Intoner Three
Three is one of the antagonists of Drakengard 3, and is also my third set this contest, and that's 3 iterations of 3 and I'm sure that absolutely nobody else cares about that. Anyway, on a more serious note she's one of a group of sisters given power by the song, which bestowed upon them powerful magic to overthrow the current rulers of the land. Three herself is by far the least outgoing of the sisters in terms of personality, generally prefering to work with dolls and create experimental variations on monsters for her military, in addition to of course, soldiers who are rather infatuated with her for being more fair than their previous leader. Her hair grows out at a rather absurd rate, to the point she carries scissors on her person to prevent it from getting too long. She also uses them for combat despite having a perfectly good pair of swords on her person. Maybe she's too lazy to take them out?
In actuality she shares another trait with all but two of her sisters, is that she's actually an incredibly vile individual, mostly on the basis of her experiments going a little bit beyond their bounds. The doll like monsters in her military were actually made from her own soldiers, and in her DLC mission where she is forced to go out and kill her old creations, it's revealed that she tried to combine humans with monsters to power them with human emotions, claiming to have killed 56 people in total in ways so morbid the game actually censors them and leaves them up to the player imagination. The two she fights on that particular occasion? A mother and child merged into colossal monsters, who were powering the monster with hatred as she tore the father of that family apart in front of them before forcing their transformation. The servant she brought along with her is, naturally, absolutely horrified.
Stats
Jumps 8
Dash Speed 7
Aerial Speed 7
Size 6
Fall Speed 5
Traction 5
Weight 2.5
Three's stats are definently on the lightweight side of the spectrum, she's fast on both the ground and in the air, and has good recovery, while being about the size of Marth. The problem of course, is that she's actually very light, weighing only slightly more than Pikachu. There's not terribly much to say about her specifically aside from that, aside from the fact that most of her jumping prowess is from her first jump, which goes nearly as high as Falco's.
Specials
Neutral Special Summoning Ritual
Three summons up a small white rune circle in front of her, expanding as the move is charged. This move can be charged for up to 3 seconds, and the charge can be stored like Samus' Neutral B. Entering or exiting the stance has very little lag. The actual summon is about 3/4ths as laggy as a Waddle Dee toss, with the minion in question materializing in the circle and becoming active. The minion that is summoned from the circle depends on exactly how much you charged the move.
With no charge, the summon is an imp, a minion that looks to be a lot bigger than it is due it's huge wingspan, but in reality is a demon about the size of Mario. It is a pretty fragile minion, only having 15 stamina, but it flies at a pretty solid air speed and can follow opponents into the air. It has two attacks, a fast claw slash that deals 7% and weak horizontal knockback, or charging at the opponent up to a battlefield platform in length at Fox's dash speed, dealing 12% and knockback that KOs at 180%. Unfortunately, the second strike is rather slow and easy to see coming in terms of lag. That said if you do manage to summon a few of them they can certainly prove to be an annoyance to the opponent, and given you do not have to charge to summon one, a swarm of imps is actually somewhat realistic to have around.
After 0.5 seconds of charge, Three will instead summon an Ogre, which stands at slightly less than Ganondorf's height and is a much better damage sponge, having a whopping 45 stamina. They wield large metal clubs, and attack and move at a fairly slow pace, trudging along at about 3/4 Jigglypuff's dash speed. That doesn't mean they aren't aggressive, they'll pursue foes who are quite a distance away from them, but they'll take some time get there. They have 3 attacks in total, the first of which being a sideways club swing in front of them that deals 14% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 150% with a bunch of lag on both the start up and cool down. The second is an overhead swing similar to Link and Ike's Up Smashes, dealing 20% and upwards knockback that KOs at 100%, but with the lag being even worse than that on Dedede's FSmash. Under heavy offensive pressure, an Ogre can also hold it's club in front of itself to guard, and if it is struck during that time, the attack will be blocked and the ogre will counterattack by thrusting out the club to deal 12% and straight horizontal knockback that KOs at 180%. It's not effective without some amount of back-up, but the Ogre can take hits and strike back hard, if nothing else.
After 1 second of charge, we get into a more exciting minion, an Almisael doll. This thing looks vaguely like a skinny stone infant covered in purple markings, and makes noises like those of an infant as well. The creepy little things are the same size as Three, and have 35 stamina. They serve as possibly the most aggressive minion in Three's arsenal, attacking opponents no matter where they go on the stage, and being able to dash at Mario's dashing speed, though that's not their main method of movement.
They have a few methods of attack, their most spammed one being to jump up into the air a ridiculous 3.5 Ganondorf heights and divebomb for nearby foes, dealing 12% and upwards knockback that KOs at 175%. This is harder to avoid than it sounds given the things travel at disturbingly high speeds during their lunge. Aside from that, they can fire a laser blast from their stomach that stretches about Bowser's length in front of them, and deals 8% and high hitstun. They won't use this attack unless the foe is really close to them, preferring to just go for a divebomb, but once they're already in the foe's sights they have nothing better to do.
The dolls have a somewhat interesting property of being possible to decapitate. 20 damage is dealt to the head of the doll, it will pop off and start rolling around at Three's own dash speed, not particularly intent on chasing down opponents and pretty much just acting entirely randomly until it tries to return to its body 4 seconds later. The head deals 10% and moderate horizontal knockback that won't KO until irrelevant percents if it hits someone, and the Almisael doll can still perform the other attacks in its arsenal without a head, albeit the head was a huge portion of its body so it both loses a large chunk of the hurtbox on it's diving attack and also becomes considerably harder to hit. The head, however, does share damage with the body, and if one is destroyed the other will be as well.
At 2 seconds, Three will summon a much more powerful monster, a Gigas, which is vaguely similar to an Ogre in that it wields a club whilst being slow and a damage sponge. Unlike the Ogre, it stands at 1.8x the height of Ganondorf and the width of Bowser, and has a somewhat different set of attacks. It also has a great 70 stamina, though given it's sheer size and how fast most characters can take out the stamina of minions that will go down faster than you might think. The first is a stomp in front of it, dealing 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 120%. What makes the stomp so dangerous despite it's lag is for .2 seconds afterwards it causes an earthshaking hitbox about Bowser's width where it stomped, dealing 8% and upwards knockback that KOs at 200%, making dodges far less effective at avoiding this things strikes.
The next attack is pretty standard, as the Gigas imitates Ike's Forward Smash. While it has even more lag than Ike's version, the attack does manage to do slightly more damage and knockback than the move it imitates, as well as having nearly 2.5x the range, giving this attack an absolutely enormous hitbox that must be dodged or shielded in time. Though, it does have a blindspot right in front of the Gigas that the foe can hide in. The Gigas' final attack is to slam its club into the ground directly in front of it, dealing an ungodly 35% and upwards knockback that KOs at 60%. The problem with this attack is of course, the hilarious telegraphing, as it takes a full 3 seconds to wind this up. It does however, cause a wave of earth shards to fly up in front of it that travel a Ganondorf into the air up until the end of the platform it stands on, dealing 13% and upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. The Gigas, unlike the Ogre, is a threat despite it's slowness due to the lingering, gigantic nature of its attacks.
At 3 seconds of charge, Three summons the most powerful minion she has available, a Cerberus. The massive three headed dog is still somewhat smaller than the Gigas, being 1.5x Bowser's width and about the same height, but it ultimately is the more powerful of the two. It has 80 stamina, is very aggresive, moves at Ganondorf's dash speed, and has four attacks at its disposal. The first is to shoot a fireball, which travels at the speed of Falco's laser and deals 13% and knockback that KOs at 150%, and travels the length of final destination. It can angle this up or down, and each head of the Cerberus can fire separately. A single Cerberus can actually manage to create a small amount of bullet hell with this, though after shooting a fireball that head experiences a great deal of end lag.
