Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance Spells TIER LIST

Twitch - / jupiterclimb
edited by ‪@PsyannaIsaac‬​
Juste Belmont art by Darian ( / darianbelmont )

[@yoyoprofessorxavier]

I didnt realize as a casual player, I was using the highest tier spell wind cross. I just felt it was very useful and easy to do nice damage. Fun tier list :)

[@lankeowker5878]

Same, first time my favorite spells in my casual play through were top tier even at higher skill levels

[@CB-L]

The lack of Chaos Ring equivalent screws up most of those unnecessarily MP-heavy spells

[@AndrewMooreMar]

Loving this editing, with the gameplay over the explanation. Another big hit from ol' Jup. Also, poor Pike Master, he gave his life for our knowledge.

[@MaskedGuyCh]

Justice for the poor guy stuck to his spear 😔 Seriously though, that enemy has such a sick design (and great animations too!) I always thought Harmony was underrated when it came to enemy designs.

[@luis-sophus-8227]

@@MaskedGuyCh It literally has the best enemy designs in the GBA trilogy Around a hundred enemies and there are no lame pallete swaps, all of them unique

[@MaskedGuyCh]

​@@luis-sophus-8227 Both Aria and Harmony have better enemy designs and animations than Circle, and a lot more multi-jointed large enemies who take more effort to animate. Circle has many palette swaps btw, and there's nothing wrong with that, nearly all great 2D games have palette swaps.

[@ParadiseNigh]

I genuinely love that HoD is making a comeback, it deserves it. Even as someone with a deep-rooted hatred for Konami from being a yugioh player for 20 years, they came in HELLA with the Advanced Collection. Here's hoping we get the DSVanias in the future as well, and thanks for helping people like me come back to the series with knowledge.

[@doricdream498]

I'm glad it's reputation is starting to come around as well. I love it's uhinged atmosphere and bonkers jazz-chiptune OST, and it's extremely fun to randomize and do challenge runs with as well. Absolutely one of my favorite of the metroidvania entries.

[@marcosdheleno]

to me, its the weakest of the 6 portable-vanias. i still think the game needed something extra to become as good as the later games. maybe more whip options, or a better book system. maybe even more equipment. also, its been more than a decade since i last played, but i remember getting really disapointed that you had to swap sub-weapons. even though the ps2 games made them equipment that you collected. overall, i feel like portrait is the superior harmony. it did all harmony did, but better in every way.

[@MaskedGuyCh]

@@marcosdheleno All 6 handheld-vanias were great, so even if we say it's the weakest that doesn't say much, it's still a *great* game, especially by GBA standards. But also Harmony is not worse than Circle, it's got much better gameplay, enemy sprites and animations, boss battles, and it overall looks better. You got divekick and backdash, both staple features absent from Circle. You even got a forward dash, so the movement is amazing in that game. You have shops (Circle has no shops), and you can find weapons and equipment lying around hidden in the castle (in Circle you only get equipment from random drops). You can also find castle maps, another feature absent from Circle. Overall Harmony of Dissonance is a more enjoyable experience.

[@slaviclad9705]

​@@marcosdhelenocircle is the worst for me, the controls are god awful, feels like a nes game

[@mat_max]

Does the advance collection make it so the triggers can swap spellbooks? Because if so, they seriously upgraded the game

[@GakuKodori]

Hey, it's still the worst but you didn't mention you can move the wind axe by pressing a direction when it's casted, sooo, you could hit enemies at a safer distance

[@JupiterClimb]

Wow I actually had no idea this was possible LOL. You can even move it in eight directions! Stacks are also technically possible with Wind Axe + Crushing Stone (although it's a meme). Maybe Wind Axe is slightly underrated here...

[@MaskedGuyCh]

2 decades later this game still has things to discover! wow xD

[@user-ns2fv5bt2h]

​@@JupiterClimb😅😂😂😮🎉😢

[@Solountranseunte]

I had been looking forward to this video for a long time. Watching your passion for Harmony of Dissonance has made me pick up the game that tormented me as a child and have a lot of fun with it! Keep up the good work.

