Official Rate the Shot Types Thread (Week: HSiFS)

[Mero]

Border Team: 8/10
Not a bad team, it has decent enough power for a homing shot and Reimu's bombs are just slightly weaker than Marisa's, but without Master Spark's crippling slowdown. The extended deathbomb window makes survival more comfortable, but maybe a little too comfortable, as it may create a bad habit of relying on deathbombs too much. They're also not very good for scoring, but at least Reimu doesn't have to fight herself.

Magic Team: 6/10
Alice really drags this team down, she's got a weak shot (and lolrange), and her bombs are abysmal. Marisa, on the other hand has her great speed and really powerful bombs, and she's exceptionally good at killing familiars. MAlice cannon may be broken, but when almost everything else about your shot sucks, I say using it is fair game. Oh and this team fights Reimu so good luck with that

Scarlet Team: 7.5/10
Sort of the opposite of Magic Team, here Sakuya isn't very good, her shot is isn't that strong and her bombs are almost useless with enemies that use familiars, but Remilia makes up for that with her strong shot and decent bombs, although her focused speed may need some getting used to. Like Magic Team, they fight Reimu in stage 4, but don't have it as hard as them.

Ghost Team: 9/10
The best team, Youmu is crazy strong, and Yuyuko's spread shot almost covers the whole screen, without losing much power for bosses. Their bombs are pretty powerful and the smaller gauges makes switching sides more flexible. You could argue Youmu is better off solo, but she really doesn't lose much from letting her mistress tag along

[Serela]

Border Team 10/10
Reimu's homing is incredibly good in this game, it destroys a lot of the random enemies nigh-instantly, and does a huge number on the Extra Stage. Yukari is strong... AND STILL HAS HOMING, despite being powerful. Small hitbox and great (low) speed, extra deathbomb timer... it's strong homing -and- high damage and all the typical Reimu benefits, what more could you want?

Magic Team 6/10
Malice Cannon is good. Really good. You utterly demolish familiars, and this can lead to extreme dps on boss attacks with familiars as well, plus you get to cheese the laser's pierce damage onto lots of familiars a lot of the time that way. Unfortunately, the focus/unfocus spam is awkward and the shot type is absolutely horrible without Malice Cannon; Marisa isn't even the strongest shot and Alice has insanely tiny range, is even weaker, and her bomb lasts like one second with basically no damage, so you -have- to use Spark each time or it's a waste. Isn't it sad, Alice? At least the laser double-hits on Mokou for major damage, and you can even kill Mokou's survival card with Malice Cannon el o el

Scarlet Team 6/10
I like Remilia's shot type, but she just moves too fast; on higher difficulties I find the focus speed problematic and if you can't even dodge that really messes stuff up. Sakuya is also sorta weak... but at least her knives do full damage to Mokou, and since she's just the unfocus, the damage isn't too big of an issue.

Ghost Team 7/10
It's got reverse focus syndrome; that's the problem. But the two shots composing it are -very- good to make up, and you get some extra bombs from their ability. Yuyuko's shot utterly trivializes stages, even Extra, and although it'll make bosses drag on, you can at least shotgun sometimes to mitigate and you have the benefit of her full-screen-cover to imitate homing ability. Thankfully, Mokou's wings mean you do good damage to her even as Yuyuko, so extra mostly being a boss-fight isn't a problem for them either, but in the normal game Yuyuko's shot can be annoying sometimes vs. bosses, so I didn't rate it higher; a lot of the time you just can't unfocus-attack with Youmu.

[TresserT]

Border Team: 7.5/10
Reimu's homing crushes stages. Yukari's main shot is decent, and she's got Ran for when you can't stay under the boss. They have a smaller hitbox, a huge death bomb window, and you don't have to worry about running into familiars due to Reimu's ability. If you're used to playing with stronger characters like Youmu or Remilia you will notice the power difference, but it isn't too bad compared to most homing shots. All their bombs are "meh"; none of them are a selling point, but none of them should turn you away. Personally I prefer high power and high speed, though, so this shot type just isn't for me.

Magic Team: 2/10
Malice cannon deals a ton of damage against bosses like Keine and Eirin, but for the most part it's overrated. Since you have to rapidly shift between focus and unfocus, you pretty much have to be sitting still to use it, which doesn't really fly in a bullet hell. However, this shot type isn't even worth looking at if you don't use Malice. Both Alice's bombs are crap, so either bomb unfocused or try to death bomb (and even then lose 2 bombs). One of the worst shot types in the series.

