this is Billy and I thought he was really boring when I first started playing zzz cuz this you know this basic attack string looks flashy enough but it just wasn't very satisfying you know but then I spent some time in the lab with him last night figuring out how he actually works and now I've gone from this to [Music] look at how much smoother that gameplay gets when you stop mashing and start paying attention to your movement and positioning you can literally run circles around your enemies and what if I told you I'm pretty sure this is secretly how the developers intend ability to be played and they just didn't really tell anybody about it they certainly didn't go into detail about how any of this works in his tutorial or his move list so hi hello welcome I'm a hardcore casual and today I'm here to teach you two pieces of secret Billy combo Tech that may have made him one of my favorite characters in the entire game and really I thought I was going to hate Dollar Store Deadpool but he's not even that cringey in the story I kind of like him a little bit but now that I know about D movement oh boy we cooking so let's not waste any more time let's just jump into it I'm going to start by explaining how these two pieces of combo Tech work then I'm going to explain why you want to use them and how they're kind of crucial to BU these gameplay Loop because this is not just about style it's about practicality then I'm going to very briefly explain the simple trick action and fighting game fans like me use to find things like this cuz I want to help you find your own combo tech for your favorite characters cuz that's a large part of what makes games like this so much fun and at the very end I'll show you a Showcase of what this looks like in practice against one of the more challenging bosses I've encountered in zenas so let's get started yeah I think it's pretty clear Billy is one of zenis Zone Zero's movement Kings I use him all the time just for smoothly moving around enemies for closing gaps and repositioning across all these larger maps and these two pieces of combo attack I'm about to show you are what enabled me to take that to the next level now first things first the basics if you start pressing the attack button normally Billy will start doing these spins that you can kind of use to maneuver around the battlefield a little bit while you scoot these spins are actually Billy's rolling shot mode which he normally enters after his first two basic attacks you see when he starts a normal combo he does this little pop back fires once fires twice and then you can hold a directional input and fire again then as soon as his hands come up to the side and fire this cloud of smoke that means rolling shot is active and you can now start flipping around now the thing about rolling shot is it doesn't just look fancy there's a real reason you want to use it because not only do these flips turn into perfect Dodges with tons tons of invulnerability if you're lucky enough to have a second constellation or Cinema as I think they're called in zzz but Billy actually has this other mechanic tied to his core passive called steady shot where he'll kneel down on the ground and fire a continuous barrage of bullets to the enemy if you hold down the attack button or start rapidly pressing after you start firing and quick note actually but funny enough I know the skill description mentions that Billy has to be crouching but I don't know maybe just ignore that cuz I'm not 100% sure about this but I'm reasonably confident that even when Billy isn't actually crouching you can still trigger this extra damage cuz it's more about the continuous barrage and you can do that while standing and I do believe it still counts as him being in steady shot or crouching mode again I'm not 100% sure I haven't done any damage testing so if anyone wants to let me know by all means drop a comment but anyway normally you have to start Billy's attack string before you can trigger steady shot but if you're in Rolling shot mode you can skip that and go directly into the steady shot stance after you do a roll and at first glance this might just look like you know a bit of concentrated DPS maybe just a good way to build up status but Billy actually gets a massive damage boost while them steady shot STS almost 30% for me at the moment and it's not even fully upgraded so you kind of want to use steady shot a lot if you want Billy on field and you're looking to do damage now Billy exits steady shot if you move normally or release the attack button but if you stop firing continuously and then press attack once and move in a directional input then you can trigger rolling shot instead and go back into either your attack screen or like I said directly into steady stance only problem is steady shot kind of locks you in place obviously and rolling shot only does so much and you can only really travel so far with it so how are you supposed to like really truly position yourself effectively using it if you're mashing and dash out of it or start sprinting it's also kind of easy to just wind up resetting your combo and then you'll have to set everything back up again but that's where our first piece of tech comes into play you see if you do a normal Dodge attack you'll get Billy's spin move which is great for moving around the battlefield you should absolutely