Rank in-game styles. Share your opinion, please

[Game Master]

8th Rush-almost not-fun to use style. Very few heat actions (which can be extended with knuckles).
7th Breaker. Fun to use, but breaks the AI and have very few heat actions.
6th Majima Legend Style-only ONE unique heat action. Like, seriously?! Too low damage and heat acquire. Very few special moves.
5th Slugger. Only 2 unique heat actions, all others share with Thug.
4th Kiryu's Legend. Very fun style with only one problem-heat. On 1 heat level attack speed is too slow, but on 3-its lightning fast. Large selection of counters, at least 3 unique heat actions. Its should be on top, but I already saw this style in Y5, where its the same.
3rd Beast. Its not because of monstrous damage. This style have large amount of unique heat actions, counters and special moves. Tear your enemies apart with immense power!
2nd Brawler. The most balanced one. Medium damage, medium quickstep range. Beautiful.
1st Thug. This is that I am talking about! Kiryu have more speed in Rush, but Majima combine strength with speed making this a FAR better when it. This style have a huge amount of heat actions (some shared with Slugger and some unique for this style), some neat counters.

[lPaladinl]

Beast Mode breaks the game with cheese and is easily the best while also making the game boring when abused. You can stun lock bosses by knocking them down and grabbing them while they're on the ground. Most of the time simply throwing them is enough, but if they kick you away doing that, standing them up with the stun grab instead seems to have a nearly 100% stun lock rate. Even if they break the cycle, chances are you've already done tons of damage for free, giving you a huge advantage.

Even without cheese Beast Mode is great for quickly taking down anyone, with few exceptions. It's obviously not the best for closing gaps on people with guns, and some bosses will just dodge indefinitely when you have Beast Mode on until you knock them down with Brawler or Rush. The damage output and super armor to poise through attacks makes up for the slow movement. Wide swings also make it good for crowds, especially when you grab a large object and just get to swipe at 10 dudes with every swing.

Slugger is great, when it works. Sucks when it doesn't. It's hard to use in small areas or near walls since heavy attacks will have collision with walls and leave you open. His most basic combo breaks guards pretty well while keeping most enemies stuck in guard mode. His bat rotation combo (dunno what to call that) where he just flips his bat around while smacking someone can stunlock most enemies, so long as you get through their blocks. When used correctly it can also be used defensively in a crowd.

I like Brawler more than Thug, but Thug is about the same for me.

Breaker is pretty good in the right situations, provides good defense by having ridiculous AoE offense when used right.

Rush is... Rush. Sometimes it's the best option for Bosses, but often times Beast Mode's cheese bypasses that entirely when abused.

I can't speak on Legend Styles, I haven't unlocked them yet.

[Saler]

8th: Breaker. Lacking damage output unless you use moves that require conditions out of your control (for example, the blade catch heat action) or very precise timing (the counter). A lot of skills seem to be there mostly for show aren't all that useful. Not much use unless you're dealing with crowds of weaker enemies or are building up heat.
7th: Beast. While the damage output is very high and it's fun to keep hitting your enemies without letting them get up, there is no guarantee that you'll get enough objects to swing around, and in their absence, the style becomes rather grab reliant. Many tougher enemies will dodge or power trough your attacks, and you'll have some difficulty catching them of guard with your limited mobility. The inputs and conditions for some moves can get confusing.
6th: Rush. Takes a lot of skill to use for not that much more payoff than Brawler/Legend. After a certain point, almost each enemy group will contain at least 1 enemy who won't flinch when you hit him. Some skills require knuckles, which are a somewhat uncommon weapon. On the plus side, It makes it's the best style for building up heat, and it makes it easier to get behind your enemies, some of which will power trough almost any of you attacks from the front. Also, you'll be able to get more damage of this style's counters if you learn to connect with the charged kick consistently. There aren't that many heat actions for this style, but most of them are good.
5th: Brawler. A very solid style with no major weaknesses and a good move set, although it's a bit slow at 1st gear.
4th: Batter. Good defense, good range, high damage, likely to stagger opponents. The biggest downside is the speed - most moves are a bit slow to start, and finishers other that the 3 hit one might leave you open against faster enemies, even on hit. It doesn't has many heat actions, and most of them are nothing spectacular. The additional weapon's are fun to use, but most of them are rather situational, and all of them suffer from a limited move set.
3rd: Majima's Legend. While it doesn't have much in terms of moves, it doesn't need much more than it's special finishers and it's heat action to handle all normal enemies and some of the mid bosses. Having only one heat action is a problem, but that heat action is easy to use and is highly damaging even after the first use. Against bosses, however, it's not good - there's a good chance that the knife slashes will fail to stagger them, and the style's basic combos are somewhat awkward to use and will leave you open to attacks if you fail to connect with a finisher. It's counter can be used at any time rather than just at 3rd gear, but that's a bug, so I wont count it towards the upsides.
2nd: Thug. Very similar to Brawler style, except it gives you more options and mobility.
1st: Kiryu's Legend. It's basically a direct upgrade from Brawler. Solid all around, with a minor exception for speed. Has high damage, and it's heat actions deal a lot of damage for their cost. The first two counters are good, but the first one might leave you wide open if you're fighting several enemies. The 3rd counter isn't good enough to use against bosses (you'll probably want to use Ultimate Essence of '88, or just keep the heat for 2nd counter and higher speed), and normal enemies can be dealt with using normal combos and 2nd counter.

