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Divinity And You – A Guide to Crusader PvP

Discussion in 'Priest Guides' started by Stark, Jun 17, 2010.

  1. Stark #1 Ranking Female Priest

    Divinity And You – A Guide to Crusader PvP

    What is a Crusader? A Crusader is a valiant individual who, more than any other class, upholds traditional values of courage and justice. With the ability to empower both themselves and others with blessings of wisdom and of strength, of divine power and sacred healing arts, they are extremely capable at supporting any party, while also being perfectly capable of “supporting” themselves and doing battle on their own.

    There are many different styles of Crusader play to fit many different needs. Some Crusaders prefer to play pure support, sacrificing the ability to deal strong damage of their own by granting those they travel with powers beyond that they ever thought possible. Other Crusaders prefer to mix their support with divine combat arts, so that they can be effective in battle as well as utilizing their support abilities to protect both themselves and others. Since you’ve come to me about this, I’ll assume you want to stray more towards that. Legends speak also of “Battle Crusaders,” who march onward against injustice wherever they see it, having great combat skill while having very little supporting ability… But, for the time being, in what we can derive from our scripture, it would seem that that last one is not recommended. Just the same, if you have a burning heart full of both empathy to help others and courage to do what’s right, then you too can be a Crusader. And that's... The Stark Truth.

    Basics of Crusader Play: PvP

    Crusaders are a class with one of the best pokes in the game, decent lockdown, and pretty flashy combos. The primary weakness of a Crusader is being very weak to zoning, and having rather predictable (however effective) tools for escaping pressure themselves. When you’re in, you’re pretty much in, and that’s quite good. But a Crusader must always be moving. You must stay on your opponent as much as possible. You do not have the luxury of sitting back and forcing your opponent to come to you - you are not good enough at zoning, and you do not do enough damage to play that game. Yet, crusader is not a particularly mobile class, and if you let your opponent escape from your grasp, you're going to have to catch them again.

    One thing you have that you can rely on is your incredible defense and generally good stats all around that come from your buffs. When it comes to clashes between you and your opponent, the general case is going to be that if you can combo the opponent one time for every time they combo you, you are going to end up victorious, because your stats are better than their stats. This means that you're going to want to be in your opponent's face as much as possible, trying to not let them get away from you, making good use of Blades of Purity, Furious Grab, and Giant Weapon Launcher in your footsies. Even if there's a trade, a nice double counterhit with these moves will give you an advantage over your opponent. And because of the hitboxes on these moves, it’s often possible to establish a barrier your opponent needs to pass through, but if they so much as move a step in your direction, they’ll take a hit… Blades of Purity in particular is quite safe on whiff, and so can easily be used from just outside of its actual range to pressure the opponent into making a mistake you can capitalize on.

    And by the nature of footsies, while there will be times when you get beat clean and eat a combo, there's also going to be times when you beat the opponent clean and get a nice combo of your own, and you get to take those stats of yours and shove them down your opponent's throat. And the thing is… It's gonna take a LOT of punishment to knock you out. Most opponents, by contrast, wear weaker armor or at least do not have the benefits of healing and resurrection that you do, so even though Crusader damage is not the best, it’s still good enough to allow Crusader not to be bottom-tier. And because your pokes are good and you can have a reasonably strong okizeme game, if you can reasonably keep pressure then the game is as good as yours.

    Glossary of Terms

    Aegis: Deflection Wall. Called Aegis because it looks like Urien's move in Street Fighter, "Aegis Reflector," and is used in vaguely similar ways.

    Wakeup: Getting up after being knocked down.

    Okizeme: Strategy against your opponent's wakeup; generally, throwing out very active attacks trying to hit them after they get up.

    Abare: Pretty much, translating random hits into massive damage.

    Probably some more things, bring stuff up that I didn't explain and I'll edit this
  2. Stark #1 Ranking Female Priest

    Skills

    So you know the general idea of what Crusader is about. But what skills will you use? Allow me to guide you through each skill available to you as a level 50 Crusader.


    Heals


    Slow Heal
    Slow Heal's not going to be very useful to you as a Crusader in PvP. It doesn't heal for much, and it’s not really that great in a pinch. Compared to other PvP healing options, it doesn’t scale as well, being 2x PvE values rather than the 3x PvE values Fast Heal enjoys. There’s really no reason to recommend this.

