"Where "Elemental" Styles Actually Came From" OR "Gladiator Style Theories"

[Hymnosi]

Dual title is duppppplicated.

If any of you can remember back when I posted elemental styles for DM mode and gun battles, you can figure out where I'm going with this. If not, allow me to give you a crash course.

I believe Gunz can be divided into 4 core categories, and that all moves in the game fall into those four categories. For simplicity sake, I followed another person's theoretical names of of the elemental theory of matter. In both theories, the way it was divided was:

Air, Fire, Earth, Water. As you can see, there are polar opposites in there, Air - Earth, Fire - Water. In gunz these are not specified, so ignore that notion. In Gunz:

"Air" Defensive Ranged, Evasive - Can be best characterized by flashstep, an entirely evasive move bent on moving in as many directions as possible, as fast as possible.

"Fire" Offensive Ranged, Offensive - Can be best characterized by Reload Shot or Swap Shot, an entirely offensive move based on shooting your gun as fast as possible, with as much damage as possible.

"Earth" Defensive Melee, Defensive - Can be best characterized by Block Rushing (uppercut -> dash -> block), an entirely defensive move based on running with block, reducing as much damage as possible, while moving as fast as possible.

"Water" Offensive Melee, Immobolization - Can be best characterized by Butterfly, an offensive move based on slashing while moving, designed to stun your opponent with the slash stun, and repeatedly stun them until they react.


As you can see, not one of those styles is entirely effective by themselves, thus, most people actually use all four at any given time. The reason to break them down is to study them individually for their core characteristics, so you can be more effective once you identify what your trying to do.

AAAAANYWAYS, back to gladiator style theories, I actually pulled those styles up from gladiator, although no one ever called them what they are. In gladiator, they are...

Butterfly - Characterized by the main move required to be a butterflier, derivatives of this style are "Circler, Stalker, Spammer", and any other move which requires jumping. In my style up top, these are all Water moves, requiring you to "flow" in combat, using stuns and avoiding being stunned repeatedly.

Turtling - Characterized by the main move required to be a turtler, derivatives of this style are "Massiver(??), Trip-Slasher, Rusher". Any other move which requires the use of block and slashing to trip your opponent into stunning themselves. In my style up top these are all Earth moves, requiring you to block all moves and eventually stunning your opponent through them using useless massives and block stuns.

Better terms for butterfly and turtle are offensive and defensive, by what you are trying to do overall. Most players use both of these now, since one style is just as effective as the other, and they are polar opposites.


EXTRA:
Butterfly Derived Styles:
Circler = Probably the oldest of butterfly styles, and one of the first to emerge as the "best" for its time, there is actually two styles of this. The first is Lag Abusive, while intentional or not, circling in a very wide permeter to extend the amount of visual lag, causing your opponent to attack where you are not, and trailing slashes so that instead of slashing air, they are entering the area where your slashes are on their screen. The second style was... I want to say invented by Flippy, Lyco, and SilentFireX, but I can't give them credit because I just don't know who came up with it first. Instead of basing the circling just on lag, they went straight for the lockstun ideal of butterfly, circling very tightly around players until they died of confusion. This style is not nearly as effective anymore, since the advent of skyblocking, but is still used today in short amounts.

Stalker = Fairly new, and still barely ever used correctly, a lot of misinformation surrounds this style. Requires "Flow", a psychological state of mind in which your mind directly interfaces with the problem at hand and deals with it in realtime without thinking. By definition, stalking is the concept of staying behind someone for the entirety of the battle, so they don't have a chance to defend or massive. Obviously incredibly hard to do, so the next style is what people THINK stalker is.

Spammer = A modified butterfly style which uses a few ground based moves to increase the speed of slashing, used just like the circler motion. Is effective and easy to learn.

Turtle Derived Styles:
Massiver = Maybe not the correct name for this, this style specializes in the use of massives... and only massives. They only go offensive after you are stunned by said massive.

Trip-Slasher = Again, maybe not the correct name, this style uses tip slashing to trip up their opponents into using futile massives. The only reason this style is defensive because is not designed to actually attack the opponent with the tip slash, just trigger them to use a massive.