Scarlet Team: 6/10
Sakuya is worthless besides her "items fall more slowly" ability. Because she's a spread type she can't kill familiars as quickly as Youmu or Malice, but her spread isn't wide or strong enough to crush stages the way Yuyuko does. Really, she only brings Remilia down. Remilia deals amazing damage and can cover a lot of the screen if you place her familiars correctly. Like the border team, none of the bombs are great but none of them are terrible either. If you want to use this shot type, you might as well just play as Remilia solo.

Ghost Team 9.5/10
My favorite shot type in the game. The only reason this doesn't get a 10/10 is because there are OP shots in the later games that deserve it more. Youmu is fast, letting you quickly get where you need to go, Yuyuko is as slow as Reimu, making it easier to micrododge. Youmu is strong, letting you wipe out bosses quickly, Yuyuko has a huge spread which obliterates stages. Both bombs are mediocre, but Youmu's death bomb is good and Yuyuko's is the best in the game. Since the human side of the gauge only goes to 50%, you don't even have to worry about switching between focus and unfocus. This shot's bigest weakness is how much you have to hug the bottom of the screen. Yuyuko's spread is no good if you're high up, and Youmu's shot will spin off to the side unless you're constantly holding down (which can actually be useful in some situations). Additionally, while it makes the game more fun imo, you have to play unfocus to deal good damage to bosses.

By the way, for those who didn't know, switching to Yuyuko resets Myon's angle to striaght forward.

[Uruwi]

Reimu / Yukari: 9 / 10. Long deathbomb window, homing + Ran thingy combo, small hitbox, nearly everything I like.

Marisa / Alice: 4 / 10. Very little range. At least they have a bit more power to compensate.

Sakuya / Remilia: 5 / 10. Haven't played with them a lot, but Remilia's shot seems a bit useful.

Youmu / Yuyuko: 7 / 10. A bit of range on focus (though power is questionable). Gets a bomb at the end of each stage if they have fewer than 3, and has a smaller H/Y gauge (for scoring, though any sane player would use solo Youmu for that).

[RegalStar]

Border Team 10/10
Yukari's homing shot on crack, Reimu hitbox, 1 second counterbombing, fairly strong counterbombs for both characters... is there anything that this team doesn't have? Well I guess strong familiar destruction abilities, but that only matters in like two cards in 6A, and Reimu takes no damage from colliding with them anyways. Well I guess it also doesn't score as well, but the difference is marginal enough that only dedicated scoreplay people would care anyways.

Magic Team 5/10
The tiny range really bites this team, but Malice Cannon and Master/Final Spark makes this team still playable. It destroys familiars like nothing else and completely trivializes Astronomical Entombing, but sadly not much else. Overall it's easily the worst of the four teams.

Scarlet Team 7/10
Remilia's focused speed is too fast and her shot is a bit gimmicky, but it's not as bad as Youmu's. The main problem with this team is that Sakuya's shot is just not really good and can hardly kill familiars, and overall this team just really have any sort of meaningful advantage beyond Remilia's bomb on non-spells.

Netherworld Team 9/10
In a vacuum this team is really good; Youmu's shot is gimmicky but at least it's strong, and Yuyuko is nice and easy to use with good spread and enough forward fire to be of use, plus Youmu's bomb is almost Master Spark tier strong and excellent for systematically skipping cards you don't want to face. Unfortunately Border Team is just too broken, and this shottype falls into second best... but it's still strong, and almost as easy to clear the game with.

[Nameschonvergeben]

Can any of the people that said sakuya couldn't kill familiars give me an example where she can't kill a familiar you would want to kill?

[Aeteas]

Can any of the people that said sakuya couldn't kill familiars give me an example, where she can't kill a familiar you would want to kill?

Fun fact: Sakuya can kill Astronomical Entombing familiars faster than Reimu.

I might edit in my own biased, Scarlet Team-loving opinions later. 

EDIT:

I'll be brief.

Border Team: 8.5/10
Homing and death bombs are quite good and make it beginner friendly, but it has trouble killing familiars or doing damage quickly.

Magic Team: 7/10
It suffers from a complete lack of spread and Alice being weak, but Malice cannon rips things apart as long as you can stay under them and tap shift without dying.

Scarlet Team: 9/10
Remilia is the strongest youkai shot, and Sakuya patches up Remilia’s weaknesses by providing spread and a means of killing familiars. Sakuya is kinda weak though. (Also, I’m probably biased.)

Ghost Team 8/10
It has a strong, narrow, unfocused shot that is somewhat tricky to use, and a weaker spread as a focused shot. Theoretically, they should be good, but they are quite awkward to use.

[Nolegs the Cat]

Border Team: 9/10
Reimu's homing shot is very helpful in stages except certain parts of stage 5, Yukari has high power.... and STILL has homing in Ran, they have an obscenely long deathbomb window, low speed, a strong focused bomb with a decent unfocused bomb unless you're hugging the bottom, and the smallest hitbox. Sure their damage isn't that high, but what's there not to love?
Oh, and they fight Marisa. On lunatic that's a boon.