    Optimal Levels
    1: No heals
    5: Fast Heal prereq


    Cure
    Very useful. There will be times when you are bleeding, or poisoned, or blind, or whatever. And you want to not be that. Each level cures that many status effects at once. You want at least one level in cure. Two levels is technically viable, but it’s only helpful in perhaps one or two matchups, and so is recommended against. In teams, this will cure you and everyone around you at once; you can rescue your teammates from status-related combos by using this by them, and it will also cure you of anything that ails you at the same time.

    Optimal Levels
    1: Minimum to use


    Fast Heal
    Extremely good. There are going to be a few times when you might die, but then here comes Fast Heal, and you have that nice bit of emergency life to last you. Any time there’s downtime in the fight… And there will be… Suddenly, you have more health. It heals for quite a nice chunk when maxed. I recommend this, but, if you’d rather not fool around with healing, it’s not necessary to get it.

    Optimal Levels
    0: No heals (Not recommended)
    6: 6 uses/ 1623 HP
    11: 7 uses/ 2223 HP


    Healing Wind
    A decent skill; You can’t use it much, but it heals quite a bit, given that you only need spend 35 SP on it, since you should already be getting Fountain of Life. You can get it if you like. More recommended if you plan on playing teams, but even then hardly necessary.

    Optimal Levels
    0: Can’t find room in your build.
    1: Utility heal / 2097 HP.


    Buffs


    Strike
    Strike offers a drastic increase in hit rate. Reducing how often you miss is literally vital. Also I heard some rumor that it also gives a fair increase to your weapon damage, that sounds kinda cool also

    Optimal Level
    10: +10% hit rate.


    Wisdom Blessing
    This will increase your magic attack; in other words... Well, nothing, really. But it also increases intelligence, vitality, and spirit by a small amount, so your magic attacks will do a bit more and you'll take... Very slightly less damage. In and of itself, it's not really worthwhile. However, 5 is a prereq for Divine Invocation, an incredibly useful skill. Further, in teams, it's better because you can cast it on someone who can really make use of it, although still not worth putting more than 5 in.

    Optimal Level
    5: Divine Invocation prereq.


    Heaven’s Melody
    This increases your max HP while keeping the ratio the same: In practice, it's a defense buff that also makes your heals worse. But it's not that big of a buff, which means it's really not all that good. At 2 minutes, this is by far the longest-lasting buff you have; if you get this, and you put it on yourself, you definitely won't need to give it to yourself again for quite some time. Despite this, though, it’s just not worthwhile, doubly so if you get heals (as you likely are recommended to do).

    Optimal Level
    0: Skip it.


    Emblem of Protection
    Offers a fairly significant defense buff, and also a very slight vitality and spirit buff. When cast on another player, you'll also absorb 30% of their damage, up to a small amount. If you max it, it’s about twice as good at protecting you as at If you plan on playing teams, you may want to level this fairly highly, but it does most of its real utility pretty well at level 4, which is also as high as you need to take it for Deflection Wall.

    Optimal Levels
    4: Deflection Wall prereq
    10: Max

    Spiritual Sacrifice
    Possibly Crusader’s most important skill, this creates a sweet-looking angel over your corpse when you die. No other class has that. You have to cherish that sort of thing; it’s so cool.

    Optimal Level
    5: Fountain of Life/Healing Wind prereq


    Revenge of Light
    This skill saves you. Whenever you get hit by magic, there's an 80% chance of whatever originated that magic having a lightning bolt form above it, coming down a short time afterwards. Lightning also strikes 15% of the time when you hit with a physical attack. It's also a MASSIVE magic defense buff. If your build is tight for SP, you may not need to max it, but level 5 is required for Flash Sphere, and maxing is recommended.

    Optimal Level
    5-12: Flash Sphere prereq, but you can’t quite max it in your build
    13: Max


    Light of Divinity
    Puts up a shield that protects you from damage and hitstun from physical attacks for LoD's level + 2 seconds. It will not do anything to magic attacks, and physical attacks can also still afflict you with status conditions. And while it's active, you can't use anything except for Crusader skills; not even backstep. Still, this is extremely useful against many classes. As a note, though, there’s generally a range where it’s useful: 4. I feel comfortable recommending 4, as it’s enough to safely buff or power through offense without overstaying its “Oh hey you can’t attack with anything but Blades of Purity” welcome.

