During the beta for ARMS, I was crushing my opposition with an iron fist. It got me thinking that I was going to waltz to the top of the leaderboard. Within hours of first playing the final game, it was me that was repeatedly falling to the canvas. There were nights where I would go on massive losing streaks that would cause me to lose ranks that usually ended with me throwing my controller. Forget about reaching the top of the world, I had to look in the mirror and ask myself if I was actually trash at this game.

Refusing to give up, I kept practicing. Kept making mental notes of all of the different ways I could improve. Having wallowed in the middle ranks for weeks, I’ve turned a corner and am making a strong push to reach rank 20, the highest rank in the game. Here are some things I’ve observed along the way!

Boots on the ground

From Twintelle players jumping in the air before floating as part of their special ability, to many others who feel the need to jump before punching every single time, jumping is a wildly popular method of movement in the current meta. However, I’ve come to realize how bad jumping actually is to your health.

When you jump, you forfeit the ability to block. If your opponent has Rush fully charged and you’re in the air, you’re basically dead. Besides that, the practice of jumping in the air before throwing out one or both of your attacks is easily countered. When that person attacks from the air, they lock themselves into a fixed downward trajectory, while giving up the ability to knock their opponent’s punches out of the air. As soon as they let both fly, I sneak in and smash them from the side with a charged Thunderbird every time.

Yes, many of the characters in the game can do really fun things in the air. Ribbon Girl in particular is extremely difficult to counter, even when you do know she’s going to punch in the air. Eventually though, you’ll leave yourself open in the exact same spots and smart players will blow it up every time.

Once I realized this, I’ve pretty much cut jumping out of my approach. Unless I need to dodge something that I can’t sidestep, I’m keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground. This way, I still have most of the mobility without giving up my ability to block. Making this change has made me a much harder target to hit.

It’s not you, it’s me

Twintelle is still my favourite character in the game. However, when it’s time to throw down, we can’t been seen out in public together. Once I discovered the virtues of being grounded, I realized that Twintelle was no longer a good fit for my play style. She benefits greatly from being in the air, while her movement on the ground was lacking.

Instead, I decided to go with Spring Man. I know he’s the least exciting design in the game, but I found something in him that really works for me. His walk speed his good. His ability to stay charged when he has 25% health or less has proven to be a lifesaver. Most surprising is his ability to deflect attacks. For the longest time, I found it very confusing to use. Now that I have a feel for it, the deflect is crucial to his success. Time it just right, and you can knock away your opponent’s attacks while quickly landing a counter punch that they can’t punish.

There will likely be more experimentation with regards to character selection, but for now, Spring Man is my man. He really fits what I’m trying to do as a player and the results prove that.

The space between

Having a strong grasp on the space between you and your opponent is crucial towards your success. Early on, I tried to play an aggressive play style with Twintelle that caused me to fight at a close distance. What was really happening was that me being overzealous spacing would put me right in the path of getting hit.

At this point in the game’s life, I have found that the ideal fighting range is arms length, literally. If you’re fighting your opponent at max distance, you have the opportunity to hit your opponent while still being at a safe distance to dodge out of the way of your opponent’s attacks. The closer you get, the easier it is for your opposition to punish a whiffed attack, so I try to not give anyone that opening.

Of late, I’ve also seen some players work really well by repeatedly side-dashing at point-blank range. The reason this work is that it can actually be hard to hit someone that close while they’re dashing due to the camera and auto aim being a bit too slow to adjust. Once they miss, you have all the time in the world to punish. Personally, I think the former is a much better way to play.

Tools of the trade

Now that I’ve had over a month to play the game, I have a general idea of how each arm works, which arms I like to use, and how to use my arms to counter those of my foes. My current loadout looks like this:

Roaster

My go-to right arm comes from Max Brass. It’s a solid medium-weight arm that sacrifices length and control for speed and damage. I like this as a means of plowing through lighter arms and as a means of landing a direct punch. However, I use it mostly use it as bait. Throwing it out at roughly max range, the sight of that punch going out tends to cause my opponents to try and punish it. Unfortunately for them, I oftentimes have enough time to dodge, while hitting them with my real punch.

Thunderbird

My money punch. Mounted to my left arm, the Thunderbird is the focal point of my offense. Leading with the Roaster, I trick my opponents into trying to punish my initial attack. When they overcommit and miss me, I send a charged Thunderbird their way, incapacitating them for an easy follow-up throw. The Thunderbird I think is underrated in the community due to how difficult it is to land on a mobile opponent. But when used to punish an opponent already in the act of punching, it’s devastating.

Hydra

For now, this is my third arm. It primarily acts as a counter to players who like to jump a lot. Due to its vertically-aligned missiles, the uppermost missile does a good job of tagging jumpers at the knees. The problem with this arm is that it’s classified as a light attack, making it easy for other arms to punch through. Also, it’s not that hard to strafe around, making it not as useful on the ground. Still, in certain match-ups, I’m willing to sacrifice my ground game to shoot down pesky jumpers.

Punishment and Anticipation

Attacks and throws in ARMS are generally slower than in most other fighting games. Combine that with every character’s ability to strafe, jump, and air dash, the odds of you landing a punch in a neutral situation is slim. Instead, every attack you perform needs to have the following reasoning behind it:

• I’m throwing out this attack to punish a mistake my opponent has made
  • They’ve performed an attack that leaves them open. You know you have enough time to strike, so you give them a punch or grab that they can’t counter. Being able to identify those exact moments is really tough, as it’s going to take a lot of practice before you know for sure which moments are punishable. In many cases, this opening is just fractions of a second. However, these micro openings in many cases are the only chances you’re going to get to hit someone worth their salt.
• I’m throwing out this attack in anticipation of something my opponent is going to do next
  • Being the psychic person that you are, you’re able to predict what your opponent’s next move and perform the appropriate counter before your opponent does it. As an example, dashing is a great way to evade a punch. However, dashes are completely vulnerable to attacks if they land. The trick here is, like a good quarterback, you don’t throw out your attack to where they currently are, but where they’re going to be. Doing this wrong will get you killed very quickly. However, if you have a feel for what your opponent is doing, and you’re making a predictive attempt at a safe range, you will smack your foe with an attack that they never saw coming. When you’re able to strike them in this manner, it really shakes your opponent’s confidence to the core, making them more prone to play off their game and make mistakes. Once that happens, refer to the previous point.

 

This post has gone on way longer than I thought it would. While I have much more to say about the game, I’ll continue my thoughts in another post!