The Cerberus also can chomp at foes that come close, dealing 8% and a flinch on it's own, but this attack is fairly fast and since it has 3 heads, it can rack up very large amounts of damage on foes directly in it's face. It can also cover for itself if the foe rolls towards it while it's shooting fireballs with any heads that haven't fired yet, though if all its heads are in end lag, the foe has plenty of opportunity to punish. The Cerberus also has a more powerful melee strike, being able to lunge forward it's own body length and deal 22% with knockback that KOs at 90%. The best part about this move is it actually starts pretty fast, making it the best KO move in your entire minion arsenal, but the end lag is pretty horrific for the Cerberus.
Its final and most powerful attack is to charge up for 2 seconds, before unleashing a massive torrent of fire in front of it from all 3 heads. This deals rapid flinching hits that will about 35% to the foe over the second long duration of the attack, before a final hit that deals 9% and upwards knockback that KOs at 110%. This covers a huge chunk of the stage and unlike the Giygas' shockwave, actually is powerful for it's entire area of effect, just keep in mind that while the Cerberus does this it is incredibly vulnerable.
As an aside, Three can in fact hurt her own minions, and they can hurt her but they will do everything in their power not to hit her. Oddly enough, Three may actually want to hurt her own minions, for reasons you'll find out soon enough.
Side Special Augmentation
Three hums to herself and casts a small violet spell in front of her, which like the Neutral Special, can be charged for a more dramatic effect, up to 1 second. Unlike the Neutral Special, you cannot hold the charge on this move. While this spell is meant for use on minions, it's not entirely useless on foes, as it will scorch them for 5%-12% and a flinch depending on charge, as well as causing them to take 1% per second for ten times as long as you charged the move. The magic doesn't seem to react well with enemies, it seems. This burn damage can be stacked once over to deal 2% per second, which is true of the status effects you use on minions as well.
If used on a minion, it will have one of four effects depending on charge. While Three has the first effect prepared, you can see the purple magic in her hand seemingly focusing towards the center. With no charge, it will shrink the minion into a tiny version of itself, which halves it's stamina and reduces the power of it's attacks considerably. So why would you shrink a minion? Well, it can reduce the size of blindspots in the case of a Gigas, or in the case of the first 3 minions, make them small enough that they're actually somewhat annoying to hit. You can stack this once to make them even tinier, only about a tenth of their original size. At this point they're operating on a quarter the stamina and all but their biggest attacks only scratch the foe, but the fact is only low hitting attacks are reasonably going to ever land on them, and they do keep their speed from the larger sizes. In fact, smaller minions are programmed to be a bit more evasive, and will sometimes dash out of the way of opponents attacks at whatever their movement speed may be. Lastly, this can be used as sort of a "dodge" for minions, as you shrink them to be smaller and as such not having part of their hurtbox where the opponent strikes.
At a third of a second of charge, the energy Three is charging will simply become a solid sphere, and it will coat the minion in armor, which slows it down a fair bit but gives it a covering which has half the stamina of the minion, which must be broken before the minion takes damage. It also buffs the damage of their contact attacks, so it wouldn't buff the Cerberus' fire blast but it would power up the charge, for example. Slowing down a minion with clunky armor may seem like an inconvenience, but when it is at low health this can provide a way to keep it alive. Aside from that with how slow the Ogres and Gigases already are, making them a little slower to be more effective at their jobs is perfectly fine, since they're already not landing attacks practically most of the time and will only really do so when the foe is under other forms of pressure. You can tack on a second layer of armor with this move, but you can't stack more than 2 layers.
At 2/3rds of a second of charge, the energy sphere will begin rapidly swirling, and the minion undergoes no major visual change... except now they're blessed with a great deal of speed. They move a fair bit faster than before, have the lag on their attacks cut to 2/3rds of its usual, and if tiny, will use more erratic movements to dodge the foes attacks due to their increased maneuverability allowing for them to dodge foes more easily. This is the only change that is strictly upside, but there's basically no chance you'll get to use it on every minion. Its most effective on minimal sized nuisances or maximally buffed up monsters, as your miniscule minions become nigh impossible to actually hit and your empowered ones become more able to land their super charged attacks.
After a full second of charge, the sphere seems to trying to expand outwards, and the minion will grow a good deal in size, gaining power and range while multiplying their stamina by 1.5x. This will overwrite any tiny status effects on a minion, just as making a minion tiny will overwrite this status effect entirely. This of course allows for tricks such as massively enlarging a tiny minion the foe is fighting, so that it's next attack gains a great deal more range than the foe was anticipating, though given the second long charge time this isn't an extremely practical trick, though of course shrinking down a giant minion when its close to death is a viable plan. The main problem with giant minions is the blindspots on their attacks get bigger, and it also makes them easier targets. Regardless, the extra power and range is usually worth it... though again, keep in mind your minions can hit you, if you're not careful.
Down Special Intoner Mode
Three lets out a loud, songlike note and attempts to channel the true power of the Intoner sisters... which will work, if she has already coated herself in blood... okay, at this point in the set, you haven't exactly been told about this yet, but Three's actual melee moves tend to spill blood from the opponent, covering the ground as well as Three's garments. If the foe happens to be robotic it'll spill oil instead which works just the same, and if they have different color blood that will spill instead. She needs to soak herself pretty thoroughly in blood, which usually requires the foe to take about 200% worth of blood spilling attacks while Three's in close range before it will really work. That sound ambitious? Well it is, but the good news is with the exception of Almisael dolls, due to not containing anything Three could use as blood or a replacement for blood, your minions spill blood when you strike them, in addition to foes. This naturally gives minions the secondary purpose of providing a blood supply for Three to empower herself.
So what does this buff do? Well first of all, it boosts your aerial control, movement speed, aerial movement, jumps(you now have 4 instead of just 2), and traction to ludicrous levels, making Three both easy to control and insanely mobile. This may not sound like terribly much but the extra mobility makes comboing a lot easier than before. It also modifies your attacks, giving general power and speed buffs while also providing additional effects to certain moves. Three even gains a weight buff during this time, to about a 6.5, which makes her have actual durability to make melee combat a lot more comfortable for her. This mode lasts for 9 seconds, but can go on longer if you cover yourself in more blood during your power boost, whether from the foe or a minion. Of course the effect of additional blood has diminishing returns, and trying to extend this mode for more than 20 seconds is generally not going to happen.
This input isn't entirely worthless while Three has Intoner mode active either, serving a secondary function as she lets out a second yell similar to the first that actually materializes as a burst of white energy in front of her. This deals 12% and pretty strong set horizontal knockback, but the main talking point isn't using this as an attack itself. Rather, you use this on a minion and instead of taking the damage, it will infuse them with the power of the song, causing them to glow a violet color, and perform a special attack. These attacks are usually fairly powerful, but it costs 3 seconds worth of Intoner mode to use and the song will start having... rather averse effects on the minion after Intoner mode ends. They'll start staggering a bit when not attacking and take 10% per second, before keeling over dead. It's a bloodless death too, sadly. If nothing else the effects are pretty powerful. If multiple minions are in the blast radius, only the one that requires the highest charge to summon will get the command.
Imp: Imps sadly lack a particularly amazing move to use with this and shouldn't really be the target. They'll surround themselves with a dark aura and rush at the nearest opponent at Sonic's dash speed. This deals 16% and knockback that KOs at 110%. If they miss they'll continue charging until they hit the ground or fly off the blast zone, and if they do the later they'll fly back at their usual speed to the stage. If they hit the ground, it releases an explosion of violet nearly the size of a Bomb-omb blast around them that deals 12% and upwards knockback that KOs at 150%. Imps also become entirely invincible during this move, so foes have to dodge it.
Ogre: The Ogre will not actually make any strikes with this until it runs out of stamina and normally would die. At that point, it will use it's dying breath to deliver a huge swing with it's weapon infused with energy dealing 30% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 65%. This is actually really fast too... the one problem is, if the ogre dies via decay or a projectile the foe can reasonably stay out of reach of this move, which is probably what will happen considering the foe no longer has any reason to attack the ogre at all. For that matter, you might want to be careful hitting it yourself, as the Ogre will mindlessly perform the deathblow whether or not Three is there.
