Basic Information
- Max HP: 2000
- Weight Class: Floating
- Damage Affinity: Normal
- Armor Hits: 2
- Devil Trigger Armor Hits: 7
Overview
The floating masks. A ghost looking enemy that is characterized by its unique floating movement and big scissors that it uses for attack and defense. It has a lot of HP and appears in groups, but has a weakpoint and opts to take a defensive approach to combat making Death Scissors not all that threatening unless they overrun you.
Attacks & Quirks
Death Scissors is a floating enemy that typically fights at close range. It can be knocked away or knocked up or downwards, but it will stay at a constant altitude unless it moves on its own. It can also phase through walls and floors making it capable of fighting you anywhere.
The Death Scissors‘ actions and attack patterns change depending on the state of its scissors. It will fight differently if its scissors are broken in half so this makes it a demon with 2 stances: Full Scissors mode and Half Scissors mode.
All of the Death Scissors attacks can be parried. Parrying exposes its weakpoint: this is where the mask momentarily becomes red. If you shoot the mask while it turns red, you can kill the Death Scissors instantly.
In both Full Scissors mode and Half Scissors mode, the Death Scissors can guard against your attacks. It tries to fish for a parry & counterattack against you and when triggered, it lashes out with a wide swinging spin attack while you are still reeling. But if it blocks too much the scissors can break and it’ll change modes. In both modes it can also move into walls and floors to teleport to a wall near you, or the floor directly underneath you for a surface surprise attack.
In Full Scissors mode the Death Scissors uses slow and wide area attacks. There’s a swinging area of effect attack, a rushing stab & U-turn attack and an approach and snip attack it can do from far. It also has a special is a drill attack.
In Half Scissors mode, the Death Scissors becomes more aggressive and uses faster attacks. There’s a fast triple stab attack that is favors doing, and 2 variations of area of effect swings with the half scissors. it exposes its weakpoint in the middle of the triple stab attack.
If you break its scissors completely, the Death Scissors will try to summon another full scissors, but leave its weakpoint exposed the whole time. This is the easiest way to hit the weakpoint and it usually means that the fight is over if its scissors breaks.
When the Death Scissors dies, it may leave behind its final attack. This is where the scissors flies upwards and lands directly on top of you even though the Death Scissors is gone. You’ve probably gotten hit by this and was either confused or felt stupid. This final attack will not occur if you kill the Death Scissors via its weakpoint or if it was the last enemy left in the battle(?).
Slightly more specialized knowledge, but the Full Scissors mode’s drill attack has special properties when you fight Death Scissors in Mission 3 or Secret Mission 7 specifically: the drill attack is shorter, but it can chain it multiple times.
Strategy for Fighting Death Scissors
Death Scissors is an enemy that gives you a number of ways to approach it. Namely, breaking its scissors, parrying its attacks or fighting it while matching its altitude. Since the Death Scissors can guard your attacks, it tends to be less aggressive if you’re more aggressive and vice versa.
You can parry all of the Death Scissors attacks to expose its weakpoint and kill it instantly with a gunshot. Let it attack you and then react with an attack of your own and parry it. Do this if you want to end them fast. Take note that there are less parry windows if you are more aggressive.
When you make a Death Scissors guard, you can use guard break moves on it to make quick work of the scissors. If you want to break the scissors with guard break specifically, it’s better if you keep them closer to ground level since most guard breaking moves are performed while standing on the ground.
You can use the Death Scissors to fight really high up in the sky if you are consistent with your Enemy Step jump canceling. This makes the enemy really fun to fight with characters that have a lot of moves while airborne.
You can also manipulate the camera to keep the Death Scissors off-screen to limit the amount of actions it does. Useful for crowd control when there’s many of them.
Below are some character specific highlights for engaging Death Scissors. Emphasis on moves useful for parrying or guard break.
Nero Strategy
Nero can Snatch these enemies as long as they aren’t blocking. If you are attacking it while it is guarding and it tries to parry and counter you, use Snatch to pull it out of its counter attempt after the clash.
You can Buster them after they expose their weakpoint. Sucker punch them to kill them in 1 hit.
For parrying, use Split, Shuffle or Aerial Combo. After you expose the weakpoint, you can finish them with a Blue Rose Shot.
For guard break, use Maximum Bet as long as they aren’t too high.
Dante Strategy
Dante can use groups of these enemies to fight at max altitude if you are consistent with your jump canceling and aerial combat skills.
For parrying, use DSD Helm Breaker, Cerberus Revolver, Ice Age, Pole Play, Long Barrel, Revolution, Balrog Flint Wheel. Once the weakpoint has been exposed, finish them off with any kind of gunfire.
For guard break, use DSD Stinger while in DT, Cavalier Air Combo B, Double Kalina Ann Cascade, Dr. Faust Red Shot held down, Sin Devil Trigger SDT Combo, Sin Stinger, The Ombra.
Death Scissors also cannot block against Cerberus Crystal, Thunder Clap, Percussion and Sin Devil Trigger The Luce.
Vergil Strategy
Since these enemies can block, Vergil can have trouble embedding summoned swords in them which locks him out of his teleport. Also given his low number of air moves these enemies can make him feel a bit more constrained compared to other characters.
To embed summoned swords in them, use Yamato SDT Rapid Slash. This embeds summon swords in enemies it hits even if they can block.
For parrying, use Beowulf Flush jumps, Rising Dragon, Mirage Edge Helm Breaker, Stinger. Once you have exposed the weakpoint, finish them with a basic Mirage Blade Shot.
For guard break, use Yamato Void Slash, Beowulf Kick 13 or Mirage Edge Over Drive. Just don’t let them move too high up.
V Strategy
This enemy gives you a lot of time to read your book and farm Devil Trigger. If you want to be aggressive with your familiars make sure to call them back in reaction to the Death Scissors parry and counterattack.
For parrying, use Shadow attacks, specifically Arbiter and Guillotine. If you manage to expose its weakpoint, finish it off with a Griffon Shot. But given how the familiars move on their own and have a bit of delay before attacking, parrying might not be the best approach here.
For guard break, call Nightmare down.