A recent post about Attackers being lackluster in general prompted some good discussion in the comments. It also made me realize that we don’t have anything that shows up in a search for attacker guides. Or melee guides in general, really.
The purpose of this guide is to dispense some quick tips for how to tighten up your melee game. Speaking as a former Sharpshooter main (and member of the Maria clone army), there are a lot more mechanics that you have to juggle as a melee attacker than are required with a ranged style. I don’t profess to be an expert (not a JP player), but I think I have enough to share that could help smooth over the experience for people who are starting out with this play style.
Full disclosure: I have very little time on Defenders. Most of the information below should be applicable to both Attackers and Defenders, but I’m doubtlessly missing some tricks. Please contribute your advice in the comments (Defender or otherwise).
Table of Contents
1. Positioning basics
Don’t stand in the boss’s face. You don’t want to stand between the boss and any piercing linear attacks they’re aiming at someone else. There may be cases in the future where Defenders want to eat non-piercing projectiles, but unless you see that advice in an event guide it’s probably not a good idea.
Don’t stand next to others. If you’re in a melee heavy team this is more easily said than done, but it’s worth taking the extra second to reposition so that you’re more evenly spaced out around the opponent. This will reduce the number of people who eat a repositioning attack.
Don’t evade into others. Don’t lead a boss that’s chasing you into others. Some accidents are going to happen, but most of them are avoidable.
Know the enemy cursor colors. This cannot be emphasized enough regardless of what role you’re playing. Watch the color changes and focus on evasion when it is red or blinking red. If the boss is glued to you when there is no Defender present, don’t sweat the fact that you aren’t doing DPS. You are providing an excellent service by not taking damage from the boss and not leading the boss into your allies.
Use Charge Assaults to minimize the time you spend walking and chasing. This is covered in depth later. Time spent chasing is time spent contributing almost nothing, and with extremely bad AP charge rate. Do not confuse time spent chasing with time spent evading. The latter is extremely useful to the party, but the former is not.
Enemy cursor colors:
- Red = have aggro
- Red blinking = boss is attacking you
- Yellow = someone else has aggro and is being attacked
- Green = someone else has aggro
2. Switching from a ranged mindset
If you’ve mostly been playing a ranged character up until this point, playing a melee character is going to require some adjustment.
Ranged characters primarily focus on DPS while mixing in some evasion. Most of their movement is focused on maintaining space from an opponent. Invokers will use Charge Assault to speedcast the first spell of their chain, but Sharpshooters generally have little reason to touch CA. Why risk taking extra damage where a dash would suffice?
Melee characters are a different story entirely. Most of their damage/aggro is accumulated at close range, and any time spent moving is wasted efficiency. CA is extremely vital to a melee playstyle, and you are going to need to step out of your comfort zone if you’ve been playing ranged characters up until this point.
Something else that might catch Sharpshooters by surprise is that several long range projectiles of Attackers and Defenders do not auto-aim. Unless you’re using one mid-combo, they are generally going to whiff unless they are CA’d. (more on that later)
3. Know your attack properties
Each of your attacks have varying uses. Some are better for building gauge, others are better for building hitcount. Generally your combos should be emphasizing gauge building until the gauge is almost full, or the boss is stunned. Remember that a canceled normal attack contributes toward chain building, and that you should always take advantage of this when starting a combo in melee range.
Some attacks are more useful against larger opponents than others. These attacks are almost always more effective when properly centered. In extreme cases, you may need to adjust attacks that you have equipped on the character depending on the size of the opponent.
4. Use an elemental weapon
You’re probably tired of hearing this advice. All the same, the advice applies to melee characters more than any other. Your best damage is done when the boss isn’t moving or teleporting around the map, and there is no better way to hold a boss in place than to keep them locked into an element burst stun. It’s in your best interests to not only help those stuns happen more often, but to keep the team’s stun combo running for as long as possible.
Certain characters who bring an element heavy kit (i.e. Roddick) can get away with using other weapons, and should instead look for ones that emphasize their focus element.
5. Learn a few combos
When starting out, it helps to borrow a few of the common bread and butter combos for your character that others have already researched for you. I personally use the tier list of units as a reference.
