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

[Zil]

I think being at the bottom instead of circling with them gets more use out of your homing shots. That's what they do in score runs, as I recall.

[MTSranger]

Ah I see. Never knew that!

[チソウ タイゼン]

http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19670

> the effing retarded aya, sanae performance

[Chalros22]

> the effing retarded aya, sanae performance

Not sure about Aya (replay desynced for stage 4 on my computer) but the Sanae fight looked like it went really well. Your only death was relatively silly and easily fixed.

As far as Aya goes on hard for me personally I usually capture 2 or all 3 of the nonspells. Her first spell isnt too bad, but I bomb if I get trapped. Tengu's Fall Wind is pretty much an autobomb when I play. Illusionary Dominance is hit or miss and her final is pretty much the same as on normal.

Looks like other than maybe Aya (which of course I didn't see) your biggest problem was with the spams in stage 6. If you have it unlocked for practice I suggest you try it out because the ring spawning fairies can be streamed (I usually start bottom right corner but I'm sure there are other ways) but if needed, bomb it, since you generally don't lose too much power for it with that many enemies on screen.

I would say plan to bomb a lot on Kanako (I usually do on her first and last nonspell, and also on rice porridge and Source of Rains) and hopefully you can get to VoWG with at least another life in stock to use for additional bombs if you need it.

[MTSranger]

I wonder how much more is it possible to improve this score, and how:
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19692

[Random]

I wonder how much more is it possible to improve this score, and how:
http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19692

Stall the green UFO in the beginning so that you can get 100% after killing the first blue enemy after the first wave of fairies.
Try filling then killing the multi UFO before the space invader fairies come.
Avoid trying to use a bunch of UFOs and collect unnecessary UFO pieces. If you collect a UFO piece when a UFO is already activated, 1,000 is added to your point item value.

Edit: You can also bomb the second to last wave on Nue to get all the point items from the fairies, then collect the blue UFO.

[MTSranger]

Stall the green UFO in the beginning so that you can get 100% after killing the first blue enemy after the first wave of fairies.
Try filling then killing the multi UFO before the space invader fairies come.
Avoid trying to use a bunch of UFOs and collect unnecessary UFO pieces. If you collect a UFO piece when a UFO is already activated, 1,000 is added to your point item value.

Edit: You can also bomb the second to last wave on Nue to get all the point items from the fairies, then collect the blue UFO.

Thanks! that was +50mil improvement
190mil: http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19771
I think I can get another +6 mil if I didn't die stupidly during the stage and had to collect power from 2nd/4th waves in Nue, but sigh it's 2am and I'm kind of tired to retry again... stupid stupid UFO why do you always run away with 600 point items!!!
Anyways, that's still like 4m short of 200mil. I wonder if I can somehow squeeze it in.

[Puffy]

Any help on VoWG on Lunatic? Those walls are incredibly hard to dodge even when you know there path, its just the speed, that makes it abit difficult microing through the walls, else everything else is 'ok'.

Replay

[Lepetit89]

Any help on VoWG on Lunatic? Those walls are incredibly hard to dodge even when you know there path, its just the speed, that makes it abit difficult microing through the walls, else everything else is 'ok'.

Replay

Old post with some thoughts I had regarding VoWG without watching the particular replay:

Older post, but I'm currently struggling "a little" with this spellcard and analyzed a few of my runs and compared them to some Hard Mode Practice runs. While it's not exactly a tip, and I'm pretty sure this is actually common sense, I think this will allow me to finally get through this.

I tried getting through the spellcard using ressources, but wound up failing since the spellcard is designed to make you bomb every few seconds if you cannot handle it. When I then went to the toilet, the bitter taste of defeat fresh on my tongue, I remembered that the entire spellcard is on a timer. The difficulty increases as time passes, not as you deal damage.
I then did some tests and I'm pretty sure you're much better off going into this with, say, 1 life and 5.0 power than with 2 lives and 1.0 or 2.0 power.