    Optimal Level
    4: It just feels right.


    Divine Invocation
    Provides a massive boost to your strength and intelligence, which is going to mean you do quite a bit more damage. However, being a cube skill, you can't use it for 20 seconds in, and so you cannot use it in your beginning setup. Still, the increase is so high – 144 at max level (180 in PvE) – that you really should get it, as it means about 30% more damage on everything you do (and that is not a trivial amount). Note that since it’s an AoE skill, it’s even better in teams.

    Optimal Level
    7: Max


    Fountain of Life
    This skill is fantastic - it's another chance to not die, and that's great; after resurrection, you have a period where you can't be hit and can approach the opponent freely to hopefully start something that’ll kill them. Or maybe if it’s late in the round when it triggers, just immediately cast Fountain again. This is very powerful.

    Optimal Level
    1: Makes you not die.
  3. Stark #1 Ranking Female Priest

    Attacks


    Blades of Purity
    You need to max this. And get the cancel. This is the skill that you will poke with; this the skill that you will stuff approaches with; this can even be used for okizeme in some situations. The higher the level, the more damaging it is, and the better its stun is - at max level, you can even connect a GWL afterwards against someone wearing full hit recovery gear.

    Optimal Level
    17 + Cancel: Too good.


    Deflection Wall
    This is what allows you to set up the Crusader's famed Wall Lock. Or, not really famed, since... Regardless, Aegis is great. Still. You need one level in this. Any more isn't necessary. It's not an attack per se, but it leads to damage. I'll go over this later.

    Optimal Level
    1: It’s pretty much how you kill people.


    Flash Sphere
    It can be used in wall locks to offer huge damage. You can hide in it to give yourself time to rebuff, since no one wants to be near it. You can toss it away from the corner while in it to keep the opponent from escaping your corner, and in some cases even force a a stun. Maxing isn't necessary, but it certainly makes it stronger. It's worth noting, though, that even if you max it, it won't afflict max-level people with its improved stun unless you use an avatar to give it +1. (Not that you ever really need that. Though, it is quite good.)

    Optimal Level
    1: Utility.
    8: Max.


    Cross-class skills


    Smasher
    Clashes with other grabs, defeats super armor, and can be used to toss people into corners, and with cast speed you can still connect it after launching the opponent and setting up a buff while they fall. Quite nice.

    Optimal Level
    1: Utility.


    Lucky Straight Punch
    I recommend against it. I hear that if you get it, you will quit the game three days after I offhandedly mention in this guide that maxing it goes great with your +13 Mortal Gazer. We wouldn't want that.

    Optimal Level
    0: It’s kinda bad.


    Second Uppercut
    Awesome in juggles. It’s great. Lets you keep juggles going quite well and juggle the opponent higher with GWL SU GWL, and it allows you to do silly things otherwise.

    Optimal Levels
    1: Utility


    Giant Weapon Launcher
    This skill is fantastic. You can poke with it and its awesome super armor. All of your ground combos are going to end in it, for juggle and for knockdown. The higher the level, the better your juggles can be, and also the longer they have before the knockdown, allowing you to more easily set up a strong wall lock. You need it.

    Optimal Level
    10 + Cancel: It’s so good.


    Phoenix Hammer
    Uh, if the opponent is just charging some move… Maybe you can hit them with its Z-Axis stuff? Oh wait nevermind this move is too slow they’d just use it and jump. If the shockwave hit more than just the ground, it might be good, but…

    Optimal Level
    0: Just not worth it.


    Furious Grab
    Makes a few combos better, and is something you can throw out to stop people rushing you if Blades is in downtime. It’s very good on okizeme, as well, especially in the corner.

    Optimal Level
    1: Pretty nice.


    Painful Rapture
    This… This is probably not going to come up in PvP.

    Optimal Level
    0: Yeah....


    General skills


    Quick Rebound
    Required for serious PvP play.

    Optimal Level
    1: Utility


    Backstep
    Helps with positioning. Lets you do various feints. Abort anything failed into safety. Awesome. Get them.

    Optimal Level
    1 + Cancel: Utility


    Leap
    Lets you do cool things, keeps a few cool things from being done to you. Useful in enough matchups to warrant tossing it in.

    Optimal Level
    1: Utility.


    Physical Critical Hit
    You can max it if you have room and want to feel cool, I guess. You probably have better things to do than use this. But maybe you don’t!

