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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Feb 27, 2012 14:46:11 GMT -6
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Stats:- Health: 250 (max. 500)
- Speed: 35 (max. 83)
- Armor: 18 (max. 48)
- Critical Hit: 50 (max. 100)
- Elemental Power: 25 (max. 100)
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Eldritch Beam - Press and hold the primary power button to fire beam of energy that locks onto targets. Conjure Exploding Double - Summon a mindless double that seeks out enemies and explodes. Basic UpgradesArcane Eldritch Beam - Eldritch Beam attack does increased damage. Conjure Unstable Double - Exploding Doubles do increased damage. Summon Magic Bomb - Summon a Magic Bomb. Advanced Construct Techniques - Have up to 3 Exploding Doubles active at any given time. Waterwalker (Soul Gem) - Can fly over water. Choose Your Path: ChannelerExtended Eldritch Beam - Eldritch Beam has longer range and does extra damage. Magical Cataclysm - Magic Bombs do increased damage. Magic Armageddon - Fire off repeated Magic Bombs. Choose Your Path: ConjurorImbue Construct - Shoot an Exploding Double and it increases in size and damage. Rocket Powered Doubles - Exploding doubles launch themselves at enemies and do extra damage. Spirit Construct - Exploding Doubles form automatically when enemies are defeated. Note: All information taken from The Spyro Wiki at spyro.wikia.com/wiki/Double_Trouble |
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tyris01
Junior Portal Master
Posts: 48
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Post by tyris01 on Feb 27, 2012 20:36:06 GMT -6
DOUBLE TROUBLE (Magic) (Channeler)
Pros: "Layered" zones of damage. Damage layers go from slight, to continuous, to obscene burst. 2 attacks do not need to face enemy, the third only has to face them for a moment. PBAoE attack has large range (compared to others) and built-in knockback. Can always be doing something productive even when away from opponent.
Cons: All 3 moves are offense only. No defensive tricks. Slow. Powerful but extremely predictable.
Comments: Double Trouble's unique nature is a Triple Threat. There are three 'zones' at which he can hit a foe. At long range, his tiki summons can harass the enemy, and even when he is outside range of his foe he can summon them with no slowdown. Upon approaching medium range or when needing to evade enemy attacks, the continuous channel Eldritch beam deals damage in 20 point clumps about every 3/4th second while not needing to face a foe. His Magic Bomb can three-round burst. The first pulse is interruptible, the second an third are not. The effect has knockback equal to its range and inflicts 65 damage per hit. Only the bomb roots, he may move during all other attacks with no penalty.
Tactics: D.T. is an offensive Swiss Army Knife of abilities, and can adapt to many situations. Always summon minions when not in attack range of the enemy until you have a full set. Remember they can be shot down. Once Eldritch Beam has hit, you do not have to face your foe--use the terrain to prevent their attacks from hitting you while slowly draining their life. Battles against Melee Skylanders require proper timing with Magic Bomb, as it has a cast time of slightly under a second. A foe that closes in will interrupt it and your other attacks, proper timing and prediction is needed, but it will push the foe back into Eldritch range. The other key is to know when to continue to pulse or to engage with Channel. Also, finding a way to 'corner' the enemy and pin it with repeated Magic Bombs can quickly end a match.
His hard weakness is extreme range combat versus Snipers, while his mainly encountered problem foe will be skilled melee opponents. Enemies that can put out lots of shots can easily pop his summons as well. Thus, Trigger Happy players will usually school you with little effort. Again, remember that terrain use is the key to victory, as you have zero methods of effective defense otherwise.
If you're good at fighting games and have learned timing and prediction from them, Double Trouble might be good for you, despite never punching or hitting his foe physically. A well played D.T. will know how to use the terrain and objects for bait. Under no condition allow your foe to acquire the Comet if it is a melee Skylander, the Magic Bomb pushback is insufficient to stop them from getting close and ruining your day with a quickness.
Path Choice Comments: Channeler is far superior to the bomb-creating path. The former turns two sub-par attacks into devastating moves and leaves the Double's as an effective attack. The latter allows super-powered tiki summons, but their damage is insufficiently high to make it worth the useless nature of the un-upgraded Beam and Magic Bomb.
Version Differences: I have insufficiently tested this on other systems as to provide an alternate set of information. I am willing to believe the pushback is less on the Wii version as it is with most other Skylanders, but that doesn't alter his strategy or style any, even if its true, aside from making hardcore melee toons an even greater threat.
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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Mar 14, 2012 10:19:09 GMT -6
I hope you get a chance to try Double Trouble on the Wii sometimes because he's just crazy good on there. My friend had a bit of success beating me yesterday with Flame Soul Ignitor, but that only lasted until I adjusted my strategy accordingly.
The thing about DT that's so good on the Wii is that the Eldritch Beam can lock on from a pretty good distance away and then just doesn't let go. For some characters DT just has to run away while he's locked on and there's nothing they can do about it. For others he can abuse bounce pads and elevation differences to keep throwing down the damage. Most times I play with DT I never even use magic bombs let alone doubles.
I really don't understand your Trigger Happy comment here, though. It's true on the Wii that Trigger Happy can charge up his gun for a sick amount of damage, but it takes entirely too long to prepare the attack. That one blast cannot counter the continual damage Double Trouble can do in the meantime. Maybe Trigger Happy is better on the PS3, but he's no match on the Wii.
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tyris01
Junior Portal Master
Posts: 48
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Post by tyris01 on Mar 14, 2012 11:29:55 GMT -6
Trigger Hapy rocks his socks on the PS3. He has a type advantage and can just bury him in an avalanche of coins. After about 3 hit it breaks his beam, and the D.T. player must let go of the button and press it again to restart it, which you often forget to do when being barraged by loose change. Also, if you are charging a charge-up attack while someone is hitting you, you're probably doing something wrong. Just probably. You should be charging it when you're on opposite sides of an arena like Pirate Grotto, Nekropolis, Cyclops, or the ice one and just let it rip when D.T. has to close in range to use his abilities. WHAM, a free 200+ points off his health. Even at midrange it's easy to launch a 80+ damage coin right at him.
