"Placeholder Sign [I can't think of a name]" (Spell Card Help Topic IV)

[PapillonReel]

Any advice for GFW's Ex stage? I've been banging my head against it on and off for the last few months and the furthest I've gotten is to Magic Bullet "Test Slave" (maybe Big Crunch - I think I might've bombed my way passed Test Slave at some point, but I don't really remember much about my earlier attempts). Here's a replay of one of my most recent attempts, but a few issues I've been having in particular are:

1 - The second wave of fairies after Lily White and Daiyousei. Is there a pattern that can make squeezing between those fireballs easier? I figure you have to stream through this part, but the shots are wide enough that I usually end up panicking and botching it.
2 - The final wave of fairies before Marisa. Usually I can get into a pattern of weaving left and right to work through the swarm, but for some reason I keep getting caught in a weird spot when they show up.
3 - The backshots in Light Blast "Shoot the Little Moon". I haven't had as much practice with them as the normal bullets, so that spell ends up killing me with terrifying efficiency, to the point where I have to bomb my way through it most of the time. Having to coordinate between both the forward and backward shots is tough enough normally, but with waves of bullets this dense...

The biggest problem I'm having, however, is that I keep getting jittery once I hit the halfway point of the stage and start making really dumb mistakes (like, for example, messing up a charge and dying on Marisa's first card). Anyone have any tips on keeping calm? 90% of my deaths seem to be coming from nerves and lack of practice, and the fixing the latter can only do so much.

[Chuckolator]

For Shoot the Little Moon, I find I play it best to freeze every other wave of stars as they fall down, and as long as you're constantly shooting Marisa you should have enough freeze to take out most of your upward bullet threat until you have to do it again.

Can't help you on the other two, those are the ones I'm no good at either. >_>

[PapillonReel]

For Shoot the Little Moon, I find I play it best to freeze every other wave of stars as they fall down, and as long as you're constantly shooting Marisa you should have enough freeze to take out most of your upward bullet threat until you have to do it again.

Hmm... I think my biggest problem is that I keep letting myself get intimidated here - I've been going over my replay and yeah, freezing the stars that way seems like the right way to capture it. It shouldn't be that hard of a spell on its own, it's only if I could stop being a nervous mess while trying to capture it. :\

[Zil]

Don't be afraid to use a bomb or two during the stage since you'll get it back before Marisa and they increase your power.

Here are two runs I uploaded a while ago to demonstrate things or something. I forget which one is the better one though.

http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=17901
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=17902

I think I knew what I was doing in most cases, though I had no clue for the survival so don't use that for help when you get there.

[Random]

Honest Man's Death supergrazing? Is it just timing your taps and changing your direction when the laser passes you?

[Piranha]

How does Reisen's last nonspell(Normal) work? Is it aimed or random? I know it is somehow aimed,  but I just can't figure out a proper way to do it consistently...

[チソウ タイゼン]

these replays

Don't get to thinking that I've played this very much at all.

Lightly Falling Large Raindrops 08 / 10
Guerrilla Typhoon 02 / 10
Karakasa Surprising Slash 03 / 10

Peaceful Dark Clouds 03 / 05
Red UFOs of Rage 00 / 04
Mysterious Snake Show 03 / 03
Blue UFOs of Grief 03 / 03
Danmaku Chimaera 02 / 02
Green UFOs of Loyalty 00 / 02
Undefined Darkness 00 / 02

Rainbow UFOs of Terror 00 / 00
Nightmare of Heiankyou 00 / 00
Bow of Yorimasa Genzanmi 00 / 00



I'm eagerly looking forward to Undefined Darkness being the next Possessed by Phoenix for me >_>
(aka an insurmountable brick wall)

[MMX]

I like the way Zil did Undefined Darkness even at 90 fps

[チソウ タイゼン]

I like the way Zil did Undefined Darkness even at 90 fps

*headdesk

Moving on...

[Zil]

Your only problems seem to be Undefined Darkness, Red UFOs of Rage, and general UFO collecting.

As MMX pointed out, there's an easier way to do Undefined Darkness.
For Red UFO's you want to start on the side and stream to the center. Start on the right when the UFO's are spinning clockwise and left when they're spinning counterclockwise. Try to follow along underneath one so you destroy it and create a gap in the UFO wall.
The video MMX linked also has what I believe is a pretty damn good UFO chain, so you can draw from that if you want. I shouldn't have gone for another red UFO at the end though as it was not only impossible but wouldn't have even made a difference since I had no spare fragments at the end of the stage.

