Zero Comboing Fefnir with Style
59Here’s a collection of combo clips against Fefnir. Despite the simplicity of Fefnir’s pattern, getting stylish and pushing your attack sequences to the limit is rather challenging.
Of the four Guardians, Fefnir is the least predictable. Harpuia and Leviathan are entirely manipulable, and Phantom can only behave randomly during his refight. As such, the combos shown here fall into two categories. The first two are entirely planned routes—I have complete knowledge of what Fefnir will do in advance—while the latter two represent the far more realistic scenario of having to adapt to Fefnir’s movements. Both styles have merit; planned routes allow incredible aggression and demand sharply honed precision combat skills, while dynamic play demands that you take those skills and tone the damage output down slightly in favor of consistency.
The first two combos revolve around optimally punishing Fefnir’s lunges and Ground Break. The simple part of the fight that I alluded to is that standing near Fefnir will force him to use one of these options almost every time.
Starting with Ground Break. The slow, wide jump that Fefnir performs for this attack presents an open window for punishing with double slashes and Triple Rod pokes. Spacing is key here; Zero must be positioned such that he’s close to Fefnir’s landing point. Standing too close to Fefnir before the jump means that there’s a good chance you’ll whiff a strike or two after he lands because of how Z1’s combo system works. Wasting a split second adjusting Zero’s position after Fefnir’s jump may suffice if your starting point wasn’t far off, but doing so runs a severe risk of taking damage from Fefnir’s next attack since you’ll be locked into the comparatively sluggish Triple Rod animation. When playing spontaneously, it’s far safer to reduce the length of the combo if required.
The only way to reliably attack Fefnir during a lunge is to strike with the middle frames of the rolling slash, ideally getting two hits per lunge. Regular slashes or pokes from Fefnir’s front will get Zero grabbed, so you’re forced to jump behind Fefnir to initiate your offense quickly. Pogos grant invincibility, so they’re out of the question. Once again, landing as close as possible to Fefnir after the spin slash is essential to avoid missing the double slash and poke follow-up. Fefnir will suffer knockback during the combo, granting a smidgen more time to react to his next movement, so this punish is reliable even during an improvised fight, provided that you see his lunge coming in time.
The second set of combos is purely freestyle, reacting to Fefnir’s movements and punishing accordingly. Well, I say that, but unlike what I’d do in a regular run, I still play more recklessly here on account of not having to trudge through the desert each time I want a whack at the combat nerd. Let me state this now: there is never a justifiable reason to use pogos or the ground rolling slash against Fefnir. Doing so is strictly a net loss in any context. If practicing for a proper run, focus on becoming as adept as possible at the counterattacks outlined in the first two combos. Keeping only those two combo options in mind is decidedly easier than juggling four types of counterattacks while also keeping tabs on Fefnir.
Here’s what you need to know about the defensive layer of the fight. The key principle is to always keep your eyes peeled on Fefnir—pay little attention to Zero. When choosing an attack, there are posing differences in Fefnir’s sprite. His non-cannon arm will barely move before a lunge while the maw of the cannon will open slightly. Conversely, Fefnir will immediately raise his arm and begin accumulating blue energy in his hand before leaping to use Ground Break. These animations are fast, so it takes a good bit of practice to avoid reflexively jumping around. Fefnir’s occasional full-glowing energy charge can throw your concentration off. When he starts glowing, it’s inherently more difficult to observe his movements accurately; you can see me get a bit more jittery when he does it.
By nature, freestyle fights are imperfect, with the occasional missed hit or superfluous movement. Nonetheless, I was able to take the knowledge I gained from the planned fights and intertwine it with the aforementioned suboptimal attacking methods to create a pair of fights that I hope prove to be entertaining.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Double Slash and Triple Rod Loops
00:17 - Spin Slash Combos
00:42 - Freestyle
01:07 - Freestyle: Rolling Around
Thanks for watching! Any questions or comments you may have are welcome as always.