[0:00]All right, what's good everybody? Today we'll be bringing you the spear fan god here.
[0:07]If you wanna know the tactics that I use, aka the sauce, hey, today's the day for you, buddy.
[0:14]Now, this is not going to be a combo guide. I've already done two videos on combos, so if that's what you're here for, that's not what you're going to get.
[0:21]Um, this is more so going to go over kind of little tactics I use in the neutral game, and, you know, how to catch people and things like that.
[0:31]Um, so that little brief intro out the way, let's go ahead and just get right into this.
[0:38]All right, so the first thing that I want to go over is the neutral game, specifically the neutral game with the fan.
[0:48]Um, in order to make this build work, you really have to be good with the fan to get some initiations going.
[0:54]And I know one of the things that I have seen from, uh, you know, people in the comments and whatnot or even in my live streams is, how am I landing my uppercuts so much?
[1:06]Simple thing is conditioning.
[1:10]Um, and I'll give plenty of demonstrations of this, but the best way to to land that uppercut is to condition your opponent into get them moving.
[1:20]What I what I mean by that is you want to get them dodging, you want to get them trying to parry, because Meridian touch will interrupt a dodge and it will also interrupt parries.
[1:29]And if they're in the middle of attack, it will likely stagger them out of the attack as well.
[1:35]Um, so the best way to do that is to just throw out some light attacks to get them moving, and I'll show several demonstrations of that here and what I'm talking about, and go from there.
[1:45]All right, so here you see me going back away, throw some light attacks out.
[1:49]I finally get him dodging.
[1:52]So here is where I go for the Meridian touch, catch him in the middle of his dodge, and convert to uppercut into a combo.
[1:57]Um, now, I will say as you're throwing out those light attacks and whatnot, you do want to mix it up.
[2:00]You don't always want to do, um, like one light attack into Meridian touch or two. Mix up the timings, keep the opponent guessing, and keep them on their toes.
[2:09]All right, here's example number two. Notice how here when I'm going to switch to my fan, I'm not going to do the Meridian touch, uh, immediately.
[2:16]I'm going to see what his reaction is and I see that he liked to dodge right there.
[2:20]So I'm going to eat up this combo, pop my Serene Breeze, there goes his, and I'm going to bring the fan back out, hit him with a light attack because I know he's going to dodge now.
[2:26]I go for that Meridian touch and there it is.
[2:29]There goes the combo.
[2:33]So you really want to pay attention to your opponent's habits and whatnot in order to, uh, make this work.
[2:40]And another trick that I also do in neutral while throwing out the lights, if you don't want your opponent to gain any resources back, say if they're dodging a lot, and you don't want them to get their health back from that dodge or any key back, you can also fake out the light attacks but still kind of show the animation to get them moving and keep them on their toes, and it'll it will achieve the same thing.
[3:02]And then you can, you know, mix it in and attack to then start to punish them, and I'll demonstrate that here.
[3:35]Now, remember, um, Meridian touch not only catches people dodging, but it also catches people parrying.
[3:40]So, if you see somebody parrying your attacks like that, immediately go into Meridian touch and you'll catch them.
[3:45]And if you think that somebody's going to dodge cancel with skill like so, Meridian touch will also catch catch them.
[3:52]Um, you want to try and make those predictions so you can be successful with it.
[3:56]Now, one thing with uppercut, you can actually land uppercut if you're predicting a dodge.
[4:02]Um, raw uppercut can't catch people out of dodges, and I'll demonstrate that here.
[4:06]Um, just make sure you pay attention to opponent's pattern. So if you see this guy likes to block, dodge, block, dodge, block.
[4:12]So here, I'm predict that he's going to dodge again, and I catch him with the uppercut, and because of that, I'm able to get him into this combo.
[4:46]So, in the meantime, while I'm comboing, I'm pretty sure that in my, you know, if you see my previous videos, you've probably heard me say, hey, here comes the mix-up.
[4:57]I usually do that after next queue because there's many options you can do after that next queue if you set it up correctly.
[5:03]I'll go through that here. So here's going to be the first mix-up. Now, keep in mind, we're doing this mix-up, um, you want to really quick swap to that fan and buffer in the soaring spin, um, because you want to do that as soon as you can while swapping.
[5:17]And this mix-up will catch anybody that's side dodging, forward dodging, and even it even catches back dodges.
[5:24]And back dodges is usually the hardest, uh, dodge to punish, but this will catch it and I will demonstrate that in the next clip.
[6:48]All right, so another thing with these mix-ups when it comes to the toad explosion, um, they're designed to work perfectly with the explosion itself so they they can assist you in recatching the opponent.
[7:00]So for example, with this one, usually if you knock somebody down with super armor while they're in or knock somebody down with cloud step while they have super armor, you can recoil off of that.
