How to be successful with Taro Yamada in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals.
Contents
How to Senpai
All credit goes to ItsJustKetchup!
Context
Welcome back to the third iteration of the Yandere Simulator DLC-themed How To: guides. We’ve covered Ayano and Hanako previously, and now I believe it is time to cover the second most well known character in Yandere Simulator. As stated in the Hanako guide, I was initially going to cover him first, but I changed my mind after I played Hanako for the first time. The individual I am referring to is Taro Yamada, AKA: Senpai!
Senpai is the central focus and main objective of Yandere Simulator, as after helping Ayano out from a bike injury, she begins to grow an unhealthy obsession towards him to the point of committing murder so no one else can have him. This is shown throughout the week, as Senpai begins to develop relationships with other girls in the school, thus unintentionally making them targets for Ayano to get rid of in various ways before a deadline hits. Unlike the other students in the school if they discover Ayano was the culprit, if Senpai finds out Ayano was the reason a murder happened, she will receive an immediate game over and potentially becomes a victim when she enters Snap Mode before killing herself afterwards. Here however, he is not safe from Ayano to begin with thanks to her Monster designation, so how does Senpai perform in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals? Let’s find out!
Background Info
Given Senpai’s Ultimate Icon being filled with hearts, many were assuming Senpai was going to be a Support Class on release. This would have made the YanSim DLC be the first one to feature the addition of two Supports in one content update…if it had gone through like that anyway.
In the DLC we were given, Senpai is branded as a Balanced Class Mortal, which threw off some of the playerbase, but it wasn’t anywhere near as crazy as Hanako being given Ranged instead of Speed Class. Senpai being a Balanced Mortal means he has average stats for Mortal standards across the board, not excelling in any stat in particular, essentially making him and other Balanced classes the default template for Mortal stat calculations for the other classes. However, one thing that sets Senpai apart from the other Balanced Classes is that he has exceptional fighting ability! His light attack is fairly solid to use, but it does not compare to his heavy attack. While it isn’t that damaging, only dealing 30 damage, the attack has quite a lot of range to it, comparable to Vince’s heavy, but nowhere near as insane as Cybil’s for obvious reasons. This makes Senpai able to combat other players very well in experienced hands, as he can hit from ranges you wouldn’t expect him to land hits from. Aside from this, he doesn’t excel in anything else in a major way thanks to his Balanced class stats, making him a jack-of-all-trades character. Curiously, his Ultimate (which will be brought up in a bit), allows him to play very similarly to Dawko, but with a Balanced Class stat spread and no ability to heal, making him ideal for those that want to play without worrying about teammate support often, but can in a pinch.
Senpai’s Balanced stat spread makes him have a couple weaknesses that are shared with other Balanced classes of his kind. He will likely need to fight often thanks to his average speed making him only able to outpace the Power Monsters, making it easy for him to get chipped over time without his Ultimate. Speaking of Ultimates, he is often Ult Fodder thanks to his own not being able to cancel them out, making him unable to do anything about them unless he has a shield or teammate help. Perhaps his biggest weakness, however, is that he is a major threat to people with lower end PC’s. What do I mean by this? Well, about that Ultimate I alluded to…
Ultimate: Simp For Senpai
…if the billion polygon and vertices spider from Garten of Banban (Nabnab) had any competition for how unoptimized it is, this ultimate would contend with it.
Senpai’s Ultimate Ability is named “Simp For Senpai,” and when it is activated, Senpai creates a heart with his hands and causes 3D modeled, 2000 polygon and vertices hearts to flood out of him en mass, creating an area around him that will inflict the Charmed status effect and causing low end PCs to beg for mercy as the frame rate drops like crazy for everyone involved. Seriously, prior to UE5 becoming the main engine, I could run the game on Very High and Fullscreen settings and still run like butter. Now I have to play in Windowed and have all my settings on Low just to avoid my computer exploding from this highly unoptimized excuse of an Ult.
Back on topic, this Ult is very good, as the Charmed status effect will cause light and heavy attacks for anyone affected to cease functioning, forcing their own Ult in response or needing to run, as Senpai can still attack during this time. This can affect multiple targets at once, making this fantastic for crowd control. However, this indiscriminately affects his own teammates in Maze Escape as well, so caution should be taken when using Senpai in that gamemode. This ult is even stronger on opponents lacking damaging Ults, as it can render them completely helpless and at Senpai’s mercy, assuming they cannot flee from him. Overall, this Ult is very strong and is essentially a selective Darkest Desire that doesn’t affect yourself, allowing Senpai to keep attacking unopposed or grant him time to get an emergency medkit or item when at low health. However, it is currently unoptimized, making it risky to use on lower end computers, especially is multiple Senpai’s are on screen at once.
