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Gatkowski
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re: Stompy's introductory course for brawlers

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Hey gals! Welcome to the Justice Girls Bag Basher Course! Have fun and enjoy your stay (and bruises)! Happy

THE PURPOSE OF THIS COMPILATION:

1. My first and foremost intention is to give a good layout and feel of what I consider a very versatile and effective melee weapon: brawling, mostly to players who are not yet familiar with it.

2. Maybe offer some useful new bits of info to those who are already familiar with this particular style.

3. Fun. Happy


WHY BRAWLING?

Maybe this is the place where I should go on and on about how it is the best, does the most damage, is invincible, etc. etc. Well, no. I won’t bore anyone with frame / damage / multiplier, whatever charts, since I don’t get half of those myself. Nor do I claim to be a pro at the game, I haven’t even played for that long, about a year.

However, basically ALL of the characters I’ve leveled past 30 and into the Combat Rating grind have brawling as their main weapon. I’ve grown to like it immensely. There is a certain sense of satisfaction in smacking your opponents head-on and sending them flying around. As Power Girl puts it, ’Making the world a better place, starting with your face!’

That is the feeling I’d like to share, though it’s definitely not to everyone’s liking. But, if nothing else, you can profit from what you learn here to beat that pesky T5 solo ’Test Subject #1’. Happy


BASICS

Advantages of brawling: does good damage, combos are fairly easy to input, lots of stun and knockback effects, easily clippable.

Disadvantages of brawling: the strikes are SLOW. Which means, you can’t just go ’click-click-click-click’, you have to be careful about measuring which combo to use and when. Not as hard as it sounds, though. Happy Also, when you’re limited to using ranged attacks, it isn’t your first choice, you’re better off switching weapons.

Combos - I don’t wish to go into too much detail about the combos themselves as they are described in the game, but for the sake of easier reference in paragraphs below, here they are (also, for the sake of better understanding, I won’t be using abbreviations):

Tap Left, Tap Left, Tap Left, Tap Left - Basic punch combo, nothing fancy. Should avoid use as soon as you have more combos unlocked.

Hold Left - Lunge attack. Covers a good distance, and can be used to launch a combo.

Tap Right (Clap Shot) / Hold Right (Stomp Smash) - Ranged attacks. Both are slow, but BOTH can Block Break (see below)!

Double Fist - Tap Left, Hold Left - The second punch does a good measure of damage and has a chance to cause stun.

Backfist - Tap Left, Hold Left, Hold Left - Follows up the Double Fist with a Backfist strike, knocking down stunned enemies.

Ground Pound - Hold Left, Hold Left - Follows up Lunge with a stomp on the ground. Avoid. The damage is not that great and is easily blocked.

Hammer Fist - Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left - Has a chance to knock down enemies on the third punch.

Punt - Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left, Hold Left - Follows up Hammer Fist with a kick, sending knocked down enemies flying. While it does look very cool, it is useful only if you mess up a combo and end up in Hammer Fist. (For several Legends characters, this move is replaced by a shorter, heavier uppercut move)

Uppercut - Tap Left, Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left - Has a chance to launch enemies into the air on the fourth strike, dealing a good measure of damage.

Haymaker - Tap Left, Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left, Hold Left - Follows up Uppercut with a Haymaker (which looks like a supersonic punch, it’s quite cool), does great damage and sends enemies flying in a near 180 degree angle. Great for crowd control.


MECHANICS:

A few game mechanics I’m fairly certain everyone knows inside and out, but I still think they should be included, for brawling relies very heavily on successfully alternating between them:

Block Counter - This is when you hit block (a little shield appears above your character’s head) and manage to counter an enemy’s strikes. You hear that particular ’proomp’ noise and the enemy gets knocked down.

Block Break - This is when an enemy blocks and you make an attack that has the Block Break attribute (a little crosshair appears above your character’s head), knocking the enemy down even through his block. Ranged attacks do this, also followed by the ’proomp’ noise.

Interrupt - When you interrupt an attack (usually a Block Breaker), and knock down an enemy, again with the ’proomp’ noise. Strikes that are triggered by ’Hold Left’ have this attribute (a small fist appears above your character’s head).

Breakout - Like it says, breaking out of any control effects that have been applied to your character. Encase, knockback, knockdown, etc. The character makes a motion as if ripping apart chains and starts to flash in white, becoming immune to control effects for a short time.

Clipping - Another subject on which you could write an entire thread, here only the basics are covered. Clipping is when you start to perform an action, then, as soon as the animation for that action starts, you start performing another, clippable action. In this way, you complete two (or more) actions, in the time it takes to perform one action.

The basic hierarchy of actions is as follows:

Weapon attack ---> Power (some powers can even be clipped with other powers) ---> Consumable / Trinket

Example: Stompy has Mental for a powerset and brawling (wouldn’t have guessed, huh? :D ) for a weapon. So one clipped combo I can do with her would go like this:

1. Start performing the Haymaker combo.
2. As soon as the last strike starts, activate a power (in this case, Psychic Shock)
3. As soon as Psychic Shock starts, activate Soder Cola Zero (to replenish health while damage is being done both by the Haymaker and Psychic Shock)


ADVANCED COMBOS:

Okay, now that we know the basics, time to put things together for heavier bashing. Here are some alternate combos you can use, depending on the situation:


1. You can use Lunge to start a combo. Let’s say an enemy is ranging you from afar using a Block Breaker attack. By lunging at them you do an Interrupt, knocking them down and you can continue into any of the combos that has Tap Left for its second strike.

