Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram/Strategy

Basic strategy of Virtual-On

• Pressure your opponent with neutral, low commitment attacks and by closing distance.
• Dodge their attack and punish their attack or landing recovery with a powerful dash attack. Punish them heavily if they miss a dash attack.
• Perform a risky offensive with dash attacks when needed.
• In the ranged neutral game try to trap the enemy with attack combinations.
• Stop the opponents projectile in its tracks using defensive Erase-type projectiles.
• Read the enemies movements and hit them with special aimed attacks.
• In close range challenge the opponent to a duel: test their mobility and speed.

Movement vectors

Left-Right movement (horizontal)

Passive, evasive. Common use

• You are evading the opponents attack at a 90 degree angle. Least likely to get hit.
• Ability to reposition on the field and move while maintaining high evasion

Forwards movement at the opponent

Direct assault. Used to perform an attack. Used to approach when opponent does not act.

• No evasive property. (unless there is a significant height difference)
• Close distance quickly.
• Used to perform a direct frontal dash attack.
• Used to close distance when opponent cannot act.
• Used to close distance when the opponent decides not to act (read, prediction).
• Positions you behind a Left-Right moving opponent who does not act, beneficial attack vector

Diagonal forwards movement:

Assault. Approach the opponent. Common use. Has multiple great qualities:

• Cannot be hit by most neutral attacks (depending on range).
• Close distance on the target.
• If the opponent is moving left-right and you match that side you will intercept their trajectory: direct assault a horizontally dashing opponent
• If you do not match opponents left-right side, you will be moving obliguely behind them, a beneficial attack vector.
• You can push the opponent towards wanted left/right side and force a decision.
• If the opponent is trying to counter your vector at range and move behind you, at most they will put you into a horizontal vector and back to a ‘neutral’ situation.

Backwards movement, away from the opponent

Retreat. Gain distance on opponent. Most VR lack tools to move in this direction at a decent speed.

• As most attacks are homing or aimable it is very easy to get hit unless at long range.
• Raiden and Dordray have good access to this movement direction at advanced level.

Diagonal back movement

Retreat while maintaining high evasion. Most VR lack tools to move in this direction at any decent speed, utilization is character specific.

• Specineff and Angelan have high access to this movement direction. Unsurprisingly, they are strong at backpedaling and defensive play.

Air movement vectors

Jump

Rapid spike of vertical movement. Carries over horizontal movement from before jumping. Generally evades all attacks. Jumps can move around horizontally. This can be combined with Jump attacks.

Jump Cancel

Return to the ground, perhaps after evading or baiting an enemy attack.

Air dash

Dash in the air, on a horizontal plane determined by jump height. Watari Dash / Vertical Turn can be performed to continue moving on this plane before ending the dash with either a dash cancel or attack.

Air dash cancel

Like Ground dash, Air dashes can be followed with a dash attack. But the movement can be cancelled into a fall and this is your means of moving on this horizontal plane in the air without committing to a punishable attack.

Viewing from the side, a simple air dash cancel forms an ‘n’ / reverse ‘U’ pattern. This is a strong evasive pattern, like forming a sine wave. If your virtuaroid has decent air dash speed, forward/forward diagonal air dash cancels allow you to approach the enemy with a much more evasive property than when grounded. You can close distance on the opponent while avoiding most grounded attacks.

Fall control

Dash in the air, on a horizontal plane determined by jump height. Watari Dash / Vertical Turn can be performed to continue moving on this plane before ending the dash with either a dash cancel or attack. Players can move around horizontally, speed up and slow down their fall. When not falling from an air dash attack rotation can also be controller. Often simple fast falls are used. Floaty movement might be used combined with advanced techniques to increase horizontal movement speed.

Dash attack vectors and punishes

Dash attack properties

Dash attack animations like most attacks have three parts: startup (duration before attack), active (attack comes out), and recovery (part after attack). The end point of recovery is where the VR stops in place.