Star Ocean: Anamnesis – Tier List (Global version)
These combos will help give you a head start, but you are still going to need to learn the properties of your attacks and their CA versions in order to adapt to boss fights as the circumstances change. Try to learn why these combos work and the function of the CA moves in those combos. As you improve you will need to learn how to adjust CAs on the combo as necessary depending on circumstances.
If you’re using borrowed combos, make sure you’re actually landing hits with them. If you’re still learning the character and you’re completely whiffing your combos (most of us Roddicks were whiffing ranged combos when learning Jie’s patterns), you’re better off with something that hits more reliably until you’re better practiced with the mechanics of your character and the specific boss fight.
6. Understand Charge Assaults (CAs)
As mentioned above, melee characters have a much greater emphasis on charge assaults. The most common uses can be summarized as follows. Remember that while CAs are useful, safety must be emphasized as you will take defense ignoring damage while executing them. Please don’t be the Defender who gets oneshot by the boss because you used a CA needlessly while holding aggro.
7. CA Short
7.1 Gap Closing
Using a CA on a short range attack will cause your character to sprint toward where the target was positioned when the CA was activated. Gap closing is a very useful technique for crossing the map to get back into melee range, but if the boss was moving when you started you’re probably going to whiff. You want to time this for when the boss is stationary.
7.2 Centering
Occasionally your target will move slightly out of position mid-combo, either because it began to walk/teleport or because it was displaced by your allies. CA Short is useful mid-combo as it will re-center you in melee range on the opponent without having to move yourself manually (and without dropping your combo chain). This is an extremely important technique during element burst, not only because you want to maximize hitcount to maintain the stun but also because the boss is knocked around more by your allies during the element burst.
7.3 CA Short tips
Use CA Short as much as necessary during element burst. Unless there was an AoE spell active on the field before the burst began, there is minimal risk for you to spam CAs as much as necessary to keep the hit count skyrocketing.
If someone sends the boss flying into the stratosphere with a poorly timed attack (all eyes turn to Reimi), you can CA Short mid-combo and hold it while waiting for the enemy to descend again. Try to release shortly before they land in order to resume hitting them as quickly as possible.
Roddick specific note: CA Shotgun Blast is an essential component of your hitcount contribution while the boss is stunned, and it takes advantage of all aspects of a CA Short. It re-centers Roddick to maximize hitcount and gap closes as necessary. This keeps him stuck on the target and landing all hits. If you find yourself spamming Shotgun and whiffing, it’s because the opponent was moved by the hits of your allies and CA Shotguns were needed to continue tracking the boss.
When clearing trash during low difficulty dailies (read: no boss), you can spam CA Short to constantly teleport around the map while smashing things. Sure, Auto takes less work, but it’s far less fun and takes longer. Try it a few times and you’ll see what I mean.
8. CA Long
8.1 Projectile Orienting / Ranged Openers
If your melee character’s projectile attack does not auto-aim, you will never want to open a combo with it unless you use a CA to do so. The CA will center your character on the target’s current position. The projectile will still whiff if the target moves during or immediately after the attack, but it’s still much better trying to aim manually. Try to time the release of the attack for when the boss is stationary.
A frequently useful technique when far away from your target is to let your AP meter fill up, use a CA Long to aim a projectile, and follow it with a CA Short to jump back into the fray. Your combo will be at a slight chain disadvantage by opening your combo without a normal attack, but this is outweighed by starting at full AP and eliminating the time you would have spent running after the opponent. You’re also starting a chain combo immediately instead of having to use normals to fish for AP gain.
8.2 Space Making
The other main use of CA Long is to make space mid-combo. Using CA Long at melee range causes you to teleport a short distance away from your target before executing the attack. Using this one offensively tends to be very character specific, and is followed either by a key long range attack (Roddick’s Dragon Slash) or a short range attack with a large enough radius to hit from a short distance (Fidel’s Air Raid). It can be followed with a dodge flick to make even more space, but only when the CA itself can be used well in advance of taking damage.
8.3 CA Long tips
Do not commit yourself to using a CA Long mid-combo if you are anticipating immediate damage. Immediate damage = dodge flick.
Do use CA Long mid-combo if you have a good feel for the fight and are anticipating the need for space in the near future, and while it’s still safe to use a CA for that purpose.
