better. It would take 2100 wins just
to
get 70 online random skills. Let's face it, usually to make arsenals around
certain skills you need more than one of a skill, and the ones you get are
random in this system to begin with. And if you want to make more than one
arsenal with certain skills you can't with this system.
END PARAGRAPH
Duping is done by creating an Ante Match, in Battle Royale. The host
should
enter the room with an arsenal full of skills he does not care about
because
he will lose them.(you can always buy them again) As long as the host
doesn’t
make a mistake all the other players will get each others' online skills
and
not lose their own.
The other players in on the duping should bring an arsenal either full of
online skills only or with just a single online skill with 29 aura in the
arsenal. I personally prefer having people put just one online skill with
29
aura. This way you are guaranteed to get the skill you are looking to get
from others. Other people don’t want to bother with switching out one
skill
after each match and just come with an arsenal full of online skills. This
leads to people getting random online skills from each other and extra
duplicates they may not need. You decide what you want to do.
So now that the room has 3-4 people with the host having only crap skills
and
the other players with only online skills, the host starts the match.
After
just a few seconds, the host hits start and chooses the option Return to
the
Lobby(not quit). The host gets a loss for doing this. When the host
returns
to the lobby he chooses the option to kick a player and kicks at least
2 players out. When you are kicked out of the lobby by the host while your
still in a match you get an automatic win, and get both the 2 online skills
your opponents’ had and one of the hosts random crap skills. At the same
time
the other players don’t actually lose their skills, because as their
kicked(or their the only one left besides the host) they also get an
automatic win. Since the game counts all 3 people besides the host as
winners the game doesn’t take away any of their online skills but it does
give each of the players copies of the online skills to each other.(you’ll
notice your rank will also go up since you all won, the hosts rank will not
drop much for doing this and will recover more rank when he doesn’t host)
The 2 or 3 players that are kicked from the match have to enter the Battle
Royale Ante room again.(setting up friends slots is recommended if your
going
to have friends keep coming in) Once they are back, the host starts the
next
match and repeats the process till he’s hosted enough times. After the
host
is done one of the other 3 players should now open up a new Battle Royale
Ante match and use an arsenal full of only crappy skills they don’t care
about. The former host and the other 2 players not hosting should join
that
room.(10 rounds is pretty fair to host each) When the new host has hosted
enough someone new should host. You’ll find some players will refuse to
host.
I’d recommend not letting them continue to dupe with you unless you can’t
seem to find anyone else. There are some people who are annoying like this
but
most people do host at least sometimes. I’d also recommend not keeping
around
people who continually fail to come in with arsenals that don’t have online
skills. They should at least help people duplicate skills they already
received from others.
If your not duplicating with people your friends with then when someone
enters
the room you host, you should ask them if they know what you plan on doing.
(duping) If you explain how it works to them and they agree you could
have a
good partner in duping.
If you don’t have any online skills, probably one of the best ways to start
getting in on duplication is to show some good faith by hosting some BR
ante
matches yourself and have someone else rotate off after 10 matches. Give
this
a few tries before giving up because sometimes people just aren’t
interested
on a certain night. Look for Ante Rooms to get in. About 99% percent of
the
time Battle Royale Ante rooms are for duplicating.
Potential Problems: Make sure the host has more than one skill in his
arsenal before the match starts other wise he won’t be able to kick people
out.
If he starts the match with only one skill left when the match starts you
will lose your online skill if you lose the match. If the host ever
accidentally quits out(you’ll see his name disappear in the game) you will
also lose your skills if you lose. To avoid losing your skills when this
happens if everyone stands still without the lock on on for about a minute,
the timer drops to 50 seconds left in the match. You can then have a draw
and no one loses their skills. Of course if you trust people enough to
duplicate the skill you lost back, you can always take a loss to speed
things
up to continue duplicating skills.
Duplicating will eventually make your rank really high. People will know
you
duped, and some will complain but who cares. The other thing you’ll
notice is
that if you play ranked matches you’ll probably see much of that rating
drop
back down around where you were because even losing a few times will knock
a
high rank down quite a bit. (and then they won’t be able to really know if
you duped anyway)
15PD Online Skill Rankings
Some online skills are much more valuable or easy to use than others. This
opinionated list tries to put them in categories of most useful/versatile
vs.
least versatile and sometimes least useful. Skills in the lowest class may
be good but they are some of the harder ones to set up or make work in an
arsenal. But don’t let that discourage you from getting something you want
to
use. I love using Blessed Rain for some stupid reasons but I’ve had a lot
of
fun with that skill. More than with even some of the more versatile or
“useful†skills. Chill Breeze is another low ranked skill and yet there are
some very powerful things you can do with it in tag.(and there are some
effective things you can do with other low ranked skills) The middle rank
tries to put skills in a class that are more specialized but still have
quite
a bit of easy to apply uses. You may even discover a new combo with low
ranked skills that makes it more valuable than realized instead of it just
being more specialized. If you have a great idea for a skill don’t let my
opinion hold you back in seeking it out. Each rank class is in no
particular
order.
High ***
Judge of Ares
Shield Slayer
Willow the Wisp
Backdraft Bullet(just awesome for tag)
Unison(you may laugh but it can fit in a lot of Nature arsenals)
Erase Shell(only shield that can erase Rain and Move attacks. An Optical
Erase shield)
Boost Mine
Charge
Impact Burst
Armaro’s Watch
Middle **
Giga Ruin
Throttle Blaster
Aura Cannon
Mini Meteor
Earthquake
El Bomb
Excaliber
Traveling Thought
Arc of Fire
Illusion of Death
Disremember
Life Giving Sword
Mobilize
Rafflesia’s Fang
Vapor Cloud
Wing’s of Hope
Crawling Bullet
Ground Laser
Delay Bomb
Lost Dragon(one major problem with this skill is Lack can do much of the
same
thing for just one aura)
Quantum Amp
Vacuum Bullet(use to fake out someone to block it, so they waste aura)
Throttle Fire Ball
Jackpot
Joke of Anubis
Twist Laser
Dragon Bullet
Freeze Shot(good primarily because it can actually do damage with
strength boosters)
Particle Mortar
Still Moment
Geyser Impact
Failing Wall
Protecting Air
Play Dead
Lowest *
Poison Blur
Teleportrap
Vacuum Palm(Heat from the Void is a lot more reliable)
Downcast
Cooling
Anti Gravity Trap
Piece of Wind
Fast Wave
Knife Grind
Arms of the Curse
Fast Bomb
Venom Drip
Chill Breeze (*** if you use it in tag with an Annoying Gift +
Neutralization tag combo (see arsenal section for more details)
Blessed Rain
Withering curse
True Muramasa(older version was a lot better)
Dance of Moths
Heat Devil
Tiger Prevails
Tornado
Place of Invisibility
Dark Shelter
Vast Mayhem
Sword Slap (the only thing that can do the brush effect online)
Phantom Dust(this is not just for forcing ties or as a last ditch chance to
save your butt)
Level Baton
Ethos Inspiration
Pursuit Stopper
Young White Dragon
Martial Arts Scroll
16PD Skills with same animations and partial listing.
With the creation of online skills there are more and more skills that have
the same animations as other skills. There are a few skills even before
the
online ones that have very similar or the same animations. These
animations
can trick players who normally expect one skill but are actually dealing
with
another. For example if you fire Seal of Death which keeps getting
blocked,
and then fire Illusion of Death at someone they could mistakenly think its
another Seal of Death and try to block Illusion of Death which goes through
all shields except Course types.
Another example you may have a flame sword that keeps getting blocked by
what
looks like Wall but is actually Failing Wall.(defense 7, loses 1 defense
everytime you use it) If you think that its failing wall, you can keep
striking at your opponent in an attempt to get them to lower their shield
to
below 3 defense. But you are more likely to think that their using a Wall
which will not break under a 3 damage flame sword. There’s very few ways
you
can know for sure which shield is actually used unless you make them use it
enough.(if it eventually breaks or runs out it was a failing wall).
The skill Mobilize has the same animation as Amaros. Amaros can be pretty
harmless to someone with no stat buffs or environmental skill boosters out
but
Mobilize could put you into a trap. Therefore it is often best to jump
whenever you see this animation to try to dodge the effect of Mobilize.
(being in the air when Mobilize takes effect stops you from being
teleported.)
You might also know if they only have 3 aura and that there’s no way
they could play Mobilize(unless optimization is down). Jumping is a safe
bet.
With some skills you can figure out which skill it is by how quickly it
moves
but other times it will take guess work.
Here is a list of skills with the same animation.
Ex. Skill #1 has same animation as > Skill#2
Amaros > Mobilize
Lighnting Sword > Shield Slayer (great confusion tactic)
Seal of Death > Illusion of Death
Bomb Shot > Impact Burst
Excalibur > Excaliber(these are different skills despite the similar
spelling and do different damage amounts)
Laser Shell > Erase Shell(both are pretty frequently used but the cost of
6
for Erase Shell can clue you into whether or not someones’ using it)
Vibration Blaster > El Bomb
Fast Wave > Photon Wave
Recollection > The Attack used previously(a good tricking strategy.
Ex. Person sees you only have 2 aura so the person thinks you couldn’t use
Photon Burst for a while. Recollect it and your likely to throw them off
guard.)
Crawlers > Crawling Bullet(the starting animation is different from other
crawler moves in that it looks like your shooting a projectile)
Mist Blade > Life Giving sword
Teleportrap > Anti Gravity Trap > Vapor Cloud
Muramasa Blade > True Muramasa
Ki Cannon > Dragon Bullet > Young White Dragon(similar charge start up
animation)
Retreat > Return(if their missing a skill it was return)
Remote Mine > Timer Mine(you'll run into remote mine more. These 2 mines
are the only mines that don't work by how close someone is to them. They
leave a red mine on the ground. I don't believe there are any other mines
that look quite like these 2 unless you count Fast Bomb)
Surprise Attack(if their missing a skill it was Surprise Attack) > Charge
Swarm of Moths(Usually more common) > Dance of Moths
Slide Laser > Twist Laser
Confusion Gas(probably see more often) > Withering Curse
Vacuum Wall(you will see this one a lot more) > Dark Shelter
There are many others but I do not feel like continuing this list for now.
17PD General Arsenal Design Tips
Please note that these tips apply only to playing the standard mode of
Phantom
Dust. The game types section covers some areas where you may want to
design
your arsenals differently.
Designing an arsenal can be personal. Some people have different
preferences
in aura counts as well as skill choices.
I will try to give some general rules that have worked for me.
A safe number of minimum aura to have in an arsenal that mixes some low
cost
and a few high cost moves is usually 14. You can raise this to 15 or 16 if
you’d like but usually you don’t want anymore than 16. Having only 13 aura
starts to really push it and you may find yourself struggling for aura to
do
something, especially if you go any lower.
However, this isn’t always the case. A Bravery Decision deck could have 19
aura in it and be decent. But this is because in reality you hope to wipe
out the aura you don’t need. Some decks that focus on overwhelmingly low
cost
skills can do just fine with 10 aura as well.
A deck that packs a ton(5+) of environmentals which you might pick up could
also make you put a little less aura in. Things like Level Amp, Boost
Mine,
and Angel Tears, can make good substitutes for aura particles. Sometimes
they’ll slow you down too.(Angel tears should rarely slow you down though)
I would not sub level amps/boost mines in if your current aura count is 13
though.
Try to balance between having expensive and cheap skills. If you only have
expensive skills you will take longer to do anything. Relying on
Optimization to use all your skills is usually a terrible idea.
Packing more than one of a certain skill will help ensure that you get key
skills more often. If you really want something every match than putting
in 3
will help that happen a lot more than just one. Experiment with going
between having 1-3 of a skill in your arsenal to see just how much you want
to get that skill.
If you can it is wise to put an anti environmental skill(Crush) in your
arsenal. Being able to get rid of a hung environmental can turn the tide
of
a match. You can also use these to knock people out of the sky.
Ki and Optical schools do not have any anti environmentals, so it can be
especially important to have environmentals in when only using these
schools.
There is always the option to go 3 school to provide yourself with an anti
enviro move too.
It is also helpful to put in a skill that will deal with status effects,
(Purify, Neutralization, Amaros) especially ones that your opponent has.
Sometimes you can protect yourself from negative status moves, but an
opponent running around with +6 speed can be hard to catch till you slow
him
down.
Look at the environmental skills and see if there’s not one you can put in
your arsenal that will help you and probably not your opponent much. This
can prevent someone else from putting their own environmental out and
hopefully help you more than your opponent. If you use cheap ones you can
take the aura from it if you really need it. And no, Optimization will not
always be helpful or worth putting in an arsenal. Sometimes there aren’t
any
good choices but its worth check out when making an arsenal.
The above recommendations are ones that will work well with almost any
arsenal.
However, it is also valid to ignore these recommendations just to try to
increase your chances of getting other skills. It’s a risk you take, in an
attempt to speed up your chances of getting something you want. Sometimes
it
pays off, other times it will cost you the match. Starting out in this
game
its probably better to play more conservatively.
Defensive moves - Carrying between 3-5 defensive moves is very
helpful.(less
defensive moves really start to push it) Remember you don’t have to just
consider shields. Moves like Invulnerability or Dash can serve good
defensive
functions as well. Depending on what you want to do with an arsenal,
certain
defenses are more useful than others. Even people who are really good at
dodging moves can benefit from having defenses. Whether you cartwheel or
jump there are moves that are very troubling without a defensive move. The
only place you can realistically use no shields is in One on One where you
sacrifice having them for the sake of speed. A really well coordinated Tag
deck could get away with it too. Having no defenses can pay off but it can
also give you a lot of frustrating defeats. The other situation you could
be
justified in using no defenses, is when you are trying to perform an
elaborate combo that doesn’t allow any space for shields. Even then,
defenses
can sometimes buy you the time you need to put a combo together. Having
high
speeds can function defensively as well. With trial and error you’ll see
what a good amount of defenses are for you.