The unique thing here is the player is moving the whole time. Upon inputting the attack they are locked into a set animation that moves in given direction. This locked vector is susceptible to being counterattacked by the opponent intercepting it or firing at it from behind. This is why the players and projectiles movement vectors play such a large role in Virtual-On.

Generally speaking, in a neutral situation the first player to perform a dash attack is at a disadvantage as his movement vector gets locked. But some attacks are very high performance and more difficult to punish.

Keep in mind the dash attack type does not need to match your movement direction. If your opponent is to your right during your forwards dash and you attack, you will be moving to their right. Front dash attacks tend to have higher knockdown value so dashing into the opponent with a horizontal attack may be dangerous and leave you open to counterattack even if it connects.

Good dash attack vectors

If the attack does good damage, knocks down and you know it will hit a powerful frontal attack towards the opponent is ideal. If you do not know it can hit this is a dangerous move, you get locked moving towards the opponent with no control. If you are close they can even melee you.

A dash attack moving away from the opponent is usually bad if the opponent is free to move. You can be hit with a large variety of attacks. However if it does work successfully you will gain distance on the opponent and escape if wanted. Often a forwards dash attack does this if performed after your dash crossed behind the opponent.

Horizontal dash attacks are a middle ground, the opponent may have a larger variety of homing attacks that can be angled to hit you. Depending on range the enemy might be able to reposition themselves behind you.

Punishing dash attacks

The VR performing a dash attack keeps moving for a long time, is he still safe?

As a general rule dash attacks can be thought of as unsafe and punishable. Unless:

• the attack was timed so you were not free to act at the moment of weakness
• the attack was placed to recover behind a piece of cover or other defensive ability

Even in these cases, if the attack did not hit you the opponent gave you their ‘turn’ and you gain an advantage: being free to move around or perform your own attack while the opponent recovers.

Dash attacks end at a predetermined point

If the dash attack WAS unsafe: Not only do they get frozen into a single movement vector and lose control, but they will stop in place at a predetermined point. As you gain experience in the game you will know the exact point where their movement will end upon seeing them start their attack. On seeing them start a dash attack you have the remainder of their whole animation to perform your counterattack.

If they used a dash attack poorly (both unlikely to hit and unsafe) and you have good enough execution, you can essentially hit them with any attack you want: Move to the position their movement will stop and perform a powerful attack. Try to match their line of movement so you cannot miss. Manually aim a powerful attack to where their dash will stop.

Usable attack strength and time windows depend on properties of the punishable dash attack. But usually anything can be punished with a light attack. Small bits of damage make a big difference. This applies more and more as the players level increases. Experienced players will not use dash attacks haphazardly. But it still happens a lot in scramble situations or desperate offense.

Punishing enemies locked vector by matching vectors

Once they initiated their attack: try to hit them from behind their locked movement direction, matching the line of their movement based on how much homing your counterattack has.

Partially overlap their previous line of movement and attack from behind with your dash attack. Or depending on range and attack power, move behind them and hit them with a neutral attack.

If you are close enough, perform a melee attack instead of neutral attack. If it can be fully performed during the opponents dash recovery you have a guaranteed hit into massive damage. This is a major benefit of having long melee engage range.

Predicting the opponents dash attack

If you predicted the opponents dash attack you are more able to exploit the ending point of the dash. Even if they made a decent general use of the attack, if you read what they will do you have a counter play.

• Pre-emptively cover possible attack vectors with a defensive attack.
• Aim an attack to cover their possible movement vector.
• Reposition so their attack will be immediately in a bad vector
• Predict the end position of the incoming attack and move there pre-emptively.

Those movement related concepts are very low commitment, you are just moving to cover potential cases. But if they did what you expected.. in a good case you can melee them easily. If the opponent is doing a ground dash attack an easy way to reposition and counter is to air dash cancel ending at your point of counterattack.