Absolver Attack Data As Seen In Deck Builder
Because I think this should be seen by people here as well.
All the resources of move data when I set out to make this document neglected the truly important stuff that helps you select mixups across attacks. They listed stuff you could find in game, like damage scaling, the school of the move, and sometimes what stances the game claimed moves started in... which is a bit of information that makes zero sense. Long story short, these lists were compiled by people who really weren't interested in the game itself and how it worked.
They didn't say whether attacks are high, low or mid. They didn't say whether or not attacks have horizontal or not. They didn't say what direction attacks are parried in. And they certainly didn't rate how FAST attacks are.
It also doesn't help that all of the lists I've seen are ordered not in the same way as they're displayed in the deck builder, which is the order that would be most useful when actively building a deck in the Meditation screen. Instead, they're ordered in the same way as the full move list, which is completely useless for quick consultation while deckbuilding, not to mention erroneous about moves that "start in ____ stance" because all unarmed moves mirror left/right. (Sword is special, but even then there are a lot of kicks that mirror left/right just fine that the "move list" neglects.)
Therefore, I created my own data sheets designed for reference while deckbuilding. The order lets you quickly ascertain what attacks in a given stance-to-stance "bridge" have what traits and at what speed. There's also a page with all the attacks and their relative speeds on a long continuum; this will let you quickly eyeball the relative speeds of attacks against each other
You'll notice that I completely neglected any form of damage or reach data. This is because with very few exceptions, the damage an attack deals and how far it lunges you forward are far less important than its "coverage" (the aforementioned high/mid/low and horizontal/not horizontal question), its speed, and its special properties.
There are a few attacks that deal bizarrely high damage and a few attacks that deal bizarrely low damage, and I've noted them here and there, but otherwise damage fluctuates enough by builds that I'm not going to bother trying to record benchmark numbers, and 10-20 damage differences don't bother me overtly. It's better to have the right move at the right time, deal damage, and avoid taking any from your opponent, than to it is to try to optimize "for damage" and them deal exactly zero because your opponent is bodying you with his superior coverage and tricky mixups.
Reach isn't worth exhaustively documenting because most attacks have a range of "good enough", and besides, the reach bar is rarely an accurate indicator of how effective an attack actually is at winning poke trades from neutral. Again, I've noted a few particularly long-ranged exceptions, but I haven't taken it very seriously.
More importantly, I've noted a few attacks that increase the distance between you and your opponent rather than decreasing it. It's after these few attacks that move reach actually matters for not whiffing your following attack. I may eventually make a shortlist of attacks that can connect after these particular few unique "gap-creating" attacks, but it's probably something easier tested by yourself.
Some of you nerds are probably better at formatting spreadsheets than I am, so feel free to make duplicates of this information and reorganize/reformat it to better suit your needs.
All the resources of move data when I set out to make this document neglected the truly important stuff that helps you select mixups across attacks. They listed stuff you could find in game, like damage scaling, the school of the move, and sometimes what stances the game claimed moves started in... which is a bit of information that makes zero sense. Long story short, these lists were compiled by people who really weren't interested in the game itself and how it worked.
They didn't say whether attacks are high, low or mid. They didn't say whether or not attacks have horizontal or not. They didn't say what direction attacks are parried in. And they certainly didn't rate how FAST attacks are.
It also doesn't help that all of the lists I've seen are ordered not in the same way as they're displayed in the deck builder, which is the order that would be most useful when actively building a deck in the Meditation screen. Instead, they're ordered in the same way as the full move list, which is completely useless for quick consultation while deckbuilding, not to mention erroneous about moves that "start in ____ stance" because all unarmed moves mirror left/right. (Sword is special, but even then there are a lot of kicks that mirror left/right just fine that the "move list" neglects.)
Therefore, I created my own data sheets designed for reference while deckbuilding. The order lets you quickly ascertain what attacks in a given stance-to-stance "bridge" have what traits and at what speed. There's also a page with all the attacks and their relative speeds on a long continuum; this will let you quickly eyeball the relative speeds of attacks against each other
You'll notice that I completely neglected any form of damage or reach data. This is because with very few exceptions, the damage an attack deals and how far it lunges you forward are far less important than its "coverage" (the aforementioned high/mid/low and horizontal/not horizontal question), its speed, and its special properties.
There are a few attacks that deal bizarrely high damage and a few attacks that deal bizarrely low damage, and I've noted them here and there, but otherwise damage fluctuates enough by builds that I'm not going to bother trying to record benchmark numbers, and 10-20 damage differences don't bother me overtly. It's better to have the right move at the right time, deal damage, and avoid taking any from your opponent, than to it is to try to optimize "for damage" and them deal exactly zero because your opponent is bodying you with his superior coverage and tricky mixups.
Reach isn't worth exhaustively documenting because most attacks have a range of "good enough", and besides, the reach bar is rarely an accurate indicator of how effective an attack actually is at winning poke trades from neutral. Again, I've noted a few particularly long-ranged exceptions, but I haven't taken it very seriously.
More importantly, I've noted a few attacks that increase the distance between you and your opponent rather than decreasing it. It's after these few attacks that move reach actually matters for not whiffing your following attack. I may eventually make a shortlist of attacks that can connect after these particular few unique "gap-creating" attacks, but it's probably something easier tested by yourself.
Some of you nerds are probably better at formatting spreadsheets than I am, so feel free to make duplicates of this information and reorganize/reformat it to better suit your needs.
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