[CS1-CSE] Valkenhayn General Discussion

[TD]

l thought it was even :P

l missed the whole stream woooo. ggs me

[Lockhart]

I'm just terrible against fighting Litchi. That's a bad match up mentally for me regardless of any character I used... and I was a former Bang player. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to play casuals ( or in the tournament ) against Lord Knight but I did get to be blown up on the stream by none other than Tokido. It was unfortunate, but I had loads of fun. I dropped so many combos against him, it was frustrating.

Need more Litchi experience.... way too many Makotos in my area and only one Litchi.

[OrionXElite]

Valk/Litchi is probably 6-4 Litchi. Valk can match her range but the biggest problem is that Litchi has better defensive options. And tack onto that Litchi's INSANE offensive power, you need to hit her first and play it smart. Its hard, but Valk probably has the best matchup against her aside from Tao since he can kill her in literally 2 combos. Biggest thing to pay attention to is if she doesn't have her staff, go fucking nuts with your rushdown. The staff is her only way out of cause of her DP. No staff=No DP so Wolf up and get in.

But defensively for Valk, best advice is don't get into a situation where you have to block. Sounds hard, but its the best option. Play footsies instead of Block/Punish. Both confirm into big damage even at max range so the Risk/Reward is equally high for both characters

[Sahgren]

I've been looking at Arcadia's tier lists for CS2 and I'm kinda confused as to why one person put Valk at low-mid, and the second put him at S. Can people just not agree on how much his offense covers for his lack of defense?

[OrionXElite]

I think its more they're trying to decide how well everyone else's defence can cover Valk's offensive power. With the buffs to character's like Rachel and Tager, Valk's matchups against them has evened out. Tager now has options to deal with Valk's offensive bullshit and Rachel as better zoning strength to keep him at bay. So as he gets more even matchups as others are starting to show signs of having good matchups, he'll slowly drop in tier even if he has no legit bad matchups.

[Guardian]

I think whoever put him at B tier has it best; he may even be A tier. Plus it seems like they're still trying to flesh out specifics about match ups and such, as Orion already stated. I think S tier is a little overrated though, esp in CS2.

[Sahgren]

Yeah, the more videos I watch, the more it seems like Valk just has a much hard time dealing with zoners and in general characters that keep him out of his effective range now, especially since he isn't killing them by landing 2-3 combos anymore. That alone seems like it would prevent him from S tier.

Still, it interests me that people don't seem to be able to agree on how strong he is. I wonder how everything will turn out as people find even more tricks, gimicks, and combos that could potentially change everything.

Edited April 6, 2011 by Sahgren

[OrionXElite]

I'd put Valk at a solid A Tier after all is figured out. Hes got probably the best footsies in the game only rivaled by Litchi and Ragna, His mixup once you work the Wolf in becomes hands down the strongest in the game. In the corner, his pressure with 6B and 6C become nearly unbeatable and everything ends in a guard crush. Wolf helps very much with Zoning assuming you're patient about it. Valk's only REAL downside is he has trouble on defense against characters who have strong pressure like Bang or Makoto or Noel. 6A yielding a higher reward makes the risk worth taking more often to help with that though. So all in all, he has no fatal flaws that can be abused. Hes still a very strong character overall and him getting his damage reduced does not mean hes gonna be bad despite what some may think.

[Dusty]

I'd put Valk at a solid A Tier after all is figured out. Hes got probably the best footsies in the game only rivaled by Litchi and Ragna, His mixup once you work the Wolf in becomes hands down the strongest in the game. In the corner, his pressure with 6B and 6C become nearly unbeatable and everything ends in a guard crush. Wolf helps very much with Zoning assuming you're patient about it. Valk's only REAL downside is he has trouble on defense against characters who have strong pressure like Bang or Makoto or Noel. 6A yielding a higher reward makes the risk worth taking more often to help with that though. So all in all, he has no fatal flaws that can be abused. Hes still a very strong character overall and him getting his damage reduced does not mean hes gonna be bad despite what some may think.

I would put valk in lower mid-tier or mid-tier AT BEST. Orion has some very valid arguments like valks footsies as the range on those normals can zone some characters by themselves and moving around with wolf form can make valk very agile and attack from anywhere on the screen. But valk has too many flaws in CS2 to make him a heavy contender in B tier and defiantly not A tier.

1. The damage has been reduced across the board (minus makoto,noel,jin, and hazama), you may not see this as a flaw specifically for valk at first but this leads to my next reason.

2. His mix up and pressure as good as it may SEEM TO BE is unsafe. Sure alot of moves are plus on block but that have a long start up and if you get predictable to CAN be hit out of your mix up/pressure (unless you are using completely safe pressure but then you can't open your opponent up).

3. The reason why valk is so good and borderline broken in CS1 is because of his FRAME ADVANTAGE FROM HIS NORMALS AND DAMAGE COMBINED (And 4k off counter assault but that's just my gripe). When you take away the fear of getting hit for 6k+ players are more confident in taking the risk of pushing buttons to get out of valks mix up or pressure, which is valks main weakness as valk can be hit out of many things.

4. CS2 is a more pressure and offensive based game (at least in the corner) and since valk has no way of getting out of pressure he will mostly get pressured and oki'd to death. (my advice to valk players learn to block and COUNTER ASSAULT IS GOING TO BE YOUR FRIEND IN CS2!!!)

5. Plat is really good. She has just about every tool and will very likely be one of valks worst match ups as she has the tools to out zone him but more important bubble oki. Plat can keep valk stuck in the corner and mix him up til death.

