Lunia Tips and Tricks

[Mengjun]

Tips and Tricks v0.03
Made by Mengjun

Work in progress.

Any corrections/criticism or suggestions? Feel free to PM me.

Credits
Thanks to Kismet and Kadeshi for pointing out stuff I missed.

Version History
v0.03:
- Tweaked some tips, according to the latest patch.
- Started working on Tia/Krieg.
v0.02*:
- Filled in stuff that I missed in the Sieg, Eir and Dainn sections.
v0.02:
- Detached from the "Boss Strategy Guide".
- Updated layout.
- Completed Sieg.
- Completed Eir.
- Completed Dainn.
v0.01:
- Part of inter-episodal "Tips and Tricks" in my "Boss Strategy Guide".
- Covered up to lv 18 (Sieg, Eir, Dainn)

All characters

Mobility, Basic
Dashing (done by doubletapping a direction) is a great way for moving around fast, but a bit tiresome on the fingers when you need to dash straight for some time, since you need to double tap every half a second. But that can be done more efficiently; let's say you want to dash up. First start dashing by doubletapping the up arrow. Then you can press the up arrow once near the end of the dash, and another dash will follow. For long straight dashes, this reduces the amount of button presses to a half!
Defense, Basic
When knocked down, you have two options. The first one is doing a rising attack. (A while down) You'll be invincible for the duration of this attack, so you can use this to wake up through an enemy attack. Also, you cancel this rising attack into a backward dash, if you need to escape quickly. The other one is pressing S. You'll just stand up, but you're invincible while standing up, and you can still press A for a rising attack while standing up.

Sieg Helmont

Level 1+
Mobility, Basic
To keep mobility, restrict your melee strings to just AA, then dash away immediately. Rinse and repeat. With some practice, you'll be dealing (almost) the maximum damage per second (when uninterrupted of course) you can deal with just melee strings, while keeping the ability to dash out of a dangerous situation when possible. AAAS works for Siegs as well.
Mobility, Basic
A Sieg has, besides his normal dash, another manoeuver that comes in use while evading, or just plain moving around. It's called the "sidestep". You do this by either dashing, and then almost simultaneously press A and S (first A then S, but remember, almost simultaneously), or by dashing and then pressing A and the spacebar one after each other. One giant plus of this way of moving around is that, when well controlled, it can be as fast as, or even faster than a dash, and it's speed is fixed, that is, not affected by any slowdown that may be inflicted on your character. So even if you're slowed down, you can still be moving at the speed of a dash.
Also, sidestepping makes movement smoother by eliminating the delay between two dashes.
Mobility, Basic
In the same category, but slightly easier to pull it off right, is the "upper dash" or "S-dash", a mix of the uppercut that you do when you press S, and a dash. The uppercut motion is completely dash-cancelable. So you can dash during any moment of the uppercut animation. This sets you moving with one single press of a button, so gives you a head start evading attacks. But, if slowed down, it is faster than a normal dash, it will be slower than the sidestep. Combining the S-dash with sidestepping however gets rid of this disadvantage.

Level 3+
Offense, Advanced
[Destruction Fist] has got some invincible frames, so you can strike straight through an enemy attack, when timed properly.

Level 7+
Defense, Advanced
[Blow] has some invincibility frames, meaning that on certain moments during the skill, you can't be hurt. Use them wisely.

Level 15+
Party, Basic
[Provoke] attracts the attention of the monsters around you to you, for a set period of time. Gives an opportunity for you party members to beat up the monsters without getting their attention. Other uses include luring something into a wrongly cast [Ice Barrier].
It can also be useful to let your party know that you pulled off a [Provoke] by giving the voice chat command "Attack!" (F-3-1), and you can use "Retreat!" (F-3-2) to indicate that the effect of [Provoke] has expired.

Level 16+
Defense, Basic
[Counter] makes you invulnerable to physical attacks for a short while, and returns a certain amount of damage in case you are hit in that period of time. It also pushes back (and cancels the motions of) monsters that can be pushed back (read: most non-bosses). Due to its small invincible time frame, this skill is best suited for countering single hit strikes.

Level 23+
Defense, Basic
[Play Dead] sacrifices some HP to put you into downed state for a moment, before you stand up again. You can choose to recover sooner by dashing in any direction. Also, during your downtime, you can still get hit by down attacks. So far the description. Now, the nice thing about [Play Dead] is that you can evade certain attacks with it (depending on whether those attacks can hit you while you're downed).
Defense, Advanced
In addition to the above, [Play Dead] also has a few invincibility frames; the "falling" animation (which is a fraction of a second) is invincible. Use this to your advantage.