At basic DPS values, Trigs will be doing around 32 damage for every 20 that D.T. does with his beam. Before elemental bonuses. Sure, you're going to try and hug the jump pads, which is about as surprising as the ocean being wet, because that's all channeler D.T. players seem to do in the hopes they don't get interrupted (or to avoid melee guys). So you go toward the area where they aren't, and if the little Tiki dude doesn't want to play by heading there, you start firing Golden Death Star Lasers his way until he dies. But, again, this is PS3, where D.T. isn't really all that broken, merely very strong.
D.T.'s beam is interruptible on the PS3. From what it says for yours, it either isn't, or has a much higher damage threshold when it breaks. Usually you have to use bounce pads to avoid other guys. Ignitor's probably a close fight due to his low Hit Points, not sure how he works on the Wii but he can dish out lots on the PS3, and his basic sword hits interrupt the beam. Using teleporter pads is usually bad, as on the PS3 there's about 2-3 seconds where you can attack the guy while he's still being teleported. Against many foes, that's like asking to lose 80+ health (to ranged, 120+ to melee) just to get farther away.
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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Mar 14, 2012 19:47:06 GMT -6
Here are ten battles of Double Trouble on the Wii. A few comments are given below. In all the battles I am playing Double Trouble and my friend (The Negotiator) is playing the other character. Feel free to comment on the battles as you like, he will be the first to admit that he's not an expert with most of them. Cynder is probably his best. (Unfortunately that's the most lopsided loss of the bunch.) If you look closely you'll see that hats are not optimized. That wasn't intentional, we just got started and realized it was that way. I don't think they had much impact on the final results.
0:00 - DT vs Ignitor (Round 1)
-- I almost lost this battle because I tried going head-to-head and took a ton of damage while trying to get in attack range.
0:53 - DT vs Ignitor (Rematch)
-- I varied my strategy in the second round and used elevations to my advantage. Not a close battle this time around.
1:43 - DT vs Stealth Elf (Round 1)
-- Just wanted to show that Stealth Elf is not the PVP beast on the Wii that she might be elsewhere.
2:30 - DT vs Stealth Elf (Rematch)
-- Same as above.
3:21 - DT vs Cynder
-- Annihilation.
4:05 - DT vs Slam Bam (Round 1)
-- This was Double Trouble's only loss. We didn't specifically try to pick up health, and if you look close you'll notice Slam Bam snagged a 100 health donut right near the end. Without that DT pulls out a close one.
4:57 - DT vs Slam Bam (Rematch)
-- This time I did a better job staying away so his punches didn't annihilate me.
5:58 - DT vs Drobot
-- Drobot has a type advantage but it didn't matter. Elevations just cause him too much trouble and conversely they are a huge advantage for DT. I did end up eating a hot dog near the end, but that did not affect the outcome.
6:51 - DT vs Bash
-- He never tried rolling, which might have helped him get in range.
7:58 - DT vs Bash (Rematch)
-- I think in this battle he really thought he could do well from a distance with the rock smash, but it just wasn't enough.
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tyris01
Junior Portal Master
Posts: 48
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Post by tyris01 on Mar 17, 2012 1:49:13 GMT -6
We don't optimize hats either, preferring to go with appearances. It doesn't make too much of a difference, though, unless you're rocking the crazy powerful ones like the Pirate Hat on a fast attack guy.
NOTE: Double Trouble's channeled blast on Wii ticks two or three times faster than the PS3 version. This might explain our vastly different results. On the PS3 it's about 3/4 to a second between ticks. On your version, it's about 3 times per second. That makes a drastic difference. Doesn't make him unkillable, though, just places him higher in the rankings.
Battle 1
Ignitor starts out correctly using high ground and flame soul explosions. Notice how D.T. was down to HALF HEALTH even before closing into attack range, and this is on one of the smallest maps! In the mid portion, he manages to run a bit. After that, he just spams mortar over and over and over again, not controlling it, not aiming it, just hoping to randomly hit D.T. with a couple of hits to win.
Verdict: Ignitor player snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Battle 2
Ignitor player makes mistake of assuming D.T. will attack the same as previous game. Proper gameplay would be to fire the mortar onto the topmost terrace, then work one's way down to explode. He then makes the second critical mistake of going DOWN, giving D.T. the height advantage (something that he can abuse heavily with his lockon beam). He then flees (sensibly), but stays JUST in the right spot where D.T. can continue lockon damage while ALSO reaching a bounce pad. He remains in his range and refuses to aim the mortar shot that will be his guided blast.
In short, this is exactly how NOT to play Ignitor. Watch this battle, anyone who can, and see what not to do.
Verdict: Even with the faster damage rate, Ignitor stands a good chance of winning against D.T. on the Wii, assuming his player isn't goofy.
Suggestion: Play on Pirate Grotto, Nekropolis, or the Ice Arena and see how things go. Ignitor did WELL on Mushroom, he'll tear D.T. apart on the larger maps.
Battle 3
Stealth Elf runs around real slow and gets burned to death by Double Trouble. Never uses Ninja Flip to gain ground on her foe.
Verdict: I need to see the Flip to see if Stealth Elf can stay in range. The player never used Ninja Flip, which on the PS3 version is pretty much a mandatory move for closing distance. Also, on PS3, her basic attack can interrupt the beam. It can not on Wii, apparently. Stealth Elf on Wii is horribly nerfed compared to the PS3 version. Remember how I said D.T.'s beam ticks about three times faster on Wii than PS3? Your Stealth Elf seems to attack about half as fast and does about half the damage per hit (thus, imagine S.E. doing about FOUR TIMES the damage she does on yours). I can't see her flip speed/range here because it was never used... or if it was, the Flip moves you less than half a bodylength. She also seems to walk abysmally slow. PS3 S.E. is FAST.
Battle 4
Like battle two, except that somehow, for some odd reason, D.T. can WALK faster than S.E. can run. Either your game is horribly weird with this, or you levelled D.T. through all his Heroics but never touched S.E.'s. S.E. walks at least as fast, if not faster, than D.T. on PS3, and all her staple attacks interrupt the beam.
Good to see the S.E. player actually using stealth. Can he use Ninja Flip sometime too?
