#1: Suika
Suika is a fast melee brawler with strong options at close and mid range. Her dial-A does huge damage, giving her an easy learning curve. Her basic combos, even without her dial-A, are fairly easy and she does pretty large damage even with j6a j6b and no followups. Her attacks are quite fast so mixups will take some practice, and her block pressure is fairly hard to perform for beginners since it relies on minimum height j6a. She also lacks a good graze attack (66c is her only graze attack), which can make the vs. Yuyuko and vs. Utsuho matchups hard. She is a powerful threat though and can punish mistakes from anywhere with a little practice.
Deck: 4x Oni Spirit Bomb, 4x Missing Power. Spiritual Strike Talismans are useful as she has no DP without losing Oni Spirit Bomb (requires level 3 Spectre: Dense) which is unacceptable. Fire Oni is generally seen as very useful. Other good cards include the rock throw 2-card (forget the name) and Throwing Atlas. Her spellcard variety is so-so. You only need 1 Spirit Bomb and can use the rest on spellcards.
#2: Meiling (China)
Meiling is basically a more well-rounded, shittier Marisa. She has more respectable zoning, a crossup game, and a graze attack, along with a good variety of spellcards. She has more deck variety than Suika, who basically has to run certain skillcards. She relies on fighting midscreen or fake pressuring in the corner, but has no ways to keep the enemy in blockstun and must rely on ghetto tricks. China is very dangerous in close, but it is fairly easy to guess her mixups. Her game mostly ends up being about punishing mistakes. Her vs. Iku matchup is extremely hard, but she is fairly decent against Yuyuko, Suwako, and Utsuho.
Deck: Most China decks ignore her 236 move entirely, as there are no good options for it. Her 214 attack has many good options, as does her 623. She has several invulnerable spellcards and should take at least one. Spiritual Strike Talisman is also a good idea.
#3: Iku
An easy-to-play, melee-focused midrange character with good zoning, Iku is both incredibly strong and easy to play. She is Nick's main. Iku requires precise spacing which can only be learned with practice, but if Nick can learn it, anyone can. Iku has some tricky combo execution for random midscreen hits, but none of it is hard. Her midscreen dial-A followup is also somewhat hard to execute; Nick can't do it reliably. Iku has a lot of deck diversity, with only one card really being mandatory. She probably needs defensive cards, as she has a very weak close-range game despite her strong melee.
Deck: 4x Lightning Fish "Swimming Thunder Shot, 4x Spiritual Strike Talisman. Other than that, Iku can run a fairly wide variety of skill and spell cards. I see a lot of Lightning Sign: Elekiter Dragon Palace in high level play. Iku's 214 options are very diverse and it's worth playing with all of them. Thorn Sign: Thundercloud Strikeback is one of her best spellcards, too. I really like Veils Like Time, but I'm a weirdo.
#4: Marisa
She's super-China. She takes the strengths of China and magnifies them greatly, and her fullscreen laser gives her a way to punch through bullets and punish mistakes at any distance. Like China, she focuses heavily on doing big damage with random hits. It's up to you to land those random hits and confirm for big damage, though and while I personally find her execution easy, the rest of the group cannot confirm off of random jump melee (Nick being a notable exception and only with Iku). Because Marisa generates big damage off of any hit, she is much more dangerous than many of the other characters I've recommended (Suika does more, though). Marisa lacks a graze attack and must fight for midscreen position with her laser or 5c in most situations.
Deck: 4x Spiritual Strike Talisman. A lot of options here. Her default 214 is decent for combos and can be upgraded to be safer on block and allow for post-block mixups. Her 214 broomgun is also really good and is the most commonly used Marisa skillcard in high level play. Her default 623 is her only real graze attack, and it has startup graze which allows her some ghetto tricks. However, it does not have invincibility; it is not a real DP even at max level. She also has very good options for her 22 bombs and they can be used to control the map. Her spellcards vary widely and almost all are useful. For shits, 6c > Narrow Spark > Master Spark combos for all the lasers.
#5 Utsuho
Considered by top players to be the second-worst character in the game, Utsuho deals massive damage off of most hits and has easy combos. I'd almost recommend her over Marisa, honestly, as her combos are much easier to learn. She is pretty slow though, and her sluggishness makes her hard to defend against. Fortunately, most of us are bad so her huge damage and huge bullet density are more powerful.
Deck: 4x Spiritual Strike Talisman, 4x Hell Geyser (also known as Gunflame). Shooting Star is also quite useful and Divine Raiment is helpful when you're getting rushed down. Rocket Dive is very popular for combos and shenanigans. She has very few useful spellcards.
Others:
Yuyuko (easy, strong bullets, easily rushed down)
Patchouli (powerful bullets, strong zoning, hard combos; more difficult, higher damage Yuyuko)
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
The Dwarf rifle
Unable to sleep and thinking about guns, I got to thinking about how a dwarf-made firearm might work. We've kind of established flintlock guns, which make a lot of sense until percussion explosives are invented. Note that percussion explosives are kind of the barrier to making any progress in the field of firearms and flintlocks were kinda used for hundreds of years so I don't know that is even plausible in this world.
Anyway, a flintlock mechanism involves having a spring-loaded flint held rearward by a mechanical arm, called the cock (hence the term "cocking the gun"). When the trigger is pulled, it releases the spring, causing the cock to fly forward on its hinge. The flint hits a striker, which causes hot pieces of the flint to shard off into a pan which catches the hot shards. There is powder in the pan; the hot shards of flint ignite the powder, which feeds into a tube carrying the main powder charge. When the burning powder reaches the main charge, the main charge ignites and shoots the bullet forward.
This is pretty inefficient, all things considered. First, flintlock rifles are bullshit. I don't mean like they didn't exist because they did, but in the real world they were a million and a half bitches to load and no one really used them, aside from hunters and military marksmen. There weren't even really "sharpshooters" back then; the term was coined from the Sharps rifle which kinda shoots .45-70 black powder cartridges. That's cartridges, like rounds, like made of brass with a jacketed bullet. Most flintlock guns of their day were muskets. A flintlock rifle takes about 50 times longer to reload because you have to forcibly slam the damn musket ball down the bore, so a musket, where you put the main charge in the bore, put the ball down the bore, put the powder in the pan, cock the action, sight in and shoot all in 20 seconds is a much more reasonable deal. If you want to narrow it down to 2 full-round actions to reload and another to sight in and fire (with appropriate reloading class features or feats) that would make sense. A rifle takes many times that because of the difficulty in getting that damn ball down the bore without damaging the bore.
BUT FUCK THAT.
So dwarves are a little bit smarter than that, with paper cartridges that hold the main charge. How can we best use that technology?
The best way to use a paper cartridge is in a two-piece load. You pull the smaller piece of the cartridge off and open it up, pouring the powder into the pan. The other piece of paper cartridge just feeds into the muzzle of the g...FUCK THAT TOO.
Instead of muzzle-fed bullshit, we can also improve there. The main charge is glued to the bullet itself, and the whole thing is fed into the breech. A break-action design simply won't work for a flintlock though; the pan and striker and trigger assembly are all kinda in one spot and you can't break that open. Instead, a falling block action can be used to feed the paper cartridge + bullet into the chamber. What's a falling block action?
Basically, a lever on the gun, most likely located underneath the trigger housing, lowers a block (hence the name) that conceals the chamber. The main charge and bullet are fitted into the chamber by hand, then the lever is retracted, sliding the block back into place and sealing the chamber. You want the falling block mechanism to hinge vertically though. If it's hinged horizontally (like a bolt-action rifle) the explosion of the powder will act against the mechanism holding the action in place, and since it's made to slide that way, the action will eventually break.
Modern bolt-actions are held in place by locking lugs, which rotate when the bolt is turned to seat the bolt so that it can't move. In fact, bolt-action rifles have multiple locking lugs to distribute stress on them between several points of contact so a high-powered rifle cartridge doesn't break them. It is possible that a bolt-action, chamber-fed gun is the next step in dwarven firearms evolution but really the improvements would be minimal compared to a falling block action.
The main flaws in this design are the problems with any unjacketed lead bullet fired through a rifled barrel; lead and propellant fouling in the barrel and paper/propellant fouling in the chamber. The advantages though are a gun that can probably be reloaded as a standard action or possibly even a move action. There's probably severe accuracy problems if you fire more than 3-4 shots without cleaning it though.
The actual bullet itself has a lot of potential from this design. You can make an actual bullet, rather than a lead ball, though actual spitzer bullets weren't invented until the 20th century IRL and were only really feasible with jacketed bullets anyway which is totally not something that would be invented anytime soon. Even without a real bullet, you can squeeze a ton more accuracy out of this. The chamber is mostly airtight, except for the pan (not sure how that problem was solved), but more importantly the bullet is slightly bigger than the bore so the bullet flies perfectly straight down the barrel, swaged by the rifling for amazing accuracy, relative to its predecessors. Reloading this sucker is super fast too. Operate the lever, put the bullet and main charge in, break the paper for the secondary charge in the pan, close the lever, cock the gun and sight in. Probably a standard action with a feat or class ability to improve it to a move action.
These rifles would be useful for infantry with some caveats. The main issue is that massed fire of black powder weapons creates a lot of smoke, especially flintlocks that burn powder in a pan outside the rifle. However, other elements of D&D warfare kind of render infantry formations stupid; the military adoption of the fireball, grease, and entangle ordinance make massed infantry a really bad idea. Most likely, infantry operate in squads with a unit commander and individual objective orders, with squad leaders, team leaders, and specialists assigned as needed. Unfortunately in D&D, magic was invented before the radio. How does siege warfare even get done? I'm not really sure. The ability to conjure also has issues since it's harder to starve an army of provisions and nearly impossible to run it out of water, even in desert combat.
My guess is that you just don't attack fortifications in D&D unless you want your siege weapons getting wrecked by scorching ray snipers.
Anyway, a flintlock mechanism involves having a spring-loaded flint held rearward by a mechanical arm, called the cock (hence the term "cocking the gun"). When the trigger is pulled, it releases the spring, causing the cock to fly forward on its hinge. The flint hits a striker, which causes hot pieces of the flint to shard off into a pan which catches the hot shards. There is powder in the pan; the hot shards of flint ignite the powder, which feeds into a tube carrying the main powder charge. When the burning powder reaches the main charge, the main charge ignites and shoots the bullet forward.
This is pretty inefficient, all things considered. First, flintlock rifles are bullshit. I don't mean like they didn't exist because they did, but in the real world they were a million and a half bitches to load and no one really used them, aside from hunters and military marksmen. There weren't even really "sharpshooters" back then; the term was coined from the Sharps rifle which kinda shoots .45-70 black powder cartridges. That's cartridges, like rounds, like made of brass with a jacketed bullet. Most flintlock guns of their day were muskets. A flintlock rifle takes about 50 times longer to reload because you have to forcibly slam the damn musket ball down the bore, so a musket, where you put the main charge in the bore, put the ball down the bore, put the powder in the pan, cock the action, sight in and shoot all in 20 seconds is a much more reasonable deal. If you want to narrow it down to 2 full-round actions to reload and another to sight in and fire (with appropriate reloading class features or feats) that would make sense. A rifle takes many times that because of the difficulty in getting that damn ball down the bore without damaging the bore.
BUT FUCK THAT.
So dwarves are a little bit smarter than that, with paper cartridges that hold the main charge. How can we best use that technology?
The best way to use a paper cartridge is in a two-piece load. You pull the smaller piece of the cartridge off and open it up, pouring the powder into the pan. The other piece of paper cartridge just feeds into the muzzle of the g...FUCK THAT TOO.
Instead of muzzle-fed bullshit, we can also improve there. The main charge is glued to the bullet itself, and the whole thing is fed into the breech. A break-action design simply won't work for a flintlock though; the pan and striker and trigger assembly are all kinda in one spot and you can't break that open. Instead, a falling block action can be used to feed the paper cartridge + bullet into the chamber. What's a falling block action?
