Bombing help?

[ZellBell]

I'm a casual TH player (Meaning that I spend more time drawing art than practicing the games  :])

Earlier this year, I took a break from playing (mostly trying fangames and the such). When I came back, it was surprising, to say the least, that I haven't gotten worse, if anything better at dodging  :wat: (Leading to a wholly unintentional Normal IN 1CC).

But the thing is, my reflexes kind of died when I was away, or something. My usual deaths these days are along the lines of 'Oh, hey, I think this bullet will hit m-FUUUUUUUUUUU'. And it wasn't even from excessive Border Team playing. Is there any way to stop the curse of knowing when a bullet will kill and getting hit anyway (or to stop ramming into things? SA really hates me). Why back in the old days I deathbombed with PCB Sakuya like drinking water (Though that was stupidly lucky, to unintentially not-die five times in a row  :V).

As a side question, is it generally strange to find MoF Easy kind of hard?

[Araceli Caralyz]

That is quite the predicament, you may not like my solution but it is the old tried and true method of practice.

In the way of "tips", to stop ramming into things, I suggest keeping focus on your heroine instead of watching incoming fire (Catch-22, I know but it works), stay away from the sides and bottom of the screen, and if you are absolutely sure that u are going to get hit, bomb.
Losing bombs < Losing lives.
I know this is general advice but the first solution tends to work.

For your side question, no, that is not strange at all :3

[ZellBell]

Thank you for your advice ^^

In other news, I beat EoSD Stage 6 on stage practice! (If it helps as a comparison, the last time I tried I was mercilessly beaten down at Vlad Tepes). Of course, I lost most of the resources panicking when I got to Red Magic  :colonveeplusalpha:.

Then I started the whole ramming into things again in the main game. Oh well. I think one of the biggest problems is that I don't really make a conscientious effort to memorise the attacks and enemy positions, as it's really much more fun to wonder what's going to happen next.

But the worst thing was that I discovered that I had a knack of both dying with bombs in stock and panicbombing (though not at the same time).  :V At Vlad Tepes I swear there were about three times I was prepared to be hit, pressed the bomb button, remembered that I had no bombs then watched as the bullets passed harmlessly past. Aaaaaand that's how I got my first capture.

[Zerviscos]

That is quite the predicament, you may not like my solution but it is the old tried and true method of practice.

In the way of "tips", to stop ramming into things, I suggest keeping focus on your heroine instead of watching incoming fire (Catch-22, I know but it works), stay away from the sides and bottom of the screen, and if you are absolutely sure that u are going to get hit, bomb.
Losing bombs < Losing lives.
I know this is general advice but the first solution tends to work.

For your side question, no, that is not strange at all :3

I'm pretty much on the same boat on this strategy. Focus on your heroine, your eyesight might be as well see incoming barrages also even if you do this(experience, and of course human eyesight ain't limited to one straight direction only. :V)

In EoSD, I had a hard time since I'm practically guessing my heroine's center hit box, and damn was it hard. I was able to clear hard but I got some quite few deaths.
PCB made it easier for me since you can actually see the hitbox while on focus speed. Use that to your advantage. I improved to a whole new level 'cause of PCB, and was able to 1CC Hard, and do Lunatic, but still get some quite of few deaths. IN's spell practice changed that also for me, made me focus more on the spells rather than just practice mode. Since of this, I was also able to play PC-98 games with less sweat(except HRtP...f--- that game).

Oh, and don't always death-bomb(that ramming on a bullet to bomb and survive, or got hit by a bullet and miraculously bombed at the exact moment). Use bombs at your disposal. If you know you can't dodge the barrage of bullets coming to you, use a bomb. If you almost got the boss on a stand-still but see a wave of bullets towards you and you're getting all hesitant even though you can dodge, don't...just use a bomb. Just use all your bombs(just don't waste it like bombing every normal mobs on the screen) wisely. It'll make your work easier, and save you in the process. Once you know it...you won't be needing any bombs as soon as you're better.  :3

http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php/topic,8241.0.html

Here I suggest you read Sapz thread and go to Bomb Management.