Orb/Amulet - If there are moves you really need to be able to use in an
arsenal like Recall or permanent stats that you really need to have, these
skills will help you keep them. Orb/Amulet can be especially useful for
carthwheelers who really want to avoid the stun effects that come from
erase
moves. Jumpers can get by more without these because they can jump to
avoid
the stun effects of moves like Dragon Slayer or Restrain. That doesn't
mean
jumper shouldn't ever carry these. If erasure can significantly hinder
your
arsenal, Orb and Amulet are valuable moves to put in.
Being able to reset your own stats is useful if getting your stats reversed
will screw you over.
Bring moves that counter weaknesses in your arsenal. If a player who has
Dash can dodge everything you do easily then you might want to carry
Turbulence, Wind Pressure or perhaps you can even use Chaos.(takes care of
Photon Barrier users at the same time) If there is something opponents do
that give your arsenal trouble there is usually something you can put in an
arsenal to deal with it. There is only so much you can prepare for so pick
what is most important to deal with.
1 School, 2 Schools or 3 Schools?
There is some debate whether it’s truly worth it to go 3 school at the
expense of having slower aura regeneration. I think there are plenty of
good
arsenals that are 3 school and that you shouldn’t be afraid to try it.
3 School arsenals can be the most versatile and some powerful combos are
impossible to do with anything less than a 3 school arsenal. It can also
make
you less predictable. If you played the card game Magic, it is much easier
to make 3 School Arsenals than 3 color decks in Magic.
That being said sometimes there are things in different schools that do
similar things and can eliminate the need for you to go 3 school. Going
Single School or Two School will give you the ability to use your moves
more
quickly repeatedly.(because they have faster aura regeneration) It is not
the biggest advantage in the world but it can be more valuable in
situations
where you are being heavily taxed. In One on One I think it is less
significant than in Tag or Battle Royale. That doesn’t mean that 3 school
decks are bad in those modes. In One on One you may wish that you could
perform certain moves more quickly and the move to a 2 or 1 school arsenal
can be worth sacrificing a few skills.
If you feel like an arsenal is struggling to do things in time and you
already see you have a good amount amount of aura and balanced cost skills,
then that is probably one of the best times to think about going down to a
two or single school arsenal.
Going down to 2 or 1 schools reduces your choice but gives you more speed
in
doing moves over and over.
I think if your starting out and your unsure of yourself it is good to try
to
make two school decks. It’ll keep you focused on making the most of each
school your using and give you a good amount of versatility still.
For single school arsenals, Nature and Faith are probably the most
adaptable
to situations, but the other schools also have their own strengths to offer.
Look at all the skills you have for each school in your arsenal. Don’t
just
think to use attack and shield skills. Most arsenals benefit from having at
least something that is either a Status, Special, Erase, or Environmental
skill.
There’s not much more to say except to try to use skills that function
together in someway when you’re making arsenals. Look for skills that
complement each other and maybe even deal with weaknesses your arsenal
has.
There are a lot of moves that were just made for each other. Take a look
at
the combos, arsenals, and extra details sections for some ideas. The more
your skills work well together the more effective they will all be. Also
look for skills that work well for you. Some people are just better at
using certain skills than others. With practice though you may get good at
using skills you might have once regarded as bad. If you see others using
a
skill well that you don’t, try to figure what their doing that makes the
skill
work better for them and you can get better yourself.
To try to find new uses for skills you can ask yourself what other skill
would
work well with another skill in some way. Don’t be too quick to think a
skill is complete crap. Sometimes so called crap skills can create unusual
and sometimes even powerful combos. Most skills in this game have some
sort of
function that makes them more useful in one way than other moves.
You may also want to check out an FAQ by Delandel on making arsenals at :
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3471
There are some differences in recommendations between us but you’ll
probably
find some helpful things in that faq too.(I especially liked the idea of
having a back up plan like Diabolical Trick.)
Managing Arsenals-
In the most competitive of matches, ensuring that you properly pick things
up
in a good sequence will make your arsenals function better. Always be
ready
to use the “Back†button at the start of the match to try to get a better
random assortment at the start.(Hitting the back button will give your hand
a new set of 4 skills) Look both at what’s in your hand and the
colors of the 3 capsules next to you in the beginning. Think of what the
ideal starting hand is for your arsenal is and whether its better to try a
different random 4 skills at the start. The colors of the capsules on the
side can give you hints about whether you should change what’s in your
hand.
If the only green skill in your arsenal is tiger’s strength and you see a
green capsule next to your character at the beginning of the match, you
might
want to change up your hand which already also has a tiger’s strength. If
you see 3 aura particles at your spawn then you probably want a new hand
for
your self if you also have 4 aura particles in your hand. Be prepared to
make sacrifices and burn through your arsenal quickly if you do get a hand
that is not so great. In most arsenals you will at least sometimes get
hands
that are not so great and you’ll have to give up on using certain skills
just
so you will still be somewhat capable when your opponent comes after you or
goes after your teammate. The more you play with an arsenal the more you
will get an idea of what is a good starting hand and what isn’t. Also look
at your opponents hands at the start. If they only have one or 0 aura or no
shields and 2 aura, there’s a very good chance they have a bad hand
defensively. If you got a decent set up you can rush them and they’ll be
badly prepared for your assault.
18PD Strategies around certain game types.
This is a list of most of the types of matches and offers some strategies
around each type. Note: To see people without locking on hit the White
button at the beginning of the match and all their names will show up.
One on One - One on One allows a wide range of tactics and approaches.
There
are many ways you can go about things and you don’t have to worry about
using
arsenals compatible with a tag team mate or deal with being triple or
double
teamed for becoming too much of a threat.
In many ways this allows for greater all or nothing arsenals. You could
try
to go for the quick kill or try to negotiate a longer round.
As far as arsenal designs go there is also more freedom to be “suicidalâ€
because your ultimate goal is to take out a single opponent. In Battle
Royale
and Tag certain suicidal tactics are less powerful and can work against you
even more in the end. Because you don’t have to worry about being double
teamed certain defensive skills may be less necessary. While
something like a Psycho Shell is very useful in dealing with multiple
unanticipated attacks, a Psychic Wall could end up serving you better in
One on One. In this respect shelter moves can become less necessary
because
it is easier to deal with skills with a regular barrier shield or some
other
shield, since you know there is only one player to watch. Still some
shelter
shields like Erase Shell or Fortress of Iron have handy additional effects.
Tag Team -
To be the most competitive in tag I’d say you would need to coordinate
arsenals with someone. Despite that there are just different options open
in tag than in one on one. Some very powerful combos can only be
conveniently
done with a tag partner. You can take on more supportive roles and use
tactics more for distraction. Having one person stun an opponent while the
other attacks is much easier in tag. Being able to communicate well is
also
important. If your going to use skills that effect your teammate in a
negative way you should check with them and see if its really worth doing.
A floated Memory Lapse that’s good for you might not be so great for your
teammate. And please don't always put Optimization out. I've seen too
many
matches where the tide was in my team's favor and then my teammate puts
Optimization down and suddenly our opponents are much more powerful. And it
is very rarely a good idea to put Optimization out when your teammate is
dead
and both your opponent's aren't. Take it down if you can when your
teammates
dead.
Because you can overwhelm opponents with two people you can make
arsenals that may not function so well in One on One but can play well in
tag more thanks to distraction tactics.
It is also important to consider whether you should try to take out your
opponents around the same time or keep killing the weakest one. Being
around
to resurrect a teammate who’s about to die is very importannt. Sometimes
it
is best to run from a battle with an opponent to get near your teammate so
they can resurrect you easily when you're about to die. This can also be
an
effective lure on an opponent. Shelter moves and evasive moves can be more
important than in one on one because of being attacked by 2 people at once.
Sometimes its worth it to kill your teammate to ressurrect him. Watch for
your opponents because they could attack you as you do this.
Note: Whenever you are resurrected you only get back half of the life you
previously had and can’t go above that number. You can be resurrected
infinitely even if your at 1 life, you don’t go to 0.
If you cast a move that effects everyone while a teammate or opponent is
currently knocked out that player won’t be affected. i.e. You could cast
Quantum Decay or Vicious Balance after a teammate has died and not worry
about lowering their level. Casting Phantom Dust(the skill) is another
possibility.(You pick them up after doing these moves)
Try to get good at giving instructions to your teammate on how to find your
dead body.(you may want bright colors on your character’s costume) To pick
up a dead teammate walk over to him and assign him to one of your buttons
like you would a capsule. Go to the options and change your camera options
so that you can lock onto a teammate it will be valuable to know what’s
going
on with your teammate. You can remove a locked skill button from your hand
if you map a dead teammate to your button.(get rid of an Orb you don’t need)
I’ve heard its possible to float a dead opponent’s corpse so his teammate
can’t pick it up.
Battle Royale
Battle Royale involves more manipulating things to work in your favor and
deciding who is best to go after and what evasive maneuvers you can use to
escape an opponent. It is hardest here to be “suicidal†in approach because
even if you take one opponent down you could still have 2 very healthy ones
left. The nature of Battle Royale is very political. Using certain skills
can easily annoy every player.(Violent Change for fear of being erased to
death) Sitting back often seems ideal and some opponents are dumb enough
to
just be focused on killing each other instead of the opponent with 20 life
all powered up. Watch out for other players who hang around or are just
too
single minded.
Evasive moves like Dash and shelter shields can be helpful for blocking or
avoiding moves you can’t really anticipate. Yet at the same time someone
who seems to be dashing out of everything can soon become a target of
several
players who don’t want to deal with those difficulties later on.
Many people have codes of conduct and if they don’t like the way you play
they’ll go after you. Some people are silly enough to triple team if you
won’t keep Optimization out.
You don’t want to appear too threatening or too weak in Battle Royale.
Unless
you feel like you really can take everyone down despite what they might
try to
do. Sometimes its best to take out an opponent who you’ve weakened because
they can be single minded enough to do anything to make sure you don’t win
even if they die because of it.
Quick - Whatever version of Quick mode you play, you get a preset arsenal.
Some are more effective than others but you really just have to make do
with
what you get. If you don’t want to worry about arsenal design this is the
perfect place for you. Do the best with the skills you have. In the 1.2
update you’ll play with a lot of online skills so this can be a good place
to
learn about some online skills. If you learn the lists of skills that could
technically help you out. Here is a link that shows a list of arsenals and
their contents that you can get in Quick Battle:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2487
(read down a little to see the 2 other arsenals that weren’t included by
the
1st poster)
These next battle modes don’t effect rating and can’t earn you any online
rares for the wins you get. That doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy them.
Heavy Mode - The most popular non standard mode. This can be a good place
to
fool around with a bunch of skills without worrying about aura so much.
You’ll find a lot of standard arsenal builds in this mode are not nearly as
good as they normally are. You get 40 health and you always have 5 aura no
matter what.(the lowest you can be erased down to is 5 aura) This throws
off
a lot of the balance in this game. Some skills are much more useful now
with the increased life cap. Take the nature skills like Blazing Bullet
and
Blazing Sword. Judge of Anubis is a power house with much less risk and is
much easier to use. Finisher and Mist Laser, have much less consequence in
being used. Using Recall is so much easier in this mode that it’s a staple
in most decks with Optical skills. Since you always have 5 aura you can
also
make more types of arsenals without any aura in them. If you don’t want to
worry much about the consequences of low aura or getting level erased as
much,
this is a pretty good game type for you. Its still possible to find people
erasing capsules here and it can be done quicker in some regards but a lot
more people have recall to slow down the process. People use Optimization
a
lot in these rooms but not always. Sometimes you can take advantage of
this with stuff like Irregular Rhythm or Fatigue.
KO Battle - This is a rather fun mode that gets less appreciation than it
should. These are 3 minute long matches that you only have 5 life in and
can’t go above it. Everytime you die you come back to life a few seconds
later. Whoever kills the most people wins. If there is a tie in kills,
the
player who died the least wins. This is a great form of Battle Royale for
people sick of regular Battle Royale matches where people often stand
around
doing nothing for several minutes. If you hate having capsules erased its
also not really a viable place for someone to erase players to death. It
does have its own share of battle issues. Faith skills that are effective
with 7 or less life are obviously easier to use with less consequence. You
may find 3 players running around with all Faith Decks because of this.
Skills like Scientism(no faith skills for a minute) are a good way of
regulating these problems. Because of the quick nature of battles you may
find yourself using certain one shot shields more like About Face. This is
horribly boring with just one other opponent but fun with 3 or 4 people.
There’s not really double teaming here because everyone just wants to get
whatever shot they can get to kill another player.
Highlander - This game type is interesting but unfortunately rare. Your
arsenal can only have one skill of each in it.(no doubles) One way to get
around this is to use similar skills like Rock Shot and Bomb.
Puny - Your life is limited to 10 and you start with 0 aura. The max level
you can reach is 5. Much like KO Battle you can easily abuse some faith
skills with low life requirements. You also don’t want to pack expensive
skills. Some skills will be impossible to use without an Optimization down
because of the limit. Others are impossible to use because you can’t reach
10 or more aura. Lowering someone’s level or playing Irregular Rhythm
could
really change the outcome of a match and really screw someone over who uses
more expensive skills.