[@whiteraven1992]

17:19 You know _what else_ the "Ice Book + Sacred Fist" (Icicle Knuckle) combo is good for? Getting both the Ring of Vlad and Logoth's Ring *early!* You can also get the Platinum Tip early, just after acquiring the "Sylph Feather" double-jump relic using this same Spell combo. :D (You'll still need to time the backdash-jumps just right before using the spell) And while it _doesn't_ do any damage [you'd probably place it in absolute-bottom tier], there's one more spell you didn't list; "God's Blessing" (HoD's only _healing_ spell). It requires the Summoning Tome, but *_no_* sub-weapon, so you'd have to get your sub-weapon stolen by a certain enemy.

[@CB-L]

Better availability than Circle of the Moon's no sub-weapon item crush but still kind of a hard combination to pull off :/

[@Green-Raccoon777]

I've always called the Ice/Fist combo "Artic Fist" because it rolled off the tongue better.

[@whiteraven1992]

@@Green-Raccoon777 Nice! Personally, these days, I just call it the "Frost Rush".

[@FGj-xj7rd]

If only the game told you that you can toggle the spellbook option on/off and switch between spells without opening the menu. This options makes the system so fun to use.

[@miciso666]

im sure thats in the manual :)

[@ignis488]

wait how, I never knew this

[@theflashfan3234]

​@@ignis488 down + L + R toggles the spellbook on and off. Up + L/R cycles between spellbooks when they are toggled on.

[@darthbaluuduh6598]

@@ignis488 Just gonna leave this here for posterity if someone else didn't know. To switch books you can press up+L OR R to cycle backward/forward and to toggle the spellbook on/off you can press down +L AND R.

[@UserName-hb7hw]

Can't wait for the Circle Tier List.

[@JupiterClimb]

this one is next

[@ClexYoshi]

I do not know how to stack as a casual harmony of dissonance player.

[@plabcentral630]

Just try to get 3 stacking damaging hit box’s over each other. Try throwing the cross, while charging the crushing stone and then let it hang. I believe in you.

[@lv2681]

yeah what even is stacking

[@plabcentral630]

@@lv2681 when you watch the vid go to the cross section and you will se a ton of damage numbers happen very fast.

[@UserName-hb7hw]

​@@lv2681 a glitch that causes damage to happen every single frame if 3 attack hitboxes overlap.

[@BenjaminGlatt]

​@@lv2681Harmony of Dissonance has a hidden combo system that keeps track of how you hit an enemy (for example: standing, slide kick, after dashing, etc.). When an attack type hits an enemy, it gets invincibility to that type of attack for its i-frame duration, but you can hit it with another type of attack to deal damage-think the classic jump attack to standing attack that deals two hits a little quicker than two standing hits. Now, the game only keeps track of *two* of these hits, meaning that if you can hit an enemy with three *types* of attacks during the combo window-say a stomp, a whip, and a cross-the last of those attacks to hit will deal damage every frame it's in contact with the enemy, completely igoring its i-state.

[@BirdoHermes]

Once again thank you for the fantastic job adding visual examples and lining them up with your twitch audio. As fun as it is to be part of the discussion live, I will always look forward to the yt vid coming out afterward and sit through the whole thing again happily. Also I got a good chuckle out of "Let's say you're fighting minotaur lv 1" *Shows minotaur lv 2* 😆

[@JupiterClimb]

My test save Juste was just way too high of a level for Minotaur 1 LOL. But you get the idea!

[@jaydenwebster7510]

Nice editing. I like how you show off what all of them do.

[@sigmaklim2532]

I’ve been waiting for this!!! So happy to see this video finally arrive.

[@kirimusse]

Even without taking damage stacking into consideration (mostly because idk how to do that), Yellow Bible is still one of the best combos in the game thanks to the huge amounts of damage it deals nonetheless. Also, I think its worth mentioning that Blue Fist allows you to get some items early that are otherwise unobtainable until you get the double jump.

