Ever since Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 came out, I have been spending an unholy amount of time online, fighting various players across the world, encountering a near infinite amount of team combinations and lag, can’t forget about them lag. During those fights, I picked a few things that you, yes you, might find useful on your journey to becoming a HERO rank…

Pick Your Team Wisely!

The reason why I say this is because unlike the predecessors of the storm series, Storm 4 has implemented a new system that actually forces you to pick characters by not only their jutsus alone, but also by their designated special types. In the game there are 6 special types available,

• Strike Back – After knocking your opponent back, your supports will rebound your opponent back to you with an extra attack.
• Charge Assist – As the name implies, your support will help you charge up your chakra faster.
• Charge Guard – Your support will guide you while you charge your chakra.
• Dash Cut – Your supports will intercept the enemy’s dash, making it difficult for them to approach you.
• Secret Technique Substitution – While the storm gauge is activated, if you get hit with an ultimate attack, your support will swap places with you.
• Break Guard – These supports have a higher chance breaking your enemy’s guard with their jutsus and destroying the armour aka clothes. Also they save you from ring outs

each capable of performing a certain task when used as supports during the activation of the storm gauge. Building you team that suits your play-style with this in mind can be the difference between a victory or certain defeat.

Fake Out A Lot

This is essential if you want to survive for more that 30 secs online. Using cancelling in your fighting style and faking your intentions can greatly increase your odds of winning. This will cause the other player to flinch, get agitated and make mistakes, given you the ability to control the battlefield. You will see a lot of this online, so it’s best that you get used to doing it yourself.

There are various types of fake out tactics you could use; dash cancel into a jutsu, air dash into throwing shuriken or jutsu, dash cancel into ninja side step, jumping and charging you chakra while holding block to fool your opponent into dashing towards you. You just got to figure out when to fake and when to not fake.

Learn to Control Your Substitution Bar

How many times have you wasted you Substitution Bar by substituting an enemy’s attack only to still end up losing? If you want to reduce your chances of receiving ungodly amount of damages, master the art of controlling your Substitution Bar.

You can start that by learning how to counter dash your opponent a lot faster, ninja dash to avoid damage or jumping over certain attacks and blocking just at the right moment. It’s also important to know when to substitute and when not to substitute. There are some attacks you gotta take to let your Substitution Bar recharge. Countering is a good way to give your Substitution Bar time to recharge as well so take advantage of that too. This takes a lot of practice but is definitely worth learning.

Conserve Your Chakra

While in the heat of battle, you’ll start to notice that you deplete you chakra a lot and need to recharge, this can leave you wide open for an attack so it’s important to learn how to conserve you chakra. Instead of chakra dashing you opponent after he substitutes, use the leader swap system to close the gap and continue on the assault.

If that’s not viable at the time the learn to cancel you attack animation by jump guarding so that your opponent can’t intercept and interrupt you. You just gotta figure out what works best at any given situation

You Gotta Take L’s Before You Can Take W’s

Yeah I know, you don’t want to get a lose and ruin your perfect record of beating scrubs and noobs online. The problem with that is that you’re aren’t getting any better at the game. The truth of that matter is that in order to get substantially better at the game, you gotta face off against players that are much better than you.

Yes, you will be absolutely be destroyed and you pride will be shattered but if you are able to get past that and start learning from you mistakes, you’ll be surprised by how far that will get you in terms of skills. Pay close attention to what your opponent is doing and you might pick up something that could benefit you in the long run.

Know Your Characters!

Some characters in the game are faster than other, have a further reaches than other characters and have combos that can lead to infinite combos. The game may looks simplistic on the outside but there’s more depth to it than that.

Knowing your character’s frame and when certain animations end can help you restart a combo without giving your opponent a chance to breath and it forces them to sub to avoid taking more unnecessary damages. Compliment that with the items that you are given like the defense tag for example and you have a recipe for pure carnage.

And that’s it. If I have forgotten something please let me know in the comment section below and I’ll be sure to add it to the list.

Thank You for reading!