9. Combo flows
Now that you know how CAs are best put to use, you can take a look at some of the combos that you’ve been borrowing from Reddit/elsewhere and understand how they work. You can also take them apart and make your own!
Most combos look something like this:
- Basic Attack -> Gauge Building Combo
- Basic Attack -> Hitcount Combo
- CA Ranged Opener -> CA Gap Closer -> (gauge or hitcount finisher)
- CA Weak Ranged -> Strong Ranged -> Weak Ranged -> Loop Strong Ranged
- “oh shit element burst started after the rush and I’m on the other side of the map”: CA Short -> Panicked Flailing
Sometimes you’ll want to mix in some CAs mid-combo if the boss is moving. Remember that your own safety comes first, and you should not do this if you are anticipating immediate damage. That’s what dash is for.
- Mid-combo reposition: Basic Attack -> (combo) -> CA Short to re-center or gap-close -> (combo finish)
- Mid-combo spacemaker: Basic Attack -> (combo) -> CA Long to make space -> (projectile finish or dash cancel to make even more space)
10. Combat Flow: Putting it all together
This isn’t exactly specific to melee characters, but it helps to take everything you’ve learned here and put it into practice.
The flow of combat against a boss can be distilled down into the following list of priorities. The higher up the item is on the list, the more emphasis it has.
- Keep Boss Staggered (during Element Burst)
- Stay Alive
- Rush As A Team
- Hold Aggro (Defender only)
- Build Gauge
- Build Hitcount / Element Burst
10.1 Keep Boss Staggered
Maintaining an Element Burst stagger against a boss is always at the top of the list. This is the window of time where your entire team’s safety and damage potential is maximized. Rushing will cancel this. Use CA Short as much as needed to stay centered and within melee range.
When you run out of AP, go for normal attacks. Don’t wait for AP to recharge on its own by not attacking. If you sense a gap in the hitcount, don’t wait for AP to charge completely off of normals: immediately cancel into your hitcount combo and try to keep the attacks coming while the rest of your team resets their combos.
10.2 Stay Alive
Goes without saying. Whatever your job is, you’re not doing it if you’re dead. If you’re at 1/3 health and things are looking dicey, you might have to start emphasizing fully ranged combos if your character’s moveset allows for it. Characters with strong ranged options (like Roddick) should never stay glued to melee range once they’re at critical health.
This was touched on before, but remember that when you hold aggro it’s more important to keep damage off of the entire team — that includes yourself and the person you’re tempted to dash onto. Low health Defenders have their work cut out for them as they will still need to try and maintain aggro while at critical health. It is probably best to emphasize evasion and switch back to aggro fishing when the boss changes targets.
10.3 Rush As A Team
Note that this is listed after Stay Alive. Rush attacks can be used to reset the map and remove any damage fields that your allies are stuck in. If you need to burn a rush to save someone, ignore the “Yikes!” of misunderstanding that you might see in response. Don’t sweat the small stuff, just be satisfied with being a good team player.
In other circumstances, you want to rush as a team.
Know your rush multiplier. 2000% – 2500% multipliers generally go first, which are usually Healers and Defenders. Be prepared to use your 3000% rush first if the others are refusing to use theirs. (auto or healer with low faith in the team)
Long press the rush button of your party members to see a pop-up describing their rush. As a general rule, Attackers and Invokers with a 4000-4500% Rush should go last. Characters with an elemental focus that the boss is weak against should go after Cliff despite his massive rush bonus.
I’m not going to provide a complete guide to which characters should solo rush here. Just assume that if someone solo rushes before the rest of the team is ready that they know what they’re doing. Sometimes they do, as it turns out. Don’t “Yikes!” unless you have the full effects of their rush memorized. (not just the multiplier)
10.4 Build Gauge/Hitcount
When it’s safe to do so, wail on the boss and wail hard. As mentioned earlier in the guide, focus on gauge building unless you’re almost full. If you’re far ahead of the rest of the team, it’s okay to switch to your hitcount combo and let them catch up. Use CA Short to stay within range mid-combo if you do not have aggro. If the boss teleports, do not chase. Recharge AP to full by standing still, then CA Long (if you have one) -> CA Short (gap closer) to get back into the fight.
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