[JH1000]

This question makes no sense, and neither do the previous answers. All styles are best in a given situation. Anyone claiming "x is best" has never actually tried getting somewhat good at the game.

You obviously don't need to get good at the game to beat it. You can use any style you want to beat the game even on Legend difficulty and all styles have multiple mechanics which can be abused to break the game. But this doesn't change the fact that there is an objectively best style for every situation and no style is universally better than another.

The only case in which this is true is if you really don't know how to use any of the styles. In this case styles like Beast where mindlessly mashing buttons will at least yield some results will obviously be better for you than mashing buttons using other styles.

PS: There's a guy going around claiming Beast is broken against bosses, but Beast is actually the least broken style for most of them for the very reasons I gave above: Most effective if you don't know how to use either of the styles properly, very slow and weak compared to a properly used Brawler or Rush. Brawler, especially when using it while drunk after you've unlocked the respective upgrades, is the best style for every single boss fight except for very fast bosses, where Rush is better. Both of these styles can dish out ten times as much damage as Beast by simply circling behind the boss and using the correct attack strings and heat actions. They also have reliable counters or counter heat actions which are OP.

For Majima, Mad Dog style breaks every single boss in the game. The counter is almost impossible to miss because of its huge time window and range, incapacitates the enemy and doesn't even need any heat to work. Before you get that style, Thug is generally best for bosses while Slugger is better against a select few of them.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Cifer:

This question makes no sense, and neither do the previous answers. All styles are best in a given situation. Anyone claiming "x is best" has never actually tried getting somewhat good at the game.

You obviously don't need to get good at the game to beat it. You can use any style you want to beat the game even on Legend difficulty and all styles have multiple mechanics which can be abused to break the game. But this doesn't change the fact that there is an objectively best style for every situation and no style is universally better than another.

The only case in which this is true is if you really don't know how to use any of the styles. In this case styles like Beast where mindlessly mashing buttons will at least yield some results will obviously be better for you than mashing buttons using other styles.

PS: There's a guy going around claiming Beast is broken against bosses, but Beast is actually the least broken style for most of them for the very reasons I gave above: Most effective if you don't know how to use either of the styles properly, very slow and weak compared to a properly used Brawler or Rush. Brawler, especially when using it while drunk after you've unlocked the respective upgrades, is the best style for every single boss fight except for very fast bosses, where Rush is better. Both of these styles can dish out ten times as much damage as Beast by simply circling behind the boss and using the correct attack strings and heat actions. They also have reliable counters or counter heat actions which are OP.

For Majima, Mad Dog style breaks every single boss in the game. The counter is almost impossible to miss because of its huge time window and range, incapacitates the enemy and doesn't even need any heat to work. Before you get that style, Thug is generally best for bosses while Slugger is better against a select few of them.

