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

[Zengeku]

Okay. Lunatic Keine is a battle of knowledge more than anything else.

Ephemerality 137: Okay, this card is pretty much all about dodging but if shoot the familiars before they spawn bullets, you can really make it easier on yourself. It is by far her hardest spell though and beyond knowing that you can kill familiars, there aren't really a lot to it other than dodging.

General Headquarters Crisis: This spell consists of a static pattern of arrowheads with the blue balls being aimed at you. You can memorize a path that works everytime but the rule of thumb i usually roll with is that the very center bottom of the screen is safe for the first 5 or so seconds and once I have to move from that position, i just start dodging. If you find that too hard though, you can just memorize it. I'll link a vid showcasing how i like to do it. Perfect Keine Lunatic

Three Treasures Country: You really shouldn't need help with this one. It's just reading and dodging. Very simple. If you happen to have trouble with it, go into spell practice and give it a few more runs and it will without a doubt click with you.

Legend of Gensokyo: As far as I know, this card's lasers are static and can be memorized while the arrow heads are random. What you can do here is memorize the laser pattern and just dodge the rest, although I generally find it easier to just read n' dodge the entire thing. Do as you like on it. Practice it in spell practice also.

Future God's Realm: This card I can't offer too good advice on. For me, it's a read n' dodge card but I believe there might actually be some strategy to it. What I do is only move if I have to move. I keep an eye out on the lasers while only moving if a bullet is about to hit me. The lasers might be static but i'm not sure.

Hope this helps.

[BT]

Admittedly, I knew most if not all of this already, but the video helps!

Three Treasures Country is easy but I always get caught off-guard by the kunai's weird movements. I guess some practice WILL fix that.

[MTSranger]

I think the bullets are also static in Legends of Gensokyo...
I distinctly remember memorizing a very very exact path just to past it (that's how bad I was!).
I also did memorize a path for General Headquarters Crisis that works every time, so it can be done.
However, at some point after I got good enough to dodge by reading.
Keine is much more fun that way!

[Chaotic Phoenixma]

Legend of Gensokyo's arrows are aimed. So it can be a memo card.

Same thing for God's Realm. Everything about it can be memorized.


And 3 treasures is pretty much dodging. It can also be safespotted for lots of graze. I think the actual pattern itself is static, but Keine's random up/down movements(you can control her left/right movement) are what gives it the seemingly random pattern as it'll affect how far down the screen the pattern has to move allowing some parts to be more open or less open..

[Esper]

Oh come on, the ONE time I do good at the stage portion and most of the boss. This is definitely going in the help thread.

What happened was I suddenly lost my mojo when I saw "Undefined Darkness" flash onscreen and my lives went with it. I bombed once and died multiple times. For shame, Jonathan.

I captured every spellcard before Green UFOs of Loyalty (I know how to do it, something always knicks me every time, be it a laser or a snake or a bullet.), excluding Kogasa and died to just the opening nonspell.

Then everything went downhill and I was making strategies for Undefined Darkness while playing it, which, if you've done something like that before, it is not fun.

TLDR: I had a good run with Extra, preemptively bombing two of Kogasa's cards because I hate that retarded umbrella (And I know how much it annoys Lepetit when I insult a fictional character, so I'm gonna keep doing this to Kogasa; I.E. She's my verbal punching bag.). I died to Nue's first nonspell, a death fairy post Kogasa, Green UFOs of Loyalty (And I know this card well enough, I just keep getting knicked by something because I keep forgetting where the snakes curve toward the lasers), and I captured Danmaku Chimaera for the first time. But then Undefined Darkness, also known as "Nue follows you around the screen, shooting semi-random bullets that are annoying to dodge while evading Nue because you get so scared", or "Mellowed-down Blazing Star", I died three or four times to it and bombed once like a moron. Once out of the eight plus bombs I had. FOR SHAAAAME.

TLDR the TLDR: I need help with Undefined Darkness.

[ふねん1]

TLDR the TLDR: I need help with Undefined Darkness.

Misdirect Nue to different spots on the top of the screen, like so.

[Makai Butterfly]

Edit: Funen beat me to it.

[Esper]

Misdirect Nue to different spots on the top of the screen, like so.

I mean is there a specific pattern

Say, clockwise/counterclockwise?

EDIT: I. FEEL. STUPID.

Thank you, Fireproof.

