I should be starting my next group of videos tomorrow. I intend to run it uninterrupted until it's done. So that's about 30-35 videos (A little over a month). Then, I have a bunch of boss videos I'm working on for a game that I'll be uploading after that, and then after all of this, Ill be uploading tourney videos from the MK Banned tourney that happened Sept 17th.
About this video series I'm starting tomorrow...it'll either be loved, or hated lulz.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep - Vanitas LS (Optional Boss) - *Strategy*
Note: This was posted because I couldn't fit it in the description for the video(s). Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtAFV-yqLEM
There are a couple things you need to know about this fight to prepare. One, most of your commands will be useless. They will either leave you too open, are too slow, or won't do much, if any, damage. Secondly, you CANNOT walk into this fight with Cure spells. That includes Cura and Curaga. Why? Vanitas will heal every time you do, and the fight will never end this way.
The only way to counter this is to use Potions instead. Mega-Potions are very cheap for this point in the game, so go buy 99 of those. The downside is that you lose the Leaf Bracer ability, since that only works with Cure spells. What that ability does is make you invincible while healing with Cure spells, so that if you're at 1 HP you won't die while trying to heal. Not being able to safely heal makes this fight much harder. You will have to learn when it is safe to heal, or just hope he doesn't attack you. (Note that if you keep using "Retry" when you die, the items that you use during the fight count as being used, so if you keep failing too much use Continue to reset it).
Alright, this is what you all probably came here for. I will list all of the moves I can off the top of my head and the ways to dodge them with each character.
#1. He always will start the fight off with a dark orb move. This is his most annoying and difficult to dodge move IMO, because it feels a little random. He encases himself in a dark orb and sends out clones to hit you. Being hit by one does a ton of damage (expect 1 HP) and causes Darkness for a while, which you don't want in this fight. The last part of the move he dashes out at you, which goes quite a far distance. He is completely invincible while he is in the orb.
How to Dodge (Terra): Get at a safe distance and Slide every time a clone comes out, going in a circular motion around the orb. Do not Slide too early, or the clones will follow your Slide and still hit you during the cooldown of Slide. For the last hit, just Slide towards Vanitas and he'll pass you by during your invincibility.
How to Dodge (Ven): Get at a safe distance and Dodge Roll spam around the orb as the clones come out. Because Dodge Roll does not go as far as Terra's Slide, it's harder to time getting away from them, but if you spam Dodge Roll hard enough the invincibility frames will just be too long for you to get hit 95% of the time.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Get at a safe distance and Cartwheel spam around the orb as the clones come out. Because Cartwheel does not go as far as Terra's Slide, it's harder to time getting away from them, but if you spam Cartwheel hard enough the invincibility frames will just be too long for you to get hit 95% of the time.
Note: This move can be stopped on startup! So when the fight starts, you can hit him right as he tries to do the move. If you do it too late, he will be invincible and you'll be in danger of being too close to him to safely dodge. Note that trying to run as far away as possible will not help, the clones will still come at you. Also note that he can use the move at nearly any time in the fight, and it'll be almost impossible to react to stopping it then.
#2. He has a dashing move he spams quite often where he will circle around you quickly and then try to hit you with darkness. This move seems scary, but it's his easiest to dodge move and is one of the only chances you have to relax.
How to Dodge (Terra): Simply Slide right after you see him circle around you. The timing is a little tricky to explain, but it's easy to get used to. It's better to dodge early than late.
How to Dodge (Ven): Same as Terra, except it's easier with Dodge Roll.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Same as Terra, except it's easier with Cartwheel.
Notes: He will always do one of three moves after this move. He will either start running at you to do a regular combat move, his Shotlock, or a aerial dash.
Punishable: Yes, he's open right after the move ends.
#3. He has a new Shotlock. I'm saying it's new, because it doesn't work the same as in Ven's final battle. In this, you'll hear the obvious cue of you being targeted. When this happens, go to the side of him as fast as possible and get behind him for tons of free damage! The Shotlock follows you, so even if you're behind him he will be slowly rotating towards you. However, the move does not last that long anyway.
How to Dodge (Terra): Slide to the side of him to avoid the initial hit of the move. Be careful not to Slide directly into it!
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll pretty much easily avoids this move.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel pretty much easily avoids this move.
Notes: Be careful when going for hits. If you get locked into combos, he could rotate into you and still hit you, so you have to make sure you're directly behind him. Also note that if you get directly hit by this move, you can just stand there and press nothing and still live as you'll get hit fast enough that Second Chance/Once More will still work.
Punishable: As said, yes, it's the most punishable move against him as he's completely open from the side and behind the whole move. He will even be a little open after, but it's risky.
#4. He has a new move similar to the one he used in Ven's final battle where he will teleport around and multi slash you. This time, however, it's much faster and trickier to dodge. This move is usually a counter attack. He will continually teleport behind you and slash as many times as he seems fit.