[@izayoirokkuu]

Also, Yellow Book is great for travelling in the castle, as the orbs shields you and can 1HKO weaker enemies, so you can dash around mindlessly

[@TonyMariani]

Just finished and Bible was like the only sub weapon I used with ice at first, then yellow for the rest of the game

[@ScifiGemini0616]

Very informative. Only knew about the ones at the top tier from speedruns, so I learned lot of new things from this.

[@king-fool]

"You just need the cross" is one kinda nice message if you ask me

[@AndrewBachmann]

In my first time playthrough ice + cross familiar was really helpful especially for it's "detect an enemy" feature. You can cast it and then restore your MP at a save and go out with it "for free".

[@SimplyAJ]

Solid video man! Diggin' when you do these like "educational" style videos (for lack of a better description haha).

[@pehhii]

New tier list video! Let's gooooo!

[@richardpanzarino8333]

Love your videos man❤

[@Firewolf_430]

Wind + Cross is my favorite combo of all time.

[@sopha-furniture-fan]

I was just randomly thinking about this game for the first time in about a year, about what a tier list of the subweapons and spells would look like, and I found this after searching for a video of all the combinations to remind me. lol Your list looks very different from what I had in mind. I think it's a cop-out to list them only by damage potential and not weighing different utilities against each other. I took into account value for avoiding damage and for special glitches to get around the castle. That's especially relevant because you can switch spellbooks quickly, so a combination of damage spell + glitch spell on different books of the same subweapon can work very well together. I'll just dump my thoughts here to fill out the value of some of these things for different purposes. The synergistic combination I'm thinking of is especially Fist + Fire Fist + Ice Fist. It helps that these are so easy to get at the start of the game. Aurora Ring lets you cancel Fist, which makes it more interesting for combat, but it still wastes hearts and isn't actually good. I say Fire Fist is better than Wind Fist for its damage potential, though I agree with your place for Fire Fist in the tier list. The fact that you mention needing mana prisms to use with Wind Fist is a clue that Wind Fist is actually not that good. Regular Fist is surprisingly valuable for getting around the castle in glitchy ways, and so is Ice Fist. For a low-level playthrough dashing through enemies with Ice Fist is great. My low% theorycraft from about 8 years ago gets the good ending with literally nothing but Ice Fist (and a little help from another file to glitch Maxim's Ring into the low% file, it's kind of ridiculous.) Fist + Fire Fist + Ice Fist is likely the best combination for many constrained and especially non-speedrun playthroughs. So I say Fist=B tier, Fire Fist=B tier, and Ice Fist=A tier. (Out of S-A-B-C-D-F tiers.) 8:25 I don't remember saying that. But now that you mention it, I'm guessing it's probably true for most categories. lol To me F tier is a "never use this" tier, but I don't remember any spell not granting invincibility, so everything is useful for at least that. The ones that give you very short invincibility for bad damage are underrated. If they cost little MP then they can be used to avoid damage and their damage output is irrelevant. The ones that last longer are worse because it's more likely you would get hurt immediately when the invincibility wears off. The ones that you can't cast multiple times are also worse for their unreliability. -- So something like Ice Cross. If I recall correctly, I think you can't use Regular Cross when the Ice Cross familiar is on? If so, then let's say Ice Cross=F tier.--Seriously don't use it if it stops you from using Regular Cross. The fact that Wind Knife lasts so long and has such a small hitbox dealing such low damage means you're very likely to have an enemy on top of you when it ends. So Wind Knife=F tier too. Knife belongs higher because some zips are maybe impossible to do without it, and it lets you launch with minimal heart consumption. Bible can do mostly the same thing but is clearly worse for it. So I say Knife=A tier and Bible=B tier. But the problem with Knife is it has no good damage stacking spells to go with it, so you will probably want to do zips with Bible instead, if you can. Cross and Axe are good for damage, launching, and zipping. They're so good and versatile that even if other damage-stacking spells can save you time, they don't save very much time. So Cross=SS tier and Axe=SS tier. You can throw out more Axes for weird launches and it can clear away enemies in pesky places, so this makes up for it having worse damage potential. Honestly just stick to these unless you have a special plan for something else being better. Nothing else comes close to their versatility. Your S tier looks good to me besides underrating Cross and Axe. I'll take your word on Wind Cross, though I haven't used it for stacking very much personally. I love stacking with the fairy (Summon Bible), but I agree it's only A tier because it takes too much special setup. My strategy for Maxim doesn't use Bolt Cross, so I'm not inclined to rate it highly. Then again, my strategy for Maxim is "just play good and don't get hit" so maybe you're on to something. lol Another one that's good for glitch potential is maybe Holy Water. If it can stack too (that's news to me) then it's pretty good all-around. But then again, there's nothing that you can do with Holy Water that you can't do with something else like Fist-exclusive glitches, so maybe it just stays B tier. Also, as a polite commenter already pointed out, you forgot the No Subweapon heal trick. This is pretty much worthless. If you're going to invest into healing then buy Potions instead, and it prevents you from switching to anything else. So here's the list I have going without much review: SS: Cross, Axe S: Wind Cross, Bolt Bible, Wind Bible A: Summon Bible, Knife, Ice Fist B: Bible, Holy Water, Fire Fist, Fire Cross, Fist C: Ice Bible, Ice Axe, Wind Fist, Bolt Cross, Ice Water, Ice Knife, Fire Bible, (Other good DPS ones you mentioned) (Other quick low spell-cost ones) D: (Most or all screen clears), (Some of the rest) F: Summon None, Ice Cross, Wind Knife, (Some of the rest) Don't bother replying because I'm probably going to disappear again for another year or two. lol Though a randomizer sounds fun. It almost makes me want to not disappear again... Oh well!

