Devil May Cry 5 Dante Guide

Overview

Dante returns in Devil May Cry 5 and most of his original skill set from DMC4 is still intact but with quite a few differences that make him feel like a completely different character. This guide will help you understand what Dante can do in 5.

Introduction

Dante returns in Devil May Cry 5 and most of his original skill set from DMC4 is still intact but with quite a few differences that make him feel like a completely different character. 4 Devil Arms, 4 Guns, and 4 Styles. His loadout in DMC5 is large enough to make even an experienced player feel lost in the weapon rotations. This guide will go over some of the most important aspects of his weapons and styles while also explaining some of their uses.

The chapters written in this guide will have information that will be useful for all levels of play but I still recommend you familiarize yourself with the basics of an action game like Devil May Cry before diving into this guide.

It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you follow along this guide while playing, rather than reading this all in one sitting.

The objective of this guide is to teach you the ins and outs of how Dante works in Devil May Cry 5 to improve your understanding of the character and the game by explaining mechanics and providing examples in detail so that you can go on to develop your own playstyle. This is NOT a compilation of tech and it will not explain every single detail imaginable since that’s just not possible or realistic but it will tell you what you should know about Dante and what he’s capable of.

PC or Console

Back in DMC4, it was pretty much a given that playing on console was a far worse option for training because of the lack of a practice mode but in DMC5 they were nice enough to add Void Mode. All the techniques listed in this guide will work on any system. I felt that it was more important to first cover what is possible on all platforms and then as time goes on, I will add sections that cover mods and techniques which are exclusive to the PC version through the use of modifications. Until then, this guide was created specifically so that anyone could read through it and learn the character on any platform.

Important Changes From DMC4 Dante

Lets quickly go over what I feel are some of Dante’s most important changes from DMC4.

• Weapon Switch speed limitation removed
• Style Switch speed limitation removed
• Dante now has a side flip in the air that is bound to the side roll input
  
• Ecstasy is on Air Taunt and not exclusive to a weapon
• Fully customizable loadout order for both Devil Arms and Guns
• Trickster dash range has been extended
• Royal Guard has recovery
• No Height Restriction on nearly all his moves
• Inertia is mostly gone so Rainstorm now has built in momentum that is fully controllable
• Aerial Rave’s knockback speed is faster than most if not all attacks
• Using Air Trick off the ground also uses your Air Trick after a jump
• The transition between Stinger and Million Stab is much slower
• Dante now has Ground Trick aka Trick Down
• Air Hike no longer resets gravity
• Ebony And Ivory Gunshot startup is cancelable without jump canceling
• Coyote-A no longer knocks back at a distance but will instead juggle
• Charged Shots will charge up automatically if you are in Gunslinger
• Rebellion no longer has Drive

Weapon: Ebony & Ivory

Ebony & Ivory are more than just two pistols capable of rapid fire, they’re also your best friend when it comes to juggling enemies at both close and long range. E&I are quite different in this game when compared to 4. They’re overall much stronger and have a couple new features like different firing modes, a fully controllable Rainstorm, automatic Charged Shots, and cancelable startup on regular gunshots.

That didn’t go so well…

Much better

So now you know that gunshots are quick, useful and most importantly look really smooth. Where else are gunshots useful?

In order for Middle Break to hit the Caina before it touches the ground, I have to fire the gunshot first otherwise this combo will not work at all.

Final example with Faust

You get the idea by now. E&I allow you to extend combos further than usual by dishing out quick bits of stun.

If you played 4 then you may be wondering where the Jealousy function went. The closest thing to Jealousy can be found in Gunslinger and it’s listed as Ivory Shot. Pressing the shoot input in Gunslinger will make Ivory fire a burst of three shots on both the ground and in the air.

Pressing Style on the ground will make Ebony shoot one devastating shot that has the potential to juggle even the heaviest of enemies that are normally immune to the effects of an ordinary gunshot. Ebony Shot will also hit and juggle twice if fired in Devil Trigger or if the shot is charged. Ebony shot is technically not usable in the air but the effects of a charged Ebony Shot can still be accessed through Rainstorm if you are DT’d or have charged Ebony.

As I mentioned before, Rainstorm no longer requires you to jump cancel out of a move with momentum to strafe around while shooting as it is now completely controllable even when executing the move from a neutral jump. Not only that, but if a move has momentum and you Rainstorm out of it without jump canceling, that momentum will actually carry over to Rainstorm.

Weapon: Shotgun

Dante’s latest version of Coyote – A is by far the most complete of the bunch. It retains all of the features that were in DMC4, buffs them and even has some unique properties.

Coyote-A features a new move called ‘Cut-In‘ which is a grounded, controllable, 4-way dash and each direction ends in a Shotgun blast. Each of these dashes are cancelable before the Shotgun is fired and there is even a jump extension that is jump cancelable. Cut-In single handedly turns the Shotgun from just a tool made for damage and displacement into one of Dante’s strongest movement options on the ground.

Weapon: Kalina Ann

Probably the most simplistic weapon in the Firearms category, Kalina Ann features a very straightforward movelist. No movement options on this one, just lots of different ways to fire rockets at your target and even some lasers.

Every weapon tends to have the one tool that you know and want the weapon for and in Kalina Ann’s case, the move you’ll be interested in the most is Blaster.

Blaster is really the star of the show in KA’s movelist and it covers the area that Rainstorm used to be good for before it was made slower. If you’re only using a single KA, Dante fires a single rocket straight down to the ground that will launch enemies beneath him but using 2 KA’s allows you to fire one rocket up and one rocket down. With gravity being as floaty as it is in 5, Dante can have a difficult time descending in this game even with all his new tools making a move like Blaster invaluable.

