V Combat Mechanics

I feel V deserves his own topic due to how differently he plays. I've just played as him for the first time and it feels like a different game.

I'll be making comparisons to CL's mechanics now and then, since it's the only action game to do summoning and controlling minions well, and some stuff is transferring over for me.

Feel free to list anything, be it combos, enemy specific stuff, or just any gameplay observations.

So his demons don't attack until you input a command, with the exception of Nightmare. This immediately felt near identical to CL's Passive Mode, where legions will do nothing until you command them. The difference here being Griffon and Shadow move around by themselves, where in CL, legions form a defensive formation around Sieg.

Their behavior seems to be just moving around nearby enemies until you command them. They don't make any effort to dodge. Legions are like this too.

I don't have enough DT to really observe Nightmare properly, and I need a to buy the skill called Promotion that lets V ride and control him. Nightmare feels more like a Legion because he attacks by himself like legions in Force Mode, and when riding him, you can give commands for special attacks just like in CL when you press triangle during force mode, which causes legions to use their special.

Interestingly, summoning Nightmare increases V's defense. Where have we heard this before? Yep, CL, and this point is very similar. In CL, when you summon and put a Legion in passive mode, you lose attack power and movement, but gain defense. It's the opposite here, where you gain defense while not really being in a defensive position but it's exactly the same concept.

Back to the others, I noticed Griffon's basic shot can't juggle everything, though I've only come across like, 3 enemy types so far. Strangely, he can't juggle those little bat demons, so it must not be a weight mechanic. I haven't played around with DT yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if that changes things.

Found something odd with Shadow. You know how pressing T changes to the 3x stab attack when the enemy is in the air? During a chaotic battle I noticed he did the regular ground combo on an enemy that was still in the air, though quite close to the ground. Normally if you launch, pressing T anytime before the enemy touches the ground will still do the 3x stab even super low to the ground.

Messed around a bit and found you need to launch, then use Griffon's shots to juggle the enemy very close to the ground. This can be just above Shadow's height, and he will do the ground combo. I think this is all there is to it, but I also feel it might have something to do with how long you wait with Shadow after launching.

Shadow can't do this stab attack if the enemy is too high either. I tried launching three times in a row, which cause the enemy to go super high, and he just did the ground combo instead.

What you can do is launch, do the stabs once low to the ground, then mash Griffon's shot while pressing T for the ground combo. You can keep and enemy just above the ground with this forever (in the Void anyway and if they're able to be juggled by Griffon of course) and then link in other attacks. Griffon's shots can make the enemy start to rise a little which depends on how fast you can mash.

If you have any interest in a video of this, I can upload, but it's not at all hard to pull off. Seems to work with any ground combo too, though some might not connect due to pauses.

Good read as always. Interesting to read impressions on the character from the eyes of a Chaos Legion master.

> Nightmare
I'm interested in a few of its values especially. He tends to have appearance animations that differ on where you summon him, some being a lot lengthier. Does this still drain meter or is this halted at that time?
Does reading the book during Nightmare-Mode slow down the meter drain?

> shadow/griffon
Is there a way to teleport them to the target easily? And how can you put Shadow into the air for his aerial attack?

>Nightmare
Good questions. 

>Appearance
You mean when summoned? I've had him come down in a meteor, and one time he busted out of a wall that had a mural on it. I got the meteor more than once so that might be the common one for when there's no unique entrance in the environment. I doubt these drain meter but I'll check. 

>Book
I did have it out a few times but kept getting distracted by trying to control the others. I only have the starting 3 bars of DT so if I blink he's gone. Will definitely look into this over the weekend.

Speaking of appearance animations, Shadow did an attack while being summoned. This is another CL thing where the Legions come flying out of the summoning shockwave with an opening attack.

I wish there were some way to send away V's demons. In this area CL is completely superior. You can unsummon with iframes to remove them from the field as a dodge, call them closer by changing to passive mode, or extend their range by holding R1.

