Phantasmagoria of Flower View

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 101 frames Charge Delay 36 frames Special Ability Gauge fills faster

Upsides:

Marisa's level 1 charge attack destroys spirts, but also causes them to explode as if they had been activated. This allows her to easily set off chain reactions in any situation without relying on her slow scope. It also allows her to easily destroy Lily White and boss attacks, which also means easier access to the special items they drop.

Her special ability allows her to cast spells more often, and recover more gauge which allows her to chain level 2 attacks back to back in intense situations (thus keeping her screen mostly safe). This is also very useful during spell wars that often occur in the late game because her opponent will likely be drained before she is.

Her high unfocused speed is great for macrododging and synergizes well with her laser, which can be swept across the screen. This also works well with level 1 invincibility frames, allowing her even better survivability.

Her ex attacks, vertical lasers that spawn after being signalized for a few frames, can easily box the opponent towards one side of the screen, which means they'll have a harder time clearing more bullets with their own spells. They are also rather oppressive as they cannot be cleared.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 20 frames Charge Delay 41 frames Special Ability Small hitbox

Upsides:

Her level 2 spell is her main strength, because it limits the opponents movement and has a lengthy spawn time, which means it cannot be cleared with a single spell. Combined to her very high charge speed, this makes it very spammable.

She has a smaller hitbox when compared to other characters in the game, and also boosts a rather decent ex attack (the yin-yang orb) which might wall you and bounces off walls in a somewhat hard to predict way (altough its hitbox is smaller than its appearance).

Downsides:

Because of how strong her level 2 is, an opponent will likely always reflect it, so she's likely to also face extremely fast paced patterns reflected to her screen.

Her scope and focus speed are somewhat slow, and her level 1 charge attack isn't very useful because it destroys all fairies in a chain, breaking the combo potential while dealing really low damage to Lily White and boss attacks.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 182 frames Charge Delay 23 frames Special Ability Bullet cancelling sword

Upsides:

Youmu has a level 1 that makes her slash right in front of her, cancelling most bullets, including ex attacks. Its recovery is good, meaning it can be used repeatedly despite the slow charge speed.

Her movement speed allows for either very slow or very fast dodges at will, which means she's good at both micro and macrododging depending on circumstances.

Her ex attacks can easily suffocate enemies, although they can be cleared away by spells. She also has a long lasting level 2 attack, which means it cannot be fully cleared by a single opponent spell attack.

Finally, her boss attack only fires movement restricting patterns that are completely devoid of pellets. This means it does not feed the opponent with cancellable patterns.

Downsides:

Youmu's main downside is that she has the worst charge speed in the game, but that isn't too much of a detriment in a game where only level 2 have some use. It is also partially countered by her really good level 1. However, that means she's a bit susceptible to spell wars.

She also has the slowest scope speed in the game, which means she might have trouble activating spirits, and is in turn a bit more susceptible to getting hit by them than most characters. After all, she is afraid of ghosts.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 20 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Full screen scope

Upsides:

Komachi's awesome scope and auto-targeting level 1 attack combine together to make her very efficient at starting combos at will, from anywhere on the screen. Because she doesn't have to chase fairies and spirits around to feed her gauge, she can concentrate more on dodging. The level 1 attack can also be decent at killing off boss attacks if used cleverly.

Her ex attacks are very good at creating chaos on the opponent's screen, and actually make for harder patterns on their own than her level 2/3 spell attacks. They push the enemy down which means their own spell attacks are less efficient, and are also pretty good against players and characters that like to macrododge, because they are evenly distributed across the screen.

Her boss attack is better than her spell attacks, and complement her ex attacks really well. All of her patterns use coin bullets that are non reflectable, which makes her already great defensive perks even better, because her opponents will gain back less gauge from using their own spell attacks to clear their player field.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 5 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Activated spirits only fire one bullet

Upsides:

Eiki's main strength is her ex attack: it clones existing bullets on the opponent's screen by firing a rod with faster speed in the same trajectory. Because the rod speed is determined by the original bullet, this is more effective against characters whose spell attacks use faster bullets.