[BT]

Well, "perfect" Yoshika wasn't that hard. And by that I mean NBNDNTrance, but her first and last are timed out.

Is there a reliable way of NOT timing them out that doesn't include bombs/trances?

[Zil]

For the first one, start right in front of her (but not too close) and stream down. Then dash to the side to misdirect the bullets and stop shooting so you don't kill the wisps. Get back under and keep doing that. It should be pretty easy at full power.

For the final it depends on your power and the difficulty. On Lunatic you have to quickly get through the kunai and between the lasers before they start moving, then collect the spirits on one side of Yoshika. At full power you still nearly time it out, but you can afford to not collect the spirits once or twice. It might be possible to capture at 3.00 power, but you'd surely need to collect the spirits on every wave.

So basically, the first should never be timed out unless you have no power or something, but the last isn't worth the risk on Lunatic. It also gives you no life/bomb spirits anyway, so there's no reason to capture it from a survivalist perspective.

[Skyler]

Ages ago I complained about 1ccing IN on Hard with Reimu solo. Someone asked for a replay, and I finally have a decent one.

http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=20090

Any help would be appreciated.

[Zil]

1.) Never ever deathbomb. Wherever you deathbombed or died in that run, plan to just bomb instead.
2.) You missed the last extend, and also picked up the one from Keine with a full life stock (you would have been better off suiciding then picking it up). Since you wasted resources in that run by deathbombing and that still happened, you know you can plan plenty of bombs and still reach full lives at that point. Maybe even bomb for items to ensure that you get the final extend. Also learn when it's safe to run to the POC. You missed a few chances in stage 2, for example.
3.) Practice stage 5. Bombing Tewi is reasonable, but nothing else should be trouble. It's all static.
4.) There's a better way to do Reisen's last spell. It's similar to her first (easier really). Just move up through the bullets and keep backing away when they reappear.
5.) Stop deathbombing. Especially against Kaguya. I almost feel like if you couldn't deathbomb in IN people would have an easier time clearing it.
6.) Less specific to IN. You seem to hug the bottom of the screen too much. At least it seemed that way to me. It's a bad habit, so try to get used to moving up to dodge things.

[Skyler]

1. I don't purposefully try to deathbomb. I try to bomb normally, but my reflexes suck so I end up getting hit and deathbombing instead. Just throwing that out there.

2. Yeah, I get pretty nervous when running to the POC, especially in IN which is a game I'm not very confident with yet. Missing the last extend was pretty annoying.

3. I despise stage 5. I'll try and practise it.

4. For some reason, that method with Reisen's last spell often kills me. I tried to do it in the beginning but forgot where the gap was, so I ended up doing it the other way.

5. Added to what I said earlier, most of the times when I deathbombed against Kaguya were accidental, aka I didn't expect to get hit and had to deathbomb to survive. When the fight started I told myself that deathbombing was a really bad idea, and then this happened, so... :V

6. Hugging the bottom of the screen is definitely something I need to work on, since I do it way too much. I just feel safer when I do it, and I don't like to push myself out of my comfort zone in Touhou because it makes me die more when trying to actually accomplish things.

Also, any advice for fighting Marisa? This was one of my better runs against her, and it didn't go too well.

[MTSranger]

For Reisen's last spell.
Try to go above / inside the 2nd ring of bullets.
That one is surefire and as long as you can get in, there is lots of margin for error.
If the 2nd ring of blue bullets form some tight gaps that you are not confident, then go for very slightly above the 4th ring.

As for the POC thing, you even miss quite a few items from bosses! What's stopping you from POC'ing after Marisa's spells?
I would recommend one bomb in the first half of stage 3 to collect some items.

Imo Reimu's bomb is strong enough to clear many things.
Just plan which spells you want to bomb in addition to bombing when you are trapped.
I think Reimu can deathbomb with 1 bomb in stock - which means you should do that for more damage.
Also, you will need to time out Kaguya's last spell because Reimu is too weak - so be prepared for that.

[Skyler]

The reason I don't POC after Marisa's spells is because I'm scared of being caught at the top and being forced to bomb. It doesn't help that Marisa's fight is just scary to me in general.

Yeah, Reimu can deathbomb with one bomb in stock. I thought that was the same for everyone, but evidently not.

