Shottype Discussion

[Mero]

Piercing had its uses but, except for UFO, it wasn't "I pick Marisa because of it" useful.
In EoSD, you pick MarisaB because of Master Spark.
While it has uses in PCB and MoF, Marisa has much better options than lasers.
Piercing is what makes MAlice cannon a thing, so...
SA ReimuB would be a better piercing shot if she didn't also try to be a homing shot

Now, about the games in which she doesn't have it:
In TD you don't really see the need for piercing because most enemies are clumped together, which makes missiles very good for crowd control.
On DDC, MarisaB has both her missiles and a bomb that allows you to attack two places at once (or at least lets you ignore one side of the screen for a while), and MarisaA's flamethrower has more consistent (albeit narrow) range.
Then you have LoLK... Reimu and Sanae have homing, and Reisen's unfocused shot covers half the screen, what does Marisa have? four 3px wide lasers that get stopped by a single enemy, and that in some cases are not even strong to kill it fast.

Lasers are just not good, I don't think piercing is a must-have, or that it would solve every issue they have with range or power, but it would at least alleviate them, and it had no reason to go away (unless there was something else to it as a mechanic, we all know Marisa's options are kind of janky and mess up on replays sometimes).

Also Reisen's piercing in LoLK is pretty useless, as well. XD
She kills Sagume a bit faster than everyone else but still lol

Marisa just straight up murders all of Sagume except her last spell, but Reisen's piercing gives her a slight damage boost on Junko because of her larger hitbox, much like UFOMarisaA with Byakuren

[ZM]

Ah, I didn't know about Reisen's damage boost against Junko. Then again, I recall her doing quite a good number of damage against the final spell...moreso than say...Sanae and Reimu.

[ふねん1]

To be fair, Reimu also gets a slight damage boost because of Junko's larger hitbox, mainly because half of her needles wouldn't hit otherwise. How much the boost compares to Reisen I'm not sure, but it does make a difference on attacks like Junko's third card (i.e., facing two waves instead of three). That plus her smaller hitbox gives her an unusually notable niche against Junko imo.

[ZM]

Oh definitely, Reimu by far has the best Junko fight. That hitbox is super useful.

[Sen]

So the consensus seems to be "no" lol. I'm not really too familiar with the Touhou games post-UFO; I took a long break from gaming when life got in the way and missed the release of TD, DDC, and LoLK, so I'm still trying to figure out what works for me in these newer games. Realizing my beloved Marisa had lost her piercing was kind of a shocker at first, but looking back on it, it really wasn't ever too useful outside of UFO. Still nice to have.

Interesting that MarisaA does more damage to Byakuren because of her hitbox. Is it just that more of the lasers are hitting her since her hitbox is bigger?

[Serela]

I don't know what they're talking about with MarisA on Byakuren tbh. You can hit anyone with all the lasers, which is easy to tell because they change colors when hitting (which is pretty sweet). Her hitbox might give you more leeway, but the same would be true with ReimuA and SanaeB.

With Junko it does make somewhat of a difference though. Reimu hits with more needles and Reisen's damage goes up by literally like 30% (turning her into JUNKOSLAYER) if you have 3 streams hitting, wheras normally only 2 streams can actually hit a boss at once, apparently. I guess Reisen's wave hitboxes are smaller than they look?

[Mero]

I don't know what they're talking about with MarisA on Byakuren tbh. You can hit anyone with all the lasers, which is easy to tell because they change colors when hitting (which is pretty sweet). Her hitbox might give you more leeway, but the same would be true with ReimuA and SanaeB.

With Junko it does make somewhat of a difference though. Reimu hits with more needles and Reisen's damage goes up by literally like 30% (turning her into JUNKOSLAYER) if you have 3 streams hitting, wheras normally only 2 streams can actually hit a boss at once, apparently. I guess Reisen's wave hitboxes are smaller than they look?

MarisaA with Byakuren is just how Sen described it, there's more of the laser touching Byakuren's hitbox, since it's both longer and wider.
The same goes for Reisen; even at LV2, she deals more damage to Junko than she would to other bosses, then it becomes more apparent when there's an extra stream at LV3/4.

[TresserT]

In some games piercing does "binary" damage; either the attack is hitting the enemy and does full damage or it's not hitting the enemy and it does no damage.

I guess that's not the case in touhou. Piercing deals more damage based on how much of the laser is hitting the enemy. I think that's where the misunderstanding is.

[ふねん1]

There's a misconception I keep seeing in ZM's Rate the Shot Types thread (not by everyone, but a good deal) that I want to clear up a bit. In multiple reviews I see people saying that LoLK Reimu's bomb prevents her from utilizing the game's graze-for-life-pieces mechanic effectively, when that's not true at all. Fantasy Seal does clear bullets, but when the orbs are circling their farthest from Reimu, there's a small space inside where bullets won't be immediately cancelled. With the right timing, Reimu can sit right next to where bullets spawn during this time to graze them. That said, how the bomb works overall plus Reimu's small grazebox still makes her bad for supergrazing compared to the likes of Sanae and Reisen, but most of the time (more prominently on boss attacks) you can use Fantasy Seal to at least get you over the 200 graze mark for a life piece.

[TresserT]

I didn't know, I'll have to try that. Thanks for the tip. I don't think it'll change very much, though.

[ZM]

It's indeed possible to bombgraze with Fantasy Seal, it's just tougher to do so compared to Wily Toad and Undulation Ray.

[TresserT]

So... I really don't like SoEW, so naturally I don't play it very much. To the point that I don't feel like my opinion on the shots is valid. That said... from what I remember, you can really increase your power if you mash the shot key like in a Phantasmagoria game. And if you do this, the "offensive" type actually becomes the weakest shot type. Is that correct? Are people not aware of that or am I just misinformed?

[Shizzo]

Also Reisen's piercing in LoLK is pretty useless, as well. XD
She kills Sagume a bit faster than everyone else but still lol

That and Hecatia.  Lunatic Impact says hi.

[ZM]

That and Hecatia.  Lunatic Impact says hi.

Good point, missed that.