Because of the kind of attacks that this weapon has, you’ll get more use out of KA’s movelist with DSD’s summoned swords.

An interesting little detail about using 2 KA’s is that by holding down the Gunslinger key/button, you’ll actually place down one of the rockets if you no longer want to use it. This animation deals no damage and seems to have no uses outside of temporarily discarding one of the two launchers.

Weapon: Dr.Faust

If you’re anything like me, then the first time you used this weapon you were probably lost on what to do with this hat. Dr.Faust is that one weird weapon that has to be in Dante’s arsenal. DMC3 had Nevan, DMC4 had Lucifer and now in 5 we were given a hat.

Dr.Faust is a boomerang, a machine gun, a turret, a protective barrier, a fishing rod and can even send out a massive red orb meteor. It has it’s uses but they can be quite cumbersome to apply anywhere outside of Void.

The primary feature that you’d probably be interested in is it’s ability to pull enemies towards you with Mad Hatter and Hat Trick. You should dispose of any assumptions you may have about how this pull functions because this pull is nothing like Nero’s Snatch ability.

The trajectory of the pull depends on where Dante is on the stage. There are 3 different kinds of pulls that you can use:

DMC5’s launchers have this float that you may already be familiar with if you’ve played 4SE Vergil. These floats on launchers are the perfect opportunity for using Faust’s slower moves if you still use Rebellion or Sparda.

If you couldn’t already tell, Faust is very slow and without DSD you’re pretty limited in terms of where and when you can use Faust effectively. With that said, it’s not hopeless and there are ways to make good use of its features.

Weapon: Balrog

While punching and kicking his way through hell isn’t a new concept for Dante, the way it was done with Balrog is completely new to the classic DMC games. Balrog is that expected set of gauntlets and greaves that he’s had in most of the games but this time around, the movelist for them is separated into two stances.

Both stances have their own unique features that are exclusive to those modes and switching between them is something you’ll be doing almost as often as you switch styles and weapons. However, unlike styles and weapons this is not something you can switch at any time and Dante will have to do an animation each time you switch (this is something that can be avoided in the air through jump canceling if you didn’t want the animation to play).

You’ll quickly realize that this is not the traditional punch/kick movelist that you may have expected out of this weapon and it is in fact something completely different that will take some getting used to. It personally took me quite a bit of time to truly adjust to this kind of separation of the moves even within the same stance. The difference here is that Balrog in punch mode no longer has a set of pre made combos for you to dial in but instead each jab, hook, cross and uppercut has it’s own input for you to mix together however you like and the recovery on each of these moves can be canceled through the use of Welter Move (Welter will only cancel Punch Mode attacks and not Kick Mode attacks).

Balrog’s second important mechanic besides stance switching is Ignition. If you played Reboot then you’ll already be familiar with this concept. Ignition is essentially Osiris Feed and there’s a meter you can charge that will affect the properties of Balrog’s moves for a limited amount of time. Fully charged Ignition will make the last hit of Feather Combo ground bounce, and will also make Flint Wheel and Friction launch. Plus, when ignition is fully charged you gain access to two extra moves which are the classic Real Impact and a new move named Pyromania. Both of these moves resemble some of Ken’s supers from Street Fighter and they’re also used in similar ways in the sense that you build meter and gain access to a super move that deals lots of damage.

You’ll need to land ten punches total within a short period of time otherwise the meter will reset to zero and you have to start all over again.

This is a bit quicker but not as safe as it will leave you completely vulnerable and Heat Up won’t charge Ignition unless you sit through the whole animation.

You only have a limited amount of time to work with when Ignition is activated so use that time wisely.

Weapon: Devil Sword Dante

Dante’s lost both Rebellion and Sparda after they fused together to form the Devil Sword Dante which is an upgraded version of these two weapons. This weapon is one of the key elements that contributes to making Dante one of the deepest characters you’ll ever learn. The Devil Sword Dante or DSD for short has all the benefits of Rebellion and Sparda and comes with some bonuses that allows Dante to play in ways that he could really only dream of by allowing him to manipulate and displace enemies at any given time with Dante’s very own version of Summoned Swords.

The idea behind using the Devil Sword Dante is that it gives Dante the ability to manipulate enemies whenever he wants. The DSD swords are available during any and I mean any animation that isn’t in SDT or Dance Macabre (DSD’s Dance Macabre only).

Identical to High Time. High Times is like having the Lucifer Glitch available at all times.

A multihitting knockback that pushes enemies horizontally.

Similar to Round Trip but what makes it better is that you can send this version of Round Trip out while performing other actions.

A multihitting move that stuns and keeps enemies in place.

Not only can you individually control these 4 formations, but you can also charge DSD to activate 4 more formations that are unique to each style for two bars of Devil Trigger.

While it has no official term, I’ll describe this technique as a “DSDesync”. Normally these formations will only appear right next to Dante when you input them but you have more control over them than you may think. Activating any of the primary sword formations while Dante is teleporting will force the swords to spawn form the position where Dante initiated the Air or Ground Trick. The reason this works is because Dante doesn’t actually move anywhere when he disappears during Trick.

As the DSD also adds Auto Spectral Formations in the Sword Master style a supplementary guide has been created that chronicles the full move list change here:

[link]

Weapon: King Cerberus

King Cerberus might look similar to Cerberus from DMC3 but you’ll quickly realize that this isn’t the same weapon from before. DMC5’s version of Cerberus is more of a Swiss army knife than a set of nunchucks and it controls both electricity and fire alongside the ice that you know it for.

