Mobile Ground Slash to crush’em all – this glitch does help you being even more badass than before.
Preamble
There is a small and useful glitch with the Ground Slash ability that breaks the overall combat balancing totally. It will allow you to move while the animation lasts so you can still evade enemy attacks, giving you an additional advantage to the already very powerful ability itself.
I made a small demonstration (see video below) how to abuse it if you want to do a SSS rank run with no deaths easily.
There are only a few fights you cannot use it on. For example the last boss, fights against snipers or enemies off-limits, but on every enemy (group) that allows a certain degree of close combat without dying immediately you can use it.
Glitch was successfully tested on the PC version, if it does work on consoles I cannot confirm myself. Please let me know if you can check this and I will add this to the guide.
Basics
The Ground Slash is a blade ability that has to be unlocked first before use. Do this as soon as possible. In my opinion the blade is in general the best weapon in the game. I use it primarily, and secondarily weapons (shotgun and sniper preffered).
Ground Slash (w/ Blitz Slash Lv. 3) does bring a lot of awesome benefits even without the glitch:
- 360 degree attack
- breaks enemy shields
- massive damage
- decent range of shockwave
- can hit targets through obstacles and walls
- small enemies w/o shields will temporarily float
Usually you have to be in midair to activate Ground Slash and you will loose all momentum if you do so, this makes you vulnerable for a short period of time for enemy attacks, which is the real trade off while using this ability as it takes about 2 seconds for the animation to play through before the actual damage will be dealt.
But with the glitch you can totally skip the immobility sequence. Wait for the herione to drop nearly completely back to the floor again before activating the Ground Slash ability. It might need some training for the proper timing do achieve it every time, but it is worth it. You can actually just do tiny pouncings to enable the glitch
If done correctly, the game thinks you already hit the floor but will activate the animation sequence anyway, resulting in the fact that you can move and steer like you were walking/running. This gives you the ability to evade, circle around or close in to enemy groups while not being an easy target. You can chain this technique even on most (mini) bosses and literally blitz slash your way through the entire game and leaving a trail of devastation.
Demonstration video
To show you what it actually looks like I made a small video showing the basic concept to fight your way through most chapters.
Some general tactical advises
On the final boss of the game, the Ground Slash is not the best option though (especially on the highest difficulty). The boss does deal too much damage if you musjudged your distance to him that can lead to a close insta-death.
On other situations that are too risky (for example closing in to enemy snipers) switch briefly to ranged attack to get rid f them, they can also deal a nasty amount of damage if you are too keen.
Weapons
Usually the best weapons are the shotgun and the sniper in my opinion. Both have a good amount of DPS damage on bigger targets. The shotgun is very accurate, and the sniper can often be just be used firing from the hips. No need to aim for bigger targets like the giant bosses – the sniper will deal the same amount of damage from the hips than aimed.
Safe the special ammo of all weapons for boss fights. Especially the sniper sticky grenades and the pistol incendiary grenades will deal a lof of damage to bosses. Upgrade them early as well to benefit the most from them.
Evasion, cover and blocking
Use evade often, especially in boss fights. If your health is low, remember that you can block most attacks and bullets from normal enemies to wait for the health regeneration. But if possible dash into safety (any cover) and wait for regeneration before going in again. Learn when you can take the risk and when not to do a zero death run.
Use Ground Slash to kill any enemy that wants to follow you into cover through edges or walls while you wait for your regeneration. You can do Ground Slashes as a precaution if you are not sure about it as you will regenerate your exo energy in a flash. But watch for grenades they use to kill you behind covers.
End
The overall difficulty is quite fair in this game, even on highest one named Hell. So you shouldn’t have too much troubles beating the game anyway with a lot of personal playstyles. But this glitch can help you neithertheless if you try a speedrun or a no-death-run. Luckily there no achievement for a no-death or SSS rank run (I did it jsut for the fun of it).
Feel free to leave me a comment or let me know if you have a suggestion.