    Optimal Levels
    0: For most builds.
    10: If it makes you feel cool


    Everything else
    No. Not even Ancient Memory or Indomitable Spirit.


    Have some sample builds. Note that in all cases, I take one level off of Blades of Purity to account for the skill planner missing 30 SP from the Vilmark epic; Blades of Purity should actually be maxed, I just can't convey that.

    Skeleton build (Bare minimum to be competitive):
    AradSociety - Skill Planner

    Maximized support build:
    AradSociety - Skill Planner

    Max healing w/ max flash sphere build (My current build):
    AradSociety - Skill Planner

    Moderate healing/max defense build:
    AradSociety - Skill Planner

    Zero heal build:
    AradSociety - Skill Planner
  4. Stark #1 Ranking Female Priest

    Equipment

    Equipment is organized into three tiers: Oil Baron Tier, for those of you who play the market constantly and have hundreds of millions to throw around on a silly alt character; Wealthy Tier, for those who have several million gold; and Poverty Tier, for those who want to scrape by on the absolute minimum.

    Armor

    You have two real options: Heavy armor and plate armor. Heavy armor is going to mean less defense and slightly less HP (unfortunately, plate HP bonuses aren’t scaled to PvP HP values, making them very small). But, it's also going to mean up to 10% more attack speed. Plate Armor also allows you to use various Crusader-specific sets. Certain combos will only work if you have enough attack speed... But without plate armor, you'll lose out on a lot of your tanking ability, and risk/reward shifts out of your favor in some ways. If you use heavy armor, you are strongly recommended against taking a no-healing route with your Crusader.

    Plate:

    Oil Baron Tier

    Legacy: Holy Titanium Armor of Culy (35/40/40)
    +str/int, +a fair amount of MP, +4% Evasion, +2% Attack Speed/Casting Speed/Movement Speed, and a 2% chance on each attack to boost crit rate by 20% for 20 seconds.

    Wealthy Tier

    Vision Reaper Pauldrons (40)
    +2% Attack Speed

    Tranquil Fairy Belt (35)
    +2% Evasion

    Poverty Tier

    Pure White Armor: Celesta Overshoes/Band/Shoulder Pads/Resist/Greaves (35, 35, 35, 40, 40)
    A decent, cheap set with a large number of Crusader-specific bonuses, but it’s hard to effectively mix and match because it’s a five-piece set. But, notably, the top gives +1 Blades of Purity and the shoulder gives +1 Fast Heal.

    Slumlord's Upper/Lower Agility Heavy Armor (35/40, 35/40)
    Both sets give +1% Attack Speed and +3 Cast Speed; names go Slumlord's Agile Steel X, with the upper set being Pauldrons/Chest and the lower set being Belt/Gaiters. Even though the set name says it's heavy armor, it is in fact all plate armor.

    Slumlord's Agile Steel Boots (35)
    +1% cast speed, +0.5% attack speed.

    Heavy

    Oil Baron Tier

    Legacy: Holy Chain Armor of Culy (35/40/40)
    +str/vit, +a decent amount of HP, + a small amount of MP, +3% Evasion, +2% Attack Speed/Movement Speed, +1% Hit Rate, and a 2% chance on each attack to boost crit rate by 20% for 20 seconds.

    Wealthy Tier

    Dragon Scale Set (30/30/35/35/35)
    +5% Evasion, +some HP, +5 Element Resistance, +25% physical attack strength when under 25% health

    Ultra Carbolite Shoulder (35)
    +3% Attack Speed

    Poverty Tier

    Amice/Belt/Shoes of Quick Wits (40)
    +1% Cast Speed, +3% Physical Critical Hit (+2% phys crit for Shoes)

    Chestpiece/Gaiters of Deadly Energy (45)
    +1% Cast Speed, +3% Physical Critical Hit

    I leave it up to you to decide what exactly to use. Note that in the case of plate armor, Agile Steel is of comparable utility to Holy Culy, although in most cases poverty tier equipment is worse than oil baron tier. My recommendation is that if you are going for plate you go with the Slumlord's Agile steel; the +7% cast speed is quite nice. Similarly, with heavy armor, Quick Wits/Deadly Energy are recommended for their utility with each one being purple, so you can get +5% cast speed or use specific other things in the same set. If you absolutely can't assemble a set, just go for various things in your chosen armor type; note that the Slumlord's Agile Steel set at least allows good benefits even without all five pieces, and Quick Wits/Deadly Energy are cheap and viable despite being all-purple. Also consider, in lieu of more specialized things, anything with +hit recovery or +HP to help with surviving combos. You may also want to consider Brave Gryphon Lower Light Armor (+1 Strike) as a match-start item switch, getting a +1 strike at the beginning and then switching to “real” armor. And… never get anything white, because you can always get better stuff if you just try at all.