V's dodges with Shadow and Griffon are cool, but with Shadow you remove him from the action which can be annoying. I might focus more on jumping and Griffon glide to avoid attacks from now on.

>Teleport to target
Not that I've seen. I actually bought the Shadow move where he goes into the ground then zooms forward while whipping with tentacles. It's pretty much his Stinger and good for closing distance though I haven't tested it hugely, so it might knock some enemies away. I bought it just before the worm boss so knock back wasn't an issue.

>Air Shadow
Based on the moves I currently have, you can only get into the air with his rising move (Arbiter I think it's called) which is similar to Dante's High Time where you go up with the enemy if you hold it.

>other notes
If you teleport to an airborne enemy to finish it, you still have access to a jump. Need to test if you can jump again if you jumped before teleporting 

Ground finisher seems super unsafe. I couldn't dodge out of it and got hit. There's a move where you jump and throw canes at multiple enemies though which will be my next skill.

> good questions
I try :)

> Appearance
Yeah the summoning. There's one later-on that takes nearly 6 seconds for him to appear and start moving. I want to know if those 6 seconds cost meter or if those are basically 'free'.

> Send away
Really miss this feature. They sort of try it by using your dodges but it is extremely annoying to do since those remove your charged attacks.

> combos
One I personally like is the Griffon's launcher into Shadow's TT-delay-T where he mashes the ground with little flails. While those flails hit I just mash Griffon's regular attack. Builds good meter I've found.

> Arbiter
Ah didn't know holding it would launch him too, makes sense.

> finisher
I mostly dislike how there's a range limit on it and you can only do 'one', so if you're out of range you need to land again and then re-do it. It is also super unsafe, and with some animations lasting very long this isn't a great thing.

Shadow
If you summon Shadow he'll come out of the ground as a buzzsaw, hitting multiple times while moving forward.

If you summon in the air he instantly does the spinning blade move that you can also do from Arbiter. This can be done from jumping or falling. You can press T again to keep doing it until Shadow lands just like you can if normally done from Arbiter. If done while falling, you still have access to a jump.

Sad that this isn't an actual move, because it would be quite useful to be able to keep jumping in with this. You can't manually send the demons away like in CL, and they won't vanish in battle. Even if they did it takes too long (I counted around 12 seconds) and wouldn't be worth doing.

That move I mentioned where Shadow dives into the ground and moves forward while whipping might make him safe from attacks. I swear I saw it pass right through some stuff but this kind of crap always happens in utter chaos and I'm not paying attention to it.

Griffon
Griffon has two summon animations and neither are attacks. Seems to be related to whether or not enemies are present.

With no enemies, he appears on V's arm and flies forward in a short burst while spinning, but barely goes an arm's length away.

When an enemy is present, he just appears already hovering near V's shoulder.
Near as I can tell, these don't do anything.

Nightmare
Reading doesn't seem to affect DT drain.

Just got back to Nero, but I'll most likely mission select to play as V again.
When Nero picks up a new breaker, will it always take the place of the one I have meaning if I don't want it I have to break it?

>Nightmare meter
Feel free to post any kind of spoiler. Where does this appearance happen? I'll watch out for it.

>Griffon's regular attack
It's really great for keep enemies afloat (if possible) so you can start other stuff with Shadow.

> finisher
It's pretty odd that you can't cancel out of something like this. I was fighting this giant bug with other enemies and the finisher for it was insanely long. I did finish the small ones first though. Have you been hit out of some of the longer ones?

So what I was saying about 'issues' in the other topic regarding V, became apparent when fighting the Geryon boss and whoever that freak is riding it.

It runs around way too much and is quite fast. Shadow had a hard time catching up, and trying to combo it didn't seem to be a good idea due to the rider's huge slashes. I found myself constantly pulling back Shadow and Griffon, but I wasn't getting any damage so I just let them stay up close which got them both killed.