Environmental - An Environmental is always out and changes every minute in
the match. This can lead to sudden swings in the match’s tide.
Environmentals you use in this are mostly useless because you can’t
override
or erase the automatic environmental. If your worried about being crippled
by a random environmental change, variety can be useful to have in your
arsenal.
Eliminate the Odd One - This is 3 on 1 with one player at 40 life and the
others all at 5. Teammates can resurrect each other. Moves like Blazing
Sword and Joke or Judge of Anubis can be very powerful.
Single School Only - Only single school arsenals are allowed. Carrying an
Anti School arsenal could cripple one of your opponents. Think about ways
in
which Single School decks will struggle against other single school decks.
Puny Only - This is very different from regular Puny matches. You get 20
life and no aura cap. The major difference from standard is that you can’t
play with arsenals that have any skills that cost 4 or more, and no x cost
skills are allowed. There are a few environmentals you could use in
combination with this match type that could create interesting results.
Heavy Only- This is much different from Heavy Matches. You get 20 life and
no aura cap. You start out with 0 aura . This time the major difference
from standard is that you can’t play this mode if your arsenal has any
skills
that cost 2 or less. This means no Orb/Amulet protection but it also means
no Vicious Balance. This can create some interesting styles. The biggest
issue is that a hung Reduce Entropy can force a draw. You might want to
consider banning its use in this game type.(or at least hanging it)
An interesting strategy though would be to erase all your opponents capsules
and then play Reduce Entropy so they couldn’t do anything.(Maybe you could
allow its use if someone only hangs it after erasing every one of the other
living opponents’ capsules)
19PD List and Description of Various Arsenal Concepts: Recommendations
and
Strategies against each type
Some Arsenal Types
You’ve come looking for new ideas? You may find some here.
There are many approaches to winning in this game but there are some pretty
established design principles. But first lets talk a little about:
Weaknesses in all arsenals listed- There are certain environmentals that
can
cripple an arsenal(Memory Lapse, Reduce Entropy) or make your opponent’s
arsenal too powerful.(Optimization) An opponent who has boosted their
stats
can also become overwhelmingly powerful. To deal with this I recommend
putting a skill in that erases environmentals and stat buffs if you can.
Sometimes you can’t, but you could try to structure your arsenals so that
they
can deal with most tactics. You could ignore this advice completely as
well
and say that you’d rather get certain skills more quickly than worry about
what your opponent will do. It’s a gamble that sometimes pays off but other
times will give the match up to your opponent. It’s your choice. It’s
really
not a good idea to gamble like this without a coordinated teammate in tag.
A teammate with a more balanced arsenal may be able to help you get away
with
some of the gambles your taking.
List of Some Arsenal Concepts
Memory of Battle - This obviously will include the Nature school and
usually
has a mix of single use and infinite use skills. The idea is to use a lot
of
attacks up in your arsenal in order to make your Memory Of Battle skill do
a
lot of damage. There are many approaches to make it more powerful. One of
the quickest ways is to use a bunch of auto capture skills quickly(maybe
not
even bothering to hit your opponent with them as their used up) Auto
capture
skills automatically pick up your next skill when you use them.(even if
there
are no skills currently at your spawn point) The drawback to this
approach is
you put a heavy reliance on the power of Memory of Battle. Someone with an
erase shield can take care of your Memory of Battle and your not left with
much. A good cartwheeler can also dodge Memory of Battle pretty easily if
their ready so you may want to use a stun move and then follow up with it.
(you could also try boosted homing) This arsenal can work as a good
assistant
in tag. As far as one on one goes it also has the potential to do well,
but
connecting it will be harder against a cartwheeler. Some skills to
consider
using may include things that break or erase shields. Nature has a lot of
skills that can eliminate pesky stats your opponent has and it can also
deal
with moves like Dash with Turbulence or Wind Pressure. Note: Any attacks
you Recall will take away from the power of Memory of Battle. Any capsule
attacks erased from your spawn will not count towards Memory of Battle’s
strength. You can also use Scars of Battle to work just like Memory of
Battle. You don’t have to actually use a skill to add to the power of
Memory of Battle, it just has to leave your hand. You can play the
environmentals Athena's Command or Forest Sanctuary to stop a
Memory of Battle from being useable.
Compressor - The opposite of Memory of Battle, it relies on using up
shields
for its strength. There are often one time use shields with erase effects
in
many of them. Its greatest strength is its defense and chances of erasing
pesky attacks. Like Memory of Battle, Compressor is pretty easy to
carthweel
out of.(hits jumpers though) Its usually a bad idea to have Compressor as
your only attack because it can be erased pretty easily, but since a lot of
your time will be spent erasing and delaying an opponent’s offense you
won’t
have too many attacks in here either. Sometimes it is best not to launch
an
offensive against a person with a bunch of shields like you’ll find in
Compressor decks and force them to pick up more stuff.(just wait out the
match)
In tag you could opt to go after the teammate of a Compressor deck instead
of
risking getting erased so easily. Because shields can’t block projectiles
that are shot at a different person(that’s just how it works online ) you
won’t have to worry about the Compressor person blocking your projectiles
shot at another person. They might be able to erase short range attacks
going after someone else. 2 Compressor decks working together can be pretty
powerful. Erasing a compressor deck’s capsules can be effective if their
just sitting around with 4 shields in hand. Recall and Capsule erasing
arsenals can be difficult for Compressor’s to deal with. Turbulence or
Wind Pressure could be especially valuable to have in these arsenals.
Reincarnation and other locked/retain skill attacks can be good to use
against Compressor decks to force them to waste an erase shield.(make sure
you have 6 aura to retain Reincarnation). Although it’s a glitch of sorts
Freeze shot with +x attack is also great.(can’t be erased by shields)
Necrominicon will also stop Reincarnation from being useful and protect
from piercing.
Shield Erasers can be good too.(Dragon Slayer, Shield Slayer, Judge of
Ares,
Lost Dragon, technically Lack among other erase moves)
Besides these tactics you can try to manually aim attacks away from a
person’s
shield to fake them out so they don’t erase your attack. Running up to
someone and doing moves like Tiger’s Strength or even purify can trick a
person into using a shield they have and then following up with an attack
while their completing the shield animation.(following up after a purify is
not possible but you can waste their shield) If you are faked out try to
press the shield button again, you might be able to get the shield up quick
enough to block. If someone doesn’t have enough aura to use a shield again
it’s a great chance to strike them. Because of this level erasing can be
another good tactic.(Vicious Balance, Quantum Decay) See the shields
section for more on dealing with shields.(3PD) If worse comes to worse you
can wait for people with Compressors to attack and then counter attack with
your own attack. Note: Any shields you recall will take away from
Compressor’s power. Any shields erased from your spawn point don’t count
towards Compressor’s power. You don’t actually have to use shields to add
to
the power of compressor, you just have to pick it up and have it leave your
hand. You can play the environmentals Athena's Command or Forest Sanctuary
to stop a Compressor from being useable.
Bravery Decision - These decks usually are quick. You pick up some aura
and
burn through your arsenal with Bravery Decision mainly so you can use
skills
that require you to have 7 or less skills to use (Excalibur, Rail Gun,),
and
Cluster Bomb). There are many variations on this idea but they usually
revolve around those 3 skills in some way and removing the aura you didn’t
pick up from your arsenal. Dazzle is often used as a stun move to follow
up
with Rail Gun. Rail Gun is also good to use as a reactionary attack or if
you
maually aim it. Firing it a lot can eventually catch opponents to. Its
also
great on distracted opponents. Cluster Bomb is probably the hardest bomb
to
dodge especially with some extra homing.(the speed can throw people off
trying to block it) Excalibur is perhaps the most accurate sword in the
game and has high power. The major short coming is that if you fail with
these skills you don’t have many options left in your arsenal. Anything
that
lowers your level or erases your skills and capsules can be fatal.(hence
the
name Bravery Decision) It would be wise to carry an Orb or Amulet and
perhaps an environmental eraser. Or you could take your chances and not do
that. Shield Erasers and strength boosters are also useful for breaking
opponent’s shields. You don’t want to end up losing to an opponent just
because they had Fortress of Iron or Psychic Wall. These can use other
moves
besides just the 3 bravery based skills, but that is usually why you will
use
Bravery Decision.
Capsule Erasers - These arsenals try to erase your opponents' capsules down
to 0 so that they will probably die from it.(you lose 1 life every few
seconds
with 0 skills left in your arsenal) Oftentimes these arsenals carry a good
amount of erase shields and similar measures to dealing with Compressor
decks
work well. While just about any arsenal can use Diabolical Trick, these
arsenals usually make extensive use of capsule popping/altering skills like
Violent Change, Change the World, Particle Convert, and Evaporate. Recall
and often Relearn are a big part of these arsenals. If you can keep your
opponent’s level down you could really screw with their strategy if they
rely
on Recall. A good offense can also overwhelm opponents not well equipped
to
defend. If your opponent has no attacks you can basicly wait around for
them
to use something like Violent Change and attack in reaction. These
arsenals
can be a pretty good defense against Memory Lapse arsenals. You should
make
sure you have something that can effect someone in some way.(Erase,Damage,
Stun) If you don’t have anything but capsule erasers, a person with
Regenerate or Play Dead can force a tie by casting the skill and standing
there regenerating life forever.(It regenerates at the same speed you lose
life so they can’t die.) Reincarnation is a solid attack to deal with
this.
It’s really a good idea to have a few attacks anyway, as a deterrent. You
can also hurt people who intend to erase your own capsules with something
like Diabolical Trick. Be careful about erasing opponents in Battle
Royale,
you will often be triple teamed so sometimes its best to sit back and let
people use up their skills till you think you can get away with some
capsule
erasing. If they see a lot of purple in your hand or know that your
Recalling without really doing anything to anyone they can become
suspicious.
Whether you intend to use Accelerate to speed up erasing or not people
usually
think your going to erase them when you play it and it can encourage them
to triple team. One neat thing I saw a Recall Violent change deck do was the
player raised their speed to high levels and kept Calling their capsules
with
Call with Accelerate down as well. They basically out ran the opponent and
hid behind stuff while freely picking up new capsules and eventually erasing
the opponent to death.
Erase Based Arsenals - These arsenals obviously pack a lot of skills that
erase. Some combinations of skills that work well together are Lack and
Heat from the Void. Some of the best ways of dealing with erase arsenals
are
to use Orb or Amulet. The environmental Commandments can buy you time as
well. On the other hand using the environmental Chaos will ensure you get
past Orb and Amulet. If Orb is the only real problem you can use Stagnant
Air. Any effects that freeze an opponent’s buttons also works in stopping
orb or amulet. If your arsenal uses cheaper skills you won’t have to worry
as much about getting your level erased from these arsenals. Course
shields
can deal with dragon slayers which often combo in erase moves. See the
additional skill details for dealing with Disremember. Holding on to aura
particles can protect against some of Heat from the Void’s damage.(you
still
take some damage with 4 slots filled if someone has any strength buffs)
You could tie the nature or ki based erase attacks well in these arsenals.
(Storm Blade, Lightning Sword, Dragon Punch) Orb and Amulet does not stop
their erase effects.
Vicious Balance/Quantum Decay Arsenals - These are similar to erase based
arsenals and therefore the same strengths and weaknesses apply. The only
difference is that they focus more on erasing your level and you can’t
dodge
these moves. Vicious Balance arsenals often use mostly low cost skills.
Its
helpful to have a skill that lowers your level in it like Rebirth,
Downcast,
or Mist Blade in case someone level berserks or quantum amps you. If you
notice your opponent has a purple skill and only has 2 aura in hand and
isn’t
really doing anything else, there’s a good chance that he’s going to use
Vicious Balance. If he’s holding on to aura particles or not actually
gaining
level with them he’s probably also using it. If they don’t have a lot of
aura and keep using skills that lower their level that is another sign that
their going to use it.You may also see a quantum decay arsenal using
similar
tactics in not doing anything and not picking up much aura. Quantum Decay
arsenals may also use Level Boost to offset the amount of aura they lose
from
it. Aside from Orb/Amulet, you can wait or hold on to aura particles to
not
be effected as badly. Chaos will wreck many Vicious Balance arsenals
because
skills that cost 2 or less can’t be used.(putting a crush or return to
Nature
in is recommended. Some attacks that require you to have 2 or less aura
can
fit well in Vicious Balance decks. If you play Optimization and bring
yourself
down to 1 aura you can reduce everyone down to 1. You’ll also want to
pick up
the Optimization afterwards though. Optimization can make much level
erasing
insignificant. You could also play boost mine on the ground and then step
on
it after using Vicious Balance.
Recall + Relearn/Recollection style decks - There are some arsenals that
revolve around using a skill over and over repeatedly. Recall + Relearn
and
Recollection(for attacks) make it possible for you to use special one use
kind of moves over and over. Ever wonder how your opponent keeps turning
Invisible or how they keep firing Agonies of Death and Impact Burst at you
over and over? It is very likely that they are using some form of Recall,
Relearn, or Recollection to keep doing it. It is also possible that they
are
using similar types of moves like Demon’s Wing and Optical Camo which both
make a person invisible. Giga Ruin can be a pesky move for someone to keep
having to deal with over and over. Another idea often used is to Frostbite
all of an opponent’s buttons. If you ever wanted to be able to use a
certain
move over and over this is the best way to do it by yourself. Note that
Recollection doesn’t have any of the penalties or requirements to be used.
