How do you beat Dante on Devil May Cry lV for the PS3
The easiest way to defeat Dante is to utilize Buster when he is in
the air. There are two main strategies for exploiting Dante's
weakness:
Jump into the air and when you see Dante also jumps up to follow
you, as quick as you can, use Snatch to pull him towards you can
then perform an Air Buster on him.
Stand on top of the canopy in the center of the room, just at the
edge. When Dante jumps up to join you, Buster him. He never learns.
Although Dante will normally dodge your charged shots, he can be
hit by them if you manage to shoot while he is preoccupied, such
as: preparing a Pandora laser shot, recovering from another move,
being in the air, etc... Note that if he is running at you, he will
likely to either use his Helm Breaker or Full House attack. And
when he is walking, then he will use ground based attacks.
When it comes to firearms, Dante tends to use Ebony&Ivory and
Coyote-A for most of the fight. He can counter all your bullets
with E&I and if you keep on shooting he may use the Coyote-A,
not only taking down a bit of your health but also knocking you
down to the ground. Dante rarely uses Pandora, but when he does, he
only access two of its forms: Revenge (laser cannon) with any style
and sometimes in high difficulty modes and with Gunslinger style
only, Omen (opens the suitcase). Revenge is not only easy to avoid,
but since it takes a relatively long time to activate, you can
benefit and use a charged shot; Dante will not be able to counter
it. Omen, on the other hand, is almost impossible to stop before
used, and absolutely impossible to scape once started. On DMD mode,
it can easily take down a quarter of your health bar. However,
Dante must first switch to Gunslinger style in order to attack with
Omen, so just pay attention if he is in said style with Pandora.
When Dante switches to his Royal guard style, stop attacking him.
If you continue to attack him he will eventually counter with a
devastating attack, he can even do this at long range if you keep
shooting him. The good news is that Dante does not seem interested
in attacking you directly during this period. Simply run up to him
and grab him, he seemingly cannot counter a buster during this
phase. But don't stay in the air for too long or be ready to double
jump as he usually fires his Coyote to blast you down.
Another trick for gaining the upper hand on Dante is to use Nero's
Exceed system, which Dante lacks. Power up your Exceed meter, then
use continuous gunfire to approach Dante. Once you are close
enough, attack him. Your Exceed powered moves should be fast enough
to catch him off guard. This tactic is not foolproof; Dante may
attack you unexpectedly, or you may wander into his melee range
before initiating your own attack. Remember you can always use your
Devil Trigger to escape a Rebellion combo.
Dante can also be defeated with the help of Charged shot. It needs
to be powered to level 3, as the shot itself does little damage,
whereas the following explosion takes about a unit of his health.
The trick to using it is to try Snatch on Dante while he's on the
ground. He could dodge the Snatch but can't dodge a Charged Shot,
if it was taken immediately after the Snatch. If he's being kept
away from the rest of the fight (while charging shots), he could be
eliminated quite easily that way, which is also relatively fast. In
later difficulties, when he changes styles often, he can simply
dodge the damage while dashing in trickster, or he can simply block
in royal guard, OR more dangerously, he can use Royal Release prior
to Charged Shot's explosion when close to you, so stay away from
him when this happens.