King Cerberus separates the elemental moves by placing each element type on a different button or key:

• Melee = Ice
• Style = Fire
• Melee or Style (Charge) = Lightning

Cerberus stands out in Dante’s arsenal of Devil Arms because it’s the only one of the 4 that has no Aerial Rave and no traditional launcher that allows Dante to rise up with the enemy. With 18 different moves and each of them having a purpose of their own scattered across 3 buttons, it’s easy to get lost in the King Cerberus move list so we’ll take a look at some of the key skills first.

Swing isn’t nearly as snappy as it used to be in DMC3 and this is for a good reason because Swing is now your primary option in the air for charging Electric Moves. It’ll deal just enough stun and has just enough recovery to match the charge times for each electric move available.

Players from 4 will immediately understand why this move is useful. Revolver is Dante’s new “Splash” which was a move on Lucifer that would allow him to gain height. The difference now is that there are no pins to place and Dante will eventually start descending.

Basically a buffed version of Dante’s Yamato Combo A in DMC4.

The only launcher that Cerberus has. This version of Crystal can be used quite differently from DMC3’s Crystal since it has next to no recovery and is another excellent way of charging electric moves.

Weapon: Cavaliere

Cavaliere is an odd weapon and there isn’t really any Devil Arm in DMC quite like it. There appears to be some confusion about how Cavaliere’s Gear System works so I will attempt to explain what I’ve learned about the weapon the best that I can.

⦁ It’s slow
⦁ You can’t perform it’s built-in combos on whiff (meaning you must land the initial attack)
⦁ The speed and damage of it’s attacks are determined by your timing

While slow, damaging and timing based weapons aren’t exactly new to DMC, the way in which Cavaliere goes about doing these things is unique and not exactly straight forward. It also doesn’t help that the in-game explainations of it’s features aren’t very clear on what they’re supposed to be.
The core of this weapon is it’s “gears” and your timing dictates what gear you’ll be at which of course means the speed of the bike and it’s attacks will change (including it’s damage).

⦁ Gear Wheel
⦁ Low Gear
⦁ Top Gear
⦁ Overtop Gear

This is the skill that makes Cavaliere work and is what allows you to chain the weapon’s moves together and in any order while maintaining the speed and damage benefits of the different gears. The attack that you begin with must connect with an enemy’s hurtbox in order to follow up with another move.

The weakest of the three gears. Low gear is what you’ll get from mashing and mistiming attacks. All this means is that you’ve inputted the next attack in the sequence too early and because of this, the bike will not go up another gear. This also means the attack will come out at the same speed and deal the same damage that it would if it were the first attack in your combo.

The second-fastest gear of the three. This is pretty simple to understand, just input the next move in the combo as soon as you see the bike begin to flash blue when it’s covered in lightning.

The strongest and fastest of the three gears. You’ll know when your attack has reached Overtop Gear because Cavaliere’s wheels will begin to glow orange.

These gears and their speeds can be maintained from move to move which allow you to chain attacks at max speed at all times with the correct timing. For example, you could perform Cross Line and connect it into the Overtop Gear version itself or you could successfully land Braking, wait for the correct timing and chain it straight into Combo A in it’s Overtop Gear form. Basically, a majority of Cavaliere’s moves chain into themselves and sort of act as extensions of each other.
Keep in mind that if you play on PC and set your effects setting to low, the effect for the gears will be much more difficult to see. As a side note, Dante’s Super Costume forces every Cavaliere move to come out in Overtop Gear regardless of your timing.

Building off of the system mentioned in previous section, Combo A done with the regular attack button and Combo B done with Swordmaster style button can be chained into each other into unique, Bayonetta style strings by alternating between the two buttons.

For context, with Cavaliere’s first attack in Combo A being a regular overhead swing with the saw, then the next attack is another swing with the other other saw, and then a spin with the saws on the ground. The Swordmaster Combo B starts with a wheelie, then a backturned wheel attack, and then the bike spinning in circles.

If after performing the first attack of Combo A you press Swordmaster, instead of going into the first attack of Combo B, you will go into the second attack of Combo B, as the attack builds off of the combo started by the regular attack button. Naturally, pressing Attack again after Swordmaster will lead to Dante performing the final attack of Combo A. You can mix and match the inputs provided by the two combos to perform unique animations. This also applies to the Air combo A and B

Performing an attack outside of the two combos, such as Cross Line, restarts the chain, allowing you to go back into the first hit of any of the two combos without cancelling the string. Once again, the same applies to the Air variations

Mechanic: Air Taunt Rose (Ecstasy)

A move that was once reserved for Lucifer is now bound to Dante’s air taunt and also becomes his lock on ground taunt when you’ve reached an S rank. The rose still works the way you expect it to if you’re here from DMC4, it’s a small and quick launcher that deals minimal amount of damage and is excellent for extending air combos. Even with all the aerial launchers that Dante was given in 5, Ecstasy still proves to be a fantastic launcher you cannot overlook.

Ecstasy is probably the best that it has ever been as it no longer gets stuck to the ground when jump canceled and all recovery was removed from it letting you act out of it immediately. The rose being on taunt also means that it can be used at anytime regardless of your currently equipped weapon which is one of Dante’s greatest changes.