I.e. a Judge of Anubis Recollected won’t cause you to lose 3 life and
Agonies of Death can be Recollected(used by it) if you have more than 7
life.
(when it normally couldn’t)
Support Styles - These are arsenals that probably aren’t going to do that
great on their own. They play more of a supportive role in combat, perfect
for tag. They involve using moves that help your teammate out which can
include moves like Friendship, Alleviate, and Level Berserk. You can use
Doppleganger to copy the stat boosts you gave to a teammate. Another
approach
is to serve as more of a distraction, such as going invisible and firing
Decoy at an opponent while your teammate goes after your disoriented
opponent.
Decoy by itself will work fine too. Other stun moves like Dazzle and
Paralyze can fit well here. Annoying gifting good skills to a teammate or
bad ones to opponents are other potential routes you can follow.
Dance of Death/Crystallization, Bundled Blaster and Bundled Laser- These
skills do X damage based on the strength of a type of certain skills you
have.
(Close attacks for DOD, piece moves for Crystallization, etc.) Basically
you’ll want to pick moves that make these moves powerful. Dance of Death
and
3 swift blows for example or Bundled Blaster and 3 Vibration Blasters.
Some
of these styles are easier to use than others. Being invisible or having a
distracted opponent can make something like Dance of Death easier to pull
off.
You might want to consider the skill Commandments to protect against erase
moves as you could be running around without shields while using these
moves.
Mephisto’s Pact can make picking the most powerful attacks to go with your
skill easier. The biggest weaknesses of DOD is it is not the hardest skill
to dodge in the world.(doing it from far close range is more effective
though.)
While Bundled Blaster and Laser have good accuracy they can be harder to
set
up and are one time use. Crystallization is decent for accuracy but can be
reasonably cartwheeled.(jumpers can’t dodge it) The biggest drawback to
all
these types are that for them to be at their most powerful you can’t have
any defensive moves in your hand. This leaves you open to all sorts of
erase
and attack moves if you decide to make them as powerful as possible.
Whether
you choose a cartwheeler or jumper you will still have some attack types
that
you are weaker against and will be open to without defenses. You sometimes
can’t do a whole lot besides utilize the main move. On the plus side you
can
have good start up times for some powerful moves.
0 cost arsenals - As the name implies these arsenals have no cost skills
only.
You need no aura in your arsenals and use skills that cost only 0 to use.
Trance and Rebirth will help you greatly. Shields and certain other defenses
can be a great weakness to this arsenal as most 0 cost moves besides
Agonies of Death can be blocked/erased easily. The greatest asset is that
level erasing means squat to you and you don’t have to worry about being
aura
screwed on a draw. This can work pretty well in tag especially if paired
with a teammates Vicious Balance arsenal.(it will drop everyone else to
0 level)
Vibration Arsenals - Get your level up to 10 or more to use powerful
attacks
that require 10 or more aura. The biggest downside is getting and staying
at
Level 10. Orb will be very useful in this arsenal. You may also notice
that
certain moves like Laser and Blaster with a tiger’s strength are almost as
good as their vibration versions. Still, you can walk out of Laser but not
Vibration Laser without jumping or wheeling. Optimization is sometimes
favored
in these arsenals but are not a must. El Bomb combined with Vibration
Blaster
can also work well to throw opponents off. Level Amps, Quantum Amps and
Boost Mines with Level Boost or Level Berserk can help get you up to and
stay at 10 aura more easily.
Optimization Arsenals - While there’s no definitive one’s there are
certain
skills that are expensive and become much more convenient to use with
Optimization down. Besides using powerful expensive skills more quickly it
becomes easy to use other moves over and over. The basic idea is to
overwhelm your opponent with the large number of attacks you are using.
Taking an opponent’s Optimization can help change the tide of the match.
Overwhelming an opponent with your own attacks while Optimization is down
can also help. Lowering an opponent’s level can also make it more
difficult
for someone to succeed with more expensive skills while Optimization is
down.
Expensive but powerful combos become that much easier to do when this skill
is down as well. The biggest downside is there are many other arsenals
that
can benefit from Optimization being down. This can make an opponent who
has
low aura more capable than if you didn’t have it down, so sometimes your
better off not using it if you think your opponent had a bad hand. It is
usually a bad idea to play Optimization when 2 opponents are alive in tag
and
your teammate is dead. Take it down if you can when you need to get to your
teammate. I don't know how many times I've had a teammate die insisting on
leaving it out while they try to pick me up. It is much easier to get to
an
opponent when your opponents have a more limited amount of shots to take at
you.
Floating Environmental Arsenals - These arsenals all greatly benefit from
having an environmental out especially if it is floating so it can’t be
grabbed. Carrying Orb will make it very hard for the environmental to be
erased.(except Chaos and Stagnant Air) Freezing someone before you erase
their environmental is a useful tactic in stopping Orb. Some
Environmentals
that are good candidates to float are Memory Lapse, Reduce Entropy,
Irregular
Rhythm, Fatigue, Chaos and Forest Sanctuary. Depending on your arsenal you
can be severely hurt by someone using these moves. Have no skills that
cost
less than 3, then you can’t do anything with that arsenal while Reduce
Entropy
is down. Have only skills with 2 or less aura while Chaos is down and you
can’t do anything. Floating arsenals greatest strength is that they
cripple
many arsenals and there are few things if any that certain arsenals can do
when an Environmental is permanently down. Floating Environmental arsenals
are
usually tailored to get around the penalties of the environmental they
play.
Memory Lapse - use Reincarnation retain moves or Recall. Locked skill
buttons are another option. Be careful when you use your now single use
skills.
Reduce Entropy - Use mostly skills that cost 2 or less only.
Irregular Rhythm/Fatigue - Use cheap or X cost skills that you can use over
and over with a strength boost. i.e. Ki Cannon, Ki Palm, Lingering Flame.
Forest Sanctuary - Use debilitating shields like Glacial Wall and 3 or less
damage dealing moves.
Having an anti environmental skill like Judgement is very useful in dealing
with these arsenals. A quick rush is sometimes enough to stop these
arsenals
from winning. They are often much less effective without their
environmental
out. See the floating environmentals section on more ways to thwart
hanging
environmentals.(5PD)
Blazing Arsenals - Has at least some nature skills that require 15 or more
life. Blazing Sword, Bullet, and Storm are your choices. These skills are
strong and inexpensive. The biggest weakness is keeping your self at 15
life. Healing moves and life gaining attacks work well here. Erase or
strong defense shields help keep you up on life. These work best jumping
the
gun on an opponent before their really quite ready. Its wise to have a few
other moves besides blazing attacks.
Freezing Button Arsenals - The focus is mostly on using skills that freeze
an
opponent’s buttons over and over.(Glacial Wall, Ice Sword) These arsenals
are pretty powerful. There are not too many moves that freeze though.
Purify(from a teammate) and Necominicon can help negate a lot of the
freezing
that goes on.
Suicide Arsenals - There are many powerful skills that cost life to use as
well as some that only work or are good when your life is low. These
arsenals are pretty strong and can sometimes reward you for getting hurt a
lot. These skills are often low cost to use too. The drawback is you can
get killed in the process. A well defended opponent can be particularly
punishing. And for each time you miss with these attacks your hurting
yourself. Its usually a good idea to have some attacks that won’t deal
damage to you when used. Skills that erase shields function well here.
Joke of Anubis can obliterate you if your not careful. Having something to
increase your strength like Trance or Tiger’s Strength can make these
attacks a lot more effective. Luring your opponent into firing attacks
that
will miss you is a good way of hurting suicide arsenals.
"Rush" Arsenals - I hesitate to call this even an arsenal because no matter
what arsenal you're using you want to do whatever you're going to do as
quickly
as possible. Perhaps what makes a rush arsenal different is that it focuses
on using more lower cost skills to hit as quickly as possible. While
something
like a Vibration or Compressor arsenal takes more time to build up its
power.
"Rush" arsenals are intended to strike an opponent as quickly as possible.
Usually this will involve using some powerful and cheap cost moves or using
some cheap cost moves with stat buffing moves like Trance or Tiger's
Strength.
Moves like Flame Sword can be a lot more devastating when it only takes 4
hits
to kill someone. Sky Pursuit/Pursuit and Backdraft Bullet can really stack
damage on an opponent in tag pretty quickly. Other moves like Vacuum Slash
or Psycho Spear can do a lot of damage for little cost. The Faith School
has
numerous cheap skills that are especially powerful with Trance or Tiger's
Strength. A perfect example is Fire of Gehenna which is impossible for a
jumper to dodge without a move. With Trance it only takes 3 hits to wipe
an
opponent out. By taking the low cost skill route you can harass an
opponent
continually in the beginning. Blazing arsenal skills are another good
rush style type example. Perhaps the biggest advantage of rush arsenals is
that when your skills set up right you can really take huge advantage of
someone who started the match with a not so great hand. Possibly wiping
them
out before they can even do anything. Some rush builds can also benefit
from Mephisto's Pact because it makes it a lot easier to get a certain
combination of moves together. Ways of dealing with rushes are often to
have
something to fight back with early on or a good defense. Sometimes just
lasting long enough early on is enough to turn the tide for you later in
the
match. Try to keep a level head and focus on avoiding the attacks when you
can't do anything else. A Psycho Spear can do a lot of damage but if your
ready you can usually avoid a psycho spear without issue. Dodging attacks
and using stall tactics are crucial. There are different approaches to how
you can try to "rush" an opponent. You can be more single minded and
count on
just a few sets of moves to take out an opponent or you can mix up the
skills
to vary the ways in which you strike an opponent. Relying on a single set
of
moves is perhaps the quickest way to rush but if it fails you're probably
not
going to win the match. The right "rush" can be a strange balancing act.
If
you don't carry much defense you'll leave yourself open but if you focus
too
much on trying to defend yourself against certain things your deck becomes
less of a rush deck. That's not to say that it isn't worth it. Unless you
want to go absolutely all or nothing with your strategy you will want at
least
some things to defend against. The biggest strength is these arsenals
quick
start ups give you a chance of hitting an opponent when their most
vulnerable
and perhaps less focused than if they had what they needed to work with in
their hand. Of course if your early rush fails than you may have a weaker
strategy to work with. But if you have a siginificant back up plan does
that
not mean your deck has lost some of its rushing ability for the sake of
a kind of "balance"? Thanks to El Davio for mentioning the concept.
"Single" Death Shot Arsenals - These arsenals involve setting up a powerful
move or powerful combination of moves in order to nearly guarantee your
opponent’s death. Some prime candidates for this are Finisher, Judge of
Anubis, or 2 Gravity Presses with +2 strength. The best ones are usually
designed to have a quick start up time, and have a good way of trapping an
opponent so that you can easily set up an open shot on them that will take
them out completely. There are many ways you can go about trapping an
opponent or making your moves work.(Including stun moves, environmentals,
mine traps, berserk for piercing, etc.) The biggest drawback to these
arsenals is if you don’t have a back up plan and you mess up in your
attempt
to finish an opponent off. Even if you do have a back up plan you’ll
probably have a weaker arsenal compared to a more standard one because you
dedicated so much space to trying to finish off an opponent in one blow.
If you go all or nothing with the concept you’ll have a quicker start up
time
but failure to succeed will practically be death for you. Try to think of
what might hinder you from pulling off your finishing combination and put
skills in that deal with those problems.
The greatest appeal to these arsenals is perhaps the fact that you can get
beaten up pretty badly and totally clinch the match with a single well
timed
shot. If you have an opponent who keeps predictably firing a move at you
over and over, you could even try to just fire your finishing attack at
them
at the same time to take the match. These arsenals will teach you the
lesson
not to be careless even if you are winning by a lot.
Annoying Gift Arsenals - Annoying Gift has been changed in the update to
be
infinite use. Note that annoying gift does not remove the skills you give
to
someone from your hand, it copies it into an opponent’s hand.(Except for
the
button pressed to use annoying gift)
These aresenals involve you giving an opponent a skill that’s mostly bad
for
them. Sometimes trigger is used to make them use it. Annoying Gifting a
Guardian Angel to someone while you have Ki Palm and then hitting them over
and over so they automatically lose life is among the better uses of these
kind of arsenal themes. Unfortunately it is possible for opponents to
escape
from the stun.(maybe due to lag...) Other things like Lingering Flame are
possible too. If you jump and fire lingering flame you won't pause if your
opponent manages to break the stun and hit you, if they are on the ground
you'll probably be able to stun more because Guardian Angel doesn't halt
a player who's in the air. The only truly flaw free version would probably
involve using Rapid Cannon over and over, which unfortunately requires a
lot
of aura and if you use Optimization there's a good chance you'll be spammed
to death carrying your own Guardian Angel. (Gifting the Guardian Angel and
successfully stunning someone continually is kind of similar to the
"single" death shot idea) An opponent jumper could even take the risk jump
as you gift them so that they fall down and then use whatever move you were
going to use on them on you.
Another popular annoying gift combo is to give an opponent Bravery Decision
and Rebirth and then trigger both buttons so all the persons aura is removed
from their deck and their level is reduced to 0. To avoid being triggered
jump when hit by Trigger. Even if the skill can be done in the air you’ll
just fall and not do it. With Annoying Gift You could also try to give them
locked skill button moves like Orb. You could go as far as to Frostbite
the
one button they still don’t have a lock on. Then your opponent can’t do
anything. In tag you can pick someone up on one of the locked buttons and
remove the skill from your hand. There are some other tricky but difficult
tactics you can use with these sometimes.(Give everyone Blessed Rain over
and
over till they get low on skills and then erase them. Give them a Judge of
Anubis and pick up a shield that reverses it back at them. Try to trigger
it
if your lucky)
Surprise Arsenals - These are arsenals that in some ways don’t make much
sense to an opponent. You could put moves in that are contradictory.