Modern bolt-actions are held in place by locking lugs, which rotate when the bolt is turned to seat the bolt so that it can't move. In fact, bolt-action rifles have multiple locking lugs to distribute stress on them between several points of contact so a high-powered rifle cartridge doesn't break them. It is possible that a bolt-action, chamber-fed gun is the next step in dwarven firearms evolution but really the improvements would be minimal compared to a falling block action.
The main flaws in this design are the problems with any unjacketed lead bullet fired through a rifled barrel; lead and propellant fouling in the barrel and paper/propellant fouling in the chamber. The advantages though are a gun that can probably be reloaded as a standard action or possibly even a move action. There's probably severe accuracy problems if you fire more than 3-4 shots without cleaning it though.
The actual bullet itself has a lot of potential from this design. You can make an actual bullet, rather than a lead ball, though actual spitzer bullets weren't invented until the 20th century IRL and were only really feasible with jacketed bullets anyway which is totally not something that would be invented anytime soon. Even without a real bullet, you can squeeze a ton more accuracy out of this. The chamber is mostly airtight, except for the pan (not sure how that problem was solved), but more importantly the bullet is slightly bigger than the bore so the bullet flies perfectly straight down the barrel, swaged by the rifling for amazing accuracy, relative to its predecessors. Reloading this sucker is super fast too. Operate the lever, put the bullet and main charge in, break the paper for the secondary charge in the pan, close the lever, cock the gun and sight in. Probably a standard action with a feat or class ability to improve it to a move action.
These rifles would be useful for infantry with some caveats. The main issue is that massed fire of black powder weapons creates a lot of smoke, especially flintlocks that burn powder in a pan outside the rifle. However, other elements of D&D warfare kind of render infantry formations stupid; the military adoption of the fireball, grease, and entangle ordinance make massed infantry a really bad idea. Most likely, infantry operate in squads with a unit commander and individual objective orders, with squad leaders, team leaders, and specialists assigned as needed. Unfortunately in D&D, magic was invented before the radio. How does siege warfare even get done? I'm not really sure. The ability to conjure also has issues since it's harder to starve an army of provisions and nearly impossible to run it out of water, even in desert combat.
My guess is that you just don't attack fortifications in D&D unless you want your siege weapons getting wrecked by scorching ray snipers.
Friday, September 7, 2012
In crazy dream
Another weird dream time!
So naturally, the first crazy dream I've had in a while. Sorry, you're not in it. In fact, the only person I know that I recognized in my dream was Calen White, who a few of you might know and I have no idea why he would be in this dream because we don't really talk. He played no real major role.
So, for whatever reason, I'm in the military on this remote island complex. We're in some research facility with a bunch of civillians and I'm one of the military guys that has no idea what is going on.
One of the civillians comes to me and gives me an object; a device, which I later learn is a detonator, with a box and a key. I'm not 100% sure he gave me the box, I might have had that on my own but either way, the detonator gets locked in the box and placed in my personal storage space. I keep the key on me, along with another key that opens a different box on my person. The different box has a replacement set of glasses in it. Note the box is fairly small, eg. size of glasses case. It's fairly clear, either way, that the detonator thing needs to be kept out of the military's hands, probably due to some corrupt officers or corrupt government potentially abusing it.
Either way, I form a small group of informed conspiracy theorists, including Calen, which form as our cadre to find out what the military is up to. As far as I know, I'm the only one who knows about the box and the detonator. The military guys do a search of the base and I'm found with the fake key, but I tell them what it's for (my glasses case) and they are like ok. They do not find the real box, but do see the real key, but don't ask about it.
We discover some purple substance, which we assume to be moldable, crystalline explosive. Actually, this is when we assume that the thing is a detonator. There's a fair bit of stuff that goes on after this point, as the government/military guys are sure there's an insider (due to missing stuff) and go on full alert, while we continue to search for what the big issue is and subvert it.
At some point, the bulk of the crystalline substance explodes in the lab when the government guys forcibly induce it with some unknown process that we don't learn. I am clued into the fact that the situation is extremely dangerous and bunker up in the motor pool area, which has its own blast doors. All of my subversive group, many civillians and some regular soldiers also gather there.
The explosion is so powerful that it blows through the first set of blast doors in the lab and literally kills everyone in the lab area, including those people thought safe in the observation area. It also explodes upwards and downwards, killing everyone above and below the labs too. The explosion is so intense that we feel the heat inside the motor pool and it heats our blast door, though it does not weld it shut or penetrate it. We are not the only survivors in the complex, as some people are in other safe rooms and some people are outside. However, we fear that the explosion is radioactive, so going into the wreckage (which is still also mega hot) is a big no-no.
We begin a survival mission to try and gather supplies from outside the base. Some conspirators are clearly in the motor pool and are worried about the state of the experiment, but we quiet them because we are worried about survival. FYI, I say they are conspirators because I assumed they were, but I had no information except that they were worried about the experiment.
I think the explosion also exploded my substance, and I may have worried that someone else had the detonator, but I definitely still have the key and the detonator is still in my hidden storage, locked in its box (I check.)
Either way, drama happens where we continue to try and discover what the conspiracy is, but the mystery is never revealed. We try to adventure into the wreckage with NBC suits, but I'm not sure we discovered anything other than how powerful the explosive substance was.
So naturally, the first crazy dream I've had in a while. Sorry, you're not in it. In fact, the only person I know that I recognized in my dream was Calen White, who a few of you might know and I have no idea why he would be in this dream because we don't really talk. He played no real major role.
So, for whatever reason, I'm in the military on this remote island complex. We're in some research facility with a bunch of civillians and I'm one of the military guys that has no idea what is going on.
One of the civillians comes to me and gives me an object; a device, which I later learn is a detonator, with a box and a key. I'm not 100% sure he gave me the box, I might have had that on my own but either way, the detonator gets locked in the box and placed in my personal storage space. I keep the key on me, along with another key that opens a different box on my person. The different box has a replacement set of glasses in it. Note the box is fairly small, eg. size of glasses case. It's fairly clear, either way, that the detonator thing needs to be kept out of the military's hands, probably due to some corrupt officers or corrupt government potentially abusing it.
Either way, I form a small group of informed conspiracy theorists, including Calen, which form as our cadre to find out what the military is up to. As far as I know, I'm the only one who knows about the box and the detonator. The military guys do a search of the base and I'm found with the fake key, but I tell them what it's for (my glasses case) and they are like ok. They do not find the real box, but do see the real key, but don't ask about it.
We discover some purple substance, which we assume to be moldable, crystalline explosive. Actually, this is when we assume that the thing is a detonator. There's a fair bit of stuff that goes on after this point, as the government/military guys are sure there's an insider (due to missing stuff) and go on full alert, while we continue to search for what the big issue is and subvert it.
At some point, the bulk of the crystalline substance explodes in the lab when the government guys forcibly induce it with some unknown process that we don't learn. I am clued into the fact that the situation is extremely dangerous and bunker up in the motor pool area, which has its own blast doors. All of my subversive group, many civillians and some regular soldiers also gather there.
The explosion is so powerful that it blows through the first set of blast doors in the lab and literally kills everyone in the lab area, including those people thought safe in the observation area. It also explodes upwards and downwards, killing everyone above and below the labs too. The explosion is so intense that we feel the heat inside the motor pool and it heats our blast door, though it does not weld it shut or penetrate it. We are not the only survivors in the complex, as some people are in other safe rooms and some people are outside. However, we fear that the explosion is radioactive, so going into the wreckage (which is still also mega hot) is a big no-no.
We begin a survival mission to try and gather supplies from outside the base. Some conspirators are clearly in the motor pool and are worried about the state of the experiment, but we quiet them because we are worried about survival. FYI, I say they are conspirators because I assumed they were, but I had no information except that they were worried about the experiment.
I think the explosion also exploded my substance, and I may have worried that someone else had the detonator, but I definitely still have the key and the detonator is still in my hidden storage, locked in its box (I check.)
Either way, drama happens where we continue to try and discover what the conspiracy is, but the mystery is never revealed. We try to adventure into the wreckage with NBC suits, but I'm not sure we discovered anything other than how powerful the explosive substance was.
we heart Remi
Building on fundamentals
Almost all of you suck at basic Soku fundamentals. I'm not saying I'm good, but most of you guys lose to me because you give opportunities away and I make more of my opportunities than most of you. Sam is the exception but only with his two characters and only really with Utsuho. He knows Utsuho's options very well and can play inside of those options.
Blockstrings are a basic thing for every character, though Iku is weaker at it than the rest of the cast. For most characters, your goal when blockstringing is to guard crush the opponent or punish her as she tries to escape. The basic syntax for a blockstring is f5a/2a, 3a/6a, bullet, HJC9 into a character specific followup. Some characters use multiple bullets. If you land a blocked close 5a, you want to continue it into the last move that can be cancelled into 3a and/or 6a and you definitely do not want to do any move that cannot be cancelled into bullets. Some examples:
- Yuyuko: 5a (close or far)/2a 3a/6a 6c 421c hjc9 j2a land repeat. Not airtight, but 6c can be replaced with 623c if the opponent is expected to graze to create the illusion of pressure. A blocked 623c can be spellcard cancelled to maintain pressure, as well.
- Iku: f5a/5aa/2a 3a/6a 5c hjc9 5c d6 j5a land repeat. Very not airtight. 5c must be mixed up with melee specials in order to create the illusion of pressure. A blocked melee special can be spellcard cancelled to maintain pressure.
- Utsuho is a bit weird. Her 5aaa is 2 overhead hits followed by a low. Any of the hits can be chained into 6a (low) or 3a (overhead) so she has more options in the basic hits if she doesn't start with 2a. Then 2c hjc into a jump mixup, as nothing is airtight after that. Additionally, 2c is only airtight if the opponent wrongblocks.
- Yukari: 5aa/f5a/2a 3a/6a 5b hjc9 2c d6 j5a land repeat. I'm not 100% sure if the 5b is airtight but if it is, it has a very small number of grazable frames if done properly and is definitely airtight on wrongblock. As with the others, you can cancel the 5b (actually the 5b and not the 3a/6a) into a 623c if they try to graze forward though it is unsafe if they high jump. If they block the 623c you will need to spellcard cancel or you will die.
However, the biggest fuckups I see are midscreen in neutral. I screw this up too, but it's worth covering. There are three things you're trying to do in midscreen. The first is get in and melee, the second is to deploy bullet cover and then exploit it, and the third is to punish the enemy for setting up bullet cover. Don't throw bullets mindlessly, throw bullets that are actually going to control space on the screen and then F-ING TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM. This means don't fucking throw bullets on the screen and jump back. If you're already predicting the opponent is going to beat your move, why the fuck did you throw it in the first place? I'm not saying expect your shit to hit all the time, but position yourself so that you can take advantage of your bullets and not try to set up more bullets.
There are a few exceptions to this rule but none of you do them. Specifically, if you have a danmaku advantage on the screen right now you can trade some of it to deploy delayed bullets that will give you an advantage later. The biggest examples of this are Tenshi's alt 214 earthquakes and Yuyuko's default 214 butterflies. In general though this is a bad idea. If you throw bullets on the screen and then don't cover them, the enemy can just graze them and hit you while you're trying to throw your delayed shit. Again, Yuyuko is a bit of an exception in that she may throw B bullets to try and get C bullets out, and it is generally hard to graze and hit her while she's throwing C bullets. You should not do this as a general strategy though if your opponent has a laser, or anything that can cut through your B bullets (including graze attacks), which is MOST OF THE CAST. It should be more of a backup strategy that you're trying to get away with rather than a main strategy. The default strategy is to deploy cover and exploit it, so do that.
Exploiting cover means different things for different characters. I'm going to use Yuyuko as an example again because she's one of the best examples of weird exploiting bullet cover. 6c is amazing because it puts this annoying homing bullet behind the enemy, but that bullet is useless if you meet the enemy in a head-on confrontation and lose in a melee priority battle or trade. Once you have it out, you want to position yourself in the most lucrative sweet spot the enemy has and block rather than directly attack. The same is true for her 214 butterflies or most delayed bullets like Remi's default 214. Once the enemy is forced to block the bullets (generally slightly before), get aggressive with melee and end with something that's going to keep the advantage.
