No Ice Chip? No problem. Even without it, Zero is capable of cutting Harpuia to shreds like it’s nothing.
In all seriousness, this is a rather difficult combo loop to maintain; there are a few reasons why. The primary factor is that Z1’s combo system and attack animations are a bit stilted. Incorporating Triple Rod strikes into your combos isn’t as smooth as you may expect. Unlike, for instance, buffering 1000 Slash in Z3, interrupting your double slash with a poke requires a properly timed press. It’s not excruciating by any means, but acclimating to the rhythm takes some practice; it’s all too common an occurrence to press your attack buttons early and have Zero standing idly as though staring at Harpuia is going to petrify him.
The Triple Rod input-related quirks extend to interfering with your movement as well. Its regular stab animation is oddly prolonged, despite appearing rather quick. What this meant for me while practicing this combo loop is that after using a diagonal strike to land a second hit on Harpuia as he falls, my dash input would simply not register on account of me being too hasty with the input. This is especially infuriating since it feels like the game is being unresponsive, but in reality, it’s simply a case of improper timing expectations imparted on me by the relatively lenient combo systems of the later games.
Concerning the loop itself, the route I devised deals 28 damage to Harpuia per knockdown. Crucially, I don’t use a pogo to escape his ascending slash. This means that, despite taking less damage from a middle hit of the spin slash, he doesn’t receive any invincibility frames either, allowing me to initiate the next loop with no downtime. The double poke used to bring Harpuia down to Earth is tricky outside of the aforementioned input anomalies. Horizontal positioning is key; it’s much easier to allow Harpuia to approach Zero at the start of the fight rather than dashing forward in pursuit, but saving a second is evidently important enough to me to reduce the chances of success even further. Initiating the diagonal poke a bit early can also help provide more time to jump over Harpuia, but it’s a bit of a gamble as it’s easy to whiff.
Assuming that your dash input goes through, striking Harpuia with a middle hit from the spin slash isn’t as rough as it may look. As long as you initiate the slash while Zero is over Harpuia, the backswing of the slash is guaranteed to hit and avoid invincibility so long as you remain facing forward. The trouble here arises afterward; the moment the hit happens, you have to turn around and land right next to Harpuia with good spacing and begin your ground combo immediately. Since you’ll have dash momentum while turning, contact damage is the obvious risk. You can try to perform a regular jump over Harpuia, with the concern there being that you can undershoot your jump and take damage that way.
It’s worth noting that it’s possible to fumble the ground combo by pressing the Z-Saber button too quickly as well. You have to slow your attacking pace down so that each animation is given time to finish, but if you dally too long between attacks, you won’t be able to avoid Harpuia’s ascent-a bit of a conundrum. Nonetheless, the second middle hit from the spin slash serves as the final hit of the loop, and it’s definitely trickier to land than the first. Zero will more than likely be situated right next to Harpuia, so briefly dashing in the opposite direction before doubling back, jumping over, and slashing is the play to make.
The last piece of the puzzle is to quickly shuffle Zero along the ground and prepare the next loop. There’s a very small window to perform an upward poke before Harpuia starts flying around. Miss it, and you may as well have done a pogo off him for the extra damage instead. You also need to ensure that Harpuia falls away from the corner of the screen so that you have space to maneuver during the next loop.
I did experiment with attempting to add extra spin slash hits during both jumps around Harpuia. I couldn’t find any suitable method of adding damage during the first jump; you need all the time you can get for the ground combo to go off without a hitch. It’s technically possible to hit twice with the spin slash while leaping around Harpuia’s ascending slash, but it’s brutally precise and also leaves you with less time to knock him out of the air with the Triple Rod. It also only adds 2 more damage per loop, falling just shy of the 32 needed for a 3-loop win. For my money, this is probably fairly close to being as quick a victory as you can achieve without using charged attacks or tanking hits. If you have any ideas for potential improvements, I’m all ears.
Lastly, take a guess how many attempts I lost trying to achieve that close-call dash slash finish instead of being intelligent and just going for a third poke.
Thanks for watching! Any comments and questions you may have are welcome as always.