The Definitive Kirby Air Ride
Meta Guide
Written by drcKarGaming
Table of Contents:
Beginner Meta Analysis:
The following tips and tricks demonstrate meta that is generally easy to learn and is commonly utilized in the average City Trial Netplay game. Most sections in this entire guide will include something like a video/images demonstrating it in different scenarios or a external source for additional info.
Quick Spin I-frames:
The quick spin i-frames in Kirby Air Ride are genuinely one of the most important parts of City Trial that gets severely underutilized because of how hard it is to notice. But once you use it, you’ll understand why it becomes such an intrinsically overpowered trick in the game. If you’re just hearing about this for the first time, quick spin i-frames in Kirby Air Ride refer to the 20 frames of invincibility your star will obtain right at the moment the quick spin begins. The amount of I-frames takes up about ⅓ of the entire spin animation. These I-frames generally are the only source of defensive measure you can take vs an incoming attack, and mastering the timing to certain attacks can take a long time. You can practice the timing by throwing gordos or planting a sensor bomb and spinning right before you hit them. Here’s a demonstration video
What stars are best for netplay:
The debate over what stars are best in the city can change a lot depending on certain circumstances present. These circumstances have been boiled down a lot over the years and been debated about in the community, and depending on who you ask, the ratings for each star can vary. I personally have my own list, but instead of showing you that I will show you what is considered to be the most fair tier list for most playstyles. If you’d like to see the criterion used, I’ve made 2 separate twitter posts going over each machine briefing describing their strengths and weaknesses.
Criterion if you are interested: S-B tier: click here. C-F(ormula star): click here
The reason this is important is that the compact is really weak and loses most stadiums. If you’re looking to pull out a win, you have to utilize all of the machines that are likely to do well in the city and do well in the stadiums. This includes how powerful they are at destroying other players or how well they control. Some machines will 100% be very difficult for some to learn if it’s their first time using it, but being able to learn the S tier machines is a huge foundation that sets a good precedent to becoming a great netplayer. Relying on the starting machine (compact) is bad. If you want to learn a machine, it’s best to practice winning vs level 9 CPUs and play the entire city using ONLY that machine until you can consistently win. More on machines in this slide
Beginner PVP Strategies:
Every level section will go over certain fighting and/or pvp techniques/strategies that will fit under their respective execution difficulty. Beginner will go over the most basic but still useful tricks that can work towards the average kill even against the best of the best.
Charging up the plasma as fast as possible to the max and launching the big ball of electricity not only is a powerful attack, but it can sometimes be hard for the opponent to dodge at close range with its homing ability. The only real challenge to using level 5 plasma is that the ball moves slowly, and the quick spin i-frames can be used to pretty easily dodge the incoming ball. However, it can be very hard if you launch the ball at a close range. That’s where this attack can become super dangerous. If you are able to move in really close to another player and launch a level 5 plasma, the sudden attack can deal a large amount of damage at almost a 100% hit rate. So next time you pick up a plasma, get close to somebody before launching it all, then charge up real fast and unleash a ball of hell. This works even better if you’re moving really fast. But be careful, you can’t spin with plasma so no i-frames! But remember, in the hackpack pressing the Z button (or whatever it’s bound to) will instantly remove any copy ability, and you can regain your defense mechanism.
The Gordo weapon is one of the best items in the game not only because of how easy it is to use, but how ridiculously powerful it is. Even the best of the best players still frequently use gordos especially in the early game when everyone is slow and aiming is easier. The gordo basically boils down to understand how they can be thrown the best. It can take a bit of practice but mastering them is extremely useful.
The panic spin basically just lets you continually spin for about 20 seconds. It isn’t the same type of spin that comes out from a quick spin, instead it’s a spin that sort of functions like the tornado copy by shooting people into the air. Except it does a ton of damage. The quick spin basically will make it hard for anyone you attack to defend, as the only way to disable your spin is by hitting you. So if you’re fast, you can get to people easily and deliver a heavy hit with the large hitbox. The amount of damage is influenced by your offense stat, so maybe collect some offense before going in!
Panic spin (spin rush): The panic spin if you weren’t sure is the item that looks like this:
Here’s some additional info on all 3 in this video.
