Love him or hate him, Red Hood is back in a big way for Injustice 2. Jason Todd takes the stage as this angry Robin turned Joker crowbar Pinata turned undead vigilante, and he can be a pretty powerful character if you know how to use him right.
While the consensus seems to be that he is a useless fighter, who uses guns but less effectively than Deadshot, some see great potential in the character. Here’s how some of the best players turned this wounded bird into a world class fighter.
10 Trip Them Up
Like Damian Wayne, another disgruntled former Robin, Red Hood is a big fan of leaving traps all over the play area. These are key to controlling the flow of the fight and keeping your opponent exactly where you want them.
This seems like a no-brainer since the mines do zero damage to you, against all logic, which essentially doubles the amount of the arena you take up without actually doubling your hitbox. This also forces your opponent to continually block low to defend themselves from these explosions, which will help with the next tip.
9 Stabbing Upwards
Ignoring sage wisdom from his elders, Jason Todd has very much brought a knife to a gunfight (and a meta-fight where most metas are completely impervious to bullets). This actually turns out to be a massive boon, since his uppercut with his knife takes up a massive amount of the arena, and quickly knocks people out of the air due to its huge reach.
Combining this tip with the first gives you pretty good control of your opponent’s actions, forcing them up into the air to jump over mines where they are ripe to be swatted right out of the heavens.
8 Right In The Shins
There’s another way to force your opponents to try to jump up in the air, and that’s with the slightly overpowered Shin Slam. This attack comes at the opponent low, but also covers an alarming distance, so repeatedly using this while staying out of reach is a good way to frustrate the other player into jumping over you.
Of course, not everyone likes to play for cheap wins, so this move is also incredibly effective at starting off devastating combos with little to no risk to yourself.
7 Sure I Can
If you train with Batman for more than twelve minutes, you are going to be taught how to throw a shuriken, which Red Hood has creatively named “Gotham Stars” for reasons that make sense only to someone who has come back from a Lazarus Pit.
The Upward Gotham Stars are another good way to knock your foes out of the sky when they try to jump over your cleverly-placed landmines. The key to this strategy is to either keep your opponent on the defensive or force them to make desperate attempts at attacks that lead into your counterattacks.
6 Out Of Thin Air
So, you’ve spammed the person opposite you with landmines and low kicks, keeping them in a perpetual state of doing somersaults to avoid taking damage. You’ve also bombarded them with knife uppercuts and throwing stars, and you are starting to feel a little bad.
Good news, the Vendetta Slam is an awesome move which allows you to grab people out of midair, strap a bomb to them and hurl them across the screen. This is a good way to keep your enemies at a distance while also whittling down their health.
5 Guns Blazing
Another sweet move that hits people in the air --but can also hit enemies that are keeping their distance at the other end of the arena-- is Akimbo Blaze. Here, Red Hood uses his guns (which doesn’t happen often enough) to lay down fire in midair.
A versatile move to control the arena as well as keep up the tactic of forcing people into (and out of) the air.
4 Thrown Off
Experts say that while some of the long-winded combos that end with a throw can actually end up doing more damage, this is a rookie mistake. The slight bump in damage is also a great way to give up any advantage you had in positioning.
With Red Hood, controlling where your opponent stands is the key to winning, so ending up cornered is a good way to get pummeled into Red Paste by a frustrated Kryptonian.
3 Ballistic Combos
Red Hood’s power of “Going Ballistic” electrifies his guns, but also requires him to simply stop moving. It does open up new moves, including a single shot you can fire across screen, but only use this at the end of combos.
The best way to do this is to bounce someone upwards and activate the power, so by the time the animation is done, you haven’t sacrificed any actual fight time.
2 Unpleasant Surprises
Many of Red Hood’s combos and special moves like “Extreme Measures” and “Death in the Family” end with your opponent on the ground. This is the perfect time to treat them to a horrible shock by placing a landmine right where they are going to recover.
Sure, this may seem cheap to a lot of players, but Red Hood is kind of an irritating character, so just put yourself in his mindset. Not only does he have an ax to grind with super-villains who murdered him, but he’s out to prove he’s just as good as Batman. That adds up to a dude who’s going to be using everything in his utility belt to murder any and every opponent.
1 Stay Away
Jason has proven that, like most unpowered humans, he is extremely mortal. His armor isn’t as comprehensive as Batman’s, and he doesn’t have the money to cover the massive hospital bills. This means you should take every step available to avoid getting hit AT ALL.
Red Hood isn’t great at escaping from the clutches of his foes, so to avoid getting bear hugged by Bane until your silly mask pops like a tube of toothpaste, use your guns and stars to keep everyone at a distance unless you are controlling the combo. This can be difficult with extremely fast characters like Cheetah and Flash, so trip them up with as many gadgets as possible.