I also have a perfect run with annotations on my channel, but I ignored the UFOs completely so it probably wouldn't be very helpful.

[MTSranger]

Ok, replay dump: http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19454
This run reached Superhuman - by which point I was so nervous due to having 0/0 and derped on the 1st wave.
I know there are various mistakes:
stage 3 post Ichirin UFO chain fail - which leads to circling fail as I chase around for UFO pieces - result in lost of a few bombs (both from bombing to escape the wall and missing a green UFO).
stage 4 - dropping life pieces :V :V :V, also forgetting that I have a bomb in Murasa's 3rd spell
stage 5 - durrr why didn't I bomb the last part, also probably could've summoned 1 more green UFO, but god that section is hard.
stage 6 - suicide! hurray!  :colonveeplusalpha:

I'm asking if there are some other parts I should improve for a 1cc - or should I just keep trying to make less errors.
(i.e. can my current route get me to 1cc the game or is it too hard?)

[Zil]

I'm no expert on UFO (yet) so I can only say a few things. After you summoned the red UFO after Nazrin in stage 1, you could have used the green UFO to summon a... green UFO, then exit the stage with two reds or two greens, whichever you want to pick up. Also a you had a bomb in the section of stage 4 with 200 UFOs flying above you, and you ended up dying without using it. I'm assuming you forgot you had a bomb, and that means you made that mistake three times! Also, if you do end up at the end of stage 5 with no bombs, the best way I've found to survive is to stand at the bottom of one of the columns of enemies, then rush staight up alongside the column as the enemies begin to appear. Then dodge whetever crap happens to fire up at you. It works about 50% of the time as Reimu; Sanae is probably better at it.
And against Byakuren, you should never fail the butterfly spell. It's entirely static and a cakewalk once you memorize it, so even if you have to go through the whole stage to practice it, it's a spell you know you can master so the time spent will have been worth it. The nonspell rigt after is also static, though admittedly more difficult than stepping from safespot to safespot.
Now last and possibly least, you may as well learn a path through Murasa's third nonspell in case you're up against it without a bomb. I timed it out once just to demonstrate it, so here you go.

http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=17524

The way I do it is to spot that pair of pink bullets that kind of stand out, and go just to the left of them. From there everything else seems to just go past you, though some slight movements may be needed depending on your position. Sometimes I go between the pink bullets because I'm spacing out or something, but going to the left is easier I think.

[Hinacle]

Can someone help me on stage 5 for SA. http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19472

[pineyappled]

Yuyuko's last spell. It's okay, but the crossy red waves get me every time.

[チソウ タイゼン]

Crap, man, that was my best run of EoSD's extra stage yet.

But I'm still terrible.

I can get up to and through Starbow Break with little to no trouble at all.

And then Catadioptric starts.
Let's waste a bomb or two.

And then Counter Clock.
Go ahead and dump the rest of your extra lives because you have no idea how this works.
Also because you're a tard and you forgot to check whether or not you'd get caught by the tailend of a laser.

But then.

This run was record-setting. I have never gotten this far! I have only seen Catadioptric three times, and Counter Clock twice now.
A streaming nonspell, okay.

But what happened next?
I gazed upon Flandre's survival for the first time ever- and I was so lost as to actually say aloud,

What the fuck am I supposed to fucking do?

I looked at the timer with horror- it started at 72 seconds. I was about to cry.

I managed to wall myself into a corner with those asshole familiars continually spawning bullets into a wall literally so thick that it was literally impenetrable.

I ended up dying with a little over 50 seconds left on the clock.

*sigh

[MMX]

Can someone help me on stage 5 for SA. http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19472

Oh man. I guess you have to work on your basic shmup skills first. Like actually dodging bullets, not wasting bombs in easy places, saving them for a really tough ones.
SA stage 5 is one of the hardest stages in all touhou even on normal. I've got a perfect run of it, look for what can you learn from it. But considering your problems it's better to bomb hard places like post-midboss streaming sections. Also those tywo places with an orb shooting circles and ghosts coming from sides could be survived without shooting at all, unless you wanna get some power. But if you decide to shoot ghosts - make a breaks in it, so you can stream their bullets back. Killing an orb is unnecessary unless you wanna get some extra items for score.

@Chisou Taizen:
Story of my life. Trying to no-bomb EoSD extra and ATWTBN? always stops me :ohdear: It's still the only extra spell i haven't captured yet.

[Seppo Hovi]

MMX, your perfect run is otherwise following a rather good survival route, but I think you should just do a little tap with the aimed spirits at the start and before Orin's bossmode, if you're playing for survival.