Oh well. I think one of the biggest problems is that I don't really make a conscientious effort to memorise the attacks and enemy positions, as it's really much more fun to wonder what's going to happen next.

Neither do I. Though I think it's 'cause I can't really remember it. :V
But even though you know a pattern, it's still entirely up to you if you can do it.
I can remember patterns, but only if it was just recent, and if I was doing it on retry runs. That G*damn Horai Elixir and Possessed by Phoenix spell cards took me 70-100+ retries on Lunatic, and I even memorized the whole pattern/trick. I never did it on Ultra patch. @__@

[Zil]

In the way of "tips", to stop ramming into things, I suggest keeping focus on your heroine instead of watching incoming fire

NO NO NO! Never do this. You need to always be watching ahead of you character. Keep her on the edge of your vision, and try to "feel" your position so you do don't need to look at yourself all of the time. Keeping your eyes directly on your character is one of the worst mistakes you can make.

About bombs, "panic bombing" is good, as it essentially means you bombed because you messed up and fear you will be hit. Avoiding those situations is of course ideal, but once you're in that situation bombing is a good idea. And beyond that, learn where you will likely need a bomb and plan to bomb there, without ever taking the risk of getting hit. And of course, NEVER plan on deathbombing. Pretend that whole feature doesn't exist.

As a side question, is it generally strange to find MoF Easy kind of hard?

It's only hard if you try to dodge things.

[xForeverFanaticx]

NO NO NO! Never do this. You need to always be watching ahead of you character. Keep her on the edge of your vision, and try to "feel" your position so you do don't need to look at yourself all of the time. Keeping your eyes directly on your character is one of the worst mistakes you can make.

About bombs, "panic bombing" is good, as it essentially means you bombed because you messed up and fear you will be hit. Avoiding those situations is of course ideal, but once you're in that situation bombing is a good idea. And beyond that, learn where you will likely need a bomb and plan to bomb there, without ever taking the risk of getting hit. And of course, NEVER plan on deathbombing. Pretend that whole feature doesn't exist.

The first part where Zil was talking about keeping your vision ahead of your character, that's something that you'll need to build, as you will instinctively, in the beginning anyway, return your vision to your player. Learn your player's hitbox, so you can, as he said, "feel" your position even when you don't see it. It'll help with unfocused dodges as well. Keeping your vision on only your player reduces your visual range greatly. Of course, all of this still requires you to read the bullet patterns as they approach you. This just makes it easier because you see them coming from farther away, and you have a better idea of the entire pattern rather than the little bit that is directly around you.

About the deathbombing part, obviously don't plan deathbombs if you're going for survival. If you were to, in the future, go for score (unlike me xD), deathbombs should be practiced for some games ._. Like MoF for instance.

[Karisa]

I think one of the biggest problems is that I don't really make a conscientious effort to memorise the attacks and enemy positions, as it's really much more fun to wonder what's going to happen next.

Memorization is a major part of playing Touhou. I know that in many games it can reduce the fun if you know what will happen next, but in my opinion, Touhou is the opposite: substantially more fun once you've learned the stages well, so you don't keep using up resources on attacks just because you haven't learned a way to handle them.

As for bombing in advance, something I've done was learn which attacks had a tendency to unexpectedly kill me, and bomb in advance for those, waiting as long as I reasonably could before bombing to maximize the invincibility time. Stage practice helps a lot for this.

And of course, NEVER plan on deathbombing. Pretend that whole feature doesn't exist.

Unless you're playing IN and you only have one bomb remaining for that life. Or you're scoring in MoF, where you should always try to ram into a bullet when bombing (unless your faith is already maxed). For the most part, though, deathbombing is just an audible signal that you bombed at basically the last possible moment, not something to do intentionally.

[chirpy13]

The best way to learn to bomb is to play.  It might sound oversimplified, but that's really about all there is to it.  The more you play, the more able you'll be to realize when you're about to get hit, and you'll effectively get better at bombing.  If you're having trouble getting into the habit though, just try making a conscious effort to remember the bombs are there.  Sometimes I'll play games with autobomb and get into a thing where I forget the bomb button exists, even if it's bad for score to autobomb.  Same with games with an autobomb toggle - it takes a couple credits to force myself into the habit of bombing once I turn it off.

