Yet another Dueling Guide

[Leo]

. outdated

 

[mage!]

amazing guide ty

 

[Leo]

amazing guide ty

Appreciate it!

 

[Noob]

wheres the part with hax

 

[SeV]

Over-all a well put together guide covering the basics to get people started, although it's riddled with mid-tierisms.

Here are some of my criticisms/observations and input, do with it what you will since it's your guide.

--

If styles are ranked by strength, duals should be S tier, it's ridiculously overpowered. Insane offense, and can easily rely on parries at 0 BP to just bulldoze opponents. A calm blue user can counter this aggression by backpedalling and using a combination of PBing and parrying with SA etc to nullify the defense and get the eventual kill when the duals user runs out of BP.

I also think blue should be A. It's just hard to use properly.

--

The thing about disarming, and not killing people who just stand there gaping at you, is kind of ridiculous. If you get disarmed, you should immediately run/jump away. If the opponent stands around, you should kill them. Otherwise, chase them to prevent them from freely regaining BP. Of course, when you're low BP and get a disarm and they run away, you should just try to regen as much BP as possible instead of starting a futile chase.

--

Parrying: First way: PB and then counter.
You do not need to match the swings so strictly. Your guide makes it sound like you need to use A to parry the opponent's A swing, when in reality you can use other swings such as SD or D. WD also works when you're pushing for aggression and you're close.

--

Shadowswinging.

When you're done attacking, you strafe away to gain distance and dodge a potential counter attack, but you intend to come right back and enter the fight. You do not keep running. It was originally used with A halfswinging in the old pre-aimed PB days. The way it worked was that you'd attack with A, strafe away, dodge their swing, come back with another A halfswing (the only fast one at the time). This is slightly different than unloading a 4 hit combo and just running far away. I differentiate between dodging and running because dodging means you're still in combat, running means you've disengaged and moved away such a distance that chasing blindly is ill-advised. The old, proper way of shadowswinging has slowly disappeared because you have a lot of insta-bullshit still, which makes it dangerous. Still, I feel that to call 4 hit comboing into disengagement shadowswinging is a gross simplification. That is like the mid-tier flailing version of a proper shadowswing. Look at how otter duels in some of his videos. He does proper shadowswings (dodging a single hit by strafing out, then immediately coming back to hit the opponent, usually with A) <- that is real shadowswinging. This 4 hit running nonsense does not deserve to be called shadowswinging because you do not follow up the shadow(dodge) part with a swing but instead leg it.

In the very beginning of this video at the 3-4 sec mark, Vortex shadowswings properly. Otters shadowswing at 23 sec into the vid is also exemplary.
I wish mid-tiers would stop conflating 4 hit running gaylordery with proper shadowswings. A shadow swing is you, dodging the opponents swing (like a shadow!) then coming back and swinging at them. There is no swinging involved in running away after comboing, so that is not shadowswinging.

--

Movement: Running.
No, running does not make your swingblock weak. Swingblock lowers your movement speed. If you're swingblocking without holding the walk key, you won't get disarmed or slapped down.

I also feel that you should mention in this section how holding both walk+block slows you down further than simply holding block, making you a fucking turtle. In general, it's better to never hold walk unless you are close to the opponent/attacking. In other words, you should hold walk when you attack and combo, but let go of it when you're blocking(to increase your movement speed)

--

Crouching.

It does not lower your damage dealt. It's useful when you're punishing ppl who're grounded after a slap to prevent knockdowns.
Also good if you're low BP and parrying to stay alive, since the only thing that can then fuck you up is the legsweep.

--

PBC: You do not need to match directions to mblock directions. I don't know where this idea comes from. You can PBC anything with D as long as u can hit it. SD as well. It depends on timing and distance from the opponent. Generally, if you're really close your best bet is all of the D side even WD works if u are good enough. I dunno why you keep mentioning that you need to match swings and mblock directions like in the parry section, you don't. Some swings are just faster and better than others, like D and SD. At a distance, more swings become relevant, like SA and so on.

--

Blue style: One of the best swings is SA. You can halfswing it ridiculously fast if you just spam it with the right timing. Using a lot of D and A as blue is a noob mistake because that's where the opponents crosshair is going to be placed, so D just gets PBd most of the time.

