Phantom Dust Online Strategy Guide 
version 1.5

Updates:  Uploaded game save file that can be used by a regular Xbox that has 
3+ of all online skills except only 2 copies of Vapor Cloud.  I will also post
a save with all the skills that works in split screen mode so a friend can 
play with you.  Added a few revisions, combos and arsenal types.
Go to this page if you want to download the files:

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/phantomdust/pdsave.html

You may find this strategy guide easier to read on my strategy site at:

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/phantomdust/index.html

By PDfaq
email: [email protected]
Copyright 2006(B.G.Ranton)

note:  There are links given to other sites that are not created or owned 
by this author.  I have obviously checked those sites but take no 
responsibility for the content of those sites or the content that might 
change on it. 

Who is this faq for?  

This faq is for both beginner and experienced players in the online experience
of Phantom Dust.  If your having trouble finding people make sure you have 
downloaded the 1.2 update, otherwise you won�t see anyone to play with.  Also
make sure you have gotten far enough in the one player game to make arsenals.

If you want to know how skills have changed since the 1.2 update go here:
http://xboxphreaker.com/skills.htm

With that being said, this faq is not for the single player game.  Try Atomic 
Archtype�s faq for that or www.xboxphreaker.com for help.  Before you play 
online much I seriously recommend you beat the one player game.  Its pretty 
short and it will teach you a lot of the basics.  Most importantly it opens up
all 300 offine skills for purchase and all the levels.  Your arsenals will 
struggle against others if you don�t.  You will also have many less options.  

As long as you�ve beaten the game this is a perfect place to learn how to 
get better at playing others.(if you haven�t it still has a lot you might get)
You can also learn the quickest ways to get both offline and online skills 
and you�ll find a lot of arsenal strategies, combos, and things you might not 
have known that work in this game.  

Here is an outline of the topics in the faq.  Feel free to skip around areas.
Each topic is listed with a label.  If you use the edit > find or ctrl + F 
function you can jump right to those sections by typing in the letter 
combination.(like 1PD, 2PD, etc)  

Sections

0PD  Differences between online and split screen play

1PD  Choosing your character type. Strengths and Weaknesses of each character 
type.  Strategies around each type.  

1APD  Who's the "best" character

2PD  Dodging and Using Attack Types More Effectively 
2APD  General ways.
2BPD   Specific ways of dodging and using each type of attack skill type.  
Includes some unique types.

3PD  Shields/Defenses, the basics and tips for beating opponent�s shields

4PD  Dealing with Erase and using Erase effectively

5PD Environmental Hanging/Floating:  How to Do it and Ways to Thwart it.  A 
brief word on Environmentals

6PD  Stat Changers / Benefits and Dealing with them.

7PD  Homing 

8PD  Value of Manual Aim

9PD Skills with Greater ranges then expressed, or skills that work better 
at different ranges than listed.

10PD  Using Debris as an Attack and as a Defense

11PD  Extra Uses of Hit All Skills

12PD  Principles of Timing and skill effects

13PD  Stages FAQ with locations to float environmentals and glitches.  

14PD  Getting all the skills.(including online ones)  References place 
you can see description of all of them and download a save file with all
of them.

15PD  List of online skills with personal ranking.  

16PD Skills with same animations and partial listing.

17PD General Arsenal Design Tips and Management

18PD  Strategies around certain game types.  

19PD  List and Description of Various Arsenal Concepts:  Recommendations and 
Strategies against each type

20PD  Skill Combos

21PD  All the other things you didn�t know about in Phantom Dust.  

22PD Making the most of a situation 

23PD Playing people with bad connections.  Ways to take advantage of it.  

24PD  Other places to learn/talk/compete in Phantom Dust

25PD  Differences in character types melee moves.  

26PD  School Auras

27PD  End of the Faq


Phantom Dust Online Strategy FAQ

0PD  Differences between online and split screen play

There are a few differences between online and offline split screen play.  

1.  It seems like some Blade moves are much harder to dodge offline.  
I don�t know if its because they changed the quality of the blades in some 
way or its just lag. Melee moves are also sometimes dodged due to lag when 
they wouldn't be dodge so easily offline.

2.  The brush stun effect on Brush defenses against close moves no longer 
knocks a player back.  If you want a move that does that stun effect use 
Sword Slap.(an online skill)

3.  When an opponent�s body is on the ground or is stationary you can�t push 
it like you can offline.(no more pushing people off cliffs)  You can still 
run into people to make it harder for them to get somewhere though.  

4.  In split screen mode there is practically no debris at some levels and 
none useable by Power or Psycho Kinesis.  

5.  Relearn can make another thieving online but not offline.  Very strange.  

6.  In tag you don't have to worry about projectiles hitting your teammate
if your locked onto an opponent when you fire and the opponent is still alive
before the projectile reaches him.  You can still hit a teammate with manual
shots or if you lock onto him.  But you can basically shoot projectiles 
through your teammate wihtout having to worry about hitting him.  Just be 
careful exlosions from attacks don't hit.  You can still hit your teammate
with melee moves as well.

1PD  Choosing your character type. Strengths and Weaknesses of each character 
type.  Strategies around each type.  

The type of character and mode of play you choose(Battle Royale, Single, or 
Tag) will have an important impact on what strategies will be more effective 
for you.  There are generally four types of characters worth considering.  
There are characters who jump when you press in the Left analog stick and 
characters who cartwheel when you press the left analog stick. The strategies 
you use with them or against them will be generally similar to how you would 
use a Cartwheeler.  Rollers and other variant types will be briefly discussed 
in greater detail.  From here on any mention of a Cartwheeler will also 
be considered equivalent to a Roller.  There are also ground based monster 
characters like Ommato that are enemy characters in the game normally.
(Hold L+R at the character select screen to pick them if you�ve beaten 
the game)  

Jumpers 
These are characters who jump. Although all these characters jump, its 
important to note that both Freia and Tsubutaki are inferior jumpers.  The 
reason being is compared to other jumpers they have a delayed recovery time 
in moving again after they have jumped.  It has to do with how they were 
programmed to animate and land.(I guess heels make it harder to continually 
jump) Unfortunately, Gyne is the closest thing to a "female" jumper without 
the delay in their landing recovery.  Every other character 
appears to have an equal jumping ability and speed.  Another thing to 
consider about these characters is the noises they make.  It�s a little silly 
but certain characters like Tsubutaki only speak every other time they swing 
a sword.  Whether you want a character that can sound wimpier, angrier, 
quieter, or crazier is up to you.  

Advantages of Jumping

1)  This is perhaps the most important ability Jumpers have and it is not the 
most obvious.  The ability to cancel many Status skills that are shot at them 
simply by jumping into them.  An example:  Someone fires Paralyze at you, if 
you jump into it you will fall to the ground but get up unparalyzed, 
temporarily immune as you get up like you typically would when getting knocked 
down.(except against attacks that work while your down) 

Personally, I think it was stupid design to do this because of its ability to 
negate so many skills but the importance of this abilty is undeniable.  Many 
people set up their arsenals around stunning their opponent with 
Erase/Status/Special skills and following up with an attack, if you jump into 
these skills you can nullify many or all of their effects without even paying 
any aura to do so.  

Skills/Attack Nullifications
Besides completely nullifying certain skills entirely you can nullify certain 
effects that come with them.  Someone may fire Dragon Slayer to erase your 
shield(let�s say Glacial Wall).  You have nothing to stop the effect. However,
you can stop part of it.  When you are hit by Dragon Slayer you also get 
stunned by it, IF you are standing.  If you got hit while standing this is a 
perfect chance for your opponent to follow up with an attack you can�t stop.
However, if you see Dragon Slayer coming and you know there is no other 
way you can stop the skill, jumping into it will negate the stun effect that 
would normally come if you stood up and got hit.  Even skills like Teleport 
can be entirely negated by jumping into them, even though there doesn�t seem 
to be any real reason why the skill shouldn�t work when it hits its target.

Jumping can also reduce the amount of damage you take from a barrage of 
attacks.  If you know your opponent is attempting to fire or hit you with a 
move more than once and you see no other way of dodging or stopping the 
assualt, jumping into the first attack will cause you to fall when hit, 
instead of staying on your feet and getting hit by the rest of the 
follow up 
attacks.  A cartwheeler on the other hand that is hit by an attack is often 
vulnerable to several more attacks because you stagger while you get hit by 
an attack.  A Dragon Slayer that hits a cartwheeler(with a shield) is normally 
a guaranteed chance for you to follow up with an attack your opponent won�t 
be able to do anything about.  

Dodging Hit All skills
A Hit All skill is a skill that will affect everyone on the field regardless
of any dodging/shield ability.  Skills like Mobilize, Still Moment, Amaros 
and Quantum Decay fit this description.  If you jump into the air at the 
right time as the skill is taking affect you will get knocked down.  This 
is useful for a few reasons:
	
A)  Some skills will affect everyone.  Some of the best skills to jump
in the air for when their about to take effect are Mobilize and Still Moment.  
If you stand up and you are not in the air no matter what you will be 
affected.  Why get teleported to your opponents spawn point by Mobilize when 
you can avoid whatever nasty plan he has by simply jumping in the air?  And 
although Still Moment will still paralyze you for a very brief second as you 
get up you have a greater chance of not getting hit by the attack your 
opponent intends to land on you.

B)  By jumping into the air you will avoid the stun affect that comes with 
being affected by a Hit All skill.  If you are in the air when a hit all skill 
occurs you will get knocked out of the sky.  Some player could attempt to fire 
a slow moving attack at you and then cast a Hit All like Fairy Ring that stuns 
you as the attack heads towards you which you will now have little to stop the
attack with.(only auto shields)  If you jump you can avoid the 
stun and probably the attack entirely because you will fall and be invincible
for a little bit.  In tag team matches or even Battle Royale your opponents 
have a greater chance of setting this up as one can cast the Hit All moves 
with a stun effect while the other person fires an attack at you as the effect
is about to take place. 

Note:  There will be times when you would rather be hit by the stun effect but
this is just one more option you have available as a jumper.  There is less of
a delay if you just let yourself get stunned by Hit All moves versus jumping 
to make yourself fall.  It maybe 
more useful to just let yourself be stunned 
when your closely pursuing an opponent.    

You will not be able to use these jump tricks on Erase Hit all�s if you have 
a useable Orb or Amulet in hand.  Even if the skill really doesn�t effect 
anything on you, it will still knock you out of the sky when it takes effect.
The only exception is the skill called Phantom Dust.  

2)  Jumpers have an easier time in repeatedly dodging Crawler, Hole, and long 
Range arc attacks.  They can still get hit by them but they�ll have a much 
easier time dodging them.(Methods of dodging holes, crawlers, and arc 
attacks are explained in the 2BPD section on Using and Dodging attacks)  

3)   Jumpers generally have an easier time to find places to hang an 
Environmental skill and its also easier to pick up someone elses environmental.
( Environmental floating explained further in the Environmental floating 
section (5PD) )

4)  Jumpers usually have an easier time getting around levels because jumping 
generally gives you  more options and places you can go.  You can even jump 
onto the broken bridge in the middle of the tree in Palace.(explained in 
Palace Section) Against a carthwheeler you can escape their pursuits if you 
bring them to areas they can�t easily follow you to.  Simple example:  In 
Palace your Cartwheeling opponent is chasing you up the stairs You jump off 
in the middle of the stairway, he can not follow you as quickly as he�d like.
Plus you can dodge attacks like Twister more easily jumping off stair ways 
with banisters versus a cartwheeler who might get caught in between the 
banisters with no way of escaping.( they could try to cartwheel out of range
though) Jumping also makes it easier to find spots to jump off  and fall off 
the level to get yourself back to your spawn point.  It does 3 damage to you 
but there are quite a few situations where quickly getting back to your spawn
point is more important than taking 3 damage.  Additionally if you want to 
lower your health to take advantage of certain skills its a quick and fairly 
safe way to do so.(athough it maybe an  obvious one to your opponent)  
Some levels or parts of the levels will be more advantageous for each 
character type, be it Jumper or Cartwheeler.  Try to find and use the places 
that give your character the best advantage.  

5)  Jumpers can jump into the air and fire attacks.(for attacks that allow 
this)  This gives you more ways of attacking and throwing off your opponent.
It is even possible to jump higher than an opponent's shield that only 
protects the front parts, and hit them with certain projectiles.(not always 
easy though) Jumping and shooting is also an easy way of ensuring you dodge 
hole attacks.

6)   Jumpers can nullify the stun effects or the entire affect of certain 
landmine skills without need for a shield.  If you step into the area that 
has the mine detonate and jump into the air in time before getting hit by the 
mine explosion, you can nullify certain skills.  You�ll fall and not get 
stunned on by something like Freeze Gas.  Anti Gravity Trap and Teleportrap 
can be completely nullified if you jump into their explosions.  Some like 
Vapor Cloud are a little more difficult but if you time it right, you�ll fall 
down instead of getting stunned.  If you use Boost Mine, Jumping into the mine
is often a safer option than standing there being stunned by the boost effect, 
leaving you open to attacks.

7)   If a jumper has been hit by attacks that lower their speed (i.e. Burden)  
Their ability  to jump can get them around faster than walking around in some 
cases.(Such as-4  speed.)  Note:  This is not an advantage over cartwheelers 
but it is another useful trick with jumpers.  

8)  Jumping can avoid many attacks.  More than you might think.  There are 
plenty of cases where jumping can help aid in diverting and or dodging an 
attack.  These include many swords, hand to hand skills, and projectiles among
others.  The details of how to dodge each attack with jumping will be 
explained in greater detail in the dodging section.2PD)  Jumping throws off 
the homing of some attacks.  

Disadvanatages/Ways of Foiling of Jumpers:  

1)  They have a much higher vulnerability to a greater number of attacks.  
Without a defensive/evasive skill(or speed increase) there are some skills 
that are impossible or near impossible to dodge with jumpers, provided they 
are shot at the right range.  (By impossible I mean a situation where the 
jumper can not divert an attack into an object or get themselves out of the 
attacks sight)   If you end up in a situation where you have lost 
your defenses and your opponent has an open enough shot on you, you could end
up pretty screwed.  Skills such as Fire of Gehenna, and Heat from the Void are
impossible to dodge without a skill if shot at their correct ranges.  There 
are some skills that are much less forgiving to dodge than if you cartwheeled.
You will have to rely on greater psych out tactics if you find yourself 
without skills or enough aura to protect yourself.  Sometimes psych out 
tactics are just not enough in certain situations and you are very likely to 
die due to your high vulnerability.  A cartwheeler on the other hand, 
especially someone good at it, can still have a good chance of dodging a 
large amount of attacks.  

2)  You hate the fact that your opponent keeps jumping into your stun/status 
moves to cancel them out?  Well there aren�t too many things you can do.  
But there are moves you can do to make a jumper happy opponent pay for 
constantly nullifying those affects you try to affect/stun him with.  You can 
always use moves affective against downed opponents.  Skills like Backdraft 
Bullet, Pursuit, Gravity Press, and Geyser Impact are among the choices you 
have available.  And in some cases you could always use the extra 
time on the ground they have to position yourself a little better.

Jumper�s �cartwheel� - A jumper can use the skill Dash to basically fill in for
the cartwheel ability cartwheelers have.(It is actually superior to 
cartwheeling but you have to pay to use it and hold a slot for it)  This is a 
great skill for dodging and traveling around faster and is even useeful for 
Cartwheeler�s.  

This ends the jumper section but its highly recommended to check out the 
Cartwheeler section as well to see what other advantages and weaknesses 
Cartwheelers have against you.


Cartwheelers
Advantages/Disadvantages:

You may notice that this section is shorter than the jumper section.  That 
certainly does not negate the importance of the advantages cartwheelers have 
over jumpers.  If you skipped down to the Cartwheelers section and ignored the
Jumper section you will miss out on ways of taking advantage of the fact your 
opponent chose a jumper.  

1)Dodging Ability - This is by far the best reason to choose a cartwheeler.  
A cartwheeler can dodge nearly any singly performed ATTACK in the game if he 
has the space, reflexes, and the knowledge of how to.(By attacks I mean only 
the red skills)  This does not include most erase skills and many 
status/special  projectiles. When I say cartwheelers can dodge nearly every 
attack in the game used just once I am not exaggerating.  Currently it appears 
Psycho Kinesis and Power maybe the only attacks they can�t truly dodge when 
given enough room.(even when an attack is shot at proper range)  At this time 
I�ll put Ricochet Laser in a troubling class of its own.  Some crawlers 
are also difficult and impossible in the more open spaces where they can�t be 
diverted off ledges or into objects.  There are some attacks they will have 
greater trouble with but generally the more open a situation the easier it is
for them to dodge most attacks.  *This is in the case of an attack shot only 
once.  If you shoot an attack more than once its probably impossible for some 
skills to be dodged.  This idea will be covered in more detail in the �Dodging
and Using Attack Types More Effectively� section.(2PD)

Attacks that are more difficult for Cartwheelers

1)Crawler attacks - Crawler attacks are harder for a cartwheeler to dodge but
not as much as some would believe.  The more open a space a cartwheeler is in 
the harder it is to dodge a crawler.(for just about any other attack the 
opposite is the case)  It should be noted though that even in many open spaces
they can be dodged by diverting them off a cliff or into a wall by cartwheeling
away at the right time. Even the exploding Spore Schism crawler can be tricked
by it.  However if you don�t have a ledge or a wall to divert them with, some 
crawlers will circle you and follow you till they hit.  Dodging crawlers is 
covered more in the dodging section.(2PD)  Depending on the range a crawler 
is shot at, a cartwheeler will have to decide on different dodging tactics.  
The good news is that there aren�t a lot of crawler skills and some are pricey
making them harder to spam without Optimization down. If you can keep your 
opponent away from ledges and walls when they�re in the open you will make 
it very hard, if not impossible for them to cartwheel out of a crawler.

2)  Hole attacks - While its true cartwheelers can dodge hole attacks it is 
harder, and you are more likely to get trapped by a well placed one when in 
more closed in areas.  A jumper can generally jump out of the attack in most 
areas pretty easily once they get the hang of it.  For Cartwheelers troubled 
by holes, Absorb and Shelter shield types will protect you from them.  

3)  Cartwheelers can cover greater distances then a jumper who has reduced 
speed.  If you cartwheel you can get around faster then a jumper who has 
reduced speed. Cartwheeling can also give you the ability to cover greater 
distance in an instant.  You can�t continually cartwheel around efficiently 
though, but for situations where quickly moving out of the way in an instant
this is useful.  *While cartwheeling its important to note you don�t recover 
aura.

4)  Cartwheeling�s dodging ability is so great that it can dodge many singly 
shot attacks even when an opponent has high homing stats.  Further details 
will be in the  �Homing Section.�  That�s not to say homing doesn�t make 
attacks harder to dodge.  But attacks with boosted homing can get difficult 
or impossible for jumpers while even high accuracy moves like Fire of Gehenna
can be dodged at +5 homing.  

5)  Because of a cartwheeler�s ability to save aura by relying less on 
defenses, in my opinion they can sometimes take greater advantage of 
Environmentals like Irregular Rhythm(doubles cost of aura for everyone) and 
Memory Lapse.(all skills are now singles use)  These skills will curtail many 
of your opponents� chances to shoot multiple attacks at you.  It also hinders
those who would try to use a skill constantly for its stagger effect like 
Dazzle, to then follow up with an attack while your stunned. Since in many 
situations you can ideally dodge attacks shot just once you could really 
slow down your opponent or render skills that are now single use, ineffective.  

6)  If your ready you can cartwheel through landmine explosions as long as you
stay away from the center part.  Cartwheeling will also help you escape 
easily out of your own Fast Bomb detonation much more easily than a jumper. 

7)  Although it is often best to dodge short range melees by moving to the 
side, there are also a lot of melee attacks that a cartwheel can have you 
escape from just because it takes you a far enough distance away from the 
melee moves coming at you.  It can also work as insurance in dodging a blade
that your not completely confident moving to the side will dodge.  It is 
usually easier to dodge blades with a cartwheeler.  

Weaknesses and getting around them

A)  While most of the red attacks skills can be cartwheeled out of, there�s 
practically no cartwheeling out of many erase/ or stun projectiles moves 
without a shield or evasion skill.  If someone fires a Dragon Slayer at the 
right range and you only have a Psychic Wall to protect you, you will get hit,
and have to suffer the stun affect that  comes with it.(there are of course a 
few shields like Gust that can override skills like dragon slayer)  You will 
also have to suffer the affects of many skills that a jumper can simply jump 
into, to negate.  It is much harder to dodge/negate area affect skills like 
Mobilize and Still Moment.  

Your only hope in dodging the erase/status projectiles stun effects without a 
proper shield or evasion skill is to cartwheel off of an edge as you are shot 
at. The same goes for dodging skills like Mobilize.(cartwheel off as its 
about to take effect)  This is much harder to do and potentially more 
dangerous because if you cartwheel from a high enough height you�ll take fall 
damage as a result.)  

B)  If you find yourself stumbling around in a match and you leave yourself 
open to a barrage of attacks you may end up getting hit several times from 
your opponent despite your best dodging efforts.  If you catch yourself 
stumbling with a jumper and see you are about to be hit by a ton of attacks
(i.e. several Rapid Cannon, Lingering Flames) you can to jump into the first 
shot to fall and stop the rest of the shots from hitting you.  

C)  Cornering a cartwheeler into narrow areas can make it hard to escape or 
even evade attacks that they would easily dodge if they had more space.  In 
this way some attacks like flame sword could end up being easier for a jumper
to dodge in some situations like this you can get away with jumping straight
up even if your cornered.(I find it hard to do though and lag can make timing
harder to get right)  Its best for a cartwheeler to keep in mind whether 
going into certain areas will back them into a corner.  When you do get 
cornered sometimes carthweeling into the opposite direction to the side around
an opponent can still save you.  

D)  Although cartwheelers get in situations where they can�t get around with
the same ease a jumper has you will find there are more places you can 
cartwheel or walk off of than you think.  Cartwheeling off certain heights can
also get you to certain areas that you thought you would have to spend more 
time getting around to.  Experimenting will be key in figuring out how to get
around levels best with a cartwheeler.  This may also effect your skill 
considerations as you might want more permanent skills that you can easily 
use to destroy barriers around you so you can maneuver around the level more 
easily.

E)  You cannot not regenerates aura while in the process of Cartwheeling.  If
you cartwheel around continuously and you really need aura you will not be 
getting much back till you stop cartwheeling.  There are little moments 
between cartwheeling where you might be able to regain a small snippet of 
aura while you continue to try to dodge while cartwheeling.  

F)  Dodging the long range arc lasers that curve is to harder to deal with a
as a cartwheeler over and over and may become impossible after awhile.  If a 
jumper has the space they can keep jumping their way out of them if they keep
moving and jumping towards the inside part of the arc.  On the plus side you
have a better chance of dodging a laser your unprepared to dodge than an 
unprepared jumper. 

G)  Cartwheeler�s �jump� -  Although a cartwheeler lacks the ability to jump,
they can use skills like Levitate, Skywalk, Jump, and Demon�s wing to make 
themselves more mobile.  It should be noted with Skywalk, Demon�s Wing, and 
Levitate you can simply press the button assigned to the skill to make 
yourself float down at any time you choose. 

Some attack animations can substitute for jumping.  If you hyperkick a person 
on an adjacent platform you can hop on over them. 

*Many moves can be dodged without cartwheeling.  Don�t use your cartwheel 
when you don�t have to.  It�ll slow down your aura regen and make it easier 
for you to get trapped.  You can usually dodge a move once with a cartwheel 
but the 2nd time you try to cartwheel you�ll often struggle to escape.(that�s
why you don�t do it if you don�t have to)    

Rollers  

Rollers generally have the same abilities and weaknesses a cartwheeler has, so
read the cartwheeling section.  Check 25PD on differences in character melees 
to see one of the few concrete differences.  
Their roll might be more useful in dodging certain attacks.  At this time I 
can not figure out many concrete differences between the two types so you 
will have to experiment to see what they are.  Some have said their rolls 
move faster than cartwheel making it better for pursuing an opponent.  Some
also feel they can�t roll out of certain moves as often as a cartwheeler.  
You�ll have to see which type your more comfortable with.(or find out 
who can�t dodge certain attacks that the other can)  Personally I don't like 
the height of some of the rollers and the space they take up which can make it
harder to see and time when to dodge certain attacks.

Other types - (odd ball characters you can pick if you hold L+R at the 
character select screen after you beat the game)
Some hidden characters like Omatto, Ceno, or Catoptro have their own special 
moves when you click in the analog stick.  Their almost like a cartwheel/roll
in the way it sends your character moving but these characters don�t travel 
very far when their move is used.(some go further than others)  You can dodge
some attacks with these but not nearly as many as rollers or wheelers because 
these characters go shorter distances.  Because of this they are more 
vulnerable to holes to the point where their move often can�t escape the 
attack.(holes can still be dodged in other ways sometimes)  These character 
have the hardest times with crawler and arc attack moves.(even the characters
that float will still be hit by both holes and crawlers)    
The disappearing animation some of these characters have may give you the 
impression you can �disappear� through attacks. However, it is only an 
animation, and attacks will hit a �disappearing� move the same as if you were
just standing there visible.  
Some characters feel clunky but they do move the same speed as the other 
characters but some like the Catoptro may have slower turning reactions. 
Some of the animations for these characters differ from that of normal 
characters. For example the Omatto and Ceno swing swords differently.  Their 
bodies also just throw themselves into an opponent with many hand to hand 
moves.  Hyper kick looks different with a Catoptro as does an Ommato�s 
Vacuum Slash.  Because of these differences they can throw off opponents more
accustomed to dodging other character types of close range moves.  Experiment
with characters because some have better animations and start up times then 
others.(I think Catoptro kind of sucks compared to Ommato and Ceno)
The ways of dodging the attacks they use appear to be mostly the same despite
the different animation.  (I prefer Ommato for the balls or using Ceno for 
different moves) 
You may have to move in a different direction though with some swords.  Their
exact differences and how to dodge them are covered more in section 25PD.(the
special ones are Ommatos, Claustro, Scoto, and Ceno)  
These characters suffer all of the same vulnerabilities as cartwheelers but
hole attacks and crawlers are even tougher for these characters to deal with 
since they can�t trick them by rolling/wheeling away from a ledge or wall. 
They are easily the weakest characters against Arc style attacks.  If you do
decide you want to use these characters despite the fact they seem inferior 
to the other character types in many ways, you may want to structure your 
arsenal to deal with these troublesome situations more easily.  Things like 
carrying shelter or absorb skills will be important in dealing with holes.
Course defenses will avoid Dragon Slayer problems.
Carrying Levitate or a jumping �equivalent� skill could also aid in overcoming
their weaknesses.  Their biggest strength for some of these unique characters 
is the way their swords/blades work differently.  See 25PD for details.  

Effects of character Choice on Arsenals
The character type you choose will effect your arsenal choices.  A jumper 
usually has to dedicate more space to protective skills.  Because of a greater
reliance on skills to protect yourself, you will also generally need more 
aura to perform all that you need to do.  This can be especially bad because 
a cartwheeling opponent in many situations has much greater potential to save
aura by simply carthweeling out of your attacks.  Depending on you and your 
opponent�s character types, certain arsenals and skills will be more or less 
effective depending on the character chosen.  Even the random start locations
are better for some characters than others.  There is probably no real way of
getting out of this.  You might desire more moves that stun a Cartwheeler or
carry stagger effects with them more to hit them, because they generally 
can�t cartwheel out of those.  Many Status/Erase/Special skills simply have
better homing than practically all the attack skills.  On the other hand, 
against a good jumper you�ll find that stun effect skills are less important
and you can count on many more attacks to hit a jumper without worrying about
your opponent simply dodging it.
In all honesty I wouldn�t use the special characters(L+R) unless you have 
dedicated a good amount of space to sword and hand to hand melee moves.  
These are also the characters that get punished most when you don�t have an 
arsenal or hand tailored to deal with their weaknesses.  

Other reasons to choose a character 
Some characters perform moves with different animations and some are more 
effective than others.  The main places where it matters most is in sword and
kick moves.  (see 25PD for exact details)  Rollers seem like the best 
kickers.  As for swords and the rest, among humanoid characters I believe 
their pretty much equal.  I have not seen anything else not listed that makes
any humanoid characters stand out as better compared to others.

Some characters bodies are actually harder to find in tag like the Scoto.  
Changing characters to brighter colors can make it easier for your teammate.
Some people are more comfortable controlling certain characters than others.
(personal)

Conclusion on Characters
This finishes off the character type section but a few notes should be made.
The above only explains how someone can negate skills used against them.
Just because someone can cancel out or dodge something doesn�t mean he always
will be ready to or even know how to.  If your not familiar with your opponent
at all try to figure out what he doesn�t know or has trouble with and use it
to your advantage. Just because he is good at dodging one of the skills your
using, does not mean he�s going to be good at dodging all your other skills.
Many people will not be ready enough or even know how to jump or cartwheel out
of certain skills. There is of course always the element of surprise as well.

Although there are many ways of getting out of certain attacks or effects that
will help you spend less aura and make you less reliant on defensive skills,
that does not mean you shouldn�t think about using defensive skills to help 
you against your opponent.  It is usually important to have at least some 
defensive moves in an arsenal even if you can perform the dodging tricks 
mentioned above.  

1APD Who's the "best" character?

The first section on choosing your character has the detail on specific 
tricks/advantages and weaknesses of the characters.

Debate:  Jumpers vs. Cartwheelers  

So which one is better?  That depends on the situation.  One is not concretely
better than the other all the time.  I will say though a wheeler seems 
to have more advantages in the amount of attacks he can dodge.(but that doesn't
really matter if your opponent's not using those attacks)  A lot of 
it depends on your arsenal, your opponents arsenal, the level your playing, 
and sometimes even where you are currently at in the level.  You can get a 
bad hand and sometimes survive thanks to your cartwheeling ability and 
survive where a jumper would get killed.  However you're going to wish you 
could jump when your opponents using crawlers, stun moves, and some other 
attacks your weaker against and you have no defense.  A cartwheeler can lose 
out on chances to pursue someone or get away from someone because they lack 
the ability to jump.  

In tag there are more opportunities to exploit wheelers weaknesses with stun 
moves or double teaming than there are in one on one.  A jumper on the other 
hand can jump into most stun moves and avoid the effect almost entirely.

Sure a cartwheeler can dodge Blazing Bullet and many other attacks with ease
that a jumper can't,  but a cartwheeler is going to wish they had the ability 
to jump when it comes to dealing with moves like crawlers or even frighten.  
Some levels and places are more manageable to deal with certain moves than 
others for each character type.  

A special type character that doesn't jump may even prove more valuable 
despite its defensive weaknesses if it causes your opponent to mess up in 
dodging its swords.(typically though Jumpers and Cartwheelers are better for
your deck than these)

If you really want the best chances to win get good at using a cart wheeler 
and learn how to manuever through each level with them.  But also build 
arsenals more suited for a jumper.  Jumping around is generally easier to pick
up than cartwheeling.  Think specifically about what your character's weak 
against and how your deck can get around those weaknesses.  Then depending on 
your opponent and the level your playing you can adopt your different 
strategies and characters to deal with their gameplay style and characters.  

