Hammer attacks do little for combo score.

[Soyak Striker]

Is this normal for hard mode? To put it in the most basic terms I start a hammer combo on a boss (A A A Up A for example) and without even getting a rank it will instantly deplete the moment the attack ends. The only way to seem to get my combo up is literally to spam ribi charges all the time. Is there something wrong?

Please don't give me the "use different attacks" thing given there are only a couple in this game to begin with. Either hammer spam or ribi spam. It's not like I can Upturn A or Halfback B B+A or something.

[Kona❤Kona]

This game has a lot of methods of attack, you just need to find them and know how to use them in combat. Charged Ribbon shots and Super Carrot are among the best ways to gain rank, and getting hit lowers it by like a full letters worth. Ribbon charges very fast during the 5th attack of your hammer (the standing drill) so you should be able to shoot them often.

[Soyak Striker]

Originally posted by Kona❤Kona:

This game has a lot of methods of attack, you just need to find them and know how to use them in combat. Charged Ribbon shots and Super Carrot are among the best ways to gain rank, and getting hit lowers it by like a full letters worth. Ribbon charges very fast during the 5th attack of your hammer (the standing drill) so you should be able to shoot them often.

Once again, doing hammer combos literally do not increase the meter even pixels no matter what I use. Opening attacks on Vanilla v1 is so pathetic it instantly depletes the moment the first hammer attack is done.

BTW lots of variety here; A, A A, A A A, A A A A, A A A A up A, up+A, Jump then A, Jump then A down, A up+A, A A up+A. Oh and B, B B, B B B, hold B, hold B longer, C sometimes. Unless there is some secret menu that I haven't found it's overly basic on moves.

[Kona❤Kona]

You are right in that hammer increases it very little compared to other methods. If you want rank, you'll have to do a bit more than just that.

By 'find them' I mean finding the items that enable them. Super Carrot, Air Dash, Fire Orb,
Bunny Strike, Ribbon Boosts, and smart Amulet usage enable very strong attacking methods. Combat mechanics in this game go deep and take a lot of work if you want to squeeze out as much damage if you can. If you don't want to delve that deep though, there is no incentive to if you can still survive.

[Soyak Striker]

Originally posted by Kona❤Kona:

You are right in that hammer increases it very little compared to other methods. If you want rank, you'll have to do a bit more than just that.

By 'find them' I mean finding the items that enable them. Super Carrot, Air Dash, Fire Orb,
Bunny Strike, Ribbon Boosts, and smart Amulet usage enable very strong attacking methods. Combat mechanics in this game go deep and take a lot of work if you want to squeeze out as much damage if you can. If you don't want to delve that deep though, there is no incentive to if you can still survive.

Stuff that isn't available early in the game but yet they throw the combo meter in at a rate that you can't do without later game items. This is a very punishing way to do this kind of stuff. Don't have mid to late game stuff, screw your early game rank.

[Kona❤Kona]

Rank doesn't do anything but give you an attack buff during boss fights. Not getting hit and using Ribbon shots is just about it at the start, and damage values are low enough to where the increase isn't really impactful. Not getting hit will keep your rank high, but if you are still clearing the bosses, does it matter that much?

If you are worried about the achievements associated with rank, you can still fight these bosses again later at full equipment to go for it.

[Soyak Striker]

Why even bother with a combo meter then? If they're not related then why are they associated? Having a 200 (random number) combo and still not even going to d rank makes no sense to even have the number. Or is it the good old 'it's not a bug, it's a feature' used to make people defend the problem without fixing it?

Also do anything but give you a buff? That's a major thing when fighting bosses. That extra 20% makes a world of a difference to just be 'anything but x' kind of brush off.

[phenir]

Just get any 5 easter eggs, which is easily doable chapter 1, and your combo problem is solved. Charged rainbow shot will give you several ranks immediately. Super carrot is also pretty strong for combo since it lets you attack during STOP and also generates lots of combo meter itself.
Also, "early game" isn't really a thing when the only areas locked from you are dlc areas, the library, and the lab (and by extension the computer). DLC areas and library don't have anything that helps combo. The Lab only gives slide, which admittedly does give access to the bunny strike attack. That's just one attack though out of the many you could be doing. If it bothers you so much to not be able to max rank bosses at the start, go exploring and find all attack items first.
To address the topic of hammer attacks giving little score though, that's because they are the best source of damage. Reverse hammer combo does disgusting damage with no drawback.

[Zosit]

My personal combo, that got me max rank in a decent number of fights in hard mode:
full hammer combo
Sliding strike
While sliding strike is active, charge a ribbon shot
Loop until you are out of SP, they hit the next attack, or they hit stun protection.

Then during the stun protection I spam charged shots to build up combo. The key to combo is a mix of charged shots and variety (if you don't mix in the hammer, it won't work)

As for which ribbon shot to use, I personally did yellow for the fast and accurate charge (with freebie damage laser to help maintain the combo) until I unlocked the carrot shooter in the late game.

I couldn't really maintain quite as high a rank in the early game, but extending the fight by finding a lot of items early to buff the boss is probably how you do it.

[phenir]

Originally posted by Zosit:

I couldn't really maintain quite as high a rank in the early game, but extending the fight by finding a lot of items early to buff the boss is probably how you do it.

That's another thing, if the boss fight isn't lasting long enough for you to build combo, you probably don't need combo.