Since Kanako will be invincible most of the time once she enters that blasted phase and forces you to bomb, you're much better off ditching a few bombs and dealing as much damage as you humanly can when she's not perma-invincible during the first 30-40 seconds.
During a test in Hard Mode, I brought her down to less than half of her last healthbar in 20 seconds. During my last Lunatic attempt, I started with 2,5 power and got to that point in ~35 seconds.

After her penultimate spellcard, Kanako drops 2.3 power levels worth of items. Since attack power maxes out at 4.0, you'll want to get through the penultimate spellcard with a powerlevel of at least 1.7 so you'll wind up at 4.0 . If that means suiciding once, then so be it.

Considering that I am personally not exactly in a mental state to pull off the riskier moves required to get through this spellcard when I'm about to get my first 1CC on Lunatic in this game, I think that this strategy will work out much better for me, so I'll try this next time.

Again, no idea if this is not a common strategy since it doesn't amount to much more than common sense, but I figured I might as well toss it in here since I remembered this post. Also, talking about Reimu-B here, some shottypes might not get as much benefit out of this as she does.

In addition to that, if you're forced into a situation in which you must deal with the Spellcard, you should try not to read too much right in the middle - more often than not, paths appear a bit further to the left or the right.

Edit: From what I can tell, you handled the entire stage and even VoWG quite well, you even got there with maximum damage output. VoWG is one of those "know how to deal with it or fail"-Spellcards, and from what I can tell, you already managed to deal with most of the latter parts of the Spellcard. Quite frankly, in your case, it seems to be more a matter of figuring it out before being deprived of all your Power. You managed to read most of it after a certain point - one Bomb earlier and you more than likely would have won. If you chalk that dodging up to luck, then you'll definitely need more of that, but I don't think you got lucky there, seeing how well you handled the entirety of the stage.

If you're not particularly intent on playing as Reimu-A, I'd definitely recommend switching to Reimu-B for more damage output, though.

If all else fails, more resources - you either know how to handle the Spellcard or you'll go through a lot of them. One mistake less in that run, be it on Kanako's last NS-Pattern or that early hit during VoWG or in any other stage for that matter, with your level of skill, you can get through VoWG. Only need enough backup in case something goes wrong, so just keep going at it.

[Skyler]

Mind Stopper on Lunatic?

[MTSranger]

For VoWG lunatic... I have a few suggestions (or options, I should say)
1. Play as Marisa C, put 4 frost throwers on the boss (by bombing), end the card in 30 seconds - before walls come.
2. Practice the heck out of VoWG. Unlock stage 6 practice if you haven't already (watching a replay will unlock it for you). Practice until you can dodge walls reliably. Because... if you can dodge VoWG, you can enter stage 6 with 0 lives and still beat it. I know I did it twice (Marisa C and Reimu B - granted they, esp Marisa C, end the card faster than others, but still).
3. Get there with 4 lives or more - you might lose all of them if you aren't good at VoWG, so #2 is still the better option.

As to things that might help you:
- There are 2 phases of VoWG - "nice" phase and "wall" phase
- On lunatic, "wall" phase starts after 30s (hard mode - 50s) - so unless you are Marisa C, you will have to face it.
- You can go through all blue and teal walls, but beware of dying to another wall right after.
- You can macrododge most of the walls, but sometimes macrododge involves going through extremely small gaps in addition to swinging unfocused around stuff, so in that case you might just want to stay put and micro through a wall.
- Bomb immediately if you ever get pushed to the corner (unless you have played it enough to know how to get back without dying)
- Try timing it out during stage practice - 150s of that spell each time will help you get good at wall dodging, etc

Mind Stopper
All I can say is make sure you get up to the middle rather quickly, after you make the dodge at the bottom.
I'm sure you know the method of staying in the middle, when bullets blur out, go to near the bottom to the right of the bullets in the middle, dodge those bullets, then dodge bullets above you as you go up.
Maybe others have some better pointers.

