DMC3 - Advanced Techniques and Esoteric Knowledge

DMC3 has a lot of depth to its combat system, but to truly excel at Styling and beating the harder difficulty modes, a lot of powerful but obscure techniques can be learned to improve your ability. This guide will list off every single one that I've been able to find so far, for your Devil-hunting convenience.

Jump Cancelling

Jumping on an enemy not only grants Dante some i-frames, it can also cancel the animation of any of his airborne attacks right after they land. This can be used with the basic airborne moves of weapons like Cerberus, Beowulf and Agni & Rudra to juggle enemies in the air while dealing lots of damage in a position where you can’t really be harmed, least of all by your helpless target. It’s very hard to do, but mastering it is a satisfying challenge for any player. High-level players tend to focus almost entirely on jump cancelling for their combos, combining Dante’s launcher attacks with strings of jump-cancelled aerial moves to grind down a target that can’t fight back.

Jump-cancelling should be treated as a rhythm game; there’s a certain cadence to moving between the jump and melee buttons and pressing them with the timing just right so the attack and jump animations end each other right after they take effect.

Most of the airborne moves of Dante’s Devil Arms are great for jump-cancelling, except moves like Helm Breaker, Sky Dance, and Air Play.

Jump Farming

A little-known mechanic is that jumping on enemies will gain you Devil Trigger energy despite the fact the action does not harm them in any way. Combine this with Air Trick to effectively farm an infinite amount of DT energy off of even a single enemy; better if it’s something like an inactive chess piece.

Shotgun Cancelling

Reminiscent of the old “shotgun twitching” technique from DMC1, jump cancelling also extends to the shotgun’s basic shots. Timing jumps right after firing will cancel the weapon’s recovery, allowing you to click off shots way faster than the game otherwise allows you to, even with Gunslinger. Granted, this technique only works on enemies that can’t be knocked down, but can be used for some solid gun DPS.

Guard Cancelling

An alternative means of animation-cancelling ground moves is by blocking with Royal Guard to interrupt the recovery. This can allow all sorts of stupid ♥♥♥♥ like spamming Spiral shots or Kalina Ann rockets. You can cancel the shotgun’s reload animation to spam shots faster, but most significantly cancel the final hit of numerous combos so you can keep wailing on your target without sending them away.

The best moves to Guard Cancel by far include the shots of Spiral and the Kalina Ann, but most importantly Nevan’s Reverb Shock. Guard Cancelling right after the guitar sound allows you to spam the attack, shearing right through a boss’ health.

Switch Cancelling

The Spiral has some of the highest damage of all of Dante’s guns, but with the caveat that it’s really slow to fire and immobilises Dante. However, swapping to the weapon while spam-shooting with Ebony & Ivory causes it to fire instantly. You can then swap back to the pistols while spamming the shoot button and then to Spiral to keep repeating the process, dishing out basic shots way faster than you should be able to. You can use this to achieve some serious ranged DPS as Dante for when you’d prefer to kill at a distance.

The Kalina Ann with its high damage is also a great candidate for switch cancelling; both Ebony & Ivory and the shotgun work well for getting it to fire off shots way faster.

This same swapping logic can be applied in general to all weapons; one way to cancel recovery animations is to change to your other equipped weapon, which helps a lot for weapons such as Nevan and helps keep up a rapid attack cadence. All you need to do in order to execute switch-cancelling is to change weapon as the attack ends. You can consider it an alternative to jump cancelling, as it works in the air with the added bonus of being able to combine the aerial attacks of multiple weapons for greatest effect.

Guard Buffering

Guard Buffering is a special technique of Royal Guard usage wherein the player executes a roll or short jump immediately before blocking, so that the block starts the moment the i-frames end. This eliminates the possibility of the attack landing early and damaging Dante, guaranteeing a block; but it is best used on certain attacks that have large hit windows.

On something like Nevan electrifying the whole room, a well-timed Guard Buffering will guarantee a perfect block, and the same can be said for many other attacks, such as the teleporting attacks of the Mission 2 boss. Even on weaker enemies, always adding a quick hop before your blocks ensures that the block lands, allowing you to get the most out of Royal Guard.

You can even use the same technique to land a Royal Release as well. Learning this technique is crucial for proper usage of Royal Guard, and adds to the depth of the hardest to master but most rewarding Style.

I can personally attest to how absolutely busted Guard Buffering is. With nothing more than a tap of the jump button before each block, you don’t even need to get the timing right to land those Royal Blocks and boss-killing Royal Releases.

Crazy Combos

The Crazy Combos are the button-mash moves (6 presses required) that can be performed out of a range of specific attacks. All are very strong and worth doing, but the input lag the game has makes them difficult to pull off in many cases. Style Switcher can be used to make this less strenuous.

More importantly, your current Style rank affects the power of Crazy Combos by extending the number of hits they can inflict. Almost everything, from Point Blank to Hyper Fist, gets a substantial extension to the max number of presses and thus hits they can inflict before finishing the enemy.

Only the Crazy Combos that are inherently short (Satellite, Million Carats, Tempest, Crazy Roll) are unaffected by this enhancement.

Prop Shredder is similarly enhanced, becoming a far faster and longer attack that can inflict more than 30 hits.

Crazy Buffering

Crazy Buffering is a technique that allows you to execute Crazy Combos more easily, notably the ones that must be done out of very short attacks (i.e. Tempest, Point Blank). The way it works is that you start inputting the command for the attack during the animation of another attack (preferably one with a long animation) so that the moment it ends you’ll perform the Crazy Combo right away. It makes for a handy technique if the option of using Style Switcher to reduce required input is out of the question.

Quicksilver Guarding

The initial activation of Quicksilver, as it turns out, grants Dante a series of i-frames during which he cannot be harmed at all. With good timing, you can use this to effectively block certain attacks without expending much DT energy.

Charging Attacks

A few weapons (Rebellion, Artemis, etc) have attacks that can be charged. Initially, you may be averse to using them due to the time investment necessary (during which Dante is assumedly vulnerable), but the real value in such attacks comes from the fact that they can be charged while you’re doing other things.

For example, Artemis is used best when you charge it via holding the shoot/Gunslinger button while executing something like a melee combo, and then releasing the attack at the right moment to juggle your target with Multi-Lock or send out a distributed salvo to stagger a surrounding crowd and keep them off you. Charging Rebellion’s Drive is harder to do, but you could charge it out of something like a High Time-gunshot juggle combo and execute it after landing, during Free Ride or charge it during Gunslinger moves. You can also charge shots for Ebony & Ivory during melee attacks, and charge Judgement Cut during recovery animations of other attacks.

Beowulf also has a majority of moves that can be charged, most importantly its uppercut. These attacks can only be charged by making Dante stand still and vulnerable, so it’s best to only do so when you’re in a good position, ideally your target is stunned and you’re not getting crowded. The charging mechanic exemplifies Beowulf’s specialty in maximum damage to individual targets.

DT Explosions

Holding the DT button will charge up the eventual activation, the power level and cost designated by how many DT runes are currently glowing. At any time while charging you can release the DT button to expend all highlighted runes, releasing a massive explosion that deals damage based on the spent runes. A maximum-power explosion can easily clear whole rooms of enemies, and considering how DMC3’s DT in general is the weakest of the franchise, this is a “meta” method of DT energy usage amongst high-level players for the raw damage output.

Ebony & Ivory’s True DPS

Oft-overlooked due to Gunslinger being generally unpopular, its abilities for Ebony & Ivory can be abused to achieve ridiculous DPS that makes the weapon able to deliver some serious hurt to bosses. It works by combining the benefits of the Rapid Fire passive with Gunslinger’s damage boost and the effects of Twosome Time.

All you need to do is alternate between mashing the shoot button and Style button; the constant switching between normal shots and Twosome Time screws with the game and makes you dish out a lot more damage than you should.

Doppelganger Co-Op

If a second controller is connected while Doppelganger is active, the person using it can press the start button to take control of the Doppelganger and play alongside the other person as long as the Doppelganger is active. This has huge potential for two-player fun, although it does require use of a certain costume in order to keep it around and prevents the use of DT explosions. This can also be done during the second phase of the Arkham boss fight where Vergil shows up, allowing Dante-Vergil co-op.

While really cool, it is ultimately a novelty.

Boss Vulnerabilities

Agni & Rudra’s fire damage are extra-strong on Cerberus since he’s an ice elemental. Add to that the wide reach of the weapon hitting his multiple hitboxes, and you have a natural counter.

Another boss with exploitable hitbox design is the Gigapede, specifically with Beowulf’s Real Impact. When you use it from below the boss as it starts to pass over Dante, the attack will hit the hitbox of each of its segments as it moves, inflicting massive damage.

The ice-fire vulnerability also works in reverse. The very fast attack speed of Cerberus (especially its Revolver attack) is the perfect tool to parry Agni & Rudra’s slashes and trivialise the boss fight.

[Omen]

how come this has so few comments? its really nice and helpful

[Gaearth]

I'm learning so much from here; why is this guide not more popular? Is it just common knowledge among veteran players?