Our latest TB10 features longtime ARMS community member Symbal who has made a name for himself as a respected player in both online and offline tournaments. What you may not know is that he's also a really great commentator! Check out his interview after the page break!
Question 1
APC: Please tell the community a little bit about yourself.
S: I’m a not so simple guy who likes over-analyzing things. New York born and raised, who likes exploring new things.
Question 2
APC: What drew you to ARMS in the beginning?
S: Well I always liked fighting games, but I never liked the more technical parts of executing techniques and combos in most fighting games. I didn’t know anything about ARMS before the direct and the direct sold me completely on the game. When I joined the community I knew I’d be there for a looooong time.
Question 3
APC: Out of all the new features added to ARMS post-launch which one do you like the most?
S: I wanna say adding tournament mode since it helped settle the meta on customs, but I think the control mapping was a more crucial thing.
Question 4
APC: Competitive games like ARMS can be both mentally and emotionally taxing, how do you go about overcoming frustrations and challenges so that you can get your head back in the game again?
S: Well it’s no secret I’ve had my fair share of frustration. The way I think about it, frustration is only born from your lack of understanding of why you lost. To me, the entire difference between “a respectable loss” and “getting bodied” is how much you understand why you lost. So for me what gets me out of the funk is analyzing what I did wrong what my opponent did right. I feel if people would sooner stop thinking their knee-jerk thought on what happened is correct and work more to analyze their own play we would see a lot less frustration, however it’s ultimately inescapable.
Question 5
APC: What attracted you to your current main and why did you stick with them?
S: Well I’m kinda in a fight between 2 mains lol. Ninjara has been my main since I picked up the game and my reason was mainly that at the time I didn’t see many people using him so I wanted to be a bit of a hipster there and pick him up. My other main to be Misango is somewhat similar in that at the time I thought to pick him up people weren’t playing him much, but with him I also felt like he had a wealth of options available to him and I wanted to see if I could discover those options.
Question 6
APC: What is your favourite stage and why?
S: Temple Grounds easily. It has it all. It’s neutral enough to be completely competitive, has options for both aggressive and defensive play with the small size of the stage offering the former and the pillars offering the latter, the elevation is just right on the stage to be used to one’s advantage and allow interesting plays without taking control away from the fight like shifting the camera too much, and of course the most important reason, THAT MUSIC BOY!
Question 7
APC: What is your current arm load-out and why did you choose it?
S: On Ninjara I sort of stick to 6 ARMS lol but they’re all kinda related in what they do; Chilla, Boomerang, Popper, Roaster, Scorpio, Biffler. I choose between chilla or roaster depending on whether I’m fighting a charge character like Brass or Min-Min(chilla) or a more counter character who’s tricky to catch (Twin, Spring. I choose between boomerang and scorpio depending on how well my opponent can play at mid to long range boomerang if they’re big and slow scorpio if they’re slimmer and zoney. I pick between popper and biffler depending on how evasive my opponent is, more horizontally evasive or vertically.
Question 8
APC: What advice would you give to other players who main your character?
S: If you wanna get into fighting games I can think of no better one to start with as ARMS presents you with the fundamentals and focuses on them. Be patient, don’t expect to be king immediately otherwise you setting yourself up for disappointment. And always ALWAYS look at your play and see what you’re doing wrong and what you’re doing right.
Question 9
APC: With so many different fighting games on the market what is it about ARMS that keeps you coming back?
S: Definitely it’s simplicity that hides a wealth of depth. I feel like this is the game that can change more casual gamers to more competitive ones. It becomes addicting as you continue to climb steps to getting better and beating people you couldn’t beat before. Matches flow pretty quickly so it’s also a joy to watch and filled with hype moments. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people who never watched an ARMS tournament start out thinking it’s sorta boring then by the finals they’re screaming with the rest of the crowd unable to contain their hype.
Question 10
APC: Where can people find more about you?
S: Well if you’re a gamer as I imagine most of y’all are you can find me on https://twitter.com/Symbal321 talking and retweeting about games I like or just the latest meme. However when I’m not gaming or memeing I’m actually writing so if you’re interested in lame stuff like words you can follow my stuff at https://twitter.com/Symbalizm12 with links to my wattpad and medium account. Otherwise catch me on discord, names always the same Symbal.