Maze Escape
As stated earlier, Senpai plays very similarly to Dawko, and thus is a pretty good character for Maze Escape as a result. However, whereas Dawko is more on the supportive side and has the ability to heal largely thanks to his class as a Support Mortal, Senpai is stronger when playing solo and not focusing on others. As a result, he is a niche, albeit good character in Maze Escape, providing Dawko-esque playstyle for those that don’t want to be on healing duty and instead focus on actually playing the game. The class designation change means that he misses out on extra speed, health, and the ability to heal others gradually with heavy hits in exchange for having a higher damage output. That said, Simp For Senpai still allows him to play supportively for others if he chooses to go that route, as it can completely stop the Monster team in their tracks if they don’t have their Ult ready, but the same can also be said for the teammate he is trying to help, resulting in Senpai having a bit of a learning curve when it comes to using him supportively for Maze Escape, but can be great when mastered.
Thanks to Senpai’s Balanced stats and map-friendly Ult, he is effective on just about every map currently available, similarly to the other Balanced Mortals.
PvP Matchups
- Performs Well Against: Murder Monkey, Reaper Nurse, Penny, Fiend, Nurse, Robbie
- Performs Decent Against: Agatha, Clown Gremlin, Lucky, Hangry
- Performs Poorly Against: Gold Watcher, Dread Ducky, Malak, Ayano, Brute
Gold Watcher and Malak are still able to completely destroy Senpai if they get their ults ready while affected by Simp For Senpai. Dread Ducky can straight up barrage ult Senpai with Ducky Surprise. Brute can run him over with Magma Charge, and his biggest simp can straight up delete him from existence like in his home game when she snaps at the game over screen. Notably, Simp For Senpai can temporarily disable Robbie’s ability to send his clones onto Senpai if Rabbit Rampage is active if he hasn’t done so by the time Simp For Senpai activates, making Robbie have a difficult time with targetting Senpai with it. Lucky can still Bunny Barrage Senpai to low health, but Simp’s effects will let Senpai survive the Ult if he was at full health, giving Senpai a slim chance against the broken rabbit. Finally, he can completely shut down Reaper Nurse and anyone else with Ults that don’t deal damage directly, allowing Senpai to do well against them.
Soul Collection
The same statement of Senpai being a Balanced Class variant of Dawko applies in Soul Collection as well. However, unlike in Maze Escape where Simp For Senpai and Balanced stats gave Senpai a niche as a “self support” character, in Soul Collection Senpai is pretty much outclassed by Dawko here. This is not because Senpai himself is bad, not in the slightest; Simp For Senpai screws a lot of Mortals over when they combat him and can save his life in many situations. The problem lies in the fact that Support class stats are busted for this gamemode. As a result of that fact, all the Support Mortals (especially Bierce) pretty much run this mode with very few exceptions such as PenPen and Borisov being meta as well. That said, Senpai is very far from the worst thing you can select in this gamemode, as he can be a fun off meta pick who can perform quite well if you know what you’re doing. It’s just that Support stats are superior here, and Dawko being a Support Mortal makes him the clear superior one of the two here.
Most maps are unaffected here, but maps such as Silent Sacrifice, Crazy Carnevil, Stranger Sewers, and Akademi Assault can be harder for Senpai due to their linearity, meaning he is at higher risk of losing to the Supports and PenPen here.
PvP Matchups
- Performs Well Against: Doug, Evans, Borisov, PenPen, Nikson, SuperHorrorBro
- Performs Decent Against: Bierce, 8-BitRyan, Dawko, Senpai (himself), Info-Chan, Heather
- Performs Poorly Against: Vince, Hanako, Cybil
The characters that are notorious for typically getting free kills by immobilizing their opponents such as Evans and Borisov are unable to do so against Senpai with Simp For Senpai active, making them effectively wasted ults if they cannot use that time to make distance instead. Senpai being able to attack while the opponent cannot makes Vince a prime counter since You’ll See can force off Senpai during the ult duration. Characters such as Cybil and Hanako also perform well since they can keep their distance and continue to attack Senpai using their ranged attacks, Cybil in particular able to use Incapacitate to remove Simp For Senpai if he hasn’t used it yet and Hanako can still deal a good chunk of damage using Fangirling.
Closing
Senpai is a neat little addition to Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals, but was inevitably compared to Dawko since their Ults function very similarly. As a result, Senpai may end up being overshadowed by Dawko’s overall more versatility and support options than what Senpai can provide, resulting in him becoming somewhat of a rare character to come across in the long run. However, like with characters such as Brute and Heather, don’t dismiss him entirely, as his Balanced designation allows him to function as a version of Dawko that doesn’t have to focus on keeping the entire team alive all the time, granting him more time for his own devices. Overall, Senpai is a solid character and is one worth trying out if you own the DLC, and if you’re computer is able to handle the 1 billion polygon heart effects!
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