This old-school nerd was a bizarre addition to the MultiVersus cast of fighters, but she ends up being able to tangle with the best of them. In the first-ever MultiVersus tournament at EVO, Velma was the most-used character among the top 8 finalist teams. Of course that means she’s been nerfed since then, but she can still compete. Velma’s best moves are intimidating, but also unusual. Trying to play her as a regular fighter simply won’t work. Instead, get a clue by checking out this Velma MultiVersus Guide.

Velma MultiVersus Guide: Moveset Overview

Velma is classified as a “support” character, but don’t be fooled. All of the support characters in MultiVersus are capable of dishing out tons of pain. Velma’s best moves tend to be long-reaching projectiles, allowing her to easily engage the enemy from the back line. She also has several reliable melee attacks for the inevitable hand-to-hand combat. Several of Velma’s attacks spawn evidence, a collectible object that I’ll explain later. For the first section of the Velma MultiVersus guide, here’s an overview of her moves.

• Neutral Ground Attack: Most characters have a heavy, charged melee attack for their neutral. Not so for Velma. Instead, she shouts a fast-moving projectile that tracks her ally. If it connects, and it usually does, the ally becomes marked. If someone’s marked, this attack changes. Pressing the button again will send out a speedy word bubble projectile that follows the marked target. If this hits your ally, it rebounds forward. It’s like making your ally throw a free projectile, which also applies a weakness debuff. There’s a lot going on with this attack. It has a low ammo count, so Velma has to wait a while in between sets of shots. The initial tracking shot can hit an enemy if they’re in between you and your ally, which lets you follow up with homing projectiles, but it can also get caught on the floor. Generally, though, it’s fine to use it as often as possible. Thanks to its tracking, it’ll almost always have some effect.
• Side Ground Attack: This is Velma’s standard ground attack. She hits enemies with three close-range speech bubbles, one after the other. The speech bubbles are pretty big, and they have a disjointed hitbox; they don’t expose Velma to counterattack. On the other hand, they’re a little slow, and the three hits don’t combo. The enemy can sometimes escape between hits. One option is to follow a side ground attack with an up or down attack, which does count as a true combo.
• Up Ground Attack: Velma has an idea, and a lightbulb appears over her head, which is the attack. It’s quick, it has decent knockback, and it can spawn evidence, but it only hits the area above her. There’s a trick to chaining into it that makes it more reliable: if you use this move right after a different attack or dodge, Velma slides across the ground as the lightbulb appears, greatly increasing the attack’s horizontal range and allowing it to end a combo string.
• Down Ground Attack: Velma takes out a calculator and solves an equation, ending in a triumphant word bubble shout. This attack is slow, and only a bit larger than her reliable side attack, but it does the most damage of her single strikes when charged, and can spawn evidence. Good for a single, powerful strike, but it doesn’t have much kill power. Definitely not one of Velma’s best moves.
• Neutral Air Attack: It’s the same as her neutral ground attack, allowing Velma to fire projectiles from midair.
• Side Air Attack: Velma charges up a flashlight and turns it on. That’s not how flashlights work, but your enemies won’t have time to complain: this is a reliable close-range attack with some kill potential. Since it’s usable in the air, it’s possible to jump forward and charge, then release once you’re near the enemy. It can also spawn evidence.
• Up Air Attack: It’s the same lightbulb as the ground version. It can’t slide, but it’s more likely to hit and to kill if used on enemies above you in the air.
• Down Air Attack: Velma’s glasses fall off, and she reaches down and grabs them out of the air. For some reason, this does good damage and is a reliable spike. It can be used as a kill move onstage by bouncing a high-damage opponent against the ground, and it can chain into a follow-up move like the lightbulb or camera flash (up special) easily.

Velma’s regular attacks are already wacky, but her specials are even more so. Pay close attention to this part of the Velma MultiVersus guide.

• Neutral Ground Special: Velma pulls out a megaphone and delivers an “inspirational speech”. This take the form of a very long beam, which can be angled up and down while firing. It does very little damage, but the object is to have it focused on your target when its full effect triggers, which happens after a couple seconds of use. If you’re shouting at an enemy, the trigger causes a big hit with good knockback and a stack of weakness. If you’re shouting at your teammate, the trigger heals them, gives them a little speed buff, and rebounds a second beam off of them – the same effect as shouting at an enemy, but stronger and with twice the debuff! This move does have a cooldown, but it’s extremely short. Give it a couple seconds and you’re good to shout some more. The real risk is that it leaves Velma vulnerable. The beam doesn’t make enemies flinch until the final hit, so anyone can walk right up to you and punish for free. Do it at range, or while the enemy’s preoccupied.
• Side Ground Special: Velma does the Scooby-Doo run in place for a while, charging. Releasing the button sends her dashing forward, grabbing enemies in the way and throwing them at the end of the dash. Charging for longer extends the length of the dash, but it travels a fair distance even uncharged. Once you’re running, you can jump to cancel it. The move is very slow and obvious, and therefore hard to use… unless you coordinate. If a teammate jumps into Velma’s arms during the charge-up or dash, you both get an armor buff.
• Up Ground Special: Velma throws a vial of blue stuff onto the ground beneath her. It’s not much on its own, but the puddle of blue persists, and enemies standing in it start to freeze very quickly. It’s a powerful trap, but has a long cooldown. Use whenever you can.
• Down Ground Special: Velma activates Big Head Mode. For her, this cleanses debuffs and gives her a cooldown reduction buff (“educated”). It also throws a magical book, which rapidly seeks your teammate and applies those buffs to them as well (including the big head). It sticks around for a little while, spinning around your ally and hitting enemies like the Bible from Vampire Surv– I mean, from Castlevania. Since it reduces your other cooldowns, this move has a long cooldown of its own. Throw it out whenever you remember it exists.
• Neutral Air Special: This is the same megaphone blast as her ground special. When she uses it in the air, she hovers in place, letting her shoot from a slightly safer position.
• Side Air Special: Velma opens a big book. The knowledge inside bursts forth (?), propelling her a short distance through the air. It’s a weak attack, but it can land an extra hit in the air while keeping you away from the enemy. Just remember that the burst fires in the opposite direction as your input.
• Up Air Special: Velma aims below her with a camera and takes a picture, causing a fair-sized camera flash explosion. It doesn’t help much for recovery, but the flash causes an armor break, an evidence spawn, and a decent amount of knockback. It’s not as powerful a spike as Velma’s down air attack, but it can send offstage opponents flying away at a deadly angle.
• Down Air Special: This is the same book throw as the down ground special.

