Cosmic_Castaway
[07] Duelist
Alright, so here's what I've got:
Dante
Point
Thankfully, Dante has remained relatively unchanged. And by that, I mean his BnBs only require slight adjustments, and Hammer's not as stupid as before. Other than that? He's still the same old SoS (Son of Sparda) we know and love. When I played at Gamestop (they put the game in like 2.5 hours before the midnight release), first thing I noticed is that all of the tools Dante had as rekka commands (qcf+L~qcf+L) come out a lot faster due to them only require a single additional button press. Because of this, I was basically able to spam Acid Rain while calling assists to keep opponents locked down. If they tried to get in, I'd already have another Acid Rain coming out to catch them. Grapple comes out really nicely now, so you can catch people with it much more often, I see this move being pretty useful now. Hammer is also ridiculously fast because of the input change. I was using it in situations on muscle memory, and instead of needing invul to get the hit in, Hammer was just beating the other move out. Devil Trigger is still ridiculous, his main blockstring (M, H, 6H~S+AT~214+L~H) is intact, etc. His BnBs are also, overall, much easier to do as well. People said there's a smaller window on Bold Cancelling, and if there is, it's insignificant, because I didn't feel a thing. Everyone I played was running their mains, and they were all like, "What?! That doesn't work anymore!?" or were simply dropping combos because of how "weird" the game apparently felt. I agree, it feels off because it's a new game, but I didn't have to do really any adjusting at all, because Dante really hasn't changed.
Assist
I only use the Jam Session assist, and from what I can tell, it's basically the same. The only change I saw is when I was using it to extend combos with Strider, and they flipped out pretty quickly afterwards. But whatever, just means it's a tighter window, which I'm fine with. I still don't see a reason to use any other assist with Dante.
Vergil
Point
Vergil, Vergil, Vergil. Where do I begin. Oh right, this guy's way too good. Great reach, teleports, some zoning tools, Berserker Slash-type move, mixups, etc. Overall, he feels similar to Dante (my opinion, for what it's worth), and I absolutely loved playing as him. A Devil Triggered Vergil especially is going to be a force. I was basically bullying people with this character. And as for this "unsafe" stuff? Yeah, I don't see it. His blockstrings are great, mainly because his Stinger is better than Dante's, in that he can cancel it into S, or any special move, immediately, without needing to Bold Cancel. There were a couple matches where I was feeling the pressure due to my unfamiliarity with the character, and decided to give the opponent what I'm going to call Vergil's "Ultimatum Blocksring." What basically went down was I did L, M, H, 6H, S, H, S, H, S, H, S, etc. Now, the opponent has only three options here: Advance Guard, stand there (lolno) or just stop blocking and be hit by a full combo. There's absolutely no moving during this blockstring. Thing is, there's absolutely no risk for Vergil during this either. If they Advance Guard, he's safe. If they stop blocking, he gets free damage. And if they stand there? "Yeah that's cool, I'll just sit here and build 5 meters with my infinite blockstring, lalalalalala." My opponents were choosing to mash shit during this, so they got beat out and ate some damage. But, were they to Advance Guard, I would've just popped out the Judgment Cuts with assists, because I'd have some breathing room by then. Until people learn a way to punish this blockstring, I plan on abusing it. After that, L, M, H, 6H, Judgment Cut will work great. Judgment Cut covers a good area in front of Vergil, and he can block almost directly after, so that'll do nicely.
Assist
Also only used one assist for Vergil, and that was Rapid Slash. There are many things I love about this assist: How safe it is, the range, the crossups, and the pushback on block. I thought I was going to miss Doom's beam on my team, but Vergil's Rapid Slash serves the purpose just as well. I'll try out other assists with him, but I don't see either of them being nearly as useful as Rapid Slash.
