UPDATE: 21-4-2016, This guide and tricks are STILL VALID for Timing Hero V.2.1.2, it seems it is still largely unaddressed, good for me :)
Videos about this are on the way.
Timing Hero is a game created by Korean developers Buff
Studio and 21.C Ducks Indie-Game Studio available at the App Store and Play
Store for smartphones and tablets. Is the English language port of a Korean
dungeon crawler retro game (용사는 타이밍) which quickly caught my eye. The game itself is quite simple
in design and is fun to try. Despite the monochrome palette may bore you quick, for me is quite a
good FTP title that has consumed my poor batteries for the last week. You can find 21.C Ducks' FB group here.
After less than two days playing it at its
painfully slow rhythm of 3 hits between enemy strikes I painstakingly unlocked
Raid and Colosseum modes which gave the game more depth. In
the process I discovered a cheat that will make some of your characters immortal
and other tips that will reduce the amount of time you spend farming credits as well as pumping up your adrenaline while playing it.
I hope you enjoy this guide and use any tips found here, some of these tips are speculations, but most of it I've tested myself and I can certify are true unless I say they're not. In this guide I'm not going to bother reviewing the game since there are already several professional critics around to give you an accurate idea of what the game is like, such as this review from Hardcore Droid, but if you want me to give you my personal point of view I can tell you this game is pretty absorbing and sometimes you'll anxiously wait till your Raid or Colosseum timers have reset. So I hope you enjoy these discoveries
and the game.
Index:
[1.-] The trick: SWAP CANCEL!
[2.-] Attack MANY times more than how's supposed
to be.
[3.-] Using SWAP CANCEL in Classic Mode.
[4.-] Rezzing dead characters.
[5.-] Using DD abilities while dead and rezzing
next round.
[6.-] Strategies and Tips.
[7.-] Conclussions, legal disclaimer and contact.
[8.-] Golssary.
Contents:
[1.-] The trick: SWAP CANCEL!
The trick is quite simple in itself and I discovered
it while playing the Colosseum.
As you can notice while playing Raid or
Colo, at the upper left corner of the screen there's the "Swap"
button that displays the current cooldown of your inactive party members'
abilities and their head icons. Pressing that button will swap your character
to the next. So the next character will spawn at your initial spot to the left
of the screen, kinda like Tagging in UMVC3.
Say you're fighting a pesky Alchemist which
attack pattern is mostly curvy and slow attacks. But sometimes he feels like
throwing a quick forward thrust and this can catch you with your guard low. In that
occurence you are deep whiffing an axe at him and he -dodging you already- is
certain to whack you silly the next split second. Unless you have a defensive ability
like Block ready (and the lightning reflexes to push the button) you will most
likely eat damage or die. So all you have to do when this happens is quickly SWAP
CANCEL your current missed swing and the next character in your party will appear
immediately at the initial left spot and can either take the damage
instead, dodge on time or use an ability to counter the incoming damage.
TL;DR - pressing swap button takes you instantly
back to the left.
Now this is just the tip of what you can do
with this technology. Get a load o' this. - - you can attack over 6 times before
the enemy launches its next strike - - yep!
[2.-] Attack MANY times more than how's
supposed to be.
Using SWAP CANCEL you:
- launch an attack
- hit confirm
- SWAP CANCEL
- Repeat in rapid fashion without having
to wait until your character gets back to the left, yay!
Like this you exponentially increase the amount
of DPS dealt to enemies and monsters by repeatedly hitting much more times than
the originally intended amount. It's honestly a frenetic screen mashing which is
fun cause you still have to time well your hits, your resets and incoming enemy
hits/abilities.
If you SWAP CANCEL before the hit active
frames confirm the hit you'll lose the thrust and won't deal damage, if you
press it too fast your character simply will not leave the left corner. There's
no point on doing the mashing slow either. So be quick and be aware of incoming
strikes.