2PD Dodging and using attack types more effectively.  
This section explains how to use the attack types more effectively as well as
how to dodge them.  It includes strategies for both Cartwheelers and Jumpers.  

2APD  General Ways of Landing your attacks or dodging them.  

1)The Importance of Spamming 
Spamming is using an attack over and over in succession.  It is an important 
tactic to use in this game.  Some people complain it is cheap, �noobish� and 
wrong but in actuality a lot of the skills in this game are pretty easy to 
dodge and sometimes it is only by using them over and over that they actually 
hit their targets.  It is your opponents fault if they can�t figure out a way 
to stop you from using the same skill over and over again.  It is one of the 
best ways to deal with the excellent dodging ability of a cartwheeler.  In 
many situations a player can avoid one attack you used on them but dodging a 
second one coming at them can be a real nuisance and even impossible.  
Crawlers such as Venom Fang are a perfect example.  Mash on the skill button 
your using and you�d be surprised how quickly one can perform certain skills 
over and over again including many sword attacks.  Someone might dodge your 
first sword swing but they might not be ready or will be trapped by the 
second one that comes at them.  This goes the same for someone just using 
skills to defend in general.  If you give your opponent enough time to 
recover aura to keep casting his Fortress of Iron and Reverse, you�ll find 
that many of your arsenals won�t get anywhere in hitting him.  

Having lots of aura as well as cheap costing skills makes it easier for one 
to spam.  Playing the environmental Optimization will also make it much 
easier to spam even more expensive skills.  Keep in mind that it will also 
make it easier for your opponent to do so as well.  
Good ways to stop spammers is to use shields that halt activities like ones 
that erase attacks or freeze their buttons.(Glacial wall, Flash Hole)  
Reverse is a great way to turn someone�s spamming against themselves.(but it 
can be overcome by spamming)  Anything that lowers a person�s aura count is 
another way to cut down on a lot of spamming.  The environmental skills 
Memory Lapse and Irregular Rhythm are other good ways to stop a lot of 
spamming.  Taking down an Optimization that is out is another way and often 
a necessary one to turn the tide.  You can also fire your own attacks in 
reaction.  People who spam often leave themselves open to an attack.  
In many situations I don�t think you�ll mind taking two 1 damage Lingering 
Flames in exchange for nailing them with Fire of Gehenna.
If you don�t think spamming is legitimate try just using projectile moves on 
a good cartwheeler and shoot them one at a time in an open area.  You�ll see 
him dodge nearly all of them. There are many skills a jumper can avoid as 
well if you just shoot only one at them.  
Its important to note that spamming doesn�t necessarily mean firing in 
succession as quickly as possible. If you give a little time before firing 
off the second attack you may also make it harder for an opponent.  
Experiment with timing to see where it is better to spam rapidly or to wait 
a little before using the skill again.

2) Use Mixed Speed Attacks
Combine attacks in this game that move at different speeds.  If you use 
attacks that have mixed speeds you can make it very hard for someone to dodge
them.  An example is to combine Demon�s Fire and Fire of Gehenna.  If you fire
a Demon�s Fire at someone and they try to cartwheel away from the move as 
your about to fire off a Fire of Gehenna, they will get nailed by Fire of 
Gehenna because they won�t be able to recover in time to dodge.  
This is also a great way to get past someone using shields with slower 
recovery times.(usually anything that�s not a Brush shield)  Your opponent 
puts up their shield to block the slow move and right as the shield goes down 
your fast move can go right through before they can put their shield up again. 
A well timed combination Seal of Death and Fire of Gehenna can do this as well.
Even on people with Brush shields they could be too flustered to block both 
attacks.  The Faith school has a bunch of mixed slow and fast speed moves.  
A lot of the Crawler moves can work well with mixed speeds, usually 
functioning as slower speed moves to combine with a fast move.  El Bomb and 
a Vibration Blaster is another example that can work.  Something like 
Earthquake and a Venom Fang could overwhelm someone too.  You could try to 
even fire a slow tracking move and follow up with a melee move if your quick 
enough.  Its actually really cool when you pull it off.  Combining Delay 
Bomb or Big  Bomb with fast attacks might offer other possibilities.  In tag 
you and a teammate can also fire at different times to overwhelm shields.

3)Combo stun moves and attacks. 
Status, Erase, and Special skills have some of the best homing in the game.  
They are usually much better at hitting than most attacks.  Many of them 
carry an automatic stun effect when they hit an opponent that can give you 
an opening to hit them with another move.(Dazzle, then use Rail Gun)  All 
erase moves that effect someone will stun them.  A perfect example is to shoot 
Dragon Slayer at someone with a Glacial Wall. When their hit they will be 
stunned briefly and you can follow up with a fast enough attack that can hit 
them before they recover. Moves that reverse stats will stun anyone with a 
numbered stat(even if its from an environmental).  If people aren�t effected 
by a skill like Dragon Slayer because they have no shield, or have an 
Orb/Amulet, they will not suffer the stun effects that normally come from 
being hit by erase moves.  You can still use moves like Dragon Slayer or 
Neutralization to knock someone out of the air even if they don�t have 
something like a shield or stat.(except if they can use Orb or Amulet)  
Moves that carry a stun effect are a great way to connect attacks 
cartwheelers might normally dodge with ease.  This can be effective on 
jumpers too, but jumpers can jump into the air as they get shot by stun moves, 
to fall to the ground and negate the stun effect.  You can still use moves 
that effect people when their on the ground though like Backdraft Bullet 
or Gravity Press.  Most stun moves have long range reach even if they state
otherwise.

4)  Use the objects around you
There are many objects that you can hide behind to absorb attacks.  Many do 
not ever disappear.  Even something tiny like a pole that remains out can 
continually absorb attacks including some melee.  Moves that explode or go 
through walls can help get an opponent out of hiding.  Manually Aimed attacks 
can get around some of these objects by shooting something like an open foot.

4)  Get out of Ideal Range
If you can get out of the ideal range of moves you can dodge/avoid a lot of 
attacks.  You can do this either by getting too far away so they don�t react
or by getting so close that you can move around to the side whenever a move 
is being done.  Be aware that projectiles that aren�t attacks usually have a 
much greater range than expressed.(A lot of them can go pretty long distances
and still be very accurate)

5)  Don�t be indecisive
If your going to dodge a move by going to the side of the projectiles don�t 
change your mind in the middle of it and try and go in the opposite direction
to the side.  You will often get nailed if you do this.  Jump or Cartwheel to
try and improve your chances of escaping if you do decide to change direction
to dodge a projectile.  

6)Wait for an opening
Sometimes its best to wait for an opponent to make a move and then follow up 
with your own attack as you dodge their own.  One example is to dodge a melee 
attack and follow up with your own.(depending on how quick you are it can be 
impossible for them to react with a cartwheel, jump or shield)  A great time 
to attack someone is also when their trying to use some move that would power 
up themselves.  While their performing that action they are left wide open.  
People who try to use Healing Water right as they get up leave themselves 
wide open to attacks.  

6)Eye for an Eye
Sometimes its not always possible to dodge and then counter react.  However, 
if your willing to risk getting hurt a bit you can connect your own attacks 
pretty successfully.  One of the times when an opponent is most vulnerable is 
when they are making an attack themselves.  If an opponent starts up a move 
you can start your own up in counter reaction. Some melee and projectile 
moves have quicker start up animations then others so you can sometimes hit 
them before they can even use their own attack on you.  Other times you may 
be glad to risk taking a Psycho Knife hit if it gives you the chance to 
connect a Photon Burst.  The same goes for projectiles, someone fires a 
blazing bullet at you from the sky, you probably wouldn�t mind taking 3 
damage to get a chance to shoot a Lack or a Pscyho Spear while their open.  
You could also try to carry auto shields to protect yourself as you make a 
counter attack.  Rail Gun can be effective as a way of firing in reaction to 
someone�s move.  Firing in reaction to someone can also be a useful way of 
stopping someone who plans on using multiple attacks.  If someone is trying 
to counter react to your attack, try to cartwheel or use a shield as soon as 
possible.  You�d be surprised by how quickly you can recover from doing some 
moves to use a shield or to cartwheel.  And if you can�t do either you might 
as well try to jump or move out of the way.  You�ll have a remote chance of 
dodging and at least be able to stop combo moves or several attacks from 
hitting.  

7)Change Speed or Homing Ability
Using skills that lower someone�s homing or increasing your speed will help in 
making attacks easier to dodge. You can escape the reach of more attacks with 
higher speeds.  On the other hand you can boost your homing or lower their 
speed with skills to make it harder for them to dodge.  There is a separate 
section on homing that talks about what kinds of skills are effected by 
losses or increases in homing.  Some moves appear to be a waste of time to 
spend improving.  Increased speeds can also make it easier to set up your 
attacks or to pursue someone.

8)  See which skills are more reliable
Through experimentation you�ll find that some attacks are simply more 
accurate or faster than others whether your using ranged moves or melee
attacks.  Keep in mind though that some attacks are effective at slightly 
different ranges.  A far medium Blaster shot is a lot harder to dodge then
one shot at close medium range.

9)  Confine or corner opponent
Generally the more boxed in an opponent is the more effective most attacks 
are.  However, crawlers can be more difficult to deal with in open spaces.  

10)  Aim Manually 
Sometimes its better to just shoot a projectile manually especially if you 
have your homing greatly reduced.  It can make you less predictable too.  
This is given more attention in the Manual Aim section. 

11)Comboing vs Spamming and Mixed Speed Attacks
As mentioned, above comboing stun moves/effects with attacks or spamming or 
using mixed speed attacks are all effective ways of hitting someone.  When 
deciding on using stun moves or not you should consider whether comboing is 
even necessary.  Spamming and Mixed Speed attacks can be just as effective in 
some situations, and can give you more room to carry other moves.  It can 
also cost you less aura to do.  When considering whether to have a skill like 
Dazzle or Pressure for stunning you should consider if its really going to be 
necessary or if spamming/mixed speed attacks will do the job by themselves.  
I think this especially applies to One on One matches.  In other modes like 
Tag, stun moves are much easier and useful to repeatedly set up because you 
have a teammate who can distract an opponent and also follow up with moves 
easily.  This doesn�t mean stun moves are useless in One on One. This is just 
something to consider in arsenal design. 

12)  Always keep moving.  This can�t be stressed enough.  Simply moving to 
the side back and forth can dodge a Rail Gun or a surprise Charged Particle.  
If you can keep moving back and forth side to side while your trying to set 
things up you have a greater chance of dodging attacks without having to 
cartwheel or jump.  It also generally keeps you more awake and ready to dodge 
any surprises your opponent has for you.  Many straight on projectiles can be 
dodged simply by moving to the side, so take advantage of this fact.  

13)  Use your character�s ability - Whether you�re a jumper or a carthwheeler 
you should obviously use your ability if you know there�s no better way to 
dodge an attack.  Jumping is even necessary for jumpers to even dodge certain 
projectile attacks and well placed melees.  You may think your traveling the 
same distance by just walking to the side but jumping to the side sometimes 
give you the extra distance you need to escape.(especially if you have had 
your speed reduced)  This may be because jumping makes you travel a little 
faster or it just throws the homing off on certain attacks.  If you�re not 
using your cartwheeler to dodge, I don�t know why you're even using them.  
Cartwheeling on an angle to the side of the projectile into close range can 
help easily dodge many projectiles.  However,  cartwheeling to the side at 
the right time will give you just about all you need to dodge nearly all none 
close attack skills in the game.(even if their shot at the right range.)  
Even the special characters crappy moves can dodge a few more attacks.  

2BPD Dodging and using Specific Attack Types more effectively.  Goes into 
detail on how to deal with and use different categories of attacks.  This 
also includes some specialized types.    

Parabola attacks -  Most parabolas can be dodged simply by moving to the side.
(Don�t be indecisive)  Even as some get higher homing its still quite 
possible to dodge with a jump or Cartwheel.(sometimes gets impossible)  These 
moves become a lot harder to dodge with increased homing. Sometimes you can 
also move closer to your opponent to escape the range of an attack and get 
under it.  It can be more useful to cartwheel under a Gugnir than to the side.  
Parabolas are generally easy to dodge when given enough space to move 
to the side.  Firing them at heights where you are higher or lower than your 
opponent can make them harder to dodge though.  You can get a very close 
medium range with these and be pretty accurate.  Skills like Levitate and 
Skywalk can work well with parabolas.(i.e Bomb, Big Bomb)  Some like Psycho 
Spear do not work that well with Levitate and Skywalk.  Its possible to throw 
Bomb and some others at close range and have it land on your opponent.
(and even yourself)  

Fall Attacks - These are very similar in style to parabola attacks.  Some have
a much better default homing.  Going to the side is sometimes enough to dodge 
them but you may need to cartwheel to be able to dodge some of these attacks. 
Moving forward under their range can also help dodge sometimes.  Other times 
you�ll run right into it.  Jumping can aid in dodging occasionally too, other 
times it will throw you right into the move.  These moves are often more 
effective when you are at a different height than your opponent.  Experiment 
with the places where you can fire these moves.  You may be surprised seeing 
where they can work.  Like they may appear under the bridges your on and 
still hit.  Skill examples: Sign of Saints, Meteor, Demon�s Venom, 
Arrow of Artemis.

Arc attacks -  These include attacks like Laser and Arc of Fire.  These 
attacks go on an arc of sorts and arrive at their target.  It is possible to 
constantly keep running to the side of the arc and jumping to dodge over and 
over each time it is shot.(even on the less forgiving ones like Vibration 
Laser)  You�ll  want to stay on the inside of the arcs when dodging to the 
side.  Most people whether they cartwheel or jump tend to get caught after 
firing a few of them over and over.  Jumpers probably have a better chance of 
dodging over and over than cartwheelers.  At the same time its easier to 
dodge ones you don�t anticipate well with a cartwheeler. A cartwheeler can 
get away with cartwheeling on the outside of an arc sometimes.(doing it on 
the inside is recommended though)  Watch out for players who try to manually 
aim these attacks at closer ranges. They can have a decent shot at hitting 
you with these manually.  Getting into a closer range can help avoid arc 
attacks fired with lock on on.  Look for objects that will block the arc from 
reaching you.

Hole Attacks -  Moving in one direction and then switching into a different
direction can dodge the hole if you have enough space and are ready for it.  
Jumping out of it is safer and more reliable.  Timing is crucial against hole 
attacks.  You often have a little more time than you think to jump out of them, 
so try not to jump too early when you think a hole attack will be used.  It 
is often necessary to cartwheel in a direction out of the holes range to 
avoid it when your in confined areas. Hopping off to a lower height will also 
avoid the hole forming over you.  If you jump and shoot a projectile you�ll 
be pretty safe.  I do not believe hole attacks are effected by homing but I 
have to admit to not testing this much.  Only Shelter and Absorb shields can 
block them.  Sometimes you can stand on objects like the tree branch sticking 
out of the ground to avoid the hole forming under you.  Its easier to use all
hit hole attacks with a jumper.  Another easy way of using all hit holes is 
to use it at a ledge and walk off after using it.  You can get hit by multiple
holes if you and another player are close enough to each other.  

Rain Attacks -  Most of the time it is possible to avoid these by continuing 
to move in a single direction if you don�t stumble around.  Sometimes changing
in 2 directions(go forward then left) can give you some extra insurance.  
Stun moves are often useful in setting these up.(Paralyze is popular) Rain 
will often catch people taking air lifts or who are staying within the same 
location to do something like walk up a spiral of stairs.(Lucifer�s Arrow in 
Panorama)  Some rain attacks seem a little less forgiving than others.  I do 
not believe homing effects rain moves but others think it does.  The more you 
stumble around when these moves take place the more likely you�ll be hit.  
Even when you have reduced speeds you still have a good chance of dodging 
rain attacks.  Killer Satellite and the Lightning/Thunder rain moves are 
covered separately from this section. Shelter shields are the only types that 
can block any rain attacks.  

Move Attacks -  These are just the 3 tornado type moves.  Usually you can 
just run to the side or away from them to avoid them.  These can work as a 
good counter attack on someone walking right up to you or trying to hit you 
with a melee, therefore be careful in how you approach someone using these.  
Narrow spots like stairways are good for these moves. The only shield type 
that blocks this move are Shelters. It will get past any other shield.  Areas 
with lower heights will stop these moves from continuing into an area and 
cause them to stick around in a spot or disappear.  Be careful not to walk 
into your own move.  Some people place ones like Whirlwind over an opponent
tag teammate�s body making it difficult to get to.  You take extra damage if 
you were knocked high enough by these moves. 

Mines - Planting these in areas opponents are likely to overlook is effective.
It is also effective to plant them at an opponent�s spawn point, a dead 
opponent�s body in tag, under an environmental put out, or even your own 
spawn point to catch someone carelessly trying to erase your capsules.  If you 
see a mine its easy to walk within the radius where they will detonate and 
turn back in time to avoid it.(Remote Mine and Timer Mine will not detonate 
if you do this though) You can fire projectiles at a spot where any mine is 
to set.  As long as you don�t cartwheel directly into the core of the 
explosion you can go right past them unaffected.  If you jump into stun type 
mines like even Vapor Cloud you can avoid the effect entirely by getting 
knocked down by it.(Vapor Cloud requires good timing)  You can use this 
defensively with your own mines to avoid attacks an opponent fires.  Some 
mines have an obvious circle around them like Freeze Mine. Others like 
Teleportrap and Vapor Cloud are very hard to see.  They only have a gaseous 
form to them. All mines that don�t do damage have a stun effect to them when 
they hit a standing opponent.  Attack based mines will knock someone over no 
matter what damage they do. Mines can sometimes be set off if someone is at 
a slightly lower height and a part of them moves into the radius of detonation.
Mines are also a good way to deter someone from following you.  
Don�t be lazy about where you place landmines.  An opponent who sees them can
walk up to erase them with some shields or easily block status mines with a 
Glacial Wall or Paralyze Barrier without even risking breaking their shield.  

Crawlers -  These skills have great homing but they can also be diverted into
walls or off ledges by jumping at the right time or cartwheeling away from 
the move at the right time so that it hits a wall or falls off a ledge before 
it can turn around.(some will still follow quite well though)  As long as they
don�t hit anything they stay out for a while before they fizzle out.(except 
crawling bullet and nature crawlers)  You can drop crawlers from high heights 
and they�ll follow right after your opponent.  The worst place to deal with 
these moves is in open spaces.  Cartwheelers will have the most difficult time
with these in open spaces.  Try to stay by a wall or ledge to divert these 
attacks, though the best approach may be to have a shield or get on a higher 
level.  If you have space you can run away from a crawler and create a kind 
of a u turn on it so that as you go towards a wall you cartwheel forward past 
the crawler which will then crash into the wall.(This trick may fail if the 
crawlers get higher homing)  If you�re a jumper in an open space you can keep 
jumping around and running in circles to avoid the crawler.  Simply jumping 
by a wall so the crawler hits the wall is a good method.  But try to move 
away from that wall because the crawler Spore Schism explodes on contact.
If your desperate you can try to evade a crawler a little longer by jumping 
and shooting a projectile.  There�s a good chance slower crawlers will 
nail you as you come down though.  Turning your lock on off can make seeing 
them easier.  Sometimes you can fire a few on a lower floor than your 
opponent and they�ll stick around for awhile waiting for the opponent to drop 
down.  Some will circle the stairways on palace.  High speed Nature crawlers 
can clear some rather large gaps to reach their targets on the other side.
(including Entangle)  Normal slower crawlers stay out longer and when they 
get boosts in homing some will wait right under an opponent who is flying in 
the air.  Though this is nice crawlers can be very effective without any 
homing boosts.  Several crawlers at once can be very difficult to deal with.  
Some crawler moves can climb over some low terrain spots to reach their target.
All crawlers shot at close ranges can effectively circle around an opponent 
and nail them if they have enough open space. You�ll need a little more open 
space with high speed crawlers though.  
Crawling Bullet is dodged differently from all other crawlers. If you dodge a
Crawling Bullet to the side like you might a standard projectile you should 
be able to avoid it because it will fade out afterwards.  The animation is 
also more like a projectile being fired than the usual ground pounding crawler
animation.  Crawlers can be just as effective at medium range than the long 
range listing some of them have.  
All crawlers besides Crawling Bullet can reach substantial long ranges and be
effective despite some of them saying they have a medium range.(like Entangle
and Spore Schism)  Basically in the right situation all crawlers except 
Crawling Bullet can be effective at short, medium, or long range. 
Another excpetional crawler is Young White Dragon, while it has great 
tracking can be avoided by just out running it at normal speeds.  
It can make a good combination move though.  

Projectiles -  Projectiles are just that, things you shoot that go straight 
on after a target.  There are many different types, some more accurate than 
others.  There are 2 basic types though:  General Homing Projectiles and 
Tracking Projectiles.  

General Homing/Straight on Projectiles
As stated earlier if you keep yourself moving to the side as projectile is 
shot, you can dodge many projectiles just by simply doing this.  For 
Cartwheeling timing is essential for projectiles that are hard to dodge.  Your
timing is key in dodging many higher homing attacks like Giga Ruin, Fire of 
Gehenna, and Heat from the Void.  Generally the closer a projectile is to you 
the less chance it will have of hitting you when you cartwheel.  In a level 
open space situation there are practically no straight on projectiles that 
are truly impossible to dodge by a cartwheel, if shot just once. As stated 
some are more difficult, and boosted homing can make some impossible to dodge.
(see the homing section(7PD))  
If you�re a jumper, jumping when dodging can help save you from some of these 
projectiles that you might not normally dodge by just moving to the side.  
When 2 or more of these projectiles are shot some become impossible to dodge.  
Keep in mind that some of these attacks are a lot more effective at hitting
jumpers when done at a farther medium range rather than a close medium range.

Tracking/Homing Projectiles
These are skills that follow the opponents more rather than follow a single 
straight path.  They are among the more difficult to dodge skills. Some are 
extra effective when spammed. Tracking projectiles include Agonies of Death,
Judge/Joke of Anubis, Demon�s Fire, Will�o the Wisp, and El Bomb.  In some 
cases rather than trying to dodge these attacks right away, running can be a 
better tactic because some skills are actually slower than your character so 
you can set yourself up in a better dodging situation.  It is possible in 
open space situations to dodge Judge of Anubis with a Cartwheeler, and 
sometimes possible with a jumper.  For a cartwheeler rather than dodge to 
the side with Anubis attacks you will want to cartwheel on an angle forward 
but just to the side of these kinds of attacks.  It is hard but possible 
to do.  I�d generally recommend dodging the really hard ones like the Anubis 
attacks and Agonies of Death as a last resort.  Sometimes these skills can 
still be dodged by cartwheeling to the side if you time it right (i.e. Agonies
of Death) but the cartwheeling forward is more necessary with other attacks 
like the Anubis ones.(probably Wings of Hope too)  The Anubis attacks can 
follow you even making 360s.  Keep moving away from them if they continue to 
follow you, cartwheel again if you can.  Though you may not be able to throw 
off their homing, if you keep away long enough sometimes these skills 
disappear before reaching their target.  
The same applies with Will�O the Wisp and El Bomb.  You can dodge these more 
in the typical fashion side ways dodge but they will often follow you.  You 
may have to cartwheel a second time to truly throw off the homing.  They can 
also disappear after a little bit of following.  If someone fires these moves 
at a range that is not really optimal(too close) its possible to cartwheel 
around your opponent to dodge these moves.  
A jumper can sometimes trick the Anubis attacks as well by running away with 
a bit of a u turn in your direction.(this can be done with a wheeler too)  
As the attack follows you in a u-turn-ish direction jump or cartwheel forward 
and you will have diverted the attack if your successful.  Experiment with 
skills that you think follow like Anubis� ones.  
Agonies of Death is possible in some level open space situations to dodge 
with a jumper but are fairly rare when they are shot well.
Jumping down to lower heights can also give you enough time to get away from 
these moves or throw off their homing till they disappear.
Most of the time jumpers have a much easier time with Demon�s Fire, El Bomb, 
and Will�O the Wisp than cartwheelers.  You need to use your jumping ability 
when dodging to the side.  Sometimes jumping forward past them is another way
of throwing off the homing after jumping to the side.  Jumping in different 
ways can throw off the homing of these moves.  Experiment to get the hang of 
throwing off the homing with jumping.  These moves follow people up in the 
air well and can also work well when used in the air.  
Scream of Evil is another tracking move that is not too hard to dodge when 
shot once, but boosted homing could make these very difficult to deal with. 

Projectiles as close range attacks -  You�d be surprised the times in which 
you can use moves like Reincarnation or Demons Fire up close on someone and 
how good they can hit.  

List of Some Attacks Jumpers can�t dodge alone when shot just once at the 
right range in level open spaces:
Fire of Gehenna, Heat from the Void, Reincarnation(mostly), 
Aura Cannon,(can be dodged at Medium) Power, Psycho Kinesis, Giga Ruin.  
There are many others but there are probably more you can dodge than you think.
Near Impossible:  Agonies of Death.  Judge/Joke of Anubis,

Attacks that Cartwheelers can�t dodge in level open spaces:
Power, Psycho Kinesis.  Crawlers will catch cartwheelers who can�t divert them
off a ledge or into something.  They have a better chance of throwing off high
speed crawlers in open spaces than slower ones.(still a bad situation either 
way) Cartwheelers without defenses are pretty screwed when there�s no place 
to divert crawlers into something or off a ledge.  

Just because certain moves are dodgeable when done ONCE, that doesn�t mean you
can�t overwhelm people with spamming.  This list of dodging techniques is 
written for an ideal situation.  Someone that is cornered or just overwhelmed 
will obviously not be able to dodge many attacks.  The purpose of the list is
to just make it known what moves are very hard to dodge and sometimes even 
impossible.  People usually mess up after a while.  Just because someone can 
dodge a move doesn�t mean they always will succeed in doing so.  

Hand to Hand, non sword based moves- To dodge these, move to the side at the 
instant the move is done.  The closer you are to an opponent the easier it is
to dodge to the side of the attack.  If you�re a jumper and you feel that 
moving to the side won�t be enough, jump to the side.  Jumping is often 
required to dodge moves when you have lowered speed.  Do not jump straight up 
in place against a hand to hand attack, it won�t work. Walking away from the 
attack is likely to fail unless you boost your speed or were far from it when
it started.  Unfortunately lag can also contribute to people dodging moves 
without even attempting to dodge to the side.  Like just walking straight away
from a melee move at normal speed normally isn't escapable offline, but online
if your playing with enough lag they can escape some moves without even an 
effort.  If a cartwheeler has enough space he can usually cartwheel out 
of the range of any hand/foot attack.  It is probably better to cartwheel 
to the side if you feel like walking to the side won�t be enough.  Jumping 
to the side can also aid you if you feel you�re not going to dodge to the 
side correctly.  These skills are more effective when you perform them at a 
far close range.  If you do this some moves can�t be dodged by just moving to 
the side.  If your in a narrow area like a stairway you can set up harder 
situations for an opponent to dodge.  These can be good counter moves to an 
opponent�s attacks(even swords) because they often have quick start up times.
Some are clearly more accurate than others.  A lot of faith short range 
melees are very easy to dodge.  The more cornered someone is, the better.
Persistence sometimes pays off while other times another move that causes an 
opponent to be stunned or stumble in dodging is necessary. 
Close up attacks will chase someone who is on a platform at an equal or 
lower height then you.  If someone is in the sky and gets into close range 
you can also perform a melee that will chase them if they were in close range.

Short Range Melee Sword Moves - 
What�s written here is what is effective in online play.  In split screen 
mode some of these principles are the same but there can be much less 
forgiveness.  I don�t know if this has to do with a little lag or if they 
changed the way swords work online.  There are many varieties of swords in 
this game.  They each have a different radius they can cover.  Though some 
have different reach and are less forgiving there are really 2 main sword 
types that give you different dodging options.  There are swords that start 
swinging from the user�s left and wrap around to the right at the end.
(Flame Sword, Psycho Knife)   Then there are swords that start out on the 
user�s right and swing around over to the left side.(Psycho Blade, Excalibur)
Another way of thinking about it is to move away from the side where the 
sword starts up.  You�ll see visually there are just two distinct styles of 
swords that all the rest are similar to.  Since the visual definition of 
each can be confusing I�ll just refer to the visual examples. 
When you see a sword that swings like a Flame Sword then you use the tactics 
that you would normally use to dodge a Flame sword.  When you see a sword that
swings like a Psycho Blade you�ll use the same tactics you would normally use 
to dodge a Psycho Blade. If you use both Sword types in combination you will 
make it much harder for someone to dodge.(i.e. Flame Sword + Psycho Blade)  If
you see your opponent is moving in a direction to dodge one type of sword 
melee your using, use the other type and they will have a lot of trouble 
dodging.  Cartwheelers usually have the best options for dodging melee.  On 
the other hand a Jumper has an easier time pursuing people because they 
usually get around the Stage more easily.  

Dodging/Using Flame Sword Types  -  When a person starts up a Flame Sword 
animation move your character to the left side to dodge the blade.  They will 
go flying past you if they used lock on.  You need to be close to your 
opponent to just walk to the side.  If your at a far close range this method 
will not work.(without a lot of lag) Using Flame Sword types from a far close 
range can be a good way of catching people who are lazy about dodging them.  
If you see that an opponent is attacking from a far close range you have a 
few dodging options.  

As Jumper:  
You can try jumping to the left, walking is not enough.  Its possible to jump 
straight up to dodge a Flame Sword move if you time it right.  You can try 
jumping away out of range.  The only time you can�t jump a Flame Sword type 
is if you are moving towards the right side.(Because that�s where the sword 
animation ends.)  The timing can be difficult to repeatedly to do.  But there 
are some people who are pretty good at this.  

As a Cartwheeler:
You can cartwheel to the left and easily escape Flame Sword types when you 
can�t just move to the left..  You can cartwheel forward and to the left of 
an opponent so they go past you.  You can usually Cartwheel away and out of 
the reach of Swords if they started at a far close range.(Provided you have 
the space)  

For catching people dodging swords try to follow up with another sword attack 
if they dodged the first.  They may fail to jump the sword this time, or they 
may not be able to cartwheel into an area that doesn�t corner them into an 
attack.  Being persistent and following up with another strike is often 
necessary to catch people.  You can also use shields or moves like Tiger�s 
strength to mess with their dodging.(use Tiger�s Strength and trick them 
into cartwheeling into a corner and follow right up with your sword)

If you turn off your camera lock on, you will stand in place and perform 
a flame sword type move.  This can catch people off guard trying to walk to 
the left of you.  Its also valuable to do when an opponent is at a ledge. An 
opponent can try to get you to swing a sword at a ledge so that they dodge 
you and get you to fall off as you charge towards them.  If you keep someone 
to your right with these swords you have a better chance of catching 
them.  Try to circle around an opponent and drive them towards walls or 
barriers so that they won�t be able to easily cartwheel away.  You may have 
more time than you think to intimidate an opponent into corners with these 
moves. 