Example No. 1: Hold Left (Lunge), Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left (Uppercut), Hold Left (Haymaker)

With a little luck, the enemy won’t be able to get up and block again to avoid your Haymaker. If he does, however, and your strike is blocked, it will be a Block Counter and you will get knocked down. In PvP, this often happens as players tend to get quite proficient at using Breakout. Staying at the basic situation described above, let’s try to alternate to something shorter:

Example No. 2: Hold Left (Lunge), Tap Left, Hold Left (Hammer Fist)

This way, you still managed to deal a good amount of damage. To further increase this, you can clip a power into Hammer Fist (or into Uppercut and leave Haymaker out, for the above option).


2. Another good combo you can use is going into Double Fist, cause a stun if you’re lucky, but don’t proceed into Backfist. You can continue to Uppercut instead before the enemy can recover (sometimes you can even make it into Haymaker).

Example No. 1: Tap Left, Hold Left (Double Fist), Tap Left, Hold Left (Uppercut)

Again, you can clip a power into Uppercut for greater effect. However, if enemies tend to Breakout faster and avoid, or even Block Counter your Uppercut, you can always resort back to Backfist.


3. Another good time to deal out some bashing is after a successful Block Break. Since you have to start a combo from the beginning, you won’t be able to perform a long chain before the enemies get back up. So your main options are Hammer Fist and Backfist:

Example No. 1: Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left (Hammer Fist)
Example No. 2: Tap Left, Hold Left, Hold Left (Backfist)

Again, clipping a power into the last strikes is there to amplify the effect. If enemies get up faster than those two combos could be finished, your remaining option is Double Fist, if into which you clip a power, you can still do a decent amount of damage:

Example No. 3: Tap Left, Hold Left (Double Fist) / clip any power


4. If you have a Supercharge power, you may want to check if it can be clipped into one of the combos. In Stompy’s case, I’ve discovered that the Supercharge she uses, Bolt Barrage, can easily be clipped into a Haymaker combo WITHOUT interrupting the Hit Counter (how many hits you chain together, important for amplifying / power restore effects). It goes like this:

Example 1: Tap Left, Tap Left, Tap Left, Hold Left (Uppercut), Hold Left (Haymaker) / clip with Bolt Barrage ---> repeat combo

These are the techniques I found myself using most of the time. Nevertheless, this section may be subject to future updates and expansions.


GENERAL NOTES:

- Keep in mind that many things herein described pertain to those parts of the game where PvP mechanics are in effect, mostly legends and T5 instances. It is entirely possible to get through the game spamming Haymaker, if you’re only doing PvE.

- All the above is just a guideline on how I see playing this particular style effectively. It may work out completely differently for you. In no way do I state that my viewpoint is definitive or wish to start an argument over the effectiveness of different playstyles. We all play how we like, that’s the wonder of games. Happy

- Also keep in mind that, unfortunately, this guide won’t save you the blood and sweat you’ll need to shed if you wish to improve using this weapon style. You’ll need to practice until you can chain combos effortlessly and catch the flow. Sparring targets come in handy, or a quick scrimmage, if you have a friend around.

With that said, I hope it was worth taking the course and any Justice Girl popping in to check stuff out found something useful here. Happy

Cheers,
Stompy
BallandChain
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Joined: 10 Nov 2011
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re: Stompy's introductory course for brawlers

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Great post, now i can't wait to punch stuff!
Alyssa Goldenblade
Team Goldenblade
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Joined: 23 Dec 2012
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re: Stompy's introductory course for brawlers

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Excellent post! I didn't like brawling at first because it felt slow and awkward. But after doing the Bizarro solo many times, I've grown to like it. I even made a brawling alt that mirrors a Superman type loadout.

I like how you wrote the guide to be very general and usable in combination with any power. It was worth the work, not only for players interested in brawling, but even non-brawlers will get to the Bizarro anomaly at some point. All of your tips apply to that as well.
Cara Lace
Cara Lace
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Joined: 29 Dec 2011
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re: Great Post Stompy

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Thanks for the Post. I have to agree i did not like brawling for a long time until the Bizarro solo. Now i cant imagine Cara Terra SMASHING any other way. It's effective, it does decent damage and is just plain fun. :-)


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Gatkowski
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Joined: 16 Jun 2013
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re: Stompy's introductory course for brawlers

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Since there was a rather lengthy discussion about the Bizarro anomaly in the league chat today, I decided that I'd make this vid, implementing many of the above techniques:



Fun things to note:

1. Old hardware makes it fun, I was running around with about 10-15 frame per sec on average. What do you know, clipping still worked. :D

2. The lag frakked up targeting nicely when I was turning the camera with sudden movements. Watch as I painfully jump from group to group in the last corridor and almost die. :D

At least the bossfights are clean cut enough to show some of the mechanics important to finish this instance. Happy
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