[Chuckolator]

Mind Stopper on Lunatic?

If you alternate direction every time (down and right, dodge, down and left, dodge) the aimed bullets are never an issue, and then you can just dodge the waves like normal. Seems to work for me.

[I have no name]

If you alternate direction every time (down and right, dodge, down and left, dodge) the aimed bullets are never an issue, and then you can just dodge the waves like normal. Seems to work for me.

I always alternated between redirecting the aimed bullets to the top of the screen and to the bottom of the screen.  Took a while to capture but I did it.

[Random]

Question about the blue enemy spam after the few fairy waves right after Kogasa in UFO Extra. Will the sunflower fairies only drop UFOs if you kill them fast enough?

[Zil]

The ones that have UFOs won't appear until you kill three or four of them, but I'm pretty sure the ones that actully have a UFO would drop it regardless of long you took to kill them. I don't know for sure though.

[Elysia]

Okay, this is kind of an odd thing to post here, but I can't think of a better place for it so whatever.

I feel like I've just hit a wall in general, and that nothing I do seems to work. I can't get motivated to play, and when I do it seems like there's never anything worthwhile that gets done. It's like either it's too easy or too hard, and nothing really fits the level of being a challenge but an actually doable challenge.

Any advice for a player who's just plain hit a slump?

[Thanuris]

Play the things that are too hard until they get easier, that's what i did  :V

[Zil]

Play PoFV or PoDD, or the photography games if you haven't already. Those are my favorites, at least.

[Random]

I'd recommend playing PoFV and PoD.D. You can't really memorize a path to get through the game, and it'll help with your overall dodging, since a lot of the danmaku is random.

[Hinacle]

For VoWG lunatic... I have a few suggestions (or options, I should say)
1. Play as Marisa C, put 4 frost throwers on the boss (by bombing), end the card in 30 seconds - before walls come.
2. Practice the heck out of VoWG. Unlock stage 6 practice if you haven't already (watching a replay will unlock it for you). Practice until you can dodge walls reliably. Because... if you can dodge VoWG, you can enter stage 6 with 0 lives and still beat it. I know I did it twice (Marisa C and Reimu B - granted they, esp Marisa C, end the card faster than others, but still).
3. Get there with 4 lives or more - you might lose all of them if you aren't good at VoWG, so #2 is still the better option.

As to things that might help you:
- There are 2 phases of VoWG - "nice" phase and "wall" phase
- On lunatic, "wall" phase starts after 30s (hard mode - 50s) - so unless you are Marisa C, you will have to face it.
- You can go through all blue and teal walls, but beware of dying to another wall right after.
- You can macrododge most of the walls, but sometimes macrododge involves going through extremely small gaps in addition to swinging unfocused around stuff, so in that case you might just want to stay put and micro through a wall.
- Bomb immediately if you ever get pushed to the corner (unless you have played it enough to know how to get back without dying)
- Try timing it out during stage practice - 150s of that spell each time will help you get good at wall dodging, etc

Is this advice good for normal?

[Chalros22]

Is this advice good for normal?

Yeah, but for the most part on normal the attack doesn't really wall too much (at least I've never seen it - maybe very late in the attack) so I've always been able to dodge between the sets of amulets, though you will probably have to unfocus to do some of the dodges toward the end of the lifebar.

[I have no name]

Yeah, but for the most part on normal the attack doesn't really wall too much (at least I've never seen it - maybe very late in the attack) so I've always been able to dodge between the sets of amulets, though you will probably have to unfocus to do some of the dodges toward the end of the lifebar.

Mountain of Faith normal will NEVER wall you.

[Random]

Is this advice good for normal?