[Zil]

The best way to avoid deathbombing is to know which spells you're going to bomb and just bombing them, so reflexes are no issue. I guess I should have said to just avoid reflex bombing in general. I know you're not trying to deathbomb.

Marisa went pretty well I'd say. She's the hardest boss in the game when you're solo Reimu, and there's no real way to make it easy. You should pretty much expect to bomb like crazy.

Altogether you're very close. Improve stage five a bit, get the last extend, use bombs slightly more effectively, and you've got the 1cc.

And anyone can deathbomb with a single bomb. Reimu just gets extra time like in PCB.

[Puffy]

Also, any advice for fighting Marisa? This was one of my better runs against her, and it didn't go too well.

Magic Astroid is quite nasty, if you really want to dodge it go ahead, but i'd recommend just bombing it, but if you wanna dodge it, i'd say do one thing at a time, don't try and attempt to dodge the horizontal/vertical bullets at once, just do one, then move to the next and sometimes go with the flow of the giant stars in order to set your self up to dodge the smaller stars.

Event Horizon Just lurk at the bottom for the first wave, its safe, if you know where to position yourself. Then the next waves just move up a little, it should be fairly obvious where bullets will spawn because of the direction of the familiar. Look at the replay.

Starlight Typhoon Stream the smaller stars, and crossover, shouldn't be a problem.

And for the other one, Double spark, just avoid the massive beam and dodge the stars, try not to get annoyed with the screen shaking.

Shoot the moon, stream yellow bullets avoid lasers, remember you can move over the lasers before they light up if that helps.

Generally: Get into a power stance and glue your eyes to the screen, and bomb this shit if it gets hard, even at the first 3 secs of the spell, know your limits, and be like fuck it for some spells. And that stage gives you plenty of like extra 2 bombs? So never ever be reckless, Keep calm and carry on.

[BT]

Am I the only one with chronic difficulties with passing through the big stars in Starlight Typhoon?

I mean there is literally no reason for me to find this difficult but it still happens. In fact, in my latest Lunatic Marisa run, this is the only spellcard I didn't capture, which is a thing,

Asteroid Belt or whatever it's called is all about finding a series of repetitive horizontal movements to dodge the big stars (e.g. right right right left right right right left), then involve vertical movement to dodge the tiny stars. Challenging but doable.

[Skyler]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I know how to do Starlight Typhoon and can capture it most of the time. I just screwed up badly in the replay.

When moving through the gaps in between the big stars, I tend to panic a bit, but it usually turns out fine.

[Karisa]

You can trivialize Starlight Typhoon by going to a top corner actually. None of the big stars can reach you, so you just need to stream the small stars (I find it works best to tap downward four times then move back up immediately after that). This can be done on both the Hard and Lunatic versions. See this video.

Reimu's homing shots don't have enough power to capture it that way (Remilia, Yukari, and solo Youmu can capture it if you set up their familiar(s) correctly), but it works for survival.

[danyun]

That spell card Royal Flare.....I hate it soooo much and always have to bomb it. What's a good way to capture it?

[Zil]

Ok.
I don't care if I've 1cced EoSD lunatic twice now, I need help with it.
Specifically, Stage 3.  Not the boss, just the stage.  I can handle everything up to the midboss, put after that...I don't know what to do.  At all.  Any help given will be appreciated.

This is kinda late, but I've just found a good way to do that part, so I guess I'll just go ahead and explain it. :derp: (Sorry of you've already figured it out.)

Just after Meiling runs away position yourself a bit to the left of the center. The fairies shoot kunai that are aimed at you as well as one the goes a bit to the left of that, which means it's safer to stream to the right. So the fairies shoot at you and you stream right, then the static fairies shoot those walls of kunai. You should finish the streaming just to the right of the the center wall, and the aimed bullets will have stopped. When the kunai are mostly off the screen move left a bit so you have more room to stream right again. The next wave is all aimed kunai and random circles. As long as you're streaming to the right, you can completely ignore the kunai and just dodge the circles while gradually moving over. You'll want to end this wave at a precise distance from the right edge (it's roughly on top of those yellow things in the background). Six fairies drop down and if you're positioned correctly you should instantly destroy the one on the far right. Quickly shift to the left while moving up as well to kill the next fairy, and finish with the two in the center, which you can shotgun if you moved up enough. Those four that you killed should all die before firing, and the kunai fairies that move in behind them should also die before shooting, which removes most of the walls from the center of the screen. Another wave of aimed ones will appear, so drop down to the bottom and stream to the right again. If you backed up straight down, you'll have more room to move right, but you'll have to dodge through kunai walls from whatever fairies you didn't kill before. If you go under the walls as you back up (which is what I prefer to do) you have less room to stream but no walls in front of you. There will be a few random circle bullets flying around, so dodge them while moving right. Once they've all left to can pretty much stream as slowly as you want towards the right edge of the screen until the aimed kunai stop. If you do reach the edge you can just start streaming up and you should be fine. Then a final wave of fairies appears and you just destroy the ones on the far right and wait in the upper right corner of the screen where nothing can hit you.

