Onimaru Spotlight — Fantasy Strike

General Onimaru is a master tactician in charge of the Flagstone army. He’s physically imposing and demands discipline from his soldiers. He’s also adept at personal combat where he wields an enormous sword. Onimaru’s moves and movement are generally very slow, but extremely powerful. He deals a ton of damage and uses armor to power through hits to create favorable trades. Onimaru has a unique mechanic called Guard Crush. Normally, when opponents block three special or super moves, they lose a

point of life, which we call “block damage.” But against Onimaru, rather than taking block damage, they get hit for real. To help opponents know they are in danger of this, whenever they block two such moves, a shield icon with a crack in it appears over their character, indicating they are in danger of a Guard Crush. If they try to block a third move capable of block damage, that icon shatters and they get hit, rather than blocking. Onimaru’s Guard Crush is even more threatening because all h

is blade attacks are capable of dealing block damage, even two of his normal moves: back A and forward A. Back A is a sweep, while Forward A is a deadly overhead slice that deals two damage. His Neutral A doesn’t deal block damage, but it’s his fastest attack. All of these normal attacks can cancel to special moves. Onimaru’s B special attack, Tactical Slice, is a poke with huge range that deals a whopping two damage. The part where he spins around is invulnerable to projectiles, so he can step

around them to hit the opponent. The recovery of this move puts him in a special stance where he can’t block, but can do three different enders: Shoulder Ram, Spirit Fire, or Parry. Press A for a fast Shoulder Ram that gives frame advantage on block. Or press B for a slow attack with big range that has an active hitbox for a long time due to the samurai spirits it summons. Those spirits can destroy projectiles, too. Or press C for a Parry that is invulnerable to strikes and projectiles and that

automatically hits back if Onimaru gets hit. You can also hold the C button down to extend the duration of your Parry attempt. It lasts pretty long this way! The Parry is important because threatening it makes the opponent afraid to attack during the recovery of your Tactical Slice. If you know they will hesitate, then you don’t need to parry at all, and you can apply pressure with either the Shoulder Ram or Spirit Fire followup. Another thing to know about the special stance after his B is that

you can back dash or forward dash, but only once. To dash from the stance, you either tap forward, forward (or back, back for a back dash), or you can hold forward + jump (or back + jump for a backdash). If you back dash, you’ll end the stance and be able to block. If you forward dash, you’ll still be in the stance, and able to threaten a parry. Onimaru’s walk speed is so slow that he actually travels more quickly across the screen by doing B, then forward dash, then Shoulder Ram than if he wal

ked or jumped forward. Onimaru’s forward A (which does two damage) can cancel into his B special (which also does 2 damage), but usually this isn’t a true combo. If the opponent happens to get counterhit by the forward A, meaning hit out of the start of their move, then they’ll glow red, be in hitstun longer, and these two moves actually will combo for a total of 4 damage. That’s so devastating that you can fish for it, and hope you catch the opponent in the start of a move. If they block, you c

an still do the 2-move sequence and then mix up which ender you'll do from Tactical Slice. Another technique to keep in mind is if you’re close, you can pressure the opponent with B, A for Shoulder Ram, Neutral A Hilt Bash, then repeat. You can’t keep it up forever, and they can do a fast or invulnerable move to get out, but it’s still a good pressure tool. His C special, Divide and Conquer, is a two-hit move that’s armored. The armor is really important because it allows you to attack even if t

he opponent is doing a faster move. You might get hit, but you’ll hit them too. You can use the move on prediction against projectiles from far away and you can use it as anti-air, too. You'll sometimes even get both hits against a jumping opponent. His jumping A is a bunt that bounces him on hit or block. He can bounce up to three times for three hits. That’s not a combo, but it can be tricky and confusing. Although he’s often punishable, the opponent doesn’t know if you’ll do one, two or three

attacks. His jumping B, Spirit Slice, is a really long reaching horizontal attack. Its hitbox stays active for a really long time as the samurai spirits come out. This move can command the air-to-air game, but it also lets Onimaru come down on grounded opponents. He can even threaten it as he jumps over a projectile. The very beginning of Spirit Slice is a strike attack, as the sword hits, but the rest of the active frames are classified as a projectile. That means the magical samurai heads can

actually destroy enemy projectiles if they happen to intersect. It means that Rook’s air B vines can go through them, too, but not through the beginning part where the sword itself hits. His jumping C, Helm Breaker, has him slam down to the ground. It’s armored, so he’ll keep going even if he gets hit once. This move does 2 damage on hit, but it can’t actually hit the opponent until it lands. And though it has really long recovery, you can cancel that recovery with an invulnerable Rising Sword

by pressing C again. This makes the opponent hesitant to punish this move on block, because they aren’t sure if you have a Rising Sword waiting for them. You can vary the timing of when you Rising Sword to further trick them. Rising Sword doesn’t usually combo after Helm Breaker unless the Helm Breaker was a counterhit. In that case, you can combo easily if you’re close enough. Onimaru’s ground super is Martial Law. It’s a huge 2 damage sword slash that’s invulnerable until just before it hits.

It has two other important properties, too. First, it’s fast. It’s twice as fast as his other pokes, so he can punish things or interrupt things with it that he otherwise couldn’t. Second, you can hold down the S button when you do it to charge up and perform a level 2 or level 3 version. These versions are not invulnerable but the level 2 version reaches even farther and it does 3 damage while the level 3 version reaches fullscreen, does 4 damage and is unblockable. This super has many incredib

le uses. It gets you out of trouble. It reaches through projectiles, and even if you get hit, you deal your damage first so maybe you’ll win the round just before you die. Sometimes getting hit out of it lets you combo forward A for 4 damage total. You can land the super after a successful Parry. You can use it as anti-air. You can whiff punish things. The level 3 unblockable has a lot of uses, too. When you get a knockdown from the Parry or from Air B, or from a counterhit Air C, you can start

charging the level 3 super and threaten to do an unblockable as the opponent gets up. You can also threaten it if the opponent commits to a slow move from far, or even if they just hesitate and don’t know what to do. His air super, Clockwork Soldiers, summons two robot soldiers that advance toward the enemy. They each have 2 hit points, so it’s pretty difficult for the opponent to deal with them and Onimaru at the same time. He has a lot of potential to Guard Crush them during this super. A sing

le attack from the opponent can hit both Onimaru and one of the clockwork soldiers, so Onimaru has to be careful in how he pressures. Try to set up deadly Guard Crushes while also baiting the opponent to do something dumb. Onimaru is somewhat slow and deliberate, but he’s also incredibly damaging with his 2 damage attacks 4 damage unblockable super, and unblockable Guard Crush setups. He usually wants to stay at mid-range and rely on his high priority sword attacks as well as his armored moves t

o blow through the attacks of faster, weaker characters. If you know the enemy and know your Onimaru tools, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.