Magic Team: 3.5/10
Malice Cannon is powerful and Master Spark is the strongest non-double bomb in the game. Marisa also has high damage and great familiar killing ability.
That's... where the good stuff ends. Final Spark only does 200 more damage than Master Spark despite costing 2 bombs, bomb of Alice's bombs are horrible, both of Marisa's bombs slow you down, Alice's damage is low AND her range is pitiful, fast focused speed, no useful survival ability....
Not worth using without Malice cannon abuse.
Even with Malice Cannon abuse, IMO Solo Marisa is probably the easier 1cc.
Also they fight Reimu, who they struggle with.

Scarlet Team: 7/10
Sakuya gets the job done in stages even if she isn't that great and is better at killing familiars than Reimu for the most part (esp. during Entombing), but is horrible vs bosses and her bomb is only decent. Remilia is crazy powerful, though. Pretty good overall, though I'd say solo Remi is simply a better shot-type, Sakuya DOES provide a few things Remi can't do.
That being said their bombs are only decent (outside of Remi vs nonspells) and they fight Reimu, even if they have a much better time of it.

Netherworld Team: 9/10
Youmu shreds bosses and Yuyuko shreds stages. However they're awkward to use and their bombs aren't that great, outside of the double-bombs. Even so, this is a powerful shot-type. Also Youmu melts familiars. Extremely powerful if you can use it right. Also the team-scoring shot-type. Only the bombs hold it back from being 10/10.
They also fight Marisa which is nice.

[TableCloth]

Border Team: 9/10
Reimu's homing is amazing for stages. For bosses? Yukari easily rekt them all. Sadly, they're pretty meh as solo since Reimu is very weak and Yukari's homing is just... weird. At least, they have a VERY long deathbomb window while Yukari's graze hitbox simply OP. Their bomb is quite powerful, especially Reimu's Fantasy Seal -Blink-. Solo, Yukari is much better than Reimu aside for the bomb

Their small hitbox is, strangely, didn't affect much for me :v

Magic Team: 5/10
Could've been worse, but I found Marisa to be surprisingly good even without Malice Cannon aside for her bomb. Marisa is also better as solo. Alice is meh as always. Their bombs are shit

Scarlet Team: 8/10
Remi is awesome. Sakuya is really good at wiping huge number of enemies from the screen. The problem is, destroying familiar with her is the last thing I'd do, especially during stage 2. They might as well be the best shottype if every other stages were designed like stage 6A lol. Also, Remilia can troll bosses. Bomb-wise, I'd prefer Sakuya over Remilia

Ghost Team: 7/10
Youmu is bordering OP-tier and shit-tier because of how powerful her shot is, but controlling myon is difficult. Yuyuko is amazing with her range and has a pretty decent power. Not sure about their bombs as they seemed to be pretty decent.

Literally inverse Border Team lol

Solo Reimu: 7/10
It's homing, and an exceptionally weak one. Her bomb, deathbomb window, and small hitbox saved her from being a shit-tier character

Solo Yukari: 9/10
Again, it's homing. Good thing that Ran is powerful. She is also easier to handle as solo more than as a team with Reimu. Her bomb is quite good, but the range leaves much to desire. The best part? Small hitbox, powerful shot, and oversized graze hitbox

Solo Marisa: 5/10
Again, she's better by her own. Her shot is simply powerful as hell and has a decent range. Her bomb, however, still pretty bad

Solo Alice: 2/10
Self-explanatory. For those who don't understand, this means her shot type is shit, her bomb is shit, and her control is shit. The only good thig about her is that her shot is piercing, which... didn't affect much of the game, what with the horrible damage

Solo Sakuya: 7/10
Wide range powerful shot, decent bomb (especially her deathbomb), but not so good compared to Team Scarlet

Solo Remilia: 7/10
Always loved her shot type. She can simply troll the boss to their death. Her bomb can wipe out weak fairies easily, but not so effective against bosses

Solo Youmu: 6/10
Very powerful, but also very gimmicky. Again, not sure about her bomb

Solo Yuyuko: 8/10
Desirable shot range and power. Her shot is good enough by itself, I rarely used her bombs :v

[Hikarin]