Dodging/Using Psycho Blade Types
When a person starts up a Psycho Blade animation move your character to the 
right of the opponent to dodge the blade.  They will usually go flying past 
you if they used lock on.  You need to be close to your opponent to just walk
to the side.  If your at a far close range this method will not work.(without
lag) Using Psycho Blade types from a far close range can be a good way of 
catching people who are lazy about dodging them. However, Compared to Flame 
Sword types you may want to get a little closer but not super close because 
you will give your opponent less dodging options.  When dodging stay away 
keep yourself going to the right of an opponent using Psycho Blade types.  
While this does method does work it does not work offline and you do actually
need some sort of lag or something different online to actually dodge in this 
manner.

Dodging Options As a Jumper:  
You can try jumping to the right when walking is not enough.  Unlike Flame 
Sword types you can�t jump these blades in as many ways.   Besides going to 
the right you can only jump away from Psycho Blade moves if they started up 
at a far close range.  Jump as your moving away from the Psycho Blade and if 
you time it right you�ll get past it.  This does work reliably offline but 
sometimes doesn't online due to lag.  The reason I say this is you may think
you're at a far close range but lag may position you closer to your opponent
than you actually think you are when you try this.  Sometimes lag will work
for you where your actually farther than close range reach.  

As a Cartwheeler:
You can cartwheel to the right and usually escape.  You can cartwheel forward 
and to the right of an opponent so they go past you.  You can sometimes 
cartwheel away and out of the reach of Blades if they started at a far close 
range.(Provided you have the space)  This also has to do a lot with lag.  
Offline cartwheels do not save you from Psycho Blade attacks as easily.  
Cartwheeling away from a far close range does work offline and online.
Online though it isn't always your best option as either a jumper or wheeler.  
Its worth trying if you can't cartwheel/jump/move to the right.  The reason
why cartwheeling straight away from far close range isn't always the best is
because an opponent can follow up with a second blade swing as you fail to 
recover in time to wheel again or get cornered.  Wheeling to the side can
help you continue to escape when your in a condition where it works.  Which
it usually does online.

For catching people dodging Blades try to follow up with another Psycho Blade 
attack if they dodged the first.  They may fail to jump the sword this time, 
or they may not be able to cartwheel into an area that doesn�t corner them 
into an attack.  Being persistent and following up with another strike is 
often necessary to catch people.  

If you turn off your lock on you will stand in place and perform a Blade type
move.  This can catch people off guard trying to walk to the right of you.  
Its also valuable to do when an opponent is at a ledge. An opponent can try 
to get you to swing a sword at a ledge so that they dodge you and get you to 
fall off as you charge towards them.  

If you keep someone to your left with these swords you have a better chance of
catching them.  Try to circle around an opponent and drive them towards walls
or barriers so that they won�t be able to easily cartwheel away.  You may have
more time than you think to intimidate an opponent into corners with these 
moves.  

Getting Melee Swords Past Barrier, Brush, and Reflect shields
Barrier, Brush, and Reflect, shields only block Melee moves that hit from the 
front.  Because Flame Swords and Psycho Blades can wrap around a target when 
they swing, this its possible to hit people trying to block these moves with 
those shields due to the wrap around.  For example, Flame Sword�s animation 
starts from the left and wraps around to the right.  If you attack someone so 
that a piece of your flame sword wraps around past the shield�s front you�ll 
hit them despite the fact they put up a shield.  This is because you got the 
sword to wrap around past their front side. This isn�t always easy to do but 
it can be done.  

Sword attacks will chase someone who is on a platform at an equal or lower 
height than you.  If someone is in the sky and gets into close range you can 
also perform a melee that will chase and can nail an opponent.  

If you do use a sword from a higher height on an opponent in close range at a
lower height your blade might be able to go over certain shields and hit an 
opponent.(not sure)

Hiding behind debris can stop sword moves from hitting you sometimes.  Though
its also possible for them to wrap through them.

Sword Fake -  If you stand far enough at the edge of a platform you can 
perform a sword move that will get canceled.  Your character will make an 
attack sound and a small animation may start up but it never completes and 
doesn�t cost you aura.(it cancels the move)  You can use this to fake someone 
into putting up a shield up and then following right up with the a real sword
slash while their still vulnerable.  An example where you can do this is on 
the short low level permanent ground platforms you can hop on in the City 
level.  

Differences in Character Melees explained and Specialized Sword dodging
There is a section (25PD) towards the end of the faq that gives more detail 
on dodging specialized swings or melee moves of certain non humanoid 
characters.  Some characters like the Ommato have confusing change up sword 
swings.  Some allow less dodging tricks.  Whatever side they start on 
though, you want to stay away from the side their sword begins on.  Jumping 
maybe necessary to dodge some of their blades.  See the exact details at 
25PD if you want to know more.  But lag can save you from them too anyway.
Quite aggravating sometimes.

Miscelanneous Attacks -This covers the odd end attacks that are more unique 
in dealing with or using.  

Photon Wave/Burst - These 2 attacks are considered mine attacks.  The great 
part about them is that only a few shields in the whole game can erase the 
attack.(they�re not considered close range moves)  As long as you are moving 
away from the blast of these moves you have a good chance of escaping.
(because they are mine types)  It�s important to note that even after the 
animation of these moves disappears the attack is still in affect for a 
little more time.  This means that striking or running into your opponent 
right after these moves are done can get you hurt if you move in too soon.  
Though a lot of people don�t want to admit getting caught in these, 
persistence can sometimes catch people who keep walking away.(especially the 
more cornered they are)  Be careful of what debris you destroy around you 
with them.  These are a great counter to melee and have a good surprise 
effect.  Be careful, opponents can sometimes still get their attacks in 
before being blown away by the move.  An opponent who doesn�t know or suspect 
your using these moves can sometimes be beaten to the punch in putting up a 
defense since this skill has a quick and surprising start up time.  They 
could try to block but they are often beat by these moves start up time if 
you are close.  That is one reason it is wise to maintain space between you 
and the person your trying to block.  You can block these moves with a 
shield and follow right up with an attack without worrying about being hit 
by the explosion and its usual carry over effect.  Blocking the front of the 
explosion will protect you from any animation that seeps over you.  Only 
Barrier and Shelter shields work on them.  Possibly Reflect shields as well.
Photon Burst is such a popular skill that you should use caution in charging
any Optical school opponent with 7 aura and an attack you don't know he has.  
It sometimes seems like explosions are more forgiving to walk past in laggy
situations.  Use caution when dealing with this move because you don't know
how much leeway you'll get in trying to dodge the explosion online.

Killer Satellite -  Killer Satellite is a rain attack.  If you are moving in 
one direction and then change to another while the red circle is over you, 
you can usually cause the attack to miss.  Don�t be indecisive.  If you 
manually aim the attack its homing will not be thrown off by this method.  
This only works if Killer Satellite is used on you while you were moving.  
If you were standing still when this move was used it stays in one spot more,
you won�t be able to trick it to go in the opposite direction.  Instead move 
in one direction away from the circle as much as possible.  Don�t turn back 
for a little bit after you think you dodged because this skill can have a 
habit of lingering around after it seems done.  
Its best to just run away in one direction from the attack if its manually 
aimed.(you�ll probably never encounter manually aimed ones�).  When it�s 
manually aimed it looks different.  You could try manually aiming these if 
your opponent keeps moving in one direction and going to another when you 
use this.  If they try that on a manually aimed one they could end up getting 
caught in the circle.  Cartwheeling can also avoid this attack when your 
lazy about throwing off its tracking.  I don�t think this skill is effected 
by homing effects.  

Lightning Rain Attacks -  These are nature rain moves with Lightning 
Style animation.  It�s less possible to avoid these if you just move in one 
direction.  Its usually best to move in one direction and shift to another 
like Forward and Left, or something like Back and then Right.  Its pretty 
easy to just cartwheel away from the radius of this attack as well.  These 
moves do not seem to be effected by homing.  

Ricochet Laser -  I do not know a whole lot about this move.  Its best to 
avoid closed in areas where its most effective.   It does not have to be in 
long range to be effective.  It can be effective in close or medium range.  
Changing the directions you move in may throw off the homing as well as 
jumping on every bounce, but I don�t really know.  Homing may help this move.
Do not run into the front of the move as its activated.  You can erase it 
with a shield if you time it right.  

Impact Burst - This funky skill bounces all over the place till it hits or 
flies off somewhere.  This skills is easy to dodge where there�s no walls. 
The more confined you are the harder it is to deal with.

You have 3 general options when a wall is behind you as its fired:

1.  When the bomb is fired at you move to the side.  If you are by a wall 
get ready to move to the opposite when it passes you.  This will often be 
enough to dodge it.  But watch where this move bounces and move to the side 
of it each time it bounces off a wall.  Jumping might throw of the homing 
of this when its bouncing around like crazy.  Changing the height your at 
can help a lot too.  If your at a higher height going down to a lower level 
of the stage after the bomb passes you can make it hard for it to follow you.

2.  Carry a Shelter shield and use it right when you think the bomb will 
bounce towards you. You could also use Invulnerability, Void, or let an Auto 
Shield take care of blocking it.  

3.  This move can hit you straight on if its fired close enough to you.  If 
it lines up in front of you blocking it before it confusingly bounces all 
over the place can be a safer approach than trying to dodge and react to its 
bounces.  

4.  Another effective way of using this move is to fire down on an opponent
from a higher height.  The bomb will bounce off the ground that it hits
and try to hit the opponent.  Same directional dodging can be attempted.

3PD Shields/Defenses the basics and tricks for dealing with opponent�s 
defenses.  There are a variety of shields in the game, and they serve many 
purposes.  This section covers the basics of shields and some of the lesser 
known things about them.  If you do more damage than a shield�s defense with 
a single attack it blocks, it will break and leave your opponents hand.
Although some are weak, they usually are cheaper to use or serve some purpose 
like gaining life, freezing or paralyzing an opponent, regaining aura or 
erasing an attack.  Sometimes these effects are more valuable than a more 
durable defense.

Brush - These shields can quickly block several attacks.(if you have the aura 
to use them)  Because they block quickly you need accurate timing.  There is 
a difference between brush shields between offline and online play.  Online 
these shields no longer have the stun effect that knocks an opponent back.
(Just like you also can�t push someone�s body on the ground around like you 
can offline)  Offline its possible to even knock people off ledges with the 
brush back effect.  The closest thing to the brush back effect online is to 
use the online skill Sword Slap. Brush shields can not protect against 
explosions.(they can brush attacks to the side before they explode though.) 
Its also possible that side way swipes of swords can get past brush shields 
if they wrap around past the front part.(See the section on using Swords 
in �2BPD�)

Barrier - These shields have a slower recovery time than brush shields.  
One reason you may prefer a barrier shield is that they can block explosions,
including Photon Burst.  They also protect for a longer period of time, so you
don�t have to be as exact when blocking. Barriers can protect from flying 
debris if it covers where the debris would have hit.  Attacks that go over 
your head can get past Barriers.  Its also possible that side way swipes of 
swords can get past barrier shields if they wrap around past the front part. 
(See the section on using Swords in �2BPD�)

Course - These shields only work on moves that shoot projectiles or hurl 
objects at you, they basically divert a projectile to the side.(watch out for
explosions)  You never have to worry about these defenses breaking.  They can 
also divert projectiles that pentrate shields like Dragon Slayer to the side.
If you turn off your lock on and aim skills manually at some shields like 
Gust and Change Course, they will go through the shield and hit the opponent.
(it doesn�t really make sense but that�s how it works.)  If you move to the 
side as a projectile is shot at you, you can avoid most manually aimed 
attacks without worrying about someone getting past these shields.  These 
shields do not protect against explosions.  If you manually aim at Reverse 
you will not be hit by your reversed projectile unless you really try to line 
yourself up with it or get hit by its explosion.(it will always look close)  
Due to the slower recovery time of these shields you can overwhelm some of 
them with carefully timed shots.  I don�t believe these shields protect 
against debris.  These shields have a bigger radius of protection than you 
may think, and can divert several projectiles that reach it at the same time.
(like if your triple teamed)

Reflect - These shields are strange.  They can block melee attacks and they 
also reflect projectiles back at an opponent more quickly then Reverse and 
About Face.  Their basically like barrier shields that can reflect projectiles.
The biggest down side to them is that they can only reflect back 
projectiles that don�t break the shield.  They also are selective about the 
kinds of projectiles they reflect.  Things that explode don�t get reflected 
back.  Crawlers do not reflect back either.  Other skills like a weak 
Finisher will not even get reflected.  Dragon Slayer and Shield Slayer can 
also go erase them.  Reverse and About Face are course shields not 
Reflect shields and don't have weaknesses to Dragon Slayer.  Compared to 
Reverse and About Face the reflected projectiles fly back fast at the shooter
making them harder to avoid.

Absorb Shields - These shields can only block Hole attacks and Projectiles.
They have a similar recovery time to barrier shields.  Besides shelter 
shields they are the only type that can block Holes.  

Shelter - Unlike any other shield types, these  provide 360 degree 
protection helping protect you from back and aerial attacks.  They protect 
from any attack in the game, be it Rain, Projectiles, Melee, Holes, or 
Mines.  These are the only shields that protect against the Move attacks 
Twister, Tornado, or Whirldwind.  Erase Shell is the only shield in the game 
that can erase rain and Move attacks.  Because of the 360 degree protection 
you don�t have to worry about melee attacks hitting you in the back or on 
the side.  Because of the protection these shields provide, some of them 
have a slow enough recovery rate that a second projectile shot(via spamming)
can slip through.  Shelter shields can protect against debris.  

Auto Shields - These shields are all shelter types and automatically protect 
you from any effect /skill that doesn�t penetrate shields or automatically 
Hit All.(also protects against any debris)  All of them except Guradian Angel 
are one time use.   These are the only shields that can protect you from 
attacks when your in the air.  None of them really have a delay in the air 
but if your hit on the ground there is an automatic protective delay that 
usually cancels out any move you�re about to set in motion if you didn't get
much of the moves motion done.  If you jump in the air when hit with these you
will not get the protective delay.  Protecting Air(an online skill) lets you 
complete to move even when walking on the ground.(there's no movement delay,
but moves can still get cancelled if the shield is set off early enough)

Dash -  This is a great skill.  It doesn�t cost much and you can dodge tons 
of attacks with this skill provided you Dash correctly.(Don�t Dash into a 
wall as your opponent swings a sword at you)  Don�t count on this defense to 
do everything for you. Despite that it�s a great skill.  Status and Erase
skills can hit you even if you dash to dodge.  Lower someone's homing by 
3 and you can dodge even these moves with Dash.(Dense Fog or Magnetic Field)

Invulnerability - A decent skill that makes you invulnerable to damage done 
by the first attack that hits you.  You will still be effected by any effects 
on those attacks and all other status, erase, and special skills will still 
effect you when they hit. If your opponent�s attacks are all powerful enough 
to knock you down, you can just keep getting up and making yourself 
invulnerable if you have the aura.  To counter someone doing this sometimes 
you can hit a person with attacks before their Invulnerability is set up.  
Other than that grab a skill that is weak enough so that it won�t knock 
your opponent over.  Be aware that the Succubus moves in faith will steal 
aura from you equal to their strength even though they do no damage to you 
when they hit.  Attacks with erase or freeze effects will still effect you.  
You can use Necronomicon with this skill to protect yourself from those special
effects.  

Void - Makes you invulnerable for 15 seconds against damage.  If you get 
Neutralized or effected by a skill that resets your status you�ll lose the 
invincibility.  Just like Invulnerability, you can still get knocked down 
by attacks that hit and be effected by any additional effects on them. Be 
aware that the Succubus moves in faith will steal aura from you equal to 
their strength even though they do no damage to you.  You can use Necronomicon
to deal with this issue.

Charge/Surprise Attack 
and Retreat/Return - These moves can teleport you around.  
Be careful about timing with these.  If you Charge or Retreat right as 
a projectile starts up it can still follow you if your remain in its range 
and sight.  Instead wait a little for the projectile to come at you and 
then teleport with these moves if you can.  Be especially careful with 
Giga Ruin and Agonies of Death.  Some attacks like Giga Ruin will 
probably still track an opponent teleporting from Teleportrap or Teleport
if they were teleported at the start up of the move and still in the attack's
sight.

High Speeds - Moves that increase your speed make it easier to dodge or 
escape someone.  Also makes it easier to pursue someone.

Anti Piercing - Some shields have an ability called anti piercing.  Attacks 
like Psycho Spear that have piercing will damage an opponent who block with 
a shield weaker than the attack.  If I block a Psycho Spear(Attack of 8) 
with a Photon Barrier(Defense of 1) I will take 7 damage because that�s how 
much more powerful the attack was than my defense.  If I used a Wall which 
has anti piercing none of Psycho Spear�s extra damage will carry over and 
hurt me.  Necronomicon can negate piercing effects.

Know your shields - That�s right take some time to look at the shields in 
the arsenal creation pictures.  Getting to know what shields look like and 
how powerful they are is very useful.  You�ll know when you can break them 
and you�ll know when someone�s trying to use one that has a bad effect on 
you.  

�I keep failing to block�  -  Everyone messes up sometimes.  It takes 
practice to get used to timing blocks of some moves.  And if you catch 
yourself blocking too early try to put your shield up again before a move 
hits.  Brush skills are the hardest shields to block with because it requires 
good timing.  Shelter shields are among the easiest.  Make a Compressor 
arsenal and put a bunch of shields in.(See arsenals type section if you need 
more details)  That should give you some good practice in defending attacks. 
If you think you are going to block a move, move your thumb over to the button 
your about to hit to be ready.  After a while you can get an idea about when
your probably going to be attacking and probably going to be defending.  

Active Defense
Don�t stand around waiting to block people�s attacks.  You should move when 
being pursued even if you do want to block an attack.  Keep yourself in a 
good position to defend an attack so you don�t end up letting someone slip 
past your shield.  If you just stand around waiting to react to someone�s 
attack, you give them a better chance of slipping past your shields.  
It also makes you more prone to getting psyched out.  You don�t always know 
what someone will do either.  Sure you can block a lot of attacks with 
Photon Barrier but your going to pay for it if you try to block a Psycho 
Spear which you probably could have dodged if you kept yourself open to 
dodging a move.  Why give someone the chance to position themselves over 
you and fire a Rock Shot down on you that your Vacuum Wall can�t defend 
when their that high up over you?  

Beating Shields and other Defensive Moves
For getting swords past shields look up the section �2BPD�  Go to the sword 
section entitled �Getting Melee Swords Past Barrier, Brush, and Reflect 
shields�.  

Note that any close up tactics explained here to fake someone out into using 
a shield can also fake someone into doing a cartwheel or jump when they 
don�t need to.  This can make them easier to nail as well.  Shields can be 
a real nuisance to deal with.  This is often because someone can erase most 
of your attacks simply by blocking with an erase shield. Some decks are 
designed to stall you by erasing many of your attacks with defenses and 
then attacking you while you have a lacking offense.

Your Many Possibilities:

Carrying some skills with high attack power is one way to break shields.

There are 4 erase skills dedicated to specifically Erasing an opponent�s 
shield.   These 4 are Dragon Slayer,(the only non online one) Judge of Ares, 
Shield Slayer, and Lost Dragon.  

Erase skills like Lack can also stop a lot of shields used on an opponent if 
you get an open shot.

There are also several attack skills in Nature and Ki schools that erase 
shields if they hit.(Lightning Sword etc.)

If you carry a move that boosts strength like Trance or Tiger�s strength you 
can make some of your attacks able to break more shields.  Even just 
raising your strength by one with Lunar Force or Heat will have skills like 
Fire of Gehenna take out a lot more shields.  

Use Glacial Wall to freeze someone�s buttons and follow up with your own 
attack.  

Lower an opponent�s level.  If you lower an opponents level you can stop 
them from continuing to use shields over and over.(especially more expensive 
ones) A Fortress of Iron  can block a lot of attacks and not be broken but 
if they don�t have the aura to use it over and over they will be overwhelmed.

You can use Wind Pressure or Turbulence to stop someone who�s using 
defensive moves like Dash, Charge, Retreat or Invulnerability.    

Special/Erase moves usually have good enough homing to hit people who Dash.
(i.e. Lack)

If you carry moves like Reincarnation or Seal of Death you can use them 
without worrying about being erased.(Reincarnation will cost a total of 6 
aura to retain if blocked by an erase shield.)

You can use Vacuum Bullet to fake people out with projectiles, so they either 
waste their shields or aura.  

The skill Freeze Shot can actually do damage if you give yourself extra 
strength.  The bonus here is that Erase Shields can�t stop it.  

You can fire or use non attack moves in general without having to worry about 
being erased while trying to force an opponent to waste aura so they can�t 
defend.  The only shield skills to really watch out for when doing this are 
Glacial Wall, Paralyze Barrier, Absorb Energy, and Reverse/Reflect shields.

Overwhelm someone with spamming or combination attacks.  If you fire one 
skill that an opponent blocks and you can follow up with another skill or 
the same skill you can sometimes hit an opponent before they can put their 
defense up again. This is especially useful when dealing with Course or 
Reflect moves.  

If you manually aim into Course shields that don�t reverse moves, you�ll get 
past them.   Reverse or Reflect moves can�t make projectiles hit you if you 
manually aim at them, unless you get hit by explosions or make an effort to 
line yourself up with the attack.    

Spamming is also helpful in catching people who constantly Dash.  Status and 
Erase skills are much harder to dodge with Dash.  Some may be impossible 
without a person having lowered homing.

You can cause people to waste aura or an entire single use shield by firing 
an attack manually away from the opponent but close enough to scare them to 
block.(you manual aim by turning lock on off and putting the camera in the 
direction you want to aim before firing.)  

Sneak up on someone with camo moves like Optical Camo or Demon�s Wing.  

Use psych out tactics to avoid getting attacks erased.  You can run up to an 
opponent with certain moves like a brush shield or a tiger�s strength and do 
it in front of their faces.  You can even Dash into someone�s face to scare 
them.  Sometimes these things can fool someone to put their shield up giving 
you enough time to follow up with an attack before they can block again.(some 
shields don�t recover in time, or an opponent will not react quick enough or 
have the aura to block again)  This can be a great way of getting free 
melee shots in.  Sometimes you can even get twitchy people to waste a single 
use shield if you just walk in front of their face and do a move like Purify 
for no reason.  These tactics would never work on a computer opponent but 
can work quite well on people.  If you do get fooled try to use the shield 
quickly again.  It might save you still.  On more advanced opponents you may
get into an elaborate psych out game where you'll have to try to psych them
into using their shield twice before striking when they can't get open.

You can use piercing moves or use the environmental skill Berserk to give 
piercing to all attacks.  

If there are a few shields in a particular school that you hate you can 
carry an Anti School Environmental.  

Playing Reduce Entropy or Chaos can limit the types of defenses they use.  
Chaos can stop both Dash and Photon Barrier from being used.  
Memory Lapse can limit their defense a lot.  Messing with aura with 
environmentals like Irregular Rhythm or Fatigue can be effective.  

If someone has Optimization down and their using expensive defenses like 
Reverse, Fortress of Iron, take it down.  You�ll make it a lot harder for 
them to defend or use these expensive moves including Charge and Retreat.  

If a person is using Photon Barrier over and over, keep breaking the shield 
till they don�t have the aura left to keep it.  Taking an Optimization down 
can help.  

Photon Burst and Wave can surprise a person eager to block the first time.  
If you walk up to someone in the face who plans on blocking what they think 
is a melee you can often use these moves before they can get their shield up.
This is because these moves have a quicker start up time.  

You can try this with other skills too and succeed sometimes.  This could be 
due to lag or the person just not being ready to block in time.  I probably 
wouldn�t risk it with other attacks if you suspect they have a shield that 
will erase your attack.

Sometimes using moves with deceptive timing like some crawlers or a move like 
Swarm/Dance of Moths will cause someone to block too early.  

Decks that revolve around single use moves or use Recall can worry less about 
getting moves erased.(if they actually break some shields)

Wait for them to make a move themselves if their just going to stand around 
defending all day.  Erasing capsules of an opponent is one way of forcing 
them to do something besides use defenses.  

If you can shoot from a high enough height you can sometimes get past the 
protective radius of some non shelter shield types.  Its possible to jump and
shoot over someone�s head if your in the right position.  

For Gust or Reverse you can either manually aim or fire two attacks at 
different speeds so that they can�t recover in time to protect from the 
second projectile.  

Sometimes firing unexpectedly can mess up those using Change Course or Gust 
to fail to block in time.  

If you really want to get creative in dealing with course shields in some 
cases you could fire a slow moving attack like Dance of Moths and Lightning 
Speed past it, to follow up with a melee move.  

4PDDealing with Erase Skills and using them to the best of your ability. 

Erase skills are great for keeping someone in check by lowering their aura, 
getting rid of pesky moves, or just erasing them to death by destroying all 
their capsules.  

For some people, erase skills can be very difficult to deal with.  One of the 
easiest ways of dealing with erase skills is to add the skill Orb or Amulet in.
(these do not stop capsule erasing or attacks that have an erase effect)  
If you really need to stop erase skills you could play skills that knock 
erase skills out of people�s hands like Turbulence or Wind Pressure.  There 
is the environmental Commandments that stops all erase skills from being used 
for one minute.  Necrominicon stops attack skills with erase effects from 
erasing you when they damage you.(it also stops all other add effects on 
attacks)  

If you structure your deck around certain erase skills you won�t suffer as 
badly.  If your arsenal has a mix of one time use skills and infinite use 
skills you won�t be crippled as easily by Lack.  Carrying skills that lock 
to your button like Seal of Death can also help you deal with them.  
Photon Barrier, Reincarnation, and Arrow of Artemis will also retain 
themselves if you have enough aura to pay for retaining those skills when 
your hit by erase skills.  Even better is how these skills are often 
targeted by skills like Disremember, making it hard for someone to erase 
you.(the same applies for locked skills like Seal of Death or Orb)  

If you have some space for low costing skills you will not be hurt as badly 
by skills that lower your aura.  Although its not the end all solution to 
everything Optimization will nullify a lot of the harm that aura erasing 
skills cause.  If there are only certain erase skills that really get to 
you, you could even use something like Anti School Enviros, Reduce Entropy,
or Chaos to reduce the choices of erase skills used on you.(Be aware 
chaos will negate Orb and Amulet though, but it will screw Vicious Balance
arsenals especially if they don't have a 3 cost anti environmental)  

Holding onto aura particles can also help stop Heat from the Void or 
Vicious Balance from being as effective.  If you have about 7 aura you 
probably don�t need to really bring yourself up to 8 right away and if you 
find you do you can always use the aura particle any time anyway.  Skills 
like Disremember can target aura particles in your hand first before going 
after more valued skills. This will also have attacks like Psycho Burst do 
less damage to you.  

As for people who want to erase capsules, one of the best ways is to wait for 
them to try and shoot them when they�re in the act of erasing capsules.  
The sound of capsule erasing is pretty loud, so if your away from your spawn 
you are likely to notice that something is going on by the sound going off.  
You can check your skill count to get an idea of what�s 
going on.  If your capsules have changed in some way that is another sure sign.
Recall can be effective in dealing with erase decks that don�t lower your
level.  

Making sure erase skills work - If your opponent doesn�t have any yellow in
his hand then your erase skill will succeed if it hits.  But if he does have 
yellow you will have to think about whether they have Orb or Amulet in hand 
and whether using a one time use skill is worth the risk it if it might get 
canceled.  Retain effects will cancel certain skills from being erased though.
If you know they have Reincarnation and you want to erase it with Lack you 
will have to wait for their aura to get below 2.  

If you want to guarantee an erase skill will work on your opponent one of 
the easiest ways is to use skills that freeze all their buttons like Ice 
Sword, Glacial wall, and Chill Breeze(when timed with a partner).  Freeze 
someone and then trying to erase a retain skill like Reincarnation won�t 
work though.(unless they can�t pay the 2)  If you play the Environmental 
Chaos you will also guarantee that your erase skills won�t be stopped by 
anything like Orb or Amulet.  To stop Amulet,(its only 3 uses) you can make
use of skills like Neutralization, Crush and others.(this will also lower 
someone�s aura that�s using Orb)  Even if there�s nothing to change on the 
opponent these moves work cause Orb and Amulet to get set off.  After you get 
rid of amulet your free to do as you please.  You could also try to create a 
situation where your opponent uses his aura for other stuff and then use an 
erase skill so when they don't have enough aura to have orb or amulet work.  

You can use this trick against retain skills like Reincarnation as well.  Your
opponent has 4 aura and fires off Reincarnation.  At the same time you fire
Lack at him and cause it to get erased.  

You can carry Orb/Amulet yourself to protect against some of your  erase 
moves(like Reflected Erase moves or Disentegrate, the 1.2 hole version).  
It won�t protect against any automatic erase moves like Vicious Balance or 
Quantum Decay.  Acceleration is sometimes used to speed up capsule erasing.  
Even just erasing some Capsules with a move like shatter can ruin someone�s 
strategies against you.

A nice use of Accelerate I saw someone do was to use Call and Speed Ups to run
away from his opponent and quickly pick up more capsules so that he could
repeatedly Violent Change his opponent who couldn't catch up to him.  

5PD  Environmental Hanging/Floating:  How to Do it and Ways to Thwart it.  A 
brief word on Environmentals

Environmentals are the light blue skills that create little blue balls on the
field.  Only one can be down at a time and anyone who tries to put an 
environmental down while another is already out will not work.  If you walk 
up to the ball you can capture it like an aura particle.  Environmentals are 
powerful and can be used for many different reasons.  They change something 
about what�s going on in the game.  See the arsenal section and combos section
for more ideas on them.  


How to float Environmentals:  
This trick is regarded by some as a cheap tactic and it is one of the easiest
ways to piss off some people.  But many consider it legitimate and it is 
available for you to use whether you think it really belongs in the game or 
not.  It makes some arsenal ideas more feasible and can create some 
interesting situations.

Basically one goes on top of a place in a level where there is a destructible 
object or floor.  They place the environmental skill over the destructible 
area and then destroy the floor or object which effectively floats the blue 
ball in the air so it can�t be picked up.(if the object they did it off of is
high enough)  If you jump in the air to try to take down the environmental 
ball, you will find that despite the logic of this you can not take it down.
(which is exactly why many people hate it)  Pair this up with a skill like
Reduce Entropy, or Memory Lapse  and you�ll find you have the ability to 
nullify or severely cripple quite a few arsenals with just a single 
environmental.  There are many environmentals that can take advantage of 
this.  Keep in mind just because you can hang an environmental, its not 
always wise to hang an environmental because you�ll find that it could 
actually help your opponent more than yourself.(Optimization)  
Since Orb/Amulet will protect against Anti Environmental erase skills, this 
can make it even more difficult to take an environmental down.  

How to deal with floated environmentals:  

1.  Put erase skills in your arsenal that get rid of environmentals.
(Judgement, Crush, Starting Point, Return to Nature)  You could also try to
erase an opponent�s skills to stop them from ever putting it out.  Certain 
erase skills like Turbulence will get rid of environmentals in players� hands.