How to Dodge (Terra): It takes a little practice, but well timed Slides will avoid this easily. It is hard to explain, so just watch Terra's video when it's up. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll spam away from him. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel spam away from him. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
Punishable: If you stop it with Guard, you can use the Counter move with all chars to do damage. However, with Terra, it isn't reliable. Vanitas will sometimes do his teleport drop down slash after the Counter, and Terra will take the hit.
#1. He retains his ability to dive under ground and rise up under you. Except this time it's more dangerous. He slides towards you very fast, and when he jumps up from the ground, tons of fire balls spit out around him. The hitboxes of this are VERY weird, and it is really tricky to dodge 100% of the time.
How to Dodge (Terra): Terra has the hardest time dodging this. The best method is to wait until right before he appears under you and then Slide in a direction that is not directly moving away from the direction he is moving towards you. If you mess this up, he'll still follow your Slide and hit you when it ends.
How to Dodge (Ven): Just Dodge Roll it.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Just Cartwheel it.
Notes: The scattering fireballs have very deceiving hitboxes. Get far away from this move. You'll probably have the most trouble with this as Terra.
Punishable: I don't believe this is safely punishable.
#2. He still has his slash to blue crescent projectile move. He does this move most of the time when he's running towards you. It works the same as the others, except the blue projectile will fade after about 5-10 seconds. The projectile circles around you. Getting hit by the projectile makes your character become Confused (inverted movements) for a short time.
How to Dodge (Terra): Slide away from the slashes and Slide away again from the projectile, at an angle. There's a small chance you will still get hit if you time the first Slide wrong. Then just keep Sliding to avoid the projectile circling around to hit you.
How to Dodge (Ven): Just Dodge Roll spam to avoid this.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Just Cartwheel spam to avoid this.
Punishable: I do not believe this is safely punishable.
#3. He has that multi flame slashing attack from Ven's final battle with him. He will charge up his Keyblade and then mutli slash combo you and end it with an X-flame projectile. The projectile can slightly turn back at you.
How to Dodge (Terra): Terra yet again has a tricky time dodging this. But once you get the timing down it's pretty easy. If you blindly spam Slide, you'll get hit, because some parts of it follow you better than others. The best method is to run away while he's charging and keep running while he does the first dash slash, then Slide again shortly after.
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll spam away from him.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel spam away from him.
Notes: If he gets hit during this move, he may teleport into another move. Be careful of this.
Punishable: He is open slightly after the first slash. He will likely get stopped if you hit him then. It is risky to do this though. He is open after the X-flame projectile, but do not try more than one hit at risk of him instant teleport attacking you.
#4. He still has that multi aerial dash move from Ven's final battle. This is a very easy to avoid move as long as you react to it decently. He does this move almost always randomly after the darkness circle dash move. He can do this 1-3 times in a row.
How to Dodge (All): Simply Slide/Dodge Roll/Cartwheel to the side right before he dashes at you.
Punishable: I am unsure if this is punishable. Most of the time, you will not be close enough to punish him anyway.
#5. He randomly has a couple other moves, such as the darkness lightning and triple fireball move. He will usually do these as part of another combo, such as if you interrupt his fire multi slash move (#3). Standard dodging moves apply to these, you should know how to already from earlier fights, they work the same, although I believe the fireballs are Fission Firaga fireballs, so they follow you quite a bit.
#6. He retains his counter attacks. At any time during a combo he may teleport combo you. One is the drop down ice move, the other is the teleport to the side/back of you and slash at you. because of this, do not get caught in combos much.
There are a couple cheap tactics to beat VLS if you are having trouble. Only use these if you want to suck all the fun and challenge out of the fight.
#1. This one applies to only Ven. You must first obtain his Tornado spell. I won't go into details on how, look up a FAQ. The trick is to cast Tornado on Vanitas at the beginning before he does his dark orb move. If you do it right, Vanitas will be caught in it and take 50% HP damage! Then all you need is one other good hit with it to take the rest off.
Do take note that this method does require a little bit of good timing, as if you miss, Vanitas will surely hit you and likely kill you. For the second use of Tornado, you can easily get him with it if you lure him into a Mine Square that launches him. You will have to react fast though!
#2. The second method, while untested by myself, is to hide behind one of the big rock pillars. Vanitas apparently has a hard time getting around it, and you can pelt him with Strike Raid through it. I have not tested this, as I've said, so I cannot confirm if it works, but if it does it sucks the fun out of the fight. Do beware if he uses his Dark Orb move, it will still hit you (this I have tested).
#3. With Aqua, you can use her Seeker Mine to slam Vanitas with it while he's using his Shotlock. If you use Doubleflight, you cannot be hit, and therefore can spam Seeker Mine from above 1-3 times to do major damage!