She also boosts good movement, charge and scope speeds. These help her with macrododging, spell wars and starting combo chains respectively, which are all import parts of the game, making her rather balanced. She also has a pretty good boss attack, which splits the screen in half with a purple laser.

She has really good level 1 attack, which fires straight above her and can start combos without deleting all the chain. Because it lasts for a while, Eiki can fire normal shots during her level 1. That makes dealing damage and thus killing boss on her screen somewhat achievable, so she can turn them into special items.

Downsides:

Eiki's glaring pitfall is her level 2/3 spell attacks which are both really weak, and also send on the opponent's screen cancellable pellets, some of which are stacked on top of each other. What this mainly achieve is feed the opponent gauge energy, which means her screen is bound to get chaotic very quickly as you use these spell attacks.

This key weakness is on its own what makes her fall short of top tier, and someone playing her may want to avoid spell wars for as long as possible, and resort to fairy chains bullet cancelling pellets instead, to avoid their screen becoming too difficult to deal with too early on. This also means Eiki is somewhat susceptible to end game spell wars.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 32 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Also shoots backwards

Upsides:

Lyrica's main strength is her spell attacks, in particular her level 2, because, similarly to Reimu's and Youmu's, it covers a huge part of the screen and spawns over and extended period of time, meaning it cannot fully be cancelled by an opponent's own spell attack.

Her boss attack and ex attack also complement this offensive quality rather well. She tends to fire patterns that curve a lot, which may confuse an opponent and lead her to score an easy hit.

She also shoots behind her which also allows her, with her level 1, to start chains in up to three different places at the same time. Additionally, this has the potential benefit of killing fairies and activated spirits that otherwise couldn't be shot at, allowing her to navigate corners better than most other characters.

Downsides:

Lyrica's level 1 is similar to Marisa's, but weaker, because it is stationary and doesn't cause spirits to explode. Because of that, she needs to resort to a rather slow and narrow scope to trigger combo chains.

Despite a good offense, her charge speed is also average, so she cannot benefit from it as much as other offensive builds, explaining in good part with her weak combo potential why she falls short off higher tiers.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 19 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Cannot be hit by spirits

Upsides:

Medicine's main strength is that she has the strongest ex attack in the game: it cannot be cancelled by anything (be it a spell attack or Youmu's level 1), stays on the screen for extended period of times and cannot be fully avoided due to its sheer size on the screen. It doesn't deal damage however, only slows down her opponent. The catch: these poison clouds can stack on top of each other, eventually leading to her completely freezing any opponent in place, no matter their speed.

She also has a nice movement speed and scope aside from that, and an ability that allows her to very aggressively trigger spirits to cancel them for ex attacks, as they cannot damage her. Her level 1 actually pairs rather well with this role, despite how weird it might look: it tends to kill ennemies around her, providing great combo and pellet reflecting potential.

Downsides:

Sadly, other than her ex attack, Medicine's offensive toolkit really suffers: she indeed has boss and spell attacks that fire a lot of pellets at the opponent, effectively feeding them gauge energy they can use when frozen by her clouds. They are also among the least threatening patterns in the game. A medium charge speed also hinder her defense a bit.

Her strategy is thus mostly effective against very slow characters (Yuuka) or very fast ones (Marisa, Aya), in the first case because she will further hinder their potential to macrodoge, and in the second case due to the amplitude of speed change that might surprise a careless player. In both cases, it is also vulnerable to the opponent trying to keep away from the clouds in the first place.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 12 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Activated spirits drift upwards faster

Upsides:

Reisen boosts a great defense. She has great speed, good for macrododges and squeezes. She has a good scope, which spans around her and is fast enough to deploy. She also has a good charge speed which allows her to use her own level 2 quickly enough during spell wars.