For most characters though the bullets are generally a shield that you have to be as close to as possible. Throw a bullet and move in behind it; as you're doing so, anticipate anything that might beat it such as a laser or graze attack. If you don't see any of those, melee behind your bullets to prevent graze and go from there into a blockstring. It's important that your melee be aimed to hit the enemy as they're potentially grazing your bullets.
Sometimes it isn't clear that your danmaku will beat the enemy's right from the get-go. If that's the case, you still want to position yourself in an aggressive position and be ready to put down more danmaku. The main characters who want to do this are rushdown characters like Reisen or Marisa that also happen to have decent bullets. Yuyuko is again a bit of an issue since her B bullets are low density, so she is looking for any situation she can to throw out C bullets that can't be neutralized. Only throw C bullets out if the opponent can't punish you for trying or HJC as early as possible despite losing some of the bullets to cancel. Getting some C bullets is better than getting counterhit. Iku also wants to position herself favorably after a 6c but she has to make sure the 6c doesn't get nullified by a denser bullet, so she may assume a more passive stance.
Put danmaku in the enemy melee sweetspot. In almost all cases, it's in the air and in front of the enemy. This is of questionable effectiveness against Remilia unless the danmaku is very slow or starts behind your character and is almost useless against Alice whose sweetspot is on the ground. Everyone else you want do deny the close air approach. I get so many random counterhits off of antiair bullets that it's silly. If you are Utsuho and you aren't using 6b to cover this approach you are doing it wrong. Yuyuko does it automatically by default anytime she hits 6c since the damn thing tracks, but she also has 421c if the enemy is jockeying for that spot. Almost everyone has some kind of antiair bullet on 2b, 6b, 2c, or 6c. For most characters, it's 2b. The most notable exception is Utsuho who has 3a as an antiair against everyone except Iku. Iku's 5b is her best choice though not amazing. A lot of Yuyuko's bullets cover this space. 421c is the best, though the HJC window for it is kinda late it basically completely prevents jumpins. Most of her normal bullets cover this area. Anytime you see the enemy in the air and not immediately threatening you, the best place to put danmaku is where they will jump in at you.
This gets me to danmaku punishing. If you throw danmaku around like crazy defensively, most characters have a solid punish. I think everyone has eaten enough Iku 6c to understand this. Any reasonably dense, fast bullet can punish you if it can punch through part of your danmaku and hit you. In certain matchups, this basically defines the matchup eg. most of Suika's matchups. The first thing you need to know is where and how the enemy can punish you. For instance, if it's a laser or dense bullet, know whether it's a special and whether it can be done in the air, and position yourself away from it. If Iku is on the ground and I'm in the air, I know she cannot interrupt my danmaku so I can deploy most of my arsenal by the time she can high jump up and fire 6c, and I can airdash cancel to graze it. The same goes for Utsuho; she can only really threaten the width of her laser or possibly the width of her 5c. Remi can only punish her opponent if the enemy is low to the ground or Remi is close to the wall (and then only with default wall dive). If you're trying to danmaku punish, fish for those positions or if you can't get them, throw setup danmaku or try to get in for melee.
Approaching for melee without any cover is risky. You should only do it if the opponent is trying to danmaku punish and is therefore not doing anything. The other option is if you are relatively close to your opponent and can potentially punish the startup of danmaku with a dashing melee attack. This is, in general, a bad idea. The other option is that you will avoid most of the opponent's potential setup danmaku with an odd positioning aerial attack, such as a crossup. A neutral crossup is not very effective. In general you almost always want to have either sweetspot melee positioning (eg. Iku j2a positioning), danmaku cover, or frame advantage (enemy blocking or getting hit or knocked down) before going for melee. If you're in the close air sweetspot and there are no threatening bullets, then yes, go for melee, just be wary of antiairs and consider using quick danmaku pressure (such as Reisen j2b) to force blocking or punish antair melee.
Remi
Setups!
blocked j5aa, airborne enemy (falling)
- 2a (unblockable) into 5c hjc j5a8a; limits for around 2kish. Works best if they do nothing.
- 6a (unblockable) into 6a followups; generally Spear the Gungnir or Critical (Heart Break). Punishes forward airdashing somewhat depending on enemy height, but less followups without cards.
- dash j5aa. If they do anything other than fly up or a back airdash, this will catch them and set up into j5aa loop. If it corners, you can 6a 623c for over 2k.
- 2c. Puts bullet pressure upwards if they fly up, otherwise not too good.
- 623b/c. Best for Iku or other characters that can attack you from the other options. Horribly unsafe if blocked. Can also use Red the Nightless Castle; a bit safer, but still dangerous.
airdash shenanigans
- jump back, ad6: It gives you an extra approach vector for a closer opponent and covers different space. It can confuse the enemy too since people used to Remi might be used to seeing her dash forward. At very closer distances, it's a crossup trick if you delay the airdash. You need to time the airdash depending on distance; faster if further, later if closer. You can also use d6 (towards the opponent) to get a bit closer.
- jump back, d6: This is imo a more reliable crossup since you can do d6 a bit earlier, or at least my hands can (lol). If done low, it hits in front, if done high it crosses up. It's pretty telegraphed though unless you are picture perfect on the spacing.
Combos!
-5aaaa
- 6a 623c (corner)
- super (save for midscreen)
CH j2a
- dash j5aa, dash j5a8a (2400ish, limits) The trickiness is in figuring out which way you need to dash... plus responding to the counterhit.
- 2c hjc 5c adc 8a (2700ish, limits) Much harder than above and doesn't corner them, but much more damage for 2 spirit orbs.
Cards!
Destiny (Miserable Fate)
- Use after they block a 5c or other meaty projectile; MIDSCREEN ONLY OK.
Spear the Gungnir
- Huge frame advantage on block, plus a lot of chip. On block, use!
Reisen
Combos!
5a
- Midscreen: 5aaa 5b (2hit) hjc j5a j6a. j5b will hit if less than halfway to the corner or so afterwards. This combo does not bluering, does only 1800. You probably want to do the j5b and fly immediately to the ground OR charge j5c and airdash forward. If you're using ripple vision you can also charge that.
- Corner: 5aaa 236b 236c. If you are a little ways from the corner, 5aaa 236b hjc j5a j6a is more reliable, but does less damage. Both bluering, double fireball does around 2500 at level 0. At level max it does over 3k. Some people don't need to rank their combo tools but Reisen really does, IMHO.
j2a
- 236b hjc j5a j6a. It's the same as the corner variant above. Does ~2k at rank 0. Kinda weak, but what can you do? It works anywhere, though if you cross up with j2a you need to wait for Reisen to turn around before doing 236b. Also, this will not work if you hit with the leading forward edge of j2a, as you're a bit too far away.
- CH j2a, LRE. It's hard to really follow up with anything if you don't have LRE; j5a j6a does less than the above combo and the above combo works, but is hard to time.
What characters do
Suika
-Suika is powerful in melee with very high damage with very little effort. Combo practice is minimal for her, as her Dial-A does nearly 2500 damage for no spirit. Her melee has great range and has disjointed hitboxes, making her a very scary threat in the air or on the ground. She also has many high/low options and even one of her bullets (2b) is a melee attack.
- With the exception of her C bullets, Suika's projectiles are small in number and high in density, which lets her blast holes in enemy danmaku to strike the opponent directly. However, other than 6b and her Spirit Bomb skillcard, her bullets are wonky and take some practice to use. The high-density, low volume bullets let Suika take the offense even at positional disadvantage, but bullets that attack from strange angles are difficult for her to handle as she has trouble actually creating lasting bullet cover in response.
- Suika is fast and her abare is very high. She can deal very large amounts of damage off of almost any hit.
- Suika has few graze attack options and is reliant on blasting through enemy bullets with her own.
Yukari
- No idea!
vs. Yuyuko
- Yuyu has some of the slowest movement in the game, though her cancels are fast. Due to her slow speed, she must rely more on getting to a strong position in advance rather than quickly moving to take it. She also has difficulty following up from incidental bullet hits since she cannot close distance quickly.
- Yuyuko's melee is very large and covers wide areas in front of her. Like her own movement, it is slow, but it gives her a strong close-combat game once she has established control.
- Yuyuko has a wide variety of bullets. She controls the map very well and can literally fill the screen with garbage with just a few attacks. However, her C bullets do not hit enemy bullets at all (they pass through) while her B bullets lack density. She has trouble against high-density penetrating bullets, and must predict when the enemy will throw them and block while her ghostly C bullets and skillcards attack.
- Yuyuko's defense is limited, but it is better than most of the other zoning characters. She has several reversal spellcards and a powerful graze attack, and has many spellcards that can cancel laggy blocked skillcards in order to keep her on the offense.
Remilia
- Remi's dash is unique and difficult to handle; she leaps forward rather than running on the ground. While she leaps forward she is considered airborne and can attack with aerial normals, giving her some of the most unique offense in the game. Her dash, her walk, and her aerial movements are all very fast, letting her punish mistakes from far outside her normal attack range and capitalize on damage opportunities from almost any distance.
- Remi's graze attacks are also very fast, but none have startup graze. This gives her a bit of an issue if the opponent is able to gain control of the screen. Like most graze attacks, hers are also unsafe, but this is less of a problem if she has spellcards to cancel her recovery.
- Remi's movement options also constitute problems since she also does not have a normal flight ability and must spend lots of spirit for 8-way movement in the air. Due to this, Remi is reliant on her airdash for aerial mobility and focuses a lot on staying near the ground and mounting her attacks there.
- Remi's bullets are weird, but they are straightforward and fairly strong. She has few options for establishing true danmaku patterns, but she has a number of delayed bullets that can lock the enemy down if the opponent is forced to block them.
Youmu
- Youmu is the most rushdown-focused character in the game. Her bullets are incredibly lackluster, her movement is incredibly fast and she has some of the most frightening corner pressure in the game, especially if she uses Hakuroken or spellcards to cancel her melee attacks. Accordingly, her midscreen presence is weak due to her low-power bullets. She must generally rely on punishing mistakes with 6c or her "graze attack" DP.
- Despite having a sword, Youmu's melee is only above average. She mostly uses punches and kicks, and lacks disjointed hitboxes on most of her attacks. She must use her light, high blockstun bullets to establish control in a lot of situations, the threat of 6c, or the threat of her DPs. Her Phosphorous Sword skillcard helps a lot with melee dominance as it is a very meaty bullet attack that comes out fast.
- Youmu is one of the few characters with a true dragon punch (B version only) without using skillcards or spellcards. Her C version retains dash momentum and has startup graze, making it one of the most scary graze attacks in the game.
Patchouli
- Patchy is slow as balls. Even her high jumps are slow and her air mobility is shit. That being said, Patchy is a terror in the air, due to her many air options and larger angle of attack for bullets.
- In general, Patchy is extremely flexible and deck-centric, so countering her relies a lot on knowing what options she has in her deck.
- Patchy's bullets are insanely dense; her default 236 is denser than Utsuho's 5c and almost no one has anything close to the density of her normal bullets. Only her light density water bullets are anywhere near normal. She doesn't quite create danmaku the same way as other characters, but she can quickly eliminate it and be a threat from almost anywhere on screen. Some of her skillcards give her the ability to create danmaku on par with Yuyuko or other bullet-centric characters.
- Patchy's melee is balls, other than her j6a and 66b.
- Patchy has several reversal skillcards and can put them on two different motions. However, none of her DPs are melee and can be grazed. Aside from these cards, Patchy is incredibly vulnerable to rushdown as her melee is horrible.
Alice
- Alice's zoning is some of the scariest in the game. She is like a weird hyper version of both Yuyuko and Iku put together, with crazy long-ranged zoning melee and fast-cancelling delayed doll bullets that come from all directions. She is, in essence, the complete opposite of Youmu.