Like playing with both a Reduce Entropy and Chaos or an Optimization and
Irregular Rhythm. Bascially your arsenal appears to do one thing but it
actually has another thing going on that it can do. To get around both
Chaos
and Reduce Entropy you can mix skills in that work under a different
condition.(Recollection is actually a cool way of making skills that cost
more than 3 work under Reduce Entropy) Your opponent could run through his
arsenal picking up skills that cost 2 or less to deal with Reduce Entropy
and
then you could pick it up only to play Chaos and make them have to return
to
their spawn to try to find a new set of skills with cost of 3 or more.
With
Optimization and Irregular Rhythm you could appear to be relying on
Optimization to use moves and then later bust out Irregular Rhythm much to
your opponent’s surprise. You could even Vicious Balance everyone down to
2
late in a match even though you appeared to be using an arsenal relying on
a
high level. Obviously the best strength of this arsenal type is the
unpredictability it can have. But since you’re working around 2 different
approaches it can be difficult to be as focused since some moves you use
won’t work as well under the different conditions you set.
Mix Arsenals - These arsenals take a variety of skills and puts them
together to try to handle a variety of situations. Variety can make you
harder to predict, but sometimes these arsenals lack enough focus to make
them powerful. At the same time you may not get the skill you want for a
certain situation when you need it. But when you do get them they work
nicely. These arsenals are a great way to learn to use moves your less
familiar with and sometime discover new combos of moves.
Mobilize/Teleport Arsenals - There are some powerful tricks you can do with
these arsenals. Rather than go into great detail of these here, go to the
"All the other things you didn’t know about in Phantom Dust"
section.(21PD)
Go to the end of it and you’ll see the part about tricks with Teleport,
Mobilize, and Teleportrap.
Chill Breeze loop arsenals - This could be a very powerful and crippling
tag
arsenal but I have not seen it successfully used in practice. I’ve only
had
a few cracks at the idea and it will take some skill between partners in
setting it up continually. The basic idea is to Annoying Gift Chill Breeze
and Neutralization to a teammate over and over. Your teammate casts Chill
Breeze and you shoot Neutralization at him so he becomes unfrozen. He
shoots
you with Neutralization to unfreeze you and you give him Chill Breeze again
all the while your opponents' are still frozen. The tricky part is using a
skill to hurt your opponents in the small span of time you have before
freezing them again and again. But if you use your head, it has a very
fast
start up time. Making it hard to stop from starting. Opponents might be
able to counter the trick by running into Annoying Gift and getting their
own
Neutralization or shooting the gifter every time he tries to use Annoying
Gift. They might be able block the gifting by running in between the 2
players
They can't run into Neutralization though because if you use a lock on shot
on a teammate it will go right through the opponent. See this thread for
more details if your that interested:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5693
Read through the thread because it covers both the strengths and weaknesses
of it. One other weakness not listed is actually a hung Backdraft. If the
Chill Breeze users can't get rid of Backdraft they won't be able to freeze
people over and over for very long. Some other hung enviros can also trump
the deck so make sure you throw in an anti enviro skill for this.
Phantom Dust(the skill) arsenals: See these 2 threads for two basic ideas
around the skill:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3242
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4309 -
This may require a little reading through to totally understand the idea.
Another idea with Phantom Dust, is you can erase people to death after
casting
Phantom Dust several times since it doesn’t recover erased skills. Its
inefficient but its one way of doing it. You might be able to get away
with
tricking some players into thinking you’re a fairly harmless person casting
Phantom Dust. These arsenals usually work best on people who don’t think
your using Phantom Dust for any real purpose. Holding onto aura particles
before someone is going to cast Phantom Dust is one way of avoiding level
loss.
(effective in dealing with the other 2 concepts in the threads) Taking
down
Optimization will make Phantom Dust harder to do and will stop some of the
tricks that are involved with it.(especially the 2 threads’ concepts)
You’ll
usually know when someone is going to use this skill since it’s the only
skill
that costs so much.(99 or 45 with Optimization) Use Level Boosts/Berserk
and
then Graceful Woods to get high in aura to use it. This is a lot easier to
do with some level berserk or tag team assistance. Annoying gift can help.
(See the "All the other things you didn’t know about in Phantom Dust"
section
for some more details on the skill).
Sign of Saints - Thanks to El Davio for bringing this one up.
Its an arsenal that revolves around on the skill Sign of Saints. This skill
is at its most powerful when you have no other skills in hand. Some
approaches to making it stronger is to use stat boosting moves like Lunar
Force or Heat. Keep in mind holding onto Tiger's Strength or Trance will
lower the quality of Sign of Saints by 2. Although the skills accuracy is
pretty good already boosting your homing can make it harder to deal with.
A big plus to this move is that its a locked skill button so it can't be
erased. Since Sign of Saints works best with less skills in hand single use
moves can be convenient to use. Another possibility is to use Calamity with
Sign Of Saints, you basically can take a shot at erasing all your
opponents'
skills and free up room for Sign of Saints.(Sign of Saints is uneraseable)
Be careful for Heat from the Void and Vacuum Palm because they can deal a
lot
of damage to you if your only holding onto Sign of Saints. If you have more
than one Sign of Saints in your arsenal make sure that you don't start the
match with 2 in hand. Having 2 locked buttons can be a real problem. One
way
to avoid this problem is to put one Sign of Saints in and put in 1 or 2
Mephisto's Pacts to pick up the one Sign of Saints in your deck. Keep in
mind though that if your one Sign of Saints is erased from your spawn you
won't be able to get it back even with Mephisto's Pact. If you play tag
it is possible to pick up a teammate with a locked skill button if your Sign
of Saints isn't considered useful enough in the match. Since Sign of Saints
is uneraseable it can also be a good move just to harass or distract an
opponent with over and over. Some useful environmentals can be Berserk
and
Lunar Force. Traveling Thought is another possibility but keep in mind that
you will also be vulnerable to high homing attacks with just Sign of Saints
in your hand.
Copy Cat Arsenals - These arsenals usually revolve around either Thieving
Imp, Learning or Copy. You basically throw back at your opponent what
they've done to you or steal their strategy with Thieving Imp. These
arsenals
can be fun and I did manage to build an ok one yet there are some big
disadvantages to them. While Thieving Imp will at least deprive someone
of their skill, the move you steal could be useless to you. The Memory of
Battle you Copied or Stole won't be nearly as useful as the one your
opponent could be using. Learning can't learn a move that breaks its
shield.
Because of this you're almost better off playing with a strategy of your
own.
There are some tricks you can do that are fun though with this deck style.
You can learn someone's attack and then Erase their attack with another
shield the next time they fire at you. If you use Invulnerability you can
copy an attack move without taking damage. Since Copy costs 0 it can be a
good surprise effect. Copy also has no restrictions so you could do Agonies
of Death at full life. You can also have a teammate fire at you for
learning.
note: You can't delete a currently dead player's capsules with Theiving
Imp.
You maybe able to Recall Thieving Imp or you might end up recalling the
skill
stolen instead.(I am not sure which one you will get when you play online)
You can relearn thieving imp after stealing a capsule online. For some
bizarre reason this does not work offline.(Relearning a Thieving Imp)
Thanks
to Cbreeze420 for bringing this idea up.
"Anti Everything" Arsenals - Is a term that some people give to arsenals
designed to try to stop more troubling things an opponent can do, such as
hung
environmentals, level erase, stat buffs, defenses, and pesky special moves
like dash, and of course attacks. In many ways these kinds of arsenals are
part of what I've already talked about in dealing with specific issues in
the
game. However, they try to deal with all the possible issues. In reality
they can't truly do that but their designed to possibly be able to stop
troublesome moves an opponent has. Examples are the use of Turbulence and
Wind pressure to stop people using things like enviros, erase, and
special/status skills. They also carry skills that erase environmentals
that
are out. They may carry Diabolical Trick as an alternative way to kill
bothersome players who flee everything or just keep blocking with shields.
To avoid level erase they will have orb or amulet in them. They should
have
a mixed arrangement of low cost and high cost moves to avoid trouble with
Reduce Entropy or Chaos. (Reduce Entropy is usually more difficult and
found)
They have skills that either reset or reverse status effects on people.
You may have an environmental put in to stop someone else from putting their
own out. While these decks can have a nice balanced feel to them,
depending on how far you go to be "anti everything" your offense can be
underwhelming or you'll find yourself with skills in situations that don't
need them. For example you can have a Turbulence and your opponent
hasn't picked up anything eraseable by it yet. It becomes dead weight.
Another example, you can have an orb in your hand but your opponent hasn't
used any erase moves yet. Defensively the player will also use moves that
try to stop particular weaknesses their characters have. Reincarnation is
another popular move in these kinds of decks because of its reuseablity
against erase shields. However, its very hard if impossible to be truly
anti
everything. If the skill you need to stop what your opponent's doing is at
the bottom of your deck it won't do much good. However, if your deck is
designed in general to deal with certain problems like Reduce Entropy you
won't have as many problems with it. And sometimes the best way to stop
someone's strategy is to beat him to it with your own strategy rather
than try to have something to stop every possibility. With that being said
there's still a lot of good in putting at least some of the things
mentioned
in "anti everything" decks into other decks. Thanks to Cbreeze420 for
bringing this idea up.
Theme Arsenals - A lot of arsenals are listed but there are many other
possibilities which can be based around certain themes. Skills that use
mixed speed attacks, use only crawlers, only blades, rain etc. etc. Try to
put moves together that compliment each other. Ex. Joke of Anubis with
moves
that keep your life higher than your opponent. The combos sections and
"All the other things you didn’t know about in Phantom Dust" sections have
some more ideas and details for arsenal concepts.
20PD Combos section - Many skills are more effective when used together.
While
this section was originally going to cover ways of just stunning someone
and
following up with attacks it has gone on to try to connect ways in which
skills interact well with each other. Many stun combos will not work if a
player jumps in the air to cancel the stun effect. This list often tries to
be general in saying what a combo is if there are many skills that can do
the
same thing. Some mixtures of skills will give better results than others.
Combo types
Dragon Slayer + any combination of moves that can hit in time(i.e. Lack,
Fire Of Gehenna)
Shield Breaker + any move that can hit in time(i.e. Flame Sword, Photon
Burst)
Move that knocks someone down(Psycho Spear) + any move that hits someone
while
their down(Gravity Press, Pursuit, Backdraft Bullet etc.) Keep in mind
that being knocked down includes falling from the sky so you can shoot
someone
with backdraft bullet after they fly in the sky from twister, or fall from
the sky from a move like Judgment. Thanks to Locke for mentioning this.
stat buffs like Tiger's Strength + Multiple Hit moves
like Ricochet Laser or Double Lasers - each bullet created by these attacks
get's +x damage. I.e. each Tiger's Strengthed Ricochet Laser does 4 per
hit.
Thanks to GaiaProton for this listing.
Irregular Rhythm + Psycho Kinesis maybe Power - If you play Irregular
Rhythm
down Psycho Kinesis actually will do more damage with the objects it throws.
Its strange but it works. I was told Power also works but the few tests I
did
it didn't seem to work like Psycho Kinesis did, so see for yourself with
that.
Thanks to GaiaProton for this find.
Any Erase skill that effects someone and results in a stun effect + a move
quick enough to follow up and hit.
Any Status or Special Skill that has an automatic stun effect(Dazzle, Level
Berserk)+ a move quick enough to follow up.
Moves which are intended to stun or paralyze(Still Moment, Paralyze) + a
move
that can follow up and hit in time.
Greedy Spirit + Any combination of moves that can connect in time.
(May not work if person has 0 aura.)
Decoy + Purify or Neutralization - Give them the Decoy effect and then
Purify
or Neutralize them for a stun effect.
Slow moving attack + Faster moving attack - to catch an opponent off guard
or create hard to dodge situations. Sometimes the first attack can be
blocked or dodged but the second is impossible to block with slow recovery
time shields.
Attacks that erase(opponent must have something that can be erased when hit
to be stunned, like level, shields, or an attack)
i.e. Storm Blade + another move that can follow up in time.
(even storm blade again)
Attack that staggers an opponent and is followed up by another attack quick
enough.(there is usually ways to dodge the second move so its not a combo
in
the truest sense but it can often be successful if one attack connects and
the
other follows. Sometimes the placement of your opponent puts them in a
hard
to defend situation) An example is Laser Blade + Photon Burst.
Using 2 Swords with one that swings to the right and one to the
left.(makes it
harder to tell which way for someone to dodge)
example: Flame Sword + Blazing Sword.
use a Hole attack + Digestion get free life and protection.
(i.e. Earthquake + Digestion) Combine this
with -1 attack(Holy Ray can do this) and you can do it over and over.
Hole Move and Absorb Energy(get extra aura. With Optimization +
Earthquake +
Absorb Energy you can continue to cast Earth Quake over and over much
more)
Blocking Earthquake recovers the aura spent.
Slow moving attack or Rain + Frighten (stuns an opponent to keep them in
place.
