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Rabbit & Steelblends together roguelike upgrades, MMO raiding, and bullet hell gameplay in a way that can be challenging to get into. There’s a lot of detail in the game’s systems and interactions that make it difficult to reach the peak of the Lunar Palace.
Learning to master Rabbit & Steel requires you to excel in skill, coordination, and strategy. The best Touhou players will still die if they don’t work well as a team. Here are a few tips to get you started, whether you’re familiar with any of the genres the game draws inspiration from or not.
Choose A Class That Fits Your Strengths
People coming into the game from different adjacent genres are going to click better with certain characters. Working out which of the starting or unlockable classes fits best for your playstyle is going to depend on how well you mesh with their kit.
New Players
Heavyblade Rabbit
Deal damage with your primary attack,saving your special and defensive moves as panic buttonsif you get caught out of position or cannot dodge.
The Heavyblade is the most straightforward character the game offers. You’ll deal high damage from purely your primary attack, andyou have two different moves that grant invulnerability.
Bullet Hell Veterans
Wizard Rabbit
A common tactic from other bullet hell games is to stay near the bottom of the screen anddodge within a small area, which fits well into this class.
The Wizard Rabbitbenefits from staying in a single locationwhile casting slow spells like Dimi Moonburst and Astral Seal.
MMO Veterans
Assassin Rabbit
Use precise ability rotations and quick thinking toshadowstep through the most dangerous attacksand top the DPS ranking with assassinate.
The Assassin is forgiving on dodgesas long as you have a good understanding of her abilities. Experience from WoW or FFXIV will make up for any shortfalls in precision movement.
Rhythm Gamers
Dancer And Druid Rabbits
Keep a consistent pattern on your abilities to free your mind from dodging enemy attacks.
Both the Dancer and Druidbenefit from sequencing their abilities in repeating patternswith less improvisation than the other classes.
Learn To Rotate Your Abilities
Each of the classes plays to a different rhythm that can take a bit of getting used to. The global and individual cooldowns of different characters fall into regular patterns you’re able to learn to cast for consistent effects.
Some classes will use their defensive skills as part of their attack rotation.The assassin’s Shadowstep is reset by her basic attacksand empowers her special attack, making it a useful offensive tool when it isn’t needed for survival.
Always Be Attacking
Most of the damage you deal comes from stacking up basic attackswhenever you have the opportunity. Almost every character has one attack they can spam while dodging and at a distance. The gold and experience you gain in a fight depend on the time spent beating the enemy.
Some characters can do this more effectively.The Wizard and Heavyblade classes strugglebecause their primaries are slow or short-ranged, while the Druid’s secondary and special inflict consistent damage regardless of what else they’re doing.
On hard difficulty, this becomes especially important.Enemies will be enraged when a fight extends too long, quickly ending your run. For most fights, this won’t appear as long as you’re always casting your primary attack, but particularly nimble boss battles can last if you aren’t making full use of your skills and items.
Know Your Teammates' Defensive Skills
You don’t need to have a full understanding of all characters' kits, but it is invaluable torecall what defensive skills your team has access to.
Learn To Make Callouts
Multiplayer is made much easier if you’re good at coordinating with your team.Your partners won’t immediately notice attacks that require you to group up or spread out if they’re centered on you and vice versa. Even if you’re able to negate a hit using your defensive moves,your allies can be caught off guard.
Good team rhythm is also important tomanaging the classes that give group buffs. For example, if two Heavyblades block at the same time, one of the cooldowns is wasted. A Druid’s speedbuff used without warning can nudge somebody into an attack they would otherwise dodge.
Agood boss for learning this type of teamwork is found in the Scholar’s Nest. Her final phase alternates patterns of special attacks that require grouping up and spreading out while dodging more conventional projectiles simultaneously.
Gemstone Upgrades Can Have Downsides
The gemstone upgrades offered in the shop can change how a character plays, needing you tocarefully compare the upgraded and base versions.
Here are some common gemstone effects to keep an eye on: They’re upgrades if you have no other items or upgrades, but the important part iswhether they work with or against your other items and upgrades.
Be Careful Of Items That Reduce Movespeed
Just about every attack pattern in the game can be dodged by a skilled player without needing to use a defensive skill. This remains true until you collect two items from the Ruins Set that give significant speed penalties.Certain attacks are functionally unavoidable if you accept loot that reduces your speed.
This doesn’t mean these items are unusable: Most of the treasures that slow your character also provide powerful buffs to damage or defense. In other cases, the downsides can be compensated for:A Heavyblade doesn’t need to worry about reduced move speedwhen they can close distances by jumping.
Identical Debuffs Can’t Stack
The way buffs and debuffs of the same name interact can be confusing.A character can have multiple versions of the same effect applied to them,but an item or skill cannot stack with itself.
This greatly changes the value of treasures such as the Sparkblade weapons or Poison set. Applying poison to each hit of a multi-hit attack will have a much smaller impact on DPS than descriptions might indicate. Similarly, long-lasting poisons don’t prevent you from applying other damaging effects on top of them.