Blue works best as a defensive style that threatens interrupts whilst farming ACC and playing the long game using a combination of PBs and parries with the fast swings and backpedalling/strafing. Think form III rather than form V. Precise movement, PBs and timings. Careful 2 hit combos to avoid slaps, 4 hit combos to parry (worthless to drain unless u are pressuring and get interrupts) and 1 hit fast halfswing spam whenever the opportunity presents itself, to farm acc. You just have to wait for that moment patiently.

Combos with W or S are useful for blue to maneuver around, either chasing or retreating. And never forget the difference between ordinary slow blue halfswings and the fast beast-mode ones.

Blue stabs should be followed up by an instant attack and 180. That way you will never die, cuz you'll parry his earliest hit. (Excepting funky saved insta-hits that still do sometimes happen in this buggy piece of shit build).

--

Staff: This section is mostly okay, and I agree that staff is not overpowered. You can learn to PB its attacks relatively easily by watching the dip or rise of the front blade in the attack animation. To counter the facehug interrupt spam, backpedal and counter calmly with yellow (or blue) and staff won't be an insurmountable threat to you. You could probably scrub out the mid-tierisms about spam from this section, since it's a guide and not a therapy group for saberists anonymous

--

Purple: The advice I can give here is that SA is much faster than most other purple swings, so it's quite useful. If you use offense from a distance, try to use +use jumps and spinning yaws. However, the most effective way to play purple, as already mentioned, is as a mostly reactive style with quick bursts of swings whenever u can fit them in. Think of the split as 30-70 in favor of reacting vs proactively attacking . What you want to do ideally to win with purple is to PB the first hit and start grinding into the opponents timings with halfswings. You can, contrary to popular belief, counter yellow fine with purple, you don't need the red speeds to do it. I've found this the most powerful strategy. You need to be very good at PBing, and probably you have to outskill your opponent by a good margin because yeah, purple is not that strong. 4 hit spam with yellow is the hard counter that purple can't do much about.

--

Red: Unfortunately without nudge it cannot be called an aggressive style, it has to be reactive like purple and the hard counter is just brute 4 hit spam with yellow, just keep parrying until success. It makes red and purple dead styles standalone, but decent in short bursts before opp can adjust. For example, masking that you've changed from yellow to red with an mblock, and then countering with red on the unsuspecting, halfswinging yellow opponent.

Should you also not mention red hops in the red section?

--

Meta: You fail to mention the most important part of what makes 4 hit spamming work. That is, the 5th hit you get afterwards. So you start your swing, opp PBS and counters and gets the last hit, but after u take the bodyhit you get +1 to your combo and can reply, thus evening the ACC. You just keep pressuring with this repeatedly until your opponent misses a PB or a timing and then you slowly take the advantage in the exchanges. Opp can ofc also counter with a 5th but this rarely happens unless two top tiers are dueling.

I also don't really think the meta is all 4 hit spamming. There is another meta which is mouse rape, D side fast halfswing abuse and an extreme focus on drawn out duels won by ACM advantage. I think most people don't 4 hit spam, so not sure it can be called the current meta.

 

[Leo]

Over-all a well put together guide covering the basics to get people started, although it's riddled with mid-tierisms.

Here are some of my criticisms/observations and input, do with it what you will since it's your guide.

--

If styles are ranked by strength, duals should be S tier, it's ridiculously overpowered. Insane offense, and can easily rely on parries at 0 BP to just bulldoze opponents. A calm blue user can counter this aggression by backpedalling and using a combination of PBing and parrying with SA etc to nullify the defense and get the eventual kill when the duals user runs out of BP.

I also think blue should be A. It's just hard to use properly.

--

The thing about disarming, and not killing people who just stand there gaping at you, is kind of ridiculous. If you get disarmed, you should immediately run/jump away. If the opponent stands around, you should kill them. Otherwise, chase them to prevent them from freely regaining BP. Of course, when you're low BP and get a disarm and they run away, you should just try to regen as much BP as possible instead of starting a futile chase.

--

Parrying: First way: PB and then counter.
You do not need to match the swings so strictly. Your guide makes it sound like you need to use A to parry the opponent's A swing, when in reality you can use other swings such as SD or D. WD also works when you're pushing for aggression and you're close.

--

Shadowswinging.

