Weekly Challenge/Card Preview #2

So this week's challenge is music bounce, and you get a nice card from it: Helene! Music bounce is actually not that hard of a challenge, so I won't be focusing on the walkthrough this week (although there still will be one... sorta.). Instead of that, you'll get more tips and strategies on how to use your new, shiny Helene; full with a picture, attack descriptions, and character analysis! As always, if you feel that something needs more explaining or something, leave a comment.

"Walkthrough"

Music Bounce is a fairly simple puzzle game that essentially boils down to opening the right doors in order to get rid of all the blocks. To win, all you have to do is experiment with which gates you open, and just work out that until you find the right combination.

I was able to do this challenge really quickly (maybe 10-12 minutes), and I encourage you to not use a walkthrough, since it's not that hard. But if you really want a walkthrough,
here is a forum post that has the walkthrough up to level 15.

Helene!

Thanks to booksnake for the screencap!
(Click the picture if you can't read the skills, blogger is dumb, and won't make the image bigger)



As you can see from this screenshot, Helene is a tanky, purely closed ranged character. She ties for the most hp (85) with Onimaru, and has high enough physical armor to not be worried about those pesky shurikens or sword flurries. She's more versatile than Ashi (in that she can actually do something besides intercept or rest at far range), can use all three attack types, and is pretty damn fast. The range game is important for Helene: you are going to have to know when to get close even though you are close, and pass if they're far and you know they're going to go far. You should also try to intercept if you anticipate one, since Helene's atatcks are all highish energy, so a wasted energy is really bad for her.

Recommended Items:

Valkyrie's Charm - Despite Helene not being slow, Valkyrie's charm is probably the best item for her to use. With Valkyries charm, her attacks become 10/10/7/5 speed respectively. This improves a lot of her matchups (it allows her to outspeed higashi/yoshiro/cornelius especially, and helps with others such as VVoss and Ashi), and allows her to almost always get the first attack in at close range. It completely changes the nature of some of her matchups (Higashi would be even more scared close range, etc.), and generally gives her an advantage. Speed is an important stat in Kongai, and probably would benefit Helene the most out of these items.

Herbal Remedy - This item would help against the ankle-biter characters such as Higashi and Tafari (the characters that whittle down your health with low damage attacks such as poison dart and voidstream), and would probably allow her to survive for a few extra turns. I would take this over Reinforced Breastplate if you had the choice, since it's better for her than breastplate in most situations.

Skills:

Shield Bash - Although this seems like a really good move, I find it to be really situational. Since it's a 10 speed 50 energy move, you can probably cancel almost any attack you wanted to, but due to it's 50 energy cost and its mediocre damage, it's not always the best move to use. I tend to ignore this skill, and it should only be used it you're sure that they're doing a high energy, high damage move (like pilebunker or vampiric touch). Obviously, this move should NOT be used against Ashi or people with girdle of iron will, since they are immune to it (or nearly immune).

Frenzied Strikes - Your bread and butter move. This is a 10 speed potential 42 damage move that counters the other tanky characters(Ashi/Onimaru) because it's a dark type move. You're going to be using this frequently on everyone except the high dark resist characters (generally those with 3 or more).

Sword Slash - This adds more versatility to Helene's attacks, adding in a moderately high damage physical move that has a chance to restore energy. If you are going to do about the same damage with sword slash and frenzied strikes, and aren't worried about it's lower speed, you should use this move. More energy = very good. This is also a good attack to use over frenzied strikes if you anticipate a switch, but aren't entirely sure, since it costs less energy.

Enchant Blade - Adds more versatility to the mix, and turns frenzied strikes into a potential 60 damage light attack. Not many characters have light resist, so this allows her to actually do something against the people with high dark resist. I would only use this move against said characters, or if you're far range and think they won't switch out. It's also a good move to use at close range if you think they are going to intercept you and you don't have enough energy to do something, but would the next turn. It's probably better to switch out or use sword slash against those high dark resist characters at close range though, since this wastes a turn.