Level 40+
Defense, Basic
[Flying Dragon Sword] has some invincibility frames, during the "dash" before taking off into the skies. This is your main source of invincibility.

Eir Peltrow

Level 1+
Mobility, Basic
To keep mobility, restrict your melee strings to just AA, then dash away immediately. Rinse and repeat. With some practice, you'll be dealing (almost) the maximum damage per second (when uninterrupted of course) you can deal with just melee strings, while keeping the ability to dash out of a dangerous situation when possible.
Mobility, Basic
Eirs have an defensive manoeuver besides dashing, where she jumps back. You do this by pressing S, then space. (Press space while Eir is still tracing the outlines of a pentagon with her wand.) This has the additional advantage that its speed is unaffected by any slowdowns, so you can use this to move around pretty efficiently while slowed down.

Level 2+
Party, Basic
Any party heal (meaning any heal excluding [Heal]) has the ability to heal downed party members with 0 HP, party members that would have died otherwise, essentially saving a life. Plus, you get that wonderful "Fastastic Save" on your screen if you managed to save someone that way.
Mobility, Basic
[Heal] can be used to shorten delays of skills that have a long delay. Cast it right after you succesfully executed the skill you were casting, then dash in any direction directly to cancel most of [Heal]'s delay itself.

Level 7+
Mobility, Basic
[Light of Purification] can be used in the same way as [Heal], but it cancels a tad slower than [Heal]. Use this as a backup for when [Heal] is on cooldown.

Level 15+
Mobility, Basic
[Dodge] can be used in the same way as [Heal], and has the additional advantage that it sets you moving right away.

Level 28+
Defense, Basic
[Moon Barrier] can attract homing projectiles to it. Use it to keep you and your party members out of harm's way.

Dainn Crowley

Level 1+
Mobility, Basic
To keep mobility, restrict your melee strings to just AA, then dash away immediately. Rinse and repeat. With some practice, you'll be dealing (almost) the maximum damage per second (when uninterrupted of course) you can deal with just melee strings, while keeping the ability to dash out of a dangerous situation when possible.
Mobility, Advanced
One particular way of dashing and refacing your opponent as described above, is known as "autostep"; dashing diagonally away from your opponent, and then refacing him and attacking (with AA). If done well, this looks like your walking towards your opponent in between AA melee strings.

Level 2+
Mobility, Basic
[Ice Arrow] can be used to shorten delays of skills that have a long delay. Cast it right after you succesfully executed the skill you were casting, then dash in any direction to cancel most of [Ice Arrow]'s delay itself.

Level 6+
Mobility, Basic
[Hand of Earth] can be used in the same way as [Ice Arrow] for cancelling long delays.

Level 11+
Defense/Party, Basic
[Ice Barrier] attracts most of the boss' attention, when the boss runs into it, and keeps it until the barrier "melts", so you can beat up the boss'/mob's back while the barrier lasts. While lv 1 [Ice Barrier] lasts too short for this to be of any use, higher levels of [Ice Barrier] greatly increase its utility.
It takes a little practice to cast it in such a way that it gets the monster's attention and that non of your party members get stuck as well, but it's well worth it.
Defense, Advanced
Supposedly (someone confirm this), [Ice Barrier] also has some invincibility frames, meaning that on certain moments during the skill, you can't be hurt. Use this to your advantage.

Level 22+
Mobility, Basic
[Pillar of Abyss] can be used for cancelling long skill delays, like [Ice Arrow] and [Hand of Earth].

Level 41+
Defense, Basic
[Bitter Cold Breath] makes you invincible during the entire cast time. Use this to your advantage.

Tia

Level 1+
Mobility, Basic
Jumping (tripletapping any direction) allows you to jump over monsters, bosses and the like, and even over some attacks, giving you another way evade enemy attacks.
Mobility, Basic
Tia's roll (done by either pressing A+S, or A then spacebar) is one of Tia's additional evasive manoeuvres that also allows her to get to a monster's back pretty efficiently. Since the speed of this roll is fixed, that is, it isn't affected by any slow curses or speed boost, you can also use this as an effective way of moving around while under a slow curse, especially because there is an easy way of chaining rolls together. Start by doing a roll to the left (dash A+S) then alternate pressing the spacebar and S to keep on rolling right and left (and right and left, and so on).
Using a roll between two dashes also make movement smoother, since there is no delay between rolls and dashes, but there is a delay in between dashes.