One thing to keep in mind is that you
should get used to end all your sequences pressing the Swap button so your toon
is back at a neutral state and therefore you can do whatever is needed. If you
start mashing mindlessly the enemy will eventually attack and if you're
throwing an attack it can hurt you good. So end your sequences at neutral state
and dodge if you must.
The rhythm of this new attack pattern can
be quite mind absorbing and you sometimes do it carelessly without keeping an
eye on the enemy. Also, the font and size of the damage output lettering makes
it quite difficult to spot the enemy behind, actually these numbers will often
cover the whole boss when you have high crit ratings, so all of the enemy you
can see is a little bit below the knee, there's where I fix my gaze at while
playing.
You have to be familiar with enemies attack
timing at the Colosseum, too. The sequence they do is:
- Strike x 2
- Ability
- Strike x 8
- Ability
Knowing
this can give you an edge against the computer and counter it. Now the thing doesn't end here. Check this
out - - You can use SWAP CANCEL at Classic Mode, too - -
[3.-] Using SWAP CANCEL in Classic Mode.
The devs set the code of Classic Mode on stone but left
the button on the upper left corner active. It's above the credits counter.
Even though doesn't appear to be anything IT IS also there, and you can press
it to do SWAP CANCELs. There won't appear another character in this mode like
in Colo but your toon will just reset its position and you will be ready to
strike again and again and again quickly.
Meaning that you can basicly - provided a
good amount of credits spent on attack and crit stats - wipe a dungeon (the 10
stages) in less than 5 minutes. I was fascinated to do my first Demonlord kill
in less than one minute using this tech with a wimpy lvl 37 Novice. Later the common
enemy health numbers will just ramp up and even having mastered the SWAP CANCEL
you will eventually have to die/give up/end the game, go to the upgrading
screen and spend your credits on offensive stats to be at par with the enemy
levels to go at it again.
Oh! But you thought that was it? Nnnnope!
There's still more - - YOU CAN REVIVE YOUR CHARACTERS - -
[4.-] Rezzing dead characters.
Using this SWAP CANCEL tech you will
realize of the importance of the unattended Swap button. When
your character dies the game cues a Mega-Man-ish blast sound effect and your particles
will scatter around. When that happens you must run to spam the Swap button
ASAP and continuously press it from that point. Upon doing so you will hear the
echoing blast sound again and again, you will soon realize the game won't end
until you stop mashing the button. And the best part, the cooldowns of your ability
buttons will keep filling!
This following trick is reserved for characters
with healing abilities and those are: Novice, Priest, Alchemist, Wizard, Ranger,
Paladin, Valkirie, Necromancer, Warchief, Bard and Chef. You can use this trick in any mode.
The trick consists of 2 simple steps keeping in mind that involves a lot of Swap button spamming, so once dead, start mashing Swap button and:
- wait until a healing
ability is ready to use.
- choose a good moment to respawn.
Example:
1) So you died from a sneaky attack from a Dryad
and you just used your heals, No problem! As soon as you hear your death's
blast sound quickly start pressing the Swap button, keep on pressing it until
your healing ability is ready again and...
2) Wait for the moment the enemy is getting back to the right side after it launching a strike (without stopping the
Swap mashing all the while) then press the Heal ability and your character will respawn back
to life.
You must choose a good time to re-pop, otherwise
a very untimely reappearing will be right on the top of an attacking monster
and you will die again, so choose wisely.
Even though, there is a small gap of
"input block" after pressing Swap button so sometimes you push the
heal but it won't trigger so you will have to push it and push it again until
you come back to life without forgetting about the Swap mashing.
There's another risk while using this shenanigan,
say you died to a Stun character like the Sniper, for ability she uses Shackles,
so if you rez after she activated her stun you will successfully resurect but
will spawn shackled and won't be able to move, probably leading you to another
unwanted death. So watch carefully when you come back to life.
But wait! There's even more, hold tight! -
- You can kill... FROM THE GRAVE... AND RAISE FROM THE BLOOD OF THE VANQUISHED
- -
[5.-] Using DD abilities while dead and
rezzing next round.
