Alright! So, since we're starting this guide off strong, we'll start with the very basics. This may sound silly, but hey. You never know. So it will assume you're not too privy on fighting games primarily, despite sharing universally helpful things.

Disclaimer: This is all subject to some opinions here and there but I would really rather people gauge for themselves on some things. This is mainly here just incase I say something like "X is useful for Purpose 1, and Y isn't as good for Purpose 1 or Purpose 2." or anything of that which can possibly be interpreted as misinformation rather than an opinion or personal thoughts of me, said author.

This guide will primarily be showcasing in-game video examples and screenshots assuming the player is using Love Heart (Or Heart with the Love Arcana). Do not be alarmed if something seems off or if you picked a different combo and got different results for things. Arcanas change the game a lot and sometimes a character too.

Arcana Heart 3 is a fighting game where you get to play with cute little anime girls and beat the hell out of other anime girls. The game has a fair amount of fancy features to separate it from others. Such as the Arcana System, the level of control over your homing capabilities and the general way that influences the dynamic of the gamescape in order to produce a fair amount of decently interesting matches or unique fights you can't say you've had much elsewhere.

Sounds nice, right? Well, let's get into it then.

From here on out, it's explaining time and information time.


Ah, yes. A relatively simple one.

1. General Information. Character Portrait, Arcana Portrait and your Character name is here. How cute.
   
   
2. Your HP Bar. Scary, isn't it. Knowing you have to chew away at others...or have them chew away at you. Or something.
   
   
3. General area where unique gauges for characters go. (See: Dark Heart's Infiltrate Gauge on the right.) Usually near the higher end of your health bar rather than the lower.
   
   
4. Arcana Gauge. This is basically your meter.
   
   
5. The Timer. Contrary to popular belief, 60 seconds in this game is, in fact, not 60 seconds in the real world.
   
   
6. Extend Force Gauge. A special meter for special things i'll explain later.

Now that you know where everything is for the most part, we can move on to the next bout of things.

Alright, you can change your controls. That's fine.

Macros are what we'll be going over mainly here as for A through E explains everything that they do but i'll list them anyway.

• A - Light Attack. These are fast. Usually. They're also weak or lightweight.
  
• B - Medium Attack. The middle ground. Usually reserved for good pokes or average buttons you'll use often.
  
• C - Heavy Attack. Big meaty boys. Usually slow but hard hitting. For those coming from certain other fighting games, these do not function as a button to make specials do EX Variants or to activate most super moves.
  
• D - Homing Attack. This isn't an attack but rather a button you press to go homing at someone. Kinda just zoom at them. We'll get into that later.
  
• E - Arcana. This governs all your Arcana related things. What's an Arcana you ask? Well, i'll get into that later too but the short and simple is a universal moveset that can be added to any character. The E button is your gateway to using such a moveset.
  
  
• A+B Macro - Most supers in the game are activated with A+B. 236AB, 214214AB, 623AB, so on. It's your Super Macro basically.
  
• B+C Macro - Your Arcana Eclipse uses this mainly. Otherwise serves as a gateway to easier usage of certain OSes and critical hearts. Never used it myself for a reason you'll see listed below.
  
• A+D Macro - Throw macro. Wanna grab? A+D.
  
• C+E Macro - Burst Macro. You CAN BURST RAW. That means you don't have to be getting hit. Meaning you may accidentally mash or fat-finger into your burst macro if you have this set up. You've been warned.
  
• A+B+C Macro - Your Arcana Blaze uses this. All Arcana Blazes are 236ABC. All Arcana Eclipses are 214BC. So you just can use this for both of them.

Now you know the general basics of the controls this game has. A, B, C, D and E. There's many commands within them, mostly in regards to the homing. But we're done here for now. We can go onto the more interesting things now.

Now, you know the controls, now you wanna get into the game! Beat some people up.

Look no further. As with any fighting game, the process of beating someone up begins with selecting a character to beat someone up with. But even then, you have to know what makes this game different from all the rest before we can continue. So!


When you first attempt to battle, you'll have to pick a character. For the sake of this guide serving a consistent purpose, I suggest you pick Normal Heart. Not Dark Heart, the normal one. Now. When you get to the character select screen and select a character, you'll see a mode option.


Normal Mode is the way the game was designed. Normal inputs, so on.

However, as in games such as Blazblue and Guilty Gear...



Simple Mode
If you wanna know what that's about, you can just go here.
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1284914892

It explains it good enough. Just know, it's an option if you're not too accustomed to fighting games or whatever other reason for desiring as such.