When you're done attacking, you strafe away to gain distance and dodge a potential counter attack, but you intend to come right back and enter the fight. You do not keep running. It was originally used with A halfswinging in the old pre-aimed PB days. The way it worked was that you'd attack with A, strafe away, dodge their swing, come back with another A halfswing (the only fast one at the time). This is slightly different than unloading a 4 hit combo and just running far away. I differentiate between dodging and running because dodging means you're still in combat, running means you've disengaged and moved away such a distance that chasing blindly is ill-advised. The old, proper way of shadowswinging has slowly disappeared because you have a lot of insta-bullshit still, which makes it dangerous. Still, I feel that to call 4 hit comboing into disengagement shadowswinging is a gross simplification. That is like the mid-tier flailing version of a proper shadowswing. Look at how otter duels in some of his videos. He does proper shadowswings (dodging a single hit by strafing out, then immediately coming back to hit the opponent, usually with A) <- that is real shadowswinging. This 4 hit running nonsense does not deserve to be called shadowswinging because you do not follow up the shadow(dodge) part with a swing but instead leg it.

In the very beginning of this video at the 3-4 sec mark, Vortex shadowswings properly. I wish mid-tiers would stop conflating 4 hit running gaylordery with proper shadowswings. A shadow swing is you, dodging the opponents swing (like a shadow!) then coming back and swinging at them. There is no swinging involved in running away after comboing, so that is not shadowswinging.

--

Movement: Running.
No, running does not make your swingblock weak. Swingblock lowers your movement speed. If you're swingblocking without holding the walk key, you won't get disarmed or slapped down.

I also feel that you should mention in this section how holding both walk+block slows you down further than simply holding block, making you a fucking turtle. In general, it's better to never hold walk unless you are close to the opponent/attacking. In other words, you should hold walk when you attack and combo, but let go of it when you're blocking(to increase your movement speed)

--

Crouching.

It does not lower your damage dealt. It's useful when you're punishing ppl who're grounded after a slap to prevent knockdowns.
Also good if you're low BP and parrying to stay alive, since the only thing that can then fuck you up is the legsweep.

--

PBC: You do not need to match directions to mblock directions. I don't know where this idea comes from. You can PBC anything with D as long as u can hit it. SD as well. It depends on timing and distance from the opponent. Generally, if you're really close your best bet is all of the D side even WD works if u are good enough. I dunno why you keep mentioning that you need to match swings and mblock directions like in the parry section, you don't. Some swings are just faster and better than others, like D and SD. At a distance, more swings become relevant, like SA and so on.

--

Blue style: One of the best swings is SA. You can halfswing it ridiculously fast if you just spam it with the right timing. Using a lot of D and A as blue is a noob mistake because that's where the opponents crosshair is going to be placed, so D just gets PBd most of the time.

Blue works best as a defensive style that threatens interrupts whilst farming ACC and playing the long game using a combination of PBs and parries with the fast swings and backpedalling/strafing. Think form III rather than form V. Precise movement, PBs and timings. Careful 2 hit combos to avoid slaps, 4 hit combos to parry (worthless to drain unless u are pressuring and get interrupts) and 1 hit fast halfswing spam whenever the opportunity presents itself, to farm acc. You just have to wait for that moment patiently.

Combos with W or S are useful for blue to maneuver around, either chasing or retreating. And never forget the difference between ordinary slow blue halfswings and the fast beast-mode ones.

Blue stabs should be followed up by an instant attack and 180. That way you will never die, cuz you'll parry his earliest hit. (Excepting funky saved insta-hits that still do sometimes happen in this buggy piece of shit build).

--

Staff: This section is mostly okay, and I agree that staff is not overpowered. You can learn to PB its attacks relatively easily by watching the dip or rise of the front blade in the attack animation. To counter the facehug interrupt spam, backpedal and counter calmly with yellow (or blue) and staff won't be an insurmountable threat to you. You could probably scrub out the mid-tierisms about spam from this section, since it's a guide and not a therapy group for saberists anonymous

--

Purple: The advice I can give here is that SA is much faster than most other purple swings, so it's quite useful. If you use offense from a distance, try to use +use jumps and spinning yaws. However, the most effective way to play purple, as already mentioned, is as a mostly reactive style with quick bursts of swings whenever u can fit them in. Think of the split as 30-70 in favor of reacting vs proactively attacking . What you want to do ideally to win with purple is to PB the first hit and start grinding into the opponents timings with halfswings. You can, contrary to popular belief, counter yellow fine with purple, you don't need the red speeds to do it. I've found this the most powerful strategy. You need to be very good at PBing, and probably you have to outskill your opponent by a good margin because yeah, purple is not that strong. 4 hit spam with yellow is the hard counter that purple can't do much about.