Verdict: S.E. is weaker on your version, and on this fight moves slower than D.T., which shouldn't happen. I don't think the speed will help her case much since, you know, she can't interrupt, does less damage, and either hasn't been flipping or HAS been flipping and it covers no range.
Battle 5
Cynder VS D.T. Cynder player is trying to play keep away without actually attacking, so even without the 3x faster tick speed, massive bonus due to type advantage, or lack of any move other than Charge/Beam, this was destined to be a loss for Cynder. Cynder needs to dash across D.T. continuously and see how it goes. Probably not well, since if S.E. can't interrupt his beam, Cynder probably can't either.
Verdict: Cynder dies horribly, but that happens on the PS3 version anyway, so this super-fast-ticking Channel Beam D.T.'s win is no surprise.
Battle 6
Nice playing by Slam Bam. Not enough use of slide, but more than made up for by awesome ice block skills. I salute that guy.
Verdict: This one seems rather even. The Slam Bam player needs to learn to freeze when bombs are going on, but he DID that in the middle of the match, so I bet it won't be a surprise next time. Close, good fight. Only is close due to that beam tick, though.
Battle 7
I take back what I said. Great ice block skills are pointless if you don't ever use Slide. Again, D.T. somehow walks faster than this guy.
Verdict: Tell the Slam-Bam player to use his third attack more, or tell the owners of these SL's to do ALL the Heroics for each of them, because D.T. outrunning Slam should never, ever happen. The guy should be up in the midget's face unless he's bombing, and even then he can interrupt it (on the PS3 anyway).
Battle 8
Drobot player gives up high ground, runs around trying to melee D.T. with blaster beams, does not run when cornered, does not AIM toward D.T. when firing, sits hugging ledges while drilling them with his face and getting molested by a giant energy beam of death, and generally acts like an utter doofus.
Verdict: This is just like Battle 2, but subsituting Ignitor for Drobot. Please take the controller out of the hands of the 3-year-old playing Drobot and hand it to the guy who was playing Slam-Bam in Battle 6. If it's the same person, slap them upside the back of the head, not too roughly, and make them get experience with ranged characters before trying this again. This in NO WAY shows the 'crappiness' of Drobot, this is a textbook example of how to play poorly.
This isn't a fight. This is a tragedy.
Hints: Don't Afterburn off a ledge to achieve the low ground ASAP in a ranged toon. Try to acquire the high ground. In a straight slapping match, Drobot will kill D.T. every time, even on your Wii version. Don't get in bomb range. AB away from a bombing D.T. Do not follow him off the ledge. Remember to hit the blade button too, as it does not detract from beam DPS. When running away with afterburners (which he did not do), remember that blades shoot BACKWARD, and use them liberally. Remember to run and get range as your shots have infinite range and you have a speedy getaway move. Claim the high ground, even if you have to lose half your life to do it, and don't let the other guy take it from you. Don't follow him off ledges just because you think there's blood in the water!
Battle 9
Oh look, it's a non-Rollout bash!
I don't even need to comment on this. It's like one guy playing Nail while the other plays Hammer. Guess what? Nail gets nailed.
Verdict: Duh. There's no way this could be a win for Bash unless he lobotomized the D.T. player. Non-rollout Bash's roll is interruptible and can suffer from knockback. As that's the only way to close in since his walking speed is the worst, he's destined to die at D.T.'s hands.
Reset him, go the other route, give it another go. Bash'll cream him. Non-Rollout is basically for fighting other melee guys and curbstomping them with the sheer damage advantage.
Battle 10
Bash survives because D.T. is just playing with him. It's like watching a cat beat around a mouse with only minor use of its claws, because it wants the poor rodent to suffer for its amusement.
Verdict: Same as Battle 9. Go get Rollout Bash.
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Sorry if I seem snarky on some of those. Some of those fights are easily D.T.'s to win, but others could handily go to the other guy if A) He knew what he was doing at the time (See the Ignitor and Drobot fights) or B) the map was bigger. D.T. naturally shines on the tiny maps, even more so with the much faster damage beam. That thing's just crazy on Wii.
I see what you mean about being less than impressed by your Stealth Elf. She's so weak. She's a machine of apocalyptic damage on the PS3 though.
I'll have to see about finding a way to record my test fights and upload them so you can see what it looks like on my end.
Edit: S.E. good on PS3, not Wii.
