Tidus (Dissidia 012)/Strategy

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Overview

Tidus is primarily an aerial fighter, whose mobility lends to both offense and defense, with defense being particularly strong. When going on the offense, he has to get close with dashes and pressure with Hop Step. Then when it is time to defend, he can ground dash away reliably, mitigate risk with backward air dodges and call out dodge punish attempts with a dodge attack like Cut & Run.

A very common effective strategy for Tidus is to dash feint to build assist gauge and control space between him and his opponent. This is at the core of high level Tidus play, where he can quickly transition to offense or defense with little riks.

Strategy

Offense (General)

Tidus' dash speed is great, but his mid range attacks aren't ideal for initiating offense. If you see the opponent miss an attack, this is a good opportunity to go in and provoke a response or line up a dodge punish.

• Free Air Dash / Ground Dash to the opponent and poke with Hop Step bravery. Mixup with air jumps, dash feints and blodges to keep the opponent guessing. Tidus does not have many effective offensive mixups in terms of raw attacks, so he has to utilise other techniques to punish opponents for retaliating.

• If you are confident in reading the opponent's next attack, Energy Rain or the appropriate dodge bravery can evade it and strike back as a hard callout. Very risky, it is better to get comfortable with braveries and movement first.

Defense (General)

• Hop Step > air dodge cancel (backwards). The bread-and-butter of Tidus' defense and assist meter building strategy. Hop Step's low recovery allows Tidus to repeat this quickly, and his fast fall speed ratio after air dodge makes it hard for opponents to hit Tidus out of air dodges. Mixup with blocks, blodges and different timings; If Tidus dodges or Hop Steps again with ambigious timing, it can make opponents second guess their own approach.

• Running / air jumps. Tidus' movement speed is good enough to make some bravery attacks whiff all on their own. This does open up Tidus to fast attacks if he happens to be in its range, but it is one of his best options; It can facilitate mistakes in close range without high commitment.

• Dodge > dodge bravery attack. If the opponent is committed to hitting Tidus during a dodge's recovery, Tidus can quickly evade this with a dodge attack such as Cut & Run or Stick & Move. These attacks are pretty slow to come out though, make sure the opponent is not baiting you into using them.

• Whiff Hop Step close to the opponent. This can also be good for provoking a response out of the opponent. If they are slow to react or do something out of reflex, Tidus can still attempt a counterplay with another bravery, dodge or a blodge. The exact range can differ between matchups.

Strategy (Ground)

• Reverse Ground Dash to create space and build assist meter at the same time. Very effective in large stages, namely Order's Sanctuary where Tidus can consistently move away next to the wall.

• Call out whiffs or blocks with Sphere Shot. When used sparingly, it can complement the dash > bravery gameplan.

• Run horizontally or away from the opponent to create whiff punish opportunities.

Strategy (Aerial)

• Reflect high priority projectiles with Slice & Dice or Energy Rain.

• If a blodge staggers the opponent, punish with Full Slide.

Dodge Punishment

• Free Air Dash > Hop Step. The safest, but not necessarily the easiest method for Tidus. Very effective though, it complements his dash feints a lot when used well.

• Full Slide (call Aerith assist during startup). The increased tracking helps Tidus scoop opponents above or below him, but he must be close enough to the opponent for this to work. If Full Slide hits, Tidus can reliably confirm the followup charge for an assist combo. Good against fast fallers as well and usually not high risk for the assist character either.