- Alice has fewer immediate options than any character in the game though, and is easily rushed down if she loses control of the screen. She absolutely must predict the opponent's moves and counter them with her zoning tools. If the enemy gets in close, she is likely to lock Alice down for a very long time.
Sakuya
- It is said that one time, a cobra bit Sakuya. After 3 days of excruciating block pressure, the cobra was guard crushed and died.
- Sakuya's offense is legendary. Her block pressure is probably the scariest thing in Soku. She is very fast, and if her opponent blocks even one bullet she can force the enemy in the corner and possibly even land a guard crush. Learning to border escape is mandatory for fighting her.
- Sakuya's melee attacks are pretty bad; she is really reliant on her insane bullets to control the match before locking her opponent down with her insane bullets.
Marisa
- Marisa is a more stable version of Suika. She has many similar things, including dense bullets, good melee, and huge damage off of almost any hit. Her execution is quite a bit harder; she has to work a little to land the combos that deal good damage and can't just Dial-A.
- Like Suika, Marisa lacks a decent graze attack, but her default 623 does have startup graze, letting her use it like Youmu's 623c. However, it doesn't retain dash momentum and Marisa has fewer spellcard cancel options if her 623 is blocked.
- Unlike Suika, Marisa has somewhat decent bullet cover options that are easier to use. They're not true bullet cover, but they control enough of the screen for a long enough period to be workable.
- Marisa's offensive pressure is substantially worse than Suika's. She has large gaps in her offense and the only way to plug the holes is with high-risk melee skillcards or spellcards.
Reimu
- no idea!
Sanae
- Sanae is a zone control monster, but she is really at her best when she has her alt Kanako skillcard. Otherwise, she kind of has a hard time fighting for positioning against superior zoning characters.
- Sanae's 2c is character-defining. It's huge, dense, and covers a ton of the screen if done high up.
- With both alt Kanako and alt Suwako, Sanae controls so much of the map that she's hard to ignore. She is still limited by the timers on her Kanako and Suwako gauges though.
Almost all of you suck at basic Soku fundamentals. I'm not saying I'm good, but most of you guys lose to me because you give opportunities away and I make more of my opportunities than most of you. Sam is the exception but only with his two characters and only really with Utsuho. He knows Utsuho's options very well and can play inside of those options.
Blockstrings are a basic thing for every character, though Iku is weaker at it than the rest of the cast. For most characters, your goal when blockstringing is to guard crush the opponent or punish her as she tries to escape. The basic syntax for a blockstring is f5a/2a, 3a/6a, bullet, HJC9 into a character specific followup. Some characters use multiple bullets. If you land a blocked close 5a, you want to continue it into the last move that can be cancelled into 3a and/or 6a and you definitely do not want to do any move that cannot be cancelled into bullets. Some examples:
- Yuyuko: 5a (close or far)/2a 3a/6a 6c 421c hjc9 j2a land repeat. Not airtight, but 6c can be replaced with 623c if the opponent is expected to graze to create the illusion of pressure. A blocked 623c can be spellcard cancelled to maintain pressure, as well.
- Iku: f5a/5aa/2a 3a/6a 5c hjc9 5c d6 j5a land repeat. Very not airtight. 5c must be mixed up with melee specials in order to create the illusion of pressure. A blocked melee special can be spellcard cancelled to maintain pressure.
- Utsuho is a bit weird. Her 5aaa is 2 overhead hits followed by a low. Any of the hits can be chained into 6a (low) or 3a (overhead) so she has more options in the basic hits if she doesn't start with 2a. Then 2c hjc into a jump mixup, as nothing is airtight after that. Additionally, 2c is only airtight if the opponent wrongblocks.
- Yukari: 5aa/f5a/2a 3a/6a 5b hjc9 2c d6 j5a land repeat. I'm not 100% sure if the 5b is airtight but if it is, it has a very small number of grazable frames if done properly and is definitely airtight on wrongblock. As with the others, you can cancel the 5b (actually the 5b and not the 3a/6a) into a 623c if they try to graze forward though it is unsafe if they high jump. If they block the 623c you will need to spellcard cancel or you will die.
However, the biggest fuckups I see are midscreen in neutral. I screw this up too, but it's worth covering. There are three things you're trying to do in midscreen. The first is get in and melee, the second is to deploy bullet cover and then exploit it, and the third is to punish the enemy for setting up bullet cover. Don't throw bullets mindlessly, throw bullets that are actually going to control space on the screen and then F-ING TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM. This means don't fucking throw bullets on the screen and jump back. If you're already predicting the opponent is going to beat your move, why the fuck did you throw it in the first place? I'm not saying expect your shit to hit all the time, but position yourself so that you can take advantage of your bullets and not try to set up more bullets.
There are a few exceptions to this rule but none of you do them. Specifically, if you have a danmaku advantage on the screen right now you can trade some of it to deploy delayed bullets that will give you an advantage later. The biggest examples of this are Tenshi's alt 214 earthquakes and Yuyuko's default 214 butterflies. In general though this is a bad idea. If you throw bullets on the screen and then don't cover them, the enemy can just graze them and hit you while you're trying to throw your delayed shit. Again, Yuyuko is a bit of an exception in that she may throw B bullets to try and get C bullets out, and it is generally hard to graze and hit her while she's throwing C bullets. You should not do this as a general strategy though if your opponent has a laser, or anything that can cut through your B bullets (including graze attacks), which is MOST OF THE CAST. It should be more of a backup strategy that you're trying to get away with rather than a main strategy. The default strategy is to deploy cover and exploit it, so do that.
Exploiting cover means different things for different characters. I'm going to use Yuyuko as an example again because she's one of the best examples of weird exploiting bullet cover. 6c is amazing because it puts this annoying homing bullet behind the enemy, but that bullet is useless if you meet the enemy in a head-on confrontation and lose in a melee priority battle or trade. Once you have it out, you want to position yourself in the most lucrative sweet spot the enemy has and block rather than directly attack. The same is true for her 214 butterflies or most delayed bullets like Remi's default 214. Once the enemy is forced to block the bullets (generally slightly before), get aggressive with melee and end with something that's going to keep the advantage.
For most characters though the bullets are generally a shield that you have to be as close to as possible. Throw a bullet and move in behind it; as you're doing so, anticipate anything that might beat it such as a laser or graze attack. If you don't see any of those, melee behind your bullets to prevent graze and go from there into a blockstring. It's important that your melee be aimed to hit the enemy as they're potentially grazing your bullets.
Sometimes it isn't clear that your danmaku will beat the enemy's right from the get-go. If that's the case, you still want to position yourself in an aggressive position and be ready to put down more danmaku. The main characters who want to do this are rushdown characters like Reisen or Marisa that also happen to have decent bullets. Yuyuko is again a bit of an issue since her B bullets are low density, so she is looking for any situation she can to throw out C bullets that can't be neutralized. Only throw C bullets out if the opponent can't punish you for trying or HJC as early as possible despite losing some of the bullets to cancel. Getting some C bullets is better than getting counterhit. Iku also wants to position herself favorably after a 6c but she has to make sure the 6c doesn't get nullified by a denser bullet, so she may assume a more passive stance.
Put danmaku in the enemy melee sweetspot. In almost all cases, it's in the air and in front of the enemy. This is of questionable effectiveness against Remilia unless the danmaku is very slow or starts behind your character and is almost useless against Alice whose sweetspot is on the ground. Everyone else you want do deny the close air approach. I get so many random counterhits off of antiair bullets that it's silly. If you are Utsuho and you aren't using 6b to cover this approach you are doing it wrong. Yuyuko does it automatically by default anytime she hits 6c since the damn thing tracks, but she also has 421c if the enemy is jockeying for that spot. Almost everyone has some kind of antiair bullet on 2b, 6b, 2c, or 6c. For most characters, it's 2b. The most notable exception is Utsuho who has 3a as an antiair against everyone except Iku. Iku's 5b is her best choice though not amazing. A lot of Yuyuko's bullets cover this space. 421c is the best, though the HJC window for it is kinda late it basically completely prevents jumpins. Most of her normal bullets cover this area. Anytime you see the enemy in the air and not immediately threatening you, the best place to put danmaku is where they will jump in at you.
This gets me to danmaku punishing. If you throw danmaku around like crazy defensively, most characters have a solid punish. I think everyone has eaten enough Iku 6c to understand this. Any reasonably dense, fast bullet can punish you if it can punch through part of your danmaku and hit you. In certain matchups, this basically defines the matchup eg. most of Suika's matchups. The first thing you need to know is where and how the enemy can punish you. For instance, if it's a laser or dense bullet, know whether it's a special and whether it can be done in the air, and position yourself away from it. If Iku is on the ground and I'm in the air, I know she cannot interrupt my danmaku so I can deploy most of my arsenal by the time she can high jump up and fire 6c, and I can airdash cancel to graze it. The same goes for Utsuho; she can only really threaten the width of her laser or possibly the width of her 5c. Remi can only punish her opponent if the enemy is low to the ground or Remi is close to the wall (and then only with default wall dive). If you're trying to danmaku punish, fish for those positions or if you can't get them, throw setup danmaku or try to get in for melee.
Approaching for melee without any cover is risky. You should only do it if the opponent is trying to danmaku punish and is therefore not doing anything. The other option is if you are relatively close to your opponent and can potentially punish the startup of danmaku with a dashing melee attack. This is, in general, a bad idea. The other option is that you will avoid most of the opponent's potential setup danmaku with an odd positioning aerial attack, such as a crossup. A neutral crossup is not very effective. In general you almost always want to have either sweetspot melee positioning (eg. Iku j2a positioning), danmaku cover, or frame advantage (enemy blocking or getting hit or knocked down) before going for melee. If you're in the close air sweetspot and there are no threatening bullets, then yes, go for melee, just be wary of antiairs and consider using quick danmaku pressure (such as Reisen j2b) to force blocking or punish antair melee.
Remi
Setups!
blocked j5aa, airborne enemy (falling)
- 2a (unblockable) into 5c hjc j5a8a; limits for around 2kish. Works best if they do nothing.
- 6a (unblockable) into 6a followups; generally Spear the Gungnir or Critical (Heart Break). Punishes forward airdashing somewhat depending on enemy height, but less followups without cards.
- dash j5aa. If they do anything other than fly up or a back airdash, this will catch them and set up into j5aa loop. If it corners, you can 6a 623c for over 2k.
- 2c. Puts bullet pressure upwards if they fly up, otherwise not too good.
- 623b/c. Best for Iku or other characters that can attack you from the other options. Horribly unsafe if blocked. Can also use Red the Nightless Castle; a bit safer, but still dangerous.
airdash shenanigans
- jump back, ad6: It gives you an extra approach vector for a closer opponent and covers different space. It can confuse the enemy too since people used to Remi might be used to seeing her dash forward. At very closer distances, it's a crossup trick if you delay the airdash. You need to time the airdash depending on distance; faster if further, later if closer. You can also use d6 (towards the opponent) to get a bit closer.
- jump back, d6: This is imo a more reliable crossup since you can do d6 a bit earlier, or at least my hands can (lol). If done low, it hits in front, if done high it crosses up. It's pretty telegraphed though unless you are picture perfect on the spacing.
Combos!
-5aaaa
- 6a 623c (corner)
- super (save for midscreen)
CH j2a
- dash j5aa, dash j5a8a (2400ish, limits) The trickiness is in figuring out which way you need to dash... plus responding to the counterhit.
- 2c hjc 5c adc 8a (2700ish, limits) Much harder than above and doesn't corner them, but much more damage for 2 spirit orbs.
Cards!
Destiny (Miserable Fate)
- Use after they block a 5c or other meaty projectile; MIDSCREEN ONLY OK.
Spear the Gungnir
- Huge frame advantage on block, plus a lot of chip. On block, use!
Reisen
Combos!