Once you get past the character selection menu, you'll then see the main draw of the game. The Arcana Selection.

Arcanas are, as I previously mentioned in the section before this one, essentially movesets you can equip to a character. They have passives, effects such as giving you extra jumps, so on. You can mix and match any combo of them. Playing Heart and wanna play with more mobility or speed? Try using the Wind Arcana. Now you're Wind Heart and get to zyoom around everywhere jumping and air dashing and pushing people away. Yay.

Wanna teleport behind people and poison them to death on hit or something? Play with the Evil Arcana then. Wanna be a budget puppet character? Play with the Dark Arcana then. Wanna emphasize, say, your own strengths? Well, there's probably an arcana do to exactly just that for your character. They entirely can change matchups as well as your strengths and sometimes weaknesses. Both good and bad at times, others just good depending on usage.

Now as you look at the Arcana Select screen, you might notice. "Attack and Defense?"
Attack is not more damage. It's actually a rating of how much HP you add or reduce for the opponent.
Defense is not taking less damage. It's actually a rating of how much HP you add or reduce for yourself.

More stars equal a more potent effect for this.

Let's look at Love and Punishment.



Punishment has 5 Attack Stars and 0.5 Defense Stars.
Love has 2 Attack Stars and 3.5 Defense Stars.

Love should always be used as the reference. Because it doesn't add or subtract HP for either the opponent or the player using it. This doesn't mean that anything with 2 Attack Stars and 3.5 Defense Stars will always equal a null result but it means it'll be very close and is reasonable to assume it won't affect you as much as something such as...Punishment's 0.5 Defense Stars versus Love's 3.5 Defense Stars.

Less than 3.5 Defense Stars typically means you're losing HP. You have less of it.
Less than 2 Attack Stars typically means you're increasing the enemy's HP.

More than 3.5 Defense Stars typically means you're gaining HP. You have more of it.
More than 2 Attack Stars typically means you're reducing the enemy's HP.


Regardless, that should be easy to understand but to somewhat shorten it.
Arcanas are not additional characters or tag team tier characters. They are just sets of extra moves and passives that you can freely select to add onto your character of choice to gain its benefits. They come with their own Supers and their own Unique Supers called Arcana Eclipses and Arcana Blazes. Some have enough potency to entirely classify a character with a specific arcana as an entirely different one due to access to different tools and health modifiers.

Note: The Frame Rate of Examples are often intentionally lowered beyond the norm in order to make things more visible/clear and consistent.

Homing. The real fun part to just mindlessly do. You press your D button and you go zooming.
No matter where they are, no matter where you are. You FLY. Yep. You FLY.

It doubles as a grounded speed dash of sorts, a cancel tool, as well as general approaching and mobility tools. It's a very fundamental and crucial part of the game. You don't have to utilize it if you're really confident but I would advise you to anyhow since the higher you go, the more important it'll be to prevent yourself from getting destroyed or something strange like that.

The best part is, you can home up to twice before touching the ground. So even if you get stuck, you might have another chance to continue that epic air battle you're going for.

You can also activate most any attack out of your homing, which means you can fight in the air, clash in the air, jump in with attacks, so on, so on. Experiment a bit! Cross up! Mix up! So on!

You can home in many ways. Some Arcanas even change the properties of homing but we'll assume you're using Love now and save that for you to discover.

There's eight main ways to commit homing. I'll briefly go over all of them.

Note: All homing methods can and will be stopped if you hit the ground at any time. Just hold down to go towards...the ground.

• Grounded Homing - Just homing on the ground. Just press D while not airborne and that is considered 'grounded' homing by my standards. Generalization rather than an official or rather 'official' term.
  
  
• Aerial Homing - Same as Grounded Homing just in the air instead of on the ground.
  
  
• Neutral Homing - 5D or j5D. Neutral Homing has the main advantage of stopping in place before you home in towards your opponent. You'll see a blue circle appear around you before heading forth.
  
  Grounded Neutral Homing Example [imgur.com]
  Aerial Neutral Homing Example [imgur.com]
  
  You can do this specific kind of homing up to twice before hitting the ground.
  
  
• Directional Homing - Any directional D (j1D, j2D, j3D, 4D, j4D, 6D, j6D, j7D, j8D, j9D). The advantage of this is that when you move in your desired direction in the air, you will momentarily move towards that direction before homing like normal.
  
