June 2013 Card Focus #07: Damage-dealing Items
In this game, dealing damage is most often done by using Stage Attacks, or special Beam and Melee cards like the Kamehameha. However, there are other cards that can deal small amounts of damage as well. They are far less powerful than your standard special moves, but at the same time don’t cost nearly as much.
The Naughty book card says ‘???’ but when you use it in the Attack phase it does slightly damage your opponent. In the Defense phase, many of these cards will negate any damage dealt by the opponent if he uses a Stage Attack.
Ene.Absorber deals damage but also adds a little to your own, essentially draining your opponent’s health (but doesn’t heal you to the same extent that Dende does). Then there is Dabura, which can kill your enemy in one hit, but its accuracy is only 20%. Note that accuracy-improving cards such as Reading Ki do NOT work in combination with the Dabura card. Accuracy boosting cards will only affect melee/beam moves and does not effect stage attacks or item cards. That would make the game a little too easy, wouldn’t it? Said accuracy-improving cards also don’t work with Stop Device, a card that can instantly kill the characters No.16, No.17, No.18, No.19 and No.20, if you are one space away from them. If you are too far away, the card will either miss or drain only half of the opponent’s life bar. Incidentally, androids themselves cannot use this card, as they would shut themselves down.
Note: If a card says ‘Knock Down’, it means the enemy will fall to the ground if they are in the air when they get hit.
May 2013 Card Focus #06: Stat-Boosting Cards
This time we’ll take a look at stat-changing cards, in particular, the ones that increase your character’s statistics. Player in-game stats typically fluctuate between battles, some characters are affected more than others. However there are also cards that directly boost stats.
Most of these are part of the ‘item’ category so can be used by anyone, but any card with an ID number less than 083 is a character-based card and can only be used by certain characters. For example, Speed Up can only be used by Burter and the SupSaiyan cards can only be used by those who have obtained Super Saiyan status in the anime (Goku, Vegeta, Trunks, Gohan, etc).
For most of the stat increases, they are temporary stat boosts that will fade over time. Most of them also do not seem effective when used more than once (with some exceptions of course).
They are the hardest cards to measure in terms of power since they don’t actually do anything on their own, they simply augment the character’s stats and make them stronger. Naturally, characters that use a lot of beams will want to increase Ki whereas those who like melee/damage attacks will prefer to increase Strength. Ultimately it’s up to you to decide whether these stat-boosting cards are worth your time.
May 2013 Card Focus #05: Damage prevention
The cards Avoiding, Shockwave, Endurance, Ene.Absorb, Breath, Barrier, Teleport and Taiyoken all have one thing in common: they negate damage. Some avoid beams while others block melee attacks.
Endurance is different in that it doesn’t negate ALL damage, but it does lower any damage taken from both beam and melee cards.
Ene.Absorb is perhaps the odd one out of the bunch, because not only does it avoid any damage, it also refills your life a little. It can only be used by Androids 19 and 20. This only works for ‘energy-based moves’ like Kamehameha and Galick Gun. It will not work for moves like Rocket Punch, because there is no ‘energy’ to absorb.
Breath can be used by Recoome and all forms of Buu, and for the most part is the same as the Avoiding card but with a different animation. The same goes for Teleport (Goku, Vegetto, Cell) and Barrier (Vegetto, Android 17, Cell, Cell Jr). Taiyoken negates damage from Melee attacks and can be used by a variety of characters: Krillin, Goku, Vegetto, Ginyu>Goku, Cell and Cell Jr.
Note: Breath and Taiyoken can both be put on a character’s limits, allowing them to use this move as many times as they want.
April 2013 Card Focus #04: Cont.Punch & Cont.Kick & Energy Bomb & Energy Wave
These cards are the generic attacks that all characters can use. They don’t cost a lot of CC and don’t deal the most damage, but they can be useful. For one thing, if an enemy avoids your Energy Wave, that’s only 12 CC wasted as opposed to 23 CC if you had used S.Kamehameha for example. It’s also not too hard to regain 10 CC and attack again, as opposed to gathering a lot of CC for a big attack that may be avoided and wasted anyway.
A character like Recoome can become very deadly if you upgrade his high Strength stat and attack with multiple Cont.Punches in a row. The same strategy can be applied to someone like Vegeta, who focuses mainly on Ki and can deal quite a bit of damage with multiple Energy Waves.
Cont.Kick is probably not as reliable as the other three cards, because it’s the most expensive one and its accuracy is somewhat low.
