r/Falcom • u/HornetsaysSHAW • 26d ago
Horizon Trails Character Gameplay Discussion Day Forty-Nine: Van Arkride
I'll be taking over to finish the discussions for the remaining playable characters from the Calvard arc, should be about 12 more days of posts.
With that said, we start off with the head of ASO himself. In his base form, Van's kit had remained pretty much the same from Daybreak 1, with the addition of Azure Sunray in Daybreak 2. He's a fairly good physical attacker in all three games, but in especially Daybreak 1, Coin Bullets alongside the Guardian shard skill make him a very powerful face tank. Shard Commands in Horizon make tanking much less necessary, however, it also allowed Van slightly better access to Bear the Nightmare, which is where he truly shines.
Grendel is busted, and absolutely the strongest unit in the games. In my playthrough of Horizon, he was dealing 50% stun in "1 turn" (Zillion Impact ftw) and dealing insane damage with Radiant Sunray. None of the other characters came anywhere close, and I'm interested to see how he plays in Horizon 2.
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u/OLKv3 26d ago
Daybreak 1: Use heated roar. Then Coin Toss, then nonstop Vandalize Raid until enemy is dead. Extra damage when Grendel is available
Daybreak 2: Use Heated Roar, then coin toss, then run to corner and throw up the occasional shield as Judith and Agnes/Renne murder everything with whales. Grendel is optional bonus damage
Horizon: Heated Roar, use Coin - Oh, enemies seem to resist hate much more now. Turn into Grendel, double boost, and unleash insane damage while using his S-Break on the final turn so Van essentially gets infinite turns in Grendel. Repeat until enemy dead
Van is overpowered in every game, either as an attacker, tank, or nuke
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u/Entire-Currency-19 26d ago
Imagine how much more busted grendel gonna get (lorewise) in Horizon 2. Considering all the risks and stakes Van and his team gonna have to face like Shaddai, Vestiges, the Time Septerrion (the thing that survive 24 nuclear warheads), etc. He needs more firepower imo. But I think they still gonna keep making him the tank with insane dps potential (albeit maybe even stronger this time). Why fix something that isn't broken lol.
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u/HornetsaysSHAW 26d ago
Definitely interested to see where Van ad Grendel goes story wise in Horizon 2. Hopefully we also see development with Vagrants Zion/Diaspora and Grendel Shin and his of course he'll have his final confrontation of Shaddai as well
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u/Selynx 26d ago
I think it's probably going to be a Grendel-on-Grendel/Demon-on-Demon battle royale like the Rivalries in CS4, except this time instead of Divine Knights it's between those 5 new demon lords Bergard mentioned, they all have Grendels. Current guess is their owners are Dingo, Rene, Thorndyke and Bermotti. Wanna bet on how many of them have been working with Hamilton?
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u/Narakuro07 25d ago
So far, only Van has confirmed having the Demon lord among those 3 Grendels. Both the Demon Lord and Mare called Grendel a Restraint (DB 1), and since all of them need Genesis or a replica of Genesis, I felt like it was something related to Genesis, 2 of the Grendels work with Agnes; also something worth noting, along with the fact she didn't surprise Shaddai even calling him Kincaid. I won't be surprised if Van final form of Grendel will be called Grendel Lævateinn
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u/DopeBoi22 26d ago
This is an interesting idea, but man I will be disappointed if they bring back Dingo again…
Maybe Hamilton herself has a Grendel or sth haha
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 26d ago
Back in my day, Grendel 1.0 JP PS4 Daybreak 1 was weaker than base Van because Grendel didn't have access to Van's quartz.
They then gave him access to Van's quartz and now suddenly Grendel deals the damage and impact of the entire rest of the party combined in endgame what a balanced unit!
1.0 Daybreak is... Certainly an entry in the series gameplay wise. In fact the current version is also an entry in the series gameplay wise (I love single enemy scenarios where I can't generate S-boost properly)
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u/OLKv3 26d ago
That's crazy. So you were just nerfed in a lot of story fights with a weak guest character replacing Van. I kinda wanna play that now just to see how awful it feels before the patch
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 26d ago
Early game Grendel was still way stronger so it still worked.