[ZellBell]

I just practiced EoSD Stage 6 again. (because I love the Remilia fight to bits, honestly).

Sure, it wasn't exactly the most shining run in the world, and I think I'd gotten a bit worse at dodging in general since the last try (Just barely died at Red Magic) but I managed to save my ass about six times before I lost all my lives! (Unfortunately, half or more still tends to be last-second deathbombs unless I'm in the 'panicbomb everything' phrase).  :colonveeplusalpha:

I hate dying with bombs in stock with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. And that still is the norm for when I die. I think that if my bombing habits stayed like that last run all the time I'd have a much better chance at 1ccing Normal on any game. Damn inconsistent skills.

Also I realised that my performance in the leadup to the Remilia fight is usually a great indicator of how the run is going to be like. If I don't get nailed by the Q.E.D. ring-like patterns from the fairies (current chances are one out of five), and hopefully only use a bomb or so at Sakuya midboss, then the boss fight will usually last longer and better.

Trying to survive the usually auto-bomb Eternal Meek to build 'the force' at detecting my character's position without looking.  :V

[Tengukami]

Hi, Normal/Easy mode player here. Apart from what's been mentioned so far, there's also one trick that helped my playing a lot, in particular with bombing: practice runs in windowed mode.

Like Zil said, you ideally want to be keeping your eyes above your girl while keeping her at the bottom edge of your field of vision. Windowed mode pulls the zoom back, as it were, to have more bullets in your field of vision and being able to see patterns as a whole. At the same time, it does create the visual effect of shortening the distance between bullets.

These qualities make windowed mode frustrating for play, but a nice addition to practice.

[xForeverFanaticx]

Also I realised that my performance in the leadup to the Remilia fight is usually a great indicator of how the run is going to be like. If I don't get nailed by the Q.E.D. ring-like patterns from the fairies (current chances are one out of five), and hopefully only use a bomb or so at Sakuya midboss, then the boss fight will usually last longer and better.

Trying to survive the usually auto-bomb Eternal Meek to build 'the force' at detecting my character's position without looking.  :V

Umm... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought that those were aimed? I can stream them ._. On Normal, anyway.

[MTSranger]

Umm... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always thought that those were aimed? I can stream them ._. On Normal, anyway.

They can be streamed on every single difficulty.

[Kaze_Senshi]

Oh, happy to see some1 with the same problem that I am having, because of this I even put my angusty in the forum profile

For me to get your bombing skills better, you need to be able to see when you can't dodge anymore, so you need to realise the moment that you must bomb to survive. Now I'm bombing every time that I am not feeling confident to go ahead, and it's working well I think, the rest is training to reduce your bombing necessity.

I hate dying with bombs in stock with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns. And that still is the norm for when I die. I think that if my bombing habits stayed like that last run all the time I'd have a much better chance at 1ccing Normal on any game. Damn inconsistent skills.

The frustration is greater when you die with bombs in the stock and with the bomb button pressed

[xForeverFanaticx]

They can be streamed on every single difficulty.

Ah, thanks for clearing it up. Now I have just that little bit more preparation done for hard/lunatic.

[Ikari]

I used to bomb everytime a pattern frightened me (as in ''Holy Various Shinto Gods, I can't survive this *bombs*)

Then I mastered the art of deathbombing and never lost a life without at least using every bombs I had to prevent a certain death

Later, I started to bomb a bit more efficiently and I usually survived a lot, lot better when I didn't have bombs, since I'd survive the pattern anyway (I was mashing the bomb button like a madman in Byakuren's final spellcard despite having no bombs, yet I didn't lose a single life in it)

Aaaand... Now I just clipdeath all the time and the word ''bomb'' is a mystery to me  :colonveeplusalpha:

Conclusion: I played too many fangames. I got rusty.

[ZellBell]

Aaaand... Now I just clipdeath all the time and the word ''bomb'' is a mystery to me  :colonveeplusalpha:

Conclusion: I played too many fangames. I got rusty.

