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: pdfaq@yahoo.com
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