1A.  **THIS IS UNDERLOOKED:  If you time the use of your environmental erasing 
skill you can erase more Environmentals than you think.  Example:  You see 
your opponent is carrying an Environmental in his hand.  You have Crush in 
your hand.  Normally that will erase any environmental that is out but one 
enviro it can�t stop once its out is the Reduce Entropy which stops any skill 
from being used that costs 3 or more.  So� Wait for your opponent to start up 
the animation for Reduce Entropy.  As he is in the process of doing the 
animation to make it take effect use Crush.  If you time it right your 
opponent will put the Environmental into play and Crush�s effects will take 
effect right after Reduce Entropy has taken affect. Since Crush was done 
before Reduce Entropy actually came into effect it will still work and erase 
the Reduce Entropy. You could not have erased it with Crush if you tried to 
use it any time after it took effect.  While you may not see if the person�s 
environmental might actually be useful to you, generally its better to erase 
someone�s environmental before it takes place than finding out later that its
really bad for you.  
*Note:  This will not stop Memory Lapse�s effect of making a skill single use.
(It will erase Memory Lapse, of course before you lose it unless they had
enough for Orb or Amulet)

2.  Use your own environmental skills.(not just Optimization)  Even float 
them.  If you aren�t using an environmental skill in your arsenal then you 
should really take a look at it and see if there�s not anything that you 
could possibly use for something, even if its Unison.(which if you hide it 
your opponent may try to put his out and waste it before he realizes you 
have it out)  If yours are out they�ll have to come to you to get it or find 
a skill that erases it to put their own out. You could even lay landmines by 
it.  Your opponent is likely to not even see ones like Vapor Cloud because it 
only gives off a gaseous affect that the glow of the environmental further 
obscures.  With Freeze Mine you could help stop your opponent from even 
picking up the environmental.  If you don�t think your opponent is going to 
play an environmental later you could always take down the environmental for 
an aura you need.  Cheap costing ones at 2 or 3 aura can often sub for an aura
particle without too much cost to your arsenal's speed.

3.  Destroy places that an opponent is likely to hang the environmental skill.
You will have to learn the layouts of each level. Depending on the level this 
can be a hard task to complete.  You could always choose levels where it�s 
not as easy to hang if you really want to avoid it.  The Lane levels do not 
have any place where it can be hung.  There is a section in the Stages faq 
that tells where you some of the best places to hang or put environmentals at 
each level.
 
4.  Did the player really hang the environmental skill?  Walk towards the 
environmental skill if it�s in the air.  If your head can touch it while your
on the ground then you can still pick it up. You�d be surprised the places 
where you could position yourself on the ground to reach high enough to touch 
it.  See if you can reach at the ledge where it seems to be hanging you might 
be able to reach out and touch it to take it down.

5.  If you know your opponent wants to hang the skill get your attacks 
ready.(this even goes even if he just wants to use the environmental)  The 
second he starts up the animation hit him.  If your fast enough you�ll cancel 
out the animation.  Even if he still manages to hang the environmental after 
getting hit a few times, it could cost him the match.  

6.  Don�t give up!  Your arsenal may get severely crippled but your opponent 
may not actually have a good game plan to finish you off with.  You could 
always get a draw by dodging everything. And use debris to hurt your opponent.

7.  If your opponent has a yellow skill in their hand they may have orb or 
amulet which can protect against Environmental erasing moves.  Your best bet 
is to Freeze your opponent�s buttons or wait for them to have 0 aura if their 
using Memory Lapse or before using a one use environmental eraser.  For any 
other environmental you could try to use infinite use ones repeatedly to 
lower their level so that Orb or Amulet can no longer protect against it.(or 
Amulet gets exhausted)

6PD  Stat Changers - Benefits and Dealing with them.

There are a variety of skills in this game that changes the traits of your 
characters.  This includes changes in Strength, Speed, Homing, Aura 
Regeneration(how quickly your aura recharges), Invulnerability to damage,
(Void), and Cloaking(Optical Camo among others).  Traits that are purely 
negative include poisoned buttons, frozen button(s), scrambled buttons, 
paralysis, being decoyed(can only lock onto person who Decoyed you).  

Having a boost in stats over an opponent can sometimes turn the match 
over to you.  

All these moves are important to consider in dealing with other people�s 
arsenals.  


Skills like Purify or Neutralization will negate any of the above effects.
(it also stops Mind Reading)  They carry a stun effect with them when they 
neutralize any effect.(including Decoy)  Sometimes you can use this to your 
advantage to stun a person and follow up with an attack.  Ex.  Neutralize a 
person with +1 attack and follow up with an attack fast enough to connect.  
You can jump in the air as your hit to avoid the stun effects these moves 
have.  Jumping in the air is an effective away of dodging the stun effects of
Paralyze or Dazzle.   

Amaros, Amaro�s Watch, and Angel�s Breath will reverse any of the number based
stat moves.  You can also stun people with Amaros moves if an environmental 
is out that gives a numbered stat.  It won�t reverse the stat created by an 
Environmental though, but it still stuns.  

When thinking of trying to effect stats don�t forget about using 
Environmentals.  One Burden combined with Increased Gravity will 
dramatically lower an opponent�s speed.  

This section will talk of strategies around changes in stats.  This may seem 
elementary but there are some things you may not realize that could help 
you out.  

Changes in Strength - A change in strength will obviously make you stronger 
or weaker.  This should be especially noted in using attacks that have cheap 
casting cost that are often weaker without stat boosters. Some skills are much
more effective when they have an extra boost in strength.  Tiger�s Strength 
and Trance are both great stat boosters that you can use over and over 
without worrying as much about being purified or amarosed.  Fire of Gehenna 
can do 6 damage but with just 1 extra strength it can break a lot more  
shields in the game.  Other stat boosters include Heat, Stimulate, 
Friendship, and Lunar Force.  Although Trance and Tiger�s Strength can�t be 
used to get +4 strength, other stat boosters like heat and Lunar Force can 
be used in combination with Trance or Tiger�s Strength to get more than 
+2 strength.(Martials arts scroll can�t be combined with Tiger�s Strength 
or Trance either)

Some notable skills to boost strength on are the charge up moves you can 
spend 0 aura to use over and over.  With a stat buff they will do damage 
even though you spent 0 aura.  It can be difficult for someone to try to dodge
several Ki Palms, Ki Cannons, or Gugnirs.  

A lot of faith attacks with life penalties benefit greatly from the stat 
boost.  Scream of Evil isn�t that great a skill without strength boosts.   

If you use moves like Pursuit or Backdraft Bullet and stat buffs you can do a 
dramatically greater amount of damage to an opponent.  Lets say you use 
tiger�s strength and then flame sword an opponent for 5, you can then follow 
up with pursuit to do 5 more damage.  That�s typically half someone�s life 
with just one connected blow.  

2 Gravity Presses with +2 strength will do 20 damage.  

With the right numbers you can make some very devastating attack combos.  

Another nice example is having +2 strength with Trance and hitting someone 
with Greedy Spirit for 4, follow up with Swift Blow for 9 while their stunned 
from greedy spirit and then Sky Pursuit them for 5.  This combination does 
18 damage for just 2 aura.  

�Knockdown� Effect -  There is a general rule in this game that any 
combination of projectiles that do 5 or more damage will knock an opponent 
down.  3 or more damage with any combination of  close up attacks will knock 
someone down.  The only exception here is the melee skill Hi Speed Punch which
has to do 5 damage to actually knock someone down.  By boosting strength and 
knocking an opponent over you make it easier to continue attacks on them, 
plus you bought yourself time to regenerate aura.  If you have attacks that 
work while someone�s down its easier to set them up.  An Ice Sword might not 
take out an opponent with a few hits but if you boost up the strength of the 
sword it becomes that much more realistic to take someone out with mostly an 
Ice Sword.  

Some specialized projectiles and melees will knock someone down even if they 
do less than 5 damage(projectiles) or 3 damage(melee).  Thor�s Hammer, 
Vampire Bats, and Succubus Tempt are some that knock down despite doing less 
than the usual amounts.  Explosions will knock someone over even if it does 
0 damage.  

Loss of Strength - There are also moves that lower your strength.  Usually its
only negative to lose strength.  Less moves will knock an opponent down in one
blow and some moves become pretty useless.  There might be an attack that 
works better with less strength because it doesn�t knock down with less 
strength.  On the plus side if your opponent has lowered attack power, your 
shields will have a better chance of lasting longer.  

Some moves that can have beneficial effects with lowered Strength are by doing
the combo Earthquake with - 1 strength by something like Holy Ray.  You block 
the Earthquake you used with Digestion to gain life.  You can do this over 
and over and not break the shield where earthquake normally would break it at 
normal strength.  

Fast Bomb is another skill you can lower your strength by 2 with and do 0 
damage to knock yourself down over and over.  If timed right you can avoid 
some attacks by blowing yourself up for 0 damage.  

Boosted Homing -   By boosting homing some attacks become impossible to dodge 
for even cartwheelers.  Its also easier to overwhelm someone when you have 
boosted homing.  Loss of homing can make some skills a lot less useful.  
Check the homing section in the faq for more details.(it�s coming up next)  
Some skills seem completely unaffected by homing and that is discussed more 
in detail there.  Combining Traveling Thought with an Acquisition can be a 
quick way of giving you very high homing.  Combining Dense Fog with a Magnetic 
Field can dramatically lower an opponent�s homing.  

Boosted Aura Regen - This makes it easier to do moves over and over again.  
Meditation and Etho�s Inspiration are typically the only skills that are 
normally positive in aura regen.  But its also possible to Amaros yourself to 
reverse the lowered aura regen that comes with Heat or Stimulate.  There�s 
also Desertification to lower everyone�s aura regen.  Basically this will 
just change the rate at which someone can do moves.  

Speed - Boosted speed can make it much easier to dodge or run from attacks as 
well as to pursue an opponent.  Even a +2 boost in speed makes it much easier 
to pursue someone with normal speed.  This can help avoid situations like 
someone running around the tree all day at Palace.  

Lowered Speed does make it harder to dodge.  -4 will feel really slow.  It 
should be noted that if you jump around you can actually move faster than 
walking when it gets this low.  Cartwheeling also gets around faster than 
walking slow speeds.  You will still be able to dodge moves with the cartwheel
pretty effectively still and some with jumps.  Still its easier to get 
overwhelmed by being slow.  

Skills that put you in the air like Levitate or Skywalk bypass lowered speed 
stats. You�ll move at a bit quicker than normal speed with these moves.  

Invulnerable -  Void makes all attack skills do 0 damage. It doesn�t negate 
any effects that come with them.  (Dragon Punch(erase an attack on opponent 
that�s hit by it)).  Erase Special, and Status skills still work as normal
on you.  Succubus attacks still take aura from you even though they do 0 
damage.  Use Necronomicon to stop those effects while Voided.

Invisible - If any skill affects or hits you in any way(including hit all 
moves) you will be revealed.  If you turn on something like Optical Camo while
a projectile is heading right towards you it will still lock on to you. Anti 
environmental skills will reveal you too if you don�t have orb/amulet.  

Scrambled Buttons - The skill Dazzle scrambles button assignment on a person.
However, if you use your control pad(not the analog stick) you can see where 
the buttons are assigned to till Dazzle wears off by pressing in the 
direction.  

Movement Paralyzed -  Any move like Paralyze or Still Moment has these balls 
that surround you and stop you from moving while effected.  However, if you 
don�t move(don�t move on the analog pad)  you can still use skills even if 
they cause you to move.  Its also possible to jump in place or cartwheel 
while paralyzed.(you won�t go as far though)  Melee moves won�t travel very 
far when Movement is paralyzed.

Truly Paralyzed - You can�t do anything with this effect and you are totally 
open unless you suddenly have an auto shield you can use.  Moves like 
Pressure have this effect.  Lift up and Anti Gravity trap are similar to this 
except they throw someone up in the sky when they stun.  

Poisoned Buttons - Some skills poison a person so that whenever they hit a 
button they take 1 damage.  You�ll see purple and skulls on your skills till 
the poison clears.  If you poison an opponent it can make it easier to 
continue to attack them.  People often try to avoid using skills when poisoned.
And if they do start coming after you just avoiding their moves will cause 
them damage.  If Backdraft is also down someone will take 2 damage when they 
press a poisoned button.  

Frozen Buttons - Most moves that freeze, freeze all buttons on a person they 
effect.(Glacial Wall, Ice Sword)  This is a great time to pursue someone.  
You can also get around orb when its frozen.  Frostbite freezes a single 
button on a person that can�t be unfrozen unless you use something like 
Neutralization.  Freeze Shot only freezes one button for 10 seconds.  

Decoy - You can only lock onto the person who hit you till the effect wears 
off.(10 seconds)  If the person is invisible during this time you can�t lock 
onto anyone.  

Inverted Controls - While this effect is on you, you will move in the 
opposite direction that you push on the analog.  The second this trait
disappears you will revert back to normal movement which can throw you off to 
fall off a ledge.  If you think the effect is about to wear off it might be 
best to stand still.  

7PD Increased Homing

Skills like Traveling Thought and Acquisition improve your homing ability.  

Improved homing obviously makes your projectile skills more accurate against 
your opponent.  However, how important this is, is subject to debate.  The 
most sketchy area is what homing actually improves.  While it obviously gives 
most ranged moves improved homing, what about skills like Holes, Rain, Move, 
and Close up Attacks? Some people believe that boosted homing improve their 
chances of hitting but I really don�t think Holes, Rain, Move, and Close up 
attacks actually get improvements.  It seems like they can be dodged all the 
same.  Your best bet is to test improving your homing with these attacks and 
see if you think it helps.  But don�t believe it works just because you ran 
into someone who probably has trouble dodging whatever attack you used to 
begin with.

I really don�t think Close Up attacks, Rain, Move, and Hole attacks get 
improved with higher homing.  Give yourself +9 or -9 homing and you�ll 
probably see these skills will have the same effectiveness.  There are ways to
be more effective with skills like close range moves and that is why I think 
people think they do better because their actually randomly using melee in a 
better way.  Or they could just have less lag in some situations.  

While I find increased homing raises the effectiveness of some skills against 
a Jumping character, it may not significantly improve much in dealing with 
Cartwheeler�s dodging ability, which may make you reconsider if bothering 
spending the time boosting your homing is really worth it.  Cartwheelers 
generally can dodge many attacks much the same as they did before.  While the 
attacks track better, even many good tracking projectiles with +5 homing can 
be Cartwheeled out of if the player does it correctly.  However, your opponent
maybe less used to cartwheeling against higher homing attacks and there is 
less of a margin of error they can get away with.  Increased homing will help,
just don�t expect most skills to be anything get on par with most status and 
erase skills homing unless you have really high homing.  And be ready to make 
rapid use of attacks anyway.(spam)

You should also consider what attacks you are using and how much they actually
benefit from homing.  A Fire of Gehenna does not really need a boost in 
homing against jumpers.  However, a Scream of Evil may become extra effective 
with increased homing.  Additionally a Fire of Gehenna with +7 homing may be 
impossible to cartwheel out of.  

On the other hand reduced homing can make you miss your targets quite a bit 
more with even a small reduction.  You may want to reconsider if using 
Acquisition to boost homing is worth the risk of getting Amarosed into having 
crappy homing.  Definitely be prepared to have some sort of skill that 
resets/reverses your homing back to normal or a positive number if you do plan
on improving your homing. You may want hold on to an extra acquisition to 
offset any reversal.  The environmental Dense Fog and the skill Magnetic Field
directly affect people�s homing in a negative way.  Since melee doesn�t 
get affected by this, Dense Fog can fit in great with Melee oriented arsenals.  
Dash can also avoid status and erase moves when an opponent has just -3 homing.
This will make a person with Dash hard to touch.

Some projectile attacks seem to not even be affected by increased homing.  
Ones such as Rail Gun and Trench Mortar are examples.  You�ll have to 
experiment to see which ones improve.  It�s usually noticeable when the 
homing is increased.  Rail Gun is more effective homing wise at long range
and when an opponent changes up movement.  Some people mistake this increased
accuracy with Rail Gun as being the result of boosts in homing stats.

Spamming, Combination Attacks and Combos vs. Boosted Homing.

When making an arsenal think about if you really benefit from boosted homing 
or if spamming single attacks, using combinations of attacks, or combo stuns 
will be more effective.  

Another idea to consider is whether you would rather use skills that lower 
someone�s speed as a way of hitting them easier.  Or you could lower their 
speed and raise your homing to make things really difficult.  


8PD Manual Aiming 
Manual Aiming is a skill that gets more and more useful once you start 
learning the nature of this game.  You manually aim by turning off the lock on
with the R button.  It does not matter where your character is facing, you 
will aim in the direction where you have the camera facing.  You could run 
backwards and have the camera rotated on to the right, the second you 
activate an attack your character will turn towards the direction the 
camera is facing and fire.(into the air, ground, etc.)

Manual Aiming is good for the following reasons.  

1)  The easiest use, you can intentionally miss an opponent to psych him out 
and make him use his shields.  He�ll waste his aura and if it�s a one time use
one like Eraser he�ll have wasted it completely.  You can use this to avoid 
erase shields and still get your attacks through if you have more aura than 
he can handle for your attacks.  By seeing his shields you can see if your 
attack it has what it takes to break the shield.(with experience you�ll start
to know what shields look like which)  By finding out he has a Glacial Wall 
or a Flash Hole and you only have a Bullet of Fire its probably not going to 
be worth it to continue to pursue him if you know he�s going to block it.  If
your opponent only has a Reverse then you can avoid sending your attack back 
at you and decide that it would be better to run up to him with the Flame Sword 
you have since he can�t block it.  

2)  **Under Noticed:  Manually aimed projectiles will go through the defense 
skills Gust and Change Course which would otherwise divert any projectile 
attack at a very low cost.  It makes no sense why it gets stopped but that�s 
how it goes.  A manually aimed attack will generally not hit you if it gets 
Reversed/Reflected by an opponent.  The only times it will really hit you 
is if you actually make the effort to line yourself up with the attack you 
reflected.(if you don�t try you�ll be fine)  That doesn�t mean explosions 
these reflected attacks have aren�t going to get you.  

3)  Explosive attacks like Bomb Shot can be used in new ways.  Fire at the 
ground your opponent is heading towards and you could catch him in the 
explosion. I once saw someone fire a Bomb Shot on the ground in front of 
someone using Reverse, the explosion went through the opponents shield and 
nailed him.  Bomb can be used similarly as an explosion, it�s much harder to 
do since it�s a parabola attack.

4)  Some people find skills like Rail Gun more effective when they manually 
aim with it.  Some have gotten so good at it that you have to put your shield
up or cartwheel even in close range to hope to dodge them.  

5)  Manual aiming lets you make the most of what you have.  Skills that arc 
aren�t usually going to hit someone when they are out of optimal range when 
you are locked on to them. However, you can still hit people with Laser and 
Arc of Fire type attacks if you aim it manually so the arc the attack has 
curves towards your opponent.  This can make these attacks quite effective at 
closer ranges.

6)  It�s generally a safer way to get rid of someone�s land mines, than 
walking close towards them or using a shield if you have trouble with timing.
(shoot at the ground where the mine is)  You maybe able to even detonate a 
landmine that is close enough to an opponent.  

7)  Manual Aim with close attacks works differently.  You will perform a 
default attack animation and generally not move very far.  Usually you go in 
a forward direction about a step.  A close up attack like Flame Sword will 
have you maybe take about a step and perform the Flame Sword animation in 
place.  You can do this to try to throw off an opponent who�s dodging your 
attack too well with lock on always on.  Mixing up lock on with manaul aim
can make close up attacks harder to anticipate.  Some of your opponents will 
also try to dodge you while at a ledge to try to lead you to fall off from the
charging you normally do when lock on is on. If you turn off lock on when your
close enough you will not be prey to falling off and often have a chance of 
hitting anyway.(you�ll only take a step and perform the attack)  You could use
a close up attack at far close range to psych your opponent into using 
his shield or aura without the risk of getting affected by something like an 
erase shield  or flying into someone�s photon wave.  Be careful with this 
because its pretty easy for someone to catch many close up attacks that 
intentionally stop short with an erase shield anyway.(Especially swords)

8)  Parabola attacks no matter how you aim towards the ground or the sky will 
always fire the same distance in the direction you point the camera.  Only 
jumping and firing will vary the area where parabolas will land.  

9)  Rain attacks with lock on off will appear at a default distance every time.
Could someone switch back and forth and place rain attacks well or vary it 
with lock on to effectively trap someone?  I don�t know.  You could always 
rain on default locations to destroy debris or potential landmines at 
locations though.  

10)  Hole attacks have a default location where they appear as well with 
manual aim off.  Hole attacks that target everyone probably go after their 
targets in the same way with lock on off.(Tremor, Massive Quake,  Jackpot, 
Earthquake)  

11)  If someone has decreased your homing ability, manual aim maybe your only 
chance of hitting your opponent with some attacks.  

12)  Keep in mind you can shoot normal or arcing projectile attacks downward 
while in the air.  

13)  Manual Crawlers will just follow a straight path.  It might be possible 
to fake an opponent out but its pretty obvious when your firing away from an 
opponent with these.

14)  Some people have gotten really good with manual aim where it becomes 
difficult to anticipate where to dodge projectiles even at close ranges.  

Pitfalls of Manual Aim and X damage attacks relying on an opponent.  -  Some 
attacks in this game do X damage to an opponent depending on something about 
the opponent.  Some examples are do X damage according to how much aura they 
have,(Aura Leak) or how much more life they have than you.(Judge of Anubis)  
If you manually use attacks like this that do X damage it will do 
0 damage + whatever extra strength you have.(its dumb but that�s how their 
programmed)  Example :  Fire Heat from the Void manually at someone with no 
buttons assigned and it will do 0 damage.(when it would do 8 locked on)  
Use tiger�s strength and manually aim and you�ll only do 2 damage with no 
lock on.(when it would do 10 with lock on)  This rule does not apply to 
Finisher, Compressor, Crystallization, Memory of Battle and X skills you 
charge up to do damage with.(Ki Palm, Gugnir etc.)  Only the ones that rely on 
something about your opponent.

9PD  Skills with Greater ranges then expressed, or skills that work better at 
different ranges than listed.
Each skill has a range listed that states when they are best used.  In many 
cases these descriptions are accurate.  Other times these ranges are off in 
some way.  There are quite a few attack skills that can reach a little past 
the listed medium range and still hit.  Some have a true long range reach 
despite having an incorrect description.(Rail Gun, Spore Schism)  I think 
Rail Gun can be less forgiving at longer ranges even.  All crawlers besides 
Crawling Bullet can reach long ranges.  An even bigger issue is that most 
status, special, and erase skills can go way further than the ranges 
listed and have really good accuracy anyway.  Manual aim makes some skills 
like Bomb Shot and arc attacks feasible at closer ranges.  For other skills 
its not really going to matter what range you fire at. Most crawlers and a 
manually aimed Bomb Shot are just as effective or more effective at shorter 
ranges. Impact Burst can be harder to anticipate when its shot at a closer 
range.  A Bomb Shot is actually probably easiest to dodge at long range.  
I have no list at this time of Attack skills that reach longer ranges than 
listed, its best to just experiment at this point in time.  

10PD  Using Debris as an Attack and as a Defense

Using Debris as an attack.

In Phantom Dust there are many destructible things in the environment.  Use 
them to your advantage and be careful of areas where things are likely to get 
messy.  Certain debris will actually float around erratically by simply being 
hit by something.  The Dawn City type of levels debris can have a hard to 
predict nature for your opponent.  Falling debris can do up to 8 damage. 

A harmless seeming broken bridge that is barely moving can still hurt you.  

A sign floating ever so slowly on Dawn City can knock you over.

Remember it is not just your attack skills that can make debris fly.  Anything
like a status skill will often make debris fly after a single or a few hits.  
Other times a move will require a higher strength to be able to destroy 
certain pieces of debris.

Some debris like the bridge pieces in Palace will disappear only after they 
start to settle to the ground. People are generally a little more cautious 
to do anything when this happens because they don�t want to get hurt 
themselves.  However, while these pieces are disappearing it�s the perfect 
time to fire off an attack that will go through the disappearing debris your 
opponent may not be ready to guard. 

If your are disabled by something or you just don�t have anything in your 
arsenal left to take care of your opponent try to draw him to locations where 
he could accidentally cause debris to fall on him.  Even the smallest bit of 
debris can do damage and it could be enough to end the match in your favor.  
Watch as your opponent tries to Flame Sword you to death as he accidentally 
hits something seemingly harmless like a table doing the 2 damage you need to 
take him out. 

And although you want to use debris as a weapon, be careful even the smallest 
bits of debris flying at you can do damage.  

�Debris� as defense

While its not debris in the same sense as the damaging type, any objects you 
see on the level that are solid and can�t be destroyed you can use to protect 
yourself from attacks.  Classic examples are the poles in Palace, where once 
the tops are broken you can stand in front of what�s left of the pole and 
anything shot at you that hits it will be nullified.(except moves that go 
through walls).  This can even make it harder for some melee attacks to hit 
you. Destructible debris can also work but be ready to dodge it when it breaks.

11PD  Extra Uses of Hit All Skills

A Hit All skill is a skill that will affect everyone on the field regardless 
of any dodging/shield ability.  This description does not include moves that 
create holes or effect capsules.  Skills like Mobilize, Still Moment, Amaros 
and Quantum Decay fit the description of a hit all skill.  If you jump into 
the air at the right time as the skill is taking affect you will get knocked 
down.  This is useful for a few reasons:
	
1)Some skills will affect everyone.  Some of the best skills to jump in the 
air  for when their about to take effect are Mobilize and Still Moment.  If 
you stand up and you are not in the air no matter what you will be affected.
Why get teleported to your opponent�s spawn point by Mobilize when you can 
avoid whatever nasty plan he has by simply jumping in the air?  And although 
Still Moment will still paralyze you for a very brief second as you get up, 
you have a greater chance of not getting hit by the attack your opponent 
intends to land on you.

2)By jumping into the air you will avoid the stun affect that often comes 
with being affected by a Hit All skill.(if you have a stat that�s going to be 
changed on you by it, you will be stunned if your standing on your feet)  
Some player could attempt to fire a slow moving attack at you and then cast a 
Hit All skill that stuns you as the attack heads towards you which you will 
now have little to stop the attack with.(only auto shields)  If you jump you 
can avoid the stun and probably the attack entirely.  In tag team matches or 
even Battle Royale your opponents have a greater chance of setting this up as 
one can cast the Hit all skill with a stun effect while another person fires 
an attack at you as the effect is about to take place. The bonus of jumping 
into a Hit All skill that occurs and affects you with a stun, is that you�ll 
be invincible for a second as you get up.(except on moves that hit you while 
your down)  Note:  There will be times when you would rather be hit by the 
stun effect but this is just one more option you have available as a jumper.  
There is less of a delay if you just let yourself get stunned versus jumping 
to make yourself fall.  It maybe more useful to just let yourself be stunned 
when your closely pursuing an opponent.    

Hit All skills as offensive moves.

Any Hit All skill will automatically knock an opponent out of the air.  
Skills that may not be too useful in a situation get extra uses with this 
tactic.  Have an opponent who keeps taking to the air, why not use Crush to 
knock them out of the air and make them take fall damage?  Skills like Orb 
and Amulet protect against erase effects but just about any other global 
effect skill will knock someone out of the air no matter what.  

Off topic:  This even applies for erase skills like Neutralization, which 
doesn�t really effect someone who has no status effects, yet if someone takes 
to the air without an orb or amulet and are hit by Neutralization they will 
be knocked out of the air.  

*The only hit all skill that will not knock you out of the sky as it takes 
effect is the skill Phantom Dust.  

If you carry Orb/Amulet you can protect yourself from getting knocked out of 
the sky by any Hit All erase move that would knock you out of the sky.


12PD  Principles of Timing (i.e. Crush vs.  Reduce Entropy.  Chaos + Vicious 
Balance, Chill Breeze + Neutralization)

This section maybe a little confusing to some, so if your new to this you 
might want to skip this section.  Coming back to it may give you new ideas in 
the game though.  

This idea was explained already in dealing with Environmental Hanging 1A), so 
go there if you need more explaination.(Section �5PD�)  But basically the 
idea of timing global effects can give you new ways of bypassing people�s 
arsenals or other effects.  In the environmental section it explained how 
Crush is able erase Reduce Entropy in the right situation.  Here�s another 
use of timing skills to work together.  This principle of timing can often be 
taken advantage of more easily in a tag team match.  

Example:  Chill Breeze, this skill freezes everyone�s buttons for 10 seconds
automatically.  Kind of limited in use, huh?  However, if you take a teammate 
and have him fire neutralization at you right as the Chill Breeze is about to 
take effect.  You will be hit by Neutralization and unfrozen while everyone 
else runs around frozen.  This opens a lot of options for you. Some powerful
things can be done with everyone else frozen.  If you really want its possible
to Neutralize your teammate and Annoying Gift Neutralization and Chill Breeze 
over and over to freeze your opponents infinitely.  I�ll talk a little more 
about strategies with this in the arsenals section.  

Another Example:  Say you and your tag teammate are running arsenals that 
make use of Vicious Balance heavily as part of your strategy.  Your running 
arsenals that are Ki and Faith only.  You already tried to Vicious Balance 
your opponents once only to find that both their Orb and Amulet skill has 
stopped it.  You really need to lower their Level but you can�t seem to get 
them to lower their aura down to a point where they couldn�t use Orb/Amulet.  
You just got another Vicious Balance which costs 2 to use.  Your teammate has 
been holding onto Chaos(Enviro which makes skills that cost 2 or less 
unuseable)  With these 2 skills you can actually override your opponents Orbs 
and still use Viscious Balance on them to harm them.(even though Vicious 
Balance costs 2 itself)  If you coordinate with your team mate where as he�s 
placing Chaos down you use Vicious Balance while he�s already doing the 
animation to put chaos out, if all is timed right not only will Chaos stop 
your opponent�s Orbs/Amulets from protecting them but your vicious balance 
will still carry through and harm them.  This is because with correct timing 
Chaos� restriction on 2 cost skills takes effect before the use of Vicious 
Balance actually takes effect. With Chaos actually out you can�t use Vicious 
Balance but since you used it right before Chaos actually takes effect you 
overrode its restriction while still managing to negate your opponent�s 
Orbs/Amulets from protecting them against Vicious Balance.  I don�t think 
you�ll want chaos down the rest of the match so pick it up.  There are quite 
a few other ideas you can try around this timing principle.  Try to think of 
them as they could yield new combos or ways out of things you never thought 
would work before.  Some like the Chill Breeze + Neutralization combo can be 
very powerful.

Chill Breeze timed with a useable Environmental Erasing move will erase any 
environmental out even if your opponent has orb.  

13PD  Stages - Provides details, tricks, hanging locations recommendations 
and glitches, at each level.