  On the ground, 4D moves you back before dashing forward. 6D moves you forward instantly which makes it good for combos.
  
  j7D Directional Homing Example.[imgur.com]
• Forward Guard Cancel Homing - 6D while in blockstun while you have one bar of meter. What this does is initiate homing with a special effect. Assuming you have the Love Arcana and not something like the Earth Arcana, then you'll get a golden shield that appears in front of you that will Intersect (Or Clash, for the normal kinds.) any attacks made towards it for a brief moment.
  
  You can do this in the air too. It can be a real game changer sometimes since it will catch most moves if they're not delayed. You can cancel out of it into a move afterwards as well but that's not suggested.
  
  Forward Guard Cancel Example [imgur.com]
  
  
• Backwards Guard Cancel Homing - 4D while in blockstun while you have one bar of meter. Same exact thing as the Forward Guard just you go backwards instead. It can give you I-Frames on hopping backwards so consider that.
  
  
• Homing Cancel - Any variant of D after any applicable attack (Usually normals). Homing Cancels are one of the main forms of combo fodder and structure. Usually used after a launcher or to continue a combo on the ground.
  
  Homing Cancel Example[imgur.com]

With that, you now know about the general idea behind Arcanas as well as basic homing information.

So. You know what's up now. You know the basic button functionalities. You know what an Arcana is. You know the basics to homing. So now it's time to move into the next step. Having you go even deeper on the knowledge of Arcanas.

Simple one. You have meter in this game but it's not the traditional kind you may be used to. In many fighting games, you often just hit enemy and get meter and it's not capped by anything.

In AH3, due to how meter regen works in this game, both players start off with 1 Bar of meter and doing attacks, blocking hits, whatever will increase the maximum amount of meter for the rest of the fight. This process is sped up if you stay at your maximum meter and do as such.

Why is it like this? Because your meter automatically regenerates, quite fast too at that. You will essentially always have at least one bar of meter to work with every 2-3 seconds that you're not doing anything essentially. It's why the pace of the game is fast but still balanced around needing to manage your meter effectively. Just because you can fly and homing cancel here and there and all that and you seem like you're doing it often, you'll notice that your lack of meter or because you've been blowing it most the fight that you're still stuck at a cap of 1.5 bars of meter can come to kick your ass later.

Different Arcanas also give you different meter gain properties but that's advanced stuff so don't worry about it for now. Just know if you find inconsistency with meter gain results, that is why.

Example Link here. [imgur.com]

Using that link above as reference, notice how when I hit the enemy while i'm at my meter max, I get more max meter to work with? Yet notice when I use my supers, I have my missing meter in red? I don't get more max meter then until i'm at my cap already but I gain my normal meter back just as much while it's missing. So if I keep blowing my meter away on supers, sure, they're easy to confirm and get me damage but I don't get access as fast to that second bar of meter to work with which can be a game changer as well.

To shorten that.

• Try to not use meter where it isn't needed or won't be as helpful to increase overall meter.
  
• Abuse the fact that you will regain meter automatically.
  
• Be willing to sometimes value your meter over damage. More meter usually means more damage or oppression.

One of the gauges that every character gets is their Force Gauge, which is primarily utilized for bursting or entering the fabled Extend Force state.

What's Extend Force? Why, it's a powered up state that anyone can enter at any time. It's similar to things such as Overdrive from Blazblue, Chroming Rose and Hellfire from Guilty Gear, Limit Break from Dragon Ball FighterZ if you could opt-in temporarily, so on, so on.

At its core, not accounting for Arcana modifiers, increases the speed of all of your moves which means they come out faster and recover faster. This means you can loop certain things more easily as well as do combos you normally couldn't as a result. You get pretty notably faster, more so with the Time Arcana.

This is a powerful ability as is, so experiment with it a lot. You can only use it while grounded though and the duration and recovery times depends on how you used it and what arcana you're using.

If you burst, it will take quite a while to recover. If you use an EFC, then it'll last a lot less longer. If you use it raw, it'll last the longest time. So on.

Extend Force Speed Difference Example[imgur.com]
Notice the difference after I start in Extend Force? I'm rather faster. This can be applied in a variety of ways.

But wait, there's more. Extend Force also has a functionality that allows you to use it akin to a Rapid Cancel or Roman Cancel. You can cancel it out of most things, on hit or block but never on whiff. That's what the aforementioned "EFC" is. Extend Force Cancel.

It's pretty much what it says. You use your Extend Force to cancel and return to neutral. So if you're pressing a button, and you wanna be safe, just extend force and boom. It's now safe. Pretty crucial to quite a few things.