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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Mar 19, 2012 16:09:22 GMT -6
I've been wanting to respond to your post for a while, but I'm on a spring break mission trip to Joplin, MO and have just now had a chance to reply. (Unrelated to the rest of this post: there's a TRU here in Joplin. Here's hoping we're able to snag some new Skylanders this week!!) Battle 1 Ignitor starts out correctly using high ground and flame soul explosions. Notice how D.T. was down to HALF HEALTH even before closing into attack range, and this is on one of the smallest maps! In the mid portion, he manages to run a bit. After that, he just spams mortar over and over and over again, not controlling it, not aiming it, just hoping to randomly hit D.T. with a couple of hits to win. Verdict: Ignitor player snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I will go ahead and point this out now, but it applies to each of your battle comments. You only attempt to critique player 2. However, Double Trouble is never played to perfection, and in a few of these battles he's played rather poorly. This first battle is an example of that. In fact, at the start of the battle I didn't even remember which buttons did what, as I called down a magic bomb rather than summoning a double. Yes, DT was down a lot of health by the time he got to Ignitor. That's because I took the low ground and made it way too easy for him to flame soul me. That was remedied in the second game. And note that even though I made that major mistake, DT still won the match. Battle 2 Ignitor player makes mistake of assuming D.T. will attack the same as previous game. Proper gameplay would be to fire the mortar onto the topmost terrace, then work one's way down to explode. He then makes the second critical mistake of going DOWN, giving D.T. the height advantage (something that he can abuse heavily with his lockon beam). He then flees (sensibly), but stays JUST in the right spot where D.T. can continue lockon damage while ALSO reaching a bounce pad. He remains in his range and refuses to aim the mortar shot that will be his guided blast. In short, this is exactly how NOT to play Ignitor. Watch this battle, anyone who can, and see what not to do. Verdict: Even with the faster damage rate, Ignitor stands a good chance of winning against D.T. on the Wii, assuming his player isn't goofy. Controlling Ignitor's soul flame is much easier said than done. Given the ability of Double Trouble to simply change elevations by either dropping down a ledge or hopping up a bounce pad, it's no easy thing to consistently track him (or anyone else) down with Ignitor's attack. To me, this battle is much more about making a good adjustment with Double Trouble rather than making a horrible mistake with Ignitor. And the end result of the match is a big win for DT. Suggestion: Play on Pirate Grotto, Nekropolis, or the Ice Arena and see how things go. Ignitor did WELL on Mushroom, he'll tear D.T. apart on the larger maps. I do agree that this map is ideally suited for Double Trouble. Next week we will try the arenas you suggested and see how DT does. I think he will still do well and will still win - bounce pads just work too much in his favor. The Necroplis has too many places where DT can run and hide, so I don't foresee him losing there. Battle 3 Stealth Elf runs around real slow and gets burned to death by Double Trouble. Never uses Ninja Flip to gain ground on her foe. Verdict: I need to see the Flip to see if Stealth Elf can stay in range. The player never used Ninja Flip, which on the PS3 version is pretty much a mandatory move for closing distance. Also, on PS3, her basic attack can interrupt the beam. It can not on Wii, apparently. Stealth Elf on Wii is horribly nerfed compared to the PS3 version. Remember how I said D.T.'s beam ticks about three times faster on Wii than PS3? Your Stealth Elf seems to attack about half as fast and does about half the damage per hit (thus, imagine S.E. doing about FOUR TIMES the damage she does on yours). I can't see her flip speed/range here because it was never used... or if it was, the Flip moves you less than half a bodylength. She also seems to walk abysmally slow. PS3 S.E. is FAST. I agree that Stealth Elf closes faster with her ninja flip. Unfortunately she still can't interrupt Double Trouble or deal enough damage to offset what he is doing. This is not a winnable match for her on the Wii. I would love to see some gameplay video of her on the PS3! Battle 4 Like battle two, except that somehow, for some odd reason, D.T. can WALK faster than S.E. can run. Either your game is horribly weird with this, or you levelled D.T. through all his Heroics but never touched S.E.'s. S.E. walks at least as fast, if not faster, than D.T. on PS3, and all her staple attacks interrupt the beam. Good to see the S.E. player actually using stealth. Can he use Ninja Flip sometime too? Verdict: S.E. is weaker on your version, and on this fight moves slower than D.T., which shouldn't happen. I don't think the speed will help her case much since, you know, she can't interrupt, does less damage, and either hasn't been flipping or HAS been flipping and it covers no range. I'll grant here that Double Trouble has more heroic challenges than Stealth Elf... perhaps a significant amount more. It definitely makes a difference, but it's not why Stealth Elf is losing here. Battle 5 Cynder VS D.T. Cynder player is trying to play keep away without actually attacking, so even without the 3x faster tick speed, massive bonus due to type advantage, or lack of any move other than Charge/Beam, this was destined to be a loss for Cynder. Cynder needs to dash across D.T. continuously and see how it goes. Probably not well, since if S.E. can't interrupt his beam, Cynder probably can't either. Verdict: Cynder dies horribly, but that happens on the PS3 version anyway, so this super-fast-ticking Channel Beam D.T.'s win is no surprise. This Cynder is on the ghost path, which relies primarily on the ghosts slowing the opponent down. You're right, no matter what happens here Cynder has no chance. Battle 6 Nice playing by Slam Bam. Not enough use of slide, but more than made up for by awesome ice block skills. I salute that guy. Verdict: This one seems rather even. The Slam Bam player needs to learn to freeze when bombs are going on, but he DID that in the middle of the match, so I bet it won't be a surprise next time. Close, good fight. Only is close due to that beam tick, though. This one was pretty even. The ice prisons were used incredibly well. In this battle I didn't switch to magic bombs early enough, and I also spent too much time going head-to-head rather than ducking and dodging and beaming from as much distance as I could. Without the food pickup near the end, Slam Bam still doesn't win. I could have played DT a lot better in this one. Battle 7 I take back what I said. Great ice block skills are pointless if you don't ever use Slide. Again, D.T. somehow walks faster than this guy. Verdict: Tell the Slam-Bam player to use his third attack more, or tell the owners of these SL's to do ALL the Heroics for each of them, because D.T. outrunning Slam should never, ever happen. The guy should be up in the midget's face unless he's bombing, and even then he can interrupt it (on the PS3 anyway). Actually, I think Slam Bam has nearly all of his HC's done. He is my son's favorite character and I'm pretty sure he's been extensively upgraded. I wrote at the beginning of the post that my friend was not an expert at any of these characters. However, I am not a DT expert either, I simply made this video to show you how strong he is on the Wii. Battle 8 Drobot player gives up high ground, runs around trying to melee D.T. with blaster beams, does not run when cornered, does not AIM toward D.T. when firing, sits hugging ledges while drilling them with his face and getting molested by a giant energy beam of death, and generally acts like an utter doofus. Verdict: This is just like