Here are two threads that talk about glitches at levels Palace, Highway, 
Panorama, and City.  If you know of any other glitches not listed in these 
threads or the rest of the stage faq you can send them to my email address.  
[email protected]

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544


Palace 
This level is the most popular.  It is pretty well balanced.  Depending on 
the version you pick there will be breakable bridges in the middle or they 
will already be broken down.  You�ll find a wide range of skills here can be 
effective though some of the long range moves can be harder to negotiate.  
There are a lot of  permanent debris spots that you can use to divert attacks 
like poles.  There is a tree branch that touches the ground that you can walk 
up along.  Be wary that normal attacks can go through this branch.  You can 
also use hole attacks on this branch without worrying about being hit by the 
Hole attack you use as it forms on the ground below.  A lot of the breakable 
guard rails on the 2nd floor can protect you from projectile attacks if you 
stand behind them.  As a cartwheeler you may find it beneficial to break up 
some of these rails to make getting around easier.  
There are more places to hide from rain attacks than you may think here.  It 
can be possible to get situations where you are chasing an opponent around 
the tree all day.  To help avoid this you could use skills that make you 
faster or attacks that go through walls.  You could also use capsule 
erasers like Diabolical Trick to try force them to come towards you.  

Lesser known details: 

1.  If the bridges are broken it is still possible to get up on the middle 
part of the level with a jumper.  It doesn�t seem possible with non jumpers 
without a skill that brings you into the air.(Levitate)  Here is a  thread 
with pictures that shows one way you can climb up to the middle platform:  
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4316

2.  It is possible to cartwheel or jump across the gaps where the bridges are 
broken up against the side walls.  If you move your characters up against the
edge of the walls you�ll see you can walk on those small gaps.  Its easiest to
see this at the Noble Palace Version.

3.  You can Skywalk up to a high part of the tree in palace.  Go to the middle
section of the second floor and if you Skywalk up along the branches your 
character will start to move up along the branch till you find a spot with a 
branch you can land on.  

4.  This is just a bug of sorts but there is a corner you can go jump into in 
one of the walls that causes you to fall through the level.  You�ll return 
back to your spawn point for 3 damage.  Here�s a thread with some pictures of 
the location.

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3492

5. More glitches: 
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544


Environmental Floating Locations:
If you put the environmental far enough in the middle of either of the 2 
breakable bridges you can float an environmental.  By the 2 escalators there 
is a box or 2 that you can float an environmental off of.(there are some 
benches surrounding them.  If you don�t do it on one of the high boxes here 
its still possible for someone to walk under the environmental and pick it up.
There are 2 boxes in the back walls by the regular stairways closer to the 
tree.  There are also some skinny signs that you can hop on, place an 
environmental there and break the pole and it will hang.  You could also try 
Skywalking up the tree or putting an environmental in the middle gap between 
the 2 breakable bridges to make it hard for most people or arsenals to pick 
up.  

Highway

Depending on which version you pick there will be more breakable walls around.
Some of the sections of the ground are breakable when falling from high 
heights so be careful.  On the road part where the broken down car is, 
there is some debris you can use to throw at someone with Psycho Kinesis or 
Power.  Longer range attacks have more room to be effective than at most 
other levels.   The open part by the building is a bad place for a cartwheeler
to deal with crawlers.  However, most of the rest of this location is pretty 
accomadating to cartwheelers.(aside from laser spam on the open 2nd level 
bridge)  You can also break portions of ground platforms to make them take 
the longer way around to get to you.  

Hanging Locations:
There are tons of locations to hang here.  Any breakable floors or walls out 
of standing reach will work.  There are also some overhanging bridge pieces 
you can hop on and then later break.  

Lesser known Details:
There are ways to get around some invisible barriers and hide see these 
glitch threads: 
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544


Panorama -  This level is more closed in than most levels. There is not a lot 
of space for you to use normal rain attacks.(not really recommended here)  
The outside part of the building that shows a view on the outside world is 
where normal rain attacks can still work.  The ceiling does not protect from 
Rain at this area, but the stairway structures do.     However, Lucifers 
Arrow can be good here since it�s a rain attack that goes through walls. 
There is a lot of debris especially on the middle interior. You can use 
Power or Psycho Kinesis with the debris.  Parts of the second floor can 
collapse when hit by enough attacks.  Because of the closed in nature and 
boundaries here, moves that go through walls can be extra effective.(Thor�s 
Hammer)  This is also a great level to set land mines around.  Watch the door 
entrances for them.  Unlike most other levels there is no pit here.(there 
maybe a glitch that you can fall into though) 

Lesser Known Details:

1.  This level has some issues.  Ricochet Laser can bounce through walls 
sometimes making it a difficult skill to deal with here.  I�d get rid 
Optimization if its being used here and it doesn�t help my arsenal much.  
Erase shields will be very helpful for dealing with Ricochet Laser.

2.  In the middle interior first floor there are some unbreakable shelves.  
On the side of the wall that is by one of the inner narrow stair ways you can 
Skywalk through that wall and shoot attacks through at your opponents.  
Here is a link to a thread about some glitches at the level you can try out.  
I�m sure a lot of people will frown upon using them but some people enjoy 
competing in glitchy ways.  

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544

3.  Getting past the outside barrier.  I know there is a way but I don�t know 
how to do it.  

Floating Locations:
There are tons of places to hang here.  Find a high enough piece of debris 
and your pretty much set for hanging the environmental.  You can also break 
the 2nd floor level where you place an Environmental.

City Levels

On the whole this level and Highway are the most open spaced levels in the 
game and can be the most punishing to people without defenses, there are some 
spots you can seek shelter behind. The pink air lifts are often set up at 
this level but other times there are none.  This level can be noticeabley 
more difficult to get around with a non jumper.(Especially when there are no 
airlifts)  Its possible to roll off ledges to get around more quickly.  If 
you are a jumper facing a wheeler there are spots you can jump to that a 
wheeler won�t be able to chase you to and will have to walk a longer distance 
around to get to you.  It is possible to jump across a corner edge in the 
level by the one of the floating trucks. Debris that gets destroyed can be 
hard to predict how to dodge.  The air lifts can be a helpful aid to fire 
attacks down on someone with or to fly up and dodge moves.  Sometimes you�ll 
find there�s a suprising amount of signs up in the air that you can destroy
and have fall on your opponent due to the weird ways they move.

Lesser Known Details:
There are supposedly ways to make debris do no damage here. See threads.
http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3484

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4544

2.  Besides those glitches I�ve heard you can fly up really high in the sky 
to avoid attacks.  You can use hit all skills to knock people out of the air 
that do this.

3.  There is an indestructible platfrom against a wall you can hop on via air 
lift that a Whirlwind can reach up and still catch an opponent standing on 
it.(it goes through the platform)

Floating locations:
There are a lot of places.  Many pieces of signs can be hopped on to float 
an environmental.  Some are not actually high enough so look around carefully.
There are also a few floating pieces that you can place an environmental on 
and then destroy.  There are also a lot of places that can be hard for people 
to reach without levitate or skywalk especially if you have no airlifts at 
the level.  

Acid Refinery -  This is another level that can be challenging to travel 
around in as a carthweeler.  This level provides a mix of fairly closed in 
areas as well as some narrow open spots.  There is lots of destructible 
material here.  Because of the mixed nature of this level having a great 
variety of moves can be helpful.  There are some poles close to ledges you 
can jump around that you might not normally think you could get around.  
Firing moves through walls can be more effective here. Reverse Gravity can be 
difficult to deal with here.(inverted controls)  Be ready to turn you lock on
off to make moving around narrow areas easier.

Lesser Known Details:
?????

Floating Locations:  
There�s tons of breakable materials to float an enviro on.  Besides the 
usual, the big green boxes that are being held on a crane can be destroyed if 
you damage it enough or fall from a high height onto it a few times.  

Lane -  This can be a difficult level to use skills in.  The high ground is 
pretty open.  The lower level has a lot of narrow areas.  There are some 
fences you can hop over.  As a cartwheeler you probably want to get the hang 
of just moving around in this level.  There are some parts of the houses that 
you go on that seem like you can get trapped in but there are inclines you 
can walk over to exit them.  The closed in nature of the lower level makes 
moves that go through walls more effective.  This can be a difficult place 
to remember where your spawn point is or to find a dead teammate.  If you 
think he�s going to die keep an eye on him.  

Lesser Known Details:

?????

Floating locations:
There is no location where you can hang environmentals here.  There are some 
hard to reach high spots that may only be accessible by a jumper or someone 
with air moves that you could place an environmental at.  You can also try to 
make enviros harder to find by putting them behind areas like some of the air 
lifts or behind walls.  You�d be surprised how difficult it is for people to 
find them like this.  People may become too distracted to realize a landmine 
is there too.

Sein - A variety of tactics can be used here.  The level breaks apart as the 
match continues on, making skills that give you greater mobility more useful.
(Skywalk)  The high part of the tower can be a difficult place to be attacked 
from especially if you have Hit All skill to knock people out of the air 
with. As the level falls apart it can become increasingly difficult to get 
around.  Some people have built arsenals specifically around knocking you
out of the sky with something like Judgment while they stay up on the high
tower with Called capsules and cast Violent Change.  

Floating Locations:
There is no debris to hang off of here.  But since the level falls apart if 
you place an environmental at one of the spots where the ground will fall 
apart it will be floated.  Watch them to flash yellowish around platforms 
that are about to break. You can also put them on higher or difficult to 
access platforms to make it harder to get to.  

You can also check out Quadrasonic�s stage faq for some other ideas and 
details.  I have to admit some of what I wrote is pretty similar or inspired 
by what he has written.  The Lane level description might help you find the 
high spots more easily.  You may find his style more concise.  
http://xboxphreaker.com/stage-strategy.htm


14PD  Getting All the Skills (both offline and online ones)*** Important 
Update.

There is now a super quick way to get all the skills. 
There is now a save file available that works on unmodded xboxes that has all
the online skills with the game completed.  Use an Action Replay or whatever
other file transfer program you might use for it.  ou can play with this file 
online like a normal profile and even retransfer it.  There is 3+ of all 
skills except only 2 Vapor Clouds.  There is also millions of credits too on 
the file.

Go to the following site and read the disclaimer first about it:

http://www.angelfire.com/planet/phantomdust/pdsave.html

If you want to see descriptions of all the skills available to you go to this 
link:
http://xboxphreaker.com/pd_skills.htm

It is undeniable that having all the skills in the game can give you a 
greater advantage over other people who don�t have many skills.  It can open 
up new arsenal possibilities and give you ways of being more experienced in 
dealing with certain skills.  It can be really hard to build arsenals that 
are effective online if you only use the starting skills that are available 
at the beginning of the game.  It is highly recommended that you beat the game
before you play much online because all 300 offline skills aren�t available 
till you do. The game is not that long and there are other faqs out there that
can help you.  

Once you beat the game all 300 of the games offline skills are available for 
purchase at Mac�s skill shop.(you can�t buy Orb till you beat the game)  
If you go to the one on Xbox live you can keep opening and closing the shop 
to refresh new random available skills.  This can really speed up the process 
of picking up the rarer skills you want.  You can also buy junk over and over 
without having to complete another mission by buying from the online shop.  
It refills junk every time you reenter.  To increase your money I recommend 
going to the Single Death shot scenario on Panaorama.  Just bring an arsenal 
with a bunch of 5 or more damage dealing skills like fire of gehenna, swarm 
of moths, blazing sword, vacuum slash.  You�ll beat it really fast.  
It gets a little less money than some other scenarios but this is easily the 
shortest one to complete over and over for money.  Just don�t miss with your 
attack.  Other than that if you make friends with someone who has a lot of 
spare credits you could ask if he could hook you up with some credits.  
Thanks to the Action Replay there are quite a few people running around with 
tons and tons of credits to spare, so you may find some people willing to 
share the wealth. 

Other Ways of Getting the online skills besides the Action Replay save:

1)  You can get a random online skill for every 30 wins you get in standard 
battle matches that are One on One, Tag Team or Tournament.  Wins in Quick 
Battles and Ante battles also get counted toward the 30.(and affect rank) 
Any other mode of play that you win in doesn�t count towards the 30 wins 
needed to get an extra online skill.  This method can take a really long time,
even if you're good, to get anywhere near the skills you might want.  You can 
also get online skills randomly if you play ante matches against anyone stupid
or apathetic enough to play with an online skill.(and even then you have to 
randomly win it)  

2)  You can also try to trade at message boards like the ones listed at the 
end of the faq.  There�s rarely someone just waiting around to make trades 
with you at the online room.  

3)  The second quickest way to get online skills is through duplication. 
(the quickest way being to the download the game save file and transferring 
it to the Xbox via Action Replay)  Some players despise duping either because 
they think they should be the only people privileged enough to play with 
certain skills because they�ve been around longer, or they hate the fact that 
it throws off the accuracy of the rating system.(by giving dupers high 
ratings at least for a little while) 

(SKIP the next paragraph passage if you don�t care about why 
people hate it and you just want to know how to dupe)

START PARAGRAPH
I think its absurd that certain people should get undeniable advantages over 
other players simply because they have been around longer.  While not all the 
online skills are awesome, some are very useful and some of them are more fun 
to play with depending on your tastes.  You paid for the game and Xbox live 
why shouldn�t you be able to enjoy the game to its fullest?  You may not like 
standard match style, why should you miss out just because you prefer 
something like Heavy or KO Battles? 30 wins also takes a long time to get for 
a random skill you might not even want or just got 5 of already.  Trading can 
be a hassle too because you could have simply won some fairly unpopular 
skills that no one really wants to trade to you anything good for.  The system
of getting skills is totally arbitrary and it�s not like your truly getting 
an unfair advantage.  Duping actually levels the playing field in this game.
As for ranking, it really doesn�t say a whole lot about the player.  You could
run into a player with a rank quite below yours that is actually a really good
player.  While you may find other players with higher ranks that really aren�t
that good, and some could have even got the rank partially by only playing 
opponents they could consistently beat or by duping themselves.  Ranks can 
swing around a lot, there is little benefit for someone concerned with rank to
risk playing a low ranked player, because if he loses, his rank will drop much
more than even if he won a few matches.  The ranking system in this game will 
never be accurate and the system set in rewards people for avoiding lower 
ranked players who could actually be better.  It would take 2100 wins just to 
get 70 online random skills.  Let's face it, usually to make arsenals around
certain skills you need more than one of a skill, and the ones you get are 
random in this system to begin with.  And if you want to make more than one 
arsenal with certain skills you can't with this system.
END PARAGRAPH

Duping is done by creating an Ante Match, in Battle Royale.  The host should 
enter the room with an arsenal full of skills he does not care about because 
he will lose them.(you can always buy them again)  As long as the host doesn�t
make a mistake all the other players will get each others' online skills and 
not lose their own.  

The other players in on the duping should bring an arsenal either full of 
online skills only or with just a single online skill with 29 aura in the 
arsenal.  I personally prefer having people put just one online skill with 29 
aura.  This way you are guaranteed to get the skill you are looking to get 
from others.  Other people don�t want to bother with switching out one skill 
after each match and just come with an arsenal full of online skills.  This 
leads to people getting random online skills from each other and extra 
duplicates they may not need.  You decide what you want to do.  

So now that the room has 3-4 people with the host having only crap skills and 
the other players with only online skills, the host starts the match.  After 
just a few seconds, the host hits start and chooses the option Return to the 
Lobby(not quit).  The host gets a loss for doing this.  When the host returns 
to the lobby he chooses the option to kick a player and kicks at least 
2 players out.  When you are kicked out of the lobby by the host while your 
still in a match you get an automatic win, and get both the 2 online skills 
your opponents� had and one of the hosts random crap skills.  At the same time
the other players don�t actually lose their skills, because as their 
kicked(or their the only one left besides the host) they also get an 
automatic win.  Since the game counts all 3 people besides the host as 
winners the game doesn�t take away any of their online skills but it does 
give each of the players copies of the online skills to each other.(you�ll 
notice your rank will also go up since you all won, the hosts rank will not 
drop much for doing this and will recover more rank when he doesn�t host)  
The 2 or 3 players that are kicked from the match have to enter the Battle 
Royale Ante room again.(setting up friends slots is recommended if your going 
to have friends keep coming in)  Once they are back, the host starts the next 
match and repeats the process till he�s hosted enough times.  After the host 
is done one of the other 3 players should now open up a new Battle Royale 
Ante match and use an  arsenal full of only crappy skills they don�t care 
about.  The former host and the other 2 players not hosting should join that 
room.(10 rounds is pretty fair to host each)  When the new host has hosted 
enough someone new should host.  You�ll find some players will refuse to host.
I�d recommend not letting them continue to dupe with you unless you can�t 
seem to find anyone else. There are some people who are annoying like this but
most people do host at least sometimes.  I�d also recommend not keeping around
people who continually fail to come in with arsenals that don�t have online 
skills.  They should at least help people duplicate skills they already 
received from others.  

If your not duplicating with people your friends with then when someone enters
the room you host, you should ask them if they know what you plan on doing.
(duping)  If you explain how it works to them and they agree you could have a 
good partner in duping.  

If you don�t have any online skills, probably one of the best ways to start 
getting in on duplication is to show some good faith by hosting some BR ante 
matches yourself and have someone else rotate off after 10 matches. Give this 
a few tries before giving up because sometimes people just aren�t interested 
on a certain night.  Look for Ante Rooms to get in.  About 99% percent of the 
time Battle Royale Ante rooms are for duplicating.  

Potential Problems:  Make sure the host has more than one skill in his 
arsenal before the match starts other wise he won�t be able to kick people out.
If he starts the match with only one skill left when the match starts you 
will lose your online skill if you lose the match.  If the host ever 
accidentally quits out(you�ll see his name disappear in the game)  you will 
also lose your skills if you lose.  To avoid losing your skills when this 
happens if everyone stands still without the lock on on for about a minute, 
the timer drops to 50 seconds left in the match.  You can then have a draw 
and no one loses their skills.  Of course if you trust people enough to 
duplicate the skill you lost back, you can always take a loss to speed things 
up to continue duplicating skills.  

Duplicating will eventually make your rank really high.  People will know you 
duped, and some will complain but who cares.  The other thing you�ll notice is
that if you play ranked matches you�ll probably see much of that rating drop 
back down around where you were because even losing a few times will knock a 
high rank down quite a bit.  (and then they won�t be able to really know if 
you duped anyway)

15PD  Online Skill Rankings

Some online skills are much more valuable or easy to use than others.  This 
opinionated list tries to put them in categories of most useful/versatile vs. 
least versatile and  sometimes least useful. Skills in the lowest class may 
be good but they are some of the harder ones to set up or make work in an 
arsenal. But don�t let that discourage you from getting something you want to 
use.  I love using Blessed Rain for some stupid reasons but I�ve had a lot of 
fun with that skill. More than with even some of the more versatile or 
�useful� skills. Chill Breeze is another low ranked skill and yet there are 
some very powerful things you can do with it in tag.(and there are some 
effective things you can do with other low ranked skills)  The middle rank 
tries to put skills in a class that are more specialized but still have quite 
a bit of easy to apply uses.  You may even discover a new combo with low 
ranked skills that makes it more valuable than realized instead of it just 
being more specialized.  If you have a great idea for a skill don�t let my 
opinion hold you back in seeking it out. Each rank class is in no particular 
order.

High ***
Judge of Ares 
Shield Slayer
Willow the Wisp
Backdraft Bullet(just awesome for tag)
Unison(you may laugh but it can fit in a lot of Nature arsenals)
Erase Shell(only shield that can erase Rain and Move attacks.  An Optical 
Erase shield)
Boost Mine
Charge
Impact Burst
Armaro�s Watch 

Middle **
Giga Ruin
Throttle Blaster
Aura Cannon
Mini Meteor
Earthquake
El Bomb
Excaliber
Traveling Thought
Arc of Fire
Illusion of Death
Disremember
Life Giving Sword
Mobilize
Rafflesia�s Fang
Vapor Cloud
Wing�s of Hope
Crawling Bullet
Ground Laser
Delay Bomb 
Lost Dragon(one major problem with this skill is Lack can do much of the same
thing for just one aura)
Quantum Amp
Vacuum Bullet(use to fake out someone to block it, so they waste aura)
Throttle Fire Ball
Jackpot
Joke of Anubis
Twist Laser
Dragon Bullet
Freeze Shot(good primarily because it can actually do damage with 
strength boosters)
Particle Mortar
Still Moment
Geyser Impact
Failing Wall
Protecting Air
Play Dead

Lowest *
Poison Blur
Teleportrap
Vacuum Palm(Heat from the Void is a lot more reliable)
Downcast
Cooling
Anti Gravity Trap
Piece of Wind
Fast Wave
Knife Grind 
Arms of the Curse
Fast Bomb
Venom Drip
Chill Breeze (*** if you use it in tag with an Annoying Gift + 
Neutralization tag combo (see arsenal section for more details)
Blessed Rain
Withering curse
True Muramasa(older version was a lot better)
Dance of Moths
Heat Devil 
Tiger Prevails
Tornado
Place of Invisibility
Dark Shelter
Vast Mayhem
Sword Slap (the only thing that can do the brush effect online)
Phantom Dust(this is not just for forcing ties or as a last ditch chance to 
save your butt)
Level Baton
Ethos Inspiration
Pursuit Stopper
Young White Dragon
Martial Arts Scroll


16PD Skills with same animations and partial listing.
With the creation of online skills there are more and more skills that have 
the same animations as other skills.  There are a few skills even before the 
online ones that have very similar or the same animations.  These animations 
can trick players who normally expect one skill but are actually dealing with 
another.  For example if you fire Seal of Death which keeps getting blocked, 
and then fire Illusion of Death at someone they could mistakenly think its 
another Seal of Death and try to block Illusion of Death which goes through 
all shields except Course types.

Another example you may have a flame sword that keeps getting blocked by what 
looks like Wall but is actually Failing Wall.(defense 7, loses 1 defense 
everytime you use it)  If you think that its failing wall, you can keep 
striking at your opponent in an attempt to get them to lower their shield to 
below 3 defense.  But you are more likely to think that their using a Wall 
which will not break under a 3 damage flame sword.  There�s very few ways you 
can know for sure which shield is actually used unless you make them use it 
enough.(if it eventually breaks or runs out it was a failing wall). 

The skill Mobilize has the same animation as Amaros.  Amaros can be pretty 
harmless to someone with no stat buffs or environmental skill boosters out but
Mobilize could put you into a trap.  Therefore it is often best to jump 
whenever you see this animation to try to dodge the effect of Mobilize.
(being in the air when Mobilize takes effect stops you from being teleported.)
You might also know if they only have 3 aura and that there�s no way 
they could play Mobilize(unless optimization is down).  Jumping is a safe bet.
With some skills you can figure out which skill it is by how quickly it moves
but other times it will take guess work.  

Here is a list of skills with the same animation.    
Ex.  Skill #1 has same animation as > Skill#2

Amaros > Mobilize

Lighnting Sword > Shield Slayer (great confusion tactic)

Seal of Death >  Illusion of Death

Bomb Shot > Impact Burst

Excalibur  >  Excaliber(these are different skills despite the similar 
spelling and do different damage amounts)

Laser Shell >  Erase Shell(both are pretty frequently used but the cost of 6 
for Erase Shell can clue you into whether or not someones� using it)

Vibration Blaster > El Bomb

Fast Wave > Photon Wave

Recollection > The Attack used previously(a good tricking strategy.  
Ex.  Person sees you only have 2 aura so the person thinks you couldn�t use 
Photon Burst for a while.  Recollect it and your likely to throw them off 
guard.)

Crawlers > Crawling Bullet(the starting animation is different from other 
crawler moves  in that it looks like your shooting a projectile)

Mist Blade > Life Giving sword

Teleportrap > Anti Gravity Trap > Vapor Cloud

Muramasa Blade > True Muramasa 

Ki Cannon > Dragon Bullet > Young White Dragon(similar charge start up 
animation)

Retreat >  Return(if their missing a skill it was return)    

Remote Mine > Timer Mine(you'll run into remote mine more.  These 2 mines
are the only mines that don't work by how close someone is to them.  They 
leave a red mine on the ground.  I don't believe there are any other mines
that look quite like these 2 unless you count Fast Bomb)

Surprise Attack(if their missing a skill it was Surprise Attack)  > Charge 

Swarm of Moths(Usually more common) >  Dance of Moths

Slide Laser > Twist Laser

Confusion Gas(probably see more often) > Withering Curse

Vacuum Wall(you will see this one a lot more) > Dark Shelter

There are many others but I do not feel like continuing this list for now.  


17PD General Arsenal Design Tips

Please note that these tips apply only to playing the standard mode of Phantom
Dust.  The game types section covers some areas where you may want to design 
your arsenals differently.  

Designing an arsenal can be personal.  Some people have different preferences 
in aura counts as well as skill choices.  

I will try to give some general rules that have worked for me.  

A safe number of minimum aura to have in an arsenal that mixes some low cost 
and a few high cost moves is usually 14.  You can raise this to 15 or 16 if 
you�d like but usually you don�t want anymore than 16.  Having only 13 aura 
starts to really push it and you may find yourself struggling for aura to do 
something, especially if you go any lower.  

However, this isn�t always the case.  A Bravery Decision deck could have 19 
aura in it and be decent.  But this is because in reality you hope to wipe 
out the aura you don�t need.  Some decks that focus on overwhelmingly low cost
skills can do just fine with 10 aura as well.  

A deck that packs a ton(5+) of environmentals which you might pick up could 
also make you put a little less aura in.  Things like Level Amp, Boost Mine, 
and Angel Tears, can make good substitutes for aura particles.  Sometimes 
they�ll slow you down too.(Angel tears should rarely slow you down though)
I would not sub level amps/boost mines in if your current aura count is 13
though.

Try to balance between having expensive and cheap skills.  If you only have 
expensive skills you will take longer to do anything.  Relying on 
Optimization to use all your skills is usually a terrible idea.
 
Packing more than one of a certain skill will help ensure that you get key 
skills more often. If you really want something every match than putting in 3 
will help that happen a lot more than just one.  Experiment with going 
between having 1-3 of a skill in your arsenal to see just how much you want 
to get that skill.

If you can it is wise to put an anti environmental skill(Crush) in your 
arsenal.  Being able to get rid of a hung environmental can turn the tide of 
a match.  You can also use these to knock people out of the sky. 

Ki and Optical schools do not have any anti environmentals, so it can be 
especially important to have environmentals in when only using these schools.
There is always the option to go 3 school to provide yourself with an anti 
enviro move too.

It is also helpful to put in a skill that will deal with status effects,
(Purify, Neutralization, Amaros) especially ones that your opponent has.  
Sometimes you can protect yourself from negative status moves, but an 
opponent running around with +6 speed can be hard to catch till you slow him 
down.

Look at the environmental skills and see if there�s not one you can put in 
your arsenal that will help you and probably not your opponent much.  This 
can prevent someone else from putting their own environmental out and 
hopefully help you more than your opponent.  If you use cheap ones you can 
take the aura from it if you really need it.  And no, Optimization will not 
always be helpful or worth putting in an arsenal.  Sometimes there aren�t any 
good choices but its worth check out when making an arsenal.  

The above recommendations are ones that will work well with almost any arsenal.
However, it is also valid to ignore these recommendations just to try to 
increase your chances of getting other skills.  It�s a risk you take, in an 
attempt to speed up your chances of getting something you want.  Sometimes it 
pays off, other times it will cost you the match.  Starting out in this game 
its probably better to play more conservatively.  

Defensive moves - Carrying between 3-5 defensive moves is very helpful.(less 
defensive moves really start to push it)  Remember you don�t have to just 
consider shields.  Moves like Invulnerability or Dash can serve good defensive
functions as well.  Depending on what you want to do with an arsenal, certain 
defenses are more useful than others.  Even people who are really good at 
dodging moves can benefit from having defenses.  Whether you cartwheel or 
jump there are moves that are very troubling without a defensive move.  The 
only place you can realistically use no shields is in One on One where you 
sacrifice having them for the sake of speed.  A really well coordinated Tag 
deck could get away with it too. Having no defenses can pay off but it can 
also give you a lot of frustrating defeats.  The other situation you could be 
justified in using no defenses, is when you are trying to perform an 
elaborate combo that doesn�t allow any space for shields.  Even then, defenses 
can sometimes buy you the time you need to put a combo together.  Having high
speeds can function defensively as well.  With trial and error you�ll see 
what a good amount of defenses are for you.  

Orb/Amulet -  If there are moves you really need to be able to use in an 
arsenal like  Recall or permanent stats that you really need to have, these 
skills will help you keep them.  Orb/Amulet can be especially useful for 
carthwheelers who really want to avoid the stun effects that come from erase 
moves.  Jumpers can get by more without these because they can jump to avoid 
the stun effects of moves like Dragon Slayer or Restrain.  That doesn't mean 
jumper shouldn't ever carry these.  If erasure can significantly hinder your 
arsenal, Orb and Amulet are valuable moves to put in.  

Being able to reset your own stats is useful if getting your stats reversed 
will screw you over.  

Bring moves that counter weaknesses in your arsenal.  If a player who has 
Dash can dodge everything you do easily then you might want to carry 
Turbulence, Wind Pressure or perhaps you can even use Chaos.(takes care of 
Photon Barrier users at the same time)  If there is something opponents do 
that give your arsenal trouble there is usually something you can put in an 
arsenal to deal with it.  There is only so much you can prepare for so pick 
what is most important to deal with.  

1 School, 2 Schools or 3 Schools?
There is some debate whether it�s truly worth it to go 3 school at the 
expense of having slower aura regeneration.  I think there are plenty of good 
arsenals that are 3 school and that you shouldn�t be afraid to try it.  
3 School arsenals can be the most versatile and some powerful combos are 
impossible to do with anything less than a 3 school arsenal.  It can also make
you less predictable.  If you played the card game Magic, it is much easier 
to make 3 School Arsenals than 3 color decks in Magic.  

That being said sometimes there are things in different schools that do 
similar things and can eliminate the need for you to go 3 school. Going 
Single School or Two School will give you the ability to use your moves more 
quickly repeatedly.(because they have faster aura regeneration)  It is not 
the biggest advantage in the world but it can be more valuable in situations 
where you are being heavily taxed.  In One on One I think it is less 
significant than in Tag or Battle Royale.  That doesn�t mean that 3 school 
decks are bad in those modes.  In One on One you may wish that you could 
perform certain moves more quickly and the move to a 2 or 1 school arsenal 
can be worth sacrificing a few skills.

If you feel like an arsenal is struggling to do things in time and you 
already see you have a good amount amount of aura and balanced cost skills, 
then that is probably one of the best times to think about going down to a 
two or single school arsenal.  

Going down to 2 or 1 schools reduces your choice but gives you more speed in 
doing moves over and over.  

I think if your starting out and your unsure of yourself it is good to try to 
make two school decks.  It�ll keep you focused on making the most of each 
school your using and give you a good amount of versatility still.  

For single school arsenals, Nature and Faith are probably the most adaptable 
to situations, but the other schools also have their own strengths to offer.

Look at all the skills you have for each school in your arsenal.  Don�t just 
think to use attack and shield skills. Most arsenals benefit from having at
least something that is either a Status, Special, Erase, or Environmental 
skill.  

There�s not much more to say except to try to use skills that function 
together in someway when you�re making arsenals.  Look for skills that 
complement each other and maybe even deal with weaknesses your arsenal has.  
There are a lot of moves that were just made for each other.  Take a look at 
the combos, arsenals, and extra details sections for some ideas.  The more 
your skills work well together the more effective they will all be.  Also 
look for skills that work well for you.  Some people are just better at 
using certain skills than others.  With practice though you may get good at 
using skills you might have once regarded as bad.  If you see others using a 
skill well that you don�t, try to figure what their doing that makes the skill 
work better for them and you can get better yourself.  