Reimu/Yukari
7/10
I think deathbombing is kind of a plus, even though deathbombing takes two bombs  :V
Yukari's Ran shot is amazing though, and can easily deal the stage-boss damage while you're grazing.
Marisa/Alice
9/10
I can only say good things about this pair.
Using that laser of death (Spamming the focus button in front of bosses every 0.5 seconds) is just too good,
and the utility of the pair's bombs is perfect, having Marisa's for damage, and Alice's for stage clutter, since I'm not too great  :ohdear:
After using this team, it's hard to say anything about the others because of both this and Marisa's speed. The only team who can match that is what... Yuyuko's?
Remilia/Sakuya
7/10
Remilia's shot hitbox is pretty narrow, but she makes up for that with that amazing set-it-and-forget-it beam of death. Her bomb is eye-candy, but isn't too great for damage.
Sakuya is good-ish, but that's just her bomb. Otherwise she just plays like any other game's Sakuya. Her shot is just... average  :fail:
Youmu/Yuyuko
8/10
This is another one that is pretty dang good altogether. Youmu's shot is amazing, with the ghost shooting opposite the direction she is moving, and at higher power levels this can just drain boss health. Her bomb is  pretty cool looking, but it does so little that it's only a bullet clearer.
Yuyuko is  really good with that bullet spread. Essentially, you would use Yuyuko for stages mostly, and then Youmu as much as possible for bosses. Yuyuko's bomb is pretty good, considering that it moves slowly enough to do good damage to bosses and clear bullets in an outwards wave, but because you can't shoot during bombs, you are losing a little bit of efficiency compared to say, Marisa's bomb.

[Nameschonvergeben]

Can any of the people that said sakuya couldn't kill familiars give me an example where she can't kill a familiar you would want to kill?

Guys? Hello? You wouldn't rate the shots without knowing what you're talking about, would you? haha

[TresserT]

All of Keine's spells including her midboss one. Reimu's 1st and 4th nons. Reisen's 2nd non. Kaguya's 3rd spell. In all of which killing familiars helps a lot. Reisen's 2nd spell too, though admittedly it's not a big deal there.

Though I will say, after doing another play through with the scarlet team she isn't as god awful as I remember. Still terrible, but not as terrible as I remembered. She crushes Astronomical Entombing and has an easier time with Earth/Galaxy in a pot and against Reimu than Mari/Ali. Still, Youmu's strong shot and Malice are better at killing familiars in general. And while Reimu isn't much better, the border team has enough other benefits to make up for it.

I'll slightly change my scores though.

Also, I do know what I'm talking about, thank you. I ignored your question because I didn't think this was the place to argue over it. That'd just make it harder for ZM to sort through which posts are ratings and which are discussion. If you have more questions I'd be happy to talk to you about it over pm or skype or something. If that's not right and this thread was meant for discussion, I hope you'll forgive me for ignoring you. That's just me though, I can't speak for anyone else.

[ZM]

Thanks Tres.

Yeah, I'd appreciate it if discussions like this would be taken outside of the thread and discussed in a new one or over Skype/PMs/whatever.

[Lollipop]

Border Team: 9/10

Reimu's homing shots are way too OP. Also they have a ridiculously long death-bomb time. Fantasy Seal -Blink- is also super strong. I could just be biased, as I use Border Team most often.  :V

Magic Team: 7.5/10

Alice kinda sucks (although the laser of death is helpful). But Marisa definitely makes up for that. She wrecks familiars, and Master Spark is still cool as ever.

Scarlet Team: 7/10

I never quite got the hang of Remilia's familiars. They're less easy to use than Marisa C's in MoF, IMO. But it works, and Sakuya is also pretty good. The deathbombs are okay as well.

Ghost Team: 8/10

Yuyuko's shot is probably the worst to handle bosses with, but the spread makes it great for stages. Youmu is way too OP due to the fact that her shot is a beast. The bombs are okay, but they could have been better.

[Sen]

Border Team - 10/10
Homing on both focused (Ran + Yukari's powerful shot) and unfocused (Reimu's amulets, which are actually fairly strong in this game), small hitbox, longer deathbomb window...honestly, the only downside I can think of is that Reimu is a bit slow for me. The Border Team are contenders for best shot type in the series.

Magic Team - 4/10
I didn't realize just how bad the Magic Team was until I started playing IN again about a year ago. Marisa is really fun to play as, and Master Spark is amazing, but Alice is complete garbage. No range, no real power, utterly terrible bomb...the only positive thing I have to say about Alice in IN is that her focused speed is very comfortable for dodging. MAlice Cannon is great, but it requires you to sit in place, so it gets more and more impractical as you go up in difficulty. Shame, Alice is my favorite character in the series :/

Scarlet Team - 7/10
I actually really like the Scarlet Team. Sakuya has a great spread, but she's very weak. Remilia is fast as hell, but super strong and allows you to shoot from two places at once. Remi's bomb could be stronger, but they get the job done. I also really like their large graze box, because it makes me feel like a score runner when in reality I'm screaming to just 1cc Lunatic  :V

Ghost Team - 6/10
I can see the Ghost Team being effective, but I'm really not feeling it. Youmu is incredibly strong and is the best for scoring, but her shot is unorthodox and takes a lot of coordination and memorization to use effectively. I'm also not comfortable micro-aiming Myon when Youmu is so blindingly fast. Yuyuko has a great wide spread, but to hit everything onscreen, you have to hug the bottom of the screen, which limits your dodging ability, and she's fairly weak from a distance. I think of the Ghost Team as Reco-Abnormal in Mushihimesama Futari-- incredible power and scoring ability, but you need to play them in an entirely different style from the other characters.