I also recommend to bomb the bullshit streaming. It sucks, just bomb it. Same goes with the popcorn part.

Also, with the aimed spirits, if you're at full power, don't shoot anything, just dodge the bullets with a single tap when they all are shot. If you're not at full power, focus on killing the red ones, since they drop power items, stream their bullets, and then stream the rest.


For Catadioptric, I think there are two approaches. I myself like just to cling to the left corner for all of the time, and dodge when it is time to do so, and wait peacefully for the card to stop, which will take a while, but at least the dodging is fairly simple. If you're going for a faster capture, then you can follow Flandre around, but it needs you to be more cautious with her bullet streams, and you will also need to do some fast-paced vertical-horizontal moving swaps. It might mess your head.

For Counter Clock, watch a replay. The said card is fully static, with the lasers moving always in a similar pattern. The red bullets are always either aimed at you, or misdirected from you, IIRC. (it's been a while since my last Flandre clear, so I might remember wrong...) Counter Clock will become a rather easy card to capture once you get into it, just like Cranberry Trap.

The first part of Flandre's surivival is about misdirecting the blue bullet streams. Hug walls, make them follow you to a different corner every time you do so. I myself remember just bombing here if I'm about to be walled, so I encourage you to do the same.
The second part of the survival follows the same pattern. You get differently working waves of different colors shot at you, from all directions. I personally think that it's easiest to be dodged in the bottom-middle-left, but some people disagree. I suggest you to watch a couple of replays/videos, and try the card yourself for a couple of times and go with what you feel like the best option. Also, try not to dodge through too many waves from several directions simultaneously, it might mess your head and result in you running into a bullet.

For Kinoko, I suggest you to open IN spell card 221, it's rather perfect practice for reflowering. The red waves are rather easy once you get used to them, believe me.

[MTSranger]

Catadioptric
I dodge in the bottom right corner instead of bottom left, but essentially the same thing - play conservatively and dodge. The spread wave is best dodged below and to the right of the one that bounced off the right wall. The vertical waves I dodge to the right of all the waves.

Counter clock
1st wave - run to bottom left corner, start weave through red bullets to run back to center after lasers disappear
2nd wave - bottom right corner, you don't have to move back to center until all the fast red bullets pass I think.
3rd wave - sit on bottom center, and then tap once left or right

Reflowering
you can either practice the red wave until you can read them comfortably,
or go through them at the middle of the screen before they spread up

[xForeverFanaticx]

OH DEAR GOD. I'm wondering now why I even attempted to do that 90fps SA run... It is BRUTAL. Is there anything that'll help me with doing this? Other than practice and getting used to it, of course. I know that already~

[I have no name]

OH DEAR GOD. I'm wondering now why I even attempted to do that 90fps SA run... It is BRUTAL. Is there anything that'll help me with doing this? Other than practice and getting used to it, of course. I know that already~

There is one thing...bomb on bullet spawn points for massive damage.  Utsuho's first spell goes down in just 2.
Beyond that it really helps to have 1cced SA on hard before, and also at 90 FPS with a better shot type (ReimuC is more similar to the required playstyle than ReimuA)

[Byaaakuren]

Can someone help me on stage 5 for SA. http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19472

Learn to stream. Most of Stage 5 is streaming.

Cat's Walk, you need to learn where Orin goes and chase her while she spawns the bullets. Then go back to the center to dodge then repeat.

Zombie Fairy: You have the right idea of circling Orin, but start off by shotgunning her (above the Zombie Fairies) then circle around her.
Non-card 2: The bottom is not your best friend there. Stay in the center then go left, right, left, right until Orin goes into her next card.
Spleen Eater: Let the life piece come to you. Don't move everywhere. Be careful because the spirits can kill you.
Needle Mountain: The ghost wheels are aimed at your position.
Rekindling: Misdirect the Zombie Fairies, and note that Orin has no hitbox during this card

[fondue]

Hourai Doll.
I was on the last spellcard then it raped me.
IU was atually crying ;_;

[Makai Butterfly]

Hourai Doll.
I was on the last spellcard then it raped me.
IU was atually crying ;_;

