Hayabusa is a great midrange LD Control/Support Uber with access to Critical Hits. He has an extremely varied skill set across his three forms with a variety of roles. His First Form has 10.2k Damage with a 30% chance to crit. His Evolved Form, Oni Hayabusa, has 20.4k Damage (4100 DPS) with a 50% chance to KB and Slow Aliens for 3.33 seconds and Slow Immunity. The True Form, Akuma Hayabusa, has the same effects against Zombies and Z-Kill. With talents, Akuma Hayabusa gains Aku target and a 40% chance of Shield Piercing. All forms have 47k HP with 7 KBs, and 25 Speed, a 5s attack frequency and 365 range with an LD radius of 250 to 650. Finally his cooldown is 108s and his cost is 4275.

Hayabusa's fast, reliable and high damage crits in First Form are sufficient to cripple all common Metal enemies. His wide LD area lets him crit entire groups of multi-layered metals, while regular critters would only hit the frontmost peons, making him extremely devastating in stages where a Super Metal Hippoe or Sir Metal Seal is guarded by shorter ranged enemies. In Evolved Form, his KB+high uptime Slow effect firmly controls Aliens throughout ITF and COTC, and most importantly his large piercing range ensures that the abundant Alien backliners are also knocked back so the rest of your units do not run into them and die. The True Form's same effects vs Zombies are less relevant but can still help against Zombies that don't burrow or already emerged. Much more importantly, Hayabusa's Shield Pierce talent makes him one of the best anti-Shield options in the game thanks to a solid 40% proc chance on a fast attack cycle, and once again his great LD area allowing him to comfortably snipe shielded backliners such as Fallen Bear and Wicked Face regardless of their frontline support. The additional Aku Target talent also lets him control such enemies with similar potency to his anti-Alien performance.

Hayabusa's DPS is a little underwhelming for his range class, leading to his use being mainly for crits or CC, with damage only as a bonus. While his LD is his best feature that lets him stand out from other units with similar abilities, Metals and Zombies can often push/unburrow into his blindspot and worsen his compatibility against them. On the other hand his low standing range and high speed can hurt him against similar range enemies like Ursamajor or Fallen Bear when there is not a stepping stone to exploit. Against Aku, his most apparent flaw is vulnerability to Surge/Death Surge, especially from Condemned Peng since his Slow Immunity actually backfires and makes him run into the Surge again.

Hayabusa is a great and verstaile uber with viable counterplay against 4 traits and a great piercing range which elevates all his abilities. With talents, Hayabusa's True Form becomes one of the most potent anti-Aku units in the entire game, a valuable niche with few quality options. Short range and suicidal speed hurt him but he can exploit stepping stones with his very good LD area to make up for this. There should be no hesitation in bringing him to any Metal or Aku stage, and he functions well for support in most Alien stages and situationally against Zombies.

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