Extend Force Cancel Combo Example 1[imgur.com]
Extend Force Cancel Combo Example 2[imgur.com]

You can, however, also use it when you're in blockstun to utilize it as a pseudo-burst of sorts.
It'll blow an enemy away but they can bait it just like a normal burst so be careful. It'll put you in extend force regardless though so you can use that to your advantage. Just like normal bursting and EFCs, you get a longer regen time for utilizing your EF like this.

Now that you know what Extend Force is, there's another important thing to know, something every character has access to, alongside their Arcanas.

Every Arcana shares 3 things in common. Having an Extend Force Effect, Having an Arcana Eclipse and an Arcana Blaze.

Extend Forces vary their mileage on the Arcana and Character themselves but Arcana Eclipses and Arcana Blazes are basically your Extend Force-exclusive Arcana Supers. Arcanas have supers too, but Eclipse and Blazes can only be utilized when you're actively in Extend Force.



As you can see, it strictly says "During [Spasenie]" which is my Extend Force. They all have the same input between all Arcanas.

ABC for Extend Force
214BC for Arcana Eclipse
236ABC for Arcana Blaze.

Extend Forces are usually utilized as cancels or to wield your passive effect as a tool to be respected. Earth gets super armor during their EF, Time moves even faster to the point where your moves are so fast, you have Time EF exclusive combos. Wind lets you commit more Air Dash cancel shenanigans, Love allows you to cancel your specials and supers into your Arcana moves, Fire makes your attacks explode (literally) on any hit (even blocked hits). Evil makes your hits poison, so on, so on.

Eclipses are typically used as combo enders or punish tools. Love shoots a ton of lasers which can be good for forcing the enemy to stay back since they go full screen. Punishment slashes around a ton, which can make it easy to get ground bounces where something might otherwise launch an enemy, Ice just shoots a fast but slightly short ranged long spike of ice upwards, which makes it a good combo ender as well. So on. Basically, if you don't know how to use one of your Eclipses, try ending combos with them or using them when you think you can punish someone.

Blazes are big boy ones. These can be used in a variety of ways for most Arcanas. They put your Force Gauge on a bit of a long cooldown if you get them (See: Your gauge will be Red) but they tend to be worth it for the most part. Time...time stops, Love sends what is essentially a spirit bomb downwards that's air unblockable, Punishment is a knowledge check that swings a huge sword downwards and punishes anyone too defensive or not knowing to try and stop its long startup, Wind sends a very fast grounded shockwave that does big damage if it lands, making it great as a punish tool. Blood gives you meter back and increases your max meter (still within the limits.)
Some are special effects, some are aimed towards a particular playstyle, some are command grabs even, some are real good combo enders, so on. Find what works best for you. There's not really much else to say or show here, considering from here it's just a matter of preference and finding what works for you in this regard.

Both Arcana Eclipse and Arcana Blaze will have the same power before proration scaling no matter where you use it and it will END your Extend Force. This means if you have 1% of your EF Timer left, you'll still get the same value as if you used the Blaze or Eclipse at 100% of your EF Timer left.

Although, I will say. There's some Arcanas that just work very well for your character but it doesn't mean you have to pick them. You can try to make your playstyle unique or play an uncommonly played Arcana to have some form of leverage that really helps in niche scenarios. Up to you.

I'm not sure if this really constitutes as a 'guide' since i'm really just telling you general system mechanics and examples of them. I'm aware I didn't quite tell you exactly how to utilize what i've told you.

That was intended. You've the knowledge, I hope that it at least clears up some confusion and helps you get into the game better or easier so that you don't end up wondering how you did something or what button/conditions you had to do something.

I hope everyone, new and maybe old-but-just-returning get some level of value from this 'guide'. If not, well. Uhh. Damn.

As always, you can ask me or go to one of the AH3Cords or look up some info if you need to know anything specific or just wanna play some matches or want suggestions. Just know, I play this game in the incredibly goofy way rather than the super competitive way.

Having lots of style and flair doesn't necessarily mean optimal, but it's sure as hell fun sometimes to me when all the wacky stuff happens.

Also feel free to correct me on something if I got anything wrong and what have you.

Feel free to add me as a friend, ask for my Discord, whatever, blahblahblah. That's the usual stuff.


That's all.

Bye.



...






Really.