Almisael Doll: The targetted doll will float up into the air and begin charging up energy. All other dolls on the stage will turn to it and fire their laser in projectile form, only now it's only the size of Wolf's laser but has the same power. The projectile isn't aimed for the opponent though, it's aimed for the Almisael Doll, though they can still be hit by it. The Almisael Doll will absorb all the bolts that touch it, then fire a huge laser blast the same size as all of them combined at the opponent, dealing 8% x the number of lasers absorbed and knockback that KOs at 200% minus 30% for each laser absorbed. The preparation lasers are fired at the speed of Mario's dash, and the final laser's speed is that multiplied by the amount absorbed.
While this is potentially very powerful, keep in mind foes can soak up the projectiles with their shield or own body, and that if there aren't any other Almisael Dolls out this move is entirely a waste.
Gigas: The Gigas roars and starts whirling it's club around itself as fast as it can, striking at all different locations on it's body seemingly at random. This lasts for one second and getting hit deals 28% and knockback that KOs at 85%. The strikes are actually reasonably fast but you get a que as to where the Gigas will strike next with each attack, meaning even foes close to the Gigas can reasonably avoid it, though less so if the Gigas is speeded up. The most straightforward of your minion super attacks, but arguably the most powerful.
Cerberus: The Cerberus will point all of it's heads upwards and shoot a volley of four fireballs each up to near the top blast zone, before they rain back down. Each deals 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 200%. They fly up fairly quickly and fall much more slowly, meaning that this is fairly predictable... but having a bunch of slow moving projectiles all over the stage means Three, especially in Intoner mode, can go absolutely nuts with comboing off them for as long as they're in the air. They'll all have hit the ground after 3.5 seconds.
Up Special Rising Stab
Three lunges upwards about the distance of Marth's Up Special, before going into helpless if she hits no-one on the way. This is a fairly straightforward recovery, with the one exception that you can actually angle it a little bit in a similar manner to Fox's Up Special, although it only covers a 30 degree arc above her so this doesn't give too much freedom. If Three reaches the foe with this she will stab her scissors into them, dealing 9% and upwards knockback that KOs at 150% and covering her in a small amount of blood, while giving her a bit of leverage to allow her to use her first 2 jumps again in a similar manner to Captain Falcon, though she cannot use another Up Special. As an aside, you can do this on minions too, though the only ones you'll ever really get leverage out of for recovery are Almisael dolls and Imps.
You can hold this input down for a quarter of a second, at which point Three will instead travel 1.5x the normal length of her recovery, and home in on the opponent. This makes using the foe to recover a little more practical even if they're out of the move's normal range, but it also makes this a lot more predictable.
In Intoner Mode, this move goes 1.5x as far and does not send Three into helpless, and if you land the hit she gets another use out of her Up Special in addition to all 4 of her jumps. This obviously makes her aerial combo potential absolutely insane during that time... if you keep landing this anyway. Should the foe dodge it once there's still enough end lag for them to punish and you won't be able to pursue them any further. Ah well.
Shield Special Human Hybrids
Pressing Shield and B at the same time produces a similar result to the Neutral Special actually... in fact you won't be able to immediately tell the difference in the minions Three summoned. However, she called in a very different variation on her usual fair, ones hybridized with humans in the rather morbid ways mentioned in the introduction. They have an extra 1.2x health and are faster than their regular counterparts. One difference however is, they retain some semblance of their humanity... and naturally, they hate Three for what she's done to them. They'll try and attack her just as aggressively as they will opponents. This makes them rather risky to utilize, given while they have some clear upside they're also a bit more dangerous to Three.
Given they're powered on human emotions, there is one other thing worth mentioning. As the health of these minions gets depleted, their attacks get stronger, dealing more damage and knockback. This is based off what percentage of their health is depleted, if they have lost 90% of their health(say a Cerberus has taken 72% or a Gigas has taken 90%), they gain a +90% boost to their damage and knockback. This makes them scarier as they take damage, actually giving Three incentive to hurt them herself, and then pile on the armor to slow them down but preserve them in their empowered state(damage dealt to armor does not count towards this buff, sadly). Do this at your own peril though, between your light weight and these monsters having just as much interest in killing you as the opponent, utilizing your human resources can backfire on your horribly.
As an aside, minions summoned this way will cry out at Three, usually swearing at her, screaming in pain, sobbing, begging for death, demanding Three be destroyed, etc. You're doing this for science and you should be used to what they say about you, they just don't understand.
Standards
Jab
Three opens one pair of scissors and stabs it forwards, dealing 3% and a flinch. She then will lazily click the blades together in the second hit of the jab, dealing another 3% and flinch in a manuever that's actually pretty laggy for a jab and makes the first strike punishable on hit if you go for this one. Now that sounds like a disaster, but remember Three has minions around to give her a little cover if she goes for the second hit.
If she lands the first and second hits of this, the foe has a greatly reduced ability to DI out of the third part of the move due to her scissors being hooked into the foe, where holding A has her twist the scissors back and forth, dealing very rapid hits of 2%-3%, at the same rate Captain Falcon's jab does 1%. That's a pretty horrific amount of damage even if the foe won't take much in the way of knockback, making this one of the best ways to cover yourself in blood.
In Intoner mode, the first hit of the Jab is no longer punishable on hit and she rushes forwards slightly when using the first hit. This means that comboing into the second hit of the jab is pretty much the expectation, and not only that they'll be closer to you so they'll take longer to DI out.
Dash Attack
Three rushes forwards 1.25 battlefield platforms at nearly twice her current dash speed, dealing damage based on how early in the dash she hits a target. If she hits someone at the very start, they take 14% and knockback that KOs at 150%, while at the end they take 4% and weak knockback. For the first half of this move's length, it actually pierces through anyone it hits, allowing Three to keep moving regardless of whether she cut through someone or not. A particularly ideal set up for this move is to have a minion and the foe right up close to you, so you can cut through both of them and then once you get past you're protected during the attacks ending lag by the fact that there's a minion between you and them. That said, the end lag of this move is horrific and you WILL get punished for it if you misuse the move. This even works with a human hybrid minion because their attention will be on the foe with Three now behind them.
In Intoner Mode, this move's range is buffed to a ridiculous 1.75 battlefield platforms and the damage and knockback decreases much less, to only 10% and KOing at 220% at the end. This is a pretty amazing DACUS but aside from that, it can allow for you to pierce through more minions for a big boost in Intoner Mode time early on, as well as creating a larger amount of defense between you and the foe. That said, the move is a lot more versatile in Intoner Mode because with everything it pierces through, the damage increases by 5%, and the knockback goes up accordingly. So it may be better to use this into a foe in a group of your minions, as the slight weakening of the attack is mitigated by the fact that Three just powered up several times over from the minions she pierced through. Just keep in mind that this also makes the move much more likely to outright kill minions too.
Forward Tilt
Three raises both pairs of scissors of her head before slashing them in an X-shape in front of her, dealing 6% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 225%. The X-shape actually becomes a magic projectile after the swipe that flies forwards at Dedede's dash speed and deals 10% and the same knockback as the melee hitbox. This projectile travels only a battlefield platform before disappearing, and the move has a lot more start up lag than you'd like for a tilt. The good news is the end lag is almost non-existant, so it can potentially be used as a set up for another attack. If you're really quick about it you can actually set it up so that the second hit of the jab becomes a true combo with the first hit, but the problem is that you need to have a very high skill level to pull that off to start with because of how fast it is, and second of all that's a rather predictable follow up that the foe will probably be anticipating, since the combo only really works if you immediately follow the Forward Tilt with the first hit of the Jab in time. As an aside, the projectile will pierce through minions and characters, to prevent minions from getting in the way.