[Songbird]

Originally posted by Crescent Star:

Why even bother with a combo meter then? If they're not related then why are they associated? Having a 200 (random number) combo and still not even going to d rank makes no sense to even have the number. Or is it the good old 'it's not a bug, it's a feature' used to make people defend the problem without fixing it?

Also do anything but give you a buff? That's a major thing when fighting bosses. That extra 20% makes a world of a difference to just be 'anything but x' kind of brush off.

They actually are related, I believe. At least, I'm fairly certain it's much easier to build and keep combo with a high hit count than a low hit count, as the meter will decrease more slowly. (The time before the hit count resets, which comes with an immediate massive drop of multiple ranks in meter, is not affected by hit count, though.)

It is normal to be unable to get good combo scores until you have either Super Carrot, Bunny Amulet, Bunny Strike, Rainbow Egg, or Quick Barrette, IMO. The prologue bosses and several minibosses (none of which actually record your rank) are basically impossible to hit MAX rank on.

[Flariz]

You are correct the basic hammer combo is not particularly good at adding to the rank. It’s meant to do raw damage more than anything, and also maintain the rank, not add.

As others have mentioned already, you will find items later on that are better suited to increase the rank, and Ribbon charged shots in general are a fairly good way to increasing rank, be it early or lategame.

It is perfectly normal to not get MAX rank on the prologue or very early game fights, thankfully for the prologue none of it really matters, and for the first couple of Chapter 1 fights... well, you technically *CAN* get MAX rank in these as well, but it either needs you go out of your way to get items good for it *cough Super Carrot cough* which is not really happenning on a first playthough, or you have to just do the fights nearly flawlessly.

Basically as the game progresses it will become easier to reach the MAX rank, and you can re-fight bosses eventually so it’s not an issue. The %ATK bonus the rank provives is not even that noticeable early game anyway, it matters more later on..

You CAN get to MAX rank in any fight even with 0% items provived you are very good at dodging and attacking (And the boss has enough HP for you to even reach said rank)... it just will take a fair bit of time.

As far as I can tell, the number of hits itself does not matter for the damage- the only thing it does is give you more EN at the end of the fight (based on how many your max hits were)

[live22morrow]

It's hard to maintain rank in the early game due to how quickly it decays, especially if you get hit. Once you get to Evernight Peak, you can get the Cashback badge which makes it much easier to keep the rank up.

It doesn't matter anyways since rank doesn't have any actual effect outside of the fight and you can refight the bosses later for the achievements. Combo also increases damage after getting a certain item later in the game.

[Jettage Von Eisenberg♫]

Interesting...post?
If you play a higher difficulty, bosses will have more HP allowing for max ranks easily even on the first few bosses, though I can't say I've seen this issue before, outside of killing the bosses too quickly to raise rank on lower difficulties. There's ways to sequence break the game to get more attacks to prevent the combo meter from staling too, most notably the Super Carrot as others mentioned.
The first few hits of Erina's hammer combo do also raise the rank a lot more than doing the entire combo, so doing that is better for pure rank,
And I know you said not to say it but...yeah switching which attack/ribbon's magic you are using helps a ton.

I haven't had an issue keeping combo up, personally, and the rank meter is very important on loops, too. Hopefully this could help out a bit.

[vgm]

Originally posted by Crescent Star:

Originally posted by Kona❤Kona:

You are right in that hammer increases it very little compared to other methods. If you want rank, you'll have to do a bit more than just that.

By 'find them' I mean finding the items that enable them. Super Carrot, Air Dash, Fire Orb,
Bunny Strike, Ribbon Boosts, and smart Amulet usage enable very strong attacking methods. Combat mechanics in this game go deep and take a lot of work if you want to squeeze out as much damage if you can. If you don't want to delve that deep though, there is no incentive to if you can still survive.

Stuff that isn't available early in the game but yet they throw the combo meter in at a rate that you can't do without later game items. This is a very punishing way to do this kind of stuff. Don't have mid to late game stuff, screw your early game rank.

You can get MAX in early game even still, so I don't see the issue. You need to work for the rank, not just play at a slightly above average skill-level. Proper usage of Ribbon will multiply your rank. The actual combo number itself affects other things, so yes, it does actually have a reason to exist. The rank itself is to determine how well you can pressure bosses, and ultimately, how good your ACTUAL combos are. The actual hit count determines how much money you get, and also acts as a buff for an item you obtain later. After you play the game for more than an hour, it becomes pretty apparent why ranks aren't determined only by hit count.

This is a combo game first and foremost. When first starting out, your ranks WILL be terrible. As a player, you need to learn and adapt to fix that problem. There's an achievement for getting ALL MAX ranks for a reason, it's not something you can just do as a new player. Keep playing, keep improving, and you'll actually be able to get ranks above A at the start. Eventually, bosses won't even get to attack and you'll be mopping the floor with a MAX rank clear at the end to congratulate you on a job well done.

This just reeks of "I'm not doing well so the game is bad", honestly. Often times players don't get above a B or an A on their first go around, and that's just to be expected. Yeah, I might be defending a pretty mediocre combo system, but it's not as dumb as you make it out to be. It's the game's way of telling you to stop playing defensively, which is THE SINGLE most common trap that new players get into in this game. Unfortunately, 90% of players don't care about rank, so the message goes unnoticed.