A pretty good tool she has despite its slow speed is her level 1 attack: it can kill a boss or Lily White relatively well, which allows her to get consistant access to special items they drop. It also stays on the screen for a while, which is good to start chains or as a defensive pellet reflecting screen.

Her ex attacks stop relatively high on the screen and might not seem very threatening but they are good at two things: occupying space that the opponent may need to cancel out more pellets by moving upwards, and occupying it for a relatively long time. These last two points can make challenging her during spell wars a bit tricky for some matchups (namely characters with a slow charge speed).

Downsides:

Relatively fast, she will turn up the intensity of the fight, because her spell and boss attacks send a lot of pellets over to the enemy screen. While this is great for scoring, because more pellets mean more things to reflect and more gauge on both sides of the screen, this isn't usually great in PVP because this advantages characters with a good end game ability (such as Marisa).

The fact her patterns are either full of pellets, or not very threatening, also effectively means Reisen has a terrible offense. That means to win with her, a player needs to resort to her defensive perks, and bet on her opponents skill (or lack thereof) at dodging.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 48 frames Charge Delay 31 frames Special Ability Sltanted shots

Upsides:

Merlin has pretty good offensive skills. Her spell attacks stay on the opponent screen for a long while, splitting the screen in sections, and cannot be cancelled fully by an opponent's own attack. Her ex attacks are great, because they move in rather surprising ways. Her boss attack is also really good, as it also fires patterns that either split the screen or last for a while.

Downsides:

Defensively, she suffers a lot. From slow movement speed to slow charge speed, she cannot react quickly when the situation gets tense. She also has a pretty weird and slow deploying horizontal scope, which activates spirits in a way that makes clearing them only really possible with her level 1, which is tricky to do in time due to the long charge time. Trying to hunt spirits forces her to focus for extended times, hindering her speed even more.

Merlin's slanted shots cross in front of her, meaning her full damage potential is only achieved when they cross in front of her, and making it difficult to actually directly fire at spirits coming down the screen, boss and Lily White. It also cannot fire at all on one side if she grazes a wall (due to the spawn location of the shot then being offscreen).

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 16 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Three-way shots

Upsides:

Lunasa has interesting offensive and defensive capabilities. Defensively speaking, she has great movement speed. her cross shaped scope deploys rather fast and can catch a lot of spirits. Because these drift upwards once activated, she can then decently kill them with her three-way shots or her level 1. Finally, said level 1 can be used to shotgun Lily White, or even a boss on her screen if complemented by a level 2 beforehand.

Offensively, most of Lunasa's patterns, from her ex attack, to her spell and boss attacks, start from behind the opponent, making them a bit hard to dodge for inexperienced players. They cover the screen well and last for a pretty long time, slowly creeping towards the enemy. This can be surprising and force the opponent upwards

Downsides:

Sadly, all of these weird perks actually aren't all that great. First of all, defensively, the cross pattern scope makes spirits hard to trigger on all four corners around her. Having three-way shots instead of two-ways as most characters means she has less direct damage for anything facing her. Her level 1 is very situational, as it otherwise impedes chain combo potential.

Her offensive, however, suffers even more. Her attacks are so slow it in fact lets the opponent a lot of time to charge a level 2 attack to cancel them. They can also actually be streamed rather easily (similarly to Aya's). Her boss also suffers from slow patterns, with one attack in particular deploying a lot of slow bullets that converge towards the enemy, allowing them to cancel a lot of things, so they get to recover more gauge energy. Finally, pushing the opponent upwards with patterns coming from behind is a bad thing, because they will gravitate more easily towards the center of the screen, and get to cancel even more patterns with their own spell attacks.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 4 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Three-way shots

Upsides:

Yuuka has respectable offense. Firstly, because of her ex attacks which tend to force her opponent downards, which isn't suitable for spell attack cancels. Secondly, her boss attack has patterns that can be rather difficult to dodge under high pressure (in particular one where she divides the screen with lanes of bullets before making them spin, and one with bullets that cross each other).

