Versus Mode: Strategies/Combos Discussion Thread

[Frozazen]

With the BotW thread, so many ideas have been thrown around, and I find that a lot of us have been saying strategies that are very much alike. So, I think we should have a thread dedicated to explaining in-depth battle strategies and also creating new ones along the way! And if we name the strategies, then we could use them when explaining how a borg can be used.

I think I will make another thread just listing the strategies that we've immortalized at a later date, when a sufficient number of strategies have been posted. If you have a strategy that is specific to a single borg, feel free to get creative with the names, since everyone will usually know what is so special with that borg.

Inspired by the strategy dex on smogon (pokemon). They have general names for widely-used combinations ("boltbeam" for a pokemon who utilizes both thunderbolt and ice beam, which gives great type coverage), and even pokemon-specific strategies ("Oh no!, It's Wobbuffet!"), though pokemon-specific strategies strategies normally aren't mentioned by name. People usually know what you're talking about when you say the word Wobbuffet, since his ability is shadow tag, preventing switching, and his encore+counter+mirror coat combo was feared up until 5th gen.

Here we can discuss the effectiveness of strategies or add new strategies. If you recognize a combo that a lot of borgs can use (like the NNC), then feel free to share it (and possibly name it) as well. Here we go!

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Gun/Sword: 2v2
This is a strategy in which one partner uses long range, non-explosive weapon(s), while the other partner uses melee. This strategy is meant to team up on a single opponent, and make sure he gets the chase of his lifetime. With this strategy there is a lot of field control, and the opponent will be too busy dodging the melee borg to worry about the sniper in the back. The best way to accomplish this is to force the opponent into a corner, and then let loose with whatever you may have in store for him! The best thing about this strategy, however, is that winged borgs can join in on the fun, too! Usually anyone with wings will always escape the opponent, but if your team is, say, double winged soldier, or even *shudder* double Garuda, then you can chase your opponent to your heart's conent.

Checks/Counters: The thing with teaming up on one borg is that the opponent also has an ally, and that ally could very well be just as dangerous. Any sort of teaming up should not be done if the opposing team does not have a weak borg.

Normal Ninja Combo: combo, generic
The classic combo that nearly every borg can use, also called the NNC, is named after the borg who is famous on combo videos everywhere: Normal Ninja! The NNC is a string of attacks in which a borg jumps, does an aerial attack, after which the borg lands onto the ground, jumps, and repeats. The combo might be pulled off differently for each borg, but the end effect is still the same (shadow girl needs to jump straight up before doing her aerial attack, because if she dashes forward, then her aerial attack becomes a stab instead of a slash). This combo is popular to use on small-size borgs who have landed on the ground. After each hit, the hitstun gives plenty of time to pull off another attack. The NNC can usually pull off 4 hits, and on the 5th the opponent flies off with invincibility. This is why most borgs will opt to use a more powerful attack as the finisher. In normal ninja's case he will use a bomb, and instead of making the opponent fly off, its grounds the opponent instead, letting normal ninja do the combo all over again if the opponent doesn't dodge or jump.

Great Wall: 2v2 (needs confirmation that this works)
Usually when people see build robot or army robot, they end up stashing him away in some dark corner in the warehouse. However, their ability to make pillars, which are as annoying to break down as they are to look at, can be exploited to its full extent in a 2v2 match, making them a very convenient support borg. Build robot and army robot are able to build pillar after pillar after pillar after pillar after pillar. Some good places to build pillars is in front of the table in Kou's room, or the bookshelf in Mana's room, where you can shield an area for your partner, who is a long-range borg, say Beam Gunner. You could also choose to make a wall from scratch, for ease of movement. While the opponent is searching for you in order to kill you for being such a nuisance, the beam gunner can either pop through one of the cracks in the wall to shoot beam shots, or just plain let a beam laser loose, which goes through the wall and through the opponent as well. The only downside to this is that build/army must continue to replace the pillars as they are being broken down. This is a problem for the beginning of a battle, when there is almost nothing to shield you. However, once you get a power burst, your wall is as good as made. The other problem is that support borgs must be constantly protected by the ally, because it is essentially a 2v1 if both opponents are flat out attackers. Because of this teamwork is key, as the build robot makes walls for Beam Gunner, and beam gunner takes out the enemies from inside the maze of pillars.