The rose’s trajectory was also changed slightly so that Dante throws it out a bit lower than usual, allowing you to catch falling enemies with it easier. If you’re interested in some setups that utilize Ecstasy, take a look at Basics: Fundamental Combo Setups and try some of the combos that are listed there.

Mechanic: Sin Devil Trigger

For those of you who played Devil May Cry 2 and have pressed the Devil Trigger button at the brink of death, you’ll know exactly what this is. Dante’s previously unexplored Majin Form from 2 makes its return as ‘Sin Devil Trigger’ after obtaining the Devil Sword Dante.

Some of Majin’s original attacks are still here such as his old fireballs and a super move bound to shoot + melee just like in DMC2, but several features were added to this version of Dante’s strongest Devil Trigger which make this form more applicable at all levels of play.

In order to activate Sin Devil Trigger, you must first build up meter in the red gauge to see between your health and normal Devil Trigger. There are a few ways to do this and some are better than others:

• Land Royal Releases
• Take Damage
• Use normal Devil Trigger meter to to charge up SDT meter by holding down the DT input

Once you’ve built up enough meter, charge up SDT by holding Devil Trigger again and release once it’s fully charged.

SDT, specifically the Quadruple S mechanic, has a lot of utility that is incredibly useful. The first, and most beneficial utility that SDT has is its ability to cancel ANY move in the game, at any point in the animation, SDT completely ignores any IASA frames, both on the ground and in the air, which gives the player a ton of different ways to manipulate moves and create interesting setups. You can instantly leave SDT by tapping devil trigger again however you have a small window in which you can do this, roughly 3-5 seconds.

SDT really shines when its used in the air, when you activate SDT, it has a small AOE explosion which temporarily keeps an enemy suspended in the air, in the same fashion as a gunshot. The most useful moves to chain into combos with SDT in the air are SDT Stinger, and The Ombra [Gunshot Input] The first two attacks of the SDT melee combo can come in handy too. Its not just limited to attacks though, there are some interesting movement options that SDT has that you can explore, its standard teleport is limited in use, but the SDT Dodge [roll input] is very quick, and you can use it to circle an enemy in the air quickly to reposition yourself. Some examples of these can be seen in the video below. One last thing to note is that SDT’s forward and backward jumps from the ground are incredibly quick and can be good setups for a divekick.

The final noteworthy piece of tech that SDT has in vanilla is the ability to cancel a jump by landing on a ledge, while you will be limited where and how you can use this, it may still come in handy. See some uses of this below

Mechanic: Styles

Styles, they’re what make Dante who he is in this genre of video games. They are also by far the more difficult obstacle to overcome when learning to use Dante but you’ll be glad you did when you feel how satisfying it is to seamlessly Trick-Sword your way through everything. Unlike DMC4, Dante only has 4 Styles that are switchable on the fly and they have been buffed and in some areas even nerfed slightly.

Trickster is all mobility consisting of teleports, dashes and even the ability to run up and push yourself off of enemies.

Swordmaster contains lots of different kinds of moves from mobility to aerial raves and it’s where you’ll find extra special moves for your Devil Arms.

Gunslinger is essentially a Swordmaster style for firearms. This style includes lots of fancy ways to use enemies as target practice.

Royal Guard is both a defensive and offensive style and it’s where you’ll find Dante’s only block. You’ll be using this for a lot more than just defense and it includes one of the most useful features for canceling moves.

While each of these styles do have a theme behind them, that doesn’t mean that they don’t share similar features. Trickster does have an omnidirectional dash but Swordmaster also gives Balrog a neat backflip that launches. Gunslinger also has it’s own form of dashes which have built in shotgun shots that are featured on Coyote-A under the name Cut-In. So just because Trickster has dashes with invincibility frames doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using your other dashes or rolls included with the other styles. Variety is key here.

Basics: Switch Cancelling

When playing Nero you will notice that while the end of attack strings push enemies away, thats not really an issue since you can just pull enemies back to you, however with Dante, you do not have that option, and the end of your strings will send enemies flying away requiring you to close the distance with enemies again and putting an end to your combos. However, with his ability to switch weapons, Dante can cancel his moves into each other before the final attack in the string that pushes the enemy way, thus never needing to close the gap again

In order to switch cancel, Perform an attack with any weapon, then in the middle of the attack’s animation, switch to another weapon by pressing RT in default controls and then performing any atatck, doing so will cancel the previous attack and allow you to go into the next attack without finishing the previous string.

Attacks of different types also cancel into each other, in this way, for example, attacks will cancel into directional attacks, normal attacks cancel into swordmaster attacks. Normal attacks from one weapon cancel into normal attacks from another weapon. The basic rule is that nothing can cancel itself, but you can perform other attacks to cancel into them.

Switch Cancelling is a fundamental of Dante’s toolkit, switching between weapons in the air and the ground while performing attacks and strings is the first step to building good looking, effective, and varied gameplay. It also serves as a way to stop enemies from being knocked away at the end of strings and keeping them stunned.

If you want to learn Dante, learning to constantly switch cancel attacks is a fundamental skill to learn

Basics: Movement and Positioning

All of Dante’s main tools are still available to him like Helmet Breaker, Stinger, Full House (now known as Friction), and Revolver which replaced Lucifer’s ‘Splash’. Each of these have a few unique quirks that separate them from their DMC4 counterparts but they can still be used for the same purposes.

So what makes positioning and understanding your movement options important? Positioning is what determines whether or not a setup can or cannot work. Below I have listed the moves you’ll be using often for movement and also described what they’re good for. There are not the only skills for movement but they’re some of the more useful ones.