Have you actually read what I said? Beast Mode stun locks bosses with a simple throw pattern, you don't even use combos.

That's why I consider it broken. You just throw bosses all day, take no damage, and win. It's boring, it's simple, it's effective.

Please, explains to me how the other styles are "better" than that? No matter how "pro" you are at this game, they don't literally stun lock bosses with a near 100% success rate for NO EFFORT.

The other styles don't make this game a cakewalk like Beast Mode does, because they require effort to be good enough to make the game easy. Beast Mode doesn't. Anyone can break the game no matter how bad they are at it just doing Beast Mode throws to stun lock, no combos required. No counters need. Almost zero risk.

You completely miss the point in why I say Beast Mode is broken. Your argument that I only say it because I am "bad at the other styles" is not only false, but you simultaneously make my point as well. You have to be good at the other styles to get on the same level as a brain-dead stun lock loop of throwing a boss you've knocked to the ground until they're almost dead.

Again, please tell me how ANY of the other styles are simpler than:

1: Knock Boss down
2. Grab Boss on Ground
3: Throw Boss
4: Repeat Step 2.

If they break the loop?

1. Knock Boss Down
2: Grab Boss on Ground from Behind to Stand them Up, Stunning them
3: Do whatever you want. Throw them, combo them, heat move them, just knock them down again.
4: Repeat Step 2

This STUN LOCKS THE BOSSES. They cannot fight back.

Literally breaks the game.

[Game Master]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Originally posted by Cifer:

This question makes no sense, and neither do the previous answers. All styles are best in a given situation. Anyone claiming "x is best" has never actually tried getting somewhat good at the game.

You obviously don't need to get good at the game to beat it. You can use any style you want to beat the game even on Legend difficulty and all styles have multiple mechanics which can be abused to break the game. But this doesn't change the fact that there is an objectively best style for every situation and no style is universally better than another.

The only case in which this is true is if you really don't know how to use any of the styles. In this case styles like Beast where mindlessly mashing buttons will at least yield some results will obviously be better for you than mashing buttons using other styles.

PS: There's a guy going around claiming Beast is broken against bosses, but Beast is actually the least broken style for most of them for the very reasons I gave above: Most effective if you don't know how to use either of the styles properly, very slow and weak compared to a properly used Brawler or Rush. Brawler, especially when using it while drunk after you've unlocked the respective upgrades, is the best style for every single boss fight except for very fast bosses, where Rush is better. Both of these styles can dish out ten times as much damage as Beast by simply circling behind the boss and using the correct attack strings and heat actions. They also have reliable counters or counter heat actions which are OP.

For Majima, Mad Dog style breaks every single boss in the game. The counter is almost impossible to miss because of its huge time window and range, incapacitates the enemy and doesn't even need any heat to work. Before you get that style, Thug is generally best for bosses while Slugger is better against a select few of them.

Have you actually read what I said? Beast Mode stun locks bosses with a simple throw pattern, you don't even use combos.

That's why I consider it broken. You just throw bosses all day, take no damage, and win. It's boring, it's simple, it's effective.

Please, explains to me how the other styles are "better" than that? No matter how "pro" you are at this game, they don't literally stun lock bosses with a near 100% success rate for NO EFFORT.

The other styles don't make this game a cakewalk like Beast Mode does, because they require effort to be good enough to make the game easy. Beast Mode doesn't. Anyone can break the game no matter how bad they are at it just doing Beast Mode throws to stun lock, no combos required. No counters need. Almost zero risk.

You completely miss the point in why I say Beast Mode is broken. Your argument that I only say it because I am "bad at the other styles" is not only false, but you simultaneously make my point as well. You have to be good at the other styles to get on the same level as a brain-dead stun lock loop of throwing a boss you've knocked to the ground until they're almost dead.

As I remember, sometimes they break through your grab (even when downed!) and almost instantly get up.+ some bosses just not let you to grab them (Kuze in heat, especially in his last fight, for example).

[Game Master]

And this tactic cannot be used against Mr. Shakedown or David Diabol and some fighters in arena.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Game Master:

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Have you actually read what I said? Beast Mode stun locks bosses with a simple throw pattern, you don't even use combos.