Checks/counters: Close-range borgs will be able to smash through the pillars like toothpicks, and are most likely much faster than build robot, meaning the end of build robot. Also, borgs with explosive attacks can take out more than one pillar, which changes the rate at which you build pillars to a negative number. However, if your ally has lots of small beam shots, which quickly fills up the power gauge, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[Death Eye]

I'm pretty sure the Great Wall only works against melee Borgs and borgs with bullets; last I checked beams go through them, so it provides no protection from them.

Also, Rain of Pain is usable in some variant by Gold Hero, G Red, Neo G Red, Wire Girl, and (if you want to get technical) every Wing, Angel, and Air Borg in the game, as well as a few others. Does that count?

[Stove]

Yeah, there's Rain of Pain.

[Frozazen]

Oct 25, 2011 0:59:37 GMT Death Eye said:

I'm pretty sure the Great Wall only works against melee Borgs and borgs with bullets; last I checked beams go through them, so it provides no protection from them.

Also, Rain of Pain is usable in some variant by Gold Hero, G Red, Neo G Red, Wire Girl, and (if you want to get technical) every Wing, Angel, and Air Borg in the game, as well as a few others. Does that count?

Cool. I'll keep that in mind when I make the archive, thanks!

and how did i forget rain of pain? well at least now its up there ;D

[njayhuang]

Oct 25, 2011 0:59:37 GMT Death Eye said:

I'm pretty sure the Great Wall only works against melee Borgs and borgs with bullets; last I checked beams go through them, so it provides no protection from them.

Also, Rain of Pain is usable in some variant by Gold Hero, G Red, Neo G Red, Wire Girl, and (if you want to get technical) every Wing, Angel, and Air Borg in the game, as well as a few others. Does that count?

As I see it, boost jumpers don't really have the rain of pain. The problem with the boost jump borgs is that they have to land when they run out of boost and they can't get as high as quickly as Gold Hero's four level jump. If they're not high enough, then it's just strafing in the air. If they jump high enough, then they run out of boost and can't move. Hardly similar to Gold Hero's Rain of Pain where he is not only 4 jump levels high, but can air dash at that level for an extended period of time. Air borgs can technically do the rain of pain as well, but they have better options.

[Death Eye]

Oct 25, 2011 3:21:18 GMT njayhuang said:

Oct 25, 2011 0:59:37 GMT Death Eye said:

I'm pretty sure the Great Wall only works against melee Borgs and borgs with bullets; last I checked beams go through them, so it provides no protection from them.

Also, Rain of Pain is usable in some variant by Gold Hero, G Red, Neo G Red, Wire Girl, and (if you want to get technical) every Wing, Angel, and Air Borg in the game, as well as a few others. Does that count?

As I see it, boost jumpers don't really have the rain of pain. The problem with the boost jump borgs is that they have to land when they run out of boost and they can't get as high as quickly as Gold Hero's four level jump. If they're not high enough, then it's just strafing in the air. If they jump high enough, then they run out of boost and can't move. Hardly similar to Gold Hero's Rain of Pain where he is not only 4 jump levels high, but can air dash at that level for an extended period of time. Air borgs can technically do the rain of pain as well, but they have better options.

G Red and Neo G Red just have to jump as high as they can, then alternate between G Crash and whatever they call the charge B. As long as they're not directly above the target it works just fine.
Also, Wire Girl can use the wire to gain height. Just jump as high as possible, then place the wire all the way up there, land, retract the wire, then boost as high above that as you can, place the wire, land, retract it, etc. It's not exactly the same, but it works similarly.
(I never said they were good at it... just that they can do it...)

[Frozazen]

Well, in G Red's case alternating between charge B and g crash isn't really spamming a bunch of beam shots, since he has to keep the charging and the crashing going in order to stay in the air.

For wire girl, anchoring a wire in the air for a max of like forty seconds or so (assuming you spend all of your time going from one corner of the field to the other, jump as high as you can, and put down an anchor) I wouldn't really consider a rain of pain. I would think that a true rain of pain would be able to be sustained for much longer periods of time, mainly because of airdashing and level jumping.