[7:08]But the toad explosion happens right after the stomp and that resets that grounded state, allowing me to then take back up with the fan and to continue the combo.
[7:35]And if you do go with the soaring spin combo on wake-up, if somebody has that nameless spear, um, you can also just combo off of the soaring spin with the, um, Heavencracker spear cube.
[7:49]I think that's what they call it on PC, right? Am I doing it right, fellas? Okay, the martial skill, um, like so, and then you just pick up from there.
[8:49]Now you can also do an alternate variation of the golden body by replacing the soaring spin with Meridian touch and that will work just the same and it will also catch, um, it will also keep you safe from the nameless spirit, and I'll demonstrate that in the following clip after this one.
[9:07]Um, so here's going to be the first one catching that dodge and the next one is going to be me dodging the nameless spear stone on wake up with this set up as well.
[9:53]All right, so those are going to be your mix-ups, but here I'm going to talk about the fan dash attack with some clips in the background.
[10:00]Fan dash attack is very good, it causes a stagger and allows you to combo uppercut from it.
[10:07]It's a very good, uh, surprising initiation tool, a lot of people do not expect it.
[10:12]I know if you're on controller, you can kinda do it somewhat instantly, if you're on PC, I can't help you out there.
[10:17]And another trick with the dash tag, um, if I hit somebody with the fan wall like so, dash tack is a really good option out of fan wall to catch them and then go through the wall without a cut to recatch like so.
[10:28]So that's one thing you want to kind of put in your arsenal there. It's not going to work 100% of the time, but it's a very good option for you.
[10:34]All right, here I'm going to briefly go over the guard counter and options you can do out of that.
[10:39]A lot of people's first reaction out of guard counter once you hit them with it, is to dodge.
[10:43]So what I like to do sometimes is go right into Meridian touch after I land it.
[10:47]And you can even do this if you have the spear out, you would just have to quick swap to the fan real quick and then go into your Meridian touch and you will still catch them.
[10:54]But this is a solid option out of a, um, guard counter for you.
[10:58]All right, so if if you have been ever seen my videos or even tune into a live stream, you may know that I really do not like the strat sword, all right?
[11:07]That's a horrible match-up. The dash is so safe, they can cancel it with anything and it's low endurance cost.
[11:14]So I have been working on a few counters to dealing with that.
[11:18]Here's the first one, if they go for that uppercut swing, they usually cancel it with a parry cancel.
[11:22]If your spacing is right, you can't hit them with a guard counter and uh, counter with that.
[11:28]But that's very risky to go for. The second one here is since they usually like to dodge cancel, you can go for a Meridian touch when you think they're going to dodge cancel, and you will catch them out of there, uh, dodge cancel like so.
[11:40]And get them into a combo. Um, but those are be be aware that those are very risky counters to go for.
[11:46]It's not always going to work 100% of the time, so use them at your own risk.
[11:56]Here I want to briefly go over my usage of the spear.
[12:00]Now, I really only use the spear as mainly a defensive weapon.
[12:05]Now, it's not going to be 100% of the time, but it's mainly going to be offensively that I use it to catch people out of things such as the strat sword dash if somebody has a gap in their combo, and it even stuffs out the nameless spear stun if they if you think they're going to go for it, and you use the sober sorrow, it will even stuff that out like so.
[12:24]Um, so I mainly try to use that defensively.
[12:27]But in cases where I use it offensively, that's where the dash attack comes in.
[12:30]The dash attack is very good. Um, you can also chase people down with it like so.
[12:36]If you're good at chaining them, and it will catch and you will get a nice combo off of that.
[12:39]It has a pretty deceptive reach as well, so do not be afraid to throw that out there and to use that to try and catch people.
[12:46]All right, so that is going to be the guide. Um, really quickly, before I get the questions about what am I using as well, I'll go ahead and show what I run with this setup.
[12:53]Or what I've been running, you know, feel free to pause it, and you know, read through the attributes if you want to do all that.
[13:01]Um, I'm using the calm water set and the hawking set.
[13:09]And for my inner wings, I have the Wolfchaser's art, evasive charge, vital leech, and Fury Harvest.
[13:16]And for my mystic skills, this is what I run.
[13:19]No poet, no Dragon's Breath, if you're going to run this build, run it the right way, and make sure you do that.
[13:25]No poet, no Dragon's Breath, we don't need that bullshit, all right, buddy?
[13:30]But hopefully, this may have helped you out.
[13:33]I know some of you have tried this build out and I've told me that, hey, now you swapped off because it wasn't working out for you.
[13:39]So maybe you'll come back to the build and try it out, and you know, have better success with it.
[13:46]And if this has helped you out, let me know down below. Make sure you hit that like button on the way out, hit that sub button for me as well, buddy, and I'll catch you next time.