5a
- Midscreen: 5aaa 5b (2hit) hjc j5a j6a. j5b will hit if less than halfway to the corner or so afterwards. This combo does not bluering, does only 1800. You probably want to do the j5b and fly immediately to the ground OR charge j5c and airdash forward. If you're using ripple vision you can also charge that.
- Corner: 5aaa 236b 236c. If you are a little ways from the corner, 5aaa 236b hjc j5a j6a is more reliable, but does less damage. Both bluering, double fireball does around 2500 at level 0. At level max it does over 3k. Some people don't need to rank their combo tools but Reisen really does, IMHO.
j2a
- 236b hjc j5a j6a. It's the same as the corner variant above. Does ~2k at rank 0. Kinda weak, but what can you do? It works anywhere, though if you cross up with j2a you need to wait for Reisen to turn around before doing 236b. Also, this will not work if you hit with the leading forward edge of j2a, as you're a bit too far away.
- CH j2a, LRE. It's hard to really follow up with anything if you don't have LRE; j5a j6a does less than the above combo and the above combo works, but is hard to time.
What characters do
Suika
-Suika is powerful in melee with very high damage with very little effort. Combo practice is minimal for her, as her Dial-A does nearly 2500 damage for no spirit. Her melee has great range and has disjointed hitboxes, making her a very scary threat in the air or on the ground. She also has many high/low options and even one of her bullets (2b) is a melee attack.
- With the exception of her C bullets, Suika's projectiles are small in number and high in density, which lets her blast holes in enemy danmaku to strike the opponent directly. However, other than 6b and her Spirit Bomb skillcard, her bullets are wonky and take some practice to use. The high-density, low volume bullets let Suika take the offense even at positional disadvantage, but bullets that attack from strange angles are difficult for her to handle as she has trouble actually creating lasting bullet cover in response.
- Suika is fast and her abare is very high. She can deal very large amounts of damage off of almost any hit.
- Suika has few graze attack options and is reliant on blasting through enemy bullets with her own.
Yukari
- No idea!
vs. Yuyuko
- Yuyu has some of the slowest movement in the game, though her cancels are fast. Due to her slow speed, she must rely more on getting to a strong position in advance rather than quickly moving to take it. She also has difficulty following up from incidental bullet hits since she cannot close distance quickly.
- Yuyuko's melee is very large and covers wide areas in front of her. Like her own movement, it is slow, but it gives her a strong close-combat game once she has established control.
- Yuyuko has a wide variety of bullets. She controls the map very well and can literally fill the screen with garbage with just a few attacks. However, her C bullets do not hit enemy bullets at all (they pass through) while her B bullets lack density. She has trouble against high-density penetrating bullets, and must predict when the enemy will throw them and block while her ghostly C bullets and skillcards attack.
- Yuyuko's defense is limited, but it is better than most of the other zoning characters. She has several reversal spellcards and a powerful graze attack, and has many spellcards that can cancel laggy blocked skillcards in order to keep her on the offense.
Remilia
- Remi's dash is unique and difficult to handle; she leaps forward rather than running on the ground. While she leaps forward she is considered airborne and can attack with aerial normals, giving her some of the most unique offense in the game. Her dash, her walk, and her aerial movements are all very fast, letting her punish mistakes from far outside her normal attack range and capitalize on damage opportunities from almost any distance.
- Remi's graze attacks are also very fast, but none have startup graze. This gives her a bit of an issue if the opponent is able to gain control of the screen. Like most graze attacks, hers are also unsafe, but this is less of a problem if she has spellcards to cancel her recovery.
- Remi's movement options also constitute problems since she also does not have a normal flight ability and must spend lots of spirit for 8-way movement in the air. Due to this, Remi is reliant on her airdash for aerial mobility and focuses a lot on staying near the ground and mounting her attacks there.
- Remi's bullets are weird, but they are straightforward and fairly strong. She has few options for establishing true danmaku patterns, but she has a number of delayed bullets that can lock the enemy down if the opponent is forced to block them.
Youmu
- Youmu is the most rushdown-focused character in the game. Her bullets are incredibly lackluster, her movement is incredibly fast and she has some of the most frightening corner pressure in the game, especially if she uses Hakuroken or spellcards to cancel her melee attacks. Accordingly, her midscreen presence is weak due to her low-power bullets. She must generally rely on punishing mistakes with 6c or her "graze attack" DP.
- Despite having a sword, Youmu's melee is only above average. She mostly uses punches and kicks, and lacks disjointed hitboxes on most of her attacks. She must use her light, high blockstun bullets to establish control in a lot of situations, the threat of 6c, or the threat of her DPs. Her Phosphorous Sword skillcard helps a lot with melee dominance as it is a very meaty bullet attack that comes out fast.
- Youmu is one of the few characters with a true dragon punch (B version only) without using skillcards or spellcards. Her C version retains dash momentum and has startup graze, making it one of the most scary graze attacks in the game.
Patchouli
- Patchy is slow as balls. Even her high jumps are slow and her air mobility is shit. That being said, Patchy is a terror in the air, due to her many air options and larger angle of attack for bullets.
- In general, Patchy is extremely flexible and deck-centric, so countering her relies a lot on knowing what options she has in her deck.
- Patchy's bullets are insanely dense; her default 236 is denser than Utsuho's 5c and almost no one has anything close to the density of her normal bullets. Only her light density water bullets are anywhere near normal. She doesn't quite create danmaku the same way as other characters, but she can quickly eliminate it and be a threat from almost anywhere on screen. Some of her skillcards give her the ability to create danmaku on par with Yuyuko or other bullet-centric characters.
- Patchy's melee is balls, other than her j6a and 66b.
- Patchy has several reversal skillcards and can put them on two different motions. However, none of her DPs are melee and can be grazed. Aside from these cards, Patchy is incredibly vulnerable to rushdown as her melee is horrible.
Alice
- Alice's zoning is some of the scariest in the game. She is like a weird hyper version of both Yuyuko and Iku put together, with crazy long-ranged zoning melee and fast-cancelling delayed doll bullets that come from all directions. She is, in essence, the complete opposite of Youmu.
- Alice has fewer immediate options than any character in the game though, and is easily rushed down if she loses control of the screen. She absolutely must predict the opponent's moves and counter them with her zoning tools. If the enemy gets in close, she is likely to lock Alice down for a very long time.
Sakuya
- It is said that one time, a cobra bit Sakuya. After 3 days of excruciating block pressure, the cobra was guard crushed and died.
- Sakuya's offense is legendary. Her block pressure is probably the scariest thing in Soku. She is very fast, and if her opponent blocks even one bullet she can force the enemy in the corner and possibly even land a guard crush. Learning to border escape is mandatory for fighting her.
- Sakuya's melee attacks are pretty bad; she is really reliant on her insane bullets to control the match before locking her opponent down with her insane bullets.
Marisa
- Marisa is a more stable version of Suika. She has many similar things, including dense bullets, good melee, and huge damage off of almost any hit. Her execution is quite a bit harder; she has to work a little to land the combos that deal good damage and can't just Dial-A.
- Like Suika, Marisa lacks a decent graze attack, but her default 623 does have startup graze, letting her use it like Youmu's 623c. However, it doesn't retain dash momentum and Marisa has fewer spellcard cancel options if her 623 is blocked.
- Unlike Suika, Marisa has somewhat decent bullet cover options that are easier to use. They're not true bullet cover, but they control enough of the screen for a long enough period to be workable.
- Marisa's offensive pressure is substantially worse than Suika's. She has large gaps in her offense and the only way to plug the holes is with high-risk melee skillcards or spellcards.
Reimu
- no idea!
Sanae
- Sanae is a zone control monster, but she is really at her best when she has her alt Kanako skillcard. Otherwise, she kind of has a hard time fighting for positioning against superior zoning characters.
- Sanae's 2c is character-defining. It's huge, dense, and covers a ton of the screen if done high up.
- With both alt Kanako and alt Suwako, Sanae controls so much of the map that she's hard to ignore. She is still limited by the timers on her Kanako and Suwako gauges though.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Firearm accuracy thoughts for games
Bullets are a difficult thing to emulate in a virtual environment, whether PNP or otherwise. They're weird because bullets travel so fast they're impossible to dodge, yet there are factors that increase the difficulty in hitting a target.
Melee combat by comparison is pretty easy since it's an opposed skill test. One guy is trying to hit the other, and the other guy is attempting to block or dodge or cut off the other dude's sword arm or whatever. You don't have to emulate every element of a melee swing such as arc of swing or style of block, and adding that sort of mechanic in makes the system clunky. You want combat flowing pretty fast, and the best systems actually simplify blocking into a defense value, making only the attack roll matter. Active defenses such as martial arts counterthrows can be created as special rules.
Firearms are a little different. Aiming is a factor of the shooter's state and the target's, as well as the inherent accuracy of the weapon and ammunition used. Unlike melee combat where defense values are just something to simplify combat, defense against firearms really don't have any reaction possible. If you're moving or making yourself hard to get hit, you're not actually dodging, you're just making it harder for them to hit you.
Making a shot with a firearm that shoots bullets is about degrees. Character skill, firing position, and current status (wounded, whatever) add variance to the angle of the shot. Likewise, each weapon also has a set amount of variance. Accuracy deviations can be represented as fractions of MOA; 1 MOA represents 1 inch wide groups at 100 yards; a typical hunter might shoot 3-4 MOA groupings, most of which is his own personal skill and positioning while the rifle itself might be a 1 MOA or less gun. A benchrest shooter might shoot 1 MOA or less groups, most of which is the rifle deviation, due to the better supported position, clear target, and longer time taking the shot. Note that a 1 MOA group is 1/2 inch and not 1 inch from the point of aim.
MOA ratings can be compared to the size of the target to determine accuracy; a 4 MOA shooter (gun + character) will hit a stationary target in the head at 100 yards 100% of the time, but at 200 yards, since a human head is 5-6 inches across or so, he might have a 75% chance to hit for a 6-inch human head. He'll still hit 100% of the time if he aims center mass on the torso. We can probably simplify this by making the human body effectively a 16-18-inch target most of the time and have called shots be 4-6 inches. Technically this only counts the shortest distance, so this gives the shooter the worst chance of hitting, but that's honestly fine for simulation purposes.
When a character takes a shot, he just rolls on his accuracy based on the target size. If he rolls under the target size, he hits. So a shooter who is firing 8 MOA groups (he's standing and recently readied his rifle, such as a combat situation) could shoot anywhere from center mass (direct hit) to 4 inches in any given direction, but we just check that as a 4 inch group at 50 yards (easy hits) or a 16 inch group at 200 yards (much harder).
At anything but point-blank range, a moving target either effectively makes itself smaller (ideal for PNP rules) or adds to the shooter's MOA (more accurate to reality). Any moving target dramatically alters accuracy since the shooter cannot maintain a stable firing position unless he leads the target.
Weather factors are a difficult thing to incorporate, as is elevation. Technically bullet drop matters, but there's really no reason to factor it in since it's assumed that a shooter would make elevation adjustments to his sights before taking the shot. If a weapon is zeroed at a particular distance (200 yards for instance) and a character is thrust into combat at 100 yards, elevation doesn't matter too much. For long-distance combat at 300 yards or more, it might incur an MOA penalty if a character doesn't take some kind of aiming action to adjust his sights and snap in on the target.
Automatic weapons fire is difficult in anything that can be approximated in a PNP system. The best way to handle automatic fire is to check MOA for each shot, factoring in recoil from the previous shot and the shooter's recoil compensation skill, as well as adding a MOA penalty for having to compensate for recoil at all (muscling the weapon). Obviously, rolling to hit for a 5-round burst quickly becomes problematic for PNP. A possible simplified solution would be to come up with rules that allow you to roll once and use the roll of the first shot to determine how many, if any, bullets hit the target. Again, the best simulation is to roll for each bullet fired, but there might be some simple math thing a PNP system could incorporate for rapid firing.
MOA for characters would start at like, 20 or more and get better with character marksmanship skill and individual weapon handling skill. Most rifles shoot 2 MOA or better. Most handguns are difficult to measure (driving a nail at 10 yards suggest handguns are capable of around 1-1.5 MOA groups) but handgun skill generally should start out as bad as rifles but be harder to raise.