That's why I consider it broken. You just throw bosses all day, take no damage, and win. It's boring, it's simple, it's effective.

Please, explains to me how the other styles are "better" than that? No matter how "pro" you are at this game, they don't literally stun lock bosses with a near 100% success rate for NO EFFORT.

The other styles don't make this game a cakewalk like Beast Mode does, because they require effort to be good enough to make the game easy. Beast Mode doesn't. Anyone can break the game no matter how bad they are at it just doing Beast Mode throws to stun lock, no combos required. No counters need. Almost zero risk.

You completely miss the point in why I say Beast Mode is broken. Your argument that I only say it because I am "bad at the other styles" is not only false, but you simultaneously make my point as well. You have to be good at the other styles to get on the same level as a brain-dead stun lock loop of throwing a boss you've knocked to the ground until they're almost dead.

As I remember, sometimes they break through your grab (even when downed!) and almost instantly get up.+ some bosses just not let you to grab them (Kuze in heat, especially in his last fight, for example).

I've been able to grab Kuze until he was beaten in every fight since Beast Mode was unlocked. If they kick you away, you grab them from behind to do the stand-up grab, which instantly stuns them. They almost never can break.

And even if they can manage to break it, it's when they're nearly out of health anyways, trivializing the fight. You can still remove multiple health bars and get them down to 10% of a health bar before it becomes too difficult to throw them (or their HP is so low that even trying to stun lock them again will beat them anyways.)

Originally posted by Game Master:

And this tactic cannot be used against Mr. Shakedown or David Diabol and some fighters in arena.

This is correct. Mr. Shakedown is actually immune to grabs so you can't cheese him with Beast Mode. I don't think you can even knock the guy down, either.

There's other ways to cheese him, which still require skill and carry risk. Unlike what I am trying to describe above with Beast Mode on bosses like Kuze. Like what Cifer said above, it's as "simple" as getting behind the guy and sneaking some hits in. Weapons help a lot in getting quick damage in with more range to keep safe. It's still nowhere near as safe, easy, or broken as throwing Kuze around while he's in a stun loop.

[Saler]

From my experience, late game bosses tend to dodge grabs rather often. Also, I think spamming one move will make it less powerful, and you have to land some normal hits on enemies before you can grab them reliably.
Also from my experience, while all styles are good in certain situations, some of them are useful in far fewer situations than others. Staggering enemies is good in any situation, wide area attacks and countering specific weapons aren't.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Saler:

From my experience, late game bosses tend to dodge grabs rather often. Also, I think spamming one move will make it less powerful, and you have to land some normal hits on enemies before you can grab them reliably.
Also from my experience, while all styles are good in certain situations, some of them are useful in far fewer situations than others. Staggering enemies is good in any situation, wide area attacks and countering specific weapons aren't.

This is all irrelevant when you grab them on the ground, throw them, and leave them immediately down on the ground again, ready to throw again. When you grab them from behind to stand them up, the stun almost always bypasses their grabbing defenses.

Even if it's true that using the same combo would lose damage, it doesn't matter when you can still get a boss down to having barely any HP left on their final bar with trivial effort, enough so that any normal combo from whatever other style will beat them.

While it's extremely difficult to grab bosses normally, they're pretty weak to being grabbed while on the ground, which is a Beast Mode move.

This gets even more cheesy if you throw on grab+ items that increase your grab chances and do more throw damage. Not required, but ensures it's even more broken.

What I am describing might as well be considered cheating.

[Nightflash]

Originally posted by Cifer:

This question makes no sense, and neither do the previous answers. All styles are best in a given situation. Anyone claiming "x is best" has never actually tried getting somewhat good at the game.

You obviously don't need to get good at the game to beat it. You can use any style you want to beat the game even on Legend difficulty and all styles have multiple mechanics which can be abused to break the game. But this doesn't change the fact that there is an objectively best style for every situation and no style is universally better than another.

The only case in which this is true is if you really don't know how to use any of the styles. In this case styles like Beast where mindlessly mashing buttons will at least yield some results will obviously be better for you than mashing buttons using other styles.