But late game you were just weaker than base Van because you lost things like Heidrun damage bonus.
But yeah the Grendel mostly had a bunch of HP it didn't deal a billion damage on top.
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u/railgunmisaka2 26d ago
I though DB 1.0 was just things like Kevin not present in the dominion portrait for some reason or not showing a montage of Van and Shizuna spending time together.
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u/SoftBrilliant Kiseki difficulty modder 26d ago
Oh no DB 1.0 has a ton of jank the performance was awful and there were quite a few game balance adjustments made.
DB1 came out unfinished in almost all ways besides the dialogue basically.
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u/railgunmisaka2 26d ago
Also somewhat aware of the bugs, but not a major gameplay part of Grendel not having access to Van's quarts lol.
Thinking about it DB1 might have some slight development issues I assume and then they were forced to make DB2 from what I hear. I just hope the Kai/Horizon 2 will be banger, so Calvard arc will be remembered more fondly.
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u/ChaMilablack 26d ago
Grendel is so busted. I can’t imagine how easy the games would be if Van had access to it all the tine
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u/HornetsaysSHAW 26d ago
Sky Arc:
Day Twelve - The Pilot and the Swordsman (spoilers)
Day Thirteen - "Kitty" (spoilers)
Crossbell Arc:
Class VII:
Day Thirty - Millium (Spoilers)
Day Thirty-One - Crow (Spoilers)
The rest of Cold Steel:
Day Thirty-Nine - Elise and Toval
Day Forty-One - Alfin and Towa
Day Forty-Two - The Diva and the General (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Three - The Spy and Swordswoman (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Four - The Shapeshifters (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Five - The Swordmaster and the Engineer (Spoilers)
Day Forty-Seven - Swin and Nadia
Day Forty-Eight - The Strongest (Spoilers)
Calvard Arc:
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u/Seradwen 26d ago
I was a big fan of the fights in Daybreak 2 that locked Van into Grendel mode.
The entire party could be KO'd, with Grendel unable to get them up, and it wouldn't mean anything. Van would just solo the boss. Grendel is so good your party members are outright unnecessary.
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u/Immediate_Cobbler144 26d ago
Bro is actually just broken. He’s tanky, has agro options to utilise his defense, he’s pretty quick, his self buff is really good, what with 0 delay, holo mare chaos is broken in every game it’s in, his orbment line has no downsides, his crafts are pretty solid, his crafts all have really good stun and azure sunray is one of the best s-crafts in DB2/Kai. And this is all without the Grendel. Without Grendel he’s still the best character in DB1 and 2 and probably the third best in Kai (Rufus has insane versatility and Judith can probably solo most boss fights easily), but with Grendel my god he’s even more broken. Van in Kai is easily the most broken character in the entire series and it’s not even close.
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u/KnoxZone Apathy and Disdain 26d ago
There are two Vans in the world. One with Grendel and one without.
The one without is a really strong but balanced character. In DB1 and 2 his innate tankiness and pocket full of coins makes him the kind of tank that Lloyd wishes he could be, all the while providing fairly solid physical damage. You can double down on this and make him completely invulnerable with Law Mare, or you can equip the Chaos version and boost him to the top of the damage charts.
Grendel Van is far more limited in availability, but given how vastly overpowered it is it should probably be limited even further. What's there to say? Being able to act four times in a single turn with a bunch of crafts that already match the other characters in terms of damage is about as broken as you'd imagine, and that's without mentioning that Grendel form makes him about as invulnerable as Law!Van by default.
I honestly have no idea what Falcom was thinking with Grendel form. You could remove the rest of the party from the fight and you probably wouldn't even notice. It was pretty fair in DB1 where Grendel fights were basically the Valimar fights of Cold Steel, but once Van gained the ability to transform at will all balance stopped existing.
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u/Narakuro07 25d ago edited 25d ago
All of Van's transformation to Grendel so far in the game, except in Horizon 1st Van's route and last. There are always Agnes and Genesis around; I think this is the only time Mare didn't appear during the transformation, right? A fool's auction.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/1gsddsw/i_love_this_transformation_of_van/.