--

Red: Unfortunately without nudge it cannot be called an aggressive style, it has to be reactive like purple and the hard counter is just brute 4 hit spam with yellow, just keep parrying until success. It makes red and purple dead styles standalone, but decent in short bursts before opp can adjust. For example, masking that you've changed from yellow to red with an mblock, and then countering with red on the unsuspecting, halfswinging yellow opponent.

Should you also not mention red hops in the red section?

--

Meta: You fail to mention the most important part of what makes 4 hit spamming work. That is, the 5th hit you get afterwards. So you start your swing, opp PBS and counters and gets the last hit, but after u take the bodyhit you get +1 to your combo and can reply, thus evening the ACC. You just keep pressuring with this repeatedly until your opponent misses a PB or a timing and then you slowly take the advantage in the exchanges. Opp can ofc also counter with a 5th but this rarely happens unless two top tiers are dueling.

I also don't really think the meta is all 4 hit spamming. There is another meta which is mouse rape, D side fast halfswing abuse and an extreme focus on drawn out duels won by ACM advantage. I think most people don't 4 hit spam, so not sure it can be called the current meta.

Appreciate it very much! I know this guide may have many mistakes, at the end, it was just from my point of view and enough to let the beginners train from something that is not outdated. Anyways as I said "It was just from my point of view". Which might be the mistake you are looking at. I didn't gain most of the time any informations from top tier duelist or just experienced - veteran players, all was about how I felt it should be. Thing why I mentioned that Running breaks your swingblock abit was too just me, seeing many times someone swingblocking normally, but if they chase me or run to me, i could just disarm them, I don't know why, or if it's the game's fault, I just know it was for me always like this. About the meta, I know that there isn't just 4hit meta, and as you say that 4hit combos are not even mostly used, well, not from top tiers mostly. But any other duelist would use this just to spam and win through out the combos. About Blue SA, I never saw the hit faster than D, and I know that D and A are the most used swings in Blue as they are fast and everybody use them (Which makes them predictable as you said), I saw SA being slower than these and it might be just me, I just never could use SA to be more powerful than D.. I didn't knew about the PBC, I just knew it works like I said, didn't knew there are multiple ways in countering here. So I'm sorry for that, not like it's an excuse or something, I'm playing just 5 months, at this stage I rather focus on Dueling instead of gathering information about mechanics. About the disarming, I know it was kinda bad writing down the ways how to act when you disarm someone, however I never had problem with letting someone regen BP for example, I did not care, at the end it was just a game and I wanted to enjoy it, not to win it. I listed the styles in tier about how hard/easy are they to learn, use and what is their + and -, for example Yellow is S tier because it is balanced, easy to train mechanics on, balanced and even newbie can play something with it.
Meanwhile Purple is slow, harder to learn and use, in beginners hand totally useless.

I will try to edit the guide tomorrow from your feedback, appreciate it.
And sorry that I did not answered beautiful, harder to read and understand what I'm saying.

 

[SeV]

Appreciate it very much! I know this guide may have many mistakes, at the end, it was just from my point of view and enough to let the beginners train from something that is not outdated. Anyways as I said "It was just from my point of view". Which might be the mistake you are looking at. I didn't gain most of the time any informations from top tier duelist or just experienced - veteran players, all was about how I felt it should be. Thing why I mentioned that Running breaks your swingblock abit was too just me, seeing many times someone swingblocking normally, but if they chase me or run to me, i could just disarm them, I don't know why, or if it's the game's fault, I just know it was for me always like this. About the meta, I know that there isn't just 4hit meta, and as you say that 4hit combos are not even mostly used, well, not from top tiers mostly. But any other duelist would use this just to spam and win through out the combos. About Blue SA, I never saw the hit faster than D, and I know that D and A are the most used swings in Blue as they are fast and everybody use them (Which makes them predictable as you said), I saw SA being slower than these and it might be just me, I just never could use SA to be more powerful than D.. I didn't knew about the PBC, I just knew it works like I said, didn't knew there are multiple ways in countering here. So I'm sorry for that, not like it's an excuse or something, I'm playing just 5 months, at this stage I rather focus on Dueling instead of gathering information about mechanics. About the disarming, I know it was kinda bad writing down the ways how to act when you disarm someone, however I never had problem with letting someone regen BP for example, I did not care, at the end it was just a game and I wanted to enjoy it, not to win it. I listed the styles in tier about how hard/easy are they to learn, use and what is their + and -, for example Yellow is S tier because it is balanced, easy to train mechanics on, balanced and even newbie can play something with it.
Meanwhile Purple is slow, harder to learn and use, in beginners hand totally useless.

