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I’m Asahio. An EU player that started playing on the public release of Omega Strikers.
I’ve climbed rapidly from Rookie to Challenger in the first week of release. Currently I’m Mid-Challenger.
I have more than 500+ games on Era.
My average win-rate on Era is currently around +-60%.
In this guide, I will go over:
- My playstyle
- Some of the thought processes I go through
- Match ups, and how to deal with them
- Builds I use
- Certain mechanics I use
Understand though that this guide will not go over everything in full detail. It assumes you have a basic knowledge of Omega Strikers and are familiar with some of the terminology used.
Playstyle
First of all, I would like to clarify my play-style in detail. So you can understand if this guide for Aggressive ‘Omega’ Forward Era aligns with what you expect, or how you want to play.
Supportive Era
Supportive Era is the Meta. Many people play her on their own field / in the middle of the field and focus on passing to their other forward. The reality is that playing like that has its negative sides. Which for me, isn’t how I want to play Era:
- You are dependent on your other forward for goals.
- You are more vulnerable to enemy forward’s aggression, they do not have to give up anything to harass you, since they can stay on your side of the field.
- You will be expected to help defend more.
- etc …
“Aggression”
My aggressive play-style does NOT focus on K.O.’ing opponents.
This might be confusing as the guide is called “Aggressive”.
I believe there are 2 types of aggression in Omega Strikers:
1. Core Aggression: focusing most of your abilities and movement on controlling the core. Ideally, you want the opposing team to feel out of control, reacting to where you are on the field and what you decide to do with the core (angle, speed, direction, passes,…).
2. Striker Aggression: focusing your abilities to K.O. enemies and oppress their player count. Disallowing them to move, intercepting their passes and overall being a nuisance.
This entire guide and my personal play-style is all about Core Aggression. I believe that it’s one of the strongest ways to play the game and many aggressive players are too blinded by K.O.’s to properly play around the core.
Positioning
A core principle is to understand that you are supposed to be on areas in the field where other strikers (enemies AND teammates) are not. You are responsible for being in a position the goalie can reach you easily, and the goalie is responsible for getting the core to your position.
The closer you are to the opposing goalie, the riskier you play, but the more opportunities you get to score a goal. Ideally you want to be around the edge of the opponent’s goal area. This will give you a lot of leeway to catch passes, rogue balls and dribbling room.
Builds
Meta Build
Most people run this build or interchange Super Surge with Stacks on Stacks.
The reason this build became as popular as it is, mainly comes from the bursts of haste it gives using your Flutter Fly and Crossover strikes. It allows you to catch cores faster than almost any other striker, do faster passes and be “everywhere” at the same time.
Its a good build if you are playing more save and supportive. However, the build loses its integrity when you are primarily aggressive and can’t guarantee continuous strikes on the core to keep Crossover active.
You are weak and easily bullied by enemy forwards. Obviously you can utilize your speed around this. But for me, this was not enough in higher rankings. People started targeting me and K.O.’s started becoming more and more unavoidable. This is where the next build comes in to play.
Asahio’s Unstoppable Build
This is the build I use 99% of the time. It is a strong build that trades a little bit of burst haste into more overall base haste and power.
This build becomes more viable at higher rankings. This is because opponents will start trying to get you away from their field more consistently. If you are a known Era Aggro Forward player, you will get name-focused (they will recognize you) and know to try and shut you down.
Unstoppable is a factor that most people can not mentally take into account. You will get knock-backed less far, causing opponents that try and K.O. you to overestimate their distance.
The more they hit you, the faster you become.
This is another factor you can use to your advantage to:
- Dodge their hits
- Re-position faster
- Dribble more and faster
- Receive passes that are normally unrecoverable
- etc..
This build takes time to get used to, but you will feel literally more “unstoppable” the higher your level is. There’s almost nothing the opposing team can do against it, other than focus even more on you.
After the patch on 10/06, this build became even stronger. Stacks on Stacks is easier to stack and unstoppable was untouched.
Asahio’s Eject Button Build
10/06 Update – Stacks on Stacks / Perfect Form / Eject Button
This build is gimmicky. You are reducing your support element and duration of (de)buffs. It’s an experimental build I’ve tried for a while, giving me mixed results.
I believe eventually when skill ceilings will increase more, Eject Button becomes a surprise element which can elevate your Era game-play to new levels. Don’t take this build too serious for the moment, but if you are looking for a new element to play around: Eject Button can generate some really nice mind-games with the opposing goalie and improve your positioning at times.
After the patch on 10/06 this build has become more viable due to the removed CDR increase on Eject Button and increased CDR on Perfect Form, I believe Super Surge is now exchangeable for Stacks on Stacks.
Mechanics
Dribbling
Era is extremely good at dribbling (hitting the core against the wall and catching it again, then repeating this until you are close to the goalie) due to Fluttery Fly and can throw goalies off if they expect you to instantly shoot the core forward.
Dribbling works really good with Double Hit Beam and After Hit.
Side to Side
Use your mobility ability Fluttery Fly to move from one side of the enemy goal to the other, while striking from corner to corner. Most of the time you will be quick enough to do at least 2 strikes. Unless the goalie does a straight pass.
Double Hit Beam
Use your beam in the direction of the core when striking to the goalie, to hit it directly after the goalie tries to strike it away.
