Current viability of each characters' move pool

Advanced Technology and Terminology

Character Details

I would like to preface this by saying that I have about 180 hours on rwby:ge and have been playing since early patch 2. Also I will be making various comparisons throughout this post. The things I mention are thoroughly tested and backed by data, in making this post I will be as objective as possible and refrain from making any opinions that have no grounds to base them off of.The purpose of this post is simple, I would like to shed some light on the community regarding features in this game they might be unaware of. A lot of post I see being made regarding peoples' impressions of this game that contain quite a bit of misinformation and I never see anyone correct these people. I will be talking about everything a character does and how good it is objectively based on: damage, accessibility, animation length, safety, it's usefulness in solo play and team environments. I have already made 2 guides that cover quite a bit of content I suggest giving them a read: [RWBY:GE Guide 1 - The Basics] (https://www.reddit.com/r/GrimmEclipse/comments/4fp9gg/rwbyge_guide_1_the_basics/) and [RWBY:GE Guide 2 - Enemies] (https://www.reddit.com/r/GrimmEclipse/comments/4gqkja/rwbyge_guide_2_enemies/) both are up to date.- by pressing the dodge button while performing any light attack with the exclusion of the final light attack in your combo chain will reduce the recovery animation significantly and go into a dodge.- pressing the counter button is a bit more complicated and has quite a few unique scenarios. You can counter cancel any attack animation and unlike dash canceling when you perform the counter cancel your animation stops immediately and you perform the counter. If you are on the ground when you counter cancel you will cancel your attack and perform the headbutt if no enemies around you are able to be countered. Counter canceling is most useful though when canceling aerial attacks, if you press counter while in the air there is no punishment for missing your counter. Your character will fall straight to the ground, this is extremely useful for certain attach chains like Yang and Weiss' LLH combo since it places them in the air.- has many of the same properties as dash canceling but is most useful for its ability to cancel non-attack animations. This includes jumping, dashing, and air dodging.- every attack in the game has 3 states of the animation that it has to go through. Start-up, active, and recovery. The start-up period is the point your character begins their attack and exist all the way up to the point the enemy can take damage from your attack. The active state is the point in your animation where your attack will possess a hitbox and anything that touches this hitbox takes damage. The recovery state is the point where your character's attack hitbox has vanished but you still can't perform an action. This is also called end lag. Typically you want short start-up, long active, and short recovery animations.- if you perform an input during the start-up period of an attack the game will remember that input and at the soonest possible time during the recovery animation execute said input. This is useful for performing certain actions literally as soon as possible. Not everything can can be buffered but just note, if you can dash cancel it then you can buffer its inputs.- when you perform your light attack chain, if at any point you dash during the chain the game will remember the point you left off at in your attack chain. If you perform 2 light attacks then dodge, so long as you press heavy attack during the first 3/4ths of the dodge animation you will perform the heavy attack from the LLH combo instead of an uncharged heavy attack. This is extremely useful for re-positioning yourself before using your heavy attack.- Copying broadsword here since he explained it really well. "The ranged attack combo can be broken up by a melee attack, or several melee attacks, and then be continued from the point you left off. The other option is to begin a melee attack string, begin the ranged attack string, and return to the melee attack string." - Broadsword- the way the meter generation works in this game is every time you attack an enemy you gain a very small amount of meter and 1 hit added to your combo counter. If you hit multiple enemies you only gain 1 hit to your combo counter but the meter generated for hitting both enemies still applies. Attacks that hit multiple enemies can abuse this to great lengths to the point where with 1 attack they can recover 70% of a bar. Blake's ranged combo with blade beam is the biggest offender of this.- a series of button inputs used to make the character move faster by repeatedly jumping off the ground and carrying their forward momentum. To bunny hop - jump>air dodge>any attack>counter cancel. Once you land just repeat that process.- jump>air dodge>taunt cancel and repeat. This is another movement option to make your character move around faster just like bunny hopping but is easier on the inputs and better in almost every way.Just saying aerials in this game serve no real purpose so I won't go over them since there's no reason to use them.I also will not be covering any of the general skills in this post since I already covered them in my basics guide. If you want to know more about those just go check that guide.Ruby's light attack chain is pretty decent overall and could be used to varying degrees of success due to it comboing into her aerial attacks for an extended combo. Not much to talk about here though since light attacks exist as gateways to heavy attacks.Her uncharged heavy is okay, does decent damage but for damage there are better options. The horizontal hitbox is pretty decent though and could be used to knock-back a group of enemies in front of you. Overall this move is rather outclassed by better options and doesn't have much use.Fully charged heavy seems to have the same horizontal hitbox as the uncharged variant but has a slightly larger vertical hitbox. Damage is nice but still outclassed by better options, only practical use is for guaranteed team