PS: There's a guy going around claiming Beast is broken against bosses, but Beast is actually the least broken style for most of them for the very reasons I gave above: Most effective if you don't know how to use either of the styles properly, very slow and weak compared to a properly used Brawler or Rush. Brawler, especially when using it while drunk after you've unlocked the respective upgrades, is the best style for every single boss fight except for very fast bosses, where Rush is better. Both of these styles can dish out ten times as much damage as Beast by simply circling behind the boss and using the correct attack strings and heat actions. They also have reliable counters or counter heat actions which are OP.

For Majima, Mad Dog style breaks every single boss in the game. The counter is almost impossible to miss because of its huge time window and range, incapacitates the enemy and doesn't even need any heat to work. Before you get that style, Thug is generally best for bosses while Slugger is better against a select few of them.

I'm not sure if you read the title. It's just a ranking based on your own opinion, not some universal truth we're talking here.

[Atomas]

Originally posted by Saler:

From my experience, late game bosses tend to dodge grabs rather often. Also, I think spamming one move will make it less powerful, and you have to land some normal hits on enemies before you can grab them reliably.
Also from my experience, while all styles are good in certain situations, some of them are useful in far fewer situations than others. Staggering enemies is good in any situation, wide area attacks and countering specific weapons aren't.

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Originally posted by Saler:

From my experience, late game bosses tend to dodge grabs rather often. Also, I think spamming one move will make it less powerful, and you have to land some normal hits on enemies before you can grab them reliably.
Also from my experience, while all styles are good in certain situations, some of them are useful in far fewer situations than others. Staggering enemies is good in any situation, wide area attacks and countering specific weapons aren't.

This is all irrelevant when you grab them on the ground, throw them, and leave them immediately down on the ground again, ready to throw again. When you grab them from behind to stand them up, the stun almost always bypasses their grabbing defenses.

Even if it's true that using the same combo would lose damage, it doesn't matter when you can still get a boss down to having barely any HP left on their final bar with trivial effort, enough so that any normal combo from whatever other style will beat them.

While it's extremely difficult to grab bosses normally, they're pretty weak to being grabbed while on the ground, which is a Beast Mode move.

This gets even more cheesy if you throw on grab+ items that increase your grab chances and do more throw damage. Not required, but ensures it's even more broken.

What I am describing might as well be considered cheating.

Using the same heat move lessens damage, not regular moves like Beast's bear hug or literally every rush combo and finishing move (Y, triangle or right click after light attack string).

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by Atomas:

Originally posted by Saler:

From my experience, late game bosses tend to dodge grabs rather often. Also, I think spamming one move will make it less powerful, and you have to land some normal hits on enemies before you can grab them reliably.
Also from my experience, while all styles are good in certain situations, some of them are useful in far fewer situations than others. Staggering enemies is good in any situation, wide area attacks and countering specific weapons aren't.

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

This is all irrelevant when you grab them on the ground, throw them, and leave them immediately down on the ground again, ready to throw again. When you grab them from behind to stand them up, the stun almost always bypasses their grabbing defenses.

Even if it's true that using the same combo would lose damage, it doesn't matter when you can still get a boss down to having barely any HP left on their final bar with trivial effort, enough so that any normal combo from whatever other style will beat them.

While it's extremely difficult to grab bosses normally, they're pretty weak to being grabbed while on the ground, which is a Beast Mode move.

This gets even more cheesy if you throw on grab+ items that increase your grab chances and do more throw damage. Not required, but ensures it's even more broken.

What I am describing might as well be considered cheating.

Using the same heat move lessens damage, not regular moves like Beast's bear hug or literally every rush combo and finishing move (Y, triangle or right click after light attack string).

So this doesn't even factor in when cheesing then, since using heat moves is optional and more risky than just perpetuating the stun lock combo for as long as possible if you attempt to use anything but the simple grab heat moves or the heat move from behind.

Not to mention majority of your damage will come from the throws while building up heat anyways.

Anyways, next time I boot up the game I am definitely recording some video of this stuff, cause I cannot fathom how people don't see how broken it can be, other than they've never seen it and don't understand how to do it.