I read that when you summon Nightmare, Shadow and Griffon become invincible. Haven't noticed that because Nightmare is always causing so much havoc.

Such situations all seem to promote what Roy said, DT Nightmare management. That or using the moves that spread over a wide area like Blockade 3 and Double Check 3 for Griffon and Hedghog 2. If I used these I could always catch Geryon.

Large groups present a similar issue. You have a lot of juggle combo tools, but when there are too many enemies, focusing on one and juggling isn't the best idea.

I don't think this playstyle is bad at all, but it is odd in a DMC game. We'll see how I feel about it after playing DMD though.

I was able to defeat him with no damage using the above, but couldn't manage to build even a single S.

Nightmare
Some basic notes.

*You lose 1 bar of DT for summoning. This was based on the animation where he appears to break through from another dimension with the glass shattering effect.

*V can't be hurt during Promotion.

*Shadow and Griffon become invincible.

*Nightmare loses DT when he does a move. Looks like 1 bar, otherwise drain is pretty slow. Not sure if he loses it faster alone or in Promotion. It seems like it's faster alone but that might be because he's using moves constantly.

Shadow
Seems Shadow can parry some attacks. I tested this on the large bug and was able to deflect some of its basic swipes. When it went red I couldn't get it to happen again.

Also noticed when V goes into DT, it cancels whatever you're doing, even if you're being hit or grabbed.

In the controls, I saw there is something called auto mode. It says it's L2 but nothing happens, but if you press L2 and the button designated to your summons, it seems to DT them and they act alone. I changed my buttons for Griffon's attacks and keep activating it by accident. Not really sure how to actually do it yet.

One other thing worth mentioning is that V can sometimes parry certain attacks with his basic cane command.

EDIT: L2 + the corresponding summon button lets you infuse one of your familiars with a DT charge, which boosts both their defense and attack power. Repeated button presses allow you to infuse them with even more DT charges. Very useful during bosses when you need that quick extra damage and Nightmare isn't an option.

The cane strike is very useful against certain enemies but damn is it dangerous haha! For the super-form, I haven't really found a usage yet. Generally it seems best to save V's meter for the Nightmare heal. Outside of the fights where you don't have Nightmare like his final chapter, I don't really see a point in using these. Anyone have any insights in how big the damage increase is? I'd test it in the void but...

... how do you start the void with max meter?

Royta/Raeng wrote:Nightmare heal

What exactly do you mean by this? Summoning has some pretty generous i-frames, but Nightmare being active doesn't provide any health regeneration over time as far as I know (unlike actual DT).

In your DMD Mission 5 video, you summon Nightmare at around 4:50 but don't regain any health over the duration of the rest of the fight, for example. Health bar is completely static. Only standard green orbs from the defeated enemy at the end.

When I say "Nightmare Heal" I mean for your minions. When Nightmare is summoned he fully heals your minions and makes them immortal while he's active. Sorry if I was unclear. That's why I always leave some meter as a back-up. In case I screw up or a boss goes ham on my summons I can quickly revive them free of charge.

I almost forgot about this topic. The current DMCV board trolling just reminded me.

Interesting to see how excited I was with V at first. The more played the more disappointed I became.

What would you guys do to improve V? The losers over there are too defensive to really discuss this.

Honestly, just straight up more attacks with different functions would help as well as the ability to 'unchain' your summons like in Astral Chain so you can move more freely while their AI does their thing. Other things would be of course have the enemies be designed for V, instead of him being inserted in a game built for a different cast of characters.

I do feel that his dodge being tied to recalling his summons is a neat idea, same as that being the only way to recall them. You?

It's not a bad idea, but I'd rather it didn't happen and that he could dodge on his own. Maybe have that be a recall option but using a different command or something.

Sometimes I'd be attacking and something got close to V. I'd rather just be able to jump or dodge and have the summons keep fighting.