Akane(Shell)

From HiguWiki

This weapon is very similar to Akasaka's counter weapon. What this means is all of the ranged attacks allow Akane to automatically block enemy attacks while attacking them at the same time.

The melee attacks and special attack are pratically the same.

Akane's uncharged range attack fires off a big vertical slash wave that travels rather fast. While Akane is firing off this wave, all enemy attacks do NO DAMAGE because they are blocked*. This vertical slash wave attack is very useful against enemies who love to jump and/or spam range attacks on you.

Akane's charged range attack(yellow bar) allows her to run towards an enemy for about a metre or two. During this run, all enemy attacks do NO DAMAGE because they are blocked*. This run is very useful for countering a melee attack spammer or scaring away an enemy. However, there is a relatively long delay after the run so if the enemy doesn't fall for your trick and waits until your run is done to attack you, then you will be a sitting duck waiting to get hurt. Quack. Ouch.

Akane's fully charged range attack(red bar) causes her to do a spinning slash attack that is both fast and goes far. During the spinning attack, all enemy attacks do NO DAMAGE because they are blocked*. I actually don't find this attack to be very useful unless you can tell an enemy is going to attack you beforehand because Akane takes a relatively long amount of time to get ready to do the spinning attack. During this time, she is a sitting duck (again) waiting to get hurt. More quacks and ouchies. Another reason I don't really use this attack is because it takes a rather long time to fill up the red bar and it doesn't do so much damage compared to other melee attacks.

One big weakness for this weapon is it has no long range attacks at all so remember to stay close to the enemy. Also, the auto block is active only for half a second or so. Auto block works the same way as a normal block so you need to be facing the right direction to block an attack. This means that you also need to either single out one of the enemy for a 1 vs 1 battle or group both enemies together in the same direction to be sure that your auto block will protect you.

I would say this weapon requires more practice, concentration, and planning to be used effectively compared with the other weapons. It's really fun though once you get the hang of it and constantly ignore the enemy's attacks while attacking them.

• Autoblock causes explosive weapons (e.g. rockets) to blow up without hurting you but I have not tested the auto blocking with wide area explosions (e.g. Satoko's giant rocket, Kasai's killer bazooka) so I'm not sure about those attacks.
• Autoblock also reflects non-explosive weapons (e.g. bullets) back at the enemy.
• Autoblock can also allow Akane to travel through Hanyuu's barrier without being damaged.
• When Akane + shell attacks another Akane + shell or Akasaka + book of counter, both players' autoblock reflects and cancels both players' attacks.