[@Unit_00]

Love your gba-vania tier lists

[@sergio_os]

Unfortunatelly, I've never played HoD. But damn, bro. Netflix's Castlevania did not lie when Juste said he barely needed the whip.

[@SmilTEA.]

Another tier list let’s go 🎉

[@collin2401]

It's crazy seeing a new video for HoD in 2023! I was obsessed with this game, like, 20 years ago. No clue what stacks are, but iirc I used the Ice Book, the Yellow Cross, and the big screen clears the most

[@user-tu4nv8yb6v]

Excellent information

[@v2power921]

This game is better than I expected! I'm trying to master this game at RetroAchievements and in the normal playthrough I'm destroying everything with the Hadoken (Sacred Fist + Wind). I'm using just this combination for Normal Game, because I need to kill all bosses only with the whip for some achievements, but in the Hard Game playthrough, I'll use and abuse the top tier combinations. Awesome video 👏

[@SuperHeroZX]

I just can't wait to see the tier list of ALL the DSS spells...

[@Dukstless]

I remember finding a long time ago, in like early 2010s, some text guide talking about the wind book. holy shit learning about that combo was amazing

[@yael4898]

Very nice video, and wow, i've been playing this game for years and didn't knew there was damage stacks XD

[@thesamuraix881]

Nice take on the spells. I agree with most of them but I would like to defend Fire and Ice + Bible. Fire + Bible's fire tornado may seem like nothing but I believe it's very effective against flying enemies. I used it against Devil, Peeping Big and both Legions and that was pretty much I needed to use on them, little to no whip attacks needed. For Ice + Bible's wave, you said it's theoretical stack but it does stack lots of damage if you lure bosses like the Minotaurs, Pazuzu and Living Armor to the corner. As for the Hydro Storm, it is a good screen wipe and helps you survive attacks or enemies when surrounded but it's kinda underwhelming due to its weak damage compared to other spells.

[@goddess-of-wisdom5790]

I always loved the ice cross because it felt like having a little buddy with you 💞

[@blackhogarth4049]

I still remember when you discovered fairy stacks. Awesome moment.