April 2013 Card Focus #03: Champ.Belt & Kibito & Sandglass
Let’s talk about some cards which have a long-lasting effect. Kibito and ChampBelt will both trigger a special icon at the top of the screen. In the case of Kibito, the next beam attack which hits the player will take no damage. ChampBelt will do the same for any melee attack.
While Kibito and ChampBelt are expensive compared to the Avoiding/Shockwave/Endurance cards, they are much more reliable and they do not wear off after one turn. They can be thought of as ‘insurance’, in case the opponent does something unexpected. It’s worth noting that while you can still use cards like Avoiding / Shockwave as normal, if you try and use endurance you will take damage no matter what (and if you get hit by what Kibito / Champbelt were guarding against you will lose them anyway).
There are several ways to counter these cards. Firstly is the low-cost Sandglass card which removes any support effects the enemy may have, this includes Kibito, ChampBelt, Lock-On and Afterimage.
A more risky approach is to use a low-cost cc move of your own like Cont Punch or Energy Wave. Not that if the enemy dodges your attack completely, their defense of Kibito / ChampBelt will still be in place. Finally, Kibito and ChampBelt cannot be used together as one overrides the previous one. If a user has Kibito then you can attack them with melee moves or if they have ChampBelt activated then you can attack them with beams.
Kibito is slightly better than ChampBelt in that most high-power high-cost moves tend to be beams, Kibito is especially effective in the highest tier of Battle Mode as the AI tend to use beams a lot more than melee attacks. ChampBelt is effective against melee users like #17, Ginyu Recoome and Burter
“I love your blog, DBZ LSW is one of my favourite games of all time. I also have a couple of questions for you. Who is the strongest character in your opinion? What are the rarest cards in the game? What is your favourite card? Keep up the great work. Greetings from Austria!”
Greetings from England! I’m glad you like the blog and the game. In terms of pure strength probably Vegito and Buu>Gohan. In terms of Ki probably people like Gotenks and Cell>Perfect. Most characters you get in the Buu Saga are pretty powerful that’s for sure!
The rarest cards in the game that you can obtain in Battle Mode are probably item cards like Babidi and Yakon, since you can’t guarantee getting those, compared to the character based cards. Also due to some strange bugs some cards are unobtainable in Battle Mode like 3 Stage Attack and Shockwave.
One card I always put on my deck is the CC Fridge, because it’s a great way of getting extra CC with little effort. I also like Cont Punch, Kibito and 6 Stage Attack. Hope that answered your questions!
Note: We hope you enjoyed the April Fools articles earlier, thank you for playing along and we hope to surprise you next year!
(April Fools joke)
Kid Goku - This game only covers the Z portion of the story, but up to now there was one hint at something more: the presence of Piccolo’s Evil King form. Now, the reason behind his inclusion has been discovered: you can fight him as Kid Goku after unlocking a new story mode chapter.
How to unlock: After unlocking Evil King Piccolo, use that form against Goku in Story chapter 11. If you win by using Special Beam Cannon, a new cutscene is unlocked in which Piccolo and Goku talk about their past battles. Goku remembers how he defeated Piccolo when he was still the Evil Demon King … a battle follows in which you use Kid Goku to fight Evil King Piccolo. Win this and the character will be unlocked.
(April Fools joke)
Yamcha - Did you ever find it odd that characters like Tien and Chiaotzu existed as cards in the game, but not Yamcha? That is because Yamcha was actually a secret character all this time! He has access to his trademark Wolf Fang Fist, as well as the Kamehameha.
How to unlock: In the story, Yamcha dies in the battle against the Saiyans. You can imagine Krillin would want to avenge his fallen comrades. In the manga and anime, he does this by taking out several Saibaimen, but those don’t appear in this game - instead, you can avenge Yamcha and the others by using Krillin against Nappa in Story chapter 2. If you win, Yamcha will be unlocked.
(April Fools joke)
April 2013 Special - How to unlock characters from the last three slots.
Last night one of our contributors found ways to unlock three completely new characters which we had no idea about. Upon looking up the hex codes we discovered hidden sprites assembled from other characters as well as some hidden move codes!
Raditz - Goku’s brother finally rounds out the roster and provides a nice gap between Piccolo and Nappa. He has access to some of Nappa’s moves but also has a few of his own. Once you complete story mode three times you gain access to ex0 which is Goku Vs Raditz. A nice surprise for the die-hard fans!
How to unlock: Complete story mode once, then complete all of the second playthrough using only Nappa. On the third playthrough you will fight Raditz in ex0 and you will be able to unlock him once he is beated by Goku.