You can jump in the air to negate Frightens effect)
Dance of Death and 3 Swift Blows = 21 Damage
Dance of Death 2 Swift Blows + Pursuit/Sky Pursuit, follow up with
Pursuit/Sky Pursuit on downed opponent= 20 Damage
Dance of Death, 2 Swift Blows + Splashdown +1 extra attack power = 20 damage
Graceful Woods + Finisher (be able to do finisher quickly. Some stun moves
like pin down or entangle, give you enough time to cast graceful woods and
follow up with Finisher)
Reduce Entropy floated + Shatter + Eliminate (stops all decks with no
skills
less than 2 aura)
Steal Power + Finisher(potentially can take someone's aura and have enough
to
finish them while their stunned)
For Tag, Annoying Gift + Bravery Decision + Rebirth to an opponent. Have
teammate use Trigger on both those buttons and opponent will have all aura
removed from their deck and their hand.
Recall + Relearn + Recollection quickest way to use same single use
attacks
over and over.
Recall + Relearn = Ways of using a certain skill over and over.
(Violent Change)
Expensive attack + Recollection - A way of tricking someone into thinking
you
couldn’t cast a move again.(i.e. Person who comes in close after you just
used
Photon Burst assuming they won’t have to deal with it when you only have 2
aura)
Fatigue with 0 cost or charge up attacks that do X damage with a strength
booster. Can overwhelm an opponent if you keep firing at them to force
them
to move.
Bravery Decision and moves that require 7 or less skills left in your
arsenal
to use.
Mobilize + Mine at your start point. - Chance to hit all opponents with a
mine. If you use Mobilize at the edge off a platform you ou can avoid
being
teleported if the move causes you to step of the ledge.
Mobilize + Auto Shield + Mine at your the spot of Mobilization grants you
protection from your mine and a chance to follow up. Something like
Anti Gravity trap can stun your opponent long enough to follow up with a
move
while your shield protected you from the mine.(Something like Judge of
Anubis
can work great sometimes on the stunned opponent.) Protecting Air seems
to be able to work with other mine stun effects in time because it doesn't
halt your actions like other ones. Note: Sometimes stun mines knock
people
over. Some mines may run into less problems than others. Vapor Cloud is
another stun possibility but it has given me more problems when I've tried.
Tag Combo - Mobilize + well timed Dance of Death or Disentegrate or
Calamity.
Can teleport everyone over into a Dance of Death or under a Disentegrate.
(see extra details section to understand why these work as combos.)
Forest Sanctuary + Glacial Wall and other low defense shields = cheap hard
to break shields with good effects.
Athena's Command + Moves that lower a persons attack power - Will greatly
reduce the amount of attacks they can use on you and will make them much
easier to erase.
Memory Lapse floated + Recall + Locked Skills + Skills that retain
themselves.
(Photon Barrier, Reincarnation) - All let you continue to use skills while
your opponent runs out of them.
Floated Environmental + Orb - Very hard to erase environmental. Memory
Lapse
and Orb are the roughest to erase.
Chill Breeze + Neutralization in tag + Annoying Gift - you can keep
repeating
the freeze over and over. A team mate casts Chill Breeze, as its cast you
shoot neutralization. He can now do stuff while everyone else is frozen.
He
could neutralize you and if you have annoying gift you can start the chain
all
over again. Finding another skill to give in combination to be useful is
more
challenging. Violent Change with Recall could work well as could Agonies
of
Death.(the Violent Change scheme requires Optimization)
Twist Laser + Slide Laser - Lasers that hit from the left and right.
Particle Convert + Over Heat
Particle Convert + Evaporate
Particle Convert + Meltdown
Change the World + Violent Change
Shatter + Eliminate = Can pop any opponent capsule when used together.
Mine with effect that stuns + and move quick enough to follow up.
Fast Bomb + Shelter Shields or Dash - makes it easy to avoid the explosion
for jumpers.
Vicious Balance + Tag Teammate at 0 aura - knocks everyone down to 0 aura.
Vicious Balance and moves that lose aura when you use them.
(allows you to go higher than 2 aura while still having a powerful Vicious
Balance)
Call + Retreat - Lets you teleport around the level wherever you place each
capsule.
Call + High Speeds - You can run from your opponent and keep picking up more
things in your deck to help you.
Call + Judgment on Sein high tower ledge - You can pick up your capsules
and keep causing an opponent to fall out of the sky who doesn't have Orb or
Amulet. Parabolas will and arc moves maybe the only moves that can
possibly
hit you from there. You can also do this on Lane but with less successful
results.
Chaos and Erase skills guarantees useable ones will work.
Vicious Balance cast right as Chaos is put out(guarantees it will work)This
can also be done to make any other low cost erase moves work even if
opponent
has orb or amulet.
Chill Breeze + Well timed Environmental Erase skill by a teammate. -
Can erase any Environmental irregardless of Orb or Amulet.
Crystallization + Piece Skills
Bundled Blaster + Blaster Skills
Bundled Laser + Laser Skills
Calamity and Sign of Saints - Power up Sign of Saints and attempt to erase
others' moves.
Annoying Gift + Ki Palm + Guardian Angel - Give the skills to an opponent
and
while their stunned, hit them with Ki Palm over and over.
There are other alternatives like Lingering flame. This trick maybe
escapable
so if you can possibly get rid of your own Guardian Angel make sure to.
Rapid Cannon over and over with enough aura will most likely guarantee a
kill
on your Annoying Gifted opponent.(Rapid Cannon version takes a lot of aura
to
do though)
Trigger a projectile button on opponent + Reverse or Reflect move back at
them.
Glacial Wall and Paralyze Barrier or erase shields are other possibilities.
Trigger a move they wouldn't want to use. Can give them a move they don't
want to use by annoying gift and then picking up trigger. i.e. Bravery
Decision and Rebirth.
Annoying Gift + Fast bomb. Pick up a trigger and try to make them blow
themselves up.( totally gimmicky)
Remote Mine and other mine. Can set off a chain of explosions
Annoying Gift + lock button skills + Frostbite non given button- Can make a
player have less options. Its possible to annoying gift 3 orbs and then
Frostibite your opponents other button basically making them useless.
Optimization and 1 cost skills now cost 0.
Optimization + Angel's Breath and a stat on an opponent equals infinite
stunning.(if they don’t get knocked down by getting pushed off a ledge or
jumping when first hit. You can actually drag someone back your spawn
point doing this if you want) Great if you want a teammate to erase their
capsules or if you want to pick up Finisher and use it on them. You may
run
out of time though before dragging your opponent to your spawn if their not
close enough.
Positive Stat on Opponent + Amaros - To make their stats bad. Usually not
efficient to set up a positive stat to amaros on an opponent.
Entangle + Diabolical Trick. If your opponent is in the right range you
can
pull this off over and over provided you have the aura. (stun them, pop a
capsule while their still stunned, stun them again while they can’t do
anything, pop another capsule. Optimization and a ton of aura is necessary)
Hit All skill that would stun an affected opponent + and an attack timed
right to hit opponent as they get stunned by the all hit skill.
Heat From the Void or Vacuum Palm + Skills that erase skills an opponent
has
on them.
Refresh vs. Chill Breeze. Venom Drip, or Still Moment. If you cast
Refresh
as these moves are about to take effect you can negate them from happening
to
you.
Fairy Ring + Fatique or Desertification or Irregular Rhythm = Bring
everyone
down to 0 aura and make it harder for them to use aura.
Stagnant Air stops orb
Scientism stops amulet.
Attack boosting moves will make X damage charge moves like Ki Cannon
and Gugnir do damage and be used over and over. If you have something like
+2 attack moves, like Heat from the Void will do damage even if your
opponent
has 4 skills in his hand. Aura Leak will do 2 damage as well even if your
opponent has 0 aura.
Stat Buff an opponent or teammate and use Doppleganger to copy their
stats.
If done to an opponent you can follow up with Amaros Watch or Angel's
Breath after you copy their attributes.
Freeze shot + Stat buffs makes it do damage.(it’s a bug of sorts)
Play Dead + Lightning Speed avoids the -5 speed associated with play dead.
Place of Invisibility + All hit Hole attacks. Can cause one opponent that
gets hit to be an easy target. All hit Hole attacks still target invisible
opponents.
Place of Invisibilty as an attack is about to hit an opponent makes
everyone
Invisible except the hit opponent.
Forest Sanctuary and Friendship makes less attacks useable by an opponent.
Forest Sanctuary + Freeze shot + Stat Buffs - Freeze shot bypasses the
restrictions of Forest Sanctuary. Its the only skill that can go above +3
damage when Forest Sanctuary is out..
Charge + Capsule Erasers - move around the level erasing people's stuff.
Charge + Call - Good way of staying on top of someone’s spawn and getting
your own skills still.
Two teammates level batoning each other equals an infinite chain of
aura increase.
Annoying Gift a teammate over and over to use one use moves over and over.
(including aura particles if needed)
Levitate/ Sky walk + Projectiles - can make it harder for opponents to
block
certain attacks.
Skywalk + Increased Gravity - Get around quickly while your opponents have
reduced speeds.
Poison + Backdraft = Two damage per button press.
Backdraft + Orb on opponent + Purify - Can make person take 1 damage for
using orb over and over.(you take 1 from Purify)
Berserk + attacks that have an effect when they hit an opponent.
Lightning Sword that pierces a shield will erase a shield opponent has.
Ice Sword that pierces a shield will freeze their buttons. Crawing Bullet
or
Leg Throw that pierces will knock down an opponent.
Berserk + Powerful attacks like Finisher or Judge of Anubis.
Irregular Rhythm + Cheap costing moves or X damage charge moves when you
have
attack increased. i.e. Ki Cannon and Tiger's Strength.
Optimization and Charge up attacks. - You can do double the amount of
damage.
If you have 10 aura with Optimization down you can do 20 damage instead of
10.
Bloody Ritual + Fusion + an attack after fusing.(attack is optional)
Soul Cage + Erasing an opponent's skills. - Makes them take damage as they
pick up more stuff.
Athena's Command + Freeze Shot = Freeze shot bypasses the rules of damage.
Fast Bomb and -2 attack power= a harder to hit opponent that can knock
himself down for little cost.
Quantum Amp + Boost Mine + Level Berserk + Psycho Burst or other attacks
that rely on a person's Level or aura to deal damage.
Memory of Battle and an arsenal that uses a lot of attack skills.
Compressor and an arsenal that uses a lot of defense skills.
Rebirth and 0 cost arsenals or arsenals that use little aura.
Skills that do damage to yourself + skills that work only if you have 7
or less life.
Invulnerability or Void + Copy - you can be hit by skills and take no
damage
from the skill but still Copy it with Copy and use it.
Necronomicon + Invulnerability or Void - You can avoid the add effects from
hurting you in attacks, so you want get frozen or have a move erased from
Ice Sword or Storm Blade.
Skills that normally do 0 damage + stat buffs.
Auto Capture Skills + Memory of Battle. Use auto capture skills to raise
the strength of Memory of Battle and continue to pick up more skills
quickly.
Auto capture can pick up skills from your arsenal even when none are at your
spawn.
Skills that lower your level( like Mist Blade, Downcast) + skills that
require you to have 2 or less Level to use(Swift Punch)
Lunar Force down + Martial Arts Scroll + Recollected Muramasa Blade +
Sky Pursuit
= 21 damage combo for 6. There are many better combos out there but hey I
was just trying to make Martial Arts Scroll useful. Its also a good
example
of thinking about how to manipulate numbers to get certain results. Trance
and Stimulate or two heats could be more effective though.
Person with a single school arsenal with very high aura regen + Crush -
Can keep opponent’s with lower aura Regen + Orb from getting above 2 aura.
Timer Mine + Mobilize + Dance of Death combo - This one's stupid but may
finally provide a decent use of Timer Mine. Place the Timer Mine cast
Mobilize by it so you blow yourself up and don't get teleported into your
partner's Dance of Death or whatever move you want to nail other opponents
with. The Timer Mine is one alternative to using auto shields or Mobilizing
off a ledge. If you can do this trick with Remote Mine than use that
instead
but I haven't tested it.
21PD All the other things you didn’t know about in Phantom Dust.
This is just a list of things that highlights mistranslations of skills,
things you might not know about skills, or things that don’t really make
much
sense but work in the game.
Necrominicon - There has been much confusion about this skill. Forget the
translation. What the skill actually does is it only takes away the add
effect on ATTACK skills.(red moves) You’ll stop attack skills from having
piercing, erase effects, or freeze effects, and possibly auto capture
effects
and life gaining effects when this is down. This can also stop
Reincarnation
and Arrow of Artemis from recovering itself.
Freeze Shot - If you boost your strength up this skill will do damage even
though it is not an Attack skill.(red) Its due to an oversight in
programming.
Because of this, the skill can be a pretty good way of dealing with or
overwhelming erase shields.
Manual Aim Projectiles go Through Course shields - Manually aimed
projectiles
go through course shields. If the shield is Reverse you won’t get hit by
the
Reversed projectile unless you really try to line yourself up with it.
Same
applies with shields that Reflect.(manual shots reflected won’t hit you)
Dazzle - If you are hit by this skill you can still see what buttons do
what.
(so you don’t have to guess what’s been scrambled to what) If you press in
the direction of your control pad(not the analog) you can see what buttons
do
what. Like if you press to the left you’ll see what skill the X button will
perform if you hit it.(while you still are dazzled) It changes everytime
your dazzled though.
Mephisto’s Pact - This skill is cooler than its description. When you use
it
a list of the skills that are left in your arsenal pops up, pick whichever
one you want and you immediately get it. It will not have the 3 capsules
that are at your spawn or are about to spawn in that list. If your are hit
you automatically pick the last skill you highlighted.
Bravery Decision - Will not remove the aura from your arsenal that are at
your spawn point or are about to be spawned.