I will try to edit the guide tomorrow from your feedback, appreciate it.
And sorry that I did not answered beautiful, harder to read and understand what I'm saying.

Yeh I understand. As I said, it's your guide and I think it does a good job at introducing the basics very briefly. Use my feedback however you wish or ignore it. It's up to you

 

[Leo]

EDITED
Parrying now uses correct PBC videos (Countering from any distance)
Shadowswing video has been replaced by a new one (That should show understandable example)
PBC now uses correct videos with example of swings you can do when countering
Duals are now B tier
Blue is now A tier


REMOVED
Videos that did not show correct example of mechanic.
-Spam in Sections Duals, Staff, Blue
False information about Swingblock while running
False information about Crouching swing damage
False information about Countering with MBlock directions.

ADDED
Information about Running while holding block
SA swing for Blue
Draining ACM from opponent for Blue
SA swing for Purple
Advice for putting halfswings in correct timing anytime you can with Purple
Red Jumps videos + How to do it
Red advice for countering to parry against Yellow players
+1 Additional swing when doing 4hit combos on Yellow (After bodyhit, After slap)
SA swing for Cyan


Thanks to SeV for his feedback and pointing out mistakes and things that could be added to the guide.


​

 

[cannonfodder]

Another thing about halfswings, You get a faster halfswing with most styles if you do it after an A, D, or W swing, because those 3 swings have the shortest recovery times. Ex: AW > D is slower than D > AW. And since those 3 swings have the shortest recovery time for most styles, those are the easiest swings to combo reset off of too. Also on red jump, you can chain red jumps with Jump 3 if you do it on slower halfswings like AW.

 

[SnowBlind]

A good amount of effort went into this, however incorrect/misleading information and personal thoughts plagues this guide. Sev has addressed most of these issues, but I would be happy to dm you a corrections list for factual things.

Now to clean up some info in this thread:

Crouching does lower your damage but not by much anymore, see 1.6 change log.

You do not need to pb in order to counter, all that matters is inputting attack within a certain time of being hit.

Trying to counter parry with a-side attacks on yellow is a bad idea given that d-side half swings are faster(all yellow d-side half swings are the same speed), but as Sev mentioned depending on position d/sd are usually easier to work with.

Blue diagonals are very strong in half swing due to them having virtually no recovery on hit, coupled with all blue half swings barring w having the second fastest half swing speed in the game.

Depending on whether you hit the opponent or not will affect the return time, in regards to hitting the opponent, w is never the best option, it is usually a or d, some sa or for blues case any diagonal, and for staff it can be any swing.

I too would like to make a more factual guide, but I cannot be bothered to do so until tempest patch comes out, hope this helps.

 

[cannonfodder]

Depending on whether you hit the opponent or not will affect the return time, in regards to hitting the opponent, w is never the best option, it is usually a or d, some sa or for blues case any diagonal, and for staff it can be any swing.

I think W swing is a super good swing to hit them with, something I do pretty often while approaching someone, is I'll run at them with a W swing, then turn 90 degrees to the right forcing the swing to whiff, then follow up with a quick A swing, if they attempted to counter the W swing, they'll get interrupted by the A swing. Plus if your halfswinging W > D swing is deceptively quick, I've interrupted several top players by doing this. With W, D, and A's quick recovery time, they are the 3 best swings to combo reset off of as well. And for cyan, a face hug W swing is instant, it hits earlier than any other swing..