[ZM]

Goooood morning everyone. Thanks for the participation so far! 15 voters was nice to see, and hopefully that keeps up. I added my own IN Team ratings in the first IN post, if anyone wishes to see.

Now's the time for IN Solos. Those who have already rated solos will be accounted for, too.

[Uruwi]

Reimu: 7 - has all the benefits of the Border Team except for Yukari's shots and bombs.
Yukari: 8 - at least has Ran.
Marisa: 4 - same reasoning as on the Magic Team as a whole.
Alice: 3 - same, but with a pathetic bomb
Sakuya: 5.5 - only the weak spread shot.
Remilia: 6.5 - the bat familiar you love, but you can drag it with Remilia by unfocusing.
Youmu: 6 - wonky shot and bomb, but at least good for scoring
Yuyuko: 5 - spread shots as usual, but unlike Sakuya, has trouble with spells that involve destroying familiars

[TresserT]

Reimu: 5/10.
Same benefits as the border team, but the weakness is bigger. She doesn't deal much damage. Just use the border team.

Yukari: 6.5/10.
Can't kill familiars no matter how hard I try.

Marisa: 3.5/10.
Lacks the coverage Remi and Youmu have, and doesn't deal as much damage as either of them. If you want a damage dealer and you don't like gimmicky shot types I guess she's okay.

Alice: 1/10.
I know she deals a lot of damage to Mokou. That doesn't make up for her other faults. Awful bombs, high focus speed, weak shot, no spread. If you absolutely have to have piercing, just use Malice.

Remilia: 6.5/10.
I hate playing with this kind of shot type. But that damage output almost makes it worth it for me. If you know when and where to put the familiars, she can cover a huge area. Still, can't kill familiars and has a painfully high focus speed.

Sakuya: 3.5/10.
Same problems as before, but now she can't even do damage when focused. Just use the Scarlet team. Or better yet, use the Ghost team or Remilia solo.

Youmu: 7/10.
She can deal almost as much damage as Remi, she can hit almost anywhere on the screen, her gauge can go to human or youkai and you only have to fill it up half way. On the other hand, she's really hard to use. She has a few strengths over the Ghost team, but all things considered she's just easier to use when paired with Yuyuko.

Yuyuko: 5/10.
She's got a great spread and a good death bomb, but Youmu was the damage dealer. She's too slow to be a good shot gunning type. She still decimates stages, but she can't PoC as often and bosses take a lot longer. Just use the Ghost team.

[Serela]

Reimu 5.5/10 : Her ability means you still don't ever have to dodge familiars, but she's just a much lower damage version of Border Team. At least she still wrecks stages and has that hitbox/deathbomb.
Yukari 7/10 : You can't kill familiars, which is annoying, but otherwise a pretty alright forward-focus type shot with some homing added in. Ran's homing is awkward in stages, though, and her bomb isn't bad, so she isn't higher.
Marisa 5/10 : She's a pretty fine forward focus type. Nothing special, but alright. Arguably she's better than Magic Team as Alice is awful, but the loss of malice cannon is actually really bad due to it being her only redeeming trait compared to others, even if she's a way better shot than Alice.
Alice 1/10 : Dear god why. Why. God. No. Please. This is suffering. Isn't it sad, Alice?!
Sakuya 4/10 : This is just painful to be forced to use against single targets. She's actually pretty good for Extra stage, though; her knives deal full damage to Mokou wings and she's fine for the stage portion.
Remilia 6/10 : Okay, this is a fairly good shot. She still can't kill familiars, and she still moves too fast, but she's nearly as good as Scarlet Team is in general.
Youmu 7.5/10 : If you're a higher level player this might be more like 8.5/10, for using her directional shot more efficiently or god scoring, but that doesn't apply to most people. The only solo character that's actually pretty legitimate by herself. Also the only solo who gets a cool new effect outside of her team; now she can lock myon in place which makes her great for bosses! Plus the fact that you wished you could use her focused in Nether Team already...
Yuyuko 5.5/10 : She wrecks stages, but the bosses shall drag. Strictly worse than using her as a team since you get Youmu on single targets never rather than sometimes, along with no familiar killing ever. But she's pretty alright in Extra due to Mokou wings, and her boss damage isn't nearly as bad as it some other spread shots *cough reimuC mof*

Bad ratings across the board, but let's be honest, other than maybe Youmu, soloing is -purely- just being hard on yourself. Even with the somewhat better shots or when playing Yuyu/Saku/Alice in Extra.