Battle 2, but subsituting Ignitor for Drobot. Please take the controller out of the hands of the 3-year-old playing Drobot and hand it to the guy who was playing Slam-Bam in Battle 6. If it's the same person, slap them upside the back of the head, not too roughly, and make them get experience with ranged characters before trying this again. This in NO WAY shows the 'crappiness' of Drobot, this is a textbook example of how to play poorly. This isn't a fight. This is a tragedy. Hints: Don't Afterburn off a ledge to achieve the low ground ASAP in a ranged toon. Try to acquire the high ground. In a straight slapping match, Drobot will kill D.T. every time, even on your Wii version. Don't get in bomb range. AB away from a bombing D.T. Do not follow him off the ledge. Remember to hit the blade button too, as it does not detract from beam DPS. When running away with afterburners (which he did not do), remember that blades shoot BACKWARD, and use them liberally. Remember to run and get range as your shots have infinite range and you have a speedy getaway move. Claim the high ground, even if you have to lose half your life to do it, and don't let the other guy take it from you. Don't follow him off ledges just because you think there's blood in the water! You say that Drobot will kill DT every time in a "straight slapping match" but that makes me think of some dialogue from Pirates of the Caribbean: Will: You cheated! In a fair fight, I'd kill you! Jack: Then that's not really incentive for me to fight fair then, is it? If Double Trouble stood across the room and just let Drobot fire away with impunity, then yes, what you said is true. However, that's not going to happen! Double Trouble has a huge targetting advantage that really messes up Drobot when they get close to each other. Furthermore, Drobot can do almost nothing if Double Trouble is able to abuse bounce pads. I agree this match is not an example of what a well-played Drobot can do. However, there are no Skylanders battlefields that will allow Drobot to simply pick Double Trouble off from a distance. Battle 9 Oh look, it's a non-Rollout bash! I don't even need to comment on this. It's like one guy playing Nail while the other plays Hammer. Guess what? Nail gets nailed. Verdict: Duh. There's no way this could be a win for Bash unless he lobotomized the D.T. player. Non-rollout Bash's roll is interruptible and can suffer from knockback. As that's the only way to close in since his walking speed is the worst, he's destined to die at D.T.'s hands. Reset him, go the other route, give it another go. Bash'll cream him. Non-Rollout is basically for fighting other melee guys and curbstomping them with the sheer damage advantage. We have a Bash on the rolling path. We'll try that some time. This Bash doesn't have much of a shot in this battle, but he's still extremely good in a lot of matchups. The reason we tried this one was to show Double Trouble against our top tier. Battle 10 Bash survives because D.T. is just playing with him. It's like watching a cat beat around a mouse with only minor use of its claws, because it wants the poor rodent to suffer for its amusement. Verdict: Same as Battle 9. Go get Rollout Bash. Agreed. We didn't expect much difference. I think he was having fun trying to pick me off at a distance with the rock smash. Sorry if I seem snarky on some of those. Some of those fights are easily D.T.'s to win, but others could handily go to the other guy if A) He knew what he was doing at the time (See the Ignitor and Drobot fights) or B) the map was bigger. I disagree. I think it's possible for Double Trouble to be defeated by some of those other characters, but I hardly seeing it being done "handily." Nobody beats him handily. Assuming the DT player has a general idea of what they're doing, it will take a very well played game to beat them. D.T. naturally shines on the tiny maps, even more so with the much faster damage beam. That thing's just crazy on Wii. As I wrote above, I do agree with that assessment. However, I think it's more about bounce pads than tiny maps and every map has those. The biggest open area (I think) is on the Empire of Ice arena. I look forward to trying Double Trouble out there. The end goal here was to show you how ridiculously overpowered Double Trouble is on the Wii. I stand by my statement that he's head and shoulders above all other Skylanders on the Wii. |
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tyris01
Junior Portal Master
Posts: 48
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Post by tyris01 on Mar 19, 2012 22:07:11 GMT -6
I will go ahead and point this out now, but it applies to each of your battle comments. You only attempt to critique player 2. Clearly. You offered up a series of videos where you show nothing but D.T. wins against an opponent who you claim is inferior at the game. You don't try swapping roles with your opponent to try and counter using their abilities, and half the time they aren't even comfortable with basic moves, like Slide or Ninja Flip. If you had offered up a video of D.T. getting curbstomped due to foolish play 10 times in a row, I'd probably be pointing out how the D.T. player was failing.
Yes, DT was down a lot of health by the time he got to Ignitor. That's because I took the low ground and made it way too easy for him to flame soul me. That was remedied in the second game. And note that even though I made that major mistake, DT still won the match.
I also stated why you won the match, whereas here you state that you did, but didn't give a reasoning. The Ignitor player had you. Victory was in his grasp. Then he button mashed hoping to kill you with random mortar explosions rather than just hitting you. Your win is unremarkable when it comes from the opponent having effectively put down the controller. Controlling Ignitor's soul flame is much easier said than done. Given the ability of Double Trouble to simply change elevations by either dropping down a ledge or hopping up a bounce pad, it's no easy thing to consistently track him (or anyone else) down with Ignitor's attack. This is why you acquire the high ground with Ignitor. If D.T. wants to get close, he's going to get a lot of fire love. I wrote this in the initial post. Get high ground, then 'walk' down the tiers with the flame soul. When on the same elevation after hitting D.T., explode. It doesn't matter if he's jumping, the enormous blast radius will still hit D.T. In addition, the Oversword hits in a circular vertical arc, so he could have just used that when you were a ledge below a few inches outside your lockon range. Then if you ran down, Flame Soul again. To me, this battle is much more about making a good adjustment with Double Trouble rather than making a horrible mistake with Ignitor. And the end result of the match is a big win for DT. Of course you say that, as you were playing D.T. However, at the same time you supposedly changed your strategy to an improved one (and it was slightly better), your opponent changed his to a completely losing one. That doesn't make you look better, and honestly, I'd be upset if I was in your place as he just lost to foolishness. I do agree that this map is ideally suited for Double Trouble. Next week we will try the arenas you suggested and see how DT does. I think he will still do well and will still win - bounce pads just work too much in his favor. Read my post again. I've already stated how Ignitor deals with it... he simply moves outside beam range of the bounce pads. He has the advantage with his guided, exploding Flame Soul, as he can stay outside your range and keep blowing up near you, which forces you to leave the pads. Even summoning tiki minions wont help as the Fire Soul will simply run them over and pop them. I agree that Stealth Elf closes faster with her ninja flip. Unfortunately she still can't interrupt Double Trouble or deal enough damage to offset what he is doing. This is not a winnable match for her on the Wii. I would love to see some gameplay video of her on the PS3!