Level 6+
Mobility, Basic
Despite its total lack of damage, [Thorny Throwing Knife] is useful, namely as a way to cancel the delays of skills. Throw one right after you cast a skill, and you can move freely pretty soon afterwards.

Level 10+
Offense, Advanced
Besides being a great damager, [Backstab] also has invincibility frames, which can be used for countering purposes.

Level 20+
Defense, Basic
[Shadow Counterattack] makes you invincible during either of the 'dashes', and can also provide you with a quick manoeuvre backwards, by cancelling it with a [Thorny Throwing Knife] right after the first dash.

Level 22+
Party, Basic
[String of Rescue] is an 'attack' that hits your own party members. You can use it (as intended) to pull party members down and out of a combo, but also to 'wake up' people that have been put to sleep.

Lime

Dacy Dalstrin

Krieg El Nati

Level 1+
Mobility, Basic
To keep mobility, restrict your melee strings to just AA, then dash away immediately. Rinse and repeat. With some practice, you'll be dealing (almost) the maximum damage per second (when uninterrupted of course) you can deal with just melee strings, while keeping the ability to dash out of a dangerous situation when possible.
Defense, Basic
When you press the S button, Krieg will become invincible from hits from the front, in trade for some HP. So use this to avoid any high damage attack any monster can throw at you, while staying close to the enemy. With some practice, you should be able to minimize the amount of damage you get from S. Also, when timed right, S will parry off the enemy, at the cost of some HP.

Level 24+
Defense, Basic
[Thunderbolt] makes you invincible during most of its airtime. Use this to your advantage.

Level 41+
Offense, Advanced
[Invincible] has some invincible frames, which can be used to counter an enemy attack.

Yuki

Arien

[Kismet]

An interesting idea for a guide, and definitely useful for new players. You could also add that Side-stepping and Rolling for Tia/Sieg remove the delays between dashings for smoother movement. Also Sieg's side-step, Eir's S-Space, and Tia's dash S all ignore snaring effects while any other form of standard movement does not.

On a side note, Firebomb can also be used to cancel long delays like HoE and IA, and Pillar of Abyss would be the slowest of them right?

[Mengjun]

How could I forget FB canceling... I use it myself pretty often xD. But anyway, explain the term 'snaring effects', since I don't know exactly what it is.

[Kismet]

Sorry, snaring is a phrase that was commonly used in WoW, and EQ (from the spell Snare). Snaring is slowdown effects, such as Fury of the Land's slow, or Provoke slow. Sidestep/Dash-S/S-Space ignore these slowdowns, and consequently ignore speed-ups such as pots, by moving at a set speed regardless of what buffs/debuffs you have on your character.

[Kadeshi]

lol really nice, gratz
i would only add "evasive tactic" maybe? fits to any lvl, when knocked down press A to get up and fast dash to the chars back direction to fast escape, i see that mostly of the new players get knocked get up and stand still to get knocked again
anyway, very good job, taht should help a lot those that are starting

[Mengjun]

Originally Posted by Kismet

Sorry, snaring is a phrase that was commonly used in WoW, and EQ (from the spell Snare). Snaring is slowdown effects, such as Fury of the Land's slow, or Provoke slow. Sidestep/Dash-S/S-Space ignore these slowdowns, and consequently ignore speed-ups such as pots, by moving at a set speed regardless of what buffs/debuffs you have on your character.

I get it now, thanks.

And both of you, thanks for pointing out stuff I missed =D

EDIT: Updated to v0.02*

[Mengjun]

I'm baaaaaaack =p. With an update ^^. Started working on Tia and Krieg, and modified some stuff to fit the newest patch around here. (Well, Krieg isn't here yet, but er... whatever.)

[buta]

Nice guide. I didn't see it in there, but what about half dash? I forgot how to do it so that'd be nice to see. I think it was 6646 or maybe you don't turn around for it.. o.o

[Mengjun]

Halfdash is more of a combo & PVP thing I think, and this guide focuses on stage gameplay. That's why I'm not going to include halfdash in here.

But to answer your question, halfdash is 664, which needs some timing to work, or else you will turn around. The 6646 you mentioned is an ordinary dash cancel, which actually involves facing 4 and then turning back (though very quick.)

And thanks for your compliment ^^;

EDIT: Forgot one thing though, instead of 664(6) you can also do 662(6) or 668(6). Works a little nicer on your fingers if you have to do diagonal or vertical halfdashes.