To try to find new uses for skills you can ask yourself what other skill would
work well with another skill in some way.  Don�t be too quick to think a 
skill is complete crap.  Sometimes so called crap skills can create unusual 
and sometimes even powerful combos. Most skills in this game have some sort of
function that makes them more useful in one way than other moves.  

You may also want to check out an FAQ by Delandel on making arsenals at :

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3471

There are some differences in recommendations between us but you�ll probably 
find some helpful things in that faq too.(I especially liked the idea of 
having a back up plan like Diabolical Trick.)

Managing Arsenals- 
In the most competitive of matches, ensuring that you properly pick things up 
in a good sequence will make your arsenals function better.  Always be ready 
to use the �Back� button at the start of the match to try to get a better 
random assortment at the start.(Hitting the back button will give your hand
a new set of 4 skills)  Look both at what�s in your hand and the 
colors of the 3 capsules next to you in the beginning.  Think of what the 
ideal starting hand is for your arsenal is and whether its better to try a 
different random 4 skills at the start.  The colors of the capsules on the 
side can give you hints about whether you should change what�s in your hand.  
If the only green skill in your arsenal is tiger�s strength  and you see a 
green capsule next to your character at the beginning of the match, you might 
want to change up your hand which already also has a tiger�s strength.  If 
you see 3 aura particles at your spawn then you probably want a new hand for 
your self if you also have 4 aura particles in your hand.  Be prepared to 
make sacrifices and burn through your arsenal quickly if you do get a hand 
that is not so great.  In most arsenals you will at least sometimes get hands 
that are not so great and you�ll have to give up on using certain skills just 
so you will still be somewhat capable when your opponent comes after you or
goes after your teammate.  The more you play with an arsenal the more you 
will get an idea of what is a good starting hand and what isn�t.  Also look 
at your opponents hands at the start.  If they only have one or 0 aura or no
shields and 2 aura, there�s a very good chance they have a bad hand 
defensively.  If you got a decent set up you can rush them and they�ll be 
badly prepared for your assault.  

18PD Strategies around certain game types.
This is a list of most of the types of matches and offers some strategies 
around each type.  Note:  To see people without locking on hit the White 
button at the beginning of the match and all their names will show up.

One on One - One on One allows a wide range of tactics and approaches.  There
are many ways you can go about things and you don�t have to worry about using 
arsenals compatible with a tag team mate or deal with being triple or double 
teamed for becoming too much of a threat.  
In many ways this allows for greater all or nothing arsenals.  You could try 
to go for the quick kill or try to negotiate a longer round.  
As far as arsenal designs go there is also more freedom to be �suicidal� 
because your ultimate goal is to take out a single opponent.  In Battle Royale
and Tag certain suicidal tactics are less powerful and can work against you 
even more in the end.  Because you don�t have to worry about being double 
teamed certain defensive skills may be less necessary.  While 
something like a Psycho Shell is very useful in dealing with multiple 
unanticipated attacks, a Psychic Wall could end up serving you better in
One on One.  In this respect shelter moves can become less necessary because 
it is easier to deal with skills with a regular barrier shield or some other 
shield, since you know there is only one player to watch.  Still some shelter
shields like Erase Shell or Fortress of Iron have handy additional effects.

Tag Team -
To be the most competitive in tag I�d say you would need to coordinate 
arsenals with someone.  Despite that there are just different options open 
in tag than in one on one.  Some very powerful combos can only be conveniently
done with a tag partner.  You can take on more supportive roles and use 
tactics more for distraction.  Having one person stun an opponent while the 
other attacks is much easier in tag.  Being able to communicate well is also 
important.  If your going to use skills that effect your teammate in a 
negative way you should check with them and see if its really worth doing.  
A floated Memory Lapse that�s good for you might not be so great for your 
teammate.  And please don't always put Optimization out.  I've seen too many 
matches where the tide was in my team's favor and then my teammate puts 
Optimization down and suddenly our opponents are much more powerful.  And it
is very rarely a good idea to put Optimization out when your teammate is dead
and both your opponent's aren't.  Take it down if you can when your teammates
dead.  
Because you can overwhelm opponents with two people you can make 
arsenals that may not function so well in One on One but can play well in 
tag more thanks to distraction tactics.  
It is also important to consider whether you should try to take out your 
opponents around the same time or keep killing the weakest one.  Being around 
to resurrect a teammate who�s about to die is very importannt.  Sometimes it 
is best to run from a battle with an opponent to get near your teammate so 
they can resurrect you easily when you're about to die.  This can also be an 
effective lure on an opponent.  Shelter moves and evasive moves can be more 
important than in one on one because of being attacked by 2 people at once.
Sometimes its worth it to kill your teammate to ressurrect him.  Watch for 
your opponents because they could attack you as you do this.   
Note:  Whenever you are resurrected you only get back half of the life you 
previously had and can�t go above that number.  You can be resurrected 
infinitely even if your at 1 life, you don�t go to 0.  
If you cast a move that effects everyone while a teammate or opponent is 
currently knocked out that player won�t be affected.  i.e. You could cast 
Quantum Decay or Vicious Balance after a teammate has died and not worry 
about lowering their level.  Casting Phantom Dust(the skill) is another 
possibility.(You pick them up after doing these moves)
Try to get good at giving instructions to your teammate on how to find your 
dead body.(you may want bright colors on your character�s costume)  To pick 
up a dead teammate walk over to him and assign him to one of your buttons 
like you would a capsule.  Go to the options and change your camera options 
so that you can lock onto a teammate it will be valuable to know what�s going 
on with your teammate.  You can remove a locked skill button from your hand 
if you map a dead teammate to your button.(get rid of an Orb you don�t need)
I�ve heard its possible to float a dead opponent�s corpse so his teammate 
can�t pick it up.  

Battle Royale
Battle Royale involves more manipulating things to work in your favor and 
deciding who is best to go after and what evasive maneuvers you can use to 
escape an opponent. It is hardest here to be �suicidal� in approach because 
even if you take one opponent down you could still have 2 very healthy ones 
left.  The nature of Battle Royale is very political.  Using certain skills 
can easily annoy every player.(Violent Change for fear of being erased to 
death)  Sitting back often seems ideal and some opponents are dumb enough to 
just be focused on killing each other instead of the opponent with 20 life 
all powered up.  Watch out for other players who hang around or are just too 
single minded.  
Evasive moves like Dash and shelter shields can be helpful for blocking or 
avoiding moves you can�t really anticipate.  Yet at the same time someone 
who seems to be dashing out of everything can soon become a target of several 
players who don�t want to deal with those difficulties later on.
Many people have codes of conduct and if they don�t like the way you play 
they�ll go after you.  Some people are silly enough to triple team if you 
won�t keep Optimization out.  
You don�t want to appear too threatening or too weak in Battle Royale.  Unless
you feel like you really can take everyone down despite what they might try to
do.  Sometimes its best to take out an opponent who you�ve weakened because 
they can be single minded enough to do anything to make sure you don�t win 
even if they die because of it.  

Quick - Whatever version of Quick mode you play, you get a preset arsenal.  
Some are more effective than others but you really just have to make do with 
what you get.  If you don�t want to worry about arsenal design this is the 
perfect place for you.  Do the best with the skills you have.  In the 1.2 
update you�ll play with a lot of online skills so this can be a good place to 
learn about some online skills. If you learn the lists of skills that could 
technically help you out.  Here is a link that shows a list of arsenals and 
their contents that you can get in Quick Battle:

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2487  
(read down a little to see the 2 other arsenals that weren�t included by the 
1st poster)

These next battle modes don�t effect rating and can�t earn you any online 
rares for the wins you get.  That doesn�t mean you won�t enjoy them.  

Heavy Mode - The most popular non standard mode.  This can be a good place to 
fool around with a bunch of skills without worrying about aura so much.  
You�ll find a lot of standard arsenal builds in this mode are not nearly as 
good as they normally are.  You get 40 health and you always have 5 aura no 
matter what.(the lowest you can be erased down to is 5 aura)  This throws off 
a lot of the balance in this game.  Some skills are much more useful now 
with the increased life cap.  Take the nature skills like Blazing Bullet and 
Blazing Sword.  Judge of Anubis is a power house with much less risk and is 
much easier to use.  Finisher and Mist Laser, have much less consequence in 
being used.  Using Recall is so much easier in this mode that it�s a staple 
in most decks with Optical skills. Since you always have 5 aura you can also 
make more types of arsenals without any aura in them.  If you don�t want to 
worry much about the consequences of low aura or getting level erased as much,
this is a pretty good game type for you.  Its still possible to find people 
erasing capsules here and it can be done quicker in some regards but a lot 
more people have recall to slow down the process.  People use Optimization a 
lot in these rooms but not always.  Sometimes you can take advantage of 
this with stuff like Irregular Rhythm or Fatigue.

KO Battle - This is a rather fun mode that gets less appreciation than it 
should.  These are 3 minute long matches that you only have 5 life in and 
can�t go above it.  Everytime you die you come back to life a few seconds 
later.  Whoever kills the most people wins.  If there is a tie in kills, the 
player who died the least wins.  This is a great form of Battle Royale for 
people sick of regular Battle Royale matches where people often stand around 
doing nothing for several minutes.  If you hate having capsules erased its 
also not really a viable place for someone to erase players to death.  It 
does have its own share of battle issues.  Faith skills that are effective 
with 7 or less life are obviously easier to use with less consequence.  You 
may find 3 players  running around with all Faith Decks because of this.  
Skills like Scientism(no faith skills for a minute) are a good way of 
regulating these problems.  Because of the quick nature of battles you may 
find yourself using certain one shot shields more like About Face.  This is 
horribly boring with just one other opponent but fun with 3 or 4 people.  
There�s not really double teaming here because everyone just wants to get 
whatever shot they can get to kill another player.  

Highlander -  This game type is interesting but unfortunately rare.  Your 
arsenal can only have one skill of each in it.(no doubles)  One way to get 
around this is to use similar skills like Rock Shot and Bomb.  

Puny - Your life is limited to 10 and you start with 0 aura.  The max level 
you can reach is 5.  Much like KO Battle you can easily abuse some faith 
skills with low life requirements.  You also don�t want to pack expensive 
skills.  Some skills will be impossible to use without an Optimization down 
because of the limit.  Others are impossible to use because you can�t reach 
10 or more aura.  Lowering someone�s level or playing Irregular Rhythm could 
really change the outcome of a match and really screw someone over who uses 
more expensive skills.  

Environmental - An Environmental is always out and changes every minute in 
the match.  This can lead to sudden swings in the match�s tide.  
Environmentals you use in this are mostly useless because you can�t override 
or erase the automatic environmental.  If your worried about being crippled 
by a random environmental change, variety can be useful to have in your 
arsenal.  

Eliminate the Odd One - This is 3 on 1 with one player at 40 life and the 
others all at 5.  Teammates can resurrect each other.  Moves like Blazing 
Sword and Joke or Judge of Anubis can be very powerful.  

Single School Only - Only single school arsenals are allowed. Carrying an 
Anti School arsenal could cripple one of your opponents.  Think about ways in
which Single School decks will struggle against other single school decks.

Puny Only - This is very different from regular Puny matches.  You get 20 
life and no aura cap.  The major difference from standard is that you can�t 
play with arsenals that have any skills that cost 4 or more, and no x cost 
skills are allowed.  There are a few environmentals you could use in 
combination with this match type that could create interesting results.  

Heavy Only- This is much different from Heavy Matches.  You get 20 life and 
no aura cap.   You start out with 0 aura .  This time the major difference 
from standard is that you can�t play this mode if your arsenal has any skills 
that cost 2 or less.  This means no Orb/Amulet protection but it also means 
no Vicious Balance.  This can create some interesting styles.  The biggest 
issue is that a hung Reduce Entropy can force a draw. You might want to 
consider banning its use in this game type.(or at least hanging it)
An interesting strategy though would be to erase all your opponents capsules
and then play Reduce Entropy so they couldn�t do anything.(Maybe you could 
allow its use if someone only hangs it after erasing every one of the other 
living opponents� capsules)

19PD  List and Description of Various Arsenal Concepts:  Recommendations and 
Strategies against each type

Some Arsenal Types 
You�ve come looking for new ideas?  You may find some here.  
There are many approaches to winning in this game but there are some pretty 
established design principles. But first lets talk a little about:

Weaknesses in all arsenals listed- There are certain environmentals that can 
cripple an arsenal(Memory Lapse, Reduce Entropy) or make your opponent�s 
arsenal too powerful.(Optimization)  An opponent who has boosted their stats 
can also become overwhelmingly powerful.  To deal with this I recommend 
putting a skill in that erases environmentals and stat buffs if you can.  
Sometimes you can�t, but you could try to structure your arsenals so that they
can deal with most tactics.  You could ignore this advice completely as well 
and say that you�d rather get certain skills more quickly than worry about 
what your opponent will do. It�s a gamble that sometimes pays off but other 
times will give the match up to your opponent.  It�s your choice. It�s really 
not a good idea to gamble like this without a coordinated teammate in tag.  
A teammate with a more balanced arsenal may be able to help you get away with 
some of the gambles your taking.

List of Some Arsenal Concepts 

Memory of Battle - This obviously will include the Nature school and usually 
has a mix of single use and infinite use skills.  The idea is to use a lot of 
attacks up in your arsenal in order to make your Memory Of Battle skill do a 
lot of damage.  There are many approaches to make it more powerful.  One of 
the quickest ways is to use a bunch of auto capture skills quickly(maybe not 
even bothering to hit your opponent with them as their used up)  Auto capture 
skills automatically pick up your next skill when you use them.(even if there 
are no skills currently at your spawn point)  The drawback to this approach is
you put a heavy reliance on the power of Memory of Battle.  Someone with an 
erase shield can take care of your Memory of Battle and your not left with 
much.  A good cartwheeler can also dodge Memory of Battle pretty easily if 
their ready so you may want to use a stun move and then follow up with it.
(you could also try boosted homing)  This arsenal can work as a good assistant
in tag.  As far as one on one goes it also has the potential to do well, but 
connecting it will be harder against a cartwheeler.  Some skills to consider 
using may include things that break or erase shields.  Nature has a lot of 
skills that can eliminate pesky stats your opponent has and it can also deal 
with moves like Dash with Turbulence or Wind Pressure.  Note:  Any attacks 
you Recall will take away from the power of Memory of Battle.  Any capsule 
attacks erased from your spawn will not count towards Memory of Battle�s 
strength.  You can also use Scars of Battle to work just like Memory of 
Battle.  You don�t have to actually use a skill to add to the power of 
Memory of Battle, it just has to leave your hand.  You can play the 
environmentals Athena's Command or Forest Sanctuary to stop a 
Memory of Battle from being useable.

Compressor - The opposite of Memory of Battle, it relies on using up shields 
for its strength.  There are often one time use shields with erase effects in
many of them.  Its greatest strength is its defense and chances of erasing 
pesky attacks.  Like Memory of Battle, Compressor is pretty easy to carthweel 
out of.(hits jumpers though)  Its usually a bad idea to have Compressor as 
your only attack because it can be erased pretty easily, but since a lot of 
your time will be spent erasing and delaying an opponent�s offense you won�t 
have too many attacks in here either.  Sometimes it is best not to launch an 
offensive against a person with a bunch of shields like you�ll find in 
Compressor decks and force them to pick up more stuff.(just wait out the match)
In tag you could opt to go after the teammate of a Compressor deck instead of 
risking getting erased so easily.  Because shields can�t block projectiles 
that are shot at a different person(that�s just how it works online ) you 
won�t have to worry about the Compressor person blocking your projectiles 
shot at another person.  They might be able to erase short range attacks 
going after someone else. 2 Compressor decks working together can be pretty 
powerful.  Erasing a compressor deck�s capsules can be effective if their 
just sitting around with 4 shields in hand.  Recall and Capsule erasing 
arsenals can be difficult for Compressor�s to deal with.  Turbulence or 
Wind Pressure could be especially valuable to have in these arsenals. 
Reincarnation and other locked/retain skill attacks can be good to use 
against Compressor decks to force them to waste an erase shield.(make sure 
you have 6 aura to retain Reincarnation).  Although it�s a glitch of sorts 
Freeze shot with +x attack is also great.(can�t be erased by shields)
Necrominicon will also stop Reincarnation from being useful and protect 
from piercing.  
Shield Erasers can be good too.(Dragon Slayer, Shield Slayer, Judge of Ares, 
Lost Dragon, technically Lack among other erase moves)  
Besides these tactics you can try to manually aim attacks away from a person�s
shield to fake them out so they don�t erase your attack.  Running up to 
someone and doing moves like Tiger�s Strength or even purify can trick a 
person into using a shield they have and then following up with an attack 
while their completing the shield animation.(following up after a purify is 
not possible but you can waste their shield)  If you are faked out try to 
press the shield button again, you might be able to get the shield up quick 
enough to block.  If someone doesn�t have enough aura to use a shield again 
it�s a great chance to strike them.  Because of this level erasing can be 
another good tactic.(Vicious Balance, Quantum Decay)  See the shields 
section for more on dealing with shields.(3PD)  If worse comes to worse you 
can wait for people with Compressors to attack and then counter attack with 
your own attack.  Note:  Any shields you recall will take away from 
Compressor�s power.  Any shields erased from your spawn point don�t count 
towards Compressor�s power.  You don�t actually have to use shields to add to 
the power of compressor, you just have to pick it up and have it leave your 
hand.  You can play the environmentals Athena's Command or Forest Sanctuary 
to stop a Compressor from being useable.

Bravery Decision - These decks usually are quick.  You pick up some aura and 
burn through your arsenal with Bravery Decision mainly so you can use skills 
that require you to have 7 or less skills to use (Excalibur, Rail Gun,), and 
Cluster Bomb).  There are many variations on this idea but they usually 
revolve around those 3 skills in some way and removing the aura you didn�t 
pick up from your arsenal.  Dazzle is often used as a stun move to follow up 
with Rail Gun.  Rail Gun is also good to use as a reactionary attack or if you
maually aim it.  Firing it a lot can eventually catch opponents to.  Its also 
great on distracted opponents.  Cluster Bomb is probably the hardest bomb to 
dodge especially with some extra homing.(the speed can throw people off 
trying to block it)  Excalibur is perhaps the most accurate sword in the 
game and has high power.  The major short coming is that if you fail with
these skills you don�t have many options left in your arsenal.  Anything that 
lowers your level or erases your skills and capsules can be fatal.(hence the 
name Bravery Decision)  It would be wise to carry an Orb or Amulet and 
perhaps an environmental eraser.  Or you could take your chances and not do 
that.  Shield Erasers and strength boosters are also useful for breaking 
opponent�s shields.  You don�t want to end up losing to an opponent just 
because they had Fortress of Iron or Psychic Wall.  These can use other moves 
besides just the 3 bravery based skills, but that is usually why you will use 
Bravery Decision.  

Capsule Erasers - These arsenals try to erase your opponents' capsules down 
to 0 so that they will probably die from it.(you lose 1 life every few seconds
with 0 skills left in your arsenal)  Oftentimes these arsenals carry a good 
amount of erase shields and similar measures to dealing with Compressor decks 
work well.  While just about any arsenal can use Diabolical Trick, these 
arsenals usually make extensive use of capsule popping/altering skills like 
Violent Change, Change the World, Particle Convert, and Evaporate.  Recall 
and often Relearn are a big part of these arsenals.  If you can keep your 
opponent�s level down you could really screw with their strategy if they rely 
on Recall.  A good offense can also overwhelm opponents not well equipped to 
defend.  If your opponent has no attacks you can basicly wait around for them 
to use something like Violent Change and attack in reaction.  These arsenals 
can be a pretty good defense against Memory Lapse arsenals.  You should make 
sure you have something that can effect someone in some way.(Erase,Damage, 
Stun)  If you don�t have anything but capsule erasers,  a person with 
Regenerate or Play Dead can force a tie by casting the skill and standing 
there regenerating life forever.(It regenerates at the same speed you lose 
life so they can�t die.)  Reincarnation is a solid attack to deal with this.  
It�s really a good idea to have a few attacks anyway, as a deterrent.  You 
can also hurt people who intend to erase your own capsules with something 
like Diabolical Trick.  Be careful about erasing opponents in Battle Royale, 
you will often be triple teamed so sometimes its best to sit back and let 
people use up their skills till you think you can get away with some capsule 
erasing.  If they see a lot of purple in your hand or know that your 
Recalling without really doing anything to anyone they can become suspicious.  
Whether you intend to use Accelerate to speed up erasing or not people usually
think your going to erase them when you play it and it can encourage them 
to triple team. One neat thing I saw a Recall Violent change deck do was the
player raised their speed to high levels and kept Calling their capsules with
Call with Accelerate down as well.  They basically out ran the opponent and 
hid behind stuff while freely picking up new capsules and eventually erasing
the opponent to death.  

Erase Based Arsenals - These arsenals obviously pack a lot of skills that 
erase.  Some combinations of skills that work well together are Lack and 
Heat from the Void.  Some of the best ways of dealing with erase arsenals are 
to use Orb or Amulet.  The environmental Commandments can buy you time as 
well.  On the other hand using the environmental Chaos will ensure you get 
past Orb and Amulet.  If Orb is the only real problem you can use Stagnant 
Air.  Any effects that freeze an opponent�s buttons also works in stopping 
orb or amulet.  If your arsenal uses cheaper skills you won�t have to worry 
as much about getting your level erased from these arsenals.  Course shields 
can deal with dragon slayers which often combo in erase moves.  See the 
additional skill details for dealing with Disremember.  Holding on to aura 
particles can protect against some of Heat from the Void�s damage.(you still 
take some damage with 4 slots filled if someone has any strength buffs)
You could tie the nature or ki based erase attacks well in these arsenals.
(Storm Blade, Lightning Sword, Dragon Punch)  Orb and Amulet does not stop 
their erase effects.

Vicious Balance/Quantum Decay Arsenals -  These are similar to erase based 
arsenals and therefore the same strengths and weaknesses apply.  The only 
difference is that they focus more on erasing your level and you can�t dodge 
these moves.  Vicious Balance arsenals often use mostly low cost skills.  Its 
helpful to have a skill that lowers your level in it like Rebirth, Downcast, 
or Mist Blade in case someone level berserks or quantum amps you.  If you 
notice your opponent has a purple skill and only has 2 aura in hand and isn�t
really doing anything else, there�s a good chance that he�s going to use 
Vicious Balance.  If he�s holding on to aura particles or not actually gaining
level with them he�s probably also using it.  If they don�t have a lot of 
aura and keep using skills that lower their level that is another sign that 
their going to use it.You may also see a quantum decay arsenal using similar 
tactics in not doing anything and not picking up much aura.  Quantum Decay 
arsenals may also use Level Boost to offset the amount of aura they lose from 
it.  Aside from Orb/Amulet, you can wait or hold on to aura particles to not 
be effected as badly.  Chaos will wreck many Vicious Balance arsenals because 
skills that cost 2 or less can�t be used.(putting a crush or return to Nature
in is recommended.  Some attacks that require you to have 2 or less aura can 
fit well in Vicious Balance decks.  If you play Optimization and bring yourself
down to 1 aura you can reduce everyone down to 1.  You�ll also want to pick up
the Optimization afterwards though.  Optimization can make much level erasing 
insignificant.  You could also play boost mine on the ground and then step on 
it after using Vicious Balance.  
  
Recall + Relearn/Recollection style decks - There are some arsenals that 
revolve around using a skill over and over repeatedly.  Recall + Relearn and 
Recollection(for attacks) make it possible for you to use special one use 
kind of moves over and over.  Ever wonder how your opponent keeps turning 
Invisible or how they keep firing Agonies of Death and Impact Burst at you 
over and over?  It is very likely that they are using some form of Recall, 
Relearn, or Recollection to keep doing it.  It is also possible that they are 
using similar types of moves like Demon�s Wing and Optical Camo which both 
make a person invisible.  Giga Ruin can be a pesky move for someone to keep
having to deal with over and over.  Another idea often used is to Frostbite 
all of an opponent�s buttons.  If you ever wanted to be able to use a certain 
move over and over this is the best way to do it by yourself.  Note that 
Recollection doesn�t have any of the penalties or requirements to be used.  
I.e. a Judge of Anubis Recollected won�t cause you to lose 3 life and 
Agonies of Death can be Recollected(used by it) if you have more than 7 life.
(when it normally couldn�t)

Support Styles -  These are arsenals that probably aren�t going to do that 
great on their own.  They play more of a supportive role in combat, perfect 
for tag.  They involve using moves that help your teammate out which can 
include moves like Friendship, Alleviate, and Level Berserk.  You can use 
Doppleganger to copy the stat boosts you gave to a teammate.  Another approach
is to serve as more of a distraction, such as going invisible and firing 
Decoy at an opponent while your teammate goes after your disoriented opponent.
Decoy by itself will work fine too.  Other stun moves like Dazzle and 
Paralyze can fit well here.  Annoying gifting good skills to a teammate or 
bad ones to opponents are other potential routes you can follow.  

Dance of Death/Crystallization, Bundled Blaster and  Bundled Laser- These 
skills do X damage based on the strength of a type of certain skills you have.
(Close attacks for DOD, piece moves for Crystallization, etc.)  Basically 
you�ll want to pick moves that make these moves powerful.  Dance of Death and 
3 swift blows for example or Bundled Blaster and 3 Vibration Blasters.  Some 
of these styles are easier to use than others.  Being invisible or having a 
distracted opponent can make something like Dance of Death easier to pull off.
You might want to consider the skill Commandments to protect against erase 
moves as you could be running around without shields while using these moves.
  
Mephisto�s Pact can make picking the most powerful attacks to go with your 
skill easier.  The biggest weaknesses of DOD is it is not the hardest skill 
to dodge in the world.(doing it from far close range is more effective though.)
While Bundled Blaster and Laser have good accuracy they can be harder to set 
up and are one time use.  Crystallization is decent for accuracy but can be 
reasonably cartwheeled.(jumpers can�t dodge it)  The biggest drawback to all 
these types are that for them to be at their most powerful you can�t have 
any defensive moves in your hand. This leaves you open to all sorts of erase 
and attack moves if you decide to make them as powerful as possible. Whether 
you choose a cartwheeler or jumper you will still have some attack types that
you are weaker against and will be open to without defenses. You sometimes 
can�t do a whole lot besides utilize the main move.  On the plus side you can 
have good start up times for some powerful moves.  

0 cost arsenals - As the name implies these arsenals have no cost skills only.
You need no aura in your arsenals and use skills that cost only 0 to use.   
Trance and Rebirth will help you greatly. Shields and certain other defenses
can be a great weakness to this arsenal as most 0 cost moves besides 
Agonies of Death can be blocked/erased easily.  The greatest asset is that 
level erasing means squat to you and you don�t have to worry about being aura 
screwed on a draw.  This can work pretty well in tag especially if paired 
with a teammates Vicious Balance arsenal.(it will drop everyone else to 
0 level)  

Vibration Arsenals - Get your level up to 10 or more to use powerful attacks 
that require 10 or more aura.  The biggest downside is getting and staying at
Level 10.  Orb will be very useful in this arsenal.  You may also notice that
certain moves like Laser and Blaster with a  tiger�s strength are almost as 
good as their vibration versions.  Still, you can walk out of Laser but not 
Vibration Laser without jumping or wheeling. Optimization is sometimes favored 
in these arsenals but are not a must.  El Bomb combined with Vibration Blaster 
can also work well to throw opponents off.  Level Amps, Quantum Amps and 
Boost Mines with Level Boost or Level Berserk can help get you up to and 
stay at 10 aura more easily.  

Optimization Arsenals -  While there�s no definitive one�s there are certain 
skills that are expensive and become much more convenient to use with 
Optimization down.  Besides using powerful expensive skills more quickly it 
becomes easy to use other moves over and over.  The basic idea is to 
overwhelm your opponent with the large number of attacks you are using.  
Taking an opponent�s Optimization can help change the tide of the match.  
Overwhelming an opponent with your own attacks while Optimization is down 
can also help.  Lowering an opponent�s level can also make it more difficult 
for someone to succeed with more expensive skills while Optimization is down.
Expensive but powerful combos become that much easier to do when this skill 
is down as well.  The biggest downside is there are many other arsenals that 
can benefit from Optimization being down.  This can make an opponent who has 
low aura more capable than if you didn�t have it down, so sometimes your 
better off not using it if you think your opponent had a bad hand.  It is 
usually a bad idea to play Optimization when 2 opponents are alive in tag and 
your teammate is dead.  Take it down if you can when you need to get to your
teammate.  I don't know how many times I've had  a teammate die insisting on
leaving it out while they try to pick me up.  It is much easier to get to an 
opponent when your opponents have a more limited amount of shots to take at
you.

Floating Environmental Arsenals - These arsenals all greatly benefit from 
having an environmental out especially if it is floating so it can�t be 
grabbed.  Carrying Orb will make it very hard for the environmental to be 
erased.(except Chaos and Stagnant Air)  Freezing someone before you erase 
their environmental is a useful tactic in stopping Orb.  Some Environmentals 
that are good candidates to float are Memory Lapse, Reduce Entropy, Irregular 
Rhythm, Fatigue, Chaos and Forest Sanctuary.  Depending on your arsenal you 
can be severely hurt by someone using these moves.  Have no skills that cost 
less than 3, then you can�t do anything with that arsenal while Reduce Entropy 
is down. Have only skills with 2 or less aura while Chaos is down and you 
can�t do anything.  Floating arsenals greatest strength is that they cripple 
many arsenals and there are few things if any that certain arsenals can do 
when an Environmental is permanently down. Floating Environmental arsenals are 
usually tailored to get around the penalties of the environmental they play.  
Memory Lapse - use Reincarnation retain moves or Recall.  Locked skill
buttons are another option.  Be careful when you use your now single use 
skills.
Reduce Entropy - Use mostly skills that cost 2 or less only.  
Irregular Rhythm/Fatigue - Use cheap or X cost skills that you can use over 
and over with a strength boost.  i.e. Ki Cannon, Ki Palm, Lingering Flame.
Forest Sanctuary - Use debilitating shields like Glacial Wall and 3 or less
damage dealing moves.  
Having an anti environmental skill like Judgement is very useful in dealing 
with these arsenals.  A quick rush is sometimes enough to stop these arsenals 
from winning.  They are often much less effective without their environmental 
out.  See the floating environmentals section on more ways to thwart hanging 
environmentals.(5PD)

Blazing Arsenals - Has at least some nature skills that require 15 or more 
life.  Blazing Sword, Bullet, and Storm are your choices.  These skills are 
strong and inexpensive.  The biggest weakness is keeping your self at 15 
life.  Healing moves and life gaining attacks work well here.  Erase or 
strong defense shields help keep you up on life.  These work best jumping the 
gun on an opponent before their really quite ready.  Its wise to have a few 
other moves besides blazing attacks.  

Freezing Button Arsenals - The focus is mostly on using skills that freeze an 
opponent�s buttons over and over.(Glacial Wall, Ice Sword)  These arsenals 
are pretty powerful.  There are not too many moves that freeze though.  
Purify(from a teammate) and Necominicon can help negate a lot of the freezing 
that goes on.  

