Leina Guide

Leina Vance: The Exiled Warrior

 * Leina_GB.jpg: 12
 * Height: 4
 * Attacks: 1

The main 'Heroine' of Queens Blade, and the first book to be released, Leina is something akin towards the 'Ryu' of the Battle Books, having a solid base, good 'fundamentals', and decent options all around. She fights making good use of her shield, and she's one of the few to have a large assortment of 'Fakes' at her disposal, allowing her to attack an area that she normally would be color blocked out of.

Strategy


Leina is something of an 'Iron Wall', in the fact that she has some of the lowest score pages out of the first series Queens Blades books to date. This gives her an interesting edge over others as she's able to win out most of the time in raw trades, and can poke someone down till there's nothing left. It's good that she is too, given that Leina happens to have some very low MOD's to work with ( Her strongest is at +3, while otherwise she is mostly 0's and 1's ), so she tends to depend on her opponent's score pages on dealing damage. Beyond her two extra fakes at that, she doesn't have much in the way of a real gimmick.

So with this in mind, what all should a Leina player be trying to do in a battle? Because of Leina's poor MOD's, when fighting someone just as tanky as you, your 'Jumps' become the extra umph you need to break past guards, each one giving you +2 towards a selective action the turn following ( Jump towards orange, Dodge towards Down & Side Swings, Ducking to Blue, and Jumping away +2 to everything ). Beyond this though, there's an interesting rhythm towards Leina's attacks that you need to learn to weave in and out of to not become too predictable ( The Thrust disable Side Swing, her Swings disable Thrusts + that respective color, and her blocks disable a color as well [Blue for High, Orange for Low] ), though with her extra Fakes, she's able to make up this weakness somewhat. Otherwise it's keeping an eye on what your opponent is doing, and poking them out of their set up's with your many options and tools, while keeping the damage you yourself suffer low.

Vs. Leina


While Leina is a rather good tank, there's a few things to note about her that leaves her play style a bit weaker then it should be. For starters, Leina has no healing options, and with a BP of 12, even a few good pokes of your own start to drive her back. Adding onto this, Leina's movements mean's she's not always in a spot to catch people retreating back towards Long Range, more less highly evasive fighters at that. She also struggles with dealing damage of her own, so vs. another tank, she starts to struggle unless she makes use of her jumps, and at this point you have to start to figure out what that Leina player finds more desirable, and punish them for attempting to boost. Leina as well can not break Shields nor Weapons, meaning vs those who can, her defensive options become far smaller in turn.

Overall Judgement


Leina's book paints her as the 'average' heroine she started off with series wise. She's solid, but nothing about her screams 'impressive', and without a heal, she can only tank and spank for so long before she goes dry. Regardless she's able to be effective in the right hands, and it comes down to less about her 'lacking' and more on the later books being more 'extreme' in some way that leaves her in the dust.
 * Skill Level: Beginner/Advanced
 * Rank: B 

On Leina 3D

 * BP: 10
 * Height: 4
 * Attacks: 1

See this book? Avoid this book. It's the same as Leina, but with worse SCORE pages, and less BP in turn. So she takes MORE damage, and she has LESS health overall to get past a fight...with the same exact attacks and effectiveness! They didn't even give her a much needed heal with this redux, making it overall a worse experience for only 3D rendering of the same artwork. Overall this version is still playable, but you're giving yourself a handicap for different artwork....


 * Skill Level: Beginner/Advanced


 * Rank: C