The most important part is to always be moving. Don't get hit.

Besides the 3.00x score multipliers while in the air and sliding, movement is still important to juke your enemy's attacks and keep your hard damage cap to a minimum. Close range damage is the only* way you can heal yourself, so the most common strategy new players should be using is to stay at mid-long range and sway in for close range attacks when low on health.

Damage tanks your active rank like crazy, especially when you're in the higher ranks like S and upwards, so it's more helpful to focus on dodging than attacking when you're in a pinch.

• Jump. Just be airborne. If you feel like you're gonna fall down, do a slam and then jump right as you hit the ground to bounce back up (and at a greater height, as well). If you're in the air for long enough, it gets you a 3.00x multiplier.
  
• Slide. Inherently faster than just walking around. You can jump out of your slide to immediately get a boost in speed. While you can get a 3.00x multiplier by staying in slide for long enough, it basically turns you into a sitting duck.
  
• Dash, but don't waste your stamina. If you're stuck in a mosh pit of monsters and marauders, and you don't have enough stamina to get the hell outta dodge, you're gonna have a bad time. Prioritize using other movement options such as slides, jumps, or just normal movement instead of dashes.
  
• That's not to say you shouldn't dash. Dashes give you invulnerability frames, you can keep the momentum by sliding after you dash, and you can expend an extra stamina point to do a super-fast dash jump.
  
• Advanced movement techniques. I know I said that this wasn't going to be a super technical guide, but an easy way to gain more speed is to dash, slide, and THEN jump. It gives you about the same distance as a regular dash jump without costing two bars of stamina.

Remember to parry whenever you can.

• Parrying regenerates all stamina and health up to the hard damage cap, even if the projectile being parried doesn't hit anything.
  
• Most attacks can be parried except for when a blue flash appears.
  
• If you can't dodge or attack yourself, parrying is always a good option. Keep this in mind for most interactions.
  
• The Knuckleblaster cannot parry, but it can reflect projectiles if timed correctly.

Aim is important too, but I don't have any advice for it besides just play the game. Lowering your sensitivity, disabling mouse acceleration, and getting a bigger mousepad can help, but it's up to you.

(Damage, Accuracy, etc. will be ranked from 1 to 5.)

Good for: Mid-long range engagements
Bad for: Crowd control

Damage: 3
Accuracy: 4
Versatility: 4
Ease-Of-Use: 5

Good for: Crowd control, short-range damage bursts
Bad for: Long-range engagements

Damage: 4
Accuracy: 3
Versatility: 4
Ease-Of-Use: 4

Good for: Close-range strikes, high-speed engagements
Bad for: Anything mid-range and further

Damage: 5
Accuracy: 3
Versatility: 2
Ease-Of-Use: 2

Good for: Single-target mow-downs, crowd-control
Bad for: Long-range engagements

Damage: 3
Accuracy: 3
Versatility: 3
Ease-Of-Use: 4

Good for: Single-target mow-downs, crowd-control
Bad for: Long-range engagements

Damage: 4
Accuracy: 3
Versatility: 1
Ease-Of-Use: 2

Good for: Long-range snipes, single-target damage, crowd control, HP regeneration
Bad for: Literally anything else

Damage: 6
Accuracy: 5
Versatility: 2
Ease-Of-Use: 3

Good for: Blowing stuff up, style, crowd control (if you're accurate)
Bad for: Crowd control (if you're not accurate)

Damage: 4
Accuracy: 4
Versatility: 3
Ease-Of-Use: 3

Hotswapping: - Switching weapons after you fire them can give you a higher rate of fire. The Shotgun's effective rate of fire can be increased via quickly changing your weapon or mod after shooting.

Coin Decking: Punching your coin while it's out sends it into the nearest enemy's weakspot, but resets its juggle state allowing for extra combos such as Punch + Rico, Punch + Split, and Punch + Punch + Punch + Pu you get the idea

Projectile Boosting: By punching your shotgun pellets right as they come out, you're able to turn it into a pseudo-rocket launcher with a more traditional function.

Core Sniping: You can shoot the Core with a hitscan weapon to manually detonate it and create an even larger red explosion. Sniping it with a Malicious Railcannon turns it into a nuke - the biggest and most damaging explosion there is.

Overpumping: Cocking your Pump Shotgun three times causes it to prime itself for a large, damaging explosion the next time you fire it. By dashing right before you fire, you're able to cancel out any damage that you could have taken.

Magnet Spam: Laying down all three of your magnets and then stuffing them with as many nails as possible right below an opponent that's just about to spawn or become vulnerable to attacks can do massive damage.

Quicksink: Fire a nail from the Attractor, then quickly swap to the Overheat and fire off a fully-charged Heatsink. Good for high damage.

Railcoining: You can snipe coins outta the air using either the Electric or the Malicious variant, causing more damage and style.

Railpiercing: The Electric railcannon can infinitely penetrate enemies, and as such, you can pierce an enemy while also aiming for a coin to do added damage as it bounces through the enemy, onto the coin, and into the nearest weakspot. This can be stacked, but it gets expoentially harder to do so.

Rocket Riding: By freezing your rocket mid-air and landing on it, you're able to ride it like a rocket-powered skateboard (kinda), being able to make twists and turns in the air for a short period of time before it starts to fall. Sadly, you cannot perform kickflips or other cool tricks while riding.

Easy SRS Cannon Tag: Charge your Cannon and fire it at any rate above 1/4 charge. Hit an enemy. Whiplash the cannon immediately after it impacts. Parry it right back towards the enemy. This is easier done when unmoving or on flat ground.

Otherwise, just projectile boost by tapping, then immediately punching. Easy anywhere.

"acknowledging your engagement distance with high threat enemies is really important too, especially on guys like Gabe, Minos, and V2. Don't fling yourself randomly around the fight unless you want to constantly reorient and reacquire lock on these extremely fast moving targets. Dance with them around the arena. If they go right, you go left, and always try to keep an orbit on each other, because if the dance falls apart, its more likely that they end up behind you than the other way around." - CozyTheMighty

"Knowing the "Enemy Threat Hierarchy" can keep you alive longer in fights. Cerberus, Malicious Face(Or Maurice) and Swordsmachines are all a lot harder to deal with than Soldiers, Strays, and Filths. Prioritize the strongest enemy in the room, and work your way down; no reason to bother with a piranha when there's a shark in the water" - Chaos

I don't know if you put this anywhere, but practice, practice, practice. Hakita added a sandbox for a reason. (Beyond just making funny Maurice statues.) Sure, you can sometimes parry on the off chance that you decide to take a swipe at a stray projectile, but if you can understand the enemy's windup animation, and the timing of the attack that follows, you can be much more likely to have the timing for that parry.

Of course, this applies to anything, but I've found that mastering (or just being able to do it relatively consistently) basic movement like slidehopping, dashhopping, and dash timing are really all you need in most situations. If you can learn how to parry a projectile every now and then, move around a little bit, and do a few weapon techs for that sweet sweet ULTRAKILL modifier, then you'll both enjoy the game a whole lot more than repeatedly slamming your face into the wall until you manage to win, and begin to really open the door for real improvement as a player if you keep putting the time in.

- Fluxxation

please do not bully me :(