Her level 1 attack allows her to destroy Lily White and boss attacks easily enough (if supplemented by a level 2), giving her access to special items and minimizing the threat they represent on her screen. It also har very good area of effect that can be effective during tense situations to destroy a lot of fairies and spirits to cancel reflectable bullets.

Speaking of spirits, Yuuka also boosts a great scope, which deploys almost instantaneously, allowing her to trigger and destroy them to start combo chains pretty easily. Finally, she has one of the fastest charge speed in the game, allowing her to use level 2 attacks really fast.

Downsides:

Yuuka has the slowest movement speed in the game, which hurts her defense a lot due to how macrododge heavy the game can at times be. This forces someone playing her to mostly move unfocused.

Her spell attacks also aren't very threatening, and contain a lot of reflectable pellets, meaning despite her very fast charge speed, she mostly has to use her gauge energy for defensive purposes to avoid feeding the enemy. Eventually, these will push the game towards a spell war.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 31 frames Charge Delay 46 frames Special Ability Activated spirits do not drift upwards

Upsides:

Sakuya is difficult to master, but has a few perks up her sleeves. Perhaps the most important one is that she can move during time stops triggered by her spell and boss attacks (levels 2/3/4). She is invicible during these frames, so this allows her to reposition into safer places, which is pretty important against characters that tend to wall her. Of note: during a mirror matchup, she can also move during the spell and boss attacks fired by her opponent. This his also supported by her good charge speed.

To play her properly, one also needs to master her scope, which is cone shaped and moves in the opposite direction to her movement. This means she needs to move backwards to keep it in front of her, but also that she can "scan" her surroundings by moving in a circle, which should catch most of the spirits around her. She can then use a level 1 to destroy most of them, as it is homed, similarly to Komachi. For similar reasons, this level 1 is somewhat decent at tracking a boss on her screen as it moves, and thus destroying it (although it would target closer enemies first).

Finally, Sakuya's knives have a hitbox that is known for being a bit peculiar, because it is actually wider than its displayed graphics. This can surprise an opponent, in particular if they try to graze her pretty good ex attack. Said ex attack itself is decent at controlling the opponent's movement and keeping them away from the center of the screen.

Downsides

Sakuya's uspides are also often her shortcomings. First of all, the time stop she triggers during her spell and boss attacks sadly triggers a bug which stop her bullet cancelling bubble from expanding, meaning a level 2 clears around as much as a level 3, in an area that ends up being actually smaller than a typical level 2.

Additionally, the time stop mechanic can cut short if the player casts a level 2 right before an automatic level 3 triggers (caused by reaching 500k spell points). It also messes up a few enemy spells, causing them to spawn all their bullets at once (Aya's level 2 for instance can become a blanket that covers all the screen because of this).

In tense situations, her scope ends up being also potentially awkards to use, and may trigger unwanted spirits, that do not drift upwards due to her ability, and end up firing deadly red bullets at her if not taken care of. Finally, Sakuya's focused speed is almost the same as her unfocused speed, and around average, which can make precision dodging challenging.

Finally, Sakuya's spell attacks are a bit weak, because they can be easily cleared by an opponent's level 2, although they can also be pretty dangerous if they have no more gauge energy left / in a corner.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 50 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Slightly slows down bullets in her field

Upsides:

Aya has fast movement and charge speeds, which make her pretty good at adapting at various situations defensively. Her spell attacks are decent at forcing the opponent to move laterally, where her really fast ex attacks can surprise them due to how they bounce off the walls. She also has a pretty good boss attack, which forces the opponent towards the bottom of the screen, challenging their control of it. The patterns it spawns are surprisingly fast, and combine really well with her other attacks to catch off by surprise the enemy.

Downsides:

Aya doesn't have access to a slow focus speed, which makes it at times pretty hard for her to dodge patterns with precision, in spite of her ability which only affects her field in a very minor way. Her spell attacks, on their own, are also not very great because they can just be streamed, as most of her arsenal. Because of that, she should only use it offensively during boss attacks, and otherwise resort to using it to complement her rather poor defense.

