There is A LOT more to DOA5 than what was gone over above, such as Okizeme (Oki), so along with our Top Tier Tips, let’s go over some additional tips that will augment your fighting experience in DOA5.
Before you go online, take half an hour to an hour to train your combos, juggles, and stuns against a standing dummy until your setups feel comfortable to the point that you can do them automatically without thinking about them. During the match you don’t want to be worrying yourself over execution related concerns. You want things to operate like clockwork so you can put your focus on that meddlesome opponent in front of you instead. To help out, DOA5 has an excellent Training Mode along with the Move Details box found within the Fight Info menu. Utilize it to study the properties of your moves within your setups.
Whenever you’re in a match, you’re studying. Keep your mind set on your opponents next move. Talk to yourself in your head about it: “He did the mid kick, after that he went low kick, then followed up with mid punch.” Make sure you’re always doing this. Never stop doing this in a match.
Sometimes it’s better not to WUK. You’d be surprised at how often people counter for the expectancy of your WUK. Mix it up into a combination; launches, grabs, or just get right back into a combo.
Sometimes it’s better not to WUK. You’d be surprised at how often people counter for the expectancy of your WUK. Mix it up into a combination; launches, grabs, or just get right back into a combo.
Listen to the sounds of your characters strikes and groans, and follow up immediately.
Once you’ve become the master of your domain and can utilize all of your characters moves with ease, you will naturally start to develop a pattern in your fighting style. This is discouraged because you will become predictable. To prevent a pattern from forming, throw some random moves into the mix, but this doesn’t mean to needlessly throw out unsafe moves. This is remembering that you must have a mix up game to constantly fool your enemy. Make it fun. Understand that you have to dance around with your character sometimes to survive.
Try taking half an hour of your time in Training Mode with a Network Speed of 1 BAR (BAD) with merely a Standing Dummy. Think of it as body weights, the more efficient you become in this mode, the “lighter” you will feel, eventually increasing the execution time of your entire gameplay. This obviously isn’t required and won’t work for everyone, but is an example of “thinking outside the box” in DOA5.
During any match at any given time, ALWAYS pay attention to your surroundings in terms of proximity to walls, slopes, danger zones and other such hazards, including breakable objects and slippery surfaces. In other words, always try to position your opponent near a hazard to set them up for a damaging situation in your favor, while protecting yourself from potential environmental damage. This in our opinion, is a considerably underrated aspect of DOA5’s combat system.
Anytime you encounter a character or tactic that you can’t seem to beat or don’t know how to deal with, take the opponent’s character into the Training Mode (also called “The Lab”) and attempt to break down the tactic. To use the Record function in Training, select: Training Settings~Com Action~Com Recording~Record. You then gain control of the dummy character and are able to input their commands. Once you click on “Record”, immediately input the move you want the dummy character to perform then immediately press pause, and then select “Replay” to have the dummy execute the commands inputted.
It helps to input the commands right away to reduce the amount of time that the dummy “waits and does nothing”. If you want, you could “practice” the moves beforehand, then Record, then Replay when you have the dummy set up the way you want. An example would be to input Hitomi’s 66KKK, a Mid K~High K~High K string. As soon as you click on “Record”, quickly, yet accurately, input 66KKK then press pause. The Record function has an irritating quirk where it literally “inputs the commands” and tends to have the dummy toss out attacks you may not intend, such as Hitomi tossing out 6KKK instead of 66KKK. To reduce the tendency of this happening, input the intended move twice, i.e. Record~then input 66KKK, then 66KKK again, then press pause. This is recommended because if you only input the move once, you may knock down the opponent and effectively cause the “replay bar” to start back in the middle of the string, thus making the dummy perform unintended commands. However, once you learn how to utilize the Record function of the training mode, you’ll quickly realize what a useful tool it is!
For details regarding Frame Data, check out
VirtuaPAI’s
article on it.
Thanks for reading this wall of text and good luck with your journey towards strength and prowess in DOA5!
- LG &
FoN