Strider
Point
He's back, and better than ever. And best of all, he's not easy mode. Strider is going to take work, I can already tell. He has everything he needs (teleports, sword normals, zoning tools, mixups, etc.), but his fragility automatically endows him with a big learning curve. That being said, I didn't have trouble adjusting to Strider, but he will take some time for people to break him open (moreso than most of the new cast, I think). I don't see him being based around the "Magic series, OTG, more combo stuff, assist + OTG, Hyper" stuff either. Strider is very much about setups and resets. Furthermore, his purpose changes significantly depending on where he is in the team. When I had Strider on point, I decided it best to not use any meter, and just use him as a battery. Keepout game is really tight, especially with Dante/Vergil, as are the setups. Couldn't find a use for Wall Cling yet, but I feel the potential, so I'll be working with it. In the second spot, Strider can use meter if deemed necessary for a kill (i.e. Ragnarok combo ender), but it's still a lot about those 400k meterless combos. XF2 with Ouroboros is also good. Strider as anchor though is kind of a double edged sword. You get access to level 3 Ouroboros, which I can't see any normal human blocking regularly, but you really can't get hit, and without assists, that's gonna be a little harder, especially once the XF runs out. Right now, I say put Strider 1st or 3rd, because the 2nd position for him is a lukewarm area where I don't think he can make the absolute best use of himself.
Assist
Vajra is way too good. Stops opponents' offenses cold. For a while, Strider was my main assist simply because this assist is so good. I'll try out Gram for that awesome wallbounce stuff, but Vajra right now is looking to be his best assist.
Crimson Viper
Didn't get a lot of time with her last night. Overall, feels the same, actually better though. Thunder Knuckle feints are in my Bread-n-Butter now, because they're so easy. I was doing 800k without assists and one bar. I don't see a use for Optic Blast now, but Viper staying the same means there won't really be a need to. Still gonna be the best character in the game, no doubt about it.
Overall impressions of the game
So far, so much fun. I can't get enough of this game. Overall, it feels largely the same to me, just better. No real qualms with anything, except mashing the hypers for max damage. It's so tedious sometimes, I just want to get my damage and go. I might get over it once I get used to it, but we'll see. Idrc much about GUIs, but the A2-Point-A1 thing did take some time, more than I usually like. Can definitely see this game lasting though, and I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.
Anything else that I probably forgot, just ask.
Dante
Point
Thankfully, Dante has remained relatively unchanged. And by that, I mean his BnBs only require slight adjustments, and Hammer's not as stupid as before. Other than that? He's still the same old SoS (Son of Sparda) we know and love. When I played at Gamestop (they put the game in like 2.5 hours before the midnight release), first thing I noticed is that all of the tools Dante had as rekka commands (qcf+L~qcf+L) come out a lot faster due to them only require a single additional button press. Because of this, I was basically able to spam Acid Rain while calling assists to keep opponents locked down. If they tried to get in, I'd already have another Acid Rain coming out to catch them. Grapple comes out really nicely now, so you can catch people with it much more often, I see this move being pretty useful now. Hammer is also ridiculously fast because of the input change. I was using it in situations on muscle memory, and instead of needing invul to get the hit in, Hammer was just beating the other move out. Devil Trigger is still ridiculous, his main blockstring (M, H, 6H~S+AT~214+L~H) is intact, etc. His BnBs are also, overall, much easier to do as well. People said there's a smaller window on Bold Cancelling, and if there is, it's insignificant, because I didn't feel a thing. Everyone I played was running their mains, and they were all like, "What?! That doesn't work anymore!?" or were simply dropping combos because of how "weird" the game apparently felt. I agree, it feels off because it's a new game, but I didn't have to do really any adjusting at all, because Dante really hasn't changed.
Assist
I only use the Jam Session assist, and from what I can tell, it's basically the same. The only change I saw is when I was using it to extend combos with Strider, and they flipped out pretty quickly afterwards. But whatever, just means it's a tighter window, which I'm fine with. I still don't see a reason to use any other assist with Dante.