    Accessories


    Bracelet

    Oil Baron Tier
    Bamboo Bracelet: Movement speed is super nice. You have a lot of reason to want this.

    Poverty Tier
    Hyper Jammer: Slightly decreasing stun timing is kinda good, upgrades well due to being pink.
    Other quest bracelets: Of decent value, cheap. Climbing Rose Bracelet is good for +HP.


    Necklace

    Oil Baron Tier
    Mani Aruso's Artifact: That cast speed, man, that cast speed. No need to do HP swapping if you have this; starting the round off with faster casts is probably better.
    Tropical Flower: On the lower end of Oil Baron Tier, Tropical Flower is a lot of extra HP for you.

    Wealthy Tier:
    Alex’s Fragment, Daphne Pendant: +HP is always good when you have nothing else.

    Poverty Tier
    Quest necklaces: They’re all better than nothing, and they’re quite plentiful.


    Ring

    Wealthy Tier
    Royal Ring: Debatably higher than Wealthy Tier, but nowhere near Oil Baron Tier. It’s very good. And it gives +HP, because why not?

    Poverty Tier
    Anything


    Title
    Time Travel Tier
    Christmas Spirit: It’s the best. Beats the rest. But then, if you don’t already have it, you’re not getting it.

    Oil Baron Tier
    Wild Thing: Cat: Next best thing to Christmas Spirit. But, it’s very expensive.

    Poverty Tier
    Importance of Basics: Of the non-event titles, it’s got a great stat spread.
    Canna’s Slave: The highest movement speed among poverty titles, it’s pretty good.


    Avatars

    Hair/Hat
    Cast. Speed. Accept no substitute - cast speed is your lifeblood. And while you don't REALLY need to 100% stack it everywhere, if you can't at least get the avatars, then your wall locks are harder to set up, and you're more vulnerable when you need to buff. So get them! Even if you’re poverty tier you want them.

    Face/Torso
    Attack speed is the best, but it's not strictly necessary. If it's out of your price range, go with hit recovery. Even if you have lots of money, you may also want hit recovery avatars as well to help with certain matchups.

    Waist
    Evasion is top; the rest is all about the same, except weight which you just shouldn’t bother with.

    Top
    As far as advanced avatars go, Blades of Purity is excellent, and Flash Sphere and Divine Invocation are both quite good; Divine Invocation is also the best PvE avatar. Otherwise, +1 Strike, +1 Quick Rebound, and +1 Giant Weapon Launcher are all decent and have their place.

    Bottom
    +HP.

    Shoes
    +Movement Speed is the best. If you can't get it, go with +strength or something.


    Weapon

    You want a scythe. Attack speed will make your combos and juggles better. You need a strong juggle for wall+sphere shenanigans.

    Oil Baron Tier
    Daiquiri: Very Fast instead of Fast. Actually, being +11% attack speed, it's better than normal Very Fast equipments (only +10% attack speed), and quite a bit better than a normal scythe (+8% attack speed).

    Wealthy Tier
    Mortal Gazer: Pretty good.

    Poverty Tier
    Indomitable Steel Glaive: It’s strong, although that -1% attack speed isn't too great. (It says cast, but it means attack.)

    You may also want a buff weapon. At the start of the round, you should have this weapon equipped; do your buffing, then switch to your scythe with an item hotkey. There’s a few options: The best is probably First Gate (+7% Cast Speed), although if you like specific skills there’s also Mega Hawk (+2 Strike) or Devil Chaser (+1 Strike, +2 Revenge of Light).
  5. Stark #1 Ranking Female Priest

    Combos & Tactics

    Now that we've introduced your skills and what you will likely be using to improve them we can get more in-depth with gameplay.