As I see it, rain of pain is confined to borgs with level jump who can use beam shots (or something with a similar movement), not bullets. These are borgs who are continuously airdashing and mashing the beam shot button at the same time. Bullets, like for valkyries, tend to move slowly, and also follow one another, making them really easy to dodge, and not really making that "rain" feel. In reality only a few borgs can pull this off. Off the top of my head the only ones that I can think of are Gold Hero, Beam Wing red/blue, Death borg sigma/II, and maybe ring valkyrie, since her shots kind of move the same way as a beam shot would? Actually they're kind of slow, so i suppose not.

also,

Wing Gliding: technical skill
This is a skill that can be used by any borg with the "Fly" attack. In order to wing glide one must hold a direction with the control stick, press X, and afterwards use a shooting attack, be it bullets or beam shots. Your borg will be gliding horizontally while shooting, and once you stop shooting, or run out of bullets, then you will stop gliding. This can be used both from the ground as well as while in the air. Wing gliding is useful to move very quickly, as it is much faster than airdashing, and is also a much smoother form of movement. It is important to be able to use wing glide in tandem with airdashing. One downside to wing gliding is that at the end, if you don't do some kind of dash or jump or another wing glide, there will be a lot of lag, and your borg will fall a bit. Wing gliding does not take up the fly gauge, so usually if a borg is on the ground then they can Fly, and right before the gauge runs out they begin shooting (assuming you've kept your hand on the control stick the whole time), and still keep their speed until they run out of bullets. That way you can get off the ground quickly, and also attack at the same time. This can be very fun when a borg uses Power Burst, since bullets recharge almost instantaneously, letting you keep up your storm of shots until the Power Gauge is depleted.

[Deleted]

I have two!

Crash dashing:
Something I do with G red, Neo G Red, and G Black. It works worst on G red and best on black.
basically I use the G Crash X attack for movement rather than an attack. Simple tactic but it works a treat.

glide shooting:
On most wing borgs, except garuda and it's similars (?), I can use X to start flying and then press B to fire their bullets while going at that speed.
In other words, I can be moving at dodging speed while firing.
The problem is, I pause to reload but that is solved by me using it to change the pace and dodge more bullets.
During burst mode, I can dash around for the duration of it firing bullets everywhere that puts even gataling gunner and Sirius to shame.

So yeah, simple but effective tactics.

[Frozazen]

woot moar tech skillz pl0x.

Cool, the "Crash Movement" will forever be remembered in gotcha force gameplay. Or would you like to call it "Crash Dashing"?

ahaha it seems like i've slipped wing gliding a bit before you did
also you can wing glide with Garuda as well, but it would be more effective id they didn't, since the wing glide speed is pretty bad for garuda, anubis wing, and blade wing.

[Deleted]

^ crash dashing, yes I'll change it to that. Also, is that sarcasm?

Yes, wing gliding sucks with garuda, because he can only fire about one bullet before he fails with it.

[Frozazen]

Nope, I was serious. Since no one cares about gamefaqs (at least i dont. forgive me if I sound arrogant), whatever terms we coin here will be used regularly during conversations about versus matches and battling. I think that gotcha force having its own jargon would increase its popularity, as it is evidence that there is a competitive metagame with in-depth tactics and technical skill that must be denoted using the lingo, for brevity and ease of understanding. If we had a uniform set of terms, then we would save the trouble of having to explain each tech skill/tactic that we want to convey when telling a story, explaining a strategy, etc.

And I think that wing gliding with garuda is a learned skill, since the timing on his is so much more different than the timing for other borgs, say valkyries. I can use up his clip of bullets while wing gliding, though only for fun. Garuda should stick to airdashing and using his Charge B.

[Death Eye]

Oct 25, 2011 23:02:33 GMT Frozazen said:

Garuda should stick to airdashing and using his Charge B.

He can do a 4-hit melee combo if he does it from flight, whereas if he dashes he does a rather embarrassing uppercut-slash that he can't do anything after until he hits the ground.
Therefore, Garuda should pretty much only fly if he's meleeing.
Therefore, I'm pretty sure Garuda should only be flying if I'm using him, as I don't know how everyone else uses him, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one here that makes heavy use of his melee.

[Deleted]

People, or at least me, fly him up as high as they can then fire meteors from above.
Due to his immense bulk and ability to stay in the air, killing him is virtually an impossibility and his meteors are very powerful.
A scary, uber borg, only dragons and fortresses can really scare this beast.
Other wing borgs dont have the attack power or bulk to carry out, 'Anubis flight'. As I suggest we call it.

