Is Naoto, who is armed with a gun and therefore long-range, really a problem to deal with?

A number of the characters seemed to have ranged attacks. Naoto's gun is faster than most of them, but I feel like Aigis's guns are more threatening. Then again, I played a lot of Naoto and I found her gun to be pretty boss. She can fire six shots before having to either reload or disengage aim mode, so she can't exactly spam bullets. The bullets are, however, quite effective. I would also be more concerned with the fact that she has Hamaon/Mudoon. I saw another player successfully land Hamaon. It was so cool.

So how do the Mudo/Hama skills in this game work? I imagine Naoto would be pretty broken if she were capable of delivering instant death attacks on her opponents.

Naoto's opponent has a fate gauge beneath their health. It appears as a gray skull with a number next to it. When that number reaches zero (it appears that specific attacks lower this number, and it regenerates a couple of points between rounds), the skull turns red and starts laughing. When this occurs, if Naoto can land Hamaon/Mudoon, the opponent dies instantly.

What alt colors does Naoto have?

I loved her alternate colors and chose them every time. Her hat and jacket were a beige color, while her pants were red plaid. Her hair was brown and her eyes remained blue. Looked somehow quite fitting for a detective.

Huh. I didn't expect it to actually be an instant death skill. To be honest I'm still pretty confused. It sounds like it could be incredibly broken or incredibly useless, depending on how easy/hard it is to land.

The spells themselves didn't look hard to land. Mudoon is a darkness beam that shoots across the screen. Hamaon is a light beam that shoots up from the ground. It seemed to originate from under the opponent's feet, when I saw it hit. I also saw one player cast Mudoon, but it was executed in the air, so the opponent just stayed on the ground. When I saw it connect, it took Mitsuru from over 50% down to nothing. The hard part is in getting the fate gauge down to zero. The lowest I got it down to was two one time.

Naoto Shirogane:

First up is Naoto, who I played the most next to Aigis. What can I say? I like my Fortune and Aeon very much?

I don't have as much to add on as the last time I came here, other than having a better understanding of what in the world she's supposed to be doing. Mudoon and Hamaon isn't difficult to land at all in a combo. It kinda reminds me of Insta-kill combos, where it's entirely possible to hit them...but the conditions are the biggest bane to it all. Her fate counter ticks slowly away depending on what you do and a good deal of the attacks involving the gun removes fate ticks on the final hit. You'd think this wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I've had enemies recover before the final hit from her revolver executes. It's not like Noel's Distortion where all the bullets will properly connect, or Aigis for that matter. When it comes to longer combos, I hope this changes. Especially because they're making it out to be that's her biggest game plan next to keeping silence active on the foe.

Had no problems with the aim stance other wise. Zoning wise, the bullet stream will stay together. I think the combo scaling won't affect it too much, except that awkward last bullet whiffing on enemies. You do need to exit to reload and what not, but it's not that big of a deal since you can use Sukuna Hikona's standing D and a couple others to get a free wallbounce or to knock them away with a combo into AOA. I think Naoto benefits more from the launcher, as you can combo into one her air attacks that chips off another Fate tick. I think it's her j.C Don't quote me though.

Her throw is actually pretty good. Stuns the foe, but they can shake out of the effects. The secondary attack is purdy useful for getting a combo started. Leads into her Super easy enough. Scales the damage though pretty harsh.

If you use her blowback mechanic, ALWAYS go for that Sukuna follow up. You can get a free combo off it, plus it removes a fate counter tick. You really want to focus on pushing that gauge as low as possible, given the fact it does recover somewhat every round that passes. Naoto players were mainly getting combos that remove as much as four ticks per go on average. I'm sure more will come, but you don't realize how difficult it is to get those tick marks removed without utilizing resets. Bullets scale damage and hitstun somewhat, soo I'm gonna guess she'll have two general sets of combos. One for fate reduction, and one for damage. Subject to change.

That is, until go into Special Set Case Rifle Rank 2. It's a bit slower than the silence super, but the fact that I think it removes 5 ticks is great. If your mid combo takes out 4, then you get 5 more from R2, that means you can probably land the last 4 as a play tool for the rest of the match. What I liked to do was go into this near a corner: 5BC-> 2CD (-1)-> Double Fang -> Megido trap hit (-3) -> Shoot Stance A x5 (-1) -> R2 Super. That's 10 ticks off the Fate gauge, and not bad damage. Timing off the Shoot stance is silly though.

You'd be surprised how many people get skittish once they're under 5 ticks in Fate. Naoto's pressure game becomes better too, because a simple combo from Naoto can take away four in a heartbeat, and once they're at zero...anything from her can lead to a Mudoon/Hamaon set up. Even a grab, as we've seen from the videos thus far. Hamaon for knockback, fullscreen set ups, and Mudoon for close and mid-range. I wanna say Hamaon is like Spell of Vishanti, but its not...so yeah.

Sukuna is a great Persona to have. Small hurtbox, great range, and low cooldown. Seems to have the purpose of aiding Naoto's neutral game a lot, so that's why he has less cooldown than say...Kanji or Yu, who focus on combos and punishment accordingly. I liked casting 5D and I forget the notation, but there's one where you send SH out to a particular point and he does a rapid slash sort of deal. Great for lockdown and gives you some breathing room for Megido traps.

Sooo Naoto mainers, you have your work cut out for you. She has combos, but you need to not always go for the fate gauge kills every round. Keep in mind that part of your work carries over to the next round, and that 5 is generally the lucky number. Her normals aren't the fastest at close range (you'll lose to Chie and Mitsuru), nor is she a long range specialist like Aigis or Teddie, but that's not the point. It's the fact she can weave in and out with her attacks and slowly push the opponent into a checkmate position. Don't worry so much on high damage combos, because we have the insta-kill set ups. Plan ahead, and focus on using those Fate kills to seal the match. Naoto thrives on restricting what your opponent can do with Fate intimidation and keeping the fight one on one with her silence attacks. If you can't get it into your opponent's head that you're a threat when their fate hits 0, then you don't have an intimidating Shirogane yet.