Suicide Arsenals -  There are many powerful skills that cost life to use as 
well as some that only work or are good when your life is low.  These 
arsenals are pretty strong and can sometimes reward you for getting hurt a 
lot.  These skills are often low cost to use too.  The drawback is you can 
get killed in the process.  A well defended opponent can be particularly 
punishing.  And for each time you miss with these attacks your hurting 
yourself.  Its usually a good idea to have some attacks that won�t deal 
damage to you when used.  Skills that erase shields function well here.  
Joke of Anubis can obliterate you if your not careful.  Having something to 
increase your strength like Trance or Tiger�s Strength can make these 
attacks a lot more effective.  Luring your opponent into firing attacks that 
will miss you is a good way of hurting suicide arsenals.

"Rush" Arsenals - I hesitate to call this even an arsenal because no matter 
what arsenal you're using you want to do whatever you're going to do as quickly
as possible.  Perhaps what makes a rush arsenal different is that it focuses
on using more lower cost skills to hit as quickly as possible. While something
like a Vibration or Compressor arsenal takes more time to build up its power.  
"Rush" arsenals are intended to strike an opponent as quickly as possible.  
Usually this will involve using some powerful and cheap cost moves or using 
some cheap cost moves with stat buffing moves like Trance or Tiger's Strength.
Moves like Flame Sword can be a lot more devastating when it only takes 4 hits
to kill someone.  Sky Pursuit/Pursuit and Backdraft Bullet can really stack 
damage on an opponent in tag pretty quickly.  Other moves like Vacuum Slash 
or Psycho Spear can do a lot of damage for little cost.  The Faith School has 
numerous cheap skills that are especially powerful with Trance or Tiger's 
Strength. A perfect example is Fire of Gehenna which is impossible for a 
jumper to dodge without a move.  With Trance it only takes 3 hits to wipe an 
opponent out.  By taking the low cost skill route you can harass an opponent 
continually in the beginning.  Blazing arsenal skills are another good 
rush style type example.  Perhaps the biggest advantage of rush arsenals is 
that when your skills set up right you can really take huge advantage of 
someone who started the match with a not so great hand.  Possibly wiping them 
out before they can even do anything.  Some rush builds can also benefit 
from Mephisto's Pact because it makes it a lot easier to get a certain 
combination of moves together.  Ways of dealing with rushes are often to have
something to fight back with early on or a good defense.  Sometimes just 
lasting long enough early on is enough to turn the tide for you later in the 
match.  Try to keep a level head and focus on avoiding the attacks when you 
can't do anything else.  A Psycho Spear can do a lot of damage but if your 
ready you can usually avoid a psycho spear without issue.  Dodging attacks 
and using stall tactics are crucial.  There are different approaches to how
you can try to "rush" an opponent.  You can be more single minded and count on
just a few sets of moves to take out an opponent or you can mix up the skills
to vary the ways in which you strike an opponent.  Relying on a single set of 
moves is perhaps the quickest way to rush but if it fails you're probably not 
going to win the match.  The right "rush" can be a strange balancing act.  If 
you don't carry much defense you'll leave yourself open but if you focus too 
much on trying to defend yourself against certain things your deck becomes 
less of a rush deck.  That's not to say that it isn't worth it.  Unless you 
want to go absolutely all or nothing with your strategy you will want at least
some things to defend against.  The biggest strength is these arsenals quick 
start ups give you a chance of hitting an opponent when their most vulnerable 
and perhaps less focused than if they had what they needed to work with in 
their hand.  Of course if your early rush fails than you may have a weaker 
strategy to work with.  But if you have a siginificant back up plan does that 
not mean your deck has lost some of its rushing ability for the sake of 
a kind of "balance"?  Thanks to El Davio for mentioning the concept.  

"Single" Death Shot Arsenals - These arsenals involve setting up a powerful 
move or powerful combination of moves in order to nearly guarantee your 
opponent�s death.  Some prime candidates for this are Finisher, Judge of 
Anubis, or 2 Gravity Presses with +2 strength.  The best ones are usually 
designed to have a quick start up time, and have a good way of trapping an 
opponent so that you can easily set up an open shot on them that will take 
them out completely.  There are many ways you can go about trapping an 
opponent or making your moves work.(Including stun moves, environmentals, 
mine traps, berserk for piercing, etc.)  The biggest drawback to these 
arsenals is if you don�t have a back up plan and you mess up in your attempt 
to finish an opponent off.  Even if you do have a back up plan you�ll 
probably have a weaker arsenal compared to a more standard one because you 
dedicated so much space to trying to finish off an opponent in one blow.  
If you go all or nothing with the concept you�ll have a quicker start up time 
but failure to succeed will practically be death for you.  Try to think of 
what might hinder you from pulling off your finishing combination and put 
skills in that deal with those problems.  
The greatest appeal to these arsenals is perhaps the fact that you can get 
beaten up pretty badly and totally clinch the match with a single well timed 
shot.  If you have an opponent who keeps predictably firing a move at you 
over and over, you could even try to just fire your finishing attack at them 
at the same time to take the match.  These arsenals will teach you the lesson 
not to be careless even if you are winning by a lot.  

Annoying Gift Arsenals -  Annoying Gift has been changed in the update to be 
infinite use.  Note that annoying gift does not remove the skills you give to 
someone from your hand, it copies it into an opponent�s hand.(Except for the 
button pressed to use annoying gift)
These aresenals involve you giving an opponent a skill that�s mostly bad for 
them. Sometimes trigger is used to make them use it.  Annoying Gifting a 
Guardian Angel to someone while you have Ki Palm and then hitting them over 
and over so they automatically lose life is among the better uses of these 
kind of arsenal themes. Unfortunately it is possible for opponents to escape 
from the stun.(maybe due to lag...)  Other things like Lingering Flame are 
possible too.  If you jump and fire lingering flame you won't pause if your 
opponent manages to break the stun and hit you, if they are on the ground 
you'll probably be able to stun more because Guardian Angel doesn't halt 
a player who's in the air.  The only truly flaw free version would probably 
involve using Rapid Cannon over and over, which unfortunately requires a lot 
of aura and if you use Optimization there's a good chance you'll be spammed
to death carrying your own Guardian Angel.  (Gifting the Guardian Angel and 
successfully stunning someone continually is kind of similar to the
"single" death shot idea)  An opponent jumper could even take the risk jump 
as you gift them so that they fall down and then use whatever move you were 
going to use on them on you.  
Another popular annoying gift combo is to give an opponent Bravery Decision
and Rebirth and then trigger both buttons so all the persons aura is removed
from their deck and their level is reduced to 0.  To avoid being triggered 
jump when hit by Trigger.  Even if the skill can be done in the air you�ll 
just fall and not do it.  With Annoying Gift You could also try to give them
locked skill button moves like Orb.  You could go as far as to Frostbite the 
one button they still don�t have a lock on.  Then your opponent can�t do 
anything.  In tag you can pick someone up on one of the locked buttons and 
remove the skill from your hand.  There are some other tricky but difficult 
tactics you can use with these sometimes.(Give everyone Blessed Rain over and 
over till they get low on skills and then erase them.  Give them a Judge of 
Anubis and pick up a shield that reverses it back at them.  Try to trigger it 
if your lucky)  

Surprise Arsenals - These are arsenals that in some ways don�t make much 
sense to an opponent.  You could put moves in that are contradictory.  
Like playing with both a Reduce Entropy and Chaos or an Optimization and 
Irregular Rhythm.  Bascially your arsenal appears to do one thing but it 
actually has another thing going on that it can do.  To get around both Chaos 
and Reduce Entropy you can mix skills in that work under a different 
condition.(Recollection is actually a cool way of making skills that cost 
more than 3 work under Reduce Entropy)  Your opponent could run through his 
arsenal picking up skills that cost 2 or less to deal with Reduce Entropy and 
then you could pick it up only to play Chaos and make them have to return to 
their spawn to try to find a new set of skills with cost of 3 or more.  With 
Optimization and Irregular Rhythm you could appear to be relying on 
Optimization to use moves and then later bust out Irregular Rhythm much to 
your opponent�s surprise.  You could even Vicious Balance everyone down to 2 
late in a match even though you appeared to be using an arsenal relying on a 
high level.  Obviously the best strength of this arsenal type is the 
unpredictability it can have.  But since you�re working around 2 different 
approaches it can be difficult to be as focused since some moves you use 
won�t work as well under the different conditions you set.  

Mix Arsenals -  These arsenals take a variety of skills and puts them 
together to try to handle a variety of situations.  Variety can make you 
harder to predict, but sometimes these arsenals lack enough focus to make 
them powerful.  At the same time you may not get the skill you want for a 
certain situation when you need it.  But when you do get them they work 
nicely.  These arsenals are a great way to learn to use moves your less 
familiar with and sometime discover new combos of moves.  

Mobilize/Teleport Arsenals - There are some powerful tricks you can do with 
these arsenals.  Rather than go into great detail of these here, go to the 
"All the other things you didn�t know about in Phantom Dust" section.(21PD)  
Go to the end of it and you�ll see the part about tricks with Teleport, 
Mobilize, and Teleportrap.  

Chill Breeze loop arsenals -  This could be a very powerful and crippling tag 
arsenal but I have not seen it successfully used in practice.  I�ve only had 
a few cracks at the idea and it will take some skill between partners in 
setting it up continually.  The basic idea is to Annoying Gift Chill Breeze 
and Neutralization to a teammate over and over.  Your teammate casts Chill 
Breeze and you shoot Neutralization at him so he becomes unfrozen.  He shoots
you with Neutralization to unfreeze you and you give him Chill Breeze again
all the while your opponents' are still frozen.  The tricky part is using a 
skill to hurt your opponents in the small span of time you have before 
freezing them again and again.  But if you use your head, it has a very fast 
start up time.  Making it hard to stop from starting.  Opponents might be 
able to counter the trick by running into Annoying Gift and getting their own 
Neutralization or shooting the gifter every time he tries to use Annoying 
Gift.  They might be able block the gifting by running in between the 2 players
They can't run into Neutralization though because if you use a lock on shot 
on a teammate it will go right through the opponent.  See this thread for 
more details if your that interested: 

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5693

Read through the thread because it covers both the strengths and weaknesses 
of it.  One other weakness not listed is actually a hung Backdraft.  If the
Chill Breeze users can't get rid of Backdraft they won't be able to freeze 
people over and over for very long.  Some other hung enviros can also trump
the deck so make sure you throw in an anti enviro skill for this.  

Phantom Dust(the skill) arsenals:  See these 2 threads for two basic ideas 
around the skill:

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=3242  

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=4309 - 
This may require a little reading through to totally understand the idea.  

Another idea with Phantom Dust, is you can erase people to death after casting
Phantom Dust several times since it doesn�t recover erased skills.  Its 
inefficient but its one way of doing it.  You might be able to get away with 
tricking some players into thinking you�re a fairly harmless person casting 
Phantom Dust.  These arsenals usually work best on people who don�t think 
your using Phantom Dust for any real purpose.  Holding onto aura particles
before someone is going to cast Phantom Dust is one way of avoiding level loss.
(effective in dealing with the other 2 concepts in the threads)  Taking down 
Optimization will make Phantom Dust harder to do and will stop some of the 
tricks that are involved with it.(especially the 2 threads� concepts)  You�ll 
usually know when someone is going to use this skill since it�s the only skill
that costs so much.(99 or 45 with Optimization)  Use Level Boosts/Berserk and 
then Graceful Woods to get high in aura to use it.  This is a lot easier to 
do with some level berserk or tag team assistance.  Annoying gift can help.
(See the "All the other things you didn�t know about in Phantom Dust" section 
for some more details on the skill).  

Sign of Saints - Thanks to El Davio for bringing this one up.  
Its an arsenal that revolves around on the skill Sign of Saints.  This skill
is at its most powerful when you have no other skills in hand.  Some 
approaches to making it stronger is to use stat boosting moves like Lunar 
Force or Heat.  Keep in mind holding onto Tiger's Strength or Trance will 
lower the quality of Sign of Saints by 2.  Although the skills accuracy is 
pretty good already boosting your homing can make it harder to deal with.  
A big plus to this move is that its a locked skill button so it can't be 
erased.  Since Sign of Saints works best with less skills in hand single use
moves can be convenient to use.  Another possibility is to use Calamity with
Sign Of Saints, you basically can take a shot at erasing all your opponents' 
skills and free up room for Sign of Saints.(Sign of Saints is uneraseable)
Be careful for Heat from the Void and Vacuum Palm because they can deal a lot
of damage to you if your only holding onto Sign of Saints.  If you have more
than one Sign of Saints in your arsenal make sure that you don't start the 
match with 2 in hand.  Having 2 locked buttons can be a real problem. One way
to avoid this problem is to put one Sign of Saints in and put in 1 or 2 
Mephisto's Pacts to pick up the one Sign of Saints in your deck.  Keep in 
mind though that if your one Sign of Saints is erased from your spawn you 
won't be able to get it back even with Mephisto's Pact.  If you play tag
it is possible to pick up a teammate with a locked skill button if your Sign
of Saints isn't considered useful enough in the match.  Since Sign of Saints
is uneraseable it can also be a good move just to harass or distract an
opponent with over and over.  Some useful environmentals can be Berserk and  
Lunar Force.  Traveling Thought is another possibility but keep in mind that
you will also be vulnerable to high homing attacks with just Sign of Saints
in your hand.  

Copy Cat Arsenals -  These arsenals usually revolve around either Thieving
Imp, Learning or Copy.  You basically throw back at your opponent what 
they've done to you or steal their strategy with Thieving Imp.  These arsenals 
can be fun and I did manage to build an ok one yet there are some big 
disadvantages to them.  While Thieving Imp will at least deprive someone 
of their skill, the move you steal could be useless to you.  The Memory of 
Battle you Copied or Stole won't be nearly as useful as the one your 
opponent could be using.  Learning can't learn a move that breaks its shield.
Because of this you're almost better off playing with a strategy of your own.
There are some tricks you can do that are fun though with this deck style.  
You can learn someone's attack and then Erase their attack with another 
shield the next time they fire at you.  If you use Invulnerability you can 
copy an attack move without taking damage.  Since Copy costs 0 it can be a
good surprise effect.  Copy also has no restrictions so you could do Agonies
of Death at full life.  You can also have a teammate fire at you for learning.
note:  You can't delete a currently dead player's capsules with Theiving Imp.
You maybe able to Recall Thieving Imp or you might end up recalling the skill
stolen instead.(I am not sure which one you will get when you play online)
You can relearn thieving imp after stealing a capsule online.  For some 
bizarre reason this does not work offline.(Relearning a Thieving Imp)  Thanks
to Cbreeze420 for bringing this idea up.

"Anti Everything" Arsenals -  Is a term that some people give to arsenals 
designed to try to stop more troubling things an opponent can do, such as hung
environmentals, level erase, stat buffs, defenses, and pesky special moves 
like dash, and of course attacks.  In many ways these kinds of arsenals are 
part of what I've already talked about in dealing with specific issues in the 
game.  However, they try to deal with all the possible issues.  In reality 
they can't truly do that but their designed to possibly be able to stop 
troublesome moves an opponent has. Examples are the use of Turbulence and 
Wind pressure to stop people using things like enviros, erase, and 
special/status skills.  They also carry skills that erase environmentals that 
are out.  They may carry Diabolical Trick as an alternative way to kill 
bothersome players who flee everything or just keep blocking with shields.  
To avoid level erase they will have orb or amulet in them.  They should have 
a mixed arrangement of low cost and high cost moves to avoid trouble with 
Reduce Entropy or Chaos.  (Reduce Entropy is usually more difficult and found)  
They have skills that either reset or reverse status effects on people.  
You may have an environmental put in to stop someone else from putting their
own out.  While these decks can have a nice balanced feel to them, 
depending on how far you go to be "anti everything" your offense can be 
underwhelming or you'll find yourself with skills in situations that don't 
need them.  For example you can have a Turbulence and your opponent 
hasn't picked up anything eraseable by it yet.  It becomes dead weight.  
Another example, you can have an orb in your hand but your opponent hasn't 
used any erase moves yet.  Defensively the player will also use moves that 
try to stop particular weaknesses their characters have.  Reincarnation is 
another popular move in these kinds of decks because of its reuseablity 
against erase shields.  However, its very hard if impossible to be truly anti 
everything.  If the skill you need to stop what your opponent's doing is at 
the bottom of your deck it won't do much good.  However, if your deck is 
designed in general to deal with certain problems like Reduce Entropy you 
won't have as many problems with it.  And sometimes the best way to stop 
someone's strategy is to beat him to it with your own strategy rather 
than try to have something to stop every possibility.  With that being said
there's still a lot of good in putting at least some of the things mentioned 
in "anti everything" decks into other decks.  Thanks to Cbreeze420 for 
bringing this idea up.

Theme Arsenals -  A lot of arsenals are listed but there are many other 
possibilities which can be based around certain themes.  Skills that use
mixed speed attacks, use only crawlers, only blades, rain etc. etc.  Try to 
put moves together that compliment each other.  Ex.  Joke of Anubis with moves
that keep your life higher than your opponent. The combos sections and 
"All the other things you didn�t know about in Phantom Dust" sections have 
some more ideas and details for arsenal concepts.  


20PD Combos section - Many skills are more effective when used together. While
this section was originally going to cover ways of just stunning someone and 
following up with attacks it has gone on to try to connect ways in which 
skills interact well with each other.  Many stun combos will not work if a 
player jumps in the air to cancel the stun effect. This list often tries to 
be general in saying what a combo is if there are many skills that can do the 
same thing.  Some mixtures of skills will give better results than others.  

Combo types

Dragon Slayer +  any combination of moves that can hit in time(i.e. Lack, 
Fire Of Gehenna)

Shield Breaker + any move that can hit in time(i.e. Flame Sword, Photon Burst)

Move that knocks someone down(Psycho Spear) + any move that hits someone while
their down(Gravity Press, Pursuit, Backdraft Bullet etc.)  Keep in mind
that being knocked down includes falling from the sky so you can shoot someone
with backdraft bullet after they fly in the sky from twister, or fall from 
the sky from a move like Judgment.  Thanks to Locke for mentioning this.

stat buffs like Tiger's Strength + Multiple Hit moves 
like Ricochet Laser or Double Lasers - each bullet created by these attacks 
get's +x damage.  I.e. each Tiger's Strengthed Ricochet Laser does 4 per hit.
Thanks to GaiaProton for this listing.

Irregular Rhythm + Psycho Kinesis maybe Power -  If you play Irregular Rhythm
down Psycho Kinesis actually will do more damage with the objects it throws.
Its strange but it works.  I was told Power also works but the few tests I did
it didn't seem to work like Psycho Kinesis did, so see for yourself with that.
Thanks to GaiaProton for this find.  

Any Erase skill that effects someone and results in a stun effect + a move 
quick enough to follow up and hit.

Any Status or Special Skill that has an automatic stun effect(Dazzle, Level 
Berserk)+ a move quick enough to follow up.  

Moves which are intended to stun or paralyze(Still Moment, Paralyze) + a move 
that can follow up and hit in time.  

Greedy Spirit + Any combination of moves that can connect in time.  
(May not work if person has 0 aura.)

Decoy + Purify or Neutralization - Give them the Decoy effect and then Purify 
or Neutralize them for a stun effect.  

Slow moving attack + Faster moving attack - to catch an opponent off guard 
or create hard to dodge situations.  Sometimes the first attack can be 
blocked or dodged but the second is impossible to block with slow recovery 
time shields.  

Attacks that erase(opponent must have something that can be erased when hit 
to be stunned, like level, shields, or an attack)
i.e. Storm Blade  + another move that can follow up in time.
(even storm blade again)

Attack that staggers an opponent and is followed up by another attack quick 
enough.(there is usually ways to dodge the second move so its not a combo in 
the truest sense but it can often be successful if one attack connects and the 
other follows.  Sometimes the placement of your opponent puts them in a hard 
to defend situation)  An example is Laser Blade + Photon Burst.  

Using 2 Swords with one that swings to the right and one to the left.(makes it 
harder to tell which way for someone to dodge)  
example:  Flame Sword + Blazing Sword.

use a Hole attack + Digestion get free life and protection.
(i.e. Earthquake + Digestion)  Combine this 
with -1 attack(Holy Ray can do this) and you can do it over and over.

Hole Move and Absorb Energy(get extra aura.  With Optimization + Earthquake + 
Absorb Energy you can continue to cast Earth Quake over and over much more)  
Blocking Earthquake recovers the aura spent.  

Slow moving attack or Rain + Frighten (stuns an opponent to keep them in place.
You can jump in the air to negate Frightens effect)

Dance of Death and 3 Swift Blows = 21 Damage

Dance of Death 2 Swift Blows + Pursuit/Sky Pursuit, follow up  with 
Pursuit/Sky Pursuit on downed opponent= 20 Damage

Dance of Death, 2 Swift Blows + Splashdown +1 extra attack power = 20 damage

Graceful Woods + Finisher (be able to do finisher quickly. Some stun moves 
like pin down or entangle, give you enough time to cast graceful woods and 
follow up with Finisher)

Reduce Entropy floated + Shatter + Eliminate (stops all decks with no skills 
less than 2 aura)

Steal Power + Finisher(potentially can take someone's aura and have enough to 
finish them while their stunned)

For Tag, Annoying Gift + Bravery Decision + Rebirth to an opponent.  Have 
teammate use Trigger on both those buttons and opponent will have all aura 
removed from their deck and their hand.

Recall +  Relearn + Recollection quickest way to use same single use attacks 
over and over.  

Recall + Relearn = Ways of using a certain skill over and over.
(Violent Change)

Expensive attack + Recollection - A way of tricking someone into thinking you 
couldn�t cast a move again.(i.e. Person who comes in close after you just used 
Photon Burst assuming they won�t have to deal with it when you only have 2 
aura)

Fatigue with 0 cost or charge up attacks that do X damage with a strength 
booster.  Can overwhelm an opponent if you keep firing at them to force them 
to move.  

Bravery Decision and moves that require 7 or less skills left in your arsenal 
to use.

Mobilize + Mine at your start point.  - Chance to hit all opponents with a 
mine.  If you use Mobilize at the edge off a platform you ou can avoid being 
teleported if the move causes you to step of the ledge.

Mobilize + Auto Shield + Mine at your the spot of Mobilization grants you 
protection from your mine and a chance to follow up.  Something like 
Anti Gravity trap can stun your opponent long enough to follow up with a move 
while your shield protected you from the mine.(Something like Judge of Anubis 
can work great sometimes on the stunned opponent.)  Protecting Air seems
to be able to work with other mine stun effects in time because it doesn't 
halt your actions like other ones.  Note:  Sometimes stun mines knock people 
over.  Some mines may run into less problems than others.  Vapor Cloud is 
another stun possibility but it has given me more problems when I've tried.

Tag Combo - Mobilize + well timed Dance of Death  or Disentegrate or Calamity.
Can teleport everyone over into a Dance of Death or under a Disentegrate.
(see extra details section to understand why these work as combos.)

Forest Sanctuary + Glacial Wall and other low defense shields = cheap hard 
to break shields with good effects.

Athena's Command + Moves that lower a persons attack power - Will greatly 
reduce the amount of attacks they can use on you and will make them much 
easier to erase.  

Memory Lapse floated + Recall + Locked Skills + Skills that retain themselves.
(Photon Barrier, Reincarnation) -  All let you continue to use skills while 
your opponent runs out of them.  

Floated Environmental + Orb - Very hard to erase environmental.  Memory Lapse 
and Orb are the roughest to erase.  

Chill Breeze + Neutralization in tag + Annoying Gift - you can keep repeating 
the freeze over and over.  A team mate casts Chill Breeze, as its cast you 
shoot neutralization.  He can now do stuff while everyone else is frozen.  He 
could neutralize you and if you have annoying gift you can start the chain all
over again.  Finding another skill to give in combination to be useful is more
challenging.  Violent Change with Recall could work well as could Agonies of 
Death.(the Violent Change scheme requires Optimization)

Twist Laser + Slide Laser  - Lasers that hit from the left and right.  

Particle Convert + Over Heat 

Particle Convert +  Evaporate 

Particle Convert  + Meltdown

Change the World + Violent Change

Shatter + Eliminate = Can pop any opponent capsule when used together.

Mine with effect that stuns + and move quick enough to follow up.

Fast Bomb + Shelter Shields or Dash - makes it easy to avoid the explosion 
for jumpers.

Vicious Balance + Tag Teammate at 0 aura - knocks everyone down to 0 aura.

Vicious Balance and moves that lose aura when you use them.
(allows you to go higher than 2 aura while still having a powerful Vicious 
Balance)

Call + Retreat - Lets you teleport around the level wherever you place each 
capsule.

Call + High Speeds - You can run from your opponent and keep picking up more
things in your deck to help you.  

Call + Judgment on Sein high tower ledge - You can pick up your capsules
and keep causing an opponent to fall out of the sky who doesn't have Orb or
Amulet.  Parabolas will and arc moves maybe the only moves that can possibly 
hit you from there.  You can also do this on Lane but with less successful 
results.  

Chaos and Erase skills guarantees useable ones will work.  

Vicious Balance cast right as Chaos is put out(guarantees it will work)This 
can also be done to make any other low cost erase moves work even if opponent
has orb or amulet.

Chill Breeze + Well timed Environmental Erase skill by a teammate.  -  
Can erase any Environmental irregardless of Orb or Amulet.  

Crystallization + Piece Skills

Bundled Blaster + Blaster Skills 

Bundled Laser + Laser Skills 

Calamity and Sign of Saints - Power up Sign of Saints and attempt to erase 
others' moves.  

Annoying Gift + Ki Palm + Guardian Angel - Give the skills to an opponent and 
while their stunned, hit them with Ki Palm over and over.  
There are other alternatives like Lingering flame.  This trick maybe escapable
so if you can possibly get rid of your own Guardian Angel make sure to.
Rapid Cannon over and over with enough aura will most likely guarantee a kill
on your Annoying Gifted opponent.(Rapid Cannon version takes a lot of aura to
do though)

Trigger a projectile button on opponent + Reverse or Reflect move back at them.
Glacial Wall and Paralyze Barrier or erase shields are other possibilities. 

Trigger a move they wouldn't want to use.  Can give them a move they don't 
want to use by annoying gift and then picking up trigger.  i.e. Bravery 
Decision and Rebirth.

Annoying Gift + Fast bomb.  Pick up  a trigger and try to make them blow 
themselves up.( totally gimmicky)

Remote Mine and other mine.  Can set off a chain of explosions

Annoying Gift + lock button skills + Frostbite non given button- Can make a 
player have less options.  Its possible to annoying gift 3 orbs and then 
Frostibite your opponents other button basically making them useless.

Optimization and 1 cost skills now cost 0.  

Optimization + Angel's Breath and a stat on an opponent equals infinite 
stunning.(if they don�t get knocked down by getting pushed off a ledge or 
jumping when first hit.  You can actually drag someone back your spawn 
point doing this if you want)  Great if you want a teammate to erase their 
capsules or if you want to pick up Finisher and use it on them.  You may run 
out of time though before dragging your opponent to your spawn if their not 
close enough.

Positive Stat on Opponent + Amaros - To make their stats bad.  Usually not 
efficient to set up a positive stat to amaros on an opponent.

Entangle + Diabolical Trick.  If your opponent is in the right range you can 
pull this off over and over provided you have the aura.  (stun them, pop a 
capsule while their still stunned, stun them again while they can�t do 
anything, pop another capsule.  Optimization and a ton of aura is necessary)

Hit All skill that would stun an affected opponent + and an attack timed 
right to hit opponent as they get stunned by the all hit skill.

Heat From the Void or Vacuum Palm + Skills that erase skills an opponent has 
on them.

Refresh vs.  Chill Breeze. Venom Drip, or Still Moment.  If you cast Refresh 
as these moves are about to take effect you can negate them from happening to 
you.

Fairy Ring + Fatique or Desertification or Irregular Rhythm = Bring everyone 
down to 0 aura and make it harder for them to use aura.

Stagnant Air stops orb

Scientism stops amulet.

Attack boosting moves will make X damage charge moves like Ki Cannon
and Gugnir do damage and be used over and over.  If you have something like 
+2 attack moves, like Heat from the Void will do damage even if your opponent
has 4 skills in his hand.  Aura Leak will do 2 damage as well even if your 
opponent has 0 aura.

Stat Buff an opponent or teammate and use Doppleganger to copy their stats.  
If done to an opponent you can follow up with Amaros Watch or Angel's 
Breath after you copy their attributes.

Freeze shot + Stat buffs makes it do damage.(it�s a bug of sorts)

Play Dead + Lightning Speed avoids the -5 speed associated with play dead.  

Place of Invisibility + All hit Hole attacks.  Can cause one opponent that 
gets hit to be an easy target.  All hit Hole attacks still target invisible 
opponents.

Place of Invisibilty as an attack is about to hit an opponent makes everyone 
Invisible except the hit opponent.  

Forest Sanctuary and Friendship makes less attacks useable by an opponent.  

Forest Sanctuary +  Freeze shot + Stat Buffs - Freeze shot bypasses the 
restrictions of Forest Sanctuary.  Its the only skill that can go above +3 
damage when Forest Sanctuary is out..  

Charge + Capsule Erasers - move around the level erasing people's stuff.

Charge + Call - Good way of staying on top of someone�s spawn and getting
your own skills still.

Two teammates level batoning each other equals an infinite chain of 
aura increase.

Annoying Gift a teammate over and over to use one use moves over and over.
(including aura particles if needed)

Levitate/ Sky walk + Projectiles - can make it harder for opponents to block 
certain attacks.

Skywalk + Increased Gravity - Get around quickly while your opponents have 
reduced speeds.  

Poison + Backdraft = Two damage per button press.

Backdraft + Orb on opponent + Purify - Can make person take 1 damage for 
using orb over and over.(you take 1 from Purify)

Berserk + attacks that have an effect when they hit an opponent.  
Lightning Sword that pierces a shield will erase a shield opponent has.  
Ice Sword that pierces a shield will freeze their buttons.  Crawing Bullet or
Leg Throw that pierces will knock down an opponent.

Berserk + Powerful attacks like Finisher or Judge of Anubis.

Irregular Rhythm + Cheap costing moves or X damage charge moves when you have
attack increased.  i.e. Ki Cannon and Tiger's Strength.

Optimization and Charge up attacks.  - You can do double the amount of damage.
If you have 10 aura with Optimization down you can do 20 damage instead of 10.

Bloody Ritual + Fusion + an attack after fusing.(attack is optional)  

Soul Cage + Erasing an opponent's skills. - Makes them take damage as they 
pick up more stuff.

Athena's Command + Freeze Shot = Freeze shot bypasses the rules of damage.  

Fast Bomb and  -2 attack power= a harder to hit opponent that can knock 
himself down for little cost.  

Quantum Amp + Boost Mine + Level Berserk + Psycho Burst or other attacks 
that rely on a person's Level or aura to deal damage.  

Memory of Battle and an arsenal that uses a lot of attack skills.

Compressor and an arsenal that uses a lot of defense skills.