I'll have to see about getting that to you. Nonetheless, if your opponent is somehow walking slower than you and refuses to do the Flip to close distance (even if he loses the DPS race), he's still playing poorly. I'll grant here that Double Trouble has more heroic challenges than Stealth Elf... perhaps a significant amount more. It definitely makes a difference, but it's not why Stealth Elf is losing here. Ugh, then you're playing it in bad faith and misrepresenting the matchups. If you've done all the Heroics on D.T. and very few on the others (especially the Speed ones!), then you're not really making a good case as to D.T.'s power or your skill with him. You're purposefully playing against gimped opponents. Still, you're right about Stealth Elf. She's just not that good on the Wii. Doesn't excuse not buffing the other guys so that the fight's on an even level, though. I'm guessing you just used the Dragon Treasure cheat to max out their skills but didn't do many heroics? This Cynder is on the ghost path, which relies primarily on the ghosts slowing the opponent down. You're right, no matter what happens here Cynder has no chance. My PS3 one is on the Ghost path, and the Ghost slowdown does not work at all on the PS3 version! And it's STILL my preferred path, as she's like a high-speed Undead bulldozer. But, yeah, she's hosed here. In this battle I didn't switch to magic bombs early enough, and I also spent too much time going head-to-head rather than ducking and dodging and beaming from as much distance as I could. Yeah, I noticed this, you recovered well. The person playing Slam needs to work on aiming his finishers. Actually, I think Slam Bam has nearly all of his HC's done. He is my son's favorite character and I'm pretty sure he's been extensively upgraded. I wrote at the beginning of the post that my friend was not an expert at any of these characters. Well, that's good to know. Unfortunately, it matters not at all if he doesn't use his Slide button. A melee-only toon that doesn't use his distance closer is doomed to lose, against any foe. You say that Drobot will kill DT every time in a "straight slapping match" but that makes me think of... Well, you can think of Pirates all you want, but you still don't address how playing like a pirate is going to help you if the DT player is smart enough to take the high ground. If you fight him there, straight up, you die, and if you retreat, it gives him more time to rain down blasts on you and win. Sorry, but you're not going to pull a Johnny Depp on this one.  If Double Trouble stood across the room and just let Drobot fire away with impunity, then yes, what you said is true. However, that's not going to happen! Double Trouble has a huge targetting advantage that really messes up Drobot when they get close to each other. Don't know about your version, but if the enemy is within a 30-degree arc to either side of Drobots front, his blasts auto target, pointing him in the correct direction. Even if they don't, the player can aim manually. The closer D.T. gets, the more accurate Drobot's own blasts will be. D.T.'s beam in no way affects Drobots accuracy, as it doesn't push him around or spin him or anything. Furthermore, Drobot can do almost nothing if Double Trouble is able to abuse bounce pads. I agree this match is not an example of what a well-played Drobot can do. However, there are no Skylanders battlefields that will allow Drobot to simply pick Double Trouble off from a distance. Then read what I said about Ignitor. Don't sit in jump pad range is the simple and most obvious solution. Not that it matters if you have the high ground anyway, as you just keep firing beams toward the pad and the enemy will get a faceful every time he jumps. It's not like Drobot's lasers overheat or anything. The fact that Drobot's blasts have infinite range means he can take time plinking D.T. to death, and his afterburners mean he can monopolize the good items. In addition, on the beam path, the blasts have an explosion which lets them hit up a single level of ledge, or if fired against a wall that D.T. is bouncing by it will still hit him. The Ice Map and Pirate Grotto are great maps for long range battles. Nekropolis has too many bendy bits for Drobot, really. Cyclops square is really good too, and some like Aqueduct are so small D.T. just can't get out of the way. We have a Bash on the rolling path. We'll try that some time. This Bash doesn't have much of a shot in this battle, but he's still extremely good in a lot of matchups. The reason we tried this one was to show Double Trouble against our top tier. Yeah. Like I said, he's screwed type-wise as he can never get close enough. This is the problem with Tail Bash, as he's really only an anti-melee melee toon. Still, I prefer my upper-tier Bash with Rollout. The only thing it's not good at killing is the other one. Worth the tradeoff. I disagree. I think it's possible for Double Trouble to be defeated by some of those other characters, but I hardly seeing it being done "handily." Nobody beats him handily. Assuming the DT player has a general idea of what they're doing, it will take a very well played game to beat them. Even a competently played Drobot or Ignitor will usually toast a skilled D.T. player, and on your version too. You just didn't have such a player to fight against. Not saying he's bad, he just apparently doesn't understand Ranged toons all that well. There may be (and probably are) others, but I can't test them all to find out. All I can go by is your example, but we have someone not knowing what to do most of the time getting creamed by him. If Rollout Bash can cancel out of roll with his tail slap, he's going to salsify D.T., but you should probably test that. Maybe if I can find a buddy with a Wii I can bring my collection over and do some testing. The only reason I don't have it on the Wii is my absolute hatred of their controllers. However, I think it's more about bounce pads than tiny maps and every map has those. And, as I stated in an earlier post, that's about all D.T. players can really do to be annoying. But that only works on people who can't find a way around it, or on a map where they have sufficient coverage. Or against foes who can't put traps, rocks, or the like on them. (Fortunately, most that can, like Prism Break, are fairly easy meat for D.T. anyway...) The end goal here was to show you how ridiculously overpowered Double Trouble is on the Wii. I stand by my statement that he's head and shoulders above all other Skylanders on the Wii. And while I agree he is much more powerful than his PS3 incarnation thanks to that stupidly fast beam, I'm going to say that still doesn't put him 'head and shoulders' above all other Skylanders. As in, not the very best one. I'd place him in your game's version of the PS3's unholy trinity, replacing Stealth Elf but forming a rock/paper/scissors match with Drobot and Cynder, all three of which can beat pretty much every other SL with one or two exceptions (really, Ignitor is going to cream D.T. fairly well, but he does the same to Cynder while also getting curbstomped by many that those two kill easily). But, if you're going to do more testing, things I'd like to see: A) Play both sides, and actually play to win when fighting against D.T. B) Play him only against other toons that have their heroics done to his level, so we have a solid baseline to compare. C) Try him against a few others that give him issues on my system: 1) Rollout Bash 2) Medea Sonic Boom 3) Golden Gun Trigger Happy 4) Dozer Drill Sgt (I've heard his Charge is waaaay slower on the Wii, so he'll probably die, but I'd like to see it. I have no problem shelling him at range on the PS3.) 5) Rematches with Flame Soul Ignitor and Blaster Drobot, played well. |