There's a sweetspot on this move at the exact center of the hitbox, which will cause the foe to get hit by both the projectile and the slash and take the combined damage and knockback of both. While this is a hitbox smaller than the Knee of Justice so it's basically impossible to hit with normally, if the foe is stuck in a mess of imps or increased speed minions you have a shot at landing it. The majority of the blood from this move comes from the projectile, so it's a tad difficult to harvest unless you land the sweetspot.
In Intoner Mode, this move has the same large lag as usual and the power is the same on both the slice and the projectile. The key difference is, however, the number of projectiles, as instead one X projectile being spawned, you get a total of three. They all move at different speeds, one moving at double the normal speed and one at half, and they all travel 1.5 Battlefield platforms before disappearing. This turns the move from a "decent set up projectile" to an insanely powerful one, due to how difficult it is to dodge. Hell, dodging is actually worse since the back projectile will combo the foe into the projectiles in front of them. Naturally, this makes for much scarier potential combos than the standard version ever did. For that matter, if you land the still insanely tiny sweetspot, you get 36% and enormous knockback out of the deal, a fairly hard thing to do but none-the-less potentially terrifying.
Up Tilt
Three raises one hand above her and snaps with her scissors, dealing the recipient 5% and larger than normal hitstun. She follows up with 3 cuts with her other pair of scissors, dealing 2% each and the last knocking the foe upwards with weak upwards knockback. This leads into aerial combos and because of the multi-hit nature sets up for a big minion's attack pretty decently as well.
If the foe DIs out of this, the first pair of scissors holding them in place will end up cutting them deeply as they yank away from it, dealing them 7% and very large amounts of upwards knockback, though it has very slow knockback growth so it will only KO at 220%. This sounds like it makes escape through directional influence not an option, but it only makes it somewhat worse, as actually if the foe escapes they'll be way out of reach of combos with your aerials/FTilt projectile or an minion attacks you were setting up. There's another upside if they do decide to escape like this, in that they drop three times as much blood as a 7% dealing attack normally would.
Minions will not attempt to escape Three's cuts, meaning that harvesting extra blood from them with this is sadly a fruitless endeavor. That is, your standard minions. Your human hybrid minions aren't terribly smart and will always try to escape this move, which will end in you getting a ton of blood... but the problem is, most of them are too slow to do so. Only the imps will escape fast enough and that will most likely end in killing them. If you want a minion that's not an imp to escape this, you'll have to give it a speed buff.
In Intoner mode, she performs 9 cuts instead of 3, meaning DIing out becomes a much better answer... if weren't for the fact that the escape hit now deals 14% and upwards knockback that KOs at 85%. Triple blood still applies too. This turns it into a genuinely terrifying move for combos, especially with the greatly powered up FTilt projectile.
Down Tilt
Three snaps her scissors low to the ground in front of her from her, and if she hits an opponent, twists them, turning them and dealing 6% and light upwards knockback to the foe. This leaves them in the air with their back facing to you, so aside from being fairly good as a combo move due to it's speed, it means if you do follow up with a combo that ends with the foe in the air, they'll be facing towards you with their back and basically have to use their bair, which makes them a fair bit more predictable, though considering a lot of characters have fairly insane Bairs this isn't always a great benefit.
This attack actually has a follow up hit from pressing Down Tilt a second time, which simply has Three kick the foe forwards and into the ground dealing 6%. This prones the foe and has decent enough knockback as well that it can provide for some half decent stalling/spacing, but lacks the potential follow-up options of the regular version. Being a kick, this is a rare move in Three's arsenal that also doesn't spill any blood.
The scissor twisting motion will actually turn your minions around without proning them, and in fact not even interrupting their attack animations, allowing you to turn a human hybrid minion that was attacking you on a foe. The problem with this, though, is that it only really works on the first three varieties of minion, the Imps/Ogres/Dolls. Therefore, the really powerful/large ranged attacks you would more likely want to reflect aren't an option with this move, but weaker human hybrids become easier to control with this. The other thing you can do with this is spin the heads of Almisael Dolls around, changing the direction they're rolling, giving you some extra ability to pressure foes with them.
In Intoner mode, the attack is mostly just faster and stronger, and has a slight glowy animation on the turning motion of the blade. The key difference is, this can finally turn around your Gigas or Cerberus with your additional magic power from Intoner mode, finally allowing you to properly redirect the attacks of your large minions. Aside from that, turning a minion during an attack boosts it's power by 1.05x, which is extremely small but still occasionally relevant for KOs.
As a final aside, more than one turn of a minion during an attack will start slowing up the strike a bit, which on the surface sounds bad, but you can actually use this to mess with the timing of the strike. Due to Intoner mode's version of this attack being faster, this actually makes it somewhat practical to do this, allowing you to potentially mess with the opponent's dodges, while buffing the attack a little to boot due to the boost stacking. Note you can't just keep a minion spinning forever with this to endlessly buff the attack, not that any sane foe would get hit by that or let you do that, but the delay is small enough that the attack will execute after 5-6 turns no matter what.
Smashes
Forward Smash
In a fairly simple attack, Three cuts in front of her with one pair of scissors, then follows up with a stab with the other. The first hit deals 4%-6% and the second deals 3%-4%, both hits being fast and the later one popping the foe forwards a short distance. While this is a very fast FSmash, it lacks in power compared to traditional smash attacks, serving as a bit of a bread and butter melee move for Three in this form. It does however, follow nicely into an FTilt as the last hit does give some nice space between you and the opponent. It actually also follows up an FTilt decently too, as it'll combo the foe into the projectile pretty cleanly, and gives you a little more time and space than landing the second hit of your jab would, making it less predictable and a decent mix up.
Like Link's FSmash, this attack has a follow up, which can be angled. Three will dart forwards for a another cutting motion with her scissors, which deals 2%-3% and a flinch, before delivering another stab. The stab is aimed in the direction you angled the move and deals 6%-9%, and knockback that KOs at 135%-95%, which is either diagonal, mostly upwards, or down and forwards for potential gimps near the edge, depending on how the move was angled. It doesn't actually follow up perfectly out of the first combo, while the first hit of the second combo will combo out of the first until absurdly high percents, the foe has room to DI away to avoid the fourth hit. Now if you get the spacing perfectly or angle in the right direction, you might be fine however, and a minion providing extra pressure can also end in the second part of this working out.
There's a third follow up hit, which can also be angled, which is a single strike of Three lunging 3/4 a battlefield platform in the chosen direction(hopping up slightly before stabbing downwards in the down variation) and stabbing with both scissors. A note is that as the move progresses, the ends of the scissors glow with light, and that animation comes to fruition in this move. The initial stab deals 5%-9% and hitstun similar to lightning kick, before 4 thin blade like projectiles burst out of the foe, dealing 17%-24% and knockback that KOs at 90%-60% to the foe and anything else hit by the blades, which pierce your minions. They travel 2 battlefield platforms, pierce through minions and the foe, and deal the same damage and knockback to anyone they hit as when they initially burst out of the foe. Landing this hit is hard, as Three actually will take a little bit of time to prepare it, giving it significantly more lag than other parts of the combo. Nevermind that, chances are the last hit knocked the foe out of the combo, and if you missed with it the foe will chances are punish you for this maneuver rather than getting hit by it.
This part of the move in particular is where the minions contribute to your melee game, as intentionally whiffing the second hit of combo #2 will allow this to make this follow up possible instead is a perfectly reasonable option when Imps or Almisael Dolls flinch them after they escape, or your stronger minions force the foe into awkward dodging/spacing situations that allow you to more easily land this. The projectile will damage your other nearby minions as well so it may have the unfortunate side effect of killing a few you want around off if you're using them to help you land this, though you can get blood rewards as a side effect anyway. Aside from that, you can just combo the foe with the main strikes, and then deliver this particular strike to a nearby minion. The projectile will still fly out at full power and pressure the foe, and you get a large amount of blood out of the minion. The general existance of this projectile aspect makes this move very nice for simultaneously pressuring a foe and harvesting blood from a minion, even if it harvests blood much more slowly than the Jab.