Additionally, weapons should have a maximum effective range, which is determined partly by the round fired and partly by the barrel length of the weapon. Beyond this range, the bullet tumbles wildly. We can probably set a range increment for shot difficulty (increases MOA if shot further than this) and a second increment that makes the bullet tumble, making accurate fire impossible. Obviously we can make critical hits capable of shooting past this range, since lucky shots can happen.
As for how crits are determined, I dunno. I would suggest a second lucky roll instead of folding it into the actual hit chance, at least if I were making a simulation RPG.
Melee combat by comparison is pretty easy since it's an opposed skill test. One guy is trying to hit the other, and the other guy is attempting to block or dodge or cut off the other dude's sword arm or whatever. You don't have to emulate every element of a melee swing such as arc of swing or style of block, and adding that sort of mechanic in makes the system clunky. You want combat flowing pretty fast, and the best systems actually simplify blocking into a defense value, making only the attack roll matter. Active defenses such as martial arts counterthrows can be created as special rules.
Firearms are a little different. Aiming is a factor of the shooter's state and the target's, as well as the inherent accuracy of the weapon and ammunition used. Unlike melee combat where defense values are just something to simplify combat, defense against firearms really don't have any reaction possible. If you're moving or making yourself hard to get hit, you're not actually dodging, you're just making it harder for them to hit you.
Making a shot with a firearm that shoots bullets is about degrees. Character skill, firing position, and current status (wounded, whatever) add variance to the angle of the shot. Likewise, each weapon also has a set amount of variance. Accuracy deviations can be represented as fractions of MOA; 1 MOA represents 1 inch wide groups at 100 yards; a typical hunter might shoot 3-4 MOA groupings, most of which is his own personal skill and positioning while the rifle itself might be a 1 MOA or less gun. A benchrest shooter might shoot 1 MOA or less groups, most of which is the rifle deviation, due to the better supported position, clear target, and longer time taking the shot. Note that a 1 MOA group is 1/2 inch and not 1 inch from the point of aim.
MOA ratings can be compared to the size of the target to determine accuracy; a 4 MOA shooter (gun + character) will hit a stationary target in the head at 100 yards 100% of the time, but at 200 yards, since a human head is 5-6 inches across or so, he might have a 75% chance to hit for a 6-inch human head. He'll still hit 100% of the time if he aims center mass on the torso. We can probably simplify this by making the human body effectively a 16-18-inch target most of the time and have called shots be 4-6 inches. Technically this only counts the shortest distance, so this gives the shooter the worst chance of hitting, but that's honestly fine for simulation purposes.
When a character takes a shot, he just rolls on his accuracy based on the target size. If he rolls under the target size, he hits. So a shooter who is firing 8 MOA groups (he's standing and recently readied his rifle, such as a combat situation) could shoot anywhere from center mass (direct hit) to 4 inches in any given direction, but we just check that as a 4 inch group at 50 yards (easy hits) or a 16 inch group at 200 yards (much harder).
At anything but point-blank range, a moving target either effectively makes itself smaller (ideal for PNP rules) or adds to the shooter's MOA (more accurate to reality). Any moving target dramatically alters accuracy since the shooter cannot maintain a stable firing position unless he leads the target.
Weather factors are a difficult thing to incorporate, as is elevation. Technically bullet drop matters, but there's really no reason to factor it in since it's assumed that a shooter would make elevation adjustments to his sights before taking the shot. If a weapon is zeroed at a particular distance (200 yards for instance) and a character is thrust into combat at 100 yards, elevation doesn't matter too much. For long-distance combat at 300 yards or more, it might incur an MOA penalty if a character doesn't take some kind of aiming action to adjust his sights and snap in on the target.
Automatic weapons fire is difficult in anything that can be approximated in a PNP system. The best way to handle automatic fire is to check MOA for each shot, factoring in recoil from the previous shot and the shooter's recoil compensation skill, as well as adding a MOA penalty for having to compensate for recoil at all (muscling the weapon). Obviously, rolling to hit for a 5-round burst quickly becomes problematic for PNP. A possible simplified solution would be to come up with rules that allow you to roll once and use the roll of the first shot to determine how many, if any, bullets hit the target. Again, the best simulation is to roll for each bullet fired, but there might be some simple math thing a PNP system could incorporate for rapid firing.
MOA for characters would start at like, 20 or more and get better with character marksmanship skill and individual weapon handling skill. Most rifles shoot 2 MOA or better. Most handguns are difficult to measure (driving a nail at 10 yards suggest handguns are capable of around 1-1.5 MOA groups) but handgun skill generally should start out as bad as rifles but be harder to raise.
Additionally, weapons should have a maximum effective range, which is determined partly by the round fired and partly by the barrel length of the weapon. Beyond this range, the bullet tumbles wildly. We can probably set a range increment for shot difficulty (increases MOA if shot further than this) and a second increment that makes the bullet tumble, making accurate fire impossible. Obviously we can make critical hits capable of shooting past this range, since lucky shots can happen.
As for how crits are determined, I dunno. I would suggest a second lucky roll instead of folding it into the actual hit chance, at least if I were making a simulation RPG.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Rifts SDM Champion League Competitors
Note that, in general the characters named here are not using their real names. Rahu-Crusher's real name is Rahum Gruug, we all know who Shadow Face is and Stone-Death probably has no real name among his kind. Other characters such as Narga and Sarlea probably use their real names with a subtitle to promote their awesome arena might or political agenda.
Narga the Terrible
Narga is the most versatile arena fighter in the SAC, combining physical, weapons, and magic into one big symphony of pain. She is an adult Thunder Lizard and crushes virtually all of her opponents with ease. Her dragon traits give her incredible staying power, with enough health and mana to outlast virtually anyone. She has an incredibly flexible fighting style, incorporating modern weapons, techno-wizardry and magic items of all types as the need strikes her. She is extremely arrogant, and with good reason; most battles with Narga end in seconds. The only fighter to have a winning record against her is Shadow Face; she is 2-3 against him.
Blackstream note: Narga is a sexy beast (PB 19).
Sarlea, the Herald of Styphathal
Sarlea is a female adult Ultucan dragon and a devout follower of the teachings of Styphathal and the Cult of Dragonwright. She openly preaches against Stydro, and denounces the current Dragonwright faith in her battles. She is more magic-dependent than Narga, using her Ultucan magic songs to completely shut down any opponents not resistant to magic. She fights primarily with magic and techno-wizard weapons while she sings, and happily cleaves through her opponents with masterfully crafted magic blades. She is also a master psychic and will not hesitate to spam psionic mezzes if her opponent is vulnerable to them. She tends to utterly dominate anyone without strong resistance to magic or psionics but has a terrible record against Narga and the Abomination who have ready counters to all of Sarlea's bullshit. She also fares poorly against Shadow Face, who regularly gloats that the Black Flame of Zandragal could easily beat her. Her overall win ratio is the highest in the Arena, however.
Blackstream note: Sarlea is pretty hot (PB 17), but her real draw is her voice, which is absolutely mesmerizing.
The Abomination of Splynn
A massively powerful replacement for the Demon of Splynn, armed to the teeth with the best in magical weapons. He is a giant, rhino-hided bio-wizard freak with a breath weapon, poisonous claws and bite, and a bad attitude. He excels at fighting defensively and is nowhere near as overconfident as the Demon was. He has a surprisingly decent record even against the top two (positive against Sarlea) and has no awful matchups. The Abomination fights fewer matches per day than the others, typically only participating in one or two.
The Shadow Face
The highest-ranked human-sized creature in the SAC, he is most well-known for his strong defensive and evasive tactics. It is known that he is the criminal "Beautiful Slacker," but some political maneuvering appears to keep him above the law and he wears a monstrous visage in fights, lending him more popularity among the SDM purveyors. In either event, his offense focuses highly on lightning speed and agility, moving with such speed that he appears to teleport. He also has ready counters to most forms of mez and appears to be a spellcaster, although he does not cast offensive spells, preferring to fight with his fists. He has a terrible record against Well-Fed (1-8) due to his refusal to use magic aggressively. Despite his human-like physique, he is fairly popular since he does not use weapons, leading him to be somewhat of a "poor man's hero." Like Narga, he is extremely arrogant and frequently berates his opponents or shows off during fights. Almost all of his losses are to single hits from physically powerful opponents; he often throws in the towel after getting hit only once.
Sly the Slaver
A strange exception to the one-combatant rule, and most likely only waived because Sly is one of Splynncryth's minions, Sly enters battle with his six Altara blind warrior women. All of them are bio-wizard augmented and this means Sly is effectively a cheating bastard. He is quite popular despite this. Sly and his BWWs are all armed with magical weapons. While all of them carry typical BWW mez weapons such as magic nets and neural incapacitators, they also carry magic swords of fine Splugorth manufacture. Sly absolutely destroys most opponents due solely to his volume of attacks, although he has trouble with anyone that can lock down his Altara allies quickly. He has a good record against any non-flying, non-teleporting opponent. His matches tend to drag on for longer than most, as he relies mostly on repeated light debuffs that don't completely shut down his opponent before dealing lots of damage. Like the Abomination, Sly only fights in one match per day at most.
Rahu-Crusher
Probably the most outspoken arena combatant outside the arena, Rahu-Crusher spends a lot of money hyping his image. He rarely fights without a suit of his trademark armor, generally conceding a battle if it is heavily damaged. He carries a shield in one hand and up to three melee weapons in his other hands, although he will occasionally carry a heavy energy rifle or magical bow against an opponent who favors distance combat. Due to his heavy bio-wizard augmentation and magical items, he is well-armed for most sorts of battles but prefers close combat. A four-armed assault by Rahu-Crusher literally crushes his opponents; he can best any fighter in the Arena save for Black Face in close-quarters combat. Even the Abomination, who fights in a very defensive melee style, often switches to long-range aerial sniping to deal with Rahu-Crusher's phenomenal strength and combat speed. He has a tough time with Sarlea, as she often uses long-ranged stealth and teleport tactics combined with psionics, all of which he has a poor defense against. He has a friendly rivalry with Black Face, and the two engage in frequent verbal barbs while they fight (Rahu-Crusher is 2-8).
Well-Fed the Fool
The only Cyber-Knight of any note in the arena, Well-Fed is also one of the best melee fighters in the arena. He is also one of the most infamous and his matches are regularly sold out, as he denounces Atlantis and Splynncryth before, during, and after every fight. Most people go just to see him lose. Well-Fed has one of the weaker overall ratings in the Arena, and has problems with opponents who use heavy disabling magic. He is well-equipped with tattoos and a few magic items, though nothing fancy like many of the other top tiers. Well-Fed's success in melee is somewhat astounding; footage of him reveals that while he is very skilled, he does not have the fighting prowess to defeat an average Conservator, let alone fight toe-to-toe with Master and Champion League opponents. He has an incredible force of will, breaking mez effects via sheer willpower. He has an average winrate against most of the top tier except Narga (who is undefeated against him) and has a decidedly high winrate against the more melee-focused enemies such as Rahu-Crusher and Shadow Face. Shadow Face has the worst record against him, with Well-Fed 8-1 against him. Well-Fed also surprisingly easily defeats Sly, although no one is quite sure how the Altara warriors can miss with so many TW weapons.
Sight-Stealer
The highest-ranked arena slave, Sight-Stealer is a Tattoo Archer who enters battle typically wearing as little clothing as possible. She is owned by another Splugorth, and she is allowed to cheat by entering battle with a tattoo serpent active. The serpent attacks with spitting acid that causes blindness, and Sight-Stealer herself favors the Blind tattoo, Blind arrows, and a magical whip that weakens her targets. She is extremely popular among the more perverse arena purveyors and small riots generally occur when she loses. Sight-Stealer generally defeats the majority of opponents by blinding them and then flaying them with her whip until they forfeit. She has a poor resistance to psionics (relative to Champion League, anyway) but she often defeats psionic opponents before their mind powers become a problem. The fighters that are not dependent on sight, such as Sly and Shadow Face, easily defeat her, and Well-Fed also tends to power through her blinding attacks and win anyway.