Helm Breaker [Down]
DMC5’s Helm Breaker is kind of different this time around because it will actually hit more than twice during it’s descent and the first hit will only stun, not knockdown. What this means is that you can make Dante descend while simultaneously juggling the enemy similar to how you can rave then guard cancel in the air. You can of course still reverse Helm Breaker and hit the ground before your enemy does to setup for things like Backslide if you’re not using DSD (this detail about DSD only matter for the vanilla game which doesn’t have reversals).

Friction [Diagonal]
The divekick is usually only for diagonal movement, but DMC5’s divekick got a massive buff which allows Friction to pull Dante down almost completely vertically. Not only is it almost fail safe, but because the hurtboxes are so large in this game, you can even use the divekick to switch sides by divekicking underneath an enemy.

Air Revolver [Up/Down]
Let’s say that you’ve launched an enemy and need to elevate yourself. Revolver allows you to make that height adjustment if necessary and JC’ing Revolver into itself will allow you to gain even more height. On the flip side, you can also use Revolver to make height adjustments when you need to lower yourself and close small distances as well by letting the animation play out for as long as you need it to.

Stinger/Million Stab [Forwards]
These two moves got some pretty heartbreaking nerfs. Normal Stinger won’t knockback nearly as far as it used to and the transition between Stinger and Million Stab is MUCH slower than it’s ever been meaning you won’t be reliably interrupting enemies that are winding up for attacks anymore through the use of Million Stab. Thankfully, it’s still just as useful for getting around but was also negatively affected by the recovery change to Guard. There are some clunky workarounds for this change to make this once god tier mobility monster a move that’s still worth using.

Rainstorm [Omnidirectional]
With Inertia being mostly gone, Dante finds himself in a strange spot having been so dependent on it in the air in DMC4. This leaves us with some weird alternatives for repositioning in the air but he’s still very capable of being mobile just not to the same degree. This is where Rainstorm comes in. In DMC’s 2, 3 and 4, Rainstorm would keep you mostly still if you just jumped up and did Rainstorm but in 5, the move has become fully controllable in an attempt to compensate for the inability to control aerial momentum. Plus, the bullets not longer shoot straight down for quite a long time and Dante will instead begin the animation for Rainstorm with his arms stretched out horizontally and close in as the animation plays out. This will drastically change how you use Rainstorm and it’s without a doubt one of his top 5 moves in the whole game in terms of how important they are.

Alongside all the returning moves, Dante’s got a new bag of tricks to work with in DMC5 and they play a role that is almost equally as important as the skills mentioned above.

Air Mustang [Backwards/Down]
At first glance, Air Mustang seems like filler that most wouldn’t use but upon further inspection, you’ll find that this move is one of the few skills that grants you access to some form of momentum that can carry over to other skills. This is the only skill you have to replicate something that even remotely resembles backwards momentum in the unmodded version of the game.

Flint Wheel [Backwards]
While the function of this move isn’t exactly new, I’ve placed it under ‘New Moves’ because it can be used differently from Draw. This move will make Dante do a backwards cartwheel that hits multiple times and deals damage. In Ignition, this move will launch and with an activated DSD, it will automatically do High Times so that you don’t need Ignition to launch. This move also has iframes.

Welter Move [Left/Right]
A brand new move with iframes that acts as a sort of half side roll which allows you to more precisely circle around an enemy that you’re facing. Having only half the distance of a side roll means you get to make some micro adjustments that you otherwise couldn’t unless you were to release lock on and use other moves like Kick Mode Combo A to reposition (which is also totally viable).

Cut-In [Forwards/Backwards/Left/Right/Up]
A four-way set of rolls with a jump extension that can be jump canceled. Each Cut-In roll is jump, side roll, SDT, dash, Trick and guard cancelable with an added bonus which is that you can also Flint Wheel out of these rolls before Dante fires the shotgun. It’s no where near as precise as Welter Move but can be used to slide around the stage and can start or end combos at any range.

Rock Back [Forwards]
Dante uses Cerberus in it’s staff mode to leap forwards and stun without knocking back. Because it can stun and cross under enemies at the same time, this makes Rock Back a very useful move that only becomes even more useful if you enable reversals on PC. Also useful for charging electric moves.

Basics: Guard Cancelling

You may have heard this term floating around on the internet a couple times in the past. Let’s take a quick look at what Guard Canceling actually is and then we’ll analyze its applications and why it’s also a bit worse in DMC5.

What is a Guard Cancel?
Guard Canceling is a simple as using ‘Block’ in Royal Guard to cancel the recovery of moves.

What is a Guard Cancel used for?
Guard Canceling has many different uses but one of the most common uses for the technique is cutting a move or combo short that normally ends with an attack that displaces the enemy.

Here is an example with Million Stab:

If you’ve watched any Dante gameplay from the community in both DMC4 and DMC5 then you’ve seen this sequence before but you may not understand what makes it so important so let’s break it down. Million Stab closes the distance between you and your enemy while also dealing stun and eventually a knockback which creates another gap. However, Guard Canceling before the final hit allows you to close the distance and setup for a follow up attack without displacing your target which opens up new possibilities and makes Million Stab one of the most important tools available in Dante’s kit.

Here’s another slightly more basic example of how Guard Canceling can be used:

Now that you know what it does you should also know what makes it worse than it used to be. The reason is pretty simple and basically all that was done was that they’ve added recovery to the Guard animation. This may not sound like a lot, but it puts a significant speed cap on Dante that you cannot avoid and it will affect him in both the air and on the ground. This recovery can still be jump canceled with Enemy Step in the air.