In the Intoner Mode variation, the 4 projectiles will burst out of the recipient on every strike, dealing the same damage and knockback as the initial hit except on the last one, which is buffed to deal 1.3x as much damage and knockback as before. This allows you to cut through a group of minions and provide tons of hitboxes for the foe to avoid, which could lead to them being combo'd into the now extremely powerful final hit. The extra hits from the projectiles bursting out will more reliably allow the actual strikes to combo together on the opponent too.
Down Smash
Three lets out what sounds like a scream as a white magic barrier appears around her, functioning as a hitbox that deals 4%-9% and KOs at 200%-100%. This attack is pretty fast by Smash attack standards(though not terribly so overall) but the hitbox only covers an area about twice Three's width, and she's not a very wide character, as well as her height. The main good thing about this move is it's function as a defensive input, as it nullifies all hitboxes that come into contact with it entirely, and reflects projectiles, at their normal power and speed-1.5x that, based off charge. While this is hardly an amazing defensive measure against opponents, it does cover for their attacks and the attacks of Human Hybrid minions at the same time, something a shield or dodge can't do very well. This attack does have a reasonably long duration, but the end lag isn't so bad that you'll be punished horribly for it.
There's another benefit to blocking attacks with this, in that the barrier will actually absorb the impact of Melee hitboxes, and on a second use of the move later on, grow in size based off how much damage it absorbed. Now how much is a little disappointing, only about a Kirby size worth per 10% soaked up. While it doesn't sound like you'd realistically be able to absorb a ton of power with this move, you have to consider how insanely hard Human Hybrid minions hit at low amounts of health. This move can cover a pretty big area if say, a Human Hybrid Cerberus uses it's fire breath on you, especially if another minion or the foe hits you at the same time. Of course if you want to make this move's hitbox really large, it will realistically require you have multiple human hybrid minions out.
Now why would you want to expand the hitbox on this move? While the range is nice, it rather lacks in power and it's not useful for combos or bleeding. Well, the hitbox I talked about only applies to the edge of the move's hitbox, which is thick enough that Three will actually never be able to hit with the inner hitbox barring some insanely weird circumstance involving Lizard/Kyubey/mini-Hannibal Bean under a poison mushroom effect, and with Brawl characters it's flat out impossible without double poison mushrooms. The inner hitbox being, the energy of the song flowing to make the barrier, and the song's energy in it's raw state is incredibly dangerous. If a foe is hit by the inside of the hitbox, which is anywhere within the barrier barring her own body width around the edge, they take a whopping 30% total and knockback that KOs at 100%, regardless of charge. Their body is also visibly torn up by this, causing them to bleed everywhere for the next 3-9 seconds, taking 2% per second. They also shed about 6% worth of blood per second, which Three can reap if she's nearby.
If a minion is trapped inside, the song will simply kill it, no questions asked, causing it to explode in a ludicrous fountain of blood and guts that will provide Three with the minion's entire stamina worth of blood. Getting something like a Gigas in here for a full 70% worth of blood is almost never going to happen, unfortunately. However, the minion getting torn apart turns their flying body parts and organs into hitboxes that add even more damage to the hitbox, and the extra damage even causes the foe to bleed like the original hitbox. Suffice to say, the rewards for this attack if the hitbox is massive enough can literally be an instant Intoner Mode, but as said, you need powerful human hybrid minions everywhere to get that, and that's extremely dangerous for you with your low weight and mediocre recovery, not to mention requiring prep time to make said minions. Still, the absolutely ridiculous amount of blood this can generate makes it an effort possibly worth pursuing.
The one downside to this variation, which is worth keeping in mind, is the energy will flow near instantaneously to form the barrier, and then the inside of the hitbox will be empty, in which case, the foe can take advantage of the combination of the moves duration AND end lag to punish you, probably with a smash attack of their own. Not to mention, if their were any minions inside, they're dead now and you have absolutely nothing to cover you and even if you recover, you may not be in Intoner mode and down a couple minions. As said, using this move to activate Intoner Mode is really high risk, high reward.
Speaking of Intoner mode, the barrier hitbox isn't even formed in that mode, just the raw energy is released, with a tad more starting lag but the normal end lag of the move, turning this into a quick and powerful smash attack that you can sacrifice minions too in order to make even more ludicrously deadly. In Intoner mode, since there's no other way to increase the size of the hitbox, you can simply do so by charging the Smash Attack, and the range starts out as the size of the barrier in Intoner mode and can be charged to be double that.
Up Smash
Three opens both pairs of scissors and performs a manuever similar to Link's spin attack, while also kicking off the ground to get herself into the air. As she rises and spins her scissors around, they do 5 hits of 3%-4%, before she slashes them both together over head for a final hit of 16%-22%, and high knockback that KOs at 90%-70%. The rising slashes don't combo the foe into the final hit, just sending them away at the end with knockback that KOs at 200%-120%. As such, the final hit mostly serves as a KOing sweetspot... if the foe is a considerable distance above Three. If they're directly above her but within under a Ganondorf height, the move will just whiff them entirely, making it a slightly questionable anti-air, nevermind the fact that it has high end lag while leaving her in the air afterwards.
The AI of Imps allied to you IS pretty smart in regards to this move though, and if they get caught in the hitbox along with the foe, they'll briefly hit the foe into the overhead slash before dying, as the move deals the 15 damage required to kill them. If they're armored up they'll be too slow to do this so that's not a valid method of saving them, though any other possible buff works. Besides whether or not it costs you an imp at least you get blood out of the deal. And as a blood harvesting attack, this is actually pretty good, it hits minions on both sides of you and deals a reasonable amount of damage. It's especially nice because it can often do so without any real cost to the minion in question, hitting a few different ones with only 2-3 hits each, not a terrible loss of stamina.
Aside from that, if Three would be hit with a non-solid projectile at the start of the attack, she will instead catch it in the attack, causing it's energy to flow through her scissors and makes the attack deal the same amount of damage and knockback on the projectile on all the hits, barring the final one. This is especially nice since the hits come out so fast the foe won't get a chance to take knockback from former hits before the next one connects, meaning the move will end up dealing a huge amount of damage, AND all that damage comes out as blood too for Intoner mode. That said, given the timing of this move the opponent is probably not so dumb as to feed you a projectile for it while they're right up in your face... however, consider the fireballs of the Cerberus or the lasers of Almisael dolls. While timing it is very tricky, you can potentially catch those with this move, and you're more likely too get them fired in your direction in the first place if you have out Human Enhanced minions.
In Intoner mode this attack goes up twice as high and deal twice as many hits, which sounds like a downside as it makes the final hit less practical to land... but then realize that instead of having high ending lag, in Intoner Mode this attack doesn't have that much to speak of, so missing the final hit really isn't absolutely terrible anyway. Given the final hit is less practical to land, it now deals 26%-34% and KOs at 70%-50%.
Aerials
Neutral Aerial
Three crosses her pairs of scissors in front of her for a brief instant, before performing a cross slash in front of her that deals 8% and knockback that KOs at 250%. Thanks to the low-ish end lag, it actually can potentially serve as a combo starter, but the crossing motion gives it too much lag to really work as a part of a combo, and given the knockback has a decent rate of growth it can't combo past 50%.
That said, this attack is actually fairly hard to punish, as if something would hit Three during the crossing motion, it's nullified if it hits around the area she was "blocking". This isn't actually a very large part of Three's body but if it's the first thing an attack collides with, she can reasonably block it, making it an acceptable aerial defense. It also adds 1/4th of that attack's damage and knockback to the subsequent strike, which honestly isn't all that incredibly much, but this is the closest thing Three has to a true counter in her set as Down Smash is rather unusual, something that with human enhanced minions running around she really does appreciate, as the foe can dodge their attack but Three can absorb it's power with this and at least get them for some of the damage and knockback. That said, don't think the move is a perfect defense or even close, a foe is a lot smarter than one of your minions and may very well just hit you around this relatively small defense.