Vergil
Point
Vergil, Vergil, Vergil. Where do I begin. Oh right, this guy's way too good. Great reach, teleports, some zoning tools, Berserker Slash-type move, mixups, etc. Overall, he feels similar to Dante (my opinion, for what it's worth), and I absolutely loved playing as him. A Devil Triggered Vergil especially is going to be a force. I was basically bullying people with this character. And as for this "unsafe" stuff? Yeah, I don't see it. His blockstrings are great, mainly because his Stinger is better than Dante's, in that he can cancel it into S, or any special move, immediately, without needing to Bold Cancel. There were a couple matches where I was feeling the pressure due to my unfamiliarity with the character, and decided to give the opponent what I'm going to call Vergil's "Ultimatum Blocksring." What basically went down was I did L, M, H, 6H, S, H, S, H, S, H, S, etc. Now, the opponent has only three options here: Advance Guard, stand there (lolno) or just stop blocking and be hit by a full combo. There's absolutely no moving during this blockstring. Thing is, there's absolutely no risk for Vergil during this either. If they Advance Guard, he's safe. If they stop blocking, he gets free damage. And if they stand there? "Yeah that's cool, I'll just sit here and build 5 meters with my infinite blockstring, lalalalalala." My opponents were choosing to mash shit during this, so they got beat out and ate some damage. But, were they to Advance Guard, I would've just popped out the Judgment Cuts with assists, because I'd have some breathing room by then. Until people learn a way to punish this blockstring, I plan on abusing it. After that, L, M, H, 6H, Judgment Cut will work great. Judgment Cut covers a good area in front of Vergil, and he can block almost directly after, so that'll do nicely.
Assist
Also only used one assist for Vergil, and that was Rapid Slash. There are many things I love about this assist: How safe it is, the range, the crossups, and the pushback on block. I thought I was going to miss Doom's beam on my team, but Vergil's Rapid Slash serves the purpose just as well. I'll try out other assists with him, but I don't see either of them being nearly as useful as Rapid Slash.
Strider
Point
He's back, and better than ever. And best of all, he's not easy mode. Strider is going to take work, I can already tell. He has everything he needs (teleports, sword normals, zoning tools, mixups, etc.), but his fragility automatically endows him with a big learning curve. That being said, I didn't have trouble adjusting to Strider, but he will take some time for people to break him open (moreso than most of the new cast, I think). I don't see him being based around the "Magic series, OTG, more combo stuff, assist + OTG, Hyper" stuff either. Strider is very much about setups and resets. Furthermore, his purpose changes significantly depending on where he is in the team. When I had Strider on point, I decided it best to not use any meter, and just use him as a battery. Keepout game is really tight, especially with Dante/Vergil, as are the setups. Couldn't find a use for Wall Cling yet, but I feel the potential, so I'll be working with it. In the second spot, Strider can use meter if deemed necessary for a kill (i.e. Ragnarok combo ender), but it's still a lot about those 400k meterless combos. XF2 with Ouroboros is also good. Strider as anchor though is kind of a double edged sword. You get access to level 3 Ouroboros, which I can't see any normal human blocking regularly, but you really can't get hit, and without assists, that's gonna be a little harder, especially once the XF runs out. Right now, I say put Strider 1st or 3rd, because the 2nd position for him is a lukewarm area where I don't think he can make the absolute best use of himself.
Assist
Vajra is way too good. Stops opponents' offenses cold. For a while, Strider was my main assist simply because this assist is so good. I'll try out Gram for that awesome wallbounce stuff, but Vajra right now is looking to be his best assist.
Crimson Viper
Didn't get a lot of time with her last night. Overall, feels the same, actually better though. Thunder Knuckle feints are in my Bread-n-Butter now, because they're so easy. I was doing 800k without assists and one bar. I don't see a use for Optic Blast now, but Viper staying the same means there won't really be a need to. Still gonna be the best character in the game, no doubt about it.
Overall impressions of the game
So far, so much fun. I can't get enough of this game. Overall, it feels largely the same to me, just better. No real qualms with anything, except mashing the hypers for max damage. It's so tedious sometimes, I just want to get my damage and go. I might get over it once I get used to it, but we'll see. Idrc much about GUIs, but the A2-Point-A1 thing did take some time, more than I usually like. Can definitely see this game lasting though, and I know I'm going to have a lot of fun with it.
Anything else that I probably forgot, just ask.