You can't save practice replays in EoSD but I'll probably upload a perfect stage run to youtube soon and you can see it there if my explanation made no sense. :V

[BT]

So, I know Yuugi's lasers (during all of Stage 3 Lunatic) can be memorized. Is there an easy signal/sign/thing that will help me here?

Also, her first nonspell. Hate hate hate hate. Is there any easy way of doing that?

[Zengeku]

I think I'm going to need a replay of yours to see what you are doing before I can tell you what you are doing wrong.

[BT]

http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=20174

I think this showcases the 'trouble spots' accurately enough. Aside from the fact I usually derp on Yuugi's opener, or her midboss opener, but eh.

I usually bomb the last part of the stage. Twice, at that. I get around a bomb's worth of power back.

[Lepetit89]

Bombing twice during the second half is a bit of a waste, you can just stream everything very, very slowly from the right-hand side of the screen to the opposite one. If you time the bomb correctly, you'll wind up gaining more Power than you lose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOG0WcWU0PQ#t=1m15s Pretty much like here.

[BT]

Nah, the streaming part isn't a problem, because it's, you know, streaming. I guess the laser part can be done with one bomb, though. (That's usually where I waste both of them. I knew it was a waste but meh.)

Is there a set movement for dodging the blue lasers @ the second nonspell? I have trouble with that one for whatever reason.

[Lepetit89]

Watched your replay, let's see:

-Try to gain more items out of the initial onslaught of orbs when you first enter the stage. Shoot unfocused, find a good balance between hitting the maximum on the Graze-o-Meter and shooting the orbs.

-After that, stream more (though I'm fairly sure you do that anyway, just in case you don't since I can only assess what I've seen in your replay). For the orbs before Midboss Yuugi, you need a set order. Sometimes it's better to rush from one side to the other, sometimes it's better to slowly stream bullets there, taking down an orb in the middle along the way. You can figure out a path, I think I did it in the video I posted.

-Both the Midboss opener and the second NS-Pattern during the Boss Battle are kind of a do or die thing, though, from my experience, the lasers during the Midboss opener won't be anywhere near you most of the time; try to read it, but these two are definitely the patterns where you want to have your finger closer to your Bombs than elsewhere.

-Boss Battle opener is terrible, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, though I don't think you can entirely avoid having to dodge vertical streams horizontally. In general, you can shoot down more orbs before they launch bullets; of course, this is only viable during the first wave, but any room to breathe helps. Can't quite recall if it had something to do with your positioning either, been too long, though I don't think I managed to fully understand it anyway.

-Forget about the Power Items during the third NS-Pattern, just stay put at the bottom of the screen or you'll be unable to stream anything, which will definitely result in the loss of a Bomb. If you position yourself correctly, you can collect the items anyway.

[Zil]

I think I have a reliable way to handle the the start of the stage here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6TNEy_IV4Y#t=4m10s

Midboss nonspell and the boss second nonspell are both static. I suggest unfocusing for the boss one to clear away more lasers. I always found her first boss nonspell to be very easy as well. You want to kind of "go with the flow" or something. You can pretty much do it the same way everytime. There's a very trivial way to do her last nonspell, but I forget how it works. I know Cactu had it in his no-bomb run if you feel like finding it.

Also, after you bomb the part before the boss, if you run up to the right elevation at the edge of the screen you will be safe from anything that survived the bomb. Yuugi's shots miss by default and the orbs always fire their horizontal lasers at a fixed height.

[Puffy]

Best way to handle Nazrin's final spell on lunatic? And advice on Stage 2 after midboss? It's so embarrassing to ask help for stages 1 and 2  :ohdear:

Thanks.