Control List:
A - Light Attacks
B - Medium Attacks
C - Heavy Attacks
D - Homing Button
E - Arcana Button

Common Commands:
236X
214X
623X
421X
22X
641236X
632146X

Common Notation:
EF = Extend Force
HC = Homing Cancel
AB = Arcana Blaze
AE = Arcana Eclipse
EFC = Extend Force Cancel
AG = Arcana Gauge (But I just call it meter.)
FG = Force Gauge
XH = Critical Heart
GC = Guard Cancel (4GC for Backwards Guard Cancel, 6GC for Forward Guard Cancel)

Note: Below are strict opinions on what I believe are as such.

Most Beginner Friendly Character: Heart Aino
Most Beginner Friendly Arcana: Love
Most Basic BNB for near every character: 5A > 5B > 5C > 236x > 236AB
Least Beginner Friendly Character: Lieselotte
Least Beginner Friendly Arcana: Mirror

Generalized Easy BNB Structure: Whatever > Something that trips (usually 2C) > Forward Homing Cancel > 5A or 5B > jump cancel > j.A > j.B > jump cancel > j.A > j.B > Downwards Ender (Usually j.E or j.C or 214x or a super for some characters)

Whatever > Something that launches (usually 2E) > Homing Cancel > j.A > j.B > jump cancel > j.A > j.B > Downwards Ender (Still usually j.E or j.C or 214x or a super for some characters)

Note: Based on questions i've been asked a lot already since the XTEND Update came out. I'll add more if I deem it fit or you just ask me and it's important enough.

Q: What's with the branding image?
A: I just put whatever was there and forgot to change it. Maybe i'll change it later to something more AH Related. For now, we're Hex Maniac hours.

Q: Is this game dead? People say it's dead all the time.
A: Probably? Will it get revived? Don't know. I just play the game and don't have any right to determine if the game is dead or not since while public matches are a bit hard to find, I haven't remotely gone out of my way to attempt to find any matches in private or on the AH Discords and what have you.

I've found some games to be full of life and you just had to go to the discord and such. So, I can't tell you if this game is truly dead or not outside of using some steam playtime numbers or 24h peak numbers as reference.

Q: Alright. Why can't I dash?
A: Because everyone only has step dashes unless you have the Ice Arcana. However, lack of a step dash can mess up some combos ironically due to frame differences.

Q: I just jumped off the wall! How'd I do that?
A: Get wall slammed then hold D. If you're already near the wall, just hold back then quickly dash forward to jump off of it.

Q: You never explained what a Critical Heart is. What is it?
A: Think of it as an ultimate move that just does big damage or gives you unique effects. It is not an instant kill. It requires 3 bars of meter. It can be used at any time as long as you have the meter. Some characters (such as Pistrix and Minori) may need certain buffs active to use theirs.

If you're in Extend Force, you have a powered up and sometimes different version of your Critical Heart.

Q: How do I commit Grabbing???
A: A+D. Takes a slight bit of timing to do out of Homing.

Q: How do I commit Bursting???
A: ABC while blocking for an Extend Force Burst or C+E at any time for a more traditional burst.

Q: Why did I burst despite the enemy not hitting me?
A: You can burst at any time. Including when you're not getting hit.

Q: Why did someone tell me to look up Love Heart combos? What's a Love Heart?
A: People often refer to Arcana-Character combos as such. Love Heart is Heart with the Love Arcana. Where as Wind Heart is Heart with the Wind Arcana. Then you get funny ones like Love Dark Heart. Dark is an Arcana too, but Dark Heart is a character but Heart is a character too, and Heart is cute and speaks about love a lot.

So am I telling you that I love playing Dark Heart? Am I telling you that I'm playing the character, Dark Heart with the Love Arcana? Or am I telling you I love playing Heart with the Dark Arcana?
You decide.

I personally just call Dark Heart DHeart as a result of already suffering through this.

Q: I saw someone reflect a projectile! How did they do that?
A: Most 5E, jE and/or 2Es in the game can reflect most any projectile when they come into contact with them. If they can't reflect, they usually clash. You can often rid of projectiles by clashing with them too. Bit more riskier though.

Q: Where's my Command List for my Arcanas?!
A: Just move to the left or right on your normal command list and it'll show your active Arcana's Move List.

Q: What character should I use?! There's so many!
A: Heart. Easy to learn, easy to get used to, her 6C is Air Unblockable. So you'll kill air techers easy with it. Good for beginners of fighting games. A great start for fighting game players who just aren't used to AH3 or AH as a whole.

Q: Which Arcana should I use? There's so many!
A: Love. If you don't know what you want, don't want to make mistakes or don't want to be experimental from the get-go, Love. Generally good for all skill levels with no noteworthy unique gimmicks built-in.