The next trick is exclusive to characters with
DD abilities. These are: Martial Artist, Sorcerer, Warlock, Alchemist, Wizard,
Hunter, Sniper, Assassin, Knight, Valkyrie, Necromancer, Voodoo Shaman,
Warchief, Thief and Chef. And can be used at any game mode as well.
So Dragon's being naughty and dealt you an
unexpected whammy, knocking you dead when it was 10% life left.
Having any Damage Dealing (DD) ability ready
like Power Strike, Backstab, Judgement, Lightning or even DOTs like Poison or
Bleed are necessary for this part of the trick.
You must press the Swap button to avoid the
game over as soon as you drop, then while mashing Swap button you can activate
these abilities being off the screen after dieing.
There's a small
window through which these can be activated like the rezzing ones of the last
chapter. So you can press them while being dead as long as you are "active"
mashing the Swap button. Keep that in mind...
So the enemy will receive damage and will
die without being able to kill you since you're already dead, you will see it
whiffing attacks after attacks while you wait for your CD to refresh. The
tradeoff is that if the enemy has a big amount of health you will have to use
your ability, mash Swap until the cooldown is ready again and repeat this several
opportunities. This may take a lot of time and finger effort.
I do not suggest using this trick on
characters with HOT abilities (Heal Over Time) like Paladin, Bard, Alchemist or
Priest because they can regain health faster than you can damage them, in those
cases I just call it quits.
Now the next part of this trick also requires
to have some credits placed on health regeneration skill on your toons as well
as some Artifacts that help you regain health after combats.
For example: You're running a Warlock with just
1 level spent on health regen. You go Classic Mode and make it to the last stage.
While fighting a couple minutes against the Dragon you died to it, but used the
SWAP CANCEL tech to keep yourself "active", then you put a Curse on it
from beyond the grave. The DOT on the dieing Dragon will cause damage and eventually its death.
Then the Dragon dissapears popping you back to life through life regen stats
and artifacts that regenerate health after killing bosses. Here's the
breakdown.
- die
- quickly press Swap button before the
death blast SFX ends
- keep mashing Swap button until your
damage dealing skill cooldown is up again
- without stop the Swap button mashing -
press DD Ability buttons
- repeat from step #2 until is dead
- pop back to life
[6.-] Strategies and Tips.
♥ If you're stuck on Raid bosses that regenerate
health like Medusa and Air Spirit this may help you. If your Stun button is grayed
out and you are not able to interrupt their Healing Aura or Song, then as soon
as they successfully trigger these healing Abilities or right when they're about
to use them quit the run to avoid their health going further and lose
all the damage dealt. Like this you'll somehow "save" your progression.
Easy bosses like Death Dragon or Fire
Spirit AFAIK do not have health regenerating abilities in any of their phases
so you will get lucky to get them.
♥ If you manage to perform a OHKO it will display "Overkill!" and the next character will spawn in 2 seconds not at 4 seconds as usual.
♥ When you perform a sucessful dodge a Rage
bar above the characters will fill up to the point of a Counter-Attack and you
will be able to strike with a very increased speed. You must do a swipe to the
right and you basically can go nuts... but using SWAP CANCEL you can go Nutella.
By attacking faster and scoring crits you slow the bar's depleting. Actually
the mashing will even slightly refill the bar keeping you for longer at Rage
state.
Nevertheless, There is a way to make the
rage timer even longer: Altogether with the mashing you can throw a DOT
while the Counter-Attack is up. Characters with DOT abilities
like Bleed or Curse must be used here. Cause every tick plus the Swap Attack
mashing aided by eventual critical strikes will fill up the bar and you will
kill the enemy in a berzerker fashion.
With the chaotic nature of this finger
pressing you have to push the sequence very fast and making sure you hit the
target, otherwise the bar will seep empty without advice regardless of DOTs and
crits.
♥ Another point about Rage is that if you fill
the bar and the words "Counter-Attack" flash in the screen, then
unintentionally you press Swap button before swiping to the right, this unfortunately
will make you lose the rage chance and the bar will reset to 0.