Locked Skills - In tag team you can resurrect someone with one of the
locked
skill buttons and lose the skill at the same time. Very helpful for
getting
rid of things like annoying gifted Orbs or getting rid of a locked skill
you
don’t need.
Downed Opponents - A downed opponent is really anyone who has been hit by
a
skill in a way that will send them falling to the ground. You can hit an
opponent with something like Backdraft Bullet as their falling from the sky
before they actually reach the ground. I.e. Twister and Backdraft Bullet
them in the sky. Judgmenting someone out of the sky and hitting them with
Backdraft Bullet will probably also work.
Paralyze - If you are hit by a skill that has a paralyze effect,(Paralyze,
Still Moment, Paralyze Barrier) you can still use skills, jump or
cartwheel a
little if you just begin to stand still. As long as you don’t move on the
analog pad you can still perform any other action. This is useful as a
way of
defending yourself or still attacking someone. Melee attacks won’t move
far
when paralyzed though.
Memory Lapse + Photon Barrier + Reincarnation + Locked Skills - All skills
become single use with Memory Lapse down. Photon Barrier and Reincarnation
will retain themselves if you have 2 more aura to pay to keep themselves.
Any skill that is locked to a button will also stay in your hand. An Orb,
with a hung Memory Lapse can be very hard to stop. Freezing someone’s
buttons so orb doesn’t work and then following up with an anti enviro skill
is your best bet in stopping this combo aside from waiting for an opponent
to
get below 2 aura.
Reincarnation vs. Erase Shields - It will cost you a total of 6 aura to
retain Reincarnation if its been blocked by an erase shield. (3 if
Optimization is down, 12 if Irregular Rhythm is down.)
Gravity Press + Geyser Impact - Can hurt people while someone is standing
in
the hole.(not downed) +2 Strength and killing someone with 2 Gravity
Presses in a row is possible. (one while they're standing and one while
they're knocked down)
Erasing Reincarnation, Photon Barrier and Arrow of Artemis - These skills
can actually be erased if your hit by an erase move that erases a skill and
you can’t pay the amount it costs to retain it. If you do have the amount
to
pay, these moves can help protect your other attacks from erase skills like
Disremember and Tiger Prevails, because they often get targeted before
other
attacks/skills.
Optimization - This skill will halve the cost of using moves in anyway.
Skills like Photon barrier and Reincarnation will only cost 1 to retain.
Some skills become 0 to use and skills that cost +1 more to use with each
use
can be used a lot more with it down. On the other hand all skills with
Irregular Rhythm will cost more to use in every way.(aside from 0 cost
skills)
Moves that charge up attacks can do up to double damage with Optimization
down.(10 aura charged Ki Palm does 20 damage with Optimization down. Only
5
with Irregular Rhythm Down)
Levitation, Skywalk, Demon’s Wing - You can make your character
immediately
stop floating in the air if you press the same button that activated the
skill.
These skills override any loss of speed while your in the air traveling
with
them. They travel a bit faster than normal speed when your in the air.
Call - Just as you can float environmentals you can also float your
capsules.
The main reason you’d do this is to stop someone from erasing a capsule
with
something like Diabolical Trick.
Retreat + Call - Retreat teleports you to one of the random capsules on the
field. If you use Call and spread out your capsules you can teleport all
over the place in the level.(Even into the air if you hang a capsule)
Orb/Amulet - Does not protect against erase skills of yours that hit all
automatically. They will protect against reflected Erase moves or your own
erase hole moves. These will even protect your Environmental that is out
from being erased by someone else’s skill as long as you can pay the amount
to use them each time someone tries to erase it. Judgement is your best
anti
environmental for getting past orb/amulet. You can force people to use Orb
or Amulet with an erase move like Neutralization or Crush over and over,
even
if there’s no stat or skill to erase. This is a good way of keeping an
opponents aura low. Attack skills that erase something on an opponent
(Dragon Punch, Storm Blade, Lightning Sword) will erase your skills even if
you do have Orb or Amulet.
***Relearn + Thieving Imp - Special Thanks to Gaignun for this:
You CAN relearn Thieving Imp with Relearn when you play online. It doesn't
work offline for some reason. Recall may also recall Thieving Imp online
or
it might Recall the skill stolen instead.
Relearn and Learning - Relearn will Relearn Learning.
Recall - This skill has had some oddities. You can’t recall skills that
were
erased from your spawn point, only skills that you have actually picked up
and have left your hand. Because of this Violent Change decks with Recall
can
sometimes be better off erasing their aura particles later than picking them
up reducing the chance that you'll recall aura particles and instead get
something more useful faster. You can recall skills you’ve been annoying
gifted as well as ones you stole or learned,(via Thieving Imp and
Learning).
Offline I have always recalled the attack I’ve stolen but it may work
different online for some bizarre reason. With Learning and Recall I
sometimes got the shield again and I sometimes got the skill I learned.
People have said that they have sometimes gone over their 30 skill limit.
(by doing things like stealing capsules or maybe even picking up dead
players)
It seems like most of the time though you aren’t going to reach above 29
skills left in an arsenal if you even get that high. If you use Bravery
Decision all the aura that is still left in your arsenal can’t be Recalled.
Whatever didn’t get removed by a Bravery Decision can still be recalled.
Phantom Dust(the skill) - This skill doesn’t reset the game like most
people
assume. It brings players back to their max life, sets everyone’s
level/aura
to 0, and Recalls all skills that have not been erased at a spawn point.
If
you are playing tag and were brought back to life once, you will only be
brought back up to 10 life when this move is used. If you were dead while
this skill was used you are not affected by any of Phantom Dust’s effects.
Whatever environmental was left out while this skill was used remains out.
The Phantom Dust skill that you used does not get reshuffled back in your
arsenal unless you use another Phantom Dust or Relearn or Recall it. There
are some weird things that could happen in recalling with Annoying Gift,
Learning, or Thieving Imp but I don’t care to figure it out.(you’d only get
certain skills or extra ones) Time does not get reset in the match with
this
skill either.
Unison - Is an environmental that has no effect. It basically prevents
anyone else from putting their own environmentals out. The screen flashes
for a brief second when its used. It has no description at the bottom like
most environmentals, the screen flash is your only indication.
Ricochet Laser - This skill can go through some of the walls and floors at
some levels.(Especially Panorama)
Learning - Learning can learn any projectile that doesn’t penetrate
defenses.
(including non attacks) Learning can't learn moves that break the shield.
Frighten - You can avoid the stun effect of frighten by jumping in the air
as
its used. You’ll fall down when you jump.
Sensor Mines + Tiger’s Strength/Trance - These mines will get +2 attack
with
these skills or with other stat buffers according to when you planted the
mine even if you lose that strength later and the mine hasn’t been
detonated.
So if you did it with +2 attack a sensor mine will do 5 damage. Martials
Arts
scroll is the only skill that doesn’t work this way, the second your stats
go
away with this move, it resets back to 3 damage.
Manual Aim and X damage attacks relying on an opponent. - Some attacks in
this game do X damage to an opponent depending on something about the
opponent.
Some examples are do X damage according to how much aura they have,(Aura
Leak)
or how much more life they have than you.(Judge of Anubis) If you manually
use attacks like this that do X damage it will do 0 damage + whatever extra
strength you have. Example : Fire Heat from the Void manually at someone
with no buttons assigned and it will do 0 damage.(when it would do 8
locked on)
Use tiger’s strength and manually aim and you’ll only do 2 damage with no
lock
on.(when it would do 10 with lock on) This rule does not apply to
Finisher,
Compressor, Crystallization, Memory of Battle and X skills you charge up to
damage with.(Ki Palm, Gugnir etc.) Only skills that rely on something
about
your opponent.
Amaros Watch/Angel’s Breath/Amaros - These skills have a stun effect on
people
even if you just have an environmental out that effects their stats in any
way.
It won’t reverse the effect of something like Lunar Force on them but it
still
causes them to be stunned by these moves.
Mind Reading, Void, Cloaking Moves, Decoy - Can be canceled out by skills
like purify or neutralization.
All hit skills vs. Cloaking moves - Anyone invisible will be revealed if an
automatic Hit All move was done. Amulet and Orb will only cancel out Hit
All
erase moves.
Soul Cage- You can pick up Soul Cage environmental without taking
damage.(even
though it says any capsule captured causes one damage)
Fusion + Backdraft/Poison - If you and an opponent are both at one and you
fuse with them while poisoned or with Backdraft down, you will both
die.(with
you dying first for the loss) Really only useful in tag.
Frostbite and a Tag Teammate - This one was contributed by Locke. When an
opponent is trying to pick up their tag teammate, if you frostbite the
button
that is the dead tag teammate he'll be stuck in the opponent's hand till he
can unfreeze himself. Sounds really hard to do but funny.
Psycho Kinesis/Power - You can be pretty far away from some of the debris
you
can throw. Like you can be on the second floor of Palace and throw a table
that is on the 1st floor at someone if your close enough. These skills are
useless on Lane levels and Sein.
Pursuit/Sky Pursuit and Backdraft Bullet can break shields and be erased by
them- Anyone who blocks these moves can have their shields broken if the
total strength is greater than the shield. You won’t be able to hurt
anyone
with these but you could break a shield with them. These attacks can also
be
erased by erase shields so don’t be careless about using them.
Pursuit advice: Sometimes standing still when you activate this skill
makes it more accurate. If you push in a direction while using this you
can effect how it aims(often going past or away from your opponent and
missing) Another tactic that might work is to stand still turn your lock
on
off and then turn it right back on and then pursuit.
Pursuit as a dodge - If you are in close range you can use Pursuit to move
quickly around an opponent or to escape an attack. Depending on what
direction you point in you will go flying forward in a different direction.
Experiment with the skill to see how it works. Just be careful because
people can block the move and erase it or do something like Freeze your
buttons with a Glacial Wall.
Annoying Gift - This is an infinite use skill in the update. When you give
skills to someone you don’t lose the ones you have. Its more like you copy
your skills over to someone’s buttons. The Annoying Gift you use doesn’t
get
given to an opponent. You can’t overwrite someone’s button that has a
locked
skill on it.
Chaos or Reduce Entropy + Landmines - If you plant a landmine that explodes
if someone walks in its range like Sensor Mine before Chaos is played.
The mine you planted will still explode even if Chaos is down. A Freeze
Gas
planted before Reduce Entropy is put down can still explode. You just
can’t
plant those mines if the Environmentals were already down.
Deleting/Converting Capsules - You can't effect the capsules of someone who
is currently dead.
Learning - Learning can not learn a skill if the skill breaks the shield.
Mobilize off a ledge - If you cast Mobilize at a ledge so that you fall
off it
at the end of its animation you will not get teleported by it. Any
character
in the air when this takes effect does not get teleported and will fall
from
the sky. Mobilize brings everyone caught in it to the same spot as you
start
at the beginning of the game. Another way of figuring out this location
is to
jump in a pit to get returned to your start point.(There’s also Return and
Retreat) Teleport and Teleportrap will also send someone to your start
point.
This is useful for figuring out where to set up a landmine for everyone to
be
Mobilized over. You could also try to Gravity Press everyone that was
Mobilized two times with +2 strength to try to kill all your opponents in
two
blows.( you would have to mobilize off a ledge to pull this off) Target a
person with at least 11 life if there is anyone above 10 life when you use
Gravity Press(otherwise your lock on gets turned off and you might not be
able use the 2nd Gravity Press in time on the rest of the group.) Another
popular tactic is to Mobilize people onto a landmine planted at your start
point.(usually Sensor Mine)
If you use a mine that stuns someone like Vapor Cloud or Anti Gravity
Trap, if
you get teleported with an auto shield, you’ll have enough time to follow
up
with an attack while their still stunned. Judge of Anubis is one good idea.
Sometimes people get knocked to the ground instead of getting stunned by the
mines. It seems Vapor Cloud has been less reliable for me in actually
stunning
someone than Anit Gravity Trap. Others like Freeze Mine can be successful
too,
but they give you less time and to truly stun someone you'll have to use
Protecting Air since it has no recovery delay. Still the other auto
shields
can be pretty effective in these situations too but its actually possible
to
escape from attacks when the mine used isn't one with a long enough stun
time.
(Anti Gravity Trap and Vapor Cloud have good stun times. There might
be some others too)
Mobilize Teleportrap and Teleportation carry over effect- These moves can
be
cancelled out if you jump into them. However, if you start up a
projectile or
melee move as you are hit by these moves your attack will carry over to
where
you’ve been teleported. This can lead to some useful tricks especially
with
Mobilize. Particularly in tag team you could have a partner cast Mobilize
and if you time your 21 damage Dance of Death to carry over with Mobilize
you
have a good chance of knocking out your 2 opponents out if they get caught
in
Mobilize.(you do the move you want to carry over right when Mobilize is
about
to take effect) Sometimes it doesn’t line everyone up right but if you
succeed
in hitting them nothing but an auto shield or Void will protect from this
combo. If two people carry their own attacks over one might counter the
other
or both will hit at the same time. I’ve never seen it happen so I don’t
know
how it would work out.
