Menace Guide

Menace: The Ancient Princess

 * Menace_GB.jpg: 12
 * Height: 4
 * Attacks: 1
 * Special: Undead ( Can't be Cursed/Poisoned )

Menace is a weird one to be sure of. From not needing her weapon to fight, towards being able to curse and tick away at the opponent's BP without future contact with them, she's got quite a lot of gimmicks in store to pull out some cunning wins. In turn though her playing style becomes very 'high risk, high reward' as making use of her gimmicks in turn puts you in a worse spot then before...

Strategy


Being an 'Undead' in Queen's Blade, Menace sure starts the ground running with a gimmick sure to annoy others with. To note, her ruling is that if she fights Hand-To-Hand, and that lands on a SCORE, she will start applying 'Curse' damage to the foe. 'Curse' is pretty much a fancy poison that will tick away at your BP for so many instructed turns, and it can get pretty evil in short time at that ( one is 1 damage for 3 turns, another is 2 damage for 3 turns, and the final is 1 damage for the entire GAME ). Given the fact that this can't be directly blocked ( still apples as blocks are 9/10 times SCORE pages ), it gives Menace an edge over heavy guarding foes or those with poor SCORE pages in general.



On that note, let's talk more about Hand-To-Hand in general. Having 5 attacks under it, she's got quite a lot of options to make use of under this pool alone. The most notable are Punch, Capture, and Slap, as these three will be used to apply your Curse onto your foe and start ticking them away. Shining Pyramid is just a fancy low attack that starts from above and little else. Headbutt for Menace is interesting in the fact that if it hits, while she'll take 2 BP herself from the act, she'll deal TWICE the total SCORE towards her opponent in turn, making it a BRUTAL attack to finish someone off with, and even more so if Menace lacks her weapon. This in turn starts us on Menace's true risk and reward aspect: fighting without a weapon at all.



You see, Menace is really good at fighting unarmed, really, REALLY good rather. So good in fact that as long as she doesn't have a weapon, all of her 'Hand-To-Hand' attacks will DOUBLE in their SCORE page ( as an example, if menace lands Shining Pyramid and causes her foe to land on a SCORE page of 2, she will do 2x2 = (4)+1 = 5 damage onto them! )! This makes the already deadly 'Headbutt' even MORE SO ( same example: 2x2 = (4)x2 = (8)+1 = 9!!! ). Yet all this damage comes a really big weakness in turn, as Menace only source of damage mitigation comes from her mace, and without that to parry attacks with she leaves herself wide open for damage, and her SCORE pages leaves her REELING after taking any attack ( Including her legs, at 5! Apparently her lower body is very sensitive... )



Past her Curse and Hand-To-Hand gimmicks, she's got the general attacks all in order ( Swing, Thrust, and Fakes ), and as she does use a Mace based weapon, can break shields and weapons in turn. She's got at least one last gimmick though that gives her extra umph, and that's at Extended Range making use of 'Shriek'. A powerful yell that, while deals no damage, forces the opponent into an unarmed status, that in turn gives Menace a good time to shine abusing her Hand-To-Hand and wrap her opponent up in curses galore! The only other thing to note is that Menace's Mace in turn can be broken, so do watch out for foes who can preform such actions onto you!

Vs. Menace


If all of that sounds like fighting vs. Menace would be hell, it's not as bad as you might think. The main issue here is that for her best direct damage, she has to be left at a rather weak state, that in turn allows you to punish her with your strongest attacks on a good read without anything guarding her. Beyond that, as a direct fighter, most of her movements come off rather 'slow' in turn, or short in reach. This means by her matrix, she ends up trading blows a lot more often then scoring clean hits. Given how painful Menace's SCORE pages can be towards her, and the lack of any healing option in sight, her 12 BP can vanish very rapidly without much effort on the players part. Due in turn though watch out for her in Extended range, and try to avoid her Hand-To-Hand attempts to avoid being cursed, otherwise what would be an 'easy' fight quickly spirals out of control...

Overall Judgement


Menace is one of those books who's got things that can make a good run with her feel wonderful as you dodge and watch the last BP someone had vanish from your curse and score you the win. On the other hand things tend to go very badly for Menace once she get's tripped up, and recovering from a mistake or two can be hard when you have no option to heal. Her gimmick also in turn begs for the other end to disarm you somehow for your best damage, and not everyone is going to give you that pleasure. This in turn leaves her in a very wonky placement were her Gimmick is good on paper, but how it comes together is something only a skilled player is going to pull off. Overall she's got stuff to ensure she can win vs the most tanky and defensive of foes, but vs more rapid or heavy hitting attackers, she start's to struggle with greatly before she can even get going.
 * Skill Level: Expert
 * Rank: C