Rusher = The newest brand of turtling, using Block Rushing to slam into opponents.


Thats basically all the styles I care to name, any extras are just enhancements on those styles.

[HellSyn]

I use a similar method to categorize players, but I base them on habits and their "main" type of movement and actions.

As for me, I'm an "Aggressive-Offensive" (AKA: FullOffensive) Gladiator that likes to rush enemies and pound them into the ground quickly as possible.

Passive-Offensive : An Offensive type that tends to use blocking to their advantage at times when needed. Though similar to a Passive-Defensive, they still like to rush and eliminate enemy's counters and options.

Full-Offensive: An Offensive type that tries to get the job done and eliminate enemies quickly without wasting too much time. These tend to restrict enemy's movement and options at the same time.

Passive-Defensive: A Defensive type that may counter and lean a bit more towards Offensive in terms of attacking fast and removing enemy's defensive capabilities.

Full-Defensive: A Defensive type that will in every way possible, attempt to counter every single bit of movement/actions you perform.




You dont have to use my method, it just helps me adapt to enemies and helps the people I train with to get better in a certain area depending on their habits and styles of playing.

[Huopatossu]

That elemental categorizing is so lame.

[SenseofTouch]

Originally Posted by Huopatossu

That elemental categorizing is so lame.

I disagree

[Skyzinha]

This can be applied to dstyle too.

[Hymnosi]

Originally Posted by Skyzinha

This can be applied to dstyle too.

WATER STYLE AM I RITE?

[Skyzinha]

Originally Posted by Hymnosi

WATER STYLE AM I RITE?

I would classify myself something between Wind and Fire.

I'm an Aireal Dstyler, that would put me in the Wind part with the evasion and what not, but I'm agressive too.

So FIREWIND ?

[Hymnosi]

Originally Posted by Skyzinha

I would classify myself something between Wind and Fire.

I'm an Aireal Dstyler, that would put me in the Wind part with the evasion and what not, but I'm agressive too.

So FIREWIND ?

Eh, I do all four all the time, but thats because I'm using a sword, I can actually melee.

[Skyzinha]

Water and Earth would be a nono for dagger unless the opponent is retarded.

[ect301fps]

Where do grenades fit in in all of this?

[Skyzinha]

in your pocket.

[Dogs]

flashbang=lightning (BSET)

amirite?

Originally Posted by Skyzinha

Water and Earth would be a nono for dagger unless the opponent is retarded.

So basically, it only works in quest channel?

[eddy<3]

i AM LIGHTNING

[Skyzinha]

Originally Posted by Dogs

flashbang=lightning (BSET)

amirite?


So basically, it only works in quest channel?

CW NA only duhhhh

[An Amateur]

Hell yes, I completely agree with where this theory comes from. Although I've never seen the need to go with the elemental naming convention. For a start there are probably more ways to describe a style than the 4 basic elements asscribed to a pentagram.

Originally Posted by me

When we talk about a play style in gunz, we do not consider the moves or the weapons the person chooses to use. We consider the basic concept that these moves, tactics and equipment are used to achieve. For example:

Defensive style (such as turtling)
Argessive style (spamming perhaps?)
Evasive style (moving rather than blocking)
Opportunistic style (People who KS and C3rb's Stalk also fits here)

To name a few with some examples. This is simple and its easy to understand, its also broad enough and non-specific enough to be flexible with peoples styles and its descriptive. Its so broad that it makes a single tactic, move or action either a method, or a tactic. These things become a style when a concept is behind them and, usually, they are integrated with more tactics, methods, moves etc. This is already accepted by many people because its acceptable use of the english language and its descriptive of the way people play.

Thats my take on things (coppied from another thread).

And yes, of course individual moves have elements of more than one style in them however it is the way that the moves are applyied that I think determines a persons overall play style, which may be a compination of more than once style.

I would also suggest a Flow or Passive Style that is the concept of successfully knowing when to adopt, and apply each of these styles so that they flow into one another. Perhaps we have already named this hybrid? although i realise some people will think of it haveing a different definition.