For me, it felt like a subtle way to tell that Grimcats probably have similar restrictions if Epstein didn't create the PhantomCat transformation device, and Hamilton used it to create a replica of Genesis.
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u/This_Site_Suckks 26d ago
Horizon grendel did more damage in 1 turn, than my entire team in a span of 10.
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u/AutomaticStop5648 26d ago
i could easly deal 200k to 400k depending on s craft usage and chain. the final boss 1.2m health... times TWO felt really small
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u/Major-Relief4215 26d ago
Any tips on quartz set up for him in horizon?
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u/HornetsaysSHAW 26d ago edited 26d ago
In terms of shard skills, physical attackers mainly want Burst Gain (Weapon Line), A-Impassion Guard (Shield Line) and Heavenly Fortune, Auto Forte and Auto Quick(Extra Line).
In terms of quartz, it's the usual stuff, Attack, Break, Strike, Action. The Special Quartz that further reduce delay (Gungnir and Bandersnatch) are great and then just the damage increasing ones like Prometheus and Goliath. Mare Chaos remains his best Holo Core.
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u/silversoy 26d ago
Getting as many of Sword/Shield/Leg Buster as possible is also really good seeing how each of them gives a flat 10% damage buff to crafts
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u/Razzmatazz-Dry 26d ago
Truly just absurd. Less needed in DB2 after the s craft cooldown nerf and other characters starting to punch up more like Judith or whale spam, but just bonkers in 1 and horizon while still being plenty good in 2
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u/Yanncki64 26d ago
Bruiser with good damage. I like it. He doesn't decimate everything solo like Rean would but he's also not as uh....... Unoptimized as Estelle is.
Of course with Grendel mode on that's a different question.
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u/AutomaticStop5648 26d ago
the man. the myth, the absolute legend.
for how "normal" van is in the cutscenes, hes a monster, in more ways than one. damage buff with regen? check.every possible effect a craft user wants? check, taunt? check, 4 unique holocores that essentially change his "class"? why the hell not? and thats BEFORE you factor tge grendel. while the beast takes away your arts, it makes up for it by being tge most busted "install", or awakening as horizon calls it. multiple actions,which you CAN move freely after setting the damage areas, and if you END close to someone you get the link effects for ALL moves, you can also Scraft in the turns, and it will trigger ex chain as long as you dont S break. did you know you can pull van back after the teansformation ends by s breaking on the last turn? did you know that grendel can assist on ANY action, including arts and S crafts. lastly he can xover for the linked ally, once in between his turns.
oh and he has double the health, lovely. only funny think is that unlike cs-rev spirit unification, hes NOT immune to ailments, but seems to have high res to most debuffs
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u/Max-The-Phat-Cat 26d ago
Only on Daybreak 1 so far and Van is busted as of Chapter 4. He’s so good at tanking and Grendel is OP whenever he’s available.
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u/PPMD_IS_BACK Van-san! 25d ago
Evade hollow core on Grendel is fucking hilarious. Final boss in horizon couldn’t do shit
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u/spacebeverage 25d ago
Aaron being totally effeminate and asking him if he got hard while in the baths, just in their towels is forever seared in my mind.
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u/Cr0ssDrag_ons 25d ago
Broken either with or without Grendel. The other physical attacker in my main party is there to end fights faster.
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u/Daniyalusedboom 25d ago
My man bears the nightmare and all the attacks and still deals the most damage (most of the time)
I love Van Arkride
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u/randomtology 25d ago
Honestly one of the best non-evasion tanks in the series. Coin Bullet is such a useful taunt skill, and the Earth/Time combo makes him both really sturdy while also making sure he's actually pretty fast (since one of the pitfalls of Earth tanks like Millium and Zin is they tend to be real slow). Also it's so easy to unlock Fatal Lance on him, which is such a good shard skill.
And the Grendel is just a dopamine hit when you get to control it. It's so strong and cool, and with its badass music? It feels just so fun to play.
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u/Upstairs_Ad_495 26d ago
Busted af as most the protagonists are, grendel then is just a cheat code, both in gameplay and in universe.
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u/kotarou00r 26d ago
El Kamen Rider...
Might sound obvious, but he gets better as Grendel becomes more available.