    Pokes

    Your number one poke is Blades of Purity. It's hitbox is, to put it lightly, deceptive. It's ridiculously larger that it appears to be. It hits about as far as Neutral Wave Sword, and a bit further than Ghost Slash. It also has great stun - if you hit someone with it standing and you're pretty close to them, then that's a combo right there. Further, and you can still connect GWL or dash X > Second Upper. It also stuffs a lot of linear approaches. And its cooldown is only 2 seconds. Fantastic. You can even use it in Light of Divinity; against some classes, throwing it out as Light ends and having it hit means you get a combo and they couldn't possibly have knocked you out of it. As mentioned at the start, it makes a great “wall” to pressure the opponent with even outside of its actual range.

    Your number two poke is Furious Grab. It’s Blades of Purity for when you don’t have Blades of Purity. It’s very active and puts you at frame advantage, and when it hits, you can often connect it to Blades of Purity and then get a combo. It’s very nice!

    Your number three poke is Giant Weapon Launcher. You can't really just throw it out like you can Blades of Purity, but its super armor is nice, and it gets you a nice fat juggle a lot of the time, and a wall lock if your spacing is good. Super armoring through things is fantastic.

    Your number four poke is your air X. With a scythe, it has great range, comes out fast, and you can advance or retreat or jump over your opponent's attacks while doing it. (To jump one way and attack the other, hold the direction you want to move, then press the other direction and immediately hit X, then let go of that direction, all while holding your intended direction.) It knocks your opponent down as well. Note that you get better air maneuverability if you're running as you jump.

    Combos

    So what are your combos going to look like? Basically, Blades > xxx Giant Weapon Launcher > juggle. If you actually hit with your basic punch combo, your basic combo gets a bit better; you can do xx Blades Furious xxx GWL > juggle. Against people with bad hit recovery - that is, most people that don't actively stack it or have masteries that increase it - you can also do xx Blades (slight delay) Furious xx Blades xxx GWL > Juggle. This does some pretty nice damage.

    Juggles are pretty typical; you can use Second Uppercut into GWL to juggle more, or the third hit of xxx, cancel to GWL, whatever. Against people with lots of defense, you can be flashy and do some pretty doofy juggles, doing stuff like GWL, Furious Grab, dash X second upper GWL, keeping stuff going and being cool.



    If I don’t have Deflection Wall up (and sometimes when I do, if it’ll corner press), usually I end my juggles with Smasher, or Blades and then Smasher, or if the opponent doesn’t have extra gravity yet GWL, buff, smasher. Smasher offers great positioning, and you can buff afterwards or just throw down Furious as okizeme.



    When doing buff combos, it’s important to note which of your buffs are fastest: Against heavy people, or if you have poor cast speed, you should be using a faster buff like Strike, as shown in the video. Otherwise, you can do the reverse and use a slower buff, then a faster buff after tossing them away since it recovers faster and lets you pressure more easily after it.

    Really, the best way to figure out how to juggle well is to try different things in real gameplay; it's pretty fluid and dynamic, and you rarely get to plan out your exact combo, for one reason or another. Of course, if I do have Deflection Wall up…


    Wall Lock

    Okay, screw juggling. Really now, you have something way better... Even though you can only use it every 40 seconds. After you hit the opponent nicely into the air with Giant Weapon Launcher, you can set down Aegis over them. When your opponent gets up inside of Aegis, they can't move at all... You have free reign to do another combo. The better your cast speed, the more effectively you can set this up - this is a major reason why it's so important to stack cast speed. Although note that it’s not perfect, it is still a strong setup.



    Flash Sphere improves the setup by having a source of constant damage and then an explosion to deal with. But you can’t always throw down both Flash Sphere and Aegis and still respond favorably to everything your opponent can do. Still, when you can, this is great. If you set up flash sphere in specific ways (unfortunately requiring you not be in poverty tier in order to best maximize cast speed), you can also make use of its invuln-destroying flash stun to make a setup that they opponent can’t get through even with massive invulnerability frames, even forcing a knockdown mid combo and using quick rebound.

    Generally the best thing to use for oki is Giant Weapon Launcher to beat out anything they try and then do a juggle, or Furious Grab to hang there and interrupt moves as you do a combo (possibly just going into GWL, possibly not depending on spacing), in both cases hopefully ending in the Flash Sphere explosion for massive damage and killing most opponents. A general case statement is that if the opponent wakes up out of Flash Sphere, use GWL for safety, and that if they wake up inside of it use Furious to give yourself a combo you can do until Flash Sphere passes; you don't want to GWL if Flash Sphere is there because the opponent can hit the sphere and fall down, making your setup much weaker and possibly allowing them not to get hit by the flash sphere. You usually don't have to worry about Quick Rebound, as even after they invuln through you can do something else and they'll still be in the wall, but it gives them extra time and it's less definitely in your favor.