[@therealdeeves]

Thanks ^_^ I learned a lot

[@deltamudkip]

I did Harmony rather blind (aside from knowing that Gradius was at the top), but I found lightning dagger pretty fun to use against Death! Cuz he has that move where he sits still directly above you Granted I used a lot of daggers in general cuz Logoth's Ring made spamming daggers so fun

[@ChrisMortJr.]

I use ice fist for an extra bit of jump height on some checks

[@penismightier9278]

This video could have used an explanation of what stacking means for the lay people (read as: me). EDIT: WOOHOO! My favorite spell is in the second tier!

[@MudFan]

So going by what tiers the book combos in Harmony are placed in the tier list, here's how each subweapon and book *stacks* up apparently: Subweapons: Book > Cross > Axe > Fist = Holy Water > Knife Books: Wind > Ice = No Book > Fire > Lightning = Summon

[@merozero2818]

as yet another casual player. I had no idea damage stacking like that was a thing. Is it a tendency that every castlevania has a bug like that?

[@pehhii]

Harmony has it, Symphony also, there might be others, but these 2 are the main ones.

[@MaskedGuyCh]

11:04 I didn't know that actually, good to know! Good to see my favorite combo Wind + Book being in top tier, I absolutely agree with that placement. Also the editing was top notch 👌

[@Ninjaananas]

This was very insightful. Despite the game being easy enough to not think too hard about this, it was very interesting.

[@YoshiDrare]

Babe new JupiterClimb new HoD vid

[@lv2681]

What exactly is damage stacking?

[@pehhii]

Having multiple sources of damage hit at once -> fairy hits and you hit the enemy with crushing stone etc.

[@Dan-um7bk]

I've always wanted to understand the spells since I never got to fully use them when I played

[@rem7019]

You pronounce Juste so well

[@adesimahenry1244]

I LOVE frost axe it low-key carried me through three quarters of the game

[@Waffletigercat]

I didn't even know about stacks when playing the game casually and I still gravitated towards the yellow book combo. It's so stupid.

[@Ylastclone]

im trying to get 100% but i dont know where bolt book is. Mind helpin out?

[@theflashfan3234]

Happy that the Hadoken ended up being pretty good for speedruns too. It's what I loved in my playthrough and just kept rejecting the other subweapons for. Hits like a nuke and NO skill required, you can cheese through every boss in the game, and so useful when you just don't want to fight some dumbfuck opponent with tons of health. Also, I didn't realize just how ugly this game was vanilla, I got a hack and that made it feel like it actually had some atmo 😂😂😂

[@paulcummins4134]

Hope they release a hack that fixes a lot of the probelms with dissonance including a re-working of the spellbooks and upgrading the soundtrack, not change the compositions just update them so they've a bit easier on the ears

[@Charlie.G506]

I don't care about stacks, i just want to mudamudamuda

[@mattparkent440]

I want a Netflix anime of Juste. Where once an episode he stops everything he is doing, pick up a random piece of furniture, places it somewhere in whatever room he is in, looks at it thoughtfully and then goes back to whatever he was doing. And no one questions it. A great running joke.

[@Tanooki_leaf]

I never thought I'd see a tierlist about HoD sub-weapons. If you do a remake, maybe you could also rank sw+ the corresponding ring, some sw actually change with it

[@Tanooki_leaf]

For example: the axe travel slower making it possible to hit múltiple times

[@Tanooki_leaf]

For example: the axe travel slower making it possible to hit múltiple times

[@BoltTheEmolga]

So I guess Angy’s idea of the Crushing Stone with Wind Axe doesn’t work then? Unfortunate, but some things do just have to stay bad.

[@Groovy_Gordon]

What is stacking? This was interesting for sure, but I realized at the fire holy water, I thought stacking was something else.

[@Team_Orchid]

Not a Harmony player but as a Castlevania Bible fan I approve of 2 top tiers and a high tier.