be using this all the time not just for damage but for getting around like here you can see how I just use the Dodge attack to avoid the enemy simply by changing direction slightly to avoid your attack so I can keep firing uninterrupted now normally if you do one of these Dodge attacks and then you press the attack button again immediately afterwards you'll start his basic attack string all over again the little hot backwards away from the enemy but look at what happens if I trigger rolling shot mode and instead of rolling immediately I cancel the roll directly into a dash attack as soon as I see Billy trigger the rolling shot with the muzzle flash did you see that instead of resetting the combo after a Dodge attack Billy now stays in the rolling shot state after dodging just press the attack button once after do Dodge and then use your controller to select the direction you would like to Dodge in like normal now note you do have to do the Dodge attack if you want this is to happen if you want to stay in Rolling shot if you just dodge and try to go straight into rolling shot without the Dodge attack then nothing will happen so what I actually normally do is as soon as I see the muzzle flash I dodge I press attack one more time to trigger the Dodge attack and then I just kind of hold the attack button down and immediately after the Dodge attack ends I'll immediately do a rolling shot and now I can just really easily start alternating between rolling shots and Dodge attacks making it much easier to maneuver around the enemy just be careful you don't reset your combo by mashing now if you see the little hop then you know your rolling shot is gone and you have to start over you have to trigger it again just remember before you start sliding and using your Dodge attack you need to see the first muzzle flash that signifies Billy is entering rolling shot mode if you dodge too early or go from Billy's normal attack string directly into his crouching stance without triggering rolling shot mode first you won't be able to do this but but wait this piece attack allowing you to get around the M more easily and giving your combos more flexibility is only half of the puzzle you see Billy actually has another secret piece of tech that I have not seen in any other character's kit yet Billy has two unique Dodges if you dodge twice with a normal character you'll just repeat the same Dash again right but Billy's second Dodge has a unique animation and not only that but if you trigger the second Dodge you get a special attack string out of it remember how if you dodge with Billy his Dodge attack is this spin move move right and if you normal attack immediately afterwards without being in Rolling shot mode first you do the little hop back well if you trigger the second Dodge and attack immediately afterwards Billy no longer does the Hop instead he'll shove his weapon directly in the enemy's face and fire off one strong piercing shot and then from there you can easily decide whether you want to go into rolling shot or crouching shot from there better yet if you get the timing down and press the attack button at the same time as the second Dodge would come out you can cancel the second Dodge entirely and just go to directly into that unique attack now this unique attack is actually mentioned in Billy's skill description notice how it says if you're dragging the stick during a Dodge you do an AOE attack that's the spin but if you're not moving the stick during a Dodge you get this piercing attack the thing about this is during hectic combat when it gets really like busy it can sometimes be kind of tricky to make sure you're not moving so you can trigger the piercing shot consistently but if you do the roll first the piercing shot comes out 100% of the time regardless of what you're doing so if you're focused on moving around the enemy and you want to make sure you get the piercing shot instead of the windmill by pressing the Dodge you can just do that you just press the Dodge button twice to trigger the roll then you can dodge into it instead of having to worry about making sure you're not moving when you fire eventually you'll want to get used to neutral dodging but like I said this is just a great way to guarantee you get the attack to come out when you want it not to mention how the roll is great for giving you a little bit of extra distance while keeping your in vulnerability frames not to mention again you can cancel the roll and still guarantee the piercing shot if you fire immediately after the roll starts notice here you don't even see the Dodge I just go straight into the gunshot then shift immediately into steady shot but anyway that clip I showed you at the beginning is basically a combination of this all working in harmony together I'm using Billy standard Dodge attack and maneuver around the enemy and keep them precisely where I feel comfortable fighting them I I can maintain whatever range I want to like this I'm popping in and out of rolling shot stance as needed going into steady shot to deal High focused burst damage and then I'm triggering rolling shot when I see an attack coming so I can use the free Dodge and go right back into damage without missing a single be now I think this looks really cool and it feels way better than just playing Billy like normally but like with good positional awareness it