Seconded so much.

Were... Were the fairies with the rings really streamable? :fail:

Anyway, in EoSD at least everything up to Stage 3 is decent (but not perfect), but then Patchouli+Stage makes a grand entrance leaving me with about three lives, then near the end of Sakuya&Stage it's probably time for a good old continue.

In PCB I do well enough in the first three if everything goes well, stumble at the Prismrivers[+Stage, oh thank you so very much for making it like an endurance run of streaming and memorization], get sliced by Youmu (I only figured out how to dodge her opener a week ago  :colonveeplusalpha:) and probably continue at Yuyuko if I'm lucky. (I think I actually got pretty close to a 1cc before my break, though).

In IN I think I continued at Reisen on my second-to-last try, but then I 1cced it after months of abandonment (I always do well when I don't care about the run, then start panicking if I actually get really far). One should have seen the tenseness as my nerves-induced ramming at the previous cards caused a nervewracking 0/0 survival of Rainbow Danmaku barrage.

I currently fail on Easy mode in any game after that.

Does anyone do a bit of 'mindless dodging' when the pattern is very much beyond their skill? I remember doing Milky Way in spell practice, going 'hurr hurr, let's do this' and mindlessly twitching my fingers whenever seemed right while staring at and reading the little star bullets. It worked.  :V

[Ikari]

Does anyone do a bit of 'mindless dodging' when the pattern is very much beyond their skill? I remember doing Milky Way in spell practice, going 'hurr hurr, let's do this' and mindlessly twitching my fingers whenever seemed right while staring at and reading the little star bullets. It worked.  :V

I do. The more I read it, the more I get clipdeath'd. I sometime just keep staring at my hitbox and randomly dodge bullets while whispering continually ''Die die die die die die die die die die'' to the boss. It worked for my entire fight against byakuren, giving me a nice 1cc.  Her last spells had me screaming ''DIE DIE DIE'' while randomly moving back and forth like a madman, both in real life and in game.

[ZellBell]

I come with replays... Except, it was on hard mode.  :derp: I thought that if I really, really wanted to improve I should challenge my limits or whatever and just mustered up the motivation to go with it. The last time I tried doing this was before my break, more than half a year ago, and I died on Meiling. I also kind of forgot everything that I witnessed on that run. >> So...

http://replays.gensokyou.org/download.php?id=23483
Now with commentary.

Nothing notable in Stage 1.

Both bombs on Cirno were pure reflex from the intimidation of seeing how she just got a mega upgrade >> I wasn't in grave danger during either of those panicbombs.

Fitting how my first death was from not expecting the little flying things that I happily hoarded point items from suddenly spewing daggers  :colonveeplusalpha: In any case, I was really annoyed by all the extra stuff that came flying from nowhere on Hard. After meeting Meiling, I quickly learned to hate Magical Dream Vine with a burning passion and a few sacrificed lives and bombs, then proceeded to have a much easier time with Colourful Light Chaotic Dance than Colourful Rain. Did much better than expected at the last spellcard.

I heard ReimuB had a hard time at the Pachouli fight so I went into Stage 4 with anticipation. Luckily my horrible streaming in the stage portion didn't resullt in any fatalities... only a wasted bomb or three.  :V I hate the laserbooks on any and all difficulties. >> At Patchouli, general derpiness and nerves led to my ramming into totally secluded bullets on attacks like the non-directional laser and wasting lifes that could have carried me to Sakuya. Still hate the newly upgraded Green Storm, never have been good at those cross-eye inducing cards. That brave, unfocused and ultimately suicidal sprint in the beginning of Mercury Poison was from me thinking I had bombs.  :fail: Was totally not expecting an Emerald Megalith tacked onto the end and decided to play it safe with no lives left.

In all, I played way better than I normally do on this run. I played it safe, used bombs (GASP!) didn't die with as many bombs in stock as before and anticipated walls a whole lot better than my last run. Pulled off a lot of last-second deathbombs that I'm semi-proud of. Have shiny new spellcards to hate on. Yeah I'm going to end this before it gets even more  :wikipedia: