I need a unique fighting style for my character

Started by Chaririley February 28th, 2013 2:57 PM
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Seen July 15th, 2013
Posted July 15th, 2013
16 posts
11.1 Years
I'm writing a mystery dungeon fanfic and all of my team has a unique fighting style except for Absol. The team goes;
Pikachu (uses electric powers)
Combusken (uses powerful kicks, sometimes combining them with his fire powers)
Golurk (uses powerful punches, as well as numerous self-made weapons)
Teddiursa (kind of complicated. Basically he has the ability to temporarily transform into an Ursaring, where his fighting style is entirely based on physical strength and hand-to-hand combat)
Nuzleaf (uses different seeds - Blast Seeds, Sleep Seeds, etc - to shoot at opponents)
Castform (uses weather-based fighting style)
Scyther (uses swordsmanship with scythes)
Kricketune (uses swordsmanship with scythes - similar to Scyther - combined with singing attacks - Sing, Perish Song, etc)

Absol is the only one I can't think of a unique fighting style for. Her movepool doesn't focus on any particular type of moves. I want her fighting style to focus on mainly one thing, I don't want her to just use a variety of moves. Any ideas?
Age 36
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I want to say that you can have Absol be a sneaky character, using some control over shadows to sneak around and surprise attack anyone with her blades. Looking over the types of moves that Absol learns, that would be my best guess for what to do with her. Absol just seems to me to be a sneaky fighter.

Don't know if this answer will help, but it's what I could think of.

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bobandbill

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Yeah, going to have to agree there. Dark types as a general rule are about sneaky/rough moves (Faint Attack, Bite, Sucker Punch are all moves Absol gets for instance).

Another aspect to consider is that Absol has both Swords Dance and moves designed to hit hard and/or fast. (Me First, Feint, Pursuit, Quick Attack, Sucker Punch being moves with a sort of priority, and moves based on higher critical-hit rates like Night Slash, Razor Wind, Slash, Psycho Cut). So there's another direction to consider as well if you want.

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Cutlerine

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Seen March 15th, 2014
Posted November 15th, 2013
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Absol's main unique quality is critical hits: the ability Super Luck and a plethora of high-crit-rate moves. It's an all-or-nothing sort of Pokémon: powerful in attacking and moderately fast, but able to be laid out, in most cases, in a single hit. That and its uncanny ability to predict disaster are its defining traits, and so far your characters' fighting styles seem to be based on their species' defining traits.

So what does that mean for your character? I'd say her style would be based around luck and mild clairvoyance. Chance glimpses mid-combat of the opponent's next move in her minds' eye would allow her to evade attacks with near-supernatural grace and ease; her actual attacks might not be so effective, but by making effective use of her prediction abilities, perhaps she could gain the breathing space necessary to perform some kind of 'critical hit', which for the purposes of this proposal I'm thinking would be some form of charged attack with far greater power than a normal one. (This also chimes nicely with Razor Wind - which is, by the way, one of the most inexplicable Pokémon moves of all time.) Alternatively, thinking about Absol's array of priority moves, she might utilise her clairvoyance to predict where the opponent will be and strike at its weak point before it can even move (which would also fit well with the idea of critical hits).

I don't know if any of that was helpful - or if it even made sense - but I think that's what I'd do, anyway.

Good luck with your story!

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RedWing

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Seen December 27th, 2016
Posted May 23rd, 2013
146 posts
10.3 Years
It depends on the character's personality, really.

Diversity is always good, and from your list I can see that any battles you write up will be very diverse indeed. However, you seem to be focusing more on each individual's strategic points rather than a unique characteristic in how they fight.

As suggested, Absol can easily be the "Lucky" fighter, seeming to pull through an otherwise failed situation thanks to Super Luck, but that doesn't leave much to the imagination, does it? It actually sounds a bit Mary-Sue and incredibly cliche.

Instead of focusing on a way to make Absol unique as far as her attack combinations or abilities, what about the execution of her attacks? Will she simply charge in and strike, or sneak around to lay a preemptive blow?

Also, imagine reading these battles from the perspective of someone who has no idea what your characters are like. You clearly know everything about Absol, or at least have a general idea, and are therefore able to understand why she fights the way she does and in your head, picturing the battle is clear as day and completely epic. But, to a third-party reader, they may look at Absol's battle style, or any of your character's for that matter, and find it boring or cheesy.

I'm a bit all over the place with this, but here's my suggestion: Imagine a way of battling that can be easily described and pictured and can be made uniquely Absol's. For example, maybe she's more limber than the other Pokemon, allowing to not so much charge in for an attack, but almost dance, as if her battles are long-drawn-out dance numbers and each move is a calculated part of the whole.

Sorry. I'm a bit of a scatterbrain as a writer, but I hope you got the gist of what I was saying.