Aya's scope is also pretty slow to deploy, in a camera angle in front of her, letting her somewhat vulnerable to spirits flying directly into her. Because of that, she needs to resort to a relatively unremarkable level 1 attack, which lacks good enough damage to kill Lily White or boss in one shot.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 38 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Auto-bombs when hit at 0.5 orb

Upsides:

Tewi has an excellent charge speed, and great movement speed choices (as she is fast while unfocused, and slow while focused). Her level 1 charge attack can also destroy Lily White if used point blank. Her charge speed is also great, allowing her easy access to defensive level 2 spell attacks.

In a few rare situations, Tewi's ability can actually be useful, as it gives her one more chance at a round if she gets hit on 0.5 orb with more than half a gauge ready. In tense endgame situations, she may be able to chain fairies and cancel pellets well enough to get back enough gauge energy in time to use her level 2 or autobomb one more time.

Downsides:

Sadly, Tewi's offense is pretty bad. She has a decent ex attack, which can surprise an careless opponent, as it bounces off walls, but it is also pretty slow. Her spell attacks and boss attacks are also really sparse and easy to dodge, meaning she should only use her gauge energy defensively. They also fire a lot of pellets feeding the opponent free energy.

Her scope is terrible, similar to Merlin, and combines really badly with her slow focused speed because of the time it takes to expand. This means Tewi has trouble hunting for spirits and is thus also pretty vulnerable to getting hit by them.

Finally, Tewi's ability can also be a downside if someone playing her loses round 1, as it means they will start round 2 with a completely empty gauge, leaving them quite vulnerable during the early game.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 10 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Attracts spritis towards her

Upsides:

Mystia's ability combines very well with her pan shaped scope, allowing her to trigger and pop spirits to start combo chains easily. This also combines decently well with her fast movement speed and decent level 1 attack, which can hit enemies far away or deal more damage up close. All that combines with a decent charge speed into granting her a pretty good defense.

Downsides:

Her offense, however, is among the worst in the game. Her ex, spell and boss attacks all use bird shaped bullets to spawn patterns, which are sadly cancellable by the opponent's own spell attack, or even a Youmu slash. When they are cancelled, the pattern it carries completely stops spawning.

Even worse is the speed of said bird shaped bullets is very slow, meaning the patterns take a considerable time to appear, giving the enemy ample time to charge up a level 2 and cancel everything. This is especially apparent during late game spell wars.

Normal Speed Focus Speed Charge Speed Scope Speed 4 frames Charge Delay 51 frames Special Ability Activated spirits take longer to self-destruct

Upsides:

Cirno is fast, which is a good thing in this game for macrododges, and has a decent scope that deploys almost instantaneously. Her defense is likely among the best in the game, due to the way her spell and boss attacks freeze patterns on both sides of the screen. This gives her additional time to recover after a level 2, and allows her to reposition. It also makes bullets change directions randomingly once they unfreeze, which can "break" patterns that would be otherwise rather difficult to avoid (such as Reimu's level 2 spell attack).

Her level 1 isn't very useful but shoots spikes in a circle around her, which can similarly to Medicine destroy all activated spirits around her. It also pairs well with her circular scope and her special ability, meaning Cirno is pretty good at hunting spirits, although the size of her scope is a bit too small for her to really shine at it.

Downsides:

Sadly, this freeze mechanic also affects patterns on the opponent's screen, so any defensive advantage she might have otherwise leveraged from this mechanic is completely nullified: any level 2/3/4 she uses can also save the opponent from what would otherwise be a hit. The freeze mechanic also downgrades a few projectiles into pellets, which also feeds the opponent, as they can now be reflected. Cirno's boss attack is very weak and her ex attacks are average, meaning all in all that Cirno has a terribly bad offense.

Essentially, a game involving Cirno becomes an endurance match.