Maelstrom Crush
Use Maelstrom (you will have to predict) where you believe the core is going towards the enemy goal. This will add pressure to the goalie. Using your Maelstrom towards the enemy goalie is extremely powerful because the ability is uninterruptible. Don’t worry if you don’t hit the core or goalie, the pressure will add up.
After Hit
This is something not unique to Era. When the core is going at a slow to mid speed towards the enemy goalie and nobody is around you, simply follow the core and wait for the enemy goalie to strike, then immediately strike the core again. The goalie’s strike will be on cool-down and you will get a free goal.
Matchups
Bans
I personally always ban Drek’Ar. In my opinion he is an overlooked, underrated striker that is way stronger due to his slows on not only the core but also on you. A good Drek’Ar will be able to slow down your gameplay significantly. If you are not afraid of Drek’Ar, ban whoever you have most difficulty playing against/who you lose most to. Don’t care about Meta.
Matchups
Striker | Goalie | Forward |
AI.MI | Pretty much the same as forward, her kit is decent for goalie but in general she should lose any 1v1 against you. | AI.MI is usually not a huge problem. Her knockbacks are quite huge considering her fast paced playstyle, but if you are aware of this and have a general idea of her location – you should be fine. Try to stall when she uses her ultimate and don’t play to much into it. It’s a pretty wasteful ult and there’s only a few scenarios where it will actually work. |
Asher | Asher is annoying to deal with as goalie, you won’t be able to brute-force a goal with beam or maelstrom. Try to do plays where you strike to one side of the goal to the other. | Asher forward might try to harass you, she is slow and easily dodge-able because her abilities have long windup. Generally speaking you should do fine if you play on the opponents field and avoid near-wall situations with her. |
Atlas | Generally no problem, play around his abilities or keep core aggression by striking core against his abilities a few times and stall. “ | Same as goalie, no real danger for you. |
DrekāAr | No comment. | Extremely dangerous. Even with Unstoppable training’s, Drek’Ar is a nuisance for you and teammates. His slow is easy to hit, combo-able and completely shuts you down for 2.5s. His shotgun projectiles deal HEAVY hits if you are near and his invisibility will allow him to ensure it hits heavy. |
Dubu | A good Dubu goalie will be hard to outplay. You can do the typical corner to other corner of goal to try and catch him of guard, or if he’s out of abilities, use your beam as an extra hit to double hit the ball in the goal. | Surprisingly, Dubu is not necessarily a bad forward. Try to mostly focus on yourself and not too much on him. In general you should be fine, Dubu’s won’t harass you most of the time. He is also generally too slow to be bothered by. |
Era | Generally fine. Await her abilities, and counter her movement speed with your Beam. | Try to avoid getting hit by her Beam. If she is playing supportive, try to hit her with your Beam and zone with Maelstrom. |
Estelle | No comment. | Estelle generally is no problem in terms of aggression against you, however, be very careful around walls because her piercing shot is extremely broken. It deals a heavy hit and can reach you cross map. Many Estelle players abuse this ability to its full extend due to its extreme knock-back. |
Juliette | Play around beaming her, angling the core in one side of the goal to the other. Brute-forcing goals is hard against her. | Juliette is strong, it’s a harder match-up. However, she has no way of slowing you down. Try to reside as much as possible in the middle of the opponents field. When she tries to combo you, understand that you are fast and that her combo is not a true combo. Use erratic movement to make her miss. |
Juno | Overall she is susceptible to side-to-side striking because of her slow speed. Her blobs are annoying, if you have the stagger and/or playing with unstoppable, don’t be afraid to step on them to destroy them. | Most of the times, Juno will be too busy with her blobs to spend time on you. This is fine for you to put pressure on the goalie and try and gather some blobs if nobody pays attention to you. Without blobs, Juno is kind of useless. If you have unstoppable, this will just make you faster. |
Kai | Kay is annoying, he is fast, and can shut down any aggro plays you do because his projectiles are kind of weird / buggy / pass through you. When it touches the core, it completely shuts its speed down. Try to play slower, approach him and use your beam to eliminate his speed. | Pretty much the same as goalie. Beam him and try to catch him of guard with your Maelstrom. Don’t focus too much on him though, keep focusing on the core as always. |
Luna | Keep slowing her and harassing her while focusing on the core. She is mainly useless in goal except for her occasional eject play. If you play with unstoppable, you can continuously mirror her movement and take her abilities in your face to avoid her from hitting the core consistently. | Same as goalie. She won’t really pressure you on the field, if she does, simply take it and use your Beam. |
X | No comment. | Annoying match-up, but manageable. Think of X as a big teddy bear, if he focuses you, hug him and run around him. He will waste a lot of his time, you will become faster with Unstoppable. The closer you are to X, the harder it becomes for him to target a wall for you to be K.O.’d on. |
Closing Words
If you’ve read through this whole guide. Thank you.
I want to really clarify, this build is not for everyone. Most people will feel like Support Era is better and feel more comfortable to play so. It makes sense, it is the meta for a reason.
Don’t take everything I say as factual, I made this guide based on my personal experiences.
Have fun playing the game and hopefully this guide will help you climb up the ranks if you decide to play Aggressive Forward Era!