Assuming that this is a request on how to capture Hourai Doll, it's actually fairly easy albeit nerve-wracking.  Start about a third of the way up the screen in the center and as the lines of bullets start homing in on you, start microtapping in a clockwise circle so that they will always be just skirting by your hitbox and you can keep most of your firepower under Mokou the entire time.  Once the rings of yellow bullets start appearing, change your circling tactic just slightly so that instead of just microtapping, you also line yourself up vertically to be between two bullets at all times.  Your circling might get a little bit larger to accommodate this.  That's normal.  Finally, Mokou will start shooting lines of red aimed arrowheads at you.  Generally, these can be avoided by just continuing your usual circling pattern.  However, once you reach one of the horizontal sides of the circle, you'll probably have to scoot a little bit inward or outward to avoid an incoming red line.  If you're really daring, you can almost always squeeze between the red arrowheads and the yellow ring bullets given their fairly generous gaps.  Keep it up and you'll capture the spell after another rotation or two.  The most important thing to get used to in this spell is to pay close attention to the aimed red lines and the yellow rings.  Let your focus sort of ignore the spinning "snakes" of bullets that are always spawning.  As long as you keep up consistent movement, they'll never be a problem and won't require any attention.

This YouTube video has a decent example of what I mean.

[Hinacle]

Would someone be willing to evaluate my run?
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19651

[Zil]

Would someone be willing to evaluate my run?
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19651

You didn't utilize it in the run, so in case you didn't know, picking up purple and green spirits while in trance mode will double their value.
Also, stand on top of the boss when you use a bomb. You'll fill your trance much more that way.

Anyway, I made replay that has what I think is a decent path for that stage. - http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19652

You'll want to memorize where the enemies enter the screen, since most of them can be killed before they get to shoot. It also gets you more trance, so you should have a full gauge when those six life/bomb fairies start to appear. Trance them to double the spirit value, then unfocus for the laser orbs. Reimu's homing should do most of the heavy lifting there. You likely won't have a full trance for the next group of six fairies, so you'll just have to kill them normally. Memorize where they appear, and you really just have to glide from left to right and you can take them down with ease. You dealt with Tojiko well enough, so no changes there, though if you kill her quickly enough you'll get "bonus" fairies which can complicate the next part a bit. If you're really gung ho about it, you can memorize when they will appear based on the bgm. As long you're ready for them, they can be dealt with just like the fairies in the beginning.
Then start on the left for the wisps and follow them along the bottom of the screen, moving to the right and then left again. Collect the gray spirits, you'll want to fill you're trance gauge soon, and then reposition yourself in the lower right. Then next wisps are the same, but they circle counter-clockwise. The third and fourth waves will kill you if you stay at the bottom, so move up and only worry about the ones near the top. The fourth wave shoots at you, but you can avoid it every time by looping up, left, and down, landing yourself in the lower left corner. The first two fairies will appear right above you, so shoot them down quickly, then move right to deal with next pair of fairies, and move over once more for the last two. Enter trance once you take them down (or a bit before; the timing is pretty forgiving) and shoot the three fairies that appear on the right. Then fly over and get the ones on the left. The fairy in the middle has no life or bomb pieces, so don't worry if you're trance wears off before you kill the last one.

Now for Futo you should have more bombs than you know what to do with. Her opener should be easy enough, but the boat spell is tough. I recommend a planned bomb for that, and if you do it like I did in the replay, one bomb is more than enough. Follow her to the left a bit, then loop right around the entire wall of bullets, getting back to the left side as soon as you can. When she appears again, follow her all the way to the right. You can't keep up if you stay focused, but you can shift back and forth as you follow her to put out a bit more damage. Once she flies off the right side there should be a big wall of bullets coming at you from the left. Bomb before they hit you and follow Futo to the left while using your invincibilty to stand on top of her and collect lots of spirits. If she's still alive, follow her to the right once more and the spell should end before you get trapped. I'd bomb the next nonspell as well, making sure to milk as much trance out of her as you can. Then capture or bomb the rest as needed, but make sure to use your trance. You'll refill it in stage 6, so there's no reason not to trance one of Futo's remaining attacks.

[MMX]

Would someone be willing to evaluate my run?
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19651

Zil said all right. Futo could be almost entirely bomb'n'tranced due to generous fairies before her. But i can add a couple of tweaks for the stage:

1. Don't fire your trance right before first wave of charged fairies. Kill them normally leaving spirits floating, and go trance when first green spirit will be about to disappear. This way you'll get most of laser orb section going under trance too.

2. The last two circles of wisps could be easily survived from the bottom left corner. Sit there unfocused until the last ones begin to shoot aimed bullets and slowly go higher. This way you'll evade all the wisps and their bullets and kill the left two fairies very fast.

[Zil]

2. The last two circles of wisps could be easily survived from the bottom left corner. Sit there unfocused until the last ones begin to shoot aimed bullets and slowly go higher. This way you'll evade all the wisps and their bullets and kill the left two fairies very fast.

Ha, I didn't know about that. It sounds like a much easier way to do it.