In Intoner mode, this attack is more or less the same... except that now the power boost is stored for the next 3 seconds, rather than just for the follow up strike. Note that a lot of Three's attacks are multi hit and it's only applied to the final hit, though attacks with follow ups like the Forward Smash/Down Tilt all get the boost. This boost doesn't stack, only override the old power buff if a new one is larger. However, this does make Three scary for a brief period, especially if she soaks up a big minion's strike and subsequently creates a huge amount of powerful projectiles using the Forward Smash.
Down Aerial
Three takes out both scissors and starts rapidly making cuts below her with the scissors, as if attempting to gouge the foe apart. This deals several rapid hits of 2% that can potentially add up to 24%, though this isn't as easy as it sounds to pull off for similar reasons to Yoshi's Dair, though it's easier to pull off than said move at the cost of more start lag. At the very end, Three tears both scissors violently out of the foe, dealing half the total damage dealt by the attack and a fairly strong spike to boot, as well as extracting the same amount of blood as all the previous hits.
There are a couple nuances to this move worth learning, the first of which being that in addition to the long duration, this move has AWFUL landing lag, enough that a foe can very easily punish Three with a smash attack for it. Aside from that, it can be cancelled into any other aerial during the first half of the duration, during the second half you're basically committed to the attack. If the foe DIs out early you can always go for cancelling into a Nair for safety reasons.
Lastly, the landing lag bit is more relevant when you realize that the move does something slightly different if the opponent is on the ground for the last hit, instead dealing the .75x as much damage as all previous hits and giving 1.5x as much blood. It also deals upwards knockback that KOs at 110%. This is a move that becomes a fair bit easier to pull off if you have imps or Almisael Dolls in the air for additional pressure, especially if the foe made the decision to DI out an Up Tilt first. This also can serve to harvest a large amount of blood from a minion, up to 60% worth, while being a bit safer than your Jab for that purpose due to the ability to cancel the first part of the move into another aerial, though you have to be very deliberate in your timing of this if you want blood, making it more predictable than your jab despite being safer.
In Intoner Mode, the damage is increase to 3% per hit to a maximum of 36%, and the opponent on ground final hit gets an absurd knockback buff, now KOing at 80%, meaning that setting this up can mean a very easy kill. The problem is, the landing lag remains on this move, actually slightly more severe, in exchange for cutting out some of the start up lag.
Forward Aerial
Three cuts in front of her with her scissors, dealing 7% and weak horizontal knockback. This move is very fast and can be angled up or down to either pop the foe up slightly into the air or very very weakly spike them to the point it will probably never get used as a gimp. There's a sweetspot at the very tip of the scissors that deals 10% and largely the same knockback, largely just a reward if you want to go through a little extra effort to space yourself for this move. The move serves one fairly important purpose despite being so simple, Three is trying to combo and this is probably your best straight up combo move in your entire set, setting up subsequent strikes either above, below, or in front of you while also being fast enough to work in the middle of a combo.
Intoner Mode very slightly increases the speed and damage(to 8%) of the move, nothing terribly noteworthy. The main difference is that sweetspotting is a lot better in Intoner mod, dealing 16% while still dealing the same easy to follow up on knockback. Still it serves mostly the same function as Three's basic combo move.
Up Aerial
Three swipes upwards with her scissors, dealing 10% and moderate upwards knockback, in another fairly quick hit that largely serves as a juggler. Given Three's Up Special and "misfired" Up Tilt, she probably does want some ability to continue juggling the foe once they are high in the air. The move isn't that insanely fast, but it serves it's purpose.
In Intoner Mode, this attack is largely the same, with one key difference, it leaves behind a path of purple-ish energy where she swiped for 1 second, serving as a lingering hitbox that deals 5% and weak upwards knockback. This pushes the move from good juggler to insane one, even if it lacks the typical property of aerial lingering hitboxes of gimping the foe, in conjunction with your buffed Up Speical this gives you a very strong aerial chasing game.
This gains a bit more utility in the context of your minions and projectiles. Your minions are actually very smart about these lingering hitboxes, hiding behind them if possible to cover their attacks, or specifically aiming their moves to bash the foe against it repeatedly like an electric barrier. Given it only lasts one second they won't get a ton of mileage out of it... that said, if a projectile from your set hits the energy it will give it an additional second of lifespan while still continuing on, meaning if you short hop this and then get a bunch of Forward Smash hits in right below it, you may have a surprisingly useful little trap left behind.
Back Aerial
Leaning back, Three snips behind her with her scissors, in a move that is a fair bit laggier than her other aerials, but deals 12% and lightly upwards horizontal knockback that KOs at 160%. In Intoner mode, she whips around and cuts much faster, dealing the same damage and knockback but turning it into a fairly spammable wall of pain Bair.
Grab Game
Grab
Three reaches forwards with one hand, grabbing in what is basically a standard Brawl grab. Its range is slightly above average for Brawl grabs.
Pummel
Three takes out her scissors and starts cutting into the foe, performing invasive surgery on them. Each press of the pummel is moderately fast and deals 1% as she disects her victim alive, but the real benefit is what happens for the next 1.5 seconds per pummel. Whenever the opponent attacks during that time, they take 2% as the muscles they use to perform the attack have been disfigured and cause the foe to spurt blood when they try to utilize them, actually providing 5% worth of blood for Intoner mode as well. A foe attempting to pressure Three at this point will have to contend with the fact that they're effectively building her up to Intoner Mode unless they're camping her.
Aside from that, if the foe is interrupted out of an attack, it will cause their internal organs to rupture further than they already did, causing them to take 1.3x the usual damage and knockback of an attack that hits them at this time, as well as spewing twice as much blood as usual. So not only is pressure automatically building Three to Intoner Mode, if she can properly punish the foe for it she gets to reap a much larger reward while they're under this effect. This pushes the opponent to want to play on the defensive, which seems reasonable until you remember minions provide additional pressure if there are multiples at close range, and on top of that if you have some kind of must kill threat like a Cerberus or a reasonably buffed up other type of minion out, at that point the best defense is a good offense. But wouldn't it be a shame if a fluke in attacking the Cerberus or buffed minion ended in the vastly more dangerous Intoner Mode being activated.
In Intoner Mode, this attack is largely the same, but the foe suffers a slight increase in attack lag too, making them even easier to punish. It may be worthwhile to use this at the end of an existing Intoner Mode to make setting up the next one a bit easier.
Forward Throw
Three stabs her scissors deep into the opponent and twists them carefully, causing the foe 4% and mild horizontal knockback. This is a very weak throw at first glance, but the tweak Three made to the opponent's body was a very deliberate one, that will cause blood to violently burst out of them 3 seconds later, dealing 9% and upwards knockback that will KO at 180%. This drops double as much blood as the damage would indicate, making this a very powerful way to acquire blood.
Obviously this move is fairly hit or miss in terms of effect, because if Three is actually near the foe, not only does she get 18% worth of blood, she may be able to combo them for even more due to the delayed nature of the hitbox. On the other hand, if the foe outplays her, she'll only get 4% worth of blood out of this, as she has to be fairly close to the foe at the time to benefit.
In Intoner Mode, the burst of blood is even more violent and there's a small amount of gore involved too, and it gives triple blood while dealing 13% and upwards knockback that KOs at 100% on the subsequent hit, providing a fantastic extension to Intoner Mode. It's a bit less useful for extending combos than the previous version given the increase in knockback, but it serves as a great KO move instead.