Stone-Death
An elder gargoyle lord, Stone-Death is the highest-tier champion of Alvurron and a top tier candidate. He is somewhat of a freak of nature, and combines the magic of a gargoyle mage with the physical power of a gargoyle lord. His elemental powers serve to level the playing field of some of the more cheatery opponents and he is nigh-impervious to all "tricky" forms of attack. He is not quite as skilled a fighter as some of the more solid melee combatants, but he can wear down most of them with his elemental powers. He is much like a more flexible, worse-equipped Abomination. He does wield a number of magic weapons, but he is seemingly ignorant or unaware of the value of a more flexible magic weapon lineup. If this weakness could be solved, most consider him a serious threat for the #1 slot.
Seven Times Death
This bad boy is an adult seven-headed hydra. He is equipped with a few miscellaneous magic items, but he generally is not smart enough to use any tricky tools and is pretty much allowed to run amok in the arena, unleashing hell on anyone stupid enough to get close. He has a keen sense of smell and regenerates rapidly, using his teleport ability to get close to an opponent and unleashing hell with his full massive repertoire of attacks. He is bloodthirsty and will often forget that an opponent has forfeited, leading to massive magical attempts to disable him before he kills his opponent. He is huge, ferocious, and intelligent for a hydra and even Rahu-Crusher avoids fighting him in melee combat (though Rahu-Crusher is has beaten the hydra multiple times in close-range battle). The only fighter dumb enough to fight him in close combat is Shadow Face, and he often pays for it by getting hit with a brutal tail swipe.
Momus, the False Atlantean
Named for the Greek god of satire, Momus is a Maxi-Man who looks like an Undead Slayer, complete with Marks of Heritage-esque tattoos on his hands. He is more flexible than Sight-Stealer, but as a result he ends up losing more fights that she might win for free. His monster tattoos tend to be of mythological beasts of Greek myth such as bipedal bull-like creatures (not actually minotaurs) and flaming horses which he uses to ride around the arena. He is armed with a Millennium Staff of Purity and deals tremendous punishment to powerful demonlike creatures, giving him better matchups against creatures he might otherwise lose to.
The Firestarter
Another humanoid creature, he is a godling of unknown descent. The Firestarter is a mechanical genius, and wields homebrew explosive weapons in combat, including ultra-powerful grenades and bombs. He is virtually indestructible and does not generally wear armor. His body regenerates rapidly like a dragon and he never, ever forfeits matches, instead fighting until he is "slain," after which he regenerates. He wields massive supernatural strength surpassing most arena combatants, save for the true titans like Rahu-Crusher. Like Rahu-Crusher, he is a part-time fighter who runs a machine shop in the Outer Markets, fixing, repairing, and upgrading mechanical vehicles. He carries magic trinkets that protect him from spells and is a master psionic, wielding telekinetic powers frequently to deliver explosive weapons. Despite his magical protections, he is extremely vulnerable to non-spell magic (anything that doesn't cost mana) and is absolutely crushed by Narga's toxic breath or Sarlea's songs. He thus wears protective helmets in these matchups to prevent these and other environmental hazards from crippling him in battle, but his helmet is often destroyed or removed by a superior melee opponent. He has a versatile repertoire of weapons, but does not wield massive volumes of rune or TW items, making him somewhat second-string among the top Champions. His melee combat skill is high, though among the top tiers he loses to most in close combat. Still, his strength is so high that a lucky hit or a successful grapple often proves to be the end of his opponent.
Narga the Terrible
Narga is the most versatile arena fighter in the SAC, combining physical, weapons, and magic into one big symphony of pain. She is an adult Thunder Lizard and crushes virtually all of her opponents with ease. Her dragon traits give her incredible staying power, with enough health and mana to outlast virtually anyone. She has an incredibly flexible fighting style, incorporating modern weapons, techno-wizardry and magic items of all types as the need strikes her. She is extremely arrogant, and with good reason; most battles with Narga end in seconds. The only fighter to have a winning record against her is Shadow Face; she is 2-3 against him.
Blackstream note: Narga is a sexy beast (PB 19).
Sarlea, the Herald of Styphathal
Sarlea is a female adult Ultucan dragon and a devout follower of the teachings of Styphathal and the Cult of Dragonwright. She openly preaches against Stydro, and denounces the current Dragonwright faith in her battles. She is more magic-dependent than Narga, using her Ultucan magic songs to completely shut down any opponents not resistant to magic. She fights primarily with magic and techno-wizard weapons while she sings, and happily cleaves through her opponents with masterfully crafted magic blades. She is also a master psychic and will not hesitate to spam psionic mezzes if her opponent is vulnerable to them. She tends to utterly dominate anyone without strong resistance to magic or psionics but has a terrible record against Narga and the Abomination who have ready counters to all of Sarlea's bullshit. She also fares poorly against Shadow Face, who regularly gloats that the Black Flame of Zandragal could easily beat her. Her overall win ratio is the highest in the Arena, however.
Blackstream note: Sarlea is pretty hot (PB 17), but her real draw is her voice, which is absolutely mesmerizing.
The Abomination of Splynn
A massively powerful replacement for the Demon of Splynn, armed to the teeth with the best in magical weapons. He is a giant, rhino-hided bio-wizard freak with a breath weapon, poisonous claws and bite, and a bad attitude. He excels at fighting defensively and is nowhere near as overconfident as the Demon was. He has a surprisingly decent record even against the top two (positive against Sarlea) and has no awful matchups. The Abomination fights fewer matches per day than the others, typically only participating in one or two.
The Shadow Face
The highest-ranked human-sized creature in the SAC, he is most well-known for his strong defensive and evasive tactics. It is known that he is the criminal "Beautiful Slacker," but some political maneuvering appears to keep him above the law and he wears a monstrous visage in fights, lending him more popularity among the SDM purveyors. In either event, his offense focuses highly on lightning speed and agility, moving with such speed that he appears to teleport. He also has ready counters to most forms of mez and appears to be a spellcaster, although he does not cast offensive spells, preferring to fight with his fists. He has a terrible record against Well-Fed (1-8) due to his refusal to use magic aggressively. Despite his human-like physique, he is fairly popular since he does not use weapons, leading him to be somewhat of a "poor man's hero." Like Narga, he is extremely arrogant and frequently berates his opponents or shows off during fights. Almost all of his losses are to single hits from physically powerful opponents; he often throws in the towel after getting hit only once.
Sly the Slaver
A strange exception to the one-combatant rule, and most likely only waived because Sly is one of Splynncryth's minions, Sly enters battle with his six Altara blind warrior women. All of them are bio-wizard augmented and this means Sly is effectively a cheating bastard. He is quite popular despite this. Sly and his BWWs are all armed with magical weapons. While all of them carry typical BWW mez weapons such as magic nets and neural incapacitators, they also carry magic swords of fine Splugorth manufacture. Sly absolutely destroys most opponents due solely to his volume of attacks, although he has trouble with anyone that can lock down his Altara allies quickly. He has a good record against any non-flying, non-teleporting opponent. His matches tend to drag on for longer than most, as he relies mostly on repeated light debuffs that don't completely shut down his opponent before dealing lots of damage. Like the Abomination, Sly only fights in one match per day at most.
Rahu-Crusher
Probably the most outspoken arena combatant outside the arena, Rahu-Crusher spends a lot of money hyping his image. He rarely fights without a suit of his trademark armor, generally conceding a battle if it is heavily damaged. He carries a shield in one hand and up to three melee weapons in his other hands, although he will occasionally carry a heavy energy rifle or magical bow against an opponent who favors distance combat. Due to his heavy bio-wizard augmentation and magical items, he is well-armed for most sorts of battles but prefers close combat. A four-armed assault by Rahu-Crusher literally crushes his opponents; he can best any fighter in the Arena save for Black Face in close-quarters combat. Even the Abomination, who fights in a very defensive melee style, often switches to long-range aerial sniping to deal with Rahu-Crusher's phenomenal strength and combat speed. He has a tough time with Sarlea, as she often uses long-ranged stealth and teleport tactics combined with psionics, all of which he has a poor defense against. He has a friendly rivalry with Black Face, and the two engage in frequent verbal barbs while they fight (Rahu-Crusher is 2-8).
Well-Fed the Fool
The only Cyber-Knight of any note in the arena, Well-Fed is also one of the best melee fighters in the arena. He is also one of the most infamous and his matches are regularly sold out, as he denounces Atlantis and Splynncryth before, during, and after every fight. Most people go just to see him lose. Well-Fed has one of the weaker overall ratings in the Arena, and has problems with opponents who use heavy disabling magic. He is well-equipped with tattoos and a few magic items, though nothing fancy like many of the other top tiers. Well-Fed's success in melee is somewhat astounding; footage of him reveals that while he is very skilled, he does not have the fighting prowess to defeat an average Conservator, let alone fight toe-to-toe with Master and Champion League opponents. He has an incredible force of will, breaking mez effects via sheer willpower. He has an average winrate against most of the top tier except Narga (who is undefeated against him) and has a decidedly high winrate against the more melee-focused enemies such as Rahu-Crusher and Shadow Face. Shadow Face has the worst record against him, with Well-Fed 8-1 against him. Well-Fed also surprisingly easily defeats Sly, although no one is quite sure how the Altara warriors can miss with so many TW weapons.
Sight-Stealer
The highest-ranked arena slave, Sight-Stealer is a Tattoo Archer who enters battle typically wearing as little clothing as possible. She is owned by another Splugorth, and she is allowed to cheat by entering battle with a tattoo serpent active. The serpent attacks with spitting acid that causes blindness, and Sight-Stealer herself favors the Blind tattoo, Blind arrows, and a magical whip that weakens her targets. She is extremely popular among the more perverse arena purveyors and small riots generally occur when she loses. Sight-Stealer generally defeats the majority of opponents by blinding them and then flaying them with her whip until they forfeit. She has a poor resistance to psionics (relative to Champion League, anyway) but she often defeats psionic opponents before their mind powers become a problem. The fighters that are not dependent on sight, such as Sly and Shadow Face, easily defeat her, and Well-Fed also tends to power through her blinding attacks and win anyway.
Stone-Death
An elder gargoyle lord, Stone-Death is the highest-tier champion of Alvurron and a top tier candidate. He is somewhat of a freak of nature, and combines the magic of a gargoyle mage with the physical power of a gargoyle lord. His elemental powers serve to level the playing field of some of the more cheatery opponents and he is nigh-impervious to all "tricky" forms of attack. He is not quite as skilled a fighter as some of the more solid melee combatants, but he can wear down most of them with his elemental powers. He is much like a more flexible, worse-equipped Abomination. He does wield a number of magic weapons, but he is seemingly ignorant or unaware of the value of a more flexible magic weapon lineup. If this weakness could be solved, most consider him a serious threat for the #1 slot.
Seven Times Death
This bad boy is an adult seven-headed hydra. He is equipped with a few miscellaneous magic items, but he generally is not smart enough to use any tricky tools and is pretty much allowed to run amok in the arena, unleashing hell on anyone stupid enough to get close. He has a keen sense of smell and regenerates rapidly, using his teleport ability to get close to an opponent and unleashing hell with his full massive repertoire of attacks. He is bloodthirsty and will often forget that an opponent has forfeited, leading to massive magical attempts to disable him before he kills his opponent. He is huge, ferocious, and intelligent for a hydra and even Rahu-Crusher avoids fighting him in melee combat (though Rahu-Crusher is has beaten the hydra multiple times in close-range battle). The only fighter dumb enough to fight him in close combat is Shadow Face, and he often pays for it by getting hit with a brutal tail swipe.