Basics: Jump Cancels

Jump Cancels are the core of what makes DMC what it is. This is usually where I would say something like “This technique is exactly what it sounds like” but that’s technically not true. The ‘jump’ part of jump cancel is actually referring to a skill that you purchase at a Divinity Statue known as Enemy Step.

Jump Cancels are something that you’ll be using frequently and most of what is shown within this guide isn’t possible if you can’t Jump Cancel. A JC can cancel attacks and abilities early and using Enemy Step also resets all of your aerial abilities so that you can use them again. An important rule to remember is that if there’s an enemy near or around your feet, you can jump off of it. Hurtboxes in 5 are colossal and JC’ing is much easier than it’s ever been.

• Enemy Step has uncancelable recovery for about 7 frames of it’s animation
• Enemy Step no longer keeps the momentum of the moves you jump canceled

What this means is that Dante is overall much slower and received a pretty hefty nerf to his mobility in the air.

1. Be in the air, and be close enough to the enemy that you can Enemy Step off of them.

2. Perform an attack of any kind in the air.

3. Press the Jump button at any point during the attack animation to cancel it. This will always work as long as you are close enough to the enemy. The attack’s animation will be cancelled by Enemy Step, and Dante will jump off the enemy.

4. Optional, but you will be doing this most of the time. Perform an action right after cancelling the animation with Enemy Step. When performing Enemy Step, Dante will perform a little animation where he kicks off the enemy before rising in height, during that period, Dante remains at the same height. If you want to maintain your height when performing a Jump Cancel, you need to perform your next attack as soon as possible after pressing Jump, otherwise, Dante will be too high, and the attack can miss.

Try out the JC’s listed below to give you an idea of how this ability gets used and why it’s useful.

Basics: Fundamental Combo Setups

Listed in this chapter you’ll find videos of setups and each of them will get you learn something different and important about a particular concept of mechanic. Think of them as combo trials and they range from easy to difficult.

This sequence is important for when you need height. It’s a classic you’ll want to remember.

Another sequence for height but it’s also for getting you in the habit of guard canceling moves. Prop > Guard can be used to setup for basically anything you want.

Here you have one of the most important things that you’ll ever learn. Sky Star is one of Dante’s best gap closers and JC’ing out of it is something you need to be able to do.

A basic Rose setup that you’ve seen hundreds of times. Useful for when you need even more height in the air. Remember that because of how DMC5 counts your Trick uses, you’ll need to JC after the Trick if you want to use another one.

Another rose setup but this time you’re switching sides. Switching sides isn’t just useful for positioning and being able to effortlessly switch sides mid combo is something you’ll want to learn to avoid getting hit without interrupting your combos. This combo is a good place to start.

Another side switch but this time with Rainstorm. This combo gives you an easy example for how to apply the controllable momentum on new Rainstorm.

Getting more complicated now. This combo will show you an easy way for charging Cerberus electric moves in the air while juggling an enemy. Throws some weapon switching in there too.

While it isn’t the most technical combo in the world, its something simple to get your hands in the habit of switching between stances. Some switching on the ground and in the air as well.

Get used to this combo cause it’s important. There are quite a few ways of doing what this combo does but nothing does it quite as well as the shotgun. This combo is meant to show you a simple way of displacing enemies with a simple follow up that’s easy to land and even easier to expand on with your own ideas.

Here’s a very simple and short combo to give you a feel for what DSD can do.

The same beginning and ending but with a bit more in the middle. Introduces some positioning and movement for you to use with summoned swords.

A simple introduction to the potential of SDT Canceling. This combo shows you to charge through Crystal and also gives you an example of how to use SDT in combos. You’ll notice however that I didn’t stay in SDT for long and that’s because pressing jump as you activate this form will allow you to cancel out of SDT almost instantly.

It’s only going to keep getting harder and this combo will take you some time. 16 seconds of Style and Weapon switching with some Welter canceling thrown in there. This combo was made to show you how to work around some of Dante’s recovery and also where to use E&I.

Intermediate: Mustang

Mustang is a returning move from DMC4 but it’s ended up becoming a vital part of Dante’s shiny new movelist now that he can also use it in the air. What makes Mustang important is that it essentially turns every enemy into a ramp or wall that you can push yourself off of.

So one takes up you and one brings you down. That sounds pretty straight forward but there’s more to these two abilities than you may think. They’re both cancelable without needing to use Enemy Step and they play important roles in both air and ground movement.

But Mustang’s uses don’t end there. There is also something that is commonly referred to as the “Mustang Glitch” and it looks like this:

There will be more on this specific setup in the Ground Trick section but for now, just remember that Trick will make this Mustang Glitch much more convenient to setup up on flat surfaces. The Mustang Glitch is a technique that takes advantage of Dante’s inability to land cancel moves and tricks the game into thinking that he’s already touched the ground when he clearly hasn’t. So what ends up happening is you get a normal ground Mustang but in the air and that Mustang also has forward momentum from the Sky Star!

The Mustang glitch can add some really fluid movement to your gameplay and it mixes together perfectly with the rest of Dante’s movement options.

Intermediate: Ground Trick

Ground Trick was one of the new additions to Dante’s kit that caught me completely off guard the first time I saw it. When performed on the ground it teleports you closer to the target you’re locked on to and in the air it can bring you closer and pull you straight down to the ground no matter how high up you are. It’s the teleport that I never knew I wanted but we’ve got it now and it’s fantastic.

