ARIA

Style: Balanced Similar To: Jago, with C. Viper, Fei Long, and Sagat flavors, on a Marvel vs. Capcom team Strengths: ARIA starts every match at her strongest. She can choose any combination of great footsies, great zoning, or great air mobility to approach the matchup at hand, switching as the situation warrants, and protect all her unsafe approaches and mixups with her backup drones. Because each body is among the best in the game at its particular skill, when ARIA strongly coordinates her efforts, it can be very overwhelming. Even though each body is given some unique tools, ARIA has a universal set of moves across all bodies that can be used to stabilize her game. Weaknesses: ARIA is the only character in Killer Instinct that gets weaker the longer the fight goes on, meaning she has less potential for comebacks and she might not be able to weather the storm at the end of a close match when her opponent is stocked on resources. Managing the health of each drone is absolutely paramount to success with ARIA, which means ARIA is a rather unforgiving character to play; if you make a mistake and lose a body quickly, the rest of the match may be a struggle, and because ARIA's bodies have less health than other characters, a single mistake might be all it takes. You are also expected to flow between many different styles of play on the fly, even if it doesn't suit the matchup. Many of ARIA's universal moves need assists to back them up, because otherwise they can be shadow countered. Play If: + You like strong characters that ask a lot of the player + You like putting people in vortexes + You think calling assists is awesome Avoid If: - You can't change your muscle memory easily - You don't like losing options as the fight goes on - You want to stick to one gameplan all the time

Best Counter-Breaker Combos

Damage calculation notes

ARIA is unique in that her optimal punish depends on the body she is wearing. The main combos listed work in all bodies, so if you default to those you will do okay damage (and in Bass body, you have no choice). Blade body has access to the damage ender, so always use that when it is available if damage optimization is your goal. In particular, Shadow Allegro and Shadow Crescendo are preferred uses of meter over the Shadow Explosive Arc linkers.

Unique Mechanic: Drone Ensemble

ARIA is actually three characters in one. Unlike other characters who have two health bars, ARIA has the same total health pool split across three separate bodies, each being two-thirds the length of a normal health bar. The opponent must defeat each body to win a match against ARIA. ARIA's upper body changes appearance to signify which body she is wearing, and each form comes with a unique special move and movement option. Aside from a few specific normals in Blade body, ARIA's normals are the same across bodies, and she always has access to her Shotgun Blitz and Explosive Arc special moves, which are her only linkers. This means each body provides a unique flavor to ARIA but certain strategies and most combos are universally applicable.

ARIA shows off her three primary bodies, and calls each form's assist attack.(sound) Fulgore creates a lot of white life on ARIA's main body, which does not regenerate. Switching forms has a bit of invincibility at the start, but is easily punishable if your opponent is in range. Once a form dies, ARIA must fight on with the remaining forms. (sound)

If ARIA loses her health bar while wearing a body, that form will be permanently destroyed for the rest of the match, and ARIA will start the next round with a new body and be forced to fight on with her remaining forms. If all three forms are killed, the match is over. Interestingly, ARIA does not gradually recover potential damage on her active body like every other character; only the bodies she is not wearing are able to regenerate white life. If you are fighting a player who likes to perform resets or inflict lots of white damage, or if you find your current body's health low, you will have to switch bodies by pressing PPP or KKK. ARIA can switch in a neutral state or during a combo, which acts as a combo ender. If you switch in neutral, the switch animation begins with a brief period of invulnerability, but quickly becomes very punishable, so you will have to find ways to switch when your opponent is not near. As a bonus, whenever ARIA switches bodies, she removes all status effect curses she has incurred.

The bodies that ARIA is not wearing will float behind her as drones, and she can summon a drone to perform an attack for her with the +HP or +HK command normals. Termed calling an assist, each drone will perform a different predetermined attack which can protect ARIA's approach and make her safe, or force the opponent to block while ARIA performs a tricky mixup. Because assist calling is technically a command normal, this means you cannot call assists in the air, or while other normals or specials are being performed, but the assist call is very fast and ARIA is allowed to have multiple active assists at the same time. However, each drone can be hit by a single attack at certain points during its startup, active frames and recovery, and if a drone is attacked, the body form representing the drone will take massive damage (2.5x the strength of the attack). If a drone assist takes enough damage, it will die, and ARIA will lose access to that form, just as if she had died while directly wearing that body. Calling assists in ways to prevent punishment is important to learn as an ARIA player.

Booster Body

The Crescendo special move can come from the ground or air with different angles and starts a combo. ARIA can hover in Booster body to avoid attacks or to mix opponents up. Booster assist pushes opponents a large distance on block so ARIA can have space. (sound)

More importantly, ARIA can hover in this form by simply tapping and holding the up direction at any point after the apex of her jump, and she can steer herself horizontally in the air while her hover is active. If she crosses over an opponent, she will turn around, which effectively makes her regular jumping attacks act like cross-ups while she is in hover mode; if you tap up and let go immediately, she will turn around and drop to the ground facing her new direction. The Booster assist acts as a fast tackle which will push the opponent away if blocked, and cause a knockdown on hit. It is useful to gain space and time if your opponent is rushing in, or to put your opponent in block stun during a corner mixup. Booster assist is vulnerable after it is blocked before returning to ARIA's side, although if ARIA is pressuring the opponent, he will be unable to retaliate.

Blade Body

ARIA shows off faster walk speed in Blade body, followed by much larger normal attacks and the Interlude overhead. Light Allegro is a fast uppercut, while medium Allegro covers horizontal space and allows an easy manual to start a combo. Blade assist is invincible and protects a pillar of space in front of ARIA. (sound)