What’s all this evidence good for, you ask? When Velma and her teammate have collected five pieces, it enables her ultimate move: She reveals that an opponent is Old Man Jenkins, and summons the Mystery Machine to apprehend them. The van chases its target down automatically, and “busts” them on contact, which instantly does 40 damage and locks them inside. Then it drives off the edge of the stage for a kill. You can even attack it to damage an enemy inside!

It sounds like a devastating attack, but it’s often underwhelming. The van’s AI isn’t great, and it can’t chase targets into the air. Sometimes it leaps off the edge and dies as soon as it’s spawned. It can be destroyed by enemy attacks, which can free a captive inside or even prevent the arrest from happening. And after all that, a busted enemy can free themselves by mashing the dodge button to evade the instant death.

For these reasons, it’s best not to rely on the Mystery Machine. Don’t go out of your way to collect evidence as Velma if it would mean putting yourself or your team in a bad position. That said, definitely call the gang if you have the evidence for it: even if it usually fails, summoning the van forces the enemy to respond immediately and can disrupt them.

How to Win 2v2 Battles as Velma in MultiVersus

This section of the Velma MultiVersus guide will review how to work with a teammate. Velma’s greatest strength is her wealth of teamplay abilities. Firing at your teammate with the neutral speech bubbles or the megaphone sends a stronger version at your enemies, so it’s always a good idea to aim at your allies first. Despite Velma’s strengths, she’s also light, and has some trouble scoring kills. Even her most reliable kill moves won’t work unless the enemy’s at very high damage.

Since Velma needs a teammate who can help on offense and defense, a good partner for her would be a Tank or a durable Brawler who can keep enemies away from Velma while taking advantage of her heals. Shaggy, appropriately enough, is a good option, as long as he doesn’t leave you in the cold while he powers up. LeBron is also a heavy Brawler, and can stack projectile-boosting perks with you. Any current Tank works well with Velma, each for different reasons: Wonder Woman has a lot of cooldown moves, and can make use of Velma’s down special. Iron Giant is huge, and is very easy to hit with healing beams. Superman can use his ice breath alongside Velma’s freezing up special, including the Break The Ice perk for bonus damage.

How to Win 1v1 Battles as Velma in MultiVersus

This section of the Velma MultiVersus guide detailes 1v1 strategy. Velma’s abilities are powerful, but most of them are designed to amplify her teammate. She’s not built for 1v1 at all. It’s not impossible, though, with some clever play. Her targeting speech bubble won’t track enemies, but it travels quickly and has a short cooldown, and if it connects, the follow-up speech bubbles do track. Her megaphone is extremely risky in 1v1, and is only safe if used at range.

As with most 1v1 confrontations, the best plan is to move quickly and threaten the enemy with large hitboxes. For Velma, an advancing side air will often catch an incoming enemy. Her side ground attack is also tough to contest, as long as you don’t rely on the full three hits. One hit cancelled into a different attack is safer. She still has issues securing kills, though. You could try for an early spike or offstage side air, but in a pinch, down air onstage will kill off the top around 130 damage.

Velma’s Best Perks

For the last section of the Velma MultiVersus guide, let’s go over her perk options. She has two Signature Perks, and both of them affect the evidence that spawns from her attacks.

• Studied starts Velma out with one free evidence, so she only needs to collect four instead of five to call the Mystery Machine.
• Knowledge Is Power gives Velma’s teammate 3 points of grey health, absorbing damage, when they pick up a piece of evidence.

This one’s easy: Use Studied in 1v1 (because Knowledge Is Power will have no effect) and Knowledge is Power in 2v2 (because the Mystery Machine often fails and it’s better to have the guaranteed grey health).

For her minor perks, Velma can focus on strengthening her projectile offense or her dodge-based defense. These should be chosen based on which ones will also benefit your teammate.

• Coffeezilla is great on Velma, lowering the cooldown of her healing megaphone from “practically nothing” to “almost nothing”.
• Deadeye and Shirt Cannon Sniper are good general damage boosters if your teammate also uses projectiles.
• Ice To Beat You and That’s Flammable, Doc are another way to boost projectile damage. It works well combined with Hit ‘Em While They’re Down and a teammate with debuff potential, like Batman or Taz.
• Dodging remains the most effective defensive option, so dodge-strengthening perks like Slippery Customer and Hit Me If You’re Able are solid picks in all circumstances, especially for 1v1.
• Lastly, Triple Jump is great when stacked, so your teammate might be mad at you if you don’t have it.

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