once you put all this together you're going to feel virtually Untouchable and I'm not even very good at this yet I just figured this out literally yesterday but aside from style in the game field why bother playing like this right like if you can just mash and do all right why would you do this especially because Billy attacks have pretty good range and not a lot of fall off so is there really a need to be this up close and personal not to mention the spinning Dash attack looks cool but is it necessary to spam it this often well actually yes and if you're a billy main I think you're going to want to get used to fighting enemies at Point Blank Range like this I think it's actually going to be really important long term allow me to explain now if you read Billy's skill descriptions you'll notice he has a lot of unique stuff directly tied to dodging one of the really interesting things I'm discovering about zzz is that a lot of these characters somewhat have their own specialty where some will like parrying some prefer basic attacks Billy is somewhat built around his Dodge and Dodge counters most characters certainly do not have multiple Dodge attacks let alone this degree of flexibility in their movement enabling it so what are the developers of zenist trying to tell us with this well let's take a closer look at Billy's Cinemas which if again if you're not familiar if you manage to get multiple copies of a character from The gacha you unlock unique abilities for them Billy's first Cinema is called dazzling entrance and allows him to regenerate extra energy every 5 Seconds as long as you hit an enemy with your dash attack now so if you have this unlocked you're going to be wanted mixing Dash attacks into your gameplay not just for the sake of all the maneuverability and flexibility but because it will help battery your energy reserves and you'll be able to use Billy's ex special attack more often but we ain't done yet you see Billy's second Cinema is called roaming gunsling ER and it boost Billy's Dodge counter damage by 25% and like I mentioned briefly earlier it turns Billy's rolling shot Dodges these flips into true Dodges with invulnerability frames that automatically trigger Dodge counters when you manage to pull them off with the right timing you notice how I trigger rolling shot then immediately get a Dodge after then go back in steady shot like that that's because I use this so I could stay up close and personal and keep the enemy right where I wanted them I kind of alternate between using the Hop to start combos when I want to maintain distance and using the piercing shot when I want to stay right next to the enemy and Trigger my steady shot quicker and then you know rolling shot dodging whenever I want to again keep up right in their face but why do we want to stay that close well if you look at Billy's other Cinemas you'll notice he gets a massive 32% free crit rate boost for his ex special based on how close he is to the enemy which more than anything should tell you you're supposed to play Billy right next to whatever you're fighting like weaving in and out of range of their attacks which becomes even more more rewarding once you unlock his final Cinema that allows him to stack up to a 30% General damage buff if you manage to keep dealing a lot of damage like this without allowing yourself to get hit in the middle and that's all just insanely cool but also kind of indicative of what I fear will be one of the biggest long-term problems with Zen lless Zone zero Billy is a super cool uniquely fun character to play but I hate how much of that is tied to gambling for duplicates roaming Gunslinger in particular I really feel like this should just be part of his base ability kit not to mention I'm still relatively early game I kind of just started unlocking and moving into the end game content but so far zzz seems like it really is just kind of stingy with po currency as well as leveling resources for characters and I'm not going to lie all that yapping they did on that live stream about oh my God guys look we're so generous look at all these free polls yeah oh not going to lie it just feels mad disingenuous at the moment and I'm already getting flashbacks to how stingy ginin can be at sometimes you ready for another Anniversary full of Drama Oh bro even my friends who don't play Goa games I've heard about how that was anyway when you have like really cool Tech like this in your game I feel like you need to give players plenty of opportunity to experiment and find the play styles that really click for them as an individual and I hate how stifled I'm already feeling I I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I first started testing Neco and I didn't know Cinemas or constellations and I saw some really really cool stuff in her Kit only to realize I'm probably never going to be able to test or have fun with any of it without falling into degeneracy and starting to gamble for copies of Neco it sucks and it makes the game less fun to play it's why I can't help but feel hoyo is letting their greed get in the way of so much of this game's potential obviously it's a freeto playay game they need to monetize somehow right but if they just loosen things up a bit I feel like it would be so much easier for people to get in the door and start having fun I feel like way fewer people would have