Then, to avoid any misshaps don't push
Swap when you are about to get the Counter-Attack or you can lose the
chance if you're not aware. After the swipe it's ok, Swap attack to your hearth
contempt and go Nutella... yum...
♥ At Colo you will face tough heroes with
health regen abilities like Healing Aura or Song, if you somehow through raw
power out DPS them and manage to pull the kill while they still had the buff
active they will pass the remnant time of the HOT onto the next contender,
so your inital attacks will all be wasted because the buff will heal them as quick
as you harm them. So you may want to slow your attacks for a while, wait till
the buff is gone, kill the healing guy and deal with the next one.
♥ The bow and arrow classes (Archer, Hunter
and Sniper) are the iconic Stun characters of the game, but when you fight
against them at Colo you will realize that Hunter uses Bleed instead of Stun,
so you may want to counter her by using a Stun. Just a heads-up.
♥ Before the beginning of a new round at
Colo you may want to put the highest damage dealing toon up front to
attempt to get the highest "Just" damage bonus to start the fight with
the right foot.
♥ At Colo you will get used to the initial
timing of the enemy heroes in which they use their abilities as stated before.
They go: Strike - Strike - Ability, and so on. But more importantly; before
using their ability they do an easily recognizable rocking motion, from left to
right twice and quick. Right when they shake is exactly when you must do your
counter ability. Imagine you're fighting against a Chef, he uses Cook ability
which basically chops you a great chunk of damage and heals himself. If you
Stun him before he shakes then his Cooldown will still be up and will use it right when your Stun effect has faded, so it's
imperative to use any Stun ability right when they are shaking, not
before... and definetly not after.
♥ Stun > Shackle, because Stun
will also enable a Rage bar and über attacking speed just like when
Counter-Attacks happen. JFYI.
♥ If any of your characters at Colo has
taken damage and survived you can swap them up after the combat is over to
heal them, artifacts and health regeneration abilities trigger right before
the start of the next round.
♥ I suggest you to unlock as much
Artifact slots as you can instead of unlocking Heroes, because Artifact
effects are global to all your party and the hero is just it. But if you still got
the itch of unlocking a hero of 35 gems I recommend you trying the Sniper.
♥ On Artifacts I prefer to stack Boss
themed items instead of Regular Monsters since those fights are longer, more
difficult and yield much more Credits.
♥ Usually I play with my left middle finger on the upper left side of the screen, the left index ready at the directional buttons and right index at the lower right side of the screen. With this comfy hand positioning you can do the sequence "Swap-Attack" quickly and making sure to do it in equal intervals.
♥ At Colo or Classic. Right when a
combat ends, you can count 4 seconds and the next enemy will appear, mumbling
"one, two, three, Go!" Also helps, this is to help you getting Just
strikes which roughly scores double damage on the enemy.
[7.-] Conclussions, legal disclaimer, glossary and
contact.
As a conclussion I think Timing Hero is a
great game that has a lot of potential, may not have a deep story plot and the
heroes are the classic cliches we have seen countless times... (I'm a little
bit impressed there arent any Ninja or Pirate at the heroes roster) but it
doesn't need to be original character-wise to be a fun game. The mechanics of
TH makes it a challenge for your reflexes and an acute test for your response skills
under pressure. It's themed with epic characters which is my favorite fantasy
and it reminds me of the amber/green era of PC gaming which was awesome.
I'm quite sad because of the sorry state of
the economy of my country which doesn't allow me to purchase gems/credits with
money in order to support the devs as an appreciation token for their wonderful
app. So if you, the reader are capable of making a purchase for this game, do it
for the both of us, you and me. We don't know what 21c Ducks and Buff have planned
for the future for patrons like possibly you.
I also think that even when my discoveries
are groundbreaking are not game-breaking and devs should leave this trick un-nerfed...
unless guys like Biffotasty/Desk, professional pianists or DDR maniacs use it
to tear down the leaderboards... and even if they do it employing my tricks, so
what? they would prove the world their awesome dactilar and mental skills and
that would be amazing... anyway I'm a little cloth-handed because I would love
to contribute to these developing studios and putting this guide up is as I see
it a part of a small contribution to improve the game.
