Basics: Movement and Positioning

Classic Moves

New Moves

All of Dante's main tools are still available to him like Helmet Breaker, Stinger, Full House (now known as Friction), and Revolver which replaced Lucifer's 'Splash'. Each of these have a few unique quirks that separate them from their DMC4 counterparts but they can still be used for the same purposes.So what makes positioning and understanding your movement options important? Positioning is what determines whether or not a setup can or cannot work. Below I have listed the moves you'll be using often for movement and also described what they're good for. There are not theskills for movement but they're some of the more useful ones.[Down]DMC5's Helm Breaker is kind of different this time around because it will actually hit more than twice during it's descent and the first hit will only stun,knockdown. What this means is that you can make Dante descend while simultaneously juggling the enemy similar to how you can rave then guard cancel in the air. You can of course still reverse Helm Breaker and hit the ground before your enemy does to setup for things like Backslide if you're not using DSD (this detail about DSD only matter for the vanilla game which doesn't have reversals).[Diagonal]The divekick is usually only for diagonal movement, but DMC5's divekick got a massive buff which allows Friction to pull Dante down almost completely vertically. Not only is it almost fail safe, but because the hurtboxes are so large in this game, you can even use the divekick to switch sides by divekicking underneath an enemy.[Up/Down]Let's say that you've launched an enemy and need to elevate yourself. Revolver allows you to make that height adjustment if necessary and JC'ing Revolver into itself will allow you to gain evenheight. On the flip side, you can also use Revolver to make height adjustments when you need to lower yourself and close small distances as well by letting the animation play out for as long as you need it to.[Forwards]These two moves got some pretty heartbreaking nerfs. Normal Stinger won't knockback nearly as far as it used to and the transition between Stinger and Million Stab isslower than it's ever been meaning you won't be reliably interrupting enemies that are winding up for attacks anymore through the use of Million Stab. Thankfully, it's still just as useful for getting around but was also negatively affected by the recovery change to Guard. There are some clunky workarounds for this change to make this once god tier mobility monster a move that's still worth using.[Omnidirectional]With Inertia being mostly gone, Dante finds himself in a strange spot having been so dependent on it in the air in DMC4. This leaves us with some weird alternatives for repositioning in the air but he's still very capable of being mobile just not to the same degree. This is where Rainstorm comes in. In DMC's 2, 3 and 4, Rainstorm would keep you mostly still if you just jumped up and did Rainstorm but in 5, the move has become fully controllable in an attempt to compensate for the inability to control aerial momentum. Plus, the bullets not longer shoot straight down for quite a long time and Dante will instead begin the animation for Rainstorm with his arms stretched out horizontally and close in as the animation plays out. This will drastically change how you use Rainstorm and it's without a doubt one of his top 5 moves in the whole game in terms of how important they are.Alongside all the returning moves, Dante's got a new bag of tricks to work with in DMC5 and they play a role that is almost equally as important as the skills mentioned above.[Backwards/Down]At first glance, Air Mustang seems like filler that most wouldn't use but upon further inspection, you'll find that this move is one of the few skills that grants you access to some form of momentum that can carry over to other skills.[Backwards]While the function of this move isn't exactly new, I've placed it under 'New Moves' because it can be used differently from Draw. This move will make Dante do a backwards cartwheel that hits multiple times and deals damage. In Ignition, this move will launch and with an activated DSD, it will automatically do High Times so that you don't need Ignition to launch. This move also has iframes.[Left/Right]A brand new move with iframes that acts as a sort of half side roll which allows you to more precisely circle around an enemy that you're facing. Having only half the distance of a side roll means you get to make some micro adjustments that you otherwise couldn't unless you were to release lock on and use other moves like Kick Mode Combo A to reposition (which is also totally viable).[Forwards/Backwards/Left/Right/Up]A four-way set of rolls with a jump extension that can be jump canceled. Each Cut-In roll is jump, side roll, SDT, dash, Trick and guard cancelable with an added bonus which is that you can also Flint Wheel out of these rolls before Dante fires the shotgun. It's no where near as precise as Welter Move but can be used to slide around the stage and can start or end combos at any range.[Forwards]Dante uses Cerberus in it's staff mode to leap forwards and stun without knocking back. Because it can stun and cross under enemies at the same time, this makes Rock Back a very useful move that only becomes evenuseful if you enable reversals on PC. Also useful for charging electric moves.