Normal's version usually has huge gaps that you should be able to go through pretty easily, but in the end, practice makes perfect

Thanks! that was +50mil improvement
190mil: http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19771
I think I can get another +6 mil if I didn't die stupidly during the stage and had to collect power from 2nd/4th waves in Nue, but sigh it's 2am and I'm kind of tired to retry again... stupid stupid UFO why do you always run away with 600 point items!!!
Anyways, that's still like 4m short of 200mil. I wonder if I can somehow squeeze it in.

You're welcome! I tried doing a run of this myself, and got 213 bil with nonspell milking - http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19837

Grazing doesn't make too much of a difference, it's the UFO path before her which will have the bulk of the points. You can time when you kill the fairies in the beginning so that all the items fill up the green UFO to 99%, then kill the first blue enemy that appears after for the bomb.

[Hinacle]

- Esoterica "Gray Thaumaturgy"
- Wonder "Daytime Guest Stars"
- Preparation "Star Ritual to Call the Godly Winds"
Any advice? Particularly Esoterica.

[Chalros22]

- Esoterica "Gray Thaumaturgy"
- Wonder "Daytime Guest Stars"
- Preparation "Star Ritual to Call the Godly Winds"
Any advice? Particularly Esoterica.

Gray Thaumaturgy: Every wave is exactly the same, so if you can dodge one wave you can dodge any of them, just be wary of clipdeath due to the clustered space.

Daytime Guest Stars: I alternate between two spots which are safe except for the aimed balls.

Star Ritual... : Same idea as Gray Thaumaturgy but the bullets are bigger so it seems more claustrophobic, the spaces to dodge through are about the same size though. Depending on power and shottype you should be able to dispel it by the end of the second wave (same goes for Gray Thaumaturgy). I usually end up finishing them both near the beginning of the second wave and I use ReimuB mostly but usually around full power.

Here's a Replay of me (basically) perfecting Stage 5 normal. I died just before dispelling Star Ritual but if I remember right I think my keyboard didn't respond when I pressed the right arrow. Stage 5 isn't too bad once you get it down because a LOT of it is static.

The replay is ReimuA, since when I started I tended to rely on homing because I would stray towards the corners but now that I have more experience I usually use ReimuB for the additional power.

[MTSranger]

Is this advice good for normal?

Normal "Mountain of Faith" doesn't wall you - macrododge everything.
It slowly speeds up though.

You're welcome! I tried doing a run of this myself, and got 213 bil with nonspell milking - http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=19837

lol shamelessly copying route. I'm now at 201mil.
Didn't save replay because there were 2 HURRR deaths on the nonspells.
Plus, I ate quite a few items while summoning the 700-item blue UFO - it ended up like 650 or smthing. *sigh*

Still not that consistent at Byakuren though.

[Arcengal]

Okay, this is kind of an odd thing to post here, but I can't think of a better place for it so whatever.

I feel like I've just hit a wall in general, and that nothing I do seems to work. I can't get motivated to play, and when I do it seems like there's never anything worthwhile that gets done. It's like either it's too easy or too hard, and nothing really fits the level of being a challenge but an actually doable challenge.

Any advice for a player who's just plain hit a slump?

Play other games, do some other fun things that aren't video game related (drawing or whatnot), give yourself a break from playing Touhou (or shooters in general) if you're not having fun.
You'll be back.

[Hinacle]

Which Prismriver sister is easier to fight on normal?

[Makai Butterfly]

Most people seem to choose Lunasa, the black-dressed Sister that plays the violin, because her patterns are fairly generous and have some "down time" in them where dodging isn't involved.  If you have the stage unlocked and you're willing to invest a bit of time, I'd recommend using Stage Practice and testing out all three to see which one you prefer, though.  I like to spice it up and let the game randomly choose it by streaming all over the place during the pick-a-sister phase rather than focusing on one.

[MMX]

Play the things that are too hard until they get easier, that's what i did  :V

Or find a ways to make too easy things harder. Like ultra or 90 fps normal runs. That's what i did :V