[Nolegs the Cat]

Reimu: 5/10
Essentially Border Team but with less focus damage. Still wreaks stages, but just use border team.

Yukari: 7/10
Can't kill Familiars, Ran's homing is not that good for stages, and her bomb isn't that good.

Marisa: 5/10
Actually a decent forward focus type with good bombs plus familiar killing. But Remi or Youmu are better.

Alice: 2/10
Hahahahahaha no

Remilia: 7/10
Large damage output plus huge utility. Would be be better than Scarlet Team if Sakuya couldn't kill familiars.

Sakuya: 1.5/10
At least Alice does her full damage from the bottom of the screen...
It's like PCB ReimuA without the meagre guarantee of hitting something.

Youmu: 9/10
Best scoring shot-type, and Myon is just so versatile and powerful. High power, high versatility - she's just as good as the Netherworld Team if used well if not better, but very hard to use. It's a shame I can't use her.

Yuyuko: 6/10
Decimates stages, but bad for bosses. Youmu actually complements Yuyuko really well, and now you can't do high damage sometimes even. Just use Netherworld Team.

Low across the board, but what do you expect? Using solo shots is outside, of Youmu, more to challenge yourself than anything else.

[RegalStar]

Reimu 8/10
Without Yukari Reimu has problem killing stuff in a good fashion of time, but the typical Reimu advantages are still there. You'll have to dodge for longer but if you can do that it isn't noticably harder than the team.

Yukari 9/10
Yukari's disadvantage in stages are smaller IMHO. The biggest loss is more like those spellcards where familiar kiling is a big deal; beyond those Yukari's basically as easy as having the whole team.

Marisa 7/10
Marisa Solo actually feels quite a bit easier than Magic Team, due to not being stuck with Alice's piss weak bombs and narrow range. MAlice Cannon can be pretty situational anyways, and anywhere else Marisa solo is plain superior.

Alice 2/10
Good luck getting things in your range to kill, or dealing enough damage to finish bosses in good time, or bombing past spells you can't deal with, or... a lot of things.

Sakuya 2/10
She's OK in stages but boss battles are absolute hell with basically no DPS unless you're in their face or bombing.

Remilia 6/10
She's about on par with Scarlet Team in whole except she can't kill familiars, which is a pretty big minus.

Youmu 9/10
Too hard for me to use well personally, but I can't deny that the shot is good. Good speed, good power that is omnidirectional, great bombs, and the whole scoring aspect which I don't care about. Really hard to use though.

Yuyuko 7/10
She's like Sakuya except way better, which isn't saying much. She still lacks forward power but at least it's enough to not have everything drag on for painfully long amount of time, and it covers stages pretty decently too. No familiar killing ability is a shame, and her bombs don't really do well either.

[MeraMera]

Reimu - 8/10
Skips you from learning the stage because homing does the job. MIght take some time to kill big fairies and bosses but not really a problem unless your scoring. Pretty easy to use.

Yukari - 9/10
Good shot type but I just see her as a poor man's Remilia. I believe she still get the standard bonuses of border team which can give you good survivability.

Marisa - 9/10
Really strong and a decent spread shot. Can be a problem for scoring because it kills familiars too quickly and dip your gauge below (or above) -80%. Bomb is pretty strong and last forever, ideal for survival but not for scoring.

Alice - 7/10
Not as bad as people sound it to be. Her really small range just forces you to learn the stage and memorize stuff. Once you get it down it's actually easy. She can't speedkill the bosses so you can see more of the bullet patterns, that's also a plus. Bomb is a shitty version of Yukari's bomb.

Sakuya - 7.5/10
Better than Reimu in stages, at least for the most part. Bosses takes an eternity to finish, which means you need to do more dodging and if you like dodging then you'll enjoy using this shot type. Bomb is literally useless except for stage 6 fairies where her spread might kill a lot of familiars carrying point items.

Remilia - 10/10
Obliterates bosses. Can do some fun tricks with familiars. Fat hitbox for graze and fast focused speed makes it ideal for supergrazing. I think her bomb is weak? But I never really used it that much for it to matter.

Youmu - 10/10
Very versatile. Controlling Myon might take some practice. Can also kill stuff pretty quickly. Scoring with her is a lot of fun.