    As you can probably tell from these videos, doing both wall and sphere is generally not as safe as doing wall alone. There’s many ways to get out of this setup more reliably than to get out of wall alone. Say your opponent has a really fast grab they can do basically instantly, or perhaps they’re monk and can Sacred Counter. You have less time to space yourself or react while doing this. But against the classes it works against, it’s quite effective. And you can always go for it if these things are in recovery. Also. against Mages, it’s inadvisable to go for a Deflection Wall setup if they have phase shift up; if you throw wall over them, they can’t phase shift out, but they can phase shift in response to you casting, and then you wasted a 40 second cooldown move.

    Flash stun setups
    Wouldn't it be nice if you could consistently combo to Flash Sphere's stun? Answer: Yes. Unfortunately, Flash Sphere will only stun if the opponent is facing it, and this isn't going to happen if you throw down Flash Sphere and Aegis in a standard wall lock, unless something weird and lucky happens. However, it can be done normally.

    The most reliable way to get it is to, off of a high launch, throw down Flash Sphere and then Smasher the opponent, and wall lock them on the ground and do any move. Even if you get grabbed it'll hardly be a total loss since Flash Sphere will stun them out of their invuln. This setup is difficult, requiring cast speed and either specific positioning with terrain or gravity to kick in at specific time, which requires you modulate your combos in ways that are impractical against heavier opponents unless you have really incredible cast speed. The upside, though, is that while they may have time to react and hit you, the flash is coming for them so even if they hit you out of your followup they're still getting stunned.



    You don't actually need to use Aegis, though. If you just throw out Flash Sphere after a launch and let them wake up inside of it, you can predict how your opponent will try to get out and cover their exits with Furious and Blades in order to keep them inside, and then start a ground combo or juggle that will end in flash stun, giving you another go. Keep in mind, though, that this is not guaranteed, and requires you to read your opponent well. Although if you have them at the very top or bottom of the map, it becomes much easier, as that greatly limits their options for escape. This sort of thing is a gimmick, mind you. It’s in no way guaranteed, and you shouldn’t try it too often. But if you can get it off, it’s often game-winning.



    Revenge of Light

    It's pretty fantastic

    It's not useful against every class, but there are a lot of classes that you want Revenge of Light to be up all the time. Some classes are threatened by the lightning bolts and have to stop their combos early, or certain skills become foolish to use against you (for instance Super Sword or Agni) Also… It’s a gimmick to be sure, but if your opponent is ever standing still, perhaps charging something or just in the middle of a long attack, you can walk into any magic attack they have out to call lightning on them. Smart players won’t fall for this often, but no one can remember everything every time, so it’s not useless in high-level play.
  6. Stark #1 Ranking Female Priest

    That's all I have for you this time. I thought about writing matchup data, but the nature of them changes too much as, in honesty, I am still evolving as a player and I've never looked back at previous matchup analysis of mine and thought highly of it. Further, anything I would write wouldn't even hold true for most people, because of differences in skill level. Just reading this guide may help you out a lot, but it won't automatically make you an excellent player; while I can provide you with advice, I can't give you the two most important things to playing Crusader: A righteous heart and a virtuous soul. Those you must earn yourself.

    Still, I hope this guide helped you to learn something about the class that I enjoy so much. Crusaders may not be top tier, or even particularly good at PvP, but we're far from bottom-tier.

    If you enjoyed this guide, perhaps you would consider making a small donation of some clear cube fragments or MP potions to my Crusader, Crosswise. Any amount helps.
  7. BlanixTheBlood Perfect hair

    I was wondering when you would bring this back. Enjoyed reading it for a 2nd time. :p
  8. Nueflheimr [Insert Cookie Here]

    It is back! Awesome.

    Oh to add to some of the items that might be useful Slumlord's __ of Persistence is a pretty decent purple armor set, Hit recovery and +HP. For Necklace you can add Bantu Chief's Token which gives less Magic Defense than Alex's Fragment, but more HP, as well as Flower Bud for Rings.

    Thanks for the guide!

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