Best melee fighter for speedruns. Fighter, Cleric, or Dwarf?
2 years ago
Kentucky, USA

Next year, I plan to start learning to speedrun the arcade version that's on the Capcom Beat-em up Bundle. I've played all five characters, but I feel more inclined for melee fighters since there are hardly any runs with them aside from Elf and Wizard.

From what I've heard, Dwarf is bad, so it's either Fighter or Cleric. I did learn that Cleric has the fastest recovering time from guarding attacks and has probably the second-best magic. The fighter is probably better for fighting rather than magic mega crush. Any suggestions would help.

Québec

Hello there! Sorry for the late response, I don't visit SRC all that much nowadays.

Some of us has ran all classes, and I must say in my experience, both Cleric and Fighter are both quite close to each other in terms of speed when played expertly, but I'd be willing to put my 2 cents on Fighter as an all-around better choice for starting. He's much easier to maneuver than cleric, and you don't really want to use blocking in a speedrunning context, dodging attacks is faster, and many enemies can be cheesed by jumping above their hitboxes but still being able to hit them, a thing the Cleric does poorly.

On the other hand, the magic attack power is certainly better on the Cleric's side, which can take care of certain sections much faster, but given the fact that magic is limited, I'd suggest getting acquainted with the game on a speedrun basis as much as possible to know when magic is the most useful to maximize efficiency of your spells during a run.

Overall, both classes are about equal when played to it's maximum efficiency, but Fighter is much easier to pick up in a SR environment than the Cleric. I would recommend starting with the Fighter, and when you feel like you've optimized your run as a fighter as much as possible to your tastes, try out Cleric and see how it works for you with the improved spell power but limited movement.

Kentucky, USA

Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I plan to get started after AGDQ ends.