Final Thoughts:
If you want to get better at netplay, these 3 things are a great foundation. Additionally, don’t be afraid to get aggressive. Try and make things happen to other players as much as you can, the result can sometimes be good, sometimes be bad, and often is funny. If there’s an event going on, don’t just ignore it while everyone feeds off the UFO or Pillar. Get yourself in the action and maybe bring a weapon, but you shouldn’t be too aggressive especially if you are down a lot of items because you will either waste your time or get killed. If that's the case, try to mount a comeback or focus on getting maybe on another machine that could help you win the stadium. It helps to know how to collect items well (more on stats in this slide). There’s one other thing I haven’t mentioned. It’s not very well known that jumping on top of machines instead of running onto them make you drop no items! So make sure you do that so your items don’t get stolen if you switch machines!
Intermediate Meta Analysis:
Intermediate Meta is stuff that you usually should learn after mastering the hackpack controls, getting familiar with how things work, and just in general having some good experience in City Trial netplay. Like the last section, there will be some additional external guides to help you better understand certain things.
Predicting The Stadium:
Predicting the stadium in City Trial is something that is super fundamental in cranking out the occasional come from behind win or in general just making sure you don’t pick the wrong machine for the wrong stadium. This concept is pretty difficult to utilize in netplay games, but just sit tight and read through. First I will need to explain the stadium prediction, which most of you probably know as the event that hints towards the possible stadium at the end of a round. This is the biggest step in knowing what the stadium could be. What most of you probably didn’t know is each individual stadium actually has its own stadium prediction. Learning these differences could be the difference in planning for either Air Glider or High Jump as an example. They can kind of be difficult to memorize, but at least they can be easy to determine what category of stadium they follow under.
These are the predictions
What you might have noticed is the addition of marking each stadium with higher item frequencies. This is the second major part in understanding what the stadium could be. Throughout a city, you can often pick up on what category of stadium you’re going to play merely based on what items you’re seeing more of. This is pretty intuitive making it easy to learn because it was designed in order to give aid to what the stadium could be. This also will benefit in determining whether you think a possibly
stadium prediction was false. You see a lot of offense on a drag race prediction? Then build for Destruction Derby. There’s a 1/10 chance the stadium prediction in netplay can be ANY of the predictions listed, and when that happens you will have only the items to go off of.
How to find the star you need:
Finding a star is ultimately one of the most important things to do before engaging in combat and it will most of the time help with good item collection. Real quick, finding a machine should always be done first thing. Experienced netplayers often start a round by getting off their machine to get a larger view of machines in play. This, along with destroying other machines to make another spawn are the two main ways to get a star you need. While this does sort of bridge off of the beginner section, it’s connected to the final section, where I showcase each star individually in high detail here. It also connects off of the “predicting the stadium”, in that it’s important to decide what machine does best in each stadium. This point here is just to explain why it’s first important to learn what machines are good, and then master them and see where they provide the most benefit. This is kind of hard for a lot of people, which is why it is in intermediate.
Being Aware Of Your Surroundings (using the camera):
The camera controls are improved in the hackpack version of Kirby Air Ride in 2 big ways. First is pressing the X button to look backwards and also the unlimited zoom in and out feature. While the unlimited zoom out is not the best thing ever, I do highly recommend zooming out the camera to a comfortable position where you can see a wider area for being able to see items, players, and incoming attacks. It also has an illusive effect of being able to make it feel like you’re going slower. The rearview camera though is extremely important in netplay. It’s an instantaneous way to recognize flanking maneuvers which is extremely common in netplay to hit from behind. It helps to see any incoming plasma or gordos to make sure you can I-frame. However, it is important to always be alert so you don’t always check behind you when you don’t need to. Always listen for machines and any weapon sounds like the woosh sound of a gordo being thrown or the launch of a plasma. If you can’t see the sound, immediately assume it’s coming from behind you. This skill of being aware of your surroundings is difficult to master but crucial in being able to dodge attacks. Additionally, using the C stick to left and right can help a lot too for seeing things between buildings like items or incoming attacks.
Intermediate PVP Strategies:
Now we’re at intermediate pvp. To be honest, there’s a pretty fine line between beginner and advanced pvp, but there are some things that you can pick up on in the intermediate side of things. First of all, at this point after everything I’ve already covered you want to start learning physical attacks. The first physical attack is just using the quickspin. Now, there are intermediate quickspin attacks, but there are definitely advanced and sometimes expert variations. For now I will go over the easiest uses of the quick spin. The quick spin I will be going over is the straightforward quick spins. Basically, quick spins that you do when you're driving towards someone. Usually this is often demonstrated early when everyone is slow and has low HP. It’s common in the competitive setting that people will go for each other early, and if it's not with weapons. It’s likely by hitting people as many times as possible over and over again with quick spins. Basically the intermediate version of quick spin pvp is just using it to try and hit your opponent over and over again. This constant pressure can be deadly. As the game progresses this becomes increasingly difficult. But I will be explaining it in the harder categories. Also I will mention the other physical attacks that are influenced by weight.