Back Throw
Three steps in front of the foe as she skewers them behind her with one pair of scissors, while preparing the other pair to strike with. While you can release this immediately to have her perform a strong slash that deals 12% and huge horizontal knockback that KOs at 185% due to the slow growth, but still gives her tons of space at low percents. This is actually somewhat important, one of Three's main weaknesses is that she doesn't get a lot of set up time as a rule due to her set being rather dedicated to comboing, making the prospect of expending minions a tad more difficult than you might want it to be(though imps are easy enough to make that at the very least, having a few of those out is easy). Having the extra space provided by this move is rather essential, it being the best option she has for this. Aside from that, this has the minor side effect of the foe serving as a meat shield against Human Enhanced minions behind you.
Charging the move largely does nothing unless you manage to get a full .7 seconds of chage in, at which point Three will, in addition to knocking the foe away, fires a projectile after them out of the blade, dealing 6% and a flinch while travelling slower than the foe takes their knockback. This gives something to impede the foe on their way back, and like the other projectiles in Three's set it does pierce minions. An additional .7 seconds will add another projectile at a slightly different angle and speed for more coverage, but getting that much grab time isn't common. That said, occasionally this will come up, and every .7 seconds afterwards will add yet another projectile to the mess.
In Intoner Mode, the projectile bit of this move becomes vastly more practical, as the amount of time required to create a projectile is reduced to a third of what it was before. If you grab the foe at high-ish percents, you can leave some borderline bullet hell on their way back to you, and with Three's ludicrous dash speed in Intoner Mode she can actually dash in and potentially play off this small storm of projectiles too.
Up Throw
Three tosses the foe above herself before stabbing her scissors into them thrice, dealing 3 hits of 3% with the final hit dealing reasonable upwards knockback as a way to set up foes in the air. While the final hit's upwards knockback is too high to follow up with an Up Smash and too low for an Up Tilt, it's still a reasonable way to start a juggle. Not terribly much else to this move though it serves as Three's best set up throw, aside from it having knockback that puts them into Up Smash range as well as 6 hits in Intoner Mode, meaning they have to immediately start reacting, at which point you can chase them with your ludicrous Intoner Mode speed.
Down Throw
Three slams the foe into the ground and makes a few incisions in the foe, the incisions seeming to vary randomly, but in reality they do based off the last attacks that hit the foe, as she's reopening their wounds. The initial throw deals 6% and leaves the foe in prone, but they start violently leaking blood for the next 3 seconds. The amount of damage they take from this is equal to the total amount of cutting based damage they took in the last 10 seconds, dealing them a total of only 1/6th that damage, but causing them to leak a full half the blood over that time span. That's a pretty insane reward potentially, especially off a throw.
The thing about this move is, unlike Forward Throw, it requires you to basically be on top of the foe for the next 3 seconds, and believe it or not prone is hardly Three's favorite position for the foe to be in, having next to no follow ups on a prone foe. Not only that they come out of this move with a slight frame advantage.
That said, if the foe is already bleeding out from Down Smash, this move will become a fair bit more powerful as it causes them to take 1/4th the damage and leak 2/3rds the blood, and for that matter, the blood will actually spray further, meaning you don't have to be quite as close to the foe. In general if you sacrificed a bunch of minions to Down Smash, even if you hit the foe with it, and you don't get Intoner Mode, you're not in an amazing spot, but this throw can at least cover for that.
This move starts out as powerful as the Down Smash buffed variation in Intoner Mode, and can go further in combination with Down Smash and Intoner Mode to give a full 1/3rd damage and the entirety of blood spilled, as well as spraying a good distance beyond the opponent's body.
So, you want to play Three right? Well at a very casual level, she can play the traditional campy summoner character, having a projectile on Forward Tilt that goes through her minions and a decent variety of ones to play with... unfortunately, that will only get her so far. Three is rather frail once they get through, her options to support her minions are honestly a tad limited outside of buffs. Nevermind the fact that outside the Cerberus, all her minions are weak and/or highly predictable, and while storeable charge is nice, it's less amazing on someone who is just trying to fortify themselves as much as possible. You can go for more powerful minions via buffs... or the ever risky Human Hybrids which can backfire.
No, if you want to win you're going to have to actually play a somewhat aggressive character, albeit one who supplements her approach with minions. This isn't bland MYM7 Sho stuff though, Three has a lot of moves, such as Down Tilt, her Smashes, and her Dash Attack that play rather nice with minions around. The problem is, Three's minions get hurt by these attacks often, but frankly sacrificing them is usually worth it, as once Three reaches Intoner Mode, she's effectively a god in combat, and hardly needs her minions help. However, it's best to try to be careful and leave a few alive, as her interactions with them during the song make her far more likely to score a KO, and being able to hack them apart for extra Intoner Mode time never hurts either.
The minions themselves have fairly varied functions. The only one you can expect to summon often while engaging the foe in melee combat is the Imp, because the lag on the summon isn't too bad. The problem with the imp is it's frail stamina, but it can provide some assistance in combos or landing big hits. Almisael Dolls serve a similar purpose, but are a fair bit more versatile due to their varied range and the ability to decapitate them for an extra hitbox, though summoning Almisael Dolls is a rare commodity unless you go out of your way to do so. Ogres are actually fairly easy to summon even in the head of combat due to not requring much charge, but their incredibly lacking speed makes them far less useful for setting up combos. However, they're great for building Intoner Mode with their large stamina, and slow as their hitboxes are they give something else for the foe to prioritize avoiding over Three's much quicker hits.
You have to go out of your way to summon a Gigas, but it serves as a similar boon to the Ogre, but on a much larger scale, and has a presense on the match over a huge chunk of the stage, meaning simply avoiding it's attacks is much harder. Aside from that, hanging around a Gigas is great for gathering blood. The Cerberus provides a target for the foe that isn't you, and something they actually have to prioritize killing due to how powerful it is, which in particular in combination with the pummel is very useful, and dodging combos is much more difficult when you have a giant oppressive target existing that NEEDS to be killed. For that matter, the buffs can do that to almost any minion. If you need something oppresive and the Ogre on stage isn't cutting it, buff his speed. The opponent will DEFINENTLY prioritize him now.
Human Enhanced minions are very interesting, because there's a very delicate balance to how you use them. On one hand, they're extremely powerful, especially the higher varieties, due to the buff they get when low on health, but on the other hand, they're a threat to Three. I say a threat, but not AS much as to the foe, as Three has moves like Down Tilt, Nair, Dash Attack, and Down Smash specifically designed to provide her with some measure of profit despite them being equal opportunity threats. How willingly you use them will depend on your skill as a Three player, this aspect of her game may get a low level player killed more often than not, but a high level player will be reaping the benefits of soaking up a hugely powerful Gigas smash on her Nair or Down Smash.
As for her comboing, Three's a tad straightforward when you take the minions out of the picture, but a lot of her attacks have minor nuances, sweetspots and the like, which will require clever use of spacing, minions, and some of the small number of delayed hitboxes in her set to take full advantage of. Her aerial game is probably her strongest point for combos, her Smashes provide the most advanced uses of minions, and her grab game can reap huge blood rewards and set up nicely for any stage of her game. You already read the moves and they all have plenty of description of their uses, I shouldn't have to repeat that here.
Overall Three's a minion character who suffers a bit from her lack of summoning time and her inherant damage to her minions, but makes up for it with the massive benefits of fighting alongside them and the side effects of sacrificing them. Conduct experiments and find your ideal minion gameplan, and eventually you'll become an effective Three main.
A thunderous roar is heard as Three's watcher, Ezrael flies over the battlefield, sending down a rain of 10 fireballs in a manner simlar to PK Starstorm as Three hops on his back. The fireballs fall a fair bit slower than PK Starstorm's and deal 15% and knockback that KOs at 200%, making them very bad for a final smash on their own, but as Ezrael floats in the background, you can control a purple reticle, and if you press B on it, he will shoot a fireball from the background at it, functioning in a similar manner to Snake's final smash and dealing the same damage and knockback as the falling fireballs. There is more of a delay before the hit than there is with Snake's final smash, sadly.