Other styles might be better in certain situations or especially if you apply skill, but the point is Beast Mode doesn't require any skill at all when you do this stuff. Hence why I call it cheese, nearly cheating, etc...

It's so easy that anyone could do it and beat most bosses without breaking a sweat, while they bore themselves to tears because it's so trivial that it's not enjoyable to play the game this way unless you really just want to skip boss fights like they don't exist.

[Crystal]

Haven't unlock any Legend modes yet. But so far I will rank the following styles:

6th - Rush - Fast but lightweight.
5th - Breaker - Too gimmicky for me. Fun for crowd control, but not for single target.
4th - Beast - Pure power. I like grabbing enemy legs and throwing in an endless loop.
3rd - Thug - Lots of heat actions. I seriously enjoy this.
2rd - Brawler - Nice, balanced style. It has both speed and power.
1st - Slugger - Pressing square, square + triangle, triangle, triangle is broken. Too OP.

Maybe after maxing out the abilities I can give a better review.

[Darc]

Kiryu's: I can't really rank them because they are very versatile and work in plenty of situations but if I have to rank them by usage it'll go.
-Rush: Amazing for bosses and Mr. Shakedown and can clear out enemies one by one really fast. Its great for building heat up since dodges build it up and you will be getting a good amount of hits in. It's downside to me is it's few heat actions and lack of grabs.
-Legend: It's Heat actions are pretty awesome and powerful enough. Has good strengths and is the tree that has the Tiger Drop.
-Beast: It's multi-target heat actions, wide swings, and being able to pick up and swing an object in one motion makes it extremely powerful for any mook rushes. It's also the only available style that can pick up enemies who were knocked down and can be cheesed as previously stated. I however tend to prefer speed and use it to thin out numbers before moving onto other styles.
-Brawler: Very balanced style with plenty of heat actions and a good counter attack. I use it for quite awhile and make sure to unlock as much as I can but once I get Kiryu's Legend style I tend to use it as a heat sink after building it with Rush.

Majima's: His styles are crazy fun to use minus slugger but unlike kiryu don't feel as versatile. Only one of his styles is able to grab and 2 of his styles are weapon-locked.
-Thug: This is such a fun and enjoyable style to use. It's his only style to have grabs which opens up a lot of heat actions he can use and is an effective heat sink. It's similar to both Kiryu's Rush in that you can chain 8-hits starting out and once you unlock upgrades you can keep it up indefinitely while building attack speed. Easily my most used because of its effectiveness both early and late game.
-Breaker: Like Thug its a very fun style to use and is very effective crowd control style and its you understand all its movements and attacks you can fly around while simultaneously keeping up attacks once you build up momentum. I drop it for boss fights since Thug and Legend are more easier and effective for those situations.
-Legend: It was hard to get into this style like Breaker but after understanding it I can I can reliably sustain Majima's frenzy which makes him crazy powerful. The Demonfire Dagger is locked to this style and lacks grabs.
-Slugger: I almost never use it outside of Majima's early-game where money is tight and the power from slugger is too good to pass by. Afterwards the other 3 styles are given priority to upgrading and this one is left in the dust since Majima's moneymaking is slower compared to Kiryu's and the other styles are more effective. The nunchuk bat animation is overpowered and generally not fun to use.

[BlueCollarFurry]

IMO Mad Dog is definetly the best because it's not only insanely fast and powerful but can't really be blocked due to so many of the attacks being knife slashes that break through defenses.

Slugger is a close second when upgraded purely because it deals so much damage so fast and tends to stagger enemies.

Dragon and Brawler (which play very similarly) aren't nearly as effective as Majima's styles but are the best all-around stances for Kiryu because they balance power and speed.

Beast can be highly effective in the right circumstances when a fight takes place in a crowded area with lots of eviromental weapons to pick up and level enemies with.

Breaker and Rush were both styles I didn't really use much because while amusing, both do such low damage they're really style over substance and more of just something fun to experiment with.

Thug I didn't really use enough to evaluate because Slugger became my default for Majima as soon as I got it right up until I unlocked Mad Dog.