If someone shots a ball to you...

[STM1993]

I'm no fighter, but I can tell you what you can do.

1. Side-step
You move along the z-axis to dodge the ball. This is especially if the ball is incredibly fast, there are a lot more balls that can come from behind, and if the ball is unblockable or difficult to block (Soul Bomb, Critical Arrow, Energy Disk, Phoenix Palm).

2. Block
This is usually not a very good choice. Enemies can take advantage of your block while you are unable to cancel out of a block (unless you perform certain moves but it'd cost some mana or put you at another disadvantage). Besides, blocking means you'd lose a bit of health. And this does not work well if the enemy can shoot more balls or if the balls are hard to block.

3. Jump over it / Jump Attack
Risky move. When you jump, you become extremely vulnerable to attack because you cannot block or do any other move, except an ordinary jump attack. You are very predictable, and so anybody can easily land a combo on you. Besides, this is dependent on the ball fired at you. If it's a fireball, it's coming too fast, so jumping is a bad idea. If it's a homing ball, the homing ball would move upwards a little. If it's a soul bomb, don't even jump if doesn't work, you'll get hit. If it's a continuous firzen cannon, jumping works ONLY if you are also moving along the z-axis away from the attack when you are landing, otherwise you'd jump only jump further into the attack. You'd also have to be far away, because Firzen can move and shoot again, or rain an overwhelming disaster at you.

Jump attack / Leap Attack (Davis and Deep) would only work if you're close enough to the enemy and the projectile is slow enough, though you can also choose not to attack and use that leap attack move as an alternative to ordinary jumping.

4. Hit the ball
The best. You punch the ball back at your enemy, reflecting it. It has a bit of a risk, but its all about good timing. If successful, you direct the ball back at your enemy, which would get him into the same situation as you did. Look at what he's doing and take advantage of it. However, becareful of which ball you're attacking. If it's a Firzen cannon or Soul Bomb etc, please do not hit it for goodness sake! It won't work!

(Note: I once hit a Julian's Soul Bomb with LouisEX's trident. It exploded violently since it travelled over a very long distance. The thing is, LouisEX's trident is very long, that's why I could do that. But its a bad move because there could be more coming along with skulls blasts.)

5. Fire another ball at it
Yep. It costs a lot of mana, but it can be a good thing IF the ball you're shooting is something like Henry's critical arrow, Firzen Cannon, Phoenix Palm (Shockwave) or Julain's soul bomb. Those can pass through projectiles or by at least a bit (in the case of the shockwave)


SPECIAL CASE: Freeze / Ice Blasts / Ice Sword
If he punches an ENERGY ball, he would not only reflect the ball, but he would also turn it into an ice blast. Same thing if you hit an energy ball with an ice sword. Also, if you throw an ice blast at an energy ball, it would convert that energy ball into another ice ball, resulting in two ice balls coming towards your opponent. Very useful against people who love to spam energy balls.