bounced off of the game so hard and there would be way less negativity around it and I feel like just overall the quality of the game would just instantly Skyrock it like call me crazy but I just think it would be way easier to get people to commit to a game like this if they knew there was a progression path that would allow them to unlock the characters they were interested in or for in rewarding their Mastery of a character with the ability to earn cool upgrades like roaming Gunslinger instead of having to rely on their gambling look and I know this isn't fly unique to zzz like every Goa game has a little of this going on but like if we're saying the game is about the combat then I'm saying some of these characters combat flow feels somewhat incomplete to me without stuff like Gunslinger and we're going to talk more about this soon I actually have a video coming up about all the ways I Fe the monetization choices are ruining a lot of Zess Zone Zero's potential but for now let's talk about how you can find combo Tech like this for yourself before showing you the boss showcase I mentioned at the top and really it's very simple it comes down to a very straightforward five-word phrase if it's different start digging it's the same logic I use for every action game I play if something different than you expect is happening whether that's an enemy responding differently to your attacks or if you notice your character is doing a different animation than usual more often than you would expect there is a reason for that Beyond just Style uh even in ff16 like Clive has this homing attack right and the way it's described in game you're supposed to sit here charging it up and stack like half a dozen of these like little homing darts on one enemy or spread them around the crowd and then detonate them all at once right but I noticed if I really quickly pop one of these off and then just go straight into a combo touch the enemy real quick to proc it they'll pop up into the air and then that enables me to start doing all these other unique combo strings after that as a result if it's different start digging figure out why it's different how can you repeat whatever is happening and what gameplay value can you get out of it and remember it's not just about damage Billy's maneuverability is so key and you're about to see some of the reason why in this boss fight so you can see how some of this works in practice instead of just in the lab I I'm mostly going to let the fight play but I'm going to pause once or twice to point out some of the combo Tech I'm using in the moment to moment decision making that's making zzz way more fun for me and would not be even vaguely possible if I was mashing I'm over here now did you notice how the boss flashed that's like the notification that I can do a Parry but instead I chose to swap cancel out of Billy while triggering his special attack so that came out in the background and I swapped in into Neco then because Neco likes Dodge counters they boost her damage plus Neco likes to be doing her damage from behind the enemy so instead of parrying which would leave me in front again I used Billy's special attack so he stayed on screen for a second in the background doing extra damage while I brought Neo in and immediately started perfect dodging and countering while simultaneously maneuvering my character so that Neco wound up behind the boss after they finish their attack string so I could go straight into her alt and get extra damage while its back was turned I'm not saying this is the most efficient way to play it's week one I don't know anything and I certainly need to be better about spending my meter on EX special attacks but I a feeling these kinds of momentto moment decisions and this kind of gameplay is what we're going to be seeing a lot of in the future as this game matures now I think I'm going to leave it at that for today I've yapped up subscribe for plenty more combo Tech and character guides for both zzz and weathering waves I'm a hardcore casual who is not interested in spreadsheets or Min maxing but if there are combos I'm going to find them so stay tuned cuz this is what I found in a single weekend just wait until I get Ellen and I really start cooking I'm pretty sure she's got Dash cancels and I cannot wait to dig into them so if you want to see a video like this one about Ellen or a more in-depth guy to Billy the goat let me know down below really appreciate everyone who's tuned in so far I uploaded that last video expecting literally like five views maximum I kind of wanted to just upload it because the hardest part of starting a new YouTube channel is actually you know starting to upload videos instead of just thinking about uploading videos so I kind of just wanted to break the dam on that one and get the ball rolling so you have no idea how surprised and grateful I am for all the support thus far I hope you enjoyed this video uh my voice is still a little bit shot it'll it'll get back to normal in a couple days we'll see uh so if by the way if you can please comment and let me know how my explanation of all this was I'd really appreciate it cuz I want to make better guides for you so just let me know do you want more detail do you want less how was the footage uh just give me a shout about what you thought cuz there's a lot more content coming just watch open