Yuyuko - 8/10
Just a stronger Sakuya.

Eh, I might have been to lenient with the score but I never had problems using solo shot types.

[Failure McFailFace]

Reimu: 8/10
Same homing, but doesn't have the benefit of shooting THROUGH familiars.

Yukari: 6/10
Can only hit one thing at a time, but s great on bosses.

Marisa: 4/10
Super low range coupled with super slow moving bomb makes her hard to use.

Alice: 3/10
This is no better, except with a delayed bomb instead.

Sakuya: 2/10
Too spread to be of any use.

Remilia: 3/10
Super hard to use, but at least the options follow you when solo.

Youmu: 1/10
I don't like helicopter shots. AND SHE'S SO FAST

Yuyuko: 1/10
Same problems as Sakuya. But worse.

[Nameschonvergeben]

Here is my rating based on how hard it is to anycc easy mode with 7 starting lives, because I've never done anything else:

Reimu: 10/10
It's easy

Yukari: 10/10
It's easy

Marisa: 10/10
It's easy

Alice: 10/10
It's easy

Sakuya: 10/10
It's easy

Remilia: 10/10
It's easy (on a sidenote: she is better than Scarlet Team, because even though you lose a lot of options you can still see her wings flap without having to press a button)

Youmu: 0/10
Didn't play her

Yuyuko: 10/10
It's easy

Please don't exclude my vote for lack of knowledge, that would be elitist and seriously harming the neutrality of this vote.

[Failure McFailFace]

Here is my rating based on how hard it is to anycc easy mode with 7 starting lives, because I've never done anything else:

Reimu: 10/10
It's easy

Yukari: 10/10
It's easy

Marisa: 10/10
It's easy

Alice: 10/10
It's easy

Sakuya: 10/10
It's easy

Remilia: 10/10
It's easy (on a sidenote: she is better than Scarlet Team, because even though you lose a lot of options you can still see her wings flap without having to press a button)

Youmu: 0/10
Didn't play her

Yuyuko: 10/10
It's easy

Please don't exclude my vote for lack of knowledge, that would be elitist and seriously harming the neutrality of this vote.

...Having everything be 10/10 except for one 0/10 makes me feel that this should be excluded. It's not your lack of knowledge; it's the sheer disparity between the ratings that will skew the results.

[Pakken11]

Here's my two-cents: still haven't got that Alice Solo Lunatic 1cc. At least Sakuya has an easier time with the stages.

Everything else you can give decently high points.

[ZM]

Alright, IN Solos are concluded. Didn't expect any more ratings, and Tuesday just began here, anyway! Now's the time for MoF.

ReimuA: 7.5/10
Very good homing shot. Her boss performance is worse than some of the other shots, due to her weaker damage output, but she has the best stages for sure. She especially shines during the Extra stage portion.

ReimuB: 9.5/10
Easily one of the best versions of Needle Reimu in the series. Her forward focus is very strong and melts everything. She has to try during stages, unlike ReimuA and MarisaC, but she's still super good.

ReimuC: 2/10
...What's the point of using ReimuC? Yeah, she has spread, but it's very weak. She has the strongest shotgun in the game, but it's very situational and not worth it at all. As impressive as Spira's recent WR replay is with ReimuC, don't bother with this shot.

MarisaA: 3/10
I dig MarisaA's design and how the shot is supposed to function, but she's not as special as she's intended to be. Apparently this shot is supposed to house high power, and if she did have high power comparable to say...PCB!MarisaA, she'd definitely be worth using. The sad thing is...this shot doesn't have very high power (weaker than ReimuB and MarisaC by a fair amount) and the options are annoying to handle. Damn shame.

MarisaB: 6/10
Basically a poor man's ReimuB. Functions the exact same as her, along with piercing added into the mix. The downsides are that she has a bigger hitbox and substantially worse power. The piercing isn't even that helpful in this game. The 3 power glitch is hilariously good, but of course I'm not going to consider that! :t

MarisaC: 9/10
High risk, high reward. Using this shot correctly would take quite a bit of learning due to the option placement, but once you do learn her, she's super good. Wrecks stages harder than ReimuB and takes out bosses faster than her, which is why she even scores better. Despite MariC being the better scoring shot, ReimuB is better for survival and is the more popular scoring shot due to typical Reimu perks and already being quite strong. Even so, MarisaC is still very good.

[Serela]

By the way, since I often see people who think Marisa is faster than Reimu; starting with MoF all shots have the same focus speed. She's slightly faster unfocused, though.