You can injure other players outside of just spins and weapons, but you probably knew this. Using the A button against another player can deal a decent amount of damage or just running straight into them. It’s not advised you try to just run into people without spinning unless on hydra, but it can be even more deadly sometimes. In the early game though, sometimes while also quick spin attacking you can do additional damage by hitting people with the A button as many times as you can during the delay in quick spin dodge. I can’t really explain much further, so watch it here in this video.
Escaping when in danger:
If you find yourself under attack, you could get to low HP! When that happens it's time to run away! Now while that may seem easy, it’s very common for other players to notice your blinking kirby and then track you down till death. If they can catch up to you, this can be a problem. No worries though, just take in account these tips and live to die another day. First of all, if it’s early game, it’s likely you are the same speed as another person. When this is the case, it’s typically best to find speedup power ups while you’re being chased. This usually includes the Defense Up ability that makes you go slightly faster temporarily, the Speed Up ability that makes you go really fast, and then there’s charge tank (see upper image) which pretty much guarantees you get away. Well what if these things don’t show up? Then it’s time to look for food. When you’re being chased and it's early game, just try to find any food lying around, and don’t ever stop moving. If you don’t need food, fight back. Remember the things I’ve taught you so far for PVP! Lastly, if you need to bail immediately, get into the air! It’s nearly impossible for players to kill you in the air, so find a ledge (see lower image), get on top of the buildings, and fly away! This works no matter how fast you are, using the air and looking for food is good. And don’t forget, if all else fails, keep an I-frame spin ready to go!
Final Thoughts:
At this point, you should be putting all of the skills you practiced in beginner and intermediate into use for netplay. If you can’t with confidence, I would wait on moving onto the Advanced category, because it is where you will have to push your skills with City Trial to the next level, and start trying to compete with other higher ranked players. But don’t be afraid to practice what you know against anyone. You just have to be willing to put in the time of mastering the physics of the tricks. Which higher level meta is way more involved in.
Advanced Meta Analysis:
Collecting Stats in Netplay:
Collecting stat boosts (items/patches/stats) is something that is actually really hard to explain. However, it is THE most important part of City Trial all together even if you’re not doing netplay. But since this is netplay, the way you collect stats can sort of be different from single player in how you prioritize different items to optimize not only for the stadium, but for the machine you’re on. I put this in purple because the skill of high stat collection is extremely difficult to master. Most people who get good at item collection usually will need to put a lot of time into understanding the game physics. But in this section I will just go over how stats should be prioritized in netplay, then I will link a video going in depth on how you can optimally route/move or min/max for item collection. Stat priority can be boiled down to not only what is mostly likely going to win you a stadium, but when can help you win a fight. As you could understand, topspeed, boost, and offense are the 3 fundamental stats that will really help you win. It’s good for races, DD’s, and powerful in the city. Turn and Glide are good too. They help to control machines, win Single Races, and glide stadiums. Then Weight and Charge essentially are not priority stats. It’s good to get them if you see them, but it’s never an item worth risking your life for. Last is Defense and HP. The 2 defensive stats.
Now if you’re somebody who likes to use high HP vehicles than those are good items to have, it can make it hard for opponents to one shot you. But if it isn’t a star like the warp or wagon, those items can be pretty dumb to prioritize. Yes, you should get some, but it’s almost not worth hunting for them when you can still be one shot easily. They also tend not to spawn in races, so you won't even need them if you can’t find them. Because in Destruction Derby item pools,defense is super common. That’s how you should prioritize the items you see. Top speed is usually considered the holy grail of an item because it is super helpful in winning combat and almost every stadium in the game. None of this will matter however if you have no idea how to plan your movement in order to take control of the RNG in front of you. Essentially, on the spot routing. This concept is extremely difficult to explain with words, if anyone tries i’d take it with a grain of salt. Instead I’d watch this video further explaining this category.
