Beginner's Guide to Energy Form Combat

[See.Blue]

Purpose: 
              This guide is meant to consolidate the huge amount of knowledge that's spread over all of the forums here.  Everyone gets bogged down on some fight  at some point, hopefully this summarization can help. 
              Note: this game is all about exploration and finding things out for yourself and this is not meant to detract from that aspect of this marvelous game in any way, rather it's meant as a tool to aide in that exploration.  Apart from references to some Forms this guide is spoiler-free.

Core Rules:

• He who hesitates is lost. Really.  The number one way to increase your survivability (and thus your damage-dealing potential) is to always stay on the move. Most all enemies aim at you in some way, staying on the move is crucial to dealing with this (more on dodging later).  Dashing often is always a good idea too, and remember, if your dash makes you cling to a wall, you can instantly dash again, which brings us to our next point:
• Learn to love walls.  Contrary to how it may first appear, walls can dramatically increase your maneuverability.  After attaching to a wall you can immediately dash again, allowing you to dodge or change direction incredibly fast.  Clinging to walls also makes you immune to any attacks that involve sucking Naija in which is an enormous help on certain bosses.  Lastly walls are also important for some offensive techniques which will be covered later.
• Do not hesitate to change forms.  Energy form is fantastic offensively but your defense is only as good as your soon-to-be ninja-like reflexes.  Enemies or boss firing enormous waves of shots?  Switch to Song form and use Shield and wait it till it passes (or use the time to seek cover).  While in Song form you also enjoy the effects of any useful treasures you may have equipped.  Enemies or bosses spawning too many minions that are getting you tangled up? Beast can clear house rapidly as most (I think all actually) spawned enemies can be devoured in one dash.
• Learn to use hot-keys.  Using the keys 1-0 on your keyboard you can rapidly change forms or cast spells while under fire (or laying down some of your own)

Defensive Strategy:

• Swim perpendicular to linear shots coming at you.  For any rushing or other linear attack the best way to dodge is to swim at a right angle to the direction of the attack.  When not on a wall, time your dashes so that the burst of speed you get is used to clear the attack, carrying you to safety.
• Swim diagonally upstream of homing shots.  Say you're at 12 o'clock and a homing shot is coming at you at 6 o'clock.  You want to dash towards 7 or 5 o'clock, whichever is closer to a wall.  The reasoning behind this is that this way the shots have to make a full half circle to begin following you again, and if you do this near a wall, will usually hit the wall while making that half-circle turn.
• Bear in mind basic physics.  If there is an enemy or boss that is spinning (or using a sweeping attack) and you want to keep up with its spinning either to avoid an attack or hit a weak spot the closer you are to the boss, the shorter the distance you have to swim to keep up (though obviously more dangerous).

Offense and Efficiency:

• It is possible to fire more than 3 shots per charge.  If a charge shot is released during a boost from a wall or at the end (where you spin, from now on referred to from here on as flourishing) of a regular dash you will fire 4 shots.  If you boost off a wall then dash as soon as possible and release during that dash, you will fire a whopping 6 shots at once from your charge.
• Firing rapid single shots is more efficient than using 3 or 4-shot charged shots.  Only 6-shot charged shots are more efficient, and only then if you are good enough to fire them off consecutively (i.e. after firing your first you will be in a position to fire your second by the time your second shot has finished charging).  6-Shot charge shots are most useful for situations when you only have a short time to hit an enemy.  Open with a 6-shot and then spam singles until your time window closes.

          Thats all for now.  Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.  And good luck on learning to master the deceptively simple combat system of this game!! 

[silverflagon]

I'm not sure if this should be stickied or/and given a spoiler alert? But nice work explaining it all see-blue

[Alphasoldier]

I don't want to be a jerk-wad, but I'm going to be anyway. I believe everyone has their own way of playing the game, the only helpful thing I would get out of this is the charging shots, which not many people know, nor many people use.

I honestly only use the charged shots only for the orbs.
I barely ever use walls unless I need to get out of somewhere real quickly, this thing only being handy when you're still in Home Waters or in the beginning Part of Open waters, seeing the rest of the game usually has dangers near the walls, and the speed that you get from boosting from walls makes you less accurate.

I also would give the people another option, if they don't like fighting, the best thing to do is swim around as normal Naija with the shield on 24/7.

[silverflagon]

Not everyone figures it out straight of Alpha

[Alphasoldier]

But isn't that the nice thing of Aquaria? Finding out things yourself? =p

[silverflagon]

But isn't that the nice thing of Aquaria? Finding out things yourself? =p

err! What are we doing here helping folks out for then Alpha? 

[Alphasoldier]

Once they get stuck, we  help them, it's THE reason why I made account on this forum.

[See.Blue]

Once they get stuck, we  help them, it's THE reason why I made account on this forum.

And thats the reason I made this guide.  Everyone gets to play the game for themselves.  When they get stuck they come to the forums.  The idea behind this is to act as a spoiler-free way of helping people.  How many "How do I beat this boss" threads come up?  Tons. We have an 8 page thread for example.  Hopefully by reading this and getting some general tips on combat and Energy Form etc,  people can figure out how to beat the boss for themselves rather than coming on and getting told explicitly the step-by-step strategy. It would have been easy to include specific strategies for each boss, but as I said thats not the purpose of this.  I think we're trying to do the same thing here Alphasoldier, this is just trying to emphasize figuring it out on one's own even more.

[silverflagon]

Yes that is the way that I see it also see.blue Alpha it's here to guide and so are we :0

Now whos,s going to do one on dual form as that does take some learning, the first time I got it I went of exploring and using it on every creature that I came across until I got the hang of it lol

[delve]

The point about wall dashing is pertinent to Beast form as well, perhaps moreso since less dash cooldown directly impacts the Beast's offensive output. Although it isn't often that you find enough snacks near a wall to make it that useful, at least for me.

The dodging bits would certainly be helpful advice, particularly for people that haven't had significant experience with projectile combat. Though on the 3rd point I think you meant geometry, not physics.

[inkblob]

like Alpha, I never use the charged shots except to open doors, it's inefficient I find in combat. I don't know how mathy I get with combat but I find it more of a dance, where I engage the spawn in concentric loops to avoid contact and projectiles and dispatching them is done swiftly. if possible I am in any other form than energy but it's also the most efficient for fishing. I never use hot keys if possible, I've mentioned this before, I think it detracts totally from the game and part of the anxiety of battle is the fwumpf! of her going back to hub form and the panicky tones of switching to energy is complimentary to the acoustics of the game, and the actual gameplay.

for defense one of the most important things I employ is a bound rock ( or shell ), in any form

[silverflagon]

The point about wall dashing is pertinent to Beast form as well, perhaps moreso since less dash cooldown directly impacts the Beast's offensive output. Although it isn't often that you find enough snacks near a wall to make it that useful, at least for me.

The dodging bits would certainly be helpful advice, particularly for people that haven't had significant experience with projectile combat. Though on the 3rd point I think you meant geometry, not physics.

I wall dash a lot in beast form to get those frog things in the Mithala ruins and all those wall clinging creatures that shoot at me.. Amendment, I haven't tried to make her eat those large and small ones that disguise themselves as rocks yet though!  Ouch her poor teeth lol

[Chibi]

I ate the rock monsters, but didn't receive their shot. Looks like a bellyful of rocks is as useless as one would think. 

[Alphasoldier]

I don't like using beast form on wall-critters, I somehow never get them in one bite and they always hurt me after that, seeing I cling to the wall, Beast is only good for open waters for me.

[Chibi]

Try spamming space while aiming at the wall. It usually takes them down in two seconds.