Certain spawn points seem to work better than others for lining up people
with
Dance of Death or other attacks via Mobilize.(Highway's had some
particularly
bad results at some of the spawns)
This trick can be especially effective against non jumping opponents.(though
many still don’t dodge it as jumpers) Some other skills you can carry over
for nice effects are Calamity and Disentegrate. (carry amulet/ orb)
The easiest skill to see how this trick works with is to have one person
charge up Ki Palm the whole time while someone Mobilizes. This way you
don’t
have to time carrying over your move, the charged Ki Palm will release
automatically when your teleported. Any attacks that get carried over are
considered manual aim, so any X moves that rely on a stat about your
opponent
will do 0 + your strength’s damage.(This stops someone from Psycho Bursting
Mobilized opponents for any significant damage. This effect only applies
to
Mobilize and not to Teleport or Teleportrap)
I am pretty sure you can’t carry shields over when Mobilize activates.(auto
ones still work) Aside from jumping, carrying over your own attack seems
like the best measure in dealing with Mobilize.(if you have no auto shield
or
Void) If you are far from your opponents they sometimes will not hear the
sound of this skill making it hard for them to know to jump out of it.
Some
attacks like Photon Burst don’t seem like they can be carried over.
Experiment to find out what does and doesn’t work.(projectiles do work but
probably won’t hit)
Teleportrap and Teleportation moves have more limited uses in carry over
effects.(some are pretty difficult too) If you time shooting your attack
right as your teleported, provided you still reasonably line up with the
person you targeted, the projectile will follow the opponent. This could
work as a way of throwing off an opponent in blocking or even creating
surprise attacks. You could theoretically place a teleportrap and fire off
Giga Ruin as you get teleported by teleportrap’s explosion and then the
projectile will carry with you and change its course to still hit an
opponent, if your are reasonably lined up still. (It won’t do 360’s to hit
an opponent) The better homing skills like Giga Ruin and Agonies of Death
have the best chances of succeeding.
For Teleport you could try to draw a person to an area sort of by your spawn
and fire Teleport at a teammate who’s targeting your opponent and they
could
appear behind the opponent and nail them.(its got to be really hard to pull
off)
If you play a cartwheeler you can also try to carry over an attack as a
last
ditch effort against someone who wants to teleport you over. If their
waiting right where your attack teleports to they’ll be hit before they can
even try something like a Muramasa Blade or Photon Burst.
22PD Making the most of a situation
Sometimes you can get yourself into bad situations in this game. The
better
players in this game sometimes figure out ways of winning despite
impossible
seeming odds. An example is your opponent just dragon slayered your only
shield and nailed you with Fire of Gehenna. There’s no place to run and
your
playing a jumper character that can’t dodge the move. Instead of running
away
its possible to run up to a player into close range.(if they don’t keep
their
distance enough) Sometimes you can run through the next Fire of Gehenna
they
have for you while still invincible. You somehow managed to get past his
latest attack and are in close range and now able to dodge the Fire of
Gehenna
by moving to the side. You know that if you somehow get out of close range
your screwed. You only have 3 health so there’s no jumping into a pit to
get
to your spawn point. You only have a Flame Sword. You could just give up
the match or you could stick close to your opponent the whole match no
matter
what. Your basically at your opponent’s whim right now. However, doing
anything else besides staying close and trying to get a Sword in on your
opponent is the only thing you can manage. Sometimes you have to be
willing to
get yourself into a bad situation where your opponent can practically go
through their entire deck to kill you. But really it’s the only way to
survive sometimes. Doing this can pay off though and sometimes you can win
that
match with just a Flame Sword. Another possibility when you get into bad
situations is to lead an opponent far from your spawn point. Let them
chase
you far from your spawn.
Jump off a ledge and take 3 damage to return to your spawn point. This
gives
you time to get something that might help and will slow your opponent down
from coming after you. I remember one match where I Lacked someone out of
all their moves and I had Heat from the Void. He was a jumper I thought
that
this was a sure sign the match was mine. I nailed him once with it and
then
he got close enough to me to dodge it the rest of the time. He then led me
far from his spawn point while dodging it in close range he jumped off a
cliff once I couldn’t use the move again. He got back to his spawn and he
managed to get enough things to eventually win the match.
Look at your environment in this game, just because you lost your shield
doesn’t mean a wall won’t make a fine shield to get someone to waste their
aura and moves on.
23PD Playing people with bad connections. Ways to take advantage of it.
It is unfortunate that sometimes you and an opponent simply do not connect
well and a player can get away with dodging a lot more things than they
normally would if there wasn’t lag. While I’d recommend not playing people
you have bad connections with I might as well say something’s about dealing
with it. Many close range attacks are a lot more easily dodged in laggy
situations and I recommend that you use attacks with good accuracy
especially
in these situations. Want to take advantage of lag even more you could use
skills that lower people’s homing. Because of the poor hit detection in
laggy situations you might as well use erase, status, and special skills
which usually have the best chance of hitting. The best arsenals for these
situations may be ones oriented around erasing people to death. You may
struggle to hit someone with attacks who would normally be easy to hit but
there’s no way your opponent is going to dodge their capsules being
erased.
Plus you can take advantage of avoiding their attacks due to the lag.
24PD Other places to learn/talk/compete in Phantom Dust
There are a few sites out there that have a following for Phantom Dust.
Here
is a list of some sites and bulletin boards where you can find other
players
or discuss and learn new strategies. These forums also have sections for
people to set up trades with other players for skills. Note: most boards
dislike discussions of how to dupe so don’t post about them unless
otherwise
noted.(I saw someone ask about it once in Gamefaqs and it didn’t turn into
a
problem…)
www.xboxphreaker.com - The most dedicated site to Phantom Dust. Definitely
check out the several message boards dedicated to different aspects of the
game as well as tournament types. Some moderators have even met with the
the game's head designer. There is a listing of all the skills and some
arsenals plus an entire bulletin board dedicated to people posting arsenals
they’ve created. There’s a skill trading board and even a board
dedicated to
discussing each skill in the game. Got a question or need help with a
certain skill? There’s a thread for each of them that you can ask
questions
about and search through. You can search through the Additional Skill
Details
board at:
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewforum.php?f=8
Gamefaqs.com - of course there is a bulletin board on gamefaqs to discuss
the
game. Duping does not seem to be a taboo thing to ask about here, though
I’m
sure you might hear some complaints about it if you post looking for people
to dupe with. But I’ve seen other people post asking how to do it and
finding out so you might be able to set up a group.
http://antiracialgaming.com/message_board/viewforum.php?f=4 - This site
has
had its own host of tournaments, and visitors.(they even have had Heavy
Tournaments for all you Heavy fans).
What other people say…
If you think something weird might be doable in the game, test it out for
yourself. Even though people are well meaning, some will tell you things
about the game that actually don’t work. They’ll also tell you there’s
things you can’t do, but actually can do. There’s probably a few mistakes
in
this faq even. The best way to truly see if something does or doesn’t
work is
to test it out your self.
25PD Differences in character types melee moves.
You may notice that each character does a few melee moves with different
animations. Kick moves like Hyper Kick with a jumper does a jumping kick.
Cartwheelers just kick forward and move along the ground. The Special
Characters just throw themselves into people with these moves. In this
area
Rollers are different than Cartwheelers. Some like JD and Cuff Button do
roundhouse kicks that seem a little more accurate and has a little more
range
than everyone else’s. While this is true offline I've never really had it
pay off to specifically where a rollers kicks prove more effective. Lag
may
be just too much of a factor but its worth a shot trying JD type kickers in
your kicking decks. Other Rollers like Guard do a rather goofy jump kick
stomp.(it doesn’t seem bad though) As far as swords go, the human
characters
and humanoid special characters seem to be the same animations and standard
tricks for dodging and hitting apply.
The tombstone looking Catoptro’s blades is very similar in the way humanoid
character swords are dodged. It swings its Psycho Blade types a little
differently but dodging Sword melees with it is pretty much done the same
as
you would with humans.
However, the Ommato, Scoto and Claustro(the floating circle ball
characters)
have different melee Swords and Blades than humanoid characters. Their
Flame
swords are similar to human ones except you can no longer stand in front of
them and jump straight up to dodge from the middle. You can still move,
jump
or cartwheel to the left to avoid them. You have to be more careful to
stay
away from them when going to the left because they are less forgiving in
being walked out of.(maintain distance with them when moving and don’t
circle
into the back part of their sword) You can no longer jump at a straight
distance at far close range to dodge either. You must at least be
partially
left of the sword or blade when jumping away from even far close range.
You can still cartwheel out of range from a far close range though.
A major difference with these circle ball characters is that they actually
swing their Psycho Blade types much like they swing Flame Sword types.
They
start on the blade user’s left and curve right. This confuses some
players a
lot and makes them harder to dodge. In some ways though it really
simplifies
things for you, because there’s only one side your going to dodge to with
these characters, and that is to the left. I do not know how much online
play or lag forgives dodging Psycho Blades swung by these characters like
it
does other characters, but they could be more accurate. If their blades
aren’t more accurate then you can dodge them by just walking to the left.
If
their less forgiving your jump might only be able to dodge their Psycho
Blades by jumping to the left from a
decent distance.(or away and to the left from a far close range.)
Cartwheeling to the left or out of reach should be effective. I prefer the
Ommato’s dodge type over the other 2 characters though I don’t know if its
any better than Claustro’s or Scoto’s. Update: These blades are more
difficult to dodge but lag or some other online programming factor make them
a bit more forgiving to dodge than offline.
Before swinging these characters point their swords forward. I do not know
if this can actually stab people. You’ll notice that Psycho Blade types,
Ice and Lightning Sword show this most.
Ommato types crawler moves can be a confusing to anticipate differences in
when comparing Crawling Bullet with another crawler being used.
Ceno - Ceno has one of the craziest looking Psycho Blade types. The best
thing about it, is that it may stab forward before making a normal psycho
blade style swing. It is too hard to tell if these blades truly stab when
starting out.(this could be an effective approach with them that only the
eyeball characters share) The Ceno does not make any noise when using
skills
except the attack’s actual sound making it too hard to tell if it truly
stabs. Even if doesn’t truly work, do not stand close in front of it.(if
your far enough you won’t get stabbed and this makes dodging easier) It
has
a very quick animation between the starting stab to the rest of the swing.
If stabbing truly does work(test it out for yourself) you might be able
stab
people before their ready put their shields up in this way. You might be
able to dodge Psycho Blade types in the standard way online of going to the
right.(but don’t stand in right in front of the beginning stabbing) Other
wise jump or wheel to the right.
Its Flame Sword type is normal style and surprisingly the easiest Flame
Sword
to dodge in the game. It might swing a little lower. It is the only
character I can sword jump by jumping to the right as its swung, but still
dodge in any other normal way as well. The nice part about Ceno is that
it’s
very quiet when it uses its skills, which can throw off an opponent.
Ceno vs. The Eye Ball Characters - Ceno’s flame sword style animation is
possibly the easiest to dodge in the game. One reason you may prefer him
over the Ommato style eye balls is that he doesn’t swing both sword styles
left ward.(and he is quiet when doing moves) His sword moves are more
like a
standard humanoids except his Flame Sword type has the most dodging
opportunities and his Psycho Blade type is probably better than standard
ones.
Ommato balls require characters to stay on the left both times, which
may make it easier for someone to know where to dodge to even if you are
using Psycho Blade and Flame Sword.(despite this, their sword animation can
confuse people and makes them one of the harder sword users to dodge in the
game)
You probably could confuse the hell out of your opponents trying to dodge
blades if you used both a Ceno and an Ommato type as tag teammates.
26PD School Auras
There is a glow around each character if they have a School in the arsenal
that there is a majority of. If you see this glow it can tell you one of
the
schools that they are using in their deck.
Don’t assume that there’s much of a majority because the game picks one
school over another to display the aura around even if its evenly divided.
So you could have 3 evenly divided Schools and it’ll still show one aura
color around a player. The order in which it will show when Schools are
evenly divided and the colors that represent each school are the following:
Psycho - Red
Optical - Yellow
Nature - Green
Ki - Blue
Faith - Purple
Auras don’t show up around people unless they have 1 or more aura.
27PD End of the Faq
I’d like to thank any player who’s shared how to do things and tried to
help
others out in learning how to do things in this game. Thanks to the
authors
of the useful threads that I linked to as well.
List of thanks to people in alphabetical order to people
who's threads I linked or who tried to contribute something to the combos,
arsenals, and the all the other things... section:
Cbreeze420, Cerebral Slayer, codename BLISS, Delandel, El Davio,
Enderwiggin,
Gaia Proton, Gaignun, General Grievous, Goldninja, IsnipedyourI, jook00,
Kamizar, Locke, lucky03, Maalik, monkey20051, Pantera Opeth, Phreaker,
Proto Welltall Quadrasonic, Reavtek, Shiny New Penny, The Butter Viking,
Wartex, and anyone else I forgotto give thanks too in those threads.
Updates?
I really don’t plan on making more updates to this faq unless there's a
rerelease.(I did update it though twice already...)
There is always something I could add here and there but there really is a
lot here already. Maybe if there are some glaring errors I’ll fix them. If
there are a lot of arsenals and combos that need some more highlighting I
might consider adding them. I’ve made a lot of efforts and personally
confirmed most of what is written here, but I am not beyond making mistakes.
I hope this faq has been helpful to someone. And if you still struggle
with the game you probably just need some practice. Think about how
opponents seem to keep beating you. You can either copy their strategies
or come up with counters to them.(there’s usually some skills you can use
to counter) Ask people for tips even. This game has a lot of possibilities
and you’d be surprised at the new things you can discover. Have fun with
the game because
that’s what it’s really about.
This material is copyrighted. Please do not plagiarize and do cite it when
appropriate.
Contact information:
[email protected]
Version 1.5 Copyright 2006(B.G.Ranton) Version 1.6 Copyright
2014(B.G.Ranton)
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