That's about it. Good luck! Remember, Vanitas is rather predictable once you figure out his patterns!
There are a couple things you need to know about this fight to prepare. One, most of your commands will be useless. They will either leave you too open, are too slow, or won't do much, if any, damage. Secondly, you CANNOT walk into this fight with Cure spells. That includes Cura and Curaga. Why? Vanitas will heal every time you do, and the fight will never end this way.
The only way to counter this is to use Potions instead. Mega-Potions are very cheap for this point in the game, so go buy 99 of those. The downside is that you lose the Leaf Bracer ability, since that only works with Cure spells. What that ability does is make you invincible while healing with Cure spells, so that if you're at 1 HP you won't die while trying to heal. Not being able to safely heal makes this fight much harder. You will have to learn when it is safe to heal, or just hope he doesn't attack you. (Note that if you keep using "Retry" when you die, the items that you use during the fight count as being used, so if you keep failing too much use Continue to reset it).
Vanitas Moveset
Alright, this is what you all probably came here for. I will list all of the moves I can off the top of my head and the ways to dodge them with each character.
*New Moves*
#1. He always will start the fight off with a dark orb move. This is his most annoying and difficult to dodge move IMO, because it feels a little random. He encases himself in a dark orb and sends out clones to hit you. Being hit by one does a ton of damage (expect 1 HP) and causes Darkness for a while, which you don't want in this fight. The last part of the move he dashes out at you, which goes quite a far distance. He is completely invincible while he is in the orb.
How to Dodge (Terra): Get at a safe distance and Slide every time a clone comes out, going in a circular motion around the orb. Do not Slide too early, or the clones will follow your Slide and still hit you during the cooldown of Slide. For the last hit, just Slide towards Vanitas and he'll pass you by during your invincibility.
How to Dodge (Ven): Get at a safe distance and Dodge Roll spam around the orb as the clones come out. Because Dodge Roll does not go as far as Terra's Slide, it's harder to time getting away from them, but if you spam Dodge Roll hard enough the invincibility frames will just be too long for you to get hit 95% of the time.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Get at a safe distance and Cartwheel spam around the orb as the clones come out. Because Cartwheel does not go as far as Terra's Slide, it's harder to time getting away from them, but if you spam Cartwheel hard enough the invincibility frames will just be too long for you to get hit 95% of the time.
Note: This move can be stopped on startup! So when the fight starts, you can hit him right as he tries to do the move. If you do it too late, he will be invincible and you'll be in danger of being too close to him to safely dodge. Note that trying to run as far away as possible will not help, the clones will still come at you. Also note that he can use the move at nearly any time in the fight, and it'll be almost impossible to react to stopping it then.
#2. He has a dashing move he spams quite often where he will circle around you quickly and then try to hit you with darkness. This move seems scary, but it's his easiest to dodge move and is one of the only chances you have to relax.
How to Dodge (Terra): Simply Slide right after you see him circle around you. The timing is a little tricky to explain, but it's easy to get used to. It's better to dodge early than late.
How to Dodge (Ven): Same as Terra, except it's easier with Dodge Roll.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Same as Terra, except it's easier with Cartwheel.
Notes: He will always do one of three moves after this move. He will either start running at you to do a regular combat move, his Shotlock, or a aerial dash.
Punishable: Yes, he's open right after the move ends.
#3. He has a new Shotlock. I'm saying it's new, because it doesn't work the same as in Ven's final battle. In this, you'll hear the obvious cue of you being targeted. When this happens, go to the side of him as fast as possible and get behind him for tons of free damage! The Shotlock follows you, so even if you're behind him he will be slowly rotating towards you. However, the move does not last that long anyway.
How to Dodge (Terra): Slide to the side of him to avoid the initial hit of the move. Be careful not to Slide directly into it!
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll pretty much easily avoids this move.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel pretty much easily avoids this move.
Notes: Be careful when going for hits. If you get locked into combos, he could rotate into you and still hit you, so you have to make sure you're directly behind him. Also note that if you get directly hit by this move, you can just stand there and press nothing and still live as you'll get hit fast enough that Second Chance/Once More will still work.
Punishable: As said, yes, it's the most punishable move against him as he's completely open from the side and behind the whole move. He will even be a little open after, but it's risky.
#4. He has a new move similar to the one he used in Ven's final battle where he will teleport around and multi slash you. This time, however, it's much faster and trickier to dodge. This move is usually a counter attack. He will continually teleport behind you and slash as many times as he seems fit.
How to Dodge (Terra): It takes a little practice, but well timed Slides will avoid this easily. It is hard to explain, so just watch Terra's video when it's up. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll spam away from him. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel spam away from him. Alternately, you can turn around and Guard one of the hits to get him to stop.