[@edfmed1080]

Oh man but i love the ORAORAORAORA

[@robinthedragonhunter64]

I’m curious about circle of the moon Tier lists

[@guga5708156]

What is stacks ?

[@LordSpleach]

No Tier List for Circle of the Moon's DSS Card Combos?

[@Alouette_EXE]

I thought the book was going to be an ultra stack. Sure they may be more expensive than the cross but I couldn't remember the last time I actually ran out of hearts in the game. It's a very spammable when killing regular enemies and bosses and it stacks

[@richardcochrun3869]

Why does it look so different? Been playing this through again the past week on my emulator, and I can't quite tell what it is, framerate maybe?

[@TheSpectre2300]

I am a sucker for Wind Fist myself.

[@user-gp2xw1pl9o]

Nice.

[@PrinceSilvermane]

So why can't Fire water stack? I thought damage stacking was just about overlapping hitboxes and like you said that one seems like it should. Definitely something about stacking I don't fully understand.

[@JupiterClimb]

That's generally true, but the more complicated answer is that different attack types have different ID values, and only certain combinations work.

[@orlof507]

Every time I played this game I've always used good old reliable hadouken

[@ByrdmanfromAlcatraz]

So from what i learned here is keep the cross at all times got it😂.

[@miciso666]

imho the homing knife is godly for regular players. it just auto tracks. but the wind knife? the thousand knife is just horrible. i died so many times using that :( o yeah cross with nova is also fun. u turn it into a knife basically. btw the axe u might wanna use the item heaven ring. slows the axe down a lot. i used it on the legion fights and it was amazing.

[@acekylerodriguez8969]

no sub+black book=full heal

[@ViewtifulGene]

I have done 4 or 5 casual playthroughs and have no fucking clue what stacking is. And trying to read the comments explaining it just make me more confused. I always spam wind cross for the ability to keep Fleamen and harpies off me at all times. It also keeps the phantom swords off my back.

[@Waffletigercat]

At least basic fist looks dope as hell. lol

[@TheTolnoc]

It's a shame Wind Knife doesn't get the buff from the ring like normal Knife does, or it'd be pretty sick.

[@BaconMinion]

As a normie, I already knew wind cross was best. I guess now I know why it was just so good, I was getting stacks without really realizing it.

[@Wrulfy]

what are the easiest stacks to pull off in a casual run?

[@ScifiGemini0616]

wind cross or fire fist -> short hop -> aerial whip -> land -> dash -> crouch -> ground whip imo or ig vanilla cross -> dive kick -> whip

[@davidchez513]

@@ScifiGemini0616 Too complicated I'll say: wind book spell + crushing stone. Gotta be the easiest stack to pull off.

[@ScifiGemini0616]

@@davidchez513 hard to pull off coz crushing stone stacks require you to be smooch distance but idk looking back at this, whip cancels are also pretty hard so I think dive kick stacks are the way to go but

[@commandercors]

Casually normal bible was top tier for me because of the old Sanity not Included ‘Power of Religion’ song from Harmony of Despair days. me and my bible is all I need!

[@BenjaminGlatt]

Thousand Blades is awful in almost every game it's in, but I love its style.

[@mat_max]

Conclusion: Christ is king

[@thesamuraix881]

Lol

[@thelog6114]

0/10 video can't believe you forgot the best combo in the game blank subweapon+summoning tome

[@Waffletigercat]

I'm curious why you keep saying basic weapons using hearts is better than spell combos using mana? Mana regenerates over time and fully restores on save, hearts have to be collected from candles. I'd way rather use MP than hearts.

[@JupiterClimb]

A lot of this comes from a go-quick perspective, and having basic subweapons draw from a less competed-for resource like Hearts can be an advantage when trying to speedrun.

[@Waffletigercat]

@@JupiterClimb Gotcha. Thank you.

[@Chris-gx1ei]

So basically almost every Spell and almost Every Weapon associated with Jesus is a great Choice