Q: Which Arcana should I use if I want to specialize in something, not caring for the character I have?
A: Can't answer that. Way too subjective and MU Dependent. If you're a masochist though, you should go Punishment. Punishment Scharl and always use your Extend Force when you can. Have fun seeing your HP Bar evaporate into a void for making one mistake.

Q: What's an Intersect?
A: Clash. Ever see a clash in an anime fighting game? It's just when two moves that are listed as capable of clashing have their active frames cross over one another, which normally produces a trade in games without clashing. But here, it cancels the move out, makes a unique screen motif and then allows you to act immediately out of it.

That means 'Clash Battles' are a thing as it's basically a fight for asserting dominance through a guessing game. You'd have to press a lot of buttons similarly though to get real lengthy ones.

Q: Why do I feel like i'm taking more damage with X or Y Arcana?
A: You're not. You're probably using an Arcana that takes away your HP. If it's really egregious, you're probably fighting an opponent that has an Arcana that takes away even more of your HP.

Q: Why does it feel like i'm taking less damage? I'm seeing supers and combos do less and less damage!
A: Guts. Complicated but not complicated at the base mechanic. Also in Guilty Gear. Short and narrow of it, the less HP you have, the less damage you start taking. Unless you're Scharl. Then you take more damage, the less HP you have.

Q: Sin's Extend Force is inconsistent! I'm getting different damage values across characters in terms of raw percentages! Why is that?
A: Because it just adds your Guts Value to your Attack Power instead of scaling proportionately to your missing HP%. That means better Guts gives you more damage. Worse Guts gives you less damage.

Q: I don't know how to even begin to start combos and I don't wanna look any up! Can you give me a general basic bnb to get started with?!
A: For most characters, 2A > 2B > 2C > 6HC > 5A or 5B > j.A > j.B > jc > j.A > j.B > j.C or j.E usually works.

Although you'll likely see it annotated as 2A > 2B > 2C > 6HC > 5A/5B > j.AB > jABC/jABE or something. Likely can add in a super at any given point too.

Anything > 2C > EFC > 2E > HC > j.ABABA > jc > j.ABAC or j.ABAE or something also tends to work.

(The lack of spacing between the letters usually means to press them right after one another.)

Even if they don't directly work on your character or Arcana of choice, it's a starting point I guess.

Q: Who would you advise against playing as and what Arcanas do you suggest avoiding if I just want to stay casual with the game?

A: Lieselotte is the only one that really comes to mind. Mostly since you have to manage a lot at lower levels or you end up cheesing newer players anyhow with blatantly unsafe things.
Controlling her can be a bit weird too. Everyone else can be relatively easy to learn and hard to master. Some are harder than others but still relatively 'casual friendly' in my opinion assuming the low level is the cap.

Otherwise, I may add Scharl to that list as well, considering how easy it is to die as her often.

As for Arcanas, Probably only Mirror. I'd say Darkness too but that's just a matter of getting used to holding E for tricky things. Mirror requires a lot of MU info and knowing how moves of multiple characters work to get the best value out of. So I wouldn't remotely suggest it to someone looking to stay casual and such.

Q: How do I make things safe? I'm getting punished for everything practically!
A: Homing Cancel on block. Directional Homing Cancels to make yourself more safe against certain possibilities. You can homing cancel most things on block and just about everything on hit.

Q: What's the input buffer like in this game?
A: Sometimes too generous. It hyuge. Can't give a frame amount since never looked into it that much.

Q: The game feels slow. How do I fix that? Surely the netcode isn't that bad!
A: Turn FPS Control off. Netcode is okay, but it's often atrocious with cross continent gameplay no matter how good or bad either sides internet is. Sometimes it's not. One of those inconsistencies. I repeat. TURN FPS CONTROL OFF. It's not good for 98% of people apparently so i'm just gonna screech and preach it.


Q: Where can I find more info on the game?
A: Mizuumi or the AH3 Discord (Which I still do not have the link to.) A lot of it is either outdated or questionable as far as Mizuumi goes again. Didn't I already answer this? Regardless, you can look at the older games for reference info on stuff like Arcana Values and such. But if you're looking to be casual, there isn't much for you to gain that you'd maybe consider keeping to memory outside of learning your command normals for a character.

Q: Is there any game that you can compare this to beyond individual mechanics? It might help me get into the game easier!
A: No. I was going to say Hisoutensoku but outside of flying (which isn't exactly the same as homing due to the level of control) , it's not all that similar. So no. Maybe there is one but I don't know of it.