The advantage of having both is, if you hit a falling fireball, it will bounce back up into the air, adding it's size as the two fireballs combine, as well as increasing it's power by 6% and causing it to KO 30% earlier. The fireball will bounce in a direction based off where you hit it, to the side causing it to bounce in the opposite direction it was hit from. Fireballs can combine with existing falling ones too to further boost their power, giving this final smash a ton of variety. Do you want a bunch of random chaos, or to juggle around one big fireball with immense power, or something in between. The choice is yours.
In Intoner mode, the number of projectiles falling increases to 15, and the delay on the shots is reduced to that of Snake's final smash, making this a much scarier final smash. You won't always get Intoner Mode AND the final smash at the same time, but when you do manage it the result is impressive. Three will ride Ezrael for up to 9 seconds or until she's used all her shots, and during this time it does not subtract from Intoner Mode. Afterwards, Ezrael drops her off on the stage and vanishes into the sky.
Match-Ups
Three vs. Sherry Cromwell - 65/35 Sherry's Favor
Ellis is both blessed and cursed in this match-up, being so huge is a pretty insane boon to him when Three is trying to get a reasonable sized guard of minions, as he can just plow through them all at once. The sheer presence of something so big in the match-up makes creating a Cerberus/Gigas fairly difficult too, as Three will never get a break even at the start of the match to start preparing with something so huge and honestly rather hard to avoid constantly attacking her. The main problem for Ellis however, is his HP. 50 HP is not exactly amazing under any circumstances, but Imps will actually chip away at it at a reasonable rate, and a lot of Three's attacks are vastly more damaging on something so gigantic, as for example she can reasonably land the final hit of Up Smash on him in addition to all the other hits.
In general Three will probably not want to bother with Ogres or Almisael Dolls in this match-up, and Human Hybrids carry a pretty big risk with the sheer amount of pebbles flying around that could potentially interrupt whatever use she was trying to make of them, while Ellis can shield Sherry from them to a decent degree. Imps however, can be summoned pretty fast and actually do serve a purpose in chipping away at Ellis' health bar while she goes after Three. As soon as Ellis goes down, this is your chance as Sherry is rather vulnerable and won't have much luck fighting Three during this time. Summon a Gigas or(preferably) a Cerberus, which will make Ellis' return a much more brief one until they manage to take down the minion. During periods where Ellis is fighting one of Three's own giant monsters, Three can easily start wrecking havoc on Sherry herself, as Ellis dying frequently means he won't be around to protect her.
That said, Sherry still has a decently large advantage in this match-up, on the basis that Three is rather fragile, especially without much in the way of support minions early on. This is great news for Ellis, who can easily take advantage of her somewhat lacking defense when his attacks come from all sorts of crazy angles(even Three's Down Smash isn't saving her from underground attacks) and proceed to brutalize her with heavy attacks, and repeatedly pitfall her so she can't summon as much and Ellis can heal off his damage. The moment a Gigas or Cerberus gets involved the match becomes much closer, which it likely will in a match that goes on for more than 1 or 2 stocks, but at that point Sherry will have enough of a lead that Three will struggle to come back.
Three Vs. Sloth - 70/30 Three's Favor
In the battle of their respective series Sin of Sloth, the FMA Sloth immediately runs into a huge problem... specifically, his own huge size. Like with Ellis in the previous match-up, being gigantic is great for Three whose set is loaded with sweetspots and combo moves, and is absolutely fine with a character surviving to higher percents when she can just abuse that to get to Intoner Mode and kill him anyway with her ridiculous speed and both damage racking and KO ability.
Obviously this is any match-up with a lightweight comboer for Sloth, and he has tools to fight back, specifically effort mode. And effort mode is great... but there's the ever present problem of Three having multiple options for high speed minions in Imps, Almisael Dolls, and the Cerberus. Sloth only needs to take 16% before he gets knocked out of his beloved Effort, and once that happens he's an even bigger target then before.
So he has some other options he can go for. He can try and tie Three to himself to keep her from camping too much, but she wins at close range anyway and she can even turn Sloth's own huge strength against him with Down Smash/Nair. If he tries to stall in the pit, he's going to get damage racked like crazy and Intoner Mode WILL become a problem for him, nevermind that it provides Three with the longevity she wants. What an ugly match-up for Sloth!
Well it would be entirely hopeless, but for all the bad I've said about Effort mode, it's hardly a lost cause. Sloth can certainly use it to bulldoze through minions in rapid succession, and Three's minions aren't terribly unpredictable. Nevermind that in that mode, he actually is faster than the lightweight female, so if the minions go down, Three is under serious pressure fighting back unless she has her own super mode active. That said, not getting smacked out of effort mode and then utterly destroyed while asleep requires the Sloth player to be heavily outplaying the Three player, and a tanky minion like the Cerberus or Gigas can potentially hold out long enough to knock Sloth out of effort anyway. Sloth's gotta put in a lot of hard work to win this match-up, I'm sure he won't like that...
Three vs. Michael Reynolds - 55/45 Three's favor
Michael Reynolds welcomes his dear daughter to his own personal amusement park, now in Smash Brothers... oh wait that's NOT Eriko? Oh these purple haired girls are confusing. Regardless, a little secret about Three is that while she's not good at getting set up time, she IS scary when the opponent just gives it to her. Reynolds is about as intense of a trap character as they get, even if he's not incapable of fighting, and Three's going to get plenty of time to build up minions. The one you probably want to start out with is the Gigas, possibly the Human Hybrid Gigas for that matter as the willingness to attack Three may help when he whiffs due to a dodge and wipes out a whole line of Reynolds' traps. The usual imp crew works for approaching, but you do want Almisael Dolls too, as they're good at preventing Reynolds from setting up.
The main thing Reynolds has going for him is that, well, his traps will be going off like crazy this match. Three's minions will almost always be triggering some trap or another, giving the imps rather short lifespans. Shadow Traps are especially nice, as Three's ways to kill them are actually rather lacking barring Dair, and the shadow copy is fairly scary when it gets to copy a powerful blow from a minion. Swapping triggers around makes this even easier to pull off, and when Three enters Intoner Mode she has to cope with the fact that the Shadows may be redirecting her powerful Intoner Mode attacks at her.
While at close range Three obviously has the advantage over Reynolds, it's not as huge as you'd think, because Reynolds does have a massively durable, albeit rather flawed shield that he can't just throw up whenever, and the dummy men actually deal a pretty large amount of damage. For that matter, Three's not a fan of having to fight against slow projectiles like Reynolds' cash, as they can throw off her offensive and allow the opponent to take a few extra hits if she's not covered by imps.
One thing worth keeping mind about this match-up is that Reynolds is going to prevent Three from getting a lot of blood. Dummy Men don't drop it, his traps don't drop it, and Three's minions will be constantly being destroyed by Reynold's traps. Not surprising the master of IllBLEED controls the bloodflow of the match, but the lack of Intoner Mode is going to make it rather hard for Three to actually pressure Reynolds that heavily. That being said, Three's own minions are tearing into Reynolds' traps, creating a weird form of stalemate as the minefield that is the Illbleed amusement park takes out Three's army, but not without it's own casualties.
The match will go on until one or the other gets a foot in the door, but once they do things get ugly. If Reynolds manages to create enough or empower enough traps to overwhelm Three's minions, he'll break through and win the match. If Three's minions get too large in number of Reynolds' fortifications are all destroyed, then Three will take over and apply too much pressure for him to realistically recover from, especially since she can actually access Intoner Mode on a common basis at that point. Three does have a mild edge here, as Reynolds doesn't have anything quite as inevitable as Intoner Mode in his arsenal, as even if he holds her off it he can't forever, though Reynolds does have a bit more versatility than Three due to his ridiculously wide array of traps and trap interactions. Whoever wins though, glorious, bloody entertainment will be had as structures are smashed and monsters are torn limb from limb.
, ↓, 
, ←, 
, ↑, 
, - Knockback Angle
]
