PLAYSTYLE

Abuse great, multi-use zoning skills, then abuse brutal setups to score combos.

Hol Horse is a fairly simple character that has a set of powerful, easy to use moves that are rife for exploitation. Although he counts as a ‘Stand’ character, he has no S-ON or S-OFF, and has access to his whole moveset at all times. His main course of attack is to abuse his gun shots to zone the opponent out and rack up damage. His gun shots can be supercharged with the Style button, and canceling the animation with shots allows him to spam super high priority projectiles. 236S in particular, is a remote controlled bullet that can be used for set-ups, traps, anti-air and can convert into combos.

What truly makes Hol Horse scary, is his bottle (214A). Not only can the initial bottle throw be used as an anti-air, but inputting 214A again makes Hanged Man appear from the puddle to attack the opponent. This move crumples on hit, allowing Hol Horse to combo. Hanged Man tracks 360 degrees, and can be summoned at any time, so long as it isn’t a cutscene. This not only makes it extremely hard for the opponents to go in on him, but also allows him to create a variety of nasty setups to start combos on offense. To complete this package, Hol Horse does surprisingly respectable damage. This makes mistakes particularly annoying when fighting him.

It only takes a small amount of time, and perhaps a bit of guidance for a beginner to start to abuse Hol Horse’s abilities and achieve victory. This makes him a favourite for new players who like zoning. Despite being simple to use, his skills give lots of room to come up with new dirty tricks. He does have two weaknesses, however. His damage, while great for his playstyle, is only average, and can be outpaced by other characters. Also, a patient opponent won’t allow Hol Horse to score free, easy zoning damage, meaning he’ll have to get creative to keep up.

PROS

  • Highest priority projectile in the game, if supercharged with Style button.
  • 214A can be used as anti-air, set-up tool, zoning tool, combo starter, combo breaker, and even when he is in hard knockdown.
  • 236S can be used for anti-air combos,
  • Despite being a ‘zoner’ is surprisingly very balanced at all ranges.
  • Good damage for a zoner.
  • Backwards run makes running away easier.

CONS

  • Damage is good, but still middling. He can be outpaced by other characters.
  • Patient players can cut down on a lot of his zoning potential.
  • All projectiles are linear and side-steppable.
  • Opponents that know his tricks can cut down on his effectiveness.