 

[SnowBlind]

I think W swing is a super good swing to hit them with, something I do pretty often while approaching someone, is I'll run at them with a W swing, then turn 90 degrees to the right forcing the swing to whiff, then follow up with a quick A swing, if they attempted to counter the W swing, they'll get interrupted by the A swing. Plus if your halfswinging W > D swing is deceptively quick, I've interrupted several top players by doing this. With W, D, and A's quick recovery time, they are the 3 best swings to combo reset off of as well. And for cyan, a face hug W swing is instant, it hits earlier than any other swing..

I assume this is yellow, w has fairly good start up time, yes whiffing w into a can catch people off guard, not sure how they are countering off of w if you don't hit them with it. A half swing chain of w-d is not really quick, w's returns time when hitting the opponent is just above half a second.

As for cyan start up take a look at sa, fastest attack from neutral in the game.

 

[Leo]

Another thing about halfswings, You get a faster halfswing with most styles if you do it after an A, D, or W swing, because those 3 swings have the shortest recovery times. Ex: AW > D is slower than D > AW. And since those 3 swings have the shortest recovery time for most styles, those are the easiest swings to combo reset off of too. Also on red jump, you can chain red jumps with Jump 3 if you do it on slower halfswings like AW.

Sorry to say so, but I won't add that into the Halfswings, my guide is supposed to teach beginners, however, not making them experts by any small detail or things they wouldn't even see difference, but nice point.

And what do you mean about the red jumps with halfswing AW? I know you can chain them, but not with halfswings.

A good amount of effort went into this, however incorrect/misleading information and personal thoughts plagues this guide. Sev has addressed most of these issues, but I would be happy to dm you a corrections list for factual things.

Now to clean up some info in this thread:

Crouching does lower your damage but not by much anymore, see 1.6 change log.

You do not need to pb in order to counter, all that matters is inputting attack within a certain time of being hit.

Trying to counter parry with a-side attacks on yellow is a bad idea given that d-side half swings are faster(all yellow d-side half swings are the same speed), but as Sev mentioned depending on position d/sd are usually easier to work with.

Blue diagonals are very strong in half swing due to them having virtually no recovery on hit, coupled with all blue half swings barring w having the second fastest half swing speed in the game.

Depending on whether you hit the opponent or not will affect the return time, in regards to hitting the opponent, w is never the best option, it is usually a or d, some sa or for blues case any diagonal, and for staff it can be any swing.

I too would like to make a more factual guide, but I cannot be bothered to do so until tempest patch comes out, hope this helps.

I wasn't sure about the crouching, I just felt it was like that until I changed it.
And I also posted bodyhit counter and under it is "Works same as perfect block counter, but at cost you won't perfect block." so think that should be enough.
About the parry,I don't know. I know D swings are faster, but I could parry with any direction honestly. It is just a detail that won't break beginners training, I guess.
W is second fastest halfswing in the game? At Blue?It felt so slow for me.

 

[SnowBlind]

About the parry,I don't know. I know D swings are faster, but I could parry with any direction honestly. It is just a detail that won't break beginners training, I guess.
W is second fastest halfswing in the game? At Blue?It felt so slow for me.

Against opponents who yaw you are likely to get interrupted from using a-side yellow half swings to counter parry, also "barring w" meaning excluding w.

 

[cannonfodder]

And what do you mean about the red jumps with halfswing AW? I know you can chain them, but not with halfswings.

On the topic of A and D halfswings being able to halfswing faster, if you do A > A > A with jump 2 red jumps, you can chain them together quickly, but if your using the slower AW > AW > AW halfswings (cause they are diagonals), You can chain the halfswings together for jump 3 red jumps. (there is a very small pause between the jumps however, less than a second.)

 

[Eazy E]

Spotted a few mistakes but it seems others have already commented on them.

The real question is where's the guide to installing Kronos' hacks? I mean Vega was involved in this so idk why he would leave such an essential part of his strategy out of it.

 

[Anbu]

-

 

[Leo]

Spotted a few mistakes but it seems others have already commented on them.

The real question is where's the guide to installing Kronos' hacks? I mean Vega was involved in this so idk why he would leave such an essential part of his strategy out of it.

I'm sorry sir, I'll try to find it really quickly so the newbies can destroy everyone. Thanks for pointing that out!

 

[Deleted member 8232]

told y all leons was a tier

 

[noel]

SK5 20 Oct @ 8:34am
Poorly written with a lot of misguided opinionated information