Punishable: If you stop it with Guard, you can use the Counter move with all chars to do damage. However, with Terra, it isn't reliable. Vanitas will sometimes do his teleport drop down slash after the Counter, and Terra will take the hit.
*Old Moves*
#1. He retains his ability to dive under ground and rise up under you. Except this time it's more dangerous. He slides towards you very fast, and when he jumps up from the ground, tons of fire balls spit out around him. The hitboxes of this are VERY weird, and it is really tricky to dodge 100% of the time.
How to Dodge (Terra): Terra has the hardest time dodging this. The best method is to wait until right before he appears under you and then Slide in a direction that is not directly moving away from the direction he is moving towards you. If you mess this up, he'll still follow your Slide and hit you when it ends.
How to Dodge (Ven): Just Dodge Roll it.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Just Cartwheel it.
Notes: The scattering fireballs have very deceiving hitboxes. Get far away from this move. You'll probably have the most trouble with this as Terra.
Punishable: I don't believe this is safely punishable.
#2. He still has his slash to blue crescent projectile move. He does this move most of the time when he's running towards you. It works the same as the others, except the blue projectile will fade after about 5-10 seconds. The projectile circles around you. Getting hit by the projectile makes your character become Confused (inverted movements) for a short time.
How to Dodge (Terra): Slide away from the slashes and Slide away again from the projectile, at an angle. There's a small chance you will still get hit if you time the first Slide wrong. Then just keep Sliding to avoid the projectile circling around to hit you.
How to Dodge (Ven): Just Dodge Roll spam to avoid this.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Just Cartwheel spam to avoid this.
Punishable: I do not believe this is safely punishable.
#3. He has that multi flame slashing attack from Ven's final battle with him. He will charge up his Keyblade and then mutli slash combo you and end it with an X-flame projectile. The projectile can slightly turn back at you.
How to Dodge (Terra): Terra yet again has a tricky time dodging this. But once you get the timing down it's pretty easy. If you blindly spam Slide, you'll get hit, because some parts of it follow you better than others. The best method is to run away while he's charging and keep running while he does the first dash slash, then Slide again shortly after.
How to Dodge (Ven): Dodge Roll spam away from him.
How to Dodge (Aqua): Cartwheel spam away from him.
Notes: If he gets hit during this move, he may teleport into another move. Be careful of this.
Punishable: He is open slightly after the first slash. He will likely get stopped if you hit him then. It is risky to do this though. He is open after the X-flame projectile, but do not try more than one hit at risk of him instant teleport attacking you.
#4. He still has that multi aerial dash move from Ven's final battle. This is a very easy to avoid move as long as you react to it decently. He does this move almost always randomly after the darkness circle dash move. He can do this 1-3 times in a row.
How to Dodge (All): Simply Slide/Dodge Roll/Cartwheel to the side right before he dashes at you.
Punishable: I am unsure if this is punishable. Most of the time, you will not be close enough to punish him anyway.
#5. He randomly has a couple other moves, such as the darkness lightning and triple fireball move. He will usually do these as part of another combo, such as if you interrupt his fire multi slash move (#3). Standard dodging moves apply to these, you should know how to already from earlier fights, they work the same, although I believe the fireballs are Fission Firaga fireballs, so they follow you quite a bit.
#6. He retains his counter attacks. At any time during a combo he may teleport combo you. One is the drop down ice move, the other is the teleport to the side/back of you and slash at you. because of this, do not get caught in combos much.
Cheap Tactics
There are a couple cheap tactics to beat VLS if you are having trouble. Only use these if you want to suck all the fun and challenge out of the fight.
#1. This one applies to only Ven. You must first obtain his Tornado spell. I won't go into details on how, look up a FAQ. The trick is to cast Tornado on Vanitas at the beginning before he does his dark orb move. If you do it right, Vanitas will be caught in it and take 50% HP damage! Then all you need is one other good hit with it to take the rest off.
Do take note that this method does require a little bit of good timing, as if you miss, Vanitas will surely hit you and likely kill you. For the second use of Tornado, you can easily get him with it if you lure him into a Mine Square that launches him. You will have to react fast though!
#2. The second method, while untested by myself, is to hide behind one of the big rock pillars. Vanitas apparently has a hard time getting around it, and you can pelt him with Strike Raid through it. I have not tested this, as I've said, so I cannot confirm if it works, but if it does it sucks the fun out of the fight. Do beware if he uses his Dark Orb move, it will still hit you (this I have tested).
#3. With Aqua, you can use her Seeker Mine to slam Vanitas with it while he's using his Shotlock. If you use Doubleflight, you cannot be hit, and therefore can spam Seeker Mine from above 1-3 times to do major damage!
That's about it. Good luck! Remember, Vanitas is rather predictable once you figure out his patterns!
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