Bowmaster PB body phase demonstration

As the leading authority on the field of bowmastery, I would like to share a demonstration of my gameplay during a PB body phase.


*Weeb music is mandatory for optimal gameplay


Although the execution is not absolutely perfect and the @dpm 30 was not the highest I've ever gotten(mostly due to normal DR rng), the run captures the use of several modern techniques and is useful for pointing out some subtleties which I find hard to explain to my students without a video.

DR related tips
- Melee hurricane was used to maintain (almost) full hurricane throughout the run. Long story short, standing closer to PB allows you to react to your 1s more quickly during DR. For a greater discussion about surviving DR in PB, refer to my forum signature links for a more involved discussion.
- When DR is off cd and PB spawns minibeans, I immediately switch to strafe due to the difficulty of seeing both 1s and the DR animation with mini beans around.
- Take note of when PB is mid animation, because this is when DR is not possible. You can use this downtime to take your eyes off PB and check your buffs.


Recovering after getting hit by 1/1
When you get hit by 1/1 2 things happen, firstly you get knocked towards the right, and secondly you get sealed. This is the most common attack you will be hit by, so minimizing your recovery time on this attack is crucial to both maximizing dpm and maintaining melee hurricane to avoid deaths.

-Make sure to always be buffering hurricane + left arrow
-When you get hit do not acp immediately, first let you character walk left via the buffered left input. Once you character travels back the distance you were knocked forward, you quickly press the right arrow key + acp to turn around and acp simultaneously.
-Following the above sequence of inputs is important! If you acp first then walk left, it is far more inefficient!
-You do not need to manual pot after getting hit, even if your HP is under 19k after autopot. In fact trying to manual pot after each 1/1 is a dpm loss since you have to press both ACP and potion. The only time you need to be at high HP is when PB turns around and does a slow charge attack, in which case you can react and pot up then.

Don't move unnecessarily

A common mistake I see from less experienced BMs is a tendency to start "dancing" with PB, particularly when they start to learn melee hurricane. By "dancing" I mean that when PB moves/is pushed to the left they move to the left, and when PB moves/is snatched to the right they move right. This type of squirming results in some extreme dpm loss and you should avoid it. Take note of how relatively little I drop hurricane to move in the video.

-Sometimes I will let PB get further from me since I know the buccs will push it back soon. Although for melee hurricane you want to be close to the bean, there is a decent amount of leeway in how far PB can be while still being able to react to the 1s.
-I never move backwards(left) away from the bean until PB gets close enough to me to trigger the hurricane being canceled due to it being too close, in which case my buffer left will be released and my character will automatically walk towards the left. Because of this automatic walk away, there is never any danger of being touched by PB even while maintaining melee hurricane.

Touch Damage Iframes
This a relatively modern technique, and of course you will need to have over ~24.5k hp to do this. One of the perks of melee hurricane is that you are often very close to the PB body, which means you can run into PB to get touch damage iframes on command. When PB is turned around and threatening a charge attack/stun/sed, you can use touch damage iframes to dodge pretty much everything. While the charge attack/sed is slow and easy to react to, the stun is quite a bit faster and harder to dodge.

 

I did also think about putting that as a tip somewhere, but couldn't find a good section for it. Perhaps a miscellaneous section can be added to include that and some other minor tips.