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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Mar 26, 2012 15:00:36 GMT -6
If I quote and reply to everything these posts will get crazy long. I'll just hit the highlights for now. We just finished recording more battles, but I don't have all the necessary cords to drop the video from here. I'll try and get it done later today. This is why you acquire the high ground with Ignitor. If D.T. wants to get close, he's going to get a lot of fire love. I wrote this in the initial post. Get high ground, then 'walk' down the tiers with the flame soul. The problem with this is that sometimes you simply can't gain the high ground fast enough. On Mushroom Grove, one player always starts there. In our recently played rematches, he (as DT) got that high ground rather than me (Ignitor). Then what? You have to walk as high as you can get, and while you're plodding along you're open to Double Trouble locking on from distance. And if he's on a higher elevation, your flame soul attack is not going to help you out there. Ugh, then you're playing it in bad faith and misrepresenting the matchups. If you've done all the Heroics on D.T. and very few on the others (especially the Speed ones!), then you're not really making a good case as to D.T.'s power or your skill with him. You're purposefully playing against gimped opponents. ... I'm guessing you just used the Dragon Treasure cheat to max out their skills but didn't do many heroics? Doing all of the Heroic Challenges takes a while! We've only done them extensively with our favorite characters. And since we only have one copy of most characters, there were times when we planned to switch paths (to keep or just to try out) and therefore there's no point in doing them when you're going to reset. As far as your comment on the Dragon Treasure cheat... ?? In order to level up all of our guys, we play level 22 over and over. It's not a lot of fun to grind continually, but we've found it to be the fastest was to get all the gold we need. We tried using the treasure chest "cheat" when we first got it and didn't feel like it was really any faster than playing the level itself. I've never considered using HC's to level up - is the exp and gold worth the time? The fact that Drobot's blasts have infinite range means he can take time plinking D.T. to death, and his afterburners mean he can monopolize the good items. In addition, on the beam path, the blasts have an explosion which lets them hit up a single level of ledge, or if fired against a wall that D.T. is bouncing by it will still hit him. I'm not sure your last statement is true on the Wii. Our experience is that any elevation renders Drobot's lasers useless. The problem with a level like Mushroom Grove is that there's just not a good place for him to shoot from. We tested Drobot vs Double Trouble on the ice map and Drobot won pretty handily. Even a competently played Drobot or Ignitor will usually toast a skilled D.T. player, and on your version too. You just didn't have such a player to fight against. I've already commented on Drobot briefly - he did well in the open area of the ice arena where he could use his afterburners to fly away and attack from distance. As far as Ignitor is concerned, I feel like that flame soul attack is one of the harder attacks to master. I'm sure I would get it if I practiced for a while, but out of the box it has a higher learning curve than just about anything else. As of right now, I am not sure which of the three flames I am even controlling. And the fact that his armor just sits there in a pile, waiting to take damage, is tough to manage as well. Having three effective attacks also raises the challenge of being a "skilled" Ignitor player. If Rollout Bash can cancel out of roll with his tail slap, he's going to salsify D.T., but you should probably test that. Rollout Bash got owned by Double Trouble. His roll attack does not interrupt anything DT is doing, and it doesn't do nearly enough damage to counter what DT is dishing out. (really, Ignitor is going to cream D.T. fairly well, but he does the same to Cynder while also getting curbstomped by many that those two kill easily). There's not a ton to add to what I already said, but I think you're severely underestimating the challenge of playing Ignitor at a level that creams Double Trouble. In the video that I will be posting later, the "three year old" is now playing Double Trouble. And he still wins 75% of the matches. But, if you're going to do more testing, things I'd like to see: A) Play both sides, and actually play to win when fighting against D.T. B) Play him only against other toons that have their heroics done to his level, so we have a solid baseline to compare. C) Try him against a few others that give him issues on my system: 1) Rollout Bash 2) Medea Sonic Boom 3) Golden Gun Trigger Happy 4) Dozer Drill Sgt (I've heard his Charge is waaaay slower on the Wii, so he'll probably die, but I'd like to see it. I have no problem shelling him at range on the PS3.) 5) Rematches with Flame Soul Ignitor and Blaster Drobot, played well. A) Done. On its way. B) Probably not going to happen for a while, as HCs take a lot of time. C) I didn't specifically read this post before playing today, and didn't bring any of those characters with me. (Just tried some of our top tier again) I'll go for that next time. C5) We don't have a good Ignitor player here ;D Drobot did better when he had space to work with. |
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tyris01
Junior Portal Master
Posts: 48
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Post by tyris01 on Mar 26, 2012 18:01:30 GMT -6
The distance from the high ground and low ground to the better high ground area (the upper corner) is roughly the same. Even if it isn't the absolute high ground, so long as Ignitor is no more than one 'tier' down, he can still arc his mortar up and interrupt D.T.'s beam. You're entirely wrong about it Flame Soul being useless if the enemy is on a higher elevation... so long as it's one level. If it's more than one, yeah, he's not going to hit, but having that one is enough. Besides, if the Ignitor player is grumpy about that and doesn't want to do it, he simply has to move to the opposite side of the arena and wait. D.T. has a limited attack range. He can spam pets all he wants, but they'll just get blowed up, assuming they're even in range to charge. Take this into consideration as well: This is one of the BETTER maps for D.T., and Ignitor still has a viable strategy that gives him even odds of victory on the 50% of the time he doesn't start on the upper area. So, yeah, 25% of the time, he might be hosed, but that's pretty good for a map that D.T. should otherwise dominate on. Again, kick it to a bigger map, and D.T.'s odds go down. OK, so you knowingly argue the point in bad faith. At least you admit it. I don't care if it takes time. I did it, and I have a family and job. I made a point to max out all the characters that I wanted to test against each other to make sure they were at their best. You've maxed out a strong one, make excuses for not levelling his opponents, and then point out how he still wins his fights. I'm sorry, but he's fighting opponents who aren't at their prime, on a map that that favors your choice, against an opponent with inferior skill... that's not a fair comparison in any meaning of the word. Is it any surprise he wins? K, whatever works. I find the speedy grind on Kaos' map to be quick. I'm just surprised you did this given that the Wii has a fast way to get heaps of gold, but apparently your way is more efficient. More power to ya. If you do all 26 Heroic Challenges (well, I have 27 now, can't find a Zook or Rod anywhere), you will end up at about level 8 with half a bar of XP to 9. You then run Kaos' map ONCE and he'll be level 10. Easy. Since you should be getting all the Heroics done, it's more time saving this way. Yeah... I am willing to chalk this up as a version difference, since there's so many other things that differ between our systems. On the PS3, if the enemy is near the edge of the ledge and Drobot shoots at it from below, the explosions' AoE will still hit the target. You stay AWAY from those ledges!  