This kind of tool for movement lets Dante do quite a bit that he couldn’t before and it opens up a very useful setup for the previously mentioned Mustang Glitch. This is by far some of the most important and bizarre bits of tech that has been discovered in the last few months and it makes Ground Trick twice as useful as it was before we knew that Ground Trick could be jump canceled like this.

So because Ground Trick can be used in the air, that also means that it can be jump canceled as it’s happening. Remember what I said earlier in the DSD section about Dante not actually moving anywhere when the teleport is animating? Well that quirk is what allows this move to be jump canceled and it has two variations with slightly different inputs.

Did you notice how much faster that was? With a JC, you’re able to bypass Ground Trick’s lengthy recovery and skip straight to the move you want.

Strange isn’t it? I can’t tell you for sure what causes this to happen but I’ll assume it has something to do with the animations that Dante does when holding lock on.

I think that by now I don’t have to explain to you why canceling recovery is a useful thing but floating above the ground like that may leave you scratching your head. Being just above the ground like this is an interesting spot for Dante to be in because it lets him do things that would normally be very difficult to time or nearly impossible to setup consistently without this float.

With this Ground Trick JC, we now have an additional method for consistently landing Mad Hatter with just Rebellion.

Not every weapon will make Dante float above the ground like this. For example, trying to JC out of Ground Trick into Firestorm on Balrog, you’ll actually only get Break Spiral instead. Experiment to see what works and what doesn’t.

Advanced: Weapon Loadouts and Switching

There’s no getting around it easily, Multi Weapon Switching is tough and it’s gonna take you time to get used to switching between all your weapons. Even for me with as much time as I’ve spent playing the series, it took me 4 days to fully adjust to adding Faust into my weapon set.

The “Irregular Full Custom” upgrade allows you to change the order of your weapons to whatever you like but there are still some arguably ideal weapon set orders that you may want to consider. Let’s just get something out of the way, having 7 weapons in your Devil Arms and 6 in your Firearms is not going to work very well if you plan on switching between everything as quickly as possible even without the weapon switch limitation. Sure you can change the order to make it easier to do something with that many weapons but there will still be important techniques that you won’t have access to as soon as you need it.

This is my personal set of weapons. Identical to the DMC4 layout and works just as well as it used to. There isn’t too much to switch through and I have all the most important functions available to me really close together. If you’re coming from DMC4 you prefer using this loadout over anything else.

This loadout is Whirling’s_ and the most important detail here is not just the amount of weapons he uses but also the order. Rave > Divekick > Rave is an important combo that gets used often and it’s not really something that you’d want to be 3 switches away. This order of weapons turns sequence from Rave > Switch > Divekick > Switch 3x > Rave to Rave > Switch 2x > Divekick > Switch 2x which is much easier to manage.

Shotgun/Pistols/Rocket isn’t necessary to make Shotgun > JC > E&I gunshot possible but it certainly makes it easier since you’ll only have to switch once.

Everything you see in this guide was done with my loadout but experiment with the order to see what best suits you. Some players will even place Cerberus second and Balrog third. It’s mostly preference.

Freestyle: Variety

While variety isn’t really something that can be taught, this section and the ones that follow it will provide a couple of tips on how you can spice up your variety. There’s technically nothing wrong with repetition but I think we can all agree that variety creates interesting gameplay.

DMC is a strange game. If you wanted to just complete the game and kill everything, nothing is really stopping you from repeating the same moves endlessly aside from the style rank which is just a texture on the screen (if you don’t count Quadruple S). Sometimes I find myself becoming too repetitive as I play and to change that, I have remind myself that there’s a large portion of the movelist I am not utilizing. Become more familiar with the movelist and read through the skill list if you have to, but make an attempt to use the skills you barely ever touch no matter how useless they may seem. There is always an option you aren’t using

If you start repeating moves or sequences too often that you’ve practiced in Void for hours, then what this means is that you’re beginning to stagnate because nothing is forcing you to change. Forcing yourself into new situations or taking risks that you normally wouldn’t will help immensely with variety. Change the enemies you practice on, respond to their attacks with unorthodox methods instead of jumping or Royal Releasing everything, use elevation to your advantage and learn how each move functions under the different conditions that the levels will place you in. A slight tilt on the floor can be the difference between an idea working and not working or in some cases even introduce you to a new variation of the same concept you never would have thought of. Try new levels you usually don’t play on to get new ideas and let the stages teach you.

Freestyle: Understanding Your Options

What separates an experienced player from an inexperienced player isn’t just the amount of time he or she has spent playing the game but also the persons understanding of how the system works. So the better you understand the system, the more ideas that you’ll be able to piece together in your mind even without touching the game. Improving your understanding of the system will also mean that you can create solutions to the problems you encounter more easily.

Just as an example, I’ll use Balrog’s Heat Up to better illustrate the point that I am making. Normally, to stop this move from happening you would have to either release melee and stop charging or get hit out of it, right?

• You can’t Guard Cancel it
• You can’t jump out of it
• You can’t act out of it immediately just by releasing melee

Sounds like the move leaves you stuck in recovery doesn’t it? But what if we just swap off of Balrog during the animation?

And just like that, you have a workaround and a cancel for one of the lengthiest animations in the game that is far more practical than SDT canceling it out of it every time. This isn’t something that I found on accident either. It’s not a ground breaking discovery for Balrog by any means but how I came across this method for canceling this move is what matters here. Using the process of elimination I was able to figure out which buttons allowed me to regain control of Dante when this move happens and as a result, it can be found much more frequently in my gameplay because I no longer have to commit to it when I use it.