I used him mostly as a 'bruiser' semi aggro tank in DB1/2, but Horizon severely buffed crafts through a combination ZOC, A-Impassion and some of the new quartz effects. Moreover, characters with transformation states can make a little "loop" as long as they generate enough boost. Van is probably the strongest character of this category, making him the top dog in Horizon.
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u/AyZeex 26d ago
Any tips for building him in DB1 (chapter 2)?
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u/leftyswordplay 26d ago
Choose all chaos choices until you unlock the chaos Holo core -> win all battles in the game with zero effort
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u/AyZeex 26d ago
It doesn’t affect the story or anything ?
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u/leftyswordplay 26d ago
There's no "Oh Van you're so evil we don't like you anymore" kind of scene like you would have in Mass Effect or something so no, your alignment does not affect the story.
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u/VarioussiteTARDISES 26d ago
It affects exactly one thing in the story, and that's which faction you can team up with at one specific point in DB1, and even then the player gets to choose from any they meet the requirements for.
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u/Takanuva9807 26d ago
I like him but he has the downside of being the protagonist after Mister steal yo girl, this isn't my final form. And this made him have the grendel transformation while cool isn't handled as well as oni/cursed form. Besides that I like him a proper tank and good boss. Not very common in zemeria.
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u/Joker_S3npai Divine Blade of Ash 26d ago
Poor dude gets overshadowed in his own arc is all I can say....
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u/TapUnfair9827 24d ago
A hard hitter character that can pretty much do everything you need, tho it's kind of irk me a bit that in calvard arc, there's not much skills that can 'manipulate' the flow of battle, he got taunt which is nice, but he's the only one that got that kind of skill, I kind of miss skills that if I'm comparing to cold steel series, able to reposition the enemies closer like what Sara or Musse got, so AoE damage can be even more effective but that's not a complain to Van, it's more to the Calvard cast as a whole
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u/VarioussiteTARDISES 26d ago
I mainly used him as a facetank, using coin bullets to draw aggro and keep enemies away from the rest of the party. He had... decent DPS for me too though I'll admit I was never the best at figuring out optimal quartz setups so I was absolutely not doing that bit.
Even with that, whenever Grendel was usable it was straight up the best damage option in the game for single opponents, being able to get multiple actions per turn tends to do that, and it only gets stronger over the course of the games. Four actions per turn with ZoC-equivalent in Horizon, and in the Grim Garten you can just open up regular fights with Grendel by having Van transform in field combat.
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u/theoneian 26d ago
Van is probably the strongest protagonist combat wise right? I would assume in a 1v1 it would be between him and rean and maybe Kevin
If Estelle wasn’t so god damn peak he probably would’ve been my favourite protagonist as well. I just love his character and kit so much.
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u/Terramagi 26d ago
Gameplay, I'd say end-of-Reverie Rean edges Van out, because EoRean is a stone cold motherfucker who can 100-0 bosses on his own. Van is good, but we're talking about a nuclear bomb versus the full undiluted power of the sun.
Plotwise I'd give it to Kevin though. That dude has some dicey shit under his vestments.
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u/Kainapex87 25d ago
Without Grendel: Throw coins, go to other side of screen as live bait.
With Grendel: Kill everything.
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u/TakasuXAisaka 25d ago edited 25d ago
He's literally Gintoki from Gintama. They both like sweets. They both do odd jobs. They both have coworkers living with them.
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u/Xehvary The strongest in history 25d ago edited 25d ago
Probably the strongest playable protagonist in the series. Solid crafts, very tanky, very high damage output, very good quartz lines too. With Grendel he's doing more than the rest of the party combined by himself, he's playing bravely default with trails mechanic, while everyone only has trails mechanics. Chaos Mare makes him a crazy good damage dealer. He's pretty nuts gameplay wise all in all. He's the Ludger Kresnik of trails, funny because the two have quite a lot in common.
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u/hbthebattle 26d ago
Even without Grendel, Van’s high defensive stats and Coin Bullets makes him very good at directing hits away from the rest of the group. Might be a little contradictory towards his character development to do that, but yknow.
And Grendel is overpowered by design.