DMC 5 V Guide

Overview

A short and sweet guide helping you on your journey to becoming a better V player

Introduction

Game
Devil May Cry is a game that is all about style. It encourages you to make your combos as stylish as possible by varying your attacks constantly. While the game doesn’t punish you for doing badly, it does reward you for playing well by giving you more red orbs to purchase upgrades and getting those SSS ranks can be downright addictive.

Character
V is an all new mysterious character introduced in DMC 5 and he has a very unique playstyle when compared to the likes of Nero and Dante. V prefers to stay back and watch the action unfold as he summons his familiars and uses them to fight for him and maybe even read a book while he lets them unleash all hell upon the enemy. An interesting mechanic is that his familiars can’t kill any demons but rather V has to finish the job with his trusty cane. It’s quite easy to get good style ranks with V as he can have Shadow, Griffon and Nightmare all attack in unison and can even line up a few enemies for cane kills.

Shadow

Shadow roughly acts as your melee weapon, dishing out damage by contorting his body into freaky a$$ shapes to maximize killing power. Shadow has a plethora of moves that actually give him quite a bit of range. His attacks can even reach flying enemies and if you unlock the Skewer skill you can basically reach the enemy no matter how far they are. Shadow can use wide sweeping attacks to hit multiple enemies and stun them or can pretty much infinitely combo a single enemy using launchers and juggling moves to the point where they would rather listen to V’s poetry.

Griffon

Griffon acts as your ranged weapon usually but can also pull off some melee attacks and crowd control attacks that make this bird the most versatile and badass fricking pigeon. Round Robin and Double Check basically allow you to fry every enemy you see on the screen using the power of Thor. This mighty pigeon does have some lag between moves but when paired with Shadow, he can really rack up the damage. Plus he fills your screen with cool lightning effects which is about the only thing apart from Nightmare’s explosions that makes V’s gameplay look sick.

Nightmare

So basically V activates his Devil Trigger in a fashion that gives me PTSD Donte flashbacks instantly bleaches your hair and completes your edgy poetry guy look along with your tattoos and sandals.

Then you have this ugly abomination that oozes out of the wall or floor. But he also has another spawn animation where he drops out of the sky in a ball of fire like Kung Fu Panda a badass meteor.

Nightmare usually attacks autonomously when he is summoned. But, you can purchase a skill that allows you to ride Nightmare like God of War Cyclops riding a true badass. This not only prevents V from standing around and reading his lame poetry but also allows the player to take control of Nightmare and deal damage the way you see fit.

Since Nightmare is basically the Devil Trigger, he can’t stay very long. But, in the short time that he is there, he can make everything on the screen go KABOOM like an oversized demoman from TF2 a hunk of awesomeness.

The Cane

So the Cane is basically a piece of garbage. It’s main function is to act like a stick that you can use to poke enemies to make sure that they’re really dead and not just faded to white dead.

Using the lock on along with the cane will pretty much either teleport in the direction of your choosing if no enemies are present or teleport you to the enemy if they are like Final Fantasy XV.

Chaining these teleport kills can fetch you a ton of style points. However, if you teleport to an enemy in the air and then try to teleport to a grounded enemy then he will just swing his cane in the air and will not be able to teleport until he touches the ground.

The Royal Fork ability is pretty cool and we’ll it better be considering its literally the only upgrade to your cane.

Sadly your teleports or even Royal Fork canes are often blocked by your familiars which means you basically have to go around them and then resume doing what you were doing.

Controls

The deafult control scheme is actually pretty good in my opinion when it comes to V. Since Griffon has some nice charged attacks though, I tried mapping him to the trigger. However, it was quite awkward doing the directional inputs while using the trigger. So, in the end, I decided to stick the deafult control scheme and while charging some things can be hard at times, I found its what works best for me.

Lock On and Directional Inputs

Lock-on is one of the most important things to do in DMC and is necessary to do many moves in the game.

Many players get confused with the directional inputs that go with the lock-on system. The “back’ and “forward” are relative to your position and your opponent’s position.

The directional inputs must be inputted before the button press or the move you want won’t come out.

Dodging

Dodging with V is slightly different than compared to Nero or Dante. While he does have the same technical functions as them, the way the affect your flow of battle are quite different.

Jump- the jump is pretty much the same as V just jumps in the air giving him invincibility.

Double Jump- this is rather unique as a double jump will require you to summon griffon back to your body and have him carry you in the air. This will withdraw griffon from battle and might disrupt the flow of combat.

Roll- his roll is basically a slide but it does work in the same way in terms of invincibility. However rolling will require you to summon shadow to yourself and withdraw him from battle. This might once again disrupt the flow of combat.

While these might be useful if maybe either shadow or griffon are stuck in a long animation and are about to get hit by an attack that will kill them they aren’t particularly good options. While there may be some attack cancelling potential, I haven’t seen it used effectively and have been unable to effectively cancel any animation to extend a combo.

Movement

By Himself- V has some pretty slow movement speed on the ground by himself when compared to the likes of Nero and Dante. However he has his summons to not only draw attention away from but also to aid to movement.

With Shadow- Shadow helps V move a lot faster on the ground as he takes over V’s run animation by allowing V to use him like a skateboard. This however means Shadow cannot attack while being used. So, while it will increase your movement speed, using this form of movement in the midst of combat is not recommended.

With Griffon- V’s double jump uses the help of Griffon. V can also hold the jump button to glide for some time. However, just like with Shadow, Griffon cannot be used while V is moving with him. But, using Griffon in the midst of battle to keep V away from harm can be pretty effective.

With Nightmare- Nightmare is a unique case as he can only be accessed when V activates his Devil Trigger. V can ride on Nightmare’s back and control his actions. This keeps V protected and also allows you to pull off some cool combos. But, you can also just let Nightmare do whatever he wants and it usually will still work out.

With Book- V has greatly reduced movement speed when he has his book out. But, this allows him to fill up his Devil Trigger meter much faster. This will allow you to summon Nightmare much faster for some big damage. But you will need to make sure that V is safe from harm while reading his book as he is extremely slow.

Combos

Truth be told, my combo game with V is somewhat lacklustre. So, I felt i would not have done a great job explaining it. This is why i have taken permission from YouTuber RPG Division to post his V combo guide here. He has some nice videos and a very nice accent so I definitely recommend checking out his channel.