Here is another very similar example of what experimenting with the controls can achieve. Usually if you swing a sword in DMC5 and immediately try to side roll, you’ll end up getting a side step instead. What if you want to do High Time > Side Roll but you keep getting the side step?

• Wait for Dante to put the sword on his back again
• Jump then side roll after landing
• Trickster Dash first and then roll

I could list many more possibilities but I think you get the point by now which is that none of these are really *wrong* but all of these sound too slow or just very impractical for what we’re trying to accomplish here. The solution is to switch to a weapon that doesn’t have a side step which is any weapon other than a sword. So the sequence then becomes High Time > Switch Weapon > Side Roll.

The moral of the story is: Experiment with the mechanics the game gives you at all times. Don’t stop pressing buttons just because Dante’s is in the middle of an animation. The chances are that there’s a way to stop something from happening by doing something that you haven’t considered.

Freestyle: Recognizing Opportunities

This is something that you’ll become better at the more you play and the better you understand what the game and character is capable of. Taking risks and recognizing opportunities when you see them is part of what can make gameplay flashy and interesting. Surely you’ve been in these situations before where you think to yourself “♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that would have been cool” and believe me when I say you can get better at spotting those moments so you can start forcing them to happen instead of waiting for them to just fall on your lap and not capitalize on them.

If you watch my inputs, you’ll notice that I actually didn’t get the move that I wanted and instead only got a regular Gun Stinger. After realizing that the Gun Stinger caused a wallbounce, I fired a gunshot to give me time to teleport and land what may be one of the nicest freestyle clips I’ll get throughout this entire games lifespan.

In this clip, I could have dodged this Fury any other way but instead I took the riskier approach and timed my Mustang to get a close call that I have recorded forever.

Last example but this time with the reversals mod enabled. After seeing the Antenoras get friendly fired by the Judecca, I knew after seeing it so many times that they would rush all the way to the other side of the stage. So I just punched my way there and blocked the attack that wasn’t even meant for me.

Devil May Cry is the kind of game where there aren’t really any wrong answers and it’s as expressive as its going to get. If an idea comes to mind when you see an opening for something clip-worthy then try it on the spot because Dante has the tools for you to put that idea on the screen.

Freestyle: Thinking Beyond Lock On

You’re probably wondering what I mean by “Thinking Beyond Lock On”. DMC throws a lot of enemies at you and even though lock on allows you to prioritize just one target at a time, that doesn’t mean that ever other enemy on the screen has to be ignored while you’re targeting something. Picking one enemy out of a crowd and isolating it until it dies is perfectly fine, but you also have to be aware of your surroundings.

This one with the Proto Angelo isn’t quite the same as the first clip but it’s important to show because of how I used his placement on the stage. I fired the shotgun at the Nobody and because the Proto was directly beneath me, I jump canceled off of him and teleported back to the Nobody even though the Proto was not the priority. If there’s an enemy on the screen, then there’s a stepping stone for you to make use of even if it’s not what you’re attacking.

Freestyle: Levels Are Obstacle Courses

DMC’s levels can be a bit large and sometimes will require you do do some platforming between fights. While you could just hold a direction and run through it all, use the abilities that Dante has to navigate through the stage as a way to practice using the movelist for movement. You may already even be doing this without even realizing it. Ever had to jump down a really deep pit and don’t feel like waiting to touch the ground? You could instead Helm Breaker or Ground Trick your way down instead.

But why would you ever get through stages with moves when you could just run through them? Moving through rooms and getting through platforming using the skills in your movelist is a great way to train yourself to better understand what everything does.

This is a clip from one of my streams when I’m doing my usual and using moves to get to the next fight.
The plan was originally just to reverse a High Time and side flip but I screwed up on the Sky Star and did it too late but I still had plenty of moves left that could get me up to the ledge. There are a lot of attacks that bring you up slightly which let you adjust your height and here you saw a couple of them. When the Sky Star missed, I used Hat Trick on Faust for some extra height but that still wasn’t enough. Because I had already done so many moves in the air, anything else I did from that point would have put me a slightly too low so I needed something that would give me even more height and that’s where Air Trick came in. Now that I did the Air Trick, I Rave once to bring myself a bit higher but even though I have the height but I didn’t cover enough distance to land on the ledge. A single Swing from Cerberus moves Dante forwards just enough to put me where I want to be.

Credits and Additional Resources

In this section you’ll find some extra things that you may want to look into.

• [link]
• [link]
• [link]
• [link]
• [link] (This is my channel)
  Check out RedditMayCry
  [link]
  Be sure to take a look at Broly2012’s DMC5 video guides!

  https://www.youtube.com/user/Broly2012

  DMC5 Tech List for all characters created by Whitelion
  [link]
  You can ask me questions on here through the comment or ask me straight through Twitter

  Tweets by DarkHarmonixer

  Screenshots and cover art created by DHMalice

  Special Thanks
  • Rex_Prime Tweets by rex_prime – Created the Weapon Switch Canceling section, wrote half of what’s included in the Jump Canceling section, wrote half of the Cavaliere section and also helped me out with this guide as a whole.
  • Millz_DMC Tweets by Millz_DMC – Wrote a majority of the Sin Devil Trigger section and provided me with the video examples within that chapter.
  • RK_Revolthell and Cheburrat0r for helping with the typos
  
  And most importantly, a very special thanks to everyone that sat down and read this whole thing. I hope that what we’ve written here has helped you become a better player.