[Frozazen]

@ death eye: Garuda, no, any winged borg should stay in the air when fighting. You should Fly or wing glide up into the air as soon as your borg enters the field, and try to abuse the camera angle, or just gain distance through height.

Most people prefer to stay further away when using Garuda because his charge B is fast, deals a load of damage, and has a large hitbox. Staying further away also gives Garuda protection from melee borgs, and gives him time to dodge long-range attacks as well.

Usually people tend to shy away from utilizing melee with Garuda because his movement is relatively slower compared to other melee borgs, like planet hero. His wing gliding and airdash just isn't as good to enter in and attack. With training his derp-uppercut can be easily avoided (as in you most likely will never accidentally use it), because all you have to do is jump right before attacking, and he will do the 4-slash combo. Of course, being a borg, his dodging skills are the best, since he can change his direction at a moment's notice. If you can utilize his dodging skills effectively, despite his slowness, then meleeing with Garuda has potential.

@ Alberenza: sure, we could call it that. That would be the name of that particular strategy for that particular borg, or two borgs ;D

[Deleted]

^ oh, right. Well, Garuda is defiantly best for the job

[Frozazen]

oops i was talking to death eye. editted!

[Death Eye]

Oct 25, 2011 23:20:15 GMT Frozazen said:

@ death eye: Garuda, no, any winged borg should stay in the air when fighting. You should Fly or wing glide up into the air as soon as your borg enters the field, and try to abuse the camera angle, or just gain distance through height.

I realize this. However, fighting exclusively at long range isn't my style; I very much prefer to be at close range and utilize some mad dodging skills in the vast majority of circumstances. I'll just put it this way, I charge forward toward the opponents with a Command Girl.

[Frozazen]

ahaha I speak for competitive purposes/as if you were entering a tournament. Having a preference on how to play a borg is fine, but really each borg has its own job that it can do that other borgs cannot, and competitively it should be doing that instead ;D

Your style sounds great I don't blame you for your play style at all. It's just that there are other borgs that can better fill a dodgy/close range niche than Garuda or command girl. Its like having your Dragonite learning ice beam, thunderbolt, surf, and flamethrower. Sure you have pride in your dragonite, but competitively there are better pokemon to utilize a sp. atk set than Dragonite, who is best used as a bulky dragon dancer, which is physically inclined (sorry for the pokemon analogies, its the only thing that i play competitively)

In short, that kind of tactic is fine. I would love to see you use a close ranged Garuda in a versus battle against me (since i've never fought one before), but only for friendlies. Competitively I would suggest that if you like the dodging and close combat and melee, then use Planet Hero, normal ninja, or even arrow ninja for that matter, since he has to get in close for his arrows to really have a chance of hitting, then he melees.

who knows, if you perfect Garuda's close range battling then maybe you could end up starting a trend with garuda as a physical borg as well as a distance fighter, making him a million times better than he used to be. The thing with having different play styles is that everyone has their own view of things. Some people end up bringing some epic new strategy to light. Others end up having their play style handed to them along with the remains of their borg That's what I like about discussing/trying out new tactics. you never know what you might start.

oh yeah, and I forgot that Garuda's close-range is necessary for him to fight flying borgs. He won't be able to hit a valkyrie using his charge B. So actually he needs his melee, but only for winged borgs. Planes will be taken down by his charge B if they don't use their boosting correctly.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure if this counts as a Strategy but Teleport Ninja has a decent way of dealing with Air Borgs. He has a psuedo 5-6 jump.

Jump -> Teleport -> Jump -> Teleport -> Jump (On rare occasions or when your in Hyper Mode you will have an extra Teleport. Thus making the 6th jump)

[Frozazen]

^sure, we could put that as a strategy for Teleport Ninja (:

alright i was looking around on gamefaqs and apparently they're not dead yet! one guy's valiantly going through each and every borg to figure out the damages of attacks and a bunch of other cool stuff. it's taken him TWO YEARS, and he's almost finished woot!

after reading through all 27 pages of the thing, i have learned a lot about each of the borgs, since people just put down different things about each borg that hasn't been said yet, so i should be able to find all of the borg analyses and format them for the sake of comparison.

also I have learned the established name for a beam laser (ones that go through walls). It's being called the Super-Accurate Beam, or SA beam for short. The name is clear and easy to understand, so I will start to use that term from now on to refer to such beams.