[Chalros22]

I looked at the timer with horror- it started at 72 seconds. I was about to cry.

I managed to wall myself into a corner with those asshole familiars continually spawning bullets into a wall literally so thick that it was literally impenetrable.

I've never captured ATWTBN but I think the first part is rather easy. I find if I start at the bottom, and then work around counter clockwise slowly enough, I only really have to make one even close to scary dodge towards the end of that phase. I almost always end up bombing for the part with the multicolored bullets especially the second red wave since I am stupid and always stay in the center. Here's a replay if you want to see how I did it. This run was my first clear of the extra stage so you can imagine my reaction.

Hope it helps.

[MTSranger]

Would someone be willing to evaluate my run?
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19651

Trance trance trance!
Well, granted it's normal mode, which means less spirits dropped.
On hard/lunatic, it's possible to trance every single resource fairy for maximum resource gain.

Anyways, my modified strategy for normal mode (the trance and bomb timings changed to accommodate less spirit gain):
Replay: http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19657

Beginning section
- For the spirits + big fairy in the beginning, I recommend get up close unfocused to speedkill the spirits and then focus to speedkill the big fairy: this allows maximum gain in trance. There are 2 sets you have to deal with.
- Every single big fairy should be killed as soon as possible, preferably right in the face so that you can auto collect spirits
- your trance will fill up thanks to generous spirits coming from the fairies, which originate on the right side

First set of resource-wisps, then laser wisps, then 2nd set of resource wisps
- I recommend activate trance after the first 3 resource-carrying wisps so you can skip the lasers (the spirits from laser wisps won't be enough to fill up trance gauge anyways, cuz it's normal mode)
- ^ Make sure you speedkill those resource-wisps - memorize them as left, middle, right
- After the laser section, another 2 sets of 3 resource-wisps come. Speedkill them so you can collect resources

Tojiko is fine, do whatever you find easier. I recommend bombing one of the attacks (like the spell) for trance.

Post Tojiko big fairies (optional)
- If any big fairy appear due to killing Tojiko too fast, just speedkill them - get under them up close and focus, so you auto collect all spirits as well. In fact, the reason I recommend bombing the spell is so that these extra fairies appear and help fill up your trance gauge.
- The order is 1 down the middle, then 2 down left/right, then repeat. Which one starts depends on timing, but you should be able to recognize it quick enough to still be able to kill them really fast.

Circling Spirits
- You can collect quite a bit of spirits by following them in a circular motion inside the circle and killing them as they spawn. It's a bit difficult and you should only do it on the first few waves where they don't shoot bullets. Basically you have to memorize where the first spirit spawns and rush to it and draw a circle fairly close to the spirits.
- For the last wave, you simply sit somewhere in the middle until the bullets start to get close, then move up (no bullets coming from above because you kill spirits above as soon as they spawn), left, and down.
- If you find this method too difficult, you can use MMX's method of cheesing the whole thing out at the bottom left corner
Edit: see MMX's post below

6 resource-wisps coming in 3 sets of 2's (left, middle, right)
- Basically, after the spirits you should end up at bottom left corner to kill the first 2 wisps immediately, then, kill the middle 2, then kill the right 2. If your gauge is filled up, activate trance - near the end when you have / almost killed the last 2 wisps on the right.

The last wisp spam
- Trance here, or bomb if you can't trance - kill the ones on the left and right before killing the one in the middle.

I'm sure the others have explained Futo's attacks fairly well.
My replay has a perfect of that fight, so consult it if you wish.
Some bomb and trance is recommended though, unless you are really really sure you can pass the attacks without any hitches.

[MMX]

Circling Spirits
- You can collect quite a bit of spirits by following them in a circular motion inside the circle and killing them as they spawn. It's a bit difficult and you should only do it on the first few waves where they don't shoot bullets. Basically you have to memorize where the first spirit spawns and rush to it and draw a circle fairly close to the spirits.
- For the last wave, you simply sit somewhere in the middle until the bullets start to get close, then move up (no bullets coming from above because you kill spirits above as soon as they spawn), left, and down.
- If you find this method too difficult, you can use MMX's method of cheesing the whole thing out at the bottom left corner

Nonono. You can collect a lot of grey spirits from those circles of ghosts. But don't follow them in circles, just shoot first two waves from the bottom. Left-right-left, gather spirits, right-left-right, gather again, go to the corner. And if you bomb or trance any of Tojiko attack and manage those extra fairies after her to appear, all these stuff can easily give you full trance even on normal. This was done on 90 fps but shows the method i always use.