Dealing with Ground Zero:
“Ground zero” typically refers to the center of nuclear explosions. This concept in reference generally only applies to 3 player and 4 player games. In City Trial I use “ground zero” in reference to where somebody gets killed. Knowing when somebody gets killed is something that you can take advantage of because it typically means the player can be pretty distracted. This meta concept is pretty new actually, but it makes a lot of sense. If you can pack a punch, go to ground zero when you get the death flash (featured in this category video). You can maybe get a kill and essentially get 2 kills in one. If somebody kills themselves, get to their non moving map icon asap. If you are the one who causes ground zero (you killed somebody), be weary of any incoming players. Expect to be ambushed by weapons or fast moving attacks. This is where things can get a little stressful, you have to get the items you stole from the other player you just killed and grab them IMMEDIATELY otherwise you will be overrun by other kirby’s (especially if it’s late into the game and people are moving fast). Here it is in action in this video
Advanced PVP Strategies:
The following advanced pvp strategies will actually be divided into their own subsection. This is almost the final level of the fighting meta of City Trial. This is almost the part of the game I enjoy the most, and it is super intricate and difficult to learn. I would consider putting a lot of these in expert meta, but these are things that should be learned before moving onto the most difficult meta of City Trial
How to use each copy ability:
I am gonna try and keep this as short as I can. I will go over each copy weaponized copy ability and weapon and explain how they should be used most optimally.
Bomb for those most part should only be used if you see people underground, it can be difficult for people to escape it when they are surrounded by walls.
Fire does minimal damage, it can be useful for destroying boxes or maybe getting some hits in on weak compacts early game.
Freeze is decent. It sorta is like the spin rush, in that it make you immune to any physical attacks unless the person spins at the correct time. It also freezes the opponent for a few seconds, forcing them away from you. It’s good to stand still and hold A with it if you are sensing an attack.
Mike is an interesting ability in that it does more damage in correlation to distance. Meaning picking up mike is good with either really high offense, or you wait to pick it up until somebody is close by you.
Needle is a close range powerup, but is so powerful if you can mash hard enough. It can be combo’d into a quick kill especially early on. It’s also good at opening boxes instantly early on.
Sword is a stun ability where people can’t spin for about a full second and a half before being able to move and dodge. It’s an ability that auto activates and is usually only good against slow machines. If you can always be close to somebody with a sword it makes it easy to kill. Combining that with I-frames it can be pretty good at what it does.
Tornado is designed to basically fling enemies away from you. However, with enough offense you can sometimes use it to drain items out of people. It can be pretty difficult to kill with a tornado because it’s a combo weapon, and so it does little damage.
Winged and Wheel are essentially designed as a speed powerup. They’re a good copy ability to pick up when trying to run away, which plays off of the last intermediate category “escaping when in danger”.
Plasma is the strongest copy ability in City Trial. The level 3’s are super easy to spam and can do massive damage on people from close range. The technique with level 3’s is getting close and timing your shots to where they can land. If you get on hit on with a level 3. It’s easy to continue shooting them till they die. Sometimes, you can start a combo even earlier with level 4 plasmas. Level 4 do a heavy amount of damage and are nearly impossible to dodge since they can go through walls, move super fast, and having a homing ability. Finding plasma and shooting them at any point in the game is appropriate. It’s such a strong ability.
How To Use the Weapons:
fireworks (cannon). This is a long ranged weapon that if you can aim correctly can open boxes from a distance or combo for a kill early game. Fireworks do a decent amount of damage, but the difficult part can be landing multiple hits and aiming. It takes practice but it is easy to learn.
Panic spin really is no different from how I talked about it in the beginner pvp strategies section, but as a reminder, it can be super strong if you’re going fast, it does a lot of damage and can get a kill usually with about 3 hits. The technique with it is just getting the hits asap before somebody can run away, because that's usually what’s gonna happen when they see you coming in hot spinning.
Gordos: I already went over gordos in the beginner section but I like to add that gordo throws are very reliant on being most optimized when you sneak attack or when you’re able to read the movement of other players. A common mistake when using gordos is throwing them right onto players, but this makes it easy for the players to dodge, instead, what you need to do is throw it in the direction they are going. This is a lot harder for players to time and can get them killed. But even more stronger is abusing how gordos freeze in place if they touch a solid object. Like, if you’re being chased, a common practice with gordos is to drive to a solid object like a building corner or the trees in the forest and aim for those objects, they can sometimes surprise the other person attacking you, getting them killed.
The Joust Technique:
In jousting, medieval knights would go back and forth and till one knight pushes the other off their horse. I like to use this analogy in fast paced pvp. If you are in a situation where you are trying to fight somebody who is also trying to fight you, the goal is to face them head on, and trying to always get as close as possible and always be moving. What most commonly happens if you both miss is you will turn around as fast as possible to try and land an attack between the delay of quick spins in order to reach the timeframe a player cannot i-frame if they used it on your initial attack. This can be pretty difficult, but it’s easy in theory when you consider your goal is basically just trying to pressure the other player who’s attacking as much as possible as they may run out of self defense options if they waste a quick spin on you. This can be practiced really only in netplay.