Is worth making clear that this guide wasn't
done as a mean for monetizing or profitting (*) neither with the intention of
promote/demote the previously quoted games and products from other franchises.
Those were mentioned with strict referencial purposes.
The copy/pasting of this material on other
blogs, forums, printed and broadcasted media and/or websites is strictly
forbidden unless an explicit request letter is sent to me and I concent. Any
sightings of my material without my permission will be prosecuted and deleted
without further advice. So just ask me first okay? ;)
And the usual legal disclaimer:
Every logo, name and/or character or
mechanism described in this guide belong to their respective authors and were
used only for reference ends. Any quote written in this guide being alredy
intellectual property of any instituition or author was added merely coincidentially.
Nutella, their logo, image and their typography are delicious properties of Ferrero. The App Store, their logo and products are copyrighted protected material
belonging to Apple Computers, The Play Store, their distinctive logo and
typography is copyrighted protected property of Google Inc. Ultimate Marvel vs.
Capcom III (UMVC3) all their characters, mechanisms, logos and typography are intellectual
properties of Capcom America and Marvel Entertainment USA. DDR (Dance Dance
Revolution) is copyright of Konami and Bemani. Megaman is copyright of Capcom
America and was created by Keiji Inafune and property of Capcom USA. yadah yadah yadah, blah blah... nobody cares
If you want to pinpoint anything that needs
correction and/or would like to do a suggestion or contribution relevant to
this guide you can hit me up @soyelgranpepino on Tweeter or send me a mail at
soyelgranpepino@gmail.com for discussion on this topic and/or requests.
[0.- Glossary]
AFAIK: As Far As I Know - Term usually coined when you have a certain knowledge within the confines of your experience.
CD: Cooldown - Is the time you have to wait for an ability to be able to be used again, which starts counting from the momento you press that ability button. In Timing Hero the CD of every attack is approximately 1 second.
Colo: Colosseum - Personal colloqual term for the longer word. A game mode where you're fighting other computer controlled heroes.
Crit: Critical Hit - A random occurence in games where you deal more damage than a regular hit
DD: Damage Dealer - An ability or any character class that focuses on dealing damage instead of healing, tanking or supporting party members. In the case of Timing Hero a DD ability would be Backstab, Lightning or Judgement.
DOT: Damage Over Time - An ability that deals damage distributed in an amount of time, every determined time that the ability does damage is called "tick"
DPS: Damage Per Second - A measure of your ability to deal damage in a lapse of time. This term was deviated in WoW where the DD classes such as Hunter or Mage were labelled as DPS.
HOT: Heal Over Time - An ability that heals damage distributed in an amount of time, every determined time that the ability heals is called also "tick"
JFYI: Just For Your Information - Term usually put in mails, when someone is giving you some additional information on a subject.
lvl: Level - A popular acronym for the word "level".
OHKO: One Hit Knock Out - Term that describes a gigantic hit that packs an colossal amount of damage bigger than the receiving character's health pool causing it to die using only one hit. Like Fissure or Horn Drill in Pokémon.
Rez: Resurrect - Short term for the verb "resurrect", when you get back to life from the dead. The term is also know as an unofficial verb. There are sets of abilities in many games that allow you to get back to life.
SFX: Sound Effect - Sound sample for any action.
TL;DR: Too Long; Didn't Read - Internet slang to put long explanations in a very shortened way.
UMVC3: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom III - A popular fighting game title.
This guide was written using WPS Office
Writer on a Samsung S3 Mini and is valid for Buff Studio - 21C.Ducks Indie-Game
Studio's Timing Hero game V. 2.0.1
3-4-2016 - Valencia, Venezuela.
(*): I won't complain and will not hurt
either about receiving Bitcoin or any currency donations to my person in appreciation
for the effort put in this material, though. Thanks!