March 2013 Card Focus #02: Foresight & Telepathy & Time Freeze
This time we’ll look at some cards that are used defensely. These are cards which when used will stop an enemy’s stage attack. It should be noted that only computer players are completely stopped with this card. A human player could potentially fix their stage attack to make the attack succeed, but the higher the stage attack number the more difficult that can be.
Computer players can never ‘fix’ stage attacks the way human players do, so they will always fail their stage attack when these cards are used. However computer players never mess up their stage attacks, so they have one advantage over us in that regard.
These cards are reasonably common and can be picked up in story mode and battle mode.
It should be mentioned that Time Freeze can only be used by Guldo. This card can be put onto Guldo’s limit slots and can be used multiple times. Have fun spamming Time Freeze on your enemy and making them fail their stage attacks over and over!
Piccolo’s Evil King form is a bonus extra, as such he does not have unique sprites of his own, but he does have a different mini-profile icon while selecting him as a character.
To save memory, several other characters also share sprites, such as Adult Gohans SSJ forms, SSJ Vegeta wearing Majin Vegeta’s clothes and so on.
However there are several characters who have multiple forms and a very wide variation in sprites, including Cell and Buu!
Episode 10 of my DBZ LSW Let’s Play videos!
March 2013 Card Focus #01: 3 Stage Atk & 4 Stage Atk & 5 Stage Atk & 6 Stage Atk
Now it’s time to move onto the cards in Legendary Super Warriors. Let’s first start with the cards that everybody can use. Stage Attack cards can be used by any character and are the primary way of generating CC. For every successful input, an additional CC point is generated. 3 Stage Attack cards require 3 inputs while 6 Stage Attack cards require 6 inputs. The time you have to input the commands is dependant the distance between the two characters, this can be changed by using the Movement option in battle during the defensive turn.
At the start of the game you have access to 3 Stage Attack, which can be used at any time by choosing it in the ‘B’ submenu during your attack phase or alternatively by using it in your deck.
While you are charged up you can also use 4 Stage Attack. During story mode you will acquire most of the Stage Attack cards, with 6 Stage Attack becoming available once story mode is complete. You can get Stage Attack cards as rewards in Battle Modes but this is very rare.
February 2013 Character Focus #27: Evil Buu
This is the character you fight in the last five battles of Story Mode. He has four different forms: regular, Gotenks-absorbed, Gohan-absorbed, and the form that is know as “Kid Buu”. Of these, the Gohan-absorbed version has the best stats, but all of them are powerful. Different forms of Buu have access to different attacks, as seen below:
All forms can use:
- Kamehameha (beam, 16cc, 20pow, 100acc)
- Sweet Beam (beam, 19cc, 25pow, 90acc)
- Crasher Buu (melee, 20cc, 25pow, 100acc)
- Super E-Ball (beam, 23cc, 30pow, 95acc)
- Resurrection (item, 10cc, recover health, 100acc)
- Kiai (item, 8cc, guard down, 95acc)
- Breath (dodge, 5cc, avoid beam)
Only Gotenks>Absorbed and Gohan>Absorbed can use:
- Galactica D. (beam, 10cc, 15pow, 100acc)
- S.G.K.Atk. (beam, 28cc, 40pow, 80acc)
Only Gohan>Absorbed and Kid Buu can use:
- S.Kamehameha (beam, 23cc, 30pow, 100acc)
As you can see, you have a wide range of options. You know the drill by now: it is advisable to choose high accuracy over high power. A card like S.G.K.Atk. may be very powerful, but if it misses - which happens more often than you’d like - a more accurate attack will serve you so much better.
You have plenty of defensive strategies to choose from: Breath cancels out Beam attacks, and Resurrection allows you to recover health.
Offense-wise, your best options are probably Super E-Ball, Crasher Buu, Galactica D. and S.Kamehameha. Do not underestimate how useful Galactica D. can be; it’s cheap, so you can use it several times in a row. Your opponent may dodge one, but never all of them.
Anonymous asked: any strategy in battle mode?
I can give you some overall tips on what cards to bring with you:
1) Healing, since you’ll need to increase your HP to negate the enemy’s damage
2) Avoiding/Shockwave/Endurance/Afterimage - You’ll want to be able to stop the enemy doing massive damage with their attacks, these cards will help you survive
3) Kibito/Champ.Belt - You’ll need these as a long-term strategy to prevent enemy attacks
4) Character cards - Don’t forget to choose some character-based attacks that you can use on your enemy!