The Sudden Chase:
Randomly going after a person when you’re really fast is extremely powerful as it can often unleash a sudden panic if they aren’t an expert level player. But it usually works on anybody. Basically, when you have a lot of stats. Just go to somebody’s position as fast as possible, maybe with a weapon and unleash hell for like 20 seconds. Then if nothing happens maybe come back later with a different strategy. But quickly targeting somebody is usually the most common way pvp starts, and it can lead to a whole other set of debacles. Even more powerfully trying to land directly on people is super hard to see and dodge. Give it some practice.
The Bait:
Sometimes, if you can’t chase anyone down, you need to use bait. Baiting people can be somewhat difficult, (especially if you’re not in a voice chat). The most common way to bait is by camping near a top speed and waiting till you as somebody is attacking and try to time your attack such as throwing a gordo on the top speed as soon as they get there. Another good bait is like camping by a legendary piece, or waiting on top of a super jump pad and waiting for somebody to come up. Baiting is pretty uncommon, but it can be useful to have on hand if all else fails. I don’t need to show a video of bait, it's very self explanatory.
The Faster You Go, the More Dangerous You Become:
If you’re going really fast, it's hard for players to dodge, and they can easily crumble under pressure. Not only that, but if you’re going fast, you tend to deal greater damage. If you want to get 1 hit KOs. Get top speed, boost, and some offense.
Expert Meta Analysis:
Now we arrive at expert level meta. Stuff that not even I have fully mastered. Before you learn anything on this category, I highly advise mastering the first 3 categories. These things are getting into almost optional territory, but they are so advanced that they really can only come with hours and hours of practice.
Map Awareness:
I was tempted to put this in advance, but the map awareness is probably impossible to master. In City Trial, you always have to be aware of where players are. The best way to do that is with the map and player icons. Sometimes, if you're super confident in your ability to move around City Trial, you can just drive by looking at the map. That is about as mastered as you can get in map awareness. Checking the speed of players is a good gauge in knowing how often you should check the map. You need to be able to see when players start coming after you, so you can prepare yourself to be open to a spin. When the game is moving fast, you have to always be checking the map while playing to see when you could be facing an incoming attack. At the same time, you need to prepare. I have some good clips of using the map to see incoming attacks if you’d like to see.
spin!
Reading (assuming a players movement):
Reading is probably the hardest thing on this entire guide. But reading is something that can go a long way in netplay. Reading a players movement requires tons of hours in netplay to be comfortable with seeing how other players behave, as well as how well you can perceive situations. This is also one of the hardest concepts to explain, but I will do my best. When facing any player in City Trial, you always have to be predicting a players next move. It’s kind of like chess where you can sometimes push players to do what you want OR assuming a player will do the most optimal move. Reading is easy when you can see them. In a split second, you have to recognize their trajectory, and assume how fast it will take them to land an attack based on their speed. In Game Theory (not the youtube channel) “Chicken” refers to when 2 cars are headed towards each other at a high speed. In theory, the most logical move is to swerve away from the person to avoid a head on collision, but, if you assume the other person is also thinking the most logically, you should continue straight to still avoid a collision. This dilemma is seen throughout highly advanced netplay games. Reading is something top players like me will not always get correctly. Because the knowledge of other top players will understand the ideas behind what other players see in them. Sometimes, you can dodge level 4 and level 3 plasmas with well executed reads.
Optimal Item
Attack the area they are going to go
In Depth Star Meta Analysis:
This is it’s own category because I have a 25 minute video going over each star here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czN1yVzZguE
#1 Swerve Star
#2 Shadow Star
#3 Warp Star
#4 Jet Star
#5 Rocket Star
#6 Wagon Star
#7 Slick Star
#8 Turbo Star
#9 Wheelie Scooter
#10 Compact Star
#11 Winged Star
#12 Rex Wheelie
#13 Bulk Star
#14 Wheelie Bike
#15 Formula Star
Watch all about the legendaries here in this video (currently unavailable. Release date TBD)
Thanks for reading!
That’s everything. I hope this guide helps greatly open your eyes to the magnificence that is kar netplay. I hope you understand just how technical the hidden potential in kar is expanded through the use of netplay. Playing with other people unlocks the floodgates of so much random stuff. If you have any questions, I am on discord. (username: drcKarGaming#5572). Have fun!