I really like to shield cancel after the first hit of the Flourish or Leviathan (preferably with max or near max attack speed for Leviathan). You can get quick attacks with no vulnerability insanely fast. You mentioned this, but I do it a lot just with the first hit, not with the three hit combo. It's hard to get used to but when you do it is pretty nice. I haven't tested it, but I'm pretty sure it's more dps if you do it correctly. I could be wrong. It also doesn't move you around because you're not doing the three hit combo that pushes you forward.

note: The first hit of the flourish has a VERY similar wide attack that the faust / avenger line has. I think it's way better than the full combo just spamming the first attack with the shield cancel. It's like swinging an avenger but super fast.

edit: Forgot to mention it's good to shield cancel after Avenger / Faust as well. That's more for protective measures because the second swing leaves you open for a while. The other swords are good to just pump out really fast damage using the shield cancel.

About the 'mastery' comment. It's incredibly easy to do it after one hit, but to get it perfectly right getting the fastest attacks out over and over takes a while to get used to. It's definitely easier with the flourish and avenger. The leviathan, in my opinion, takes a bit of getting used to. Maybe I'm just crazy.

I used rifles, I liked people who did butterflies, they died! Actually...I kinda miss that game now :(

K-stylers were such beasts.

Dunno if it really counts as an "advanced technique" but flinching enemies. Sort of obvious starting out when you finish your combo and knock over some lowly gremlin, but depending on the floor level and your weapon loadout you can even flinch gun puppies, alpha wolvers, and lumbers out of their attacks. It's a sort of the opposite of shield canceling, as shield canceling gives extra defense by ending your combo early in exchange for additional blocking and mobility while flinching can only be done on the last hit of your combo, allowing you to do extra damage and keep yourself safe by interrupting your enemy's attacks. This comes in in pretty handy against things like t3 red rovers and rocket puppies as simply dodging or blocking them can be unpleasant. Two-hit weapons like the Avenger, Faust, and Troika lines can flinch well, as you only need to attack twice to get your flinch and they do a big chunk of damage allowing you to flinch heartier enemies. Meanwhile the Cutter line takes forever to finish its combo and doesn't get much added umph at the end, making it less than ideal for flinching.

I do all three without really knowing it. :D

Cancelling is incredibly useful on the DA's special, otherwise you get piled by the monsters around you. It took me about 5 deaths to realise that.

Which weapons does this hold true for? I've noticed it works for my Ascended Calibur, but not really for my Avenger.

Why TRY to bash the jellies with your shield after they start counting down, and not just hit them with a sword, does the same thing and works everytime.

I'm going to make up some terms for the fun of it...

-Bomber Kiting: For melee-heavy groups with a bomber, have the bomber intentionally piss off a mass of mobs, and kite them in a circle while you leap in with charge attacks at opportune times. (Esp. awesome if bomber has a graviton bomb to follow up with after initial aggro.)

-Bullet Tanking: Trade off with group members on shield-blocking waves of bullets while the others shoot or leap in with charge attacks. Alternate versions involve "pulling aggro" by smacking or standing closer to Gun-Puppies and turning them away from the group.

-Guiding Rocket Puppy rockets into other Rocket Puppies.

-Cooperation: Super secret special tactic... involves being conscious of your other party members, and can include: knocking mobs away from allies before they get hit, pulling aggro and kiting while another player attacks without risk of being hit, NOT knocking mobs mid-attack animation into party members, NOT shooting explosive boxes party members are next to, and generally attempting to carry your own weight and do more than pill hog.

"-Cooperation: Super secret special tactic... involves being conscious of your other party members"

I don't think this was an intended game mechanic. Anyone who uses it should be banned.

Knowing your enemies' weaknesses:

From my time in the clockworks, I have found that Wolves are weak against piercing damage. This can also be said for the various flying monsters, like those bats and butterflies. Those worker dudes are also weak against piercing.

Certain weapons consistently cancel out Puppies' fire. I use the spur series specifically to keep puppies at bay.

I don't know if this would be considered "advanced" but you can turn on the ability to see the amount of damage you are doing in settings. White is normal, yellow is effective, and gray is ineffective.

"I don't know if this would be considered 'advanced' but you can turn on the ability to see the amount of damage you are doing in settings. White is normal, yellow is effective, and gray is ineffective."

This is a good thing for new players to know regardless; I don't know what portion of the population dives right into the options menu after starting, but knowing that the option to turn on numbers is in there is a good thing to know.

I only knew about that option because I was here before they took it away (brought it back as an option)

When a treant or alpha wolver comes at you, move out of the way, come behind them, attack, and repeat. This has helped me survive many of the wolver attacks.