Fiona Gameplay

• protoman206 wrote on 2011-08-06 18:19
  Recently I started playing vindictus again, as a sword Fiona, and after Ainle everything seems so hard.
  
  I can recognize smash from normal easily because I just heavy stander everything.
  Fall back = Smash
  Block = Normal, and can be PG
  
  For example when I fight bosses
  
  Im comboing up for Amaranth Kick, and they suddenly just hit me, is there some cancel techique to block?.
  
  Am I suppose to be spamming Amaranth kick? Trash Mobs, and Bosses
  Im very conservative about using counter attack because it really kills my shield, Is this right as well?
  
  Any other smah skills I shouuld be using?
  I use Amaranth, Blossom and counter at the moment.
  
  A few gameplay tips would be appreciated
• Invertex wrote on 2011-08-06 18:35
  Alright, let's see.
  
  Trash Mobs - The slower but safer way to deal with these is to knock them down. Sprint Smash is your friend, Blossom is also good (once you get the skill for extra hits) as it has one of the best damage precentiles. Amaranth should usually be reserved for...
  1. When the mobs are a distance away but are running at you
  2. When everything is knocked down
  3. When you can hit everything that is attacking you with your normals
  
  Bosses - Firstly, you should be abusing counter. In order to circumvent the shield durability problem, I'd always (ALWAYS) carry a Campfire Kit. When you get to the boss room (can be hard to tell where boss rooms are at first), set up a Campfire ahead of time and sit down to get the buff. The important buff here is the armor regeneration buff, which applies to your shield as well. This should give you enough shield durability to use counter often.
  
  You do NOT want to be using Amaranth while the boss is standing if you're soloing, otherwise only use Amaranth for when the boss is knocked down (due to counters) or for when the boss is chasing someone else. There are very few bosses (at this point) that allow you to Amaranth them between attacks, so try not to use it too much. Learn to Heavy Stand Guard Cancel (Youtube or a search here should help with that), it's very important for Sword Fiona.
  
  In order to do damage when the boss is not knocked down, I'd go with Blossom for longer gaps and Petal Toss (LR) for shorter ones. If you want to do an Amaranth, try to miss (yes, I'm telling you to miss) your normals. Sword Fiona has a really annoying feature where her sword slows down (especially on the 3rd and 4th hits) during your normals (LLLL). Learning to whiff these is important as well to maximize damage.
  
  Smashes
  Sprint Smash (Dash R) - This is a very good and fast poke, I'd use it if you have stamina to spare and want to add some damage. You can also HSGC it.
  Rose Thorn (R, Charge) - The main thing with this is that it does not move you foward and a full charge has better precentiles then Amaranth, still not worth using often though. You can cancel the recovery by moving.
  Petal Toss (LR (+R with skill)) - The second R attack should offer sufficient coverage from trash mobs. Just doing a LR is also a good poke (and does more damage then an uncharged Rose Thorn or Sprint Smash).
  Blossom (LLR (+R with skill, +RR with r9)) - This is the best damage/second move for Fiona. It also takes a lot of Stamina. Only using LLRR is probably the way to use this as the 3rd hit doesn't HSGC as quickly as the first and second.
  Ivy Sweep (LLLR (+R with skill, +RR with r9)) - The 3rd hit of the RRR combo is a roundhouse kick that offers a 360 degree coverage. This is mainly used for mob clearing.
  Amaranth (LLLLR) - Main damage dealer. Best Damage/Stamina. You can also HSGC this.
• Hexed wrote on 2011-08-06 19:02
  About the campfires, make sure you get it to rA as soon as you can, it really helps in dungeons where you know you'll be countering a lot or heavy standing a lot.
  If you dont know how to heavy stander cancel yet, its very simple, and only takes a little bit of practice to get used to it. Basically all you have to do is quickly go into heavy stander right as your attacking animation ends, and you go into that *recovery* mode where you take a second to cooldown from your attack. Before you practice using it with your attacks, first you need to try and go into a quick heavy stander by itself. You just need to quickly hit the buttons and release them so that you dont go into a full heavy stander, and if youre doing it right, you shouldnt hear that metallic clunk sound. Amaranth takes a little more timing, and you should try to watch your characters foot as it starts to fall back to the ground, and thats when you can heavy stander.
  [video=youtube;stjJgaePJMs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stjJgaePJMs&feature=related[/video]
  This video shows how big of a difference this makes with your skills, and it should be practiced.
  [video=youtube;LTLM5LGl61M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTLM5LGl61M&feature=channel_video_title[/video]
  
  Another useful technique is sprint smash cancelling. You basically do consecutive sprint smashes by pressing the auto run key, and your direction key (the default auto run key is shift.) and your smash button, then you apply the heavy stander cancel technique above, and you get this.
  [video=youtube;c1RTo_EyjNw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1RTo_EyjNw&feature=related[/video]
  
  Its very usefull for getting in a quick first hit on a boss, and i know that in lower level dungeons a boss can be knocked down in about 2 of these, but it probably wont work like that as you move on xD. Its also usefull to immobilize trash mobs in higher level dungeons, when the trash mobs get a little more annoying and damaging, as seen here around 0:30
  [video=youtube;XFcW9_iSgv8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFcW9_iSgv8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/video]
  
  Sprint smash into heavy stander seems to be usefull to dodge in certain situations.(I dont really know how practical this can be or what, but i am just using what ive seen from videos.) I see it a lot in weeping queen videos, you'll notice them sprint smash under the spider and go into heavy stander so that the spider goes right over them, like in this video.[video=youtube;-vopv60Fv0g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vopv60Fv0g[/video]
• protoman206 wrote on 2011-08-07 04:45
  Thank you for the very detailed help, I do remember doing heavy stander cancels, and
  I'm use to missing my normals and hitting with amaranth. Sadly that trick gets harder as bosses now jump halfway across the map.
  
  I completly forgot about my campfire xD.
  
  You guys were both very helpful
• Hexed wrote on 2011-08-09 05:33
  Happy to help. :)