attacks or fighting the ursa major.Light, Heavy is rather weak for Ruby and just like her uncharged heavy serves no real use. It's damage is low, the start-up animation is too long and so is the recovery. Too many downsides for so little reward, pretty much never use it.Light, Light, Heavy is really strong, one shots creeps and two shots beowolfs. Really good start-up animation with an added hit at the beginning for extra protection. Also the vertical hitbox is larger than you think and can easily hit multiple enemies. For quick single target kills this move is amazing and should be your go to combo.Light, Light, Light, Heavy is absolutely busted currently. The hitbox vertically and horizontally is ridiculous as well as hitting behind Ruby's character model. The heavy alone one shots creeps and if you get a team attack proc on a beowolf with the first hit of the heavy, the second hit will one shot them. You can abuse this by taking the heavy synergy skill to increase the chance of this occurring. This move is so strong that almost nothing in the game can compare to this. For multi-target fighting this is your go to although don't be that ♥♥♥♥ in pub games who spams this attack. It's extremely unfun for everyone else in the game and has no counter play.Her ranged combo is ok, nothing special in its basic version. Mediocre damage, no aoe and no added effects aside from knock-back that's pretty much irrelevant if your fighting from range. Don't use this without any upgrades.Crescendo is real strong, it's multi-hitting so it breaks guards and gets team attacks more often then other ultimate's. Overall it's consistent, hard to punish, and has some extra features due to the multi-hitting property. Worth using and building around.Reap is ♥♥♥. Reap as a team attack has a whole list of things wrong with using it. The damage is mediocre, the animation length is way too long, the area it hits sucks, and it's very easy to punish. I stay away from this move, in fact if I see an enemy that can be team attacked I use that as a free opportunity to use LLLH instead since it's better in every way except bonus exp.Improved Crescendo - Increases range, increases start-up animation, increases damage but there's no damage threshold increase, without the talent you could one shot creeps but not beowolfs. With this upgraded you still one shot creeps and not beowolfs though it does leave them with like 20 health. Overall the damage upgrade helps and makes it so you only have to tap beowolfs afterward I'd say its a 6/10, worth taking.Crescendo Forte - Damage increase allows you to one shot beowolfs which is what we want. It does as advertised, increased damage with knock-back. Overall 8/10 since we like the damage as it puts us over an important damage threshold, knock-back is kinda irrelevant though.Crescendo Finale - Pulls enemies towards you and increases damage even though it isn't stated in the text. When selecting your final upgrade pick Finale or Forte based on whether you want larger enemies closer or farther from you since they both allow you to kill beowolfs. Same rating as it's sister upgrade 8/10 since all we care about is one shotting beowolfs.Improved Reap - Increases damage by a not so relevant margin. The damage increase for this doesn't put you over any important threshold and it actually has downsides. On top of the animation being increased by way too long, you can actually be punished by the enemy you are using Reap on because if they live the reap they will recover before you land on the ground. Rating is a solid 3/10 Reap is a bad move on its own and this skill doesn't do much for it and can actually hurt you.Grimm Reaper - Reaps only saving grace is this skill. From its previous upgrade it doesn't increase the animation and while the damage of Reap is still the same, the rock it pops up from the ground does enough damage to counter an alpha beowolf, charged heavy into team attack and kill. I consider that a damage threshold and consider this skill worth using if you really want to use Reap. Don't bother with Reap if you don't intend to get this skill. Rating 8/10.Electric Blast - Turns Dust Blast into an aoe and adds a stun to enemies hit. The aoe would be nice if it had more damage but its pretty much a stun gun although that has its own usefulness. Rating 6/10 especially for its low cost just wish it had a larger area or more damage.Ice Blast - Makes Dust Blast freeze the single target that it hits. This is pretty much worthless, if your trying to cc a single target then counter is a better option since you get more off of it. Skill is worthless Electric Blast is superior. Rating 2/10.Fire Blast - Increases damage by a non relevant margin. I would say if you took Electric Blast then upgrading to Fire Blast is actually a downgrade since you lose the area. Contrary to the explosion it only hits the single target, it's not an area of effect. Rating 0/10 never get.Team Player - The counter skills in this game all suck and this is no exception. If you want team attacks then counter and do a charged heavy, don't take this skill. Rating 0/10.Hyperballistic - It takes 24 hits normally to complete the combo bar, this skill reduces it to 16 which is a decent cut and is certainly noticeable. Unfortunately Ruby will passively generate meter simply by using LLH and LLLH at an alarming rate that this skill is a bit redundant. It's not worthless but because of the meter system it's not as good as it should be. Rating 5/10.Ruby is 2nd place on my tier list and is in a rather interesting spot, her bad combos are made even more noticeable due to her good combos being absurdly good that there is such a blatant contrast. Also between her 3 abilities Crescendo is the only one that stands out as actually being strong. Ruby is so strong because of her LLH and LLLH that you should be able to top kills against even some of the best players without any skill points. LH, uncharged heavy, and fully charged heavy are all in bad spots at the moment and need a change that makes them viable. LLH is in a good spot but LLLH is way way too strong and because it's so strong it gives even more of a reason to not use her other combos.