You know, I guess I can agree with that last statement. Ignitor is odd in that all his attacks are useful. Flame Soul is easy to use. Just keep pushing on the stick and hit the explode button when you want to blow up. You can run back and forth across an enemy and blow up when convenient, it's not tough. Ignitor launches three mortar rounds. The first is directly in front of him, the other two are 120 degrees off from this (back left and back right from the direction he faces). The one he launches forward is 'him', and the one you can control. The player in that video clearly didn't know how to aim his mortars. His armor sitting there with his health in it is a feature, not a bug. It means your mortar is a great ranged attack that doesn't put you in a compromising situation when it runs out. In addition, enemies that want to get close will get hit more often and... once they get close... you have your sword attacks. That's a win!  Weird. I'll chalk that up to a version difference. Can you cancel out of the roll with the tail slap on your version? It's been awhile since I used him, but I'm certain the tail slap interrupts, although I'm not sure on the Roll now that you bring it up. How does DT take getting 50 HP tail swipes when he can't Bomb out and can only do about 20 points with his attack before taking it? The roll exists to get you into range for the Tail Swipe. If D.T. sits there, Tail him to death. If he tries to run, Roll and interrupt with Tail. Guess it's a version thing. It's not even close on the PS3. I think you're severely underestimating the challenge of playing Double Trouble ON a level that does not favor D.T. Neat. I eagerly await to see the conditions of the fight. Welp. That is... disheartening to know. No fair fights here I guess. Is it too much to ask to at least do their Speed challenges so D.T. can't walk away faster than melee guys? Ah, alright. Well, thanks for eventually getting around to it. Get a good Ignitor character! Seriously, he's the best of the Fire types! |
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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Mar 26, 2012 18:41:25 GMT -6
Take this into consideration as well: This is one of the BETTER maps for D.T., and Ignitor still has a viable strategy that gives him even odds of victory on the 50% of the time he doesn't start on the upper area. So, yeah, 25% of the time, he might be hosed, but that's pretty good for a map that D.T. should otherwise dominate on. Again, kick it to a bigger map, and D.T.'s odds go down. For now we're just going to have to agree to disagree on how good Ignitor's chances are in this match up. I will try to practice and get better with him, and will even complete his useful HC's (for now that excludes elemental power, which is only going to be necessary when he squares off against Lightning Rod.) I'm sorry, but he's fighting opponents who aren't at their prime, on a map that that favors your choice, against an opponent with inferior skill... that's not a fair comparison in any meaning of the word. Is it any surprise he wins? Characters without their HC's done are not at their prime, but they're at least 90% of the way there. They are helpful, but they don't make nearly the impact that you seem to imply. When Double Trouble is sitting with over half his health left at the end of the match those HCs wouldn't have made nearly enough of a difference. Weird. I'll chalk that up to a version difference. Can you cancel out of the roll with the tail slap on your version? It's been awhile since I used him, but I'm certain the tail slap interrupts, although I'm not sure on the Roll now that you bring it up. How does DT take getting 50 HP tail swipes when he can't Bomb out and can only do about 20 points with his attack before taking it? Not sure on the first question, I'll check later when the TV is available. As far as DT taking 50 hp swipes, they don't interrupt anything that he's doing. So if Bash wants to trade those for the 65x3 of the magic bombs, DT is okay with that. I think you're severely underestimating the challenge of playing Double Trouble ON a level that does not favor D.T. My first video is compiling right now, but it takes a while - and uploading it to YouTube takes even longer. Hopefully I can have them all up tonight. They will show you what an unskilled DT player is capable of on a wide-open map like the ice arena. Get a good Ignitor character! Seriously, he's the best of the Fire types! We have a good Ignitor character. We are currently without a good Ignitor player. We'll work on that. |
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tyris01
Junior Portal Master
Posts: 48
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Post by tyris01 on Mar 27, 2012 11:20:11 GMT -6
Yeah, Elemental Power is a junk stat. I'll agree it's silly to raise that. I only do it for a sense of completeness, but it's useless for character matchup discussions.
Did you purposefully skip the other two factors I mentioned or did you assume the HC's were more important and the sole deciding factor of the matchup?
Welp. Version Difference. That explains it. Tail Swipe interrupts all of D.T.'s moves on the PS3. The Rollout will interrupt the beam but not the Bomb. Usually that means you have to get in Swipe range BEFORE he starts bombing. If you're rolling and he starts, just roll on by. But if you get close and don't get pushed back by the incoming Bomb you failed to predict, D.T.'s pretty much done.
This is probably why Bash loses on your system. In that case, if you haven't already recorded the fight, please don't waste your time. Use that to level up other guys.
That map's bad news for D.T. The only people he can beat are the one's he's a hard counter to. Hell, I can consistantly kill him with Spyro on that map, a matchup that is practically 99% win odds for D.T. on any other map.
Good times though, I thank you for your videos. How do you make them, exactly? Are you connecting to the output of your Wii or are you using a camera?
Point taken. Still, get him levelled. He's good. Real good.
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Post by Yaggleberry Finn on Mar 27, 2012 15:54:05 GMT -6
Did you purposefully skip the other two factors I mentioned or did you assume the HC's were more important and the sole deciding factor of the matchup? Nope, didn't skip those. All of our new videos feature a Double Trouble of typical "starter" skill level. As for the level, the third video is on Icicle Isle which does not favor Double Trouble at all. He still fares well overall. Good times though, I thank you for your videos. How do you make them, exactly? Are you connecting to the output of your Wii or are you using a camera? I have a widescreen TV and a video camera that has a widescreen mode. So I just sit it on a tripod in front of the screen and record away. I was really surprised that the quality turned out so well. |
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