Momus, the False Atlantean
Named for the Greek god of satire, Momus is a Maxi-Man who looks like an Undead Slayer, complete with Marks of Heritage-esque tattoos on his hands. He is more flexible than Sight-Stealer, but as a result he ends up losing more fights that she might win for free. His monster tattoos tend to be of mythological beasts of Greek myth such as bipedal bull-like creatures (not actually minotaurs) and flaming horses which he uses to ride around the arena. He is armed with a Millennium Staff of Purity and deals tremendous punishment to powerful demonlike creatures, giving him better matchups against creatures he might otherwise lose to.
The Firestarter
Another humanoid creature, he is a godling of unknown descent. The Firestarter is a mechanical genius, and wields homebrew explosive weapons in combat, including ultra-powerful grenades and bombs. He is virtually indestructible and does not generally wear armor. His body regenerates rapidly like a dragon and he never, ever forfeits matches, instead fighting until he is "slain," after which he regenerates. He wields massive supernatural strength surpassing most arena combatants, save for the true titans like Rahu-Crusher. Like Rahu-Crusher, he is a part-time fighter who runs a machine shop in the Outer Markets, fixing, repairing, and upgrading mechanical vehicles. He carries magic trinkets that protect him from spells and is a master psionic, wielding telekinetic powers frequently to deliver explosive weapons. Despite his magical protections, he is extremely vulnerable to non-spell magic (anything that doesn't cost mana) and is absolutely crushed by Narga's toxic breath or Sarlea's songs. He thus wears protective helmets in these matchups to prevent these and other environmental hazards from crippling him in battle, but his helmet is often destroyed or removed by a superior melee opponent. He has a versatile repertoire of weapons, but does not wield massive volumes of rune or TW items, making him somewhat second-string among the top Champions. His melee combat skill is high, though among the top tiers he loses to most in close combat. Still, his strength is so high that a lucky hit or a successful grapple often proves to be the end of his opponent.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Rifts proposed skill system (roll high)
Palladium's roll-low skill system is archaic and shitty. Roll-high systems are easier to understand and easier for both players and GMs to use. I've been hating on the system since better roll-low systems (like GURPS or BESM) came around, and since 3e came into being I've pretty much acknowledged its complete superiority in the skill system department.
Like any revised combat system, this will not be fully implemented until sometime during E6. I'll be going over existing character sheets and revising character skills to fit the new system.
While I do feel that 3d10 + modifiers is a much better model of realism/plausibility than a single die, converting Palladium's skills into any method presents a lot of challenges for 3d10; namely, "realistic" skill ratings while maintaining Palladium's level-up system. Converting to a skillpoints-based system is really impossible with existing characters, and even the trouble of hand-to-hand combat skills, weapon proficiencies and upgrading combat skills is pretty hard and not really worth the trouble.
Skill checks in the proposed system will use BESM 3e roll high mechanics. To summarize, 2d6 will be rolled and relevant modifiers will be added and compared to a target number or opposed 2d6 check. This does not affect combat rolls which will still use d20s for everything except damage.
You'll be able to "take 6" in a similar manner to taking 10. You'll also be able to "take 12," which will take 30 times longer than a normal check, in the same manner as taking 20.
Skills will be dramatically streamlined. Cultural and science skills will be lumped into "Profession" or "Craft" skills. Likewise, the technical categories of Electronic and Mechanical will be moved into Craft. A lot of redundant skills will be removed and skills will be combined. As an example, Climbing and Swimming will be combined into Athletics, and the ability to make Jump checks (technically not possible in Palladium) will be added. Horsemanship will split to only allow for riding animals and Animal Husbandry will be used for the care of animals. Social skills will be added (!!).
Stats will give relevant skill modifier bonuses, similar to d20 ability modifiers. This will probably be per 3 points above or below 10 in a statistic (+1 at 11-13, +2 at 14-16, -1 at 7-9 etc.) and yes, this means that stats are more meaningful now. IQ will apply to the vast majority of non-physical skills, excepting social skills which will use MA. Additionally, the previous "IQ bonus" will simply give more skills and more skills at level-up; this does mean Jackie and Gizmo will have a lot more skills than normal. It will still not affect skill training which will stay more or less intact. I will probably allow characters with an IQ bonus train a certain number of known, unrelated skills simultaneously (in order to level their huge skill pools up faster) but will not allow them to learn new skills any faster.
Leveling will work as +1 to known skills per character level (including 1). These will be treated as "ranks" and will be differentiated separately from other modifiers, mainly so that we know how many ranks the character can train to. Class bonuses will range from +0 (most skills) to +3 (Sarah piloting skills). These bonuses count as ranks and are not gained unless you gain the skill as an OCC Related Skill from leveling up or started the game with the skill. You can train them normally; for instance, if Sarah learned to pilot tanks through skill training, she would have 1 rank, but could train up to her character level +3 (reflecting her class' piloting expertise). Class-restricted skills will still be restricted for the most part.
Physical skills will mostly be getting removed, with physical "feats" being selectable skill options. PS can still be raised with +2d6 DC/+2 PS/+1 SPD per skill selection with a maximum of 5 (+10 PS). If Lee already exceeds this he keeps his stats but can't be raised anymore through physical skills -- I will probably also somewhat reduce the reward for any future +PS gains to compensate. For those of you wondering what this means overall:
Skills will be loosely grouped into 3 categories. Easy skills will take 2 months of training time to learn. An easy skill has +1 maximum rank, which are learned automatically if you get the skill through leveling up. If you get the skill through training, you can train the extra rank normally. This is cumulative with class rank bonuses (such as Sarah +3 piloting; if she learned "Pilot Bicycle" she would have a total of +4 maximum ranks with the skill). Medium skills take 4 months of training to learn and have no bonus ranks. Hard skills take 6 months of training to learn (default) and have -1 maximum ranks; when you learn a Hard skill, you are effectively -1 on skill checks until you gain ranks in it.
Untrained easy skills suffer no penalty; untrained normal skills will probably suffer -2 to -3 penalty and untrained hard skills will generally be unusable.
Easy skills include things like automobile or bicycle piloting, reading sensory instruments, perception, stealth, and all social skills. Normal skills will include most skills, while hard skills will include Medical, science professions, escape artist, and similar extremely demanding jobs. In general, the maximum roll for an untrained Medium skill check will also be 7.
Weapon Proficiencies will be changing somewhat (streamlined melee weapon bonuses, some skills becoming skill perks, etc.) No idea on whether Sharpshooting will be changed. Quick Draw will be changed.
Input would be appreciated -- except in relation to physical skills. Physical skill bitching will result in experience penalties.
Like any revised combat system, this will not be fully implemented until sometime during E6. I'll be going over existing character sheets and revising character skills to fit the new system.
While I do feel that 3d10 + modifiers is a much better model of realism/plausibility than a single die, converting Palladium's skills into any method presents a lot of challenges for 3d10; namely, "realistic" skill ratings while maintaining Palladium's level-up system. Converting to a skillpoints-based system is really impossible with existing characters, and even the trouble of hand-to-hand combat skills, weapon proficiencies and upgrading combat skills is pretty hard and not really worth the trouble.
Skill checks in the proposed system will use BESM 3e roll high mechanics. To summarize, 2d6 will be rolled and relevant modifiers will be added and compared to a target number or opposed 2d6 check. This does not affect combat rolls which will still use d20s for everything except damage.
You'll be able to "take 6" in a similar manner to taking 10. You'll also be able to "take 12," which will take 30 times longer than a normal check, in the same manner as taking 20.
Skills will be dramatically streamlined. Cultural and science skills will be lumped into "Profession" or "Craft" skills. Likewise, the technical categories of Electronic and Mechanical will be moved into Craft. A lot of redundant skills will be removed and skills will be combined. As an example, Climbing and Swimming will be combined into Athletics, and the ability to make Jump checks (technically not possible in Palladium) will be added. Horsemanship will split to only allow for riding animals and Animal Husbandry will be used for the care of animals. Social skills will be added (!!).
Stats will give relevant skill modifier bonuses, similar to d20 ability modifiers. This will probably be per 3 points above or below 10 in a statistic (+1 at 11-13, +2 at 14-16, -1 at 7-9 etc.) and yes, this means that stats are more meaningful now. IQ will apply to the vast majority of non-physical skills, excepting social skills which will use MA. Additionally, the previous "IQ bonus" will simply give more skills and more skills at level-up; this does mean Jackie and Gizmo will have a lot more skills than normal. It will still not affect skill training which will stay more or less intact. I will probably allow characters with an IQ bonus train a certain number of known, unrelated skills simultaneously (in order to level their huge skill pools up faster) but will not allow them to learn new skills any faster.
Leveling will work as +1 to known skills per character level (including 1). These will be treated as "ranks" and will be differentiated separately from other modifiers, mainly so that we know how many ranks the character can train to. Class bonuses will range from +0 (most skills) to +3 (Sarah piloting skills). These bonuses count as ranks and are not gained unless you gain the skill as an OCC Related Skill from leveling up or started the game with the skill. You can train them normally; for instance, if Sarah learned to pilot tanks through skill training, she would have 1 rank, but could train up to her character level +3 (reflecting her class' piloting expertise). Class-restricted skills will still be restricted for the most part.
Physical skills will mostly be getting removed, with physical "feats" being selectable skill options. PS can still be raised with +2d6 DC/+2 PS/+1 SPD per skill selection with a maximum of 5 (+10 PS). If Lee already exceeds this he keeps his stats but can't be raised anymore through physical skills -- I will probably also somewhat reduce the reward for any future +PS gains to compensate. For those of you wondering what this means overall:
- Boxing's +APM will be folded into "man at arms" classes and will be unique to warrior classes. This includes Lee, Sarah and Gizmo.
- Everyone with a physical skill that increases combat bonuses (such as parry/dodge) is having those bonuses removed. They were power creep and I hated them. I may add some parry/dodge to higher tier combat skills (MA and 4/5 forms) and some extra strike bonus to Assassin to compensate. PP bonus will be applicable to roll with punch now to compensate for the roll loss, and I will be adding a small amount to combat skills.
- Everyone with +PE or +PP from physical skills keep it. I will retain the ability somehow, to raise PP by 2 maximum and PE by some number, possibly 5. I may fold PE into the physical training skill above, although it seems kind of powerful to get +2 PS, +1 SPD, and +1 PE per skill selection. Actually, that sounds more balanced than the current system, rofl.
- Boxing's knockout punch and Wrestling's throws and pins will all be retained in some fashion.
- Fencing is getting totally removed, to include both the bonuses and damage boost. Fuck you, Lee. You can pick something else.
- Acrobatics/Gymnastics are becoming one skill and will basically be Tumble and Balance.
- Although not exactly a physical skill, I'm unsure what to do with Sniper. I am honestly cool letting Brit keep it as an artifact of the old system.
Skills will be loosely grouped into 3 categories. Easy skills will take 2 months of training time to learn. An easy skill has +1 maximum rank, which are learned automatically if you get the skill through leveling up. If you get the skill through training, you can train the extra rank normally. This is cumulative with class rank bonuses (such as Sarah +3 piloting; if she learned "Pilot Bicycle" she would have a total of +4 maximum ranks with the skill). Medium skills take 4 months of training to learn and have no bonus ranks. Hard skills take 6 months of training to learn (default) and have -1 maximum ranks; when you learn a Hard skill, you are effectively -1 on skill checks until you gain ranks in it.
Untrained easy skills suffer no penalty; untrained normal skills will probably suffer -2 to -3 penalty and untrained hard skills will generally be unusable.
Easy skills include things like automobile or bicycle piloting, reading sensory instruments, perception, stealth, and all social skills. Normal skills will include most skills, while hard skills will include Medical, science professions, escape artist, and similar extremely demanding jobs. In general, the maximum roll for an untrained Medium skill check will also be 7.
Weapon Proficiencies will be changing somewhat (streamlined melee weapon bonuses, some skills becoming skill perks, etc.) No idea on whether Sharpshooting will be changed. Quick Draw will be changed.
Input would be appreciated -- except in relation to physical skills. Physical skill bitching will result in experience penalties.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)