Rebirth and 0 cost arsenals or arsenals that use little aura.

Skills that do damage to yourself + skills that work only if you have 7 
or less life.

Invulnerability or Void + Copy - you can be hit by skills and take no damage 
from the skill but still Copy it with Copy and use it.  

Necronomicon + Invulnerability or Void - You can avoid the add effects from
hurting you in attacks, so you want get frozen or have a move erased from
Ice Sword or Storm Blade.  

Skills that normally do 0 damage + stat buffs.

Auto Capture Skills + Memory of Battle.  Use auto capture skills to raise 
the strength of Memory of Battle and continue to pick up more skills quickly.
Auto capture can pick up skills from your arsenal even when none are at your
spawn.

Skills that lower your level( like Mist Blade, Downcast) + skills that 
require you to have 2 or less Level to use(Swift Punch)


Lunar Force down + Martial Arts Scroll + Recollected Muramasa Blade + 
Sky Pursuit 
= 21 damage combo for 6.  There are many better combos out there but hey I 
was just trying to make Martial Arts Scroll useful.  Its also a good example 
of thinking about how to manipulate numbers to get certain results.  Trance 
and Stimulate or two heats could be more effective though.

Person with a single school arsenal with very high aura regen + Crush - 
Can keep opponent�s with lower aura Regen + Orb from getting above 2 aura.  

Timer Mine + Mobilize + Dance of Death combo - This one's stupid but may 
finally provide a decent use of Timer Mine.  Place the Timer Mine cast 
Mobilize by it so you blow yourself up and don't get teleported into your 
partner's Dance of Death or whatever move you want to nail other opponents 
with.  The Timer Mine is one alternative to using auto shields or Mobilizing
off a ledge.  If you can do this trick with Remote Mine than use that instead
but I haven't tested it.  

21PD  All the other things you didn�t know about in Phantom Dust.  

This is just a list of things that highlights mistranslations of skills, 
things you might not know about skills, or things that don�t really make much 
sense but work in the game. 

Necrominicon - There has been much confusion about this skill.  Forget the 
translation.  What the skill actually does is it only takes away the add 
effect on ATTACK skills.(red moves)  You�ll stop attack skills from having 
piercing, erase effects, or freeze effects, and possibly auto capture effects
and life gaining effects when this is down.  This can also stop Reincarnation 
and Arrow of Artemis from recovering itself.  

Freeze Shot - If you boost your strength up this skill will do damage even 
though it is not an Attack skill.(red)  Its due to an oversight in programming.
Because of this, the skill can be a pretty good way of dealing with or 
overwhelming erase shields.    

Manual Aim Projectiles go Through Course shields - Manually aimed projectiles 
go through course shields.  If the shield is Reverse you won�t get hit by the 
Reversed projectile unless you really try to line yourself up with it.  Same 
applies with shields that Reflect.(manual shots reflected won�t hit you)  

Dazzle - If you are hit by this skill you can still see what buttons do what.
(so you don�t have to guess what�s been scrambled to what)  If you press in 
the direction of your control pad(not the analog) you can see what buttons do 
what. Like if you press to the left you�ll see what skill the X button will 
perform if you hit it.(while you still are dazzled)  It changes everytime 
your dazzled though.  

Mephisto�s Pact - This skill is cooler than its description.  When you use it
a list of the skills that are left in your arsenal pops up, pick whichever 
one you want and you immediately get it.  It will not have the 3 capsules 
that are at your spawn or are about to spawn in that list.  If your are hit 
you automatically pick the last skill you highlighted.  

Bravery Decision - Will not remove the aura from your arsenal that are at 
your spawn point or are about to be spawned.  

Locked Skills - In tag team you can resurrect someone with one of the locked 
skill buttons and lose the skill at the same time.  Very helpful for getting 
rid of things like annoying gifted Orbs or getting rid of a locked skill you 
don�t need.  

Downed Opponents -  A downed opponent is really anyone who has been hit by a 
skill in a way that will send them falling to the ground.  You can hit an 
opponent with something like Backdraft Bullet as their falling from the sky 
before they actually reach the ground.  I.e. Twister and Backdraft Bullet 
them in the sky.  Judgmenting someone out of the sky and hitting them with
Backdraft Bullet will probably also work.

Paralyze - If you are hit by a skill that has a paralyze effect,(Paralyze, 
Still Moment, Paralyze Barrier) you can still use skills, jump or cartwheel a 
little if you just begin to stand still.  As long as you don�t move on the 
analog pad you can still perform any other action.  This is useful as a way of
defending yourself or still attacking someone.  Melee attacks won�t move far 
when paralyzed though.  

Memory Lapse + Photon Barrier + Reincarnation + Locked Skills -  All skills 
become single use with Memory Lapse down.  Photon Barrier and Reincarnation 
will retain themselves if you have 2 more aura to pay to keep themselves.  
Any skill that is locked to a button will also stay in your hand.  An Orb, 
with a hung Memory Lapse can be very hard to stop.  Freezing someone�s 
buttons so orb doesn�t work and then following up with an anti enviro skill 
is your best bet in stopping this combo aside from waiting for an opponent to 
get below 2 aura.  

Reincarnation vs. Erase Shields - It will cost you a total of 6 aura to 
retain Reincarnation if its been blocked by an erase shield.  (3 if 
Optimization is down, 12 if Irregular Rhythm is down.)

Gravity Press + Geyser Impact - Can hurt people while someone is standing in 
the hole.(not downed)  +2 Strength and killing someone with 2 Gravity 
Presses in a row is possible.  (one while they're standing and one while 
they're knocked down)

Erasing Reincarnation, Photon Barrier and Arrow of Artemis - These skills 
can actually be erased if your hit by an erase move that erases a skill and 
you can�t pay the amount it costs to retain it.  If you do have the amount to 
pay, these moves can help protect your other attacks from erase skills like 
Disremember and Tiger Prevails, because they often get targeted before other 
attacks/skills.  

Optimization - This skill will halve the cost of using moves in anyway.  
Skills like Photon barrier and Reincarnation will only cost 1 to retain.  
Some skills become 0 to use and skills that cost +1 more to use with each use 
can be used a lot more with it down.  On the other hand all skills with 
Irregular Rhythm will cost more to use in every way.(aside from 0 cost skills)
Moves that charge up attacks can do up to double damage with Optimization 
down.(10 aura charged Ki Palm does 20 damage with Optimization down.  Only 5 
with Irregular Rhythm Down)  

Levitation, Skywalk, Demon�s Wing -  You can make your character immediately 
stop floating in the air if you press the same button that activated the skill.
These skills override any loss of speed while your in the air traveling with 
them.  They travel a bit faster than normal speed when your in the air.  
 
Call -  Just as you can float environmentals you can also float your capsules.
The main reason you�d do this is to stop someone from erasing a capsule with 
something like Diabolical Trick.

Retreat + Call - Retreat teleports you to one of the random capsules on the 
field.  If you use Call and spread out your capsules you can teleport all 
over the place in the level.(Even into the air if you hang a capsule)

Orb/Amulet -  Does not protect against erase skills of yours that hit all 
automatically.  They will protect against reflected Erase moves or your own 
erase hole moves.  These will even protect your Environmental that is out 
from being erased by someone else�s skill as long as you can pay the amount 
to use them each time someone tries to erase it.  Judgement is your best anti 
environmental for getting past orb/amulet.  You can force people to use Orb 
or Amulet with an erase move like Neutralization or Crush over and over, even 
if there�s no stat or skill to erase. This is a good way of keeping an 
opponents aura low.  Attack skills that erase something on an opponent
(Dragon Punch, Storm Blade, Lightning Sword) will erase your skills even if 
you do have Orb or Amulet.  

***Relearn + Thieving Imp - Special Thanks to Gaignun for this:
You CAN relearn Thieving Imp with Relearn when you play online.  It doesn't 
work offline for some reason.  Recall may also recall Thieving Imp online or 
it might Recall the skill stolen instead.  


Relearn and Learning  - Relearn will Relearn Learning.  

Recall - This skill has had some oddities.  You can�t recall skills that were 
erased from your spawn point, only skills that you have actually picked up 
and have left your hand.  Because of this Violent Change decks with Recall can
sometimes be better off erasing their aura particles later than picking them
up reducing the chance that you'll recall aura particles and instead get 
something more useful faster.  You can recall skills you�ve been annoying 
gifted as well as ones you stole or learned,(via Thieving Imp and Learning).  
Offline I have always recalled the attack I�ve stolen but it may work 
different online for some bizarre reason.  With Learning and Recall I 
sometimes got the shield again and I sometimes got the skill I learned.  
People have said that they have sometimes gone over their 30 skill limit.
(by doing things like stealing capsules or maybe even picking up dead players)
It seems like most of the time though you aren�t going to reach above 29 
skills left in an arsenal if you even get that high.  If you use Bravery 
Decision all the aura that is still left in your arsenal can�t be Recalled.
Whatever didn�t get removed by a Bravery Decision can still be recalled.  

Phantom Dust(the skill) -  This skill doesn�t reset the game like most people 
assume.  It brings players back to their max life, sets everyone�s level/aura 
to 0, and Recalls all skills that have not been erased at a spawn point.  If 
you are playing tag and were brought back to life once, you will only be 
brought back up to 10 life when this move is used.  If you were dead while 
this skill was used you are not affected by any of Phantom Dust�s effects.  
Whatever environmental was left out while this skill was used remains out.  
The Phantom Dust skill that you used does not get reshuffled back in your 
arsenal unless you use another Phantom Dust or Relearn or Recall it.  There 
are some weird things that could happen in recalling with Annoying Gift, 
Learning, or Thieving Imp but I don�t care to figure it out.(you�d only get 
certain skills or extra ones)  Time does not get reset in the match with this 
skill either.  

Unison - Is an environmental that has no effect.  It basically prevents 
anyone else from putting their own environmentals out.  The screen flashes 
for a brief second when its used.  It has no description at the bottom like 
most environmentals, the screen flash is your only indication.

Ricochet Laser - This skill can go through some of the walls and floors at 
some levels.(Especially Panorama)

Learning - Learning can learn any projectile that doesn�t penetrate defenses.
(including non attacks)  Learning can't learn moves that break the shield.

Frighten - You can avoid the stun effect of frighten by jumping in the air as 
its used.  You�ll fall down when you jump.  

Sensor Mines + Tiger�s Strength/Trance - These mines will get +2 attack with 
these skills or with other stat buffers according to when you planted the 
mine even if you lose that strength later and the mine hasn�t been detonated.
So if you did it with +2 attack a sensor mine will do 5 damage.  Martials Arts 
scroll is the only skill that doesn�t work this way, the second your stats go 
away with this move, it resets back to 3 damage.  

Manual Aim and X damage attacks relying on an opponent.  -  Some attacks in 
this game do X damage to an opponent depending on something about the opponent.
Some examples are do X damage according to how much aura they have,(Aura Leak)
or how much more life they have than you.(Judge of Anubis)  If you manually 
use attacks like this that do X damage it will do 0 damage + whatever extra 
strength you have.  Example :  Fire Heat from the Void manually at someone 
with no buttons assigned and it will do 0 damage.(when it would do 8 locked on)
Use tiger�s strength and manually aim and you�ll only do 2 damage with no lock
on.(when it would do 10 with lock on)  This rule does not apply to Finisher, 
Compressor, Crystallization, Memory of Battle and X skills you charge up to 
damage with.(Ki Palm, Gugnir etc.)  Only skills that rely on something about 
your opponent.  

Amaros Watch/Angel�s Breath/Amaros - These skills have a stun effect on people
even if you just have an environmental out that effects their stats in any way.
It won�t reverse the effect of something like Lunar Force on them but it still
causes them to be stunned by these moves.

Mind Reading, Void, Cloaking Moves, Decoy - Can be canceled out by skills 
like purify or neutralization.   

All hit skills vs. Cloaking moves - Anyone invisible will be revealed if an 
automatic Hit All move was done.  Amulet and Orb will only cancel out Hit All 
erase moves.

Soul Cage- You can pick up Soul Cage environmental without taking damage.(even 
though it says any capsule captured causes one damage)

Fusion + Backdraft/Poison - If you and an opponent are both at one and you 
fuse with them while poisoned or with Backdraft down, you will both die.(with 
you dying first for the loss)  Really only useful in tag.

Frostbite and a Tag Teammate - This one was contributed by Locke.  When an 
opponent is trying to pick up their tag teammate, if you frostbite the button
that is the dead tag teammate he'll be stuck in the opponent's hand till he 
can unfreeze himself.  Sounds really hard to do but funny.  

Psycho Kinesis/Power - You can be pretty far away from some of the debris you 
can throw.  Like you can be on the second floor of Palace and throw a table 
that is on the 1st floor at someone if your close enough.  These skills are 
useless on Lane levels and Sein.

Pursuit/Sky Pursuit and Backdraft Bullet can break shields and be erased by 
them-  Anyone who blocks these moves can have their shields broken if the 
total strength is greater than the shield.  You won�t be able to hurt anyone 
with these but you could break a shield with them.  These attacks can also be 
erased by erase shields so don�t be careless about using them.  
Pursuit advice:  Sometimes standing still when you activate this skill 
makes it more accurate.  If you push in a direction while using this you 
can effect how it aims(often going past or away from your opponent and 
missing)  Another tactic that might work is to stand still turn your lock on 
off and then turn it right back on and then pursuit.

Pursuit as a dodge -  If you are in close range you can use Pursuit to move 
quickly around an opponent or to escape an attack.  Depending on what 
direction you point in you will go flying forward in a different direction. 
Experiment with the skill to see how it works.  Just be careful because 
people can block the move and erase it or do something like Freeze your 
buttons with a Glacial Wall.

Annoying Gift - This is an infinite use skill in the update.  When you give 
skills to someone you don�t lose the ones you have.  Its more like you copy 
your skills over to someone�s buttons.  The Annoying Gift you use doesn�t get
given to an opponent.  You can�t overwrite someone�s button that has a locked 
skill on it.

Chaos or Reduce Entropy + Landmines -  If you plant a landmine that explodes
if someone walks in its range like Sensor Mine before Chaos is played.  
The mine you planted will still explode even if Chaos is down.  A Freeze Gas 
planted before Reduce Entropy is put down can still explode.  You just can�t 
plant those mines if the Environmentals were already down.

Deleting/Converting Capsules - You can't effect the capsules of someone who 
is currently dead.  

Learning - Learning can not learn a skill if the skill breaks the shield.  

Mobilize off a ledge - If you cast Mobilize at a ledge so that you fall off it
at the end of its animation you will not get teleported by it.  Any character 
in the air when this takes effect does not get teleported and will fall from 
the sky.  Mobilize brings everyone caught in it to the same spot as you start 
at the beginning of the game.  Another way of figuring out this location is to
jump in a pit to get returned to your start point.(There�s also Return and 
Retreat) Teleport and Teleportrap will also send someone to your start point.
This is useful for figuring out where to set up a landmine for everyone to be 
Mobilized over.  You could also try to Gravity Press everyone that was 
Mobilized two times with +2 strength to try to kill all your opponents in two 
blows.( you would have to mobilize off a ledge to pull this off) Target a 
person with at least 11 life if there is anyone above 10 life when you use 
Gravity Press(otherwise your lock on gets turned off and you might not be
able use the 2nd Gravity Press in time on the rest of the group.)  Another 
popular tactic is to Mobilize people onto a landmine planted at your start 
point.(usually Sensor Mine)  
If you use a mine that stuns someone like Vapor Cloud or Anti Gravity Trap, if
you get teleported with an auto shield, you�ll have enough time to follow up 
with an attack while their still stunned.  Judge of Anubis is one good idea.
Sometimes people get knocked to the ground instead of getting stunned by the
mines.  It seems Vapor Cloud has been less reliable for me in actually stunning
someone than Anit Gravity Trap.  Others like Freeze Mine can be successful too,
but they give you less time and to truly stun someone you'll have to use 
Protecting Air since it has no recovery delay.  Still the other auto shields 
can be pretty effective in these situations too but its actually possible to 
escape from attacks when the mine used isn't one with a long enough stun time.
(Anti Gravity Trap and Vapor Cloud have good stun times.  There might
be some others too)

Mobilize Teleportrap and Teleportation carry over effect- These moves can be 
cancelled out if you jump into them.  However, if you start up a projectile or
melee move as you are hit by these moves your attack will carry over to where 
you�ve been teleported.  This can lead to some useful tricks especially with 
Mobilize.  Particularly in tag team you could have a partner cast Mobilize 
and if you time your 21 damage Dance of Death to carry over with Mobilize you 
have a good chance of knocking out your 2 opponents out if they get caught in 
Mobilize.(you do the move you want to carry over right when Mobilize is about
to take effect)  Sometimes it doesn�t line everyone up right but if you succeed
in hitting them nothing but an auto shield or Void will protect from this 
combo.  If two people carry their own attacks over one might counter the other
or both will hit at the same time.  I�ve never seen it happen so I don�t know 
how it would work out. 
Certain spawn points seem to work better than others for lining up people with
Dance of Death or other attacks via Mobilize.(Highway's had some particularly
bad results at some of the spawns)
This trick can be especially effective against non jumping opponents.(though
many still don�t dodge it as jumpers)  Some other skills you can carry over 
for nice effects are Calamity and Disentegrate.  (carry amulet/ orb)  
The easiest skill to see how this trick works with is to have one person 
charge up Ki Palm the whole time while someone Mobilizes.  This way you don�t 
have to time carrying over your move, the charged Ki Palm will release 
automatically when your teleported.  Any attacks that get carried over are 
considered manual aim, so any X moves that rely on a stat about your opponent 
will do 0 + your strength�s damage.(This stops someone from Psycho Bursting 
Mobilized opponents for any significant damage.  This effect only applies to 
Mobilize and not to Teleport or  Teleportrap)
I am pretty sure you can�t carry shields over when Mobilize activates.(auto 
ones still work)  Aside from jumping, carrying over your own attack seems 
like the best measure in dealing with Mobilize.(if you have no auto shield or
Void)  If you are far from your opponents they sometimes will not hear the 
sound of this skill making it hard for them to know to jump out of it.  Some 
attacks like Photon Burst don�t seem like they can be carried over.  
Experiment to find out what does and doesn�t work.(projectiles do work but 
probably won�t hit)

Teleportrap and Teleportation moves have more limited uses in carry over 
effects.(some are pretty difficult too)  If you time shooting your attack 
right as your teleported, provided you still reasonably line up with the 
person you targeted, the projectile will follow the opponent.  This could 
work as a way of throwing off an opponent in blocking or even creating 
surprise attacks.  You could theoretically place a teleportrap and fire off 
Giga Ruin as you get teleported by teleportrap�s explosion and then the 
projectile will carry with you and change its course to still hit an 
opponent, if your are reasonably lined up still. (It won�t do 360�s to hit 
an opponent)  The better homing skills like Giga Ruin and Agonies of Death 
have the best chances of succeeding.  

For Teleport you could try to draw a person to an area sort of by your spawn
and fire Teleport at a teammate who�s targeting your opponent and they could 
appear behind the opponent and nail them.(its got to be really hard to pull 
off)  

If you play a cartwheeler you can also try to carry over an attack as a last 
ditch effort against someone who wants to teleport you over.  If their 
waiting right where your attack teleports to they�ll be hit before they can 
even try something like a Muramasa Blade or Photon Burst.  

22PD Making the most of a situation 

Sometimes you can get yourself into bad situations in this game.  The better 
players in this game sometimes figure out ways of winning despite impossible 
seeming odds.  An example is your opponent just dragon slayered your only 
shield and nailed you with Fire of Gehenna.  There�s no place to run and your 
playing a jumper character that can�t dodge the move.  Instead of running away
its possible to run up to a player into close range.(if they don�t keep their 
distance enough)  Sometimes you can run through the next Fire of Gehenna they
have for you while still invincible.  You somehow managed to get past his 
latest attack and are in close range and now able to dodge the Fire of Gehenna
by moving to the side.  You know that if you somehow get out of close range 
your screwed.  You only have 3 health so there�s no jumping into a pit to get 
to your spawn point.  You only have a Flame Sword.  You could just give up 
the match or you could stick close to your opponent the whole match no matter 
what.  Your basically at your opponent�s whim right now.  However, doing 
anything else besides staying close and trying to get a Sword in on your 
opponent is the only thing you can manage.  Sometimes you have to be willing to
get yourself into a bad situation where your opponent can practically go 
through their entire deck to kill you.  But really it�s the only way to 
survive sometimes. Doing this can pay off though and sometimes you can win that
match with just a Flame Sword.  Another possibility when you get into bad 
situations is to lead an opponent far from your spawn point.  Let them chase 
you far from your spawn.  
Jump off a ledge and take 3 damage to return to your spawn point.  This gives 
you time to get something that might help and will slow your opponent down 
from coming after you.  I remember one match where I Lacked someone out of 
all their moves and I had Heat from the Void.  He was a jumper I thought that
this was a sure sign the match was mine.  I nailed him once with it and then 
he got close enough to me to dodge it the rest of the time. He then led me 
far from his spawn point while dodging it in close range he jumped off a 
cliff once I couldn�t use the move again. He got back to his spawn and he 
managed to get enough things to eventually win the match.  
Look at your environment in this game, just because you lost your shield 
doesn�t mean a wall won�t make a fine shield to get someone to waste their 
aura and moves on.  

23PD  Playing people with bad connections.  Ways to take advantage of it.  
It is unfortunate that sometimes you and an opponent simply do not connect 
well and a player can get away with dodging a lot more things than they 
normally would if there wasn�t lag.  While I�d recommend not playing people 
you have bad connections with I might as well say something�s about dealing 
with it.  Many close range attacks are a lot more easily dodged in laggy 
situations and I recommend that you use attacks with good accuracy especially 
in these situations.  Want to take advantage of lag even more you could use 
skills that lower people�s homing.  Because of the poor hit detection in 
laggy situations you might as well use erase, status, and special skills 
which usually have the best chance of hitting.  The best arsenals for these 
situations may be ones oriented around erasing people to death.  You may 
struggle to hit someone with attacks who would normally be easy to hit but 
there�s no way your opponent is going to dodge their capsules being erased.  
Plus you can take advantage of avoiding their attacks due to the lag.    

24PD  Other places to learn/talk/compete in Phantom Dust
There are a few sites out there that have a following for Phantom Dust.  Here 
is a list of some sites and bulletin boards where you can find other players 
or discuss and learn new strategies.  These forums also have sections for 
people to set up trades with other players for skills.  Note:  most boards 
dislike discussions of how to dupe so don�t post about them unless otherwise 
noted.(I saw someone ask about it once in Gamefaqs and it didn�t turn into a 
problem�)  

www.xboxphreaker.com  - The most dedicated site to Phantom Dust. Definitely 
check out the several message boards dedicated to different aspects of the 
game as well as tournament types.  Some moderators have even met with the 
the game's head designer.  There is a listing of all the skills and some 
arsenals plus an entire bulletin board dedicated to people posting arsenals 
they�ve  created.  There�s a skill trading board and even a board dedicated to
discussing each skill in the game.  Got a question or need help with a 
certain skill?  There�s a thread for each of them that you can ask questions 
about and search through.  You can search through the Additional Skill Details
board at:

http://xboxphreaker.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewforum.php?f=8
 
Gamefaqs.com - of course there is a bulletin board on gamefaqs to discuss the 
game.  Duping does not seem to be a taboo thing to ask about here, though I�m 
sure you might hear some complaints about it if you post looking for people 
to dupe with.  But I�ve seen other people post asking how to do it and 
finding out so you might be able to set up a group.

http://antiracialgaming.com/message_board/viewforum.php?f=4  - This site has 
had its own host of tournaments, and visitors.(they even have had Heavy 
Tournaments for all you Heavy fans).  
 
What other people say�
If you think something weird might be doable in the game, test it out for 
yourself.  Even though people are well meaning, some will tell you things 
about the game that actually don�t work.  They�ll also tell you there�s 
things you can�t do, but actually can do. There�s probably a few mistakes in 
this faq even.  The best way to truly see if something does or doesn�t work is
to test it out your self.  

25PD  Differences in character types melee moves.  

You may notice that each character does a few melee moves with different 
animations.  Kick moves like Hyper Kick with a jumper does a jumping kick.  
Cartwheelers just kick forward and move along the ground.  The Special 
Characters just throw themselves into people with these moves.  In this area 
Rollers are different than Cartwheelers.  Some like JD and Cuff Button do 
roundhouse kicks that seem a little more accurate and has a little more range 
than everyone else�s.  While this is true offline I've never really had it 
pay off to specifically where a rollers kicks prove more effective.  Lag may 
be just too much of a factor but its worth a shot trying JD type kickers in 
your kicking decks.  Other Rollers like Guard do a rather goofy jump kick 
stomp.(it doesn�t seem bad though)  As far as swords go, the human characters 
and humanoid special characters seem to be the same animations and standard 
tricks for dodging and hitting apply.

The tombstone looking Catoptro�s blades is very similar in the way humanoid 
character swords are dodged.  It swings its Psycho Blade types a little 
differently but dodging Sword melees with it is pretty much done the same as 
you would with humans.

However, the Ommato, Scoto and Claustro(the floating circle ball characters) 
have different melee Swords and Blades than humanoid characters.  Their Flame 
swords are similar to human ones except you can no longer stand in front of 
them and jump straight up to dodge from the middle.  You can still move, jump 
or cartwheel to the left to avoid them.  You have to be more careful to stay 
away from them when going to the left because they are less forgiving in 
being walked out of.(maintain distance with them when moving and don�t circle 
into the back part of their sword)  You can no longer jump at a straight 
distance at far close range to dodge either.  You must at least be partially 
left of  the sword or blade when jumping away from even far close range.  
You can still cartwheel out of range from a far close range though.

A major difference with these circle ball characters is that they actually 
swing their Psycho Blade types much like they swing Flame Sword types.  They 
start on the blade user�s left and curve right.  This confuses some players a 
lot and makes them harder to dodge.  In some ways though it really simplifies 
things for you, because there�s only one side your going to dodge to with 
these characters, and that is to the left.  I do not know how much online 
play or lag forgives dodging Psycho Blades swung by these characters like it 
does other characters, but they could be more accurate.  If their blades 
aren�t more accurate then you can dodge them by just walking to the left.  If 
their less forgiving your jump might only be able to dodge their Psycho 
Blades by jumping to the left from a 
decent distance.(or away and to the left from a far close range.)   
Cartwheeling to the left or out of reach should be effective.  I prefer the 
Ommato�s dodge type over the other 2 characters though I don�t know if its 
any better than Claustro�s or Scoto�s.  Update:  These blades are more 
difficult to dodge but lag or some other online programming factor make them
a bit more forgiving to dodge than offline.

Before swinging these characters point their swords forward.  I do not know 
if this can actually stab people.  You�ll notice that Psycho Blade types, 
Ice and Lightning Sword show this most.  

Ommato types crawler moves can be a confusing to anticipate differences in
when comparing Crawling Bullet with another crawler being used.  

Ceno - Ceno has one of the craziest looking Psycho Blade types.  The best 
thing about it, is that it may stab forward before making a normal psycho 
blade style swing.  It is too hard to tell if these blades truly stab when 
starting out.(this could be an effective approach with them that only the 
eyeball characters share)  The Ceno does not make any noise when using skills 
except the attack�s actual sound making it too hard to tell if it truly 
stabs.  Even if doesn�t truly work, do not stand close in front of it.(if 
your far enough you won�t get stabbed and this makes dodging easier)  It has 
a very quick animation between the starting stab to the rest of the swing.  
If stabbing truly does work(test it out for yourself) you might be able stab 
people before their ready put their shields up in this way.  You might be 
able to dodge Psycho Blade types in the standard way online of going to the 
right.(but don�t stand in right in front of the beginning stabbing)  Other 
wise jump or wheel to the right.  
Its Flame Sword type is normal style and surprisingly the easiest Flame Sword
to dodge in the game.  It might swing a little lower.  It is the only 
character I can sword jump by jumping to the right as its swung, but still 
dodge in any other normal way as well.  The nice part about Ceno is that it�s 
very quiet when it uses its skills, which can throw off an opponent.  

Ceno vs.  The Eye Ball Characters - Ceno�s flame sword style animation is 
possibly the easiest to dodge in the game.  One reason you may prefer him 
over the Ommato style eye balls is that he doesn�t swing both sword styles 
left ward.(and he is quiet when doing moves)  His sword moves are more like a
standard humanoids except his Flame Sword type has the most dodging 
opportunities and his Psycho Blade type is probably better than standard ones.
Ommato balls require characters to stay on the left both times, which 
may make it easier for someone to know where to dodge to even if you are 
using Psycho Blade and Flame Sword.(despite this, their sword animation can 
confuse people and makes them one of the harder sword users to dodge in the 
game)  

You probably could confuse the hell out of your opponents trying to dodge 
blades if you used both a Ceno and an Ommato type as tag teammates.  

26PD School Auras

There is a glow around each character if they have a School in the arsenal 
that there is a majority of.  If you see this glow it can tell you one of the 
schools that they are using in their deck.  
Don�t assume that there�s much of a majority because the game picks one 
school over another to display the aura around even if its evenly divided.  
So you could have 3 evenly divided Schools and it�ll still show one aura 
color around a player.  The order in which it will show when Schools are 
evenly divided and the colors that represent each school are the following:

Psycho - Red
Optical - Yellow 
Nature - Green
Ki - Blue
Faith - Purple

Auras don�t show up around people unless they have 1 or more aura.  

27PD  End of the Faq

I�d like to thank any player who�s shared how to do things and tried to help 
others out in learning how to do things in this game.  Thanks to the authors 
of the useful threads that I linked to as well.  

List of thanks to people in alphabetical order to people 
who's threads I linked or who tried to contribute something to the combos, 
arsenals, and the all the other things... section:

Cbreeze420, Cerebral Slayer, codename BLISS, Delandel, El Davio, Enderwiggin,
Gaia Proton, Gaignun, General Grievous, Goldninja, IsnipedyourI, jook00, 
Kamizar, Locke, lucky03, monkey20051, Pantera Opeth, Phreaker, Quadrasonic, 
Reavtek, Shiny New Penny, The Butter Viking, Wartex, and anyone else I forgot
to give thanks too in those threads.  




Updates?

I really don�t plan on making more updates to this faq.(I did update it though
once already...)
There is always something 
I could add here and there but there really is a lot here already.  Maybe if 
there are some glaring errors I�ll fix them.  If there are a lot of arsenals 
and combos that need some more highlighting I might consider adding them.  
I�ve made a lot of efforts and personally confirmed most of what is written 
here, but I am not beyond making mistakes.  

I hope this faq has been helpful to someone.  And if you still struggle with 
the game you probably just need some practice.  Think about how opponents 
seem to keep beating you.  You can either copy their strategies or come up 
with counters to them.(there�s usually some skills you can use to counter)  
Ask people for tips even.  This game has a lot of possibilities and you�d be 
surprised at the new things you can discover.  Have fun with the game because 
that�s what it�s really about.

This material is copyrighted.  Please do not plagiarize and do cite it when 
appropriate.  

Contact information:  [email protected]
Copyright 2006(B.G.Ranton)
Negative .5 N