ReimuA 6.5/10
I don't think the homing is important in this game, so after I got used to MoF's stages I pretty much stopped using her. Still, it's not a bad shot, but once you've learned how the stages work I think there's little reason not to move onto either Needle Reimu's damage, or Marisa's stronger bombs and gimmick-range.

ReimuB 8.5/10
Very solid shot. Strong with standard Reimu benefits, what's there to say? I'd rate it higher, but as strong as Reimu's bombs are, Marisa's are significantly stronger.

ReimuC 2/10
Disgusting. Her shotgun is incredible, but let's face it; in MoF you get -very few- chances to use it in survival play. Why's that? Because almost all boss attacks -more or less force you to the very bottom of the screen- in this game. Which means... you get her LOWEST damage bracket a distressingly large amount of the time, which does literally 60% of ReimuB damage. Hear that? A laaarge amount of boss attacks will take -nearly twice as long-, and the game's final card alone is likely to take multiple more lives than normal to clear as, you guessed it, you're at the bottom and have to dodge that scary pattern at it's harder, late-card version about half a minute of extra time. Spread shots in other games are not nearly this painful; if you want better stage range pick one of the other non-B shots instead.

MarisaA 7.5/10
It's not quite good enough to stand up to the star shots in this game, which leaves it entirely overshadowed as almost no one wants to bother with the gimmick with that pay off of just a little more range in sages, but it's still not a bad shot in itself. The fact that you get Marisa's bomb damage helps it compare against Reimu though, it's sweet. Not hard to use against bosses since you just move down against the bottom to focus all stars onto you (and you're almost always at the bottom for MoF bosses), or just move back-forth in place for a moment to get the same effect.

MarisaB 7.5/10
It's needle Reimu except slightly weaker- just 11% lower damage, or 5 more seconds on VoWG. The tradeoff is you get Marisa's bomb damage, which isn't actually a bad trade and I could consider it, albiet Reimu probably has her smaller hitbox as usual, so... (MariA and B actually have same power, for reference) However, the shot is also bugged, which makes it awkward to try to use and not feel cheesy; are you never going to unfocus against a boss after bombing and being at 3 power? Because even just a second will do major damage. So in actuality, even with a decent rating, I'd probably never use this outside of goofy cheesing.

MarisaC 9.5/10
The gimmick shot of the game. It's awkward to use, but extremely effective if you get good with it, so it's the great kind of gimmick shot. The highest power, best stage potential, and Marisa's powerful bomb! ...if you can handle it without messing things up too much.

[iVAwalys]

ReimuA 8.5/10
It makes stages a breeze, and is not as bad against bosses as one might think. However, homing shots are not my style.

ReimuB 9/10
My personal favorite. It's very powerful, and makes bosses a cakewalk. However, its short range will cost you some lives in stages. Simple, yet effective.

ReimuC 4/10
The unfocused shot hits around the boss, instead of at it.  The focused shot is a shotgun, which is completely useless in MoF, which centers around micrododging. At least it's a little bit playable.

MarisaA 1.5/10
Eww, gimmicks. This is absolutely terrible. I don't have any words. I would rather play ReimuC than this.

MarisaBugged 8/10
Thank you based ZUN, for making the most literally broken shot type in existence.
But, on a serious note, if you downloaded the patch already, this shot is actually pretty good without bugs. It's penetration can really help at Stage 4, but it does fall short to ReimuB, the ultimate focused killing machine.

MarisaC 8/10
Contrary to what some other people might think, I really like this shot. It's basically Remilia from IN, but a bit faster. People complain how it takes some time to relocate the shot when going unfocused, but, in my opinion, I love it. With Remilia, I couldn't go unfocused even for a bit, because my shot would instantly relocate. With this though, I'm able to unfocus for a short period of time when I need it. Position it right, and you can potentially faceroll all the stages.

[TableCloth]

Reimu A: 9/10
The homing itself is surprisingly good, almost as good as EoSD Reimu A IMO. Easily the best stage wiper shottype, and is the best shottype against Normal Kanako because lol her 3rd spell

Reimu B: 9/10
What it lacked in easy staging, it made up for heavy damage. All you need to learn while using her is some good bombing

Reimu C: 3/10
Shit shot. Unfocused shot simply doesn't work well against boss. Also quite impossible to use the focused to full potential

Marisa A: 6/10
Could've been better if Marisa doesn't move too fast, but at least you can control whether you want it to spread a little for stages or focused on one vertical line for bosses. My second favourite shot from Marisa after SA!MarisaB

Marisa B: 8/10
Really good at piercing stuff, but I still personally prefer Reimu B... aside for the bug

Marisa C: 8/10
Position-dependant and not beginner-friendly, but actually good once correctly handled (*ahem*Level2andLevel4*ahem*)

I'm... kind of surprised we skipped PoFV