Valk will still be a very viable character in CS2 but only if you valk players learn to PLAY VALKENHAYN instead of playing combos (<----- Thumbs up if you know what this means)

[Guardian]

Low-mid at best??? I have problems with that. Anyone with a mixup this good in ANY game has never been low-mid tier, and if they were, it was because everyone above them was obscenely broken (only example I can think of is Caster in FUC). Sure if you're doing telegraphed guard strings then people can be a little more liberal with taking risks, but good valks never do too many str8 up guard strings. It will be multiple transitions between wolf and human, with a TON of CH baits in between. You said yourself this is a pressure/offensive based game; how can a character with one of the best mixups be low mid?

Your reasons for #4 and 5 seem to be the same; people have to start rushing him down in order to beat him. This is going to be difficult to do as he still has excellent movement (best in the game probably), numerous ways to get in on zoning characters, and a CA that pushes rushdown characters to the other side of the screen. Wolf drills still build fantastic meter, and it's very rare that valk is w/o 50%.

Mid tier, definitely. Low mid? Not a chance.

[Sahgren]

Not to put down your arguments, Dusty, but I just want to provide some counterarguments.

Getting hit out of predictable mix up is the standard risk of throwing out mix up in the first place; you're giving the opponent a chance to react in return for landing an attack that the opponent has fewer options to block against. Having a mix up that doesn't give the opponent a chance to respond at some point would be honestly unbalanced. Even wolf mode, which gives a true high/low/throw mix up comes with the corresponding risk of being defenseless when you're not forcing the opponent to block.

The IB nerf works just as much for Valk as it does against him. While it makes Valk's crappy defense even worse, the only real nerfs to Valk frame wise were 236A and 6C, so his pressure remains strong after accounting for the IB nerf (just no 236A spam, but that was stupid to begin with). We always needed to spend meter to get out of strong pressure, I'm not all too surprised that we'll still need that for CS2.

Unrelated: Valk's CS1 CA only gets 4k if you spend even more meter. I, personally, am never going to spend 100 heat on a combo that has a 0% chance of killing the opponent.

[GenoWhirl]

TBH our shenanigans got buffed now that Nacht Rozen is not an overhead

FINISH BLOCKSTRING WITH 236C

7C

PUNISH 5A MASH

????

:U

[OrionXElite]

Valk having weaker damage in CS2 is perfectly ok. He NEEDED a damage reduction to begin with cause his damage output was unmatched for how easy it was to obtain it. Arakune could rival it sure, but he needed to work to get curse to get that damage. Valk was just "Are they in the air? 2C! Did it hit? 7K! Did they block? JUMP! Did it whiff? DO IT AGAIN!" Its dumb that one Anti Air does 80% on most of the cast. So him having lower damage is fine. It means Valk HAS to use Wolf mixup a lot more cause I will contest that Valk has far and beyond the best mixup in the game. If I ever meet anyone who blocks a full meter Wolf mixup with highs, lows and command grabs, I'll quit him forever. Its impossible to block it all cause of how fast it is but because its so hard to block, he doesn't much damage for it. He relies on solid oki and footsies damage. Not to mention Valk's pressure in the corner can be ridiculously hard to deal with if you don't have a reversal like Tager or Arakune. Also as for Valk's defense, if you play really aggressively, you'll hardly be in a defensive situation. Valk is meant to be pure, fucked up rush down that is just relentless and unforgiving. The risk/reward of mashing out of his pressure is pretty even cause if you mess and he hits you, you eat shit. You hit him and get him in a reset, he'll eat shit. Total give and take.

I'm 100% convinced he will be A tier, hes a solid character who has trouble on defense. Hes the same as Bang just minus the Nails and add the Wolf.

[TD]

thinking about forming a twilight team in cs2. if not, imma need one of you guys to be my personal butler

[Famhuss]

hello ppl,

So i just bought valk yesterday and was thinking of learning him.

After doing some challange mode and reading a couple topics on this site I felt kind of lost =/

So maybe some more experienced ppl would like to help me out?

I have played Ragna since CT so I am fammiliar with BB in general.

1. What does valk's tool set look like?

5b and 5c look like nice pokes and 2c is probably an anti air, 6c is an overhead, 6a has a guard point(dunno if thats really good) are there any more normals like this?

2. What combo's would you consider to be BnB?

I tried looking in the technical discussion thread but the sheer amount of combo's boggled my mind...

3. Valk is suppossed to have really good pressure, could you give me an example of this in the form of a blockstrings etc?

4. What are good hitconfirms voor valk?

I'm not expecting to someone to spoon me all the awnsers as much as I'm looking for a place to start...

Tyvm in advance!

[Dusty]

Valk having weaker damage in CS2 is perfectly ok. He NEEDED a damage reduction to begin with cause his damage output was unmatched for how easy it was to obtain it.

In CS2 the top tiers WILL take away half your life if you get hit by them. So the damage reduction as it may be need FOR CS1, some characters in CS2 can do about the same bullshit damage output he could do in CS1 but now he cannot, dropping Valk in tiers.

It means Valk HAS to use Wolf mixup a lot more cause I will contest that Valk has far and beyond the best mixup in the game. If I ever meet anyone who blocks a full meter Wolf mixup with highs, lows and command grabs, I'll quit him forever. Its impossible to block it all cause of how fast it is but because its so hard to block, he doesn't much damage for it.

Valks mixup in NOWHERE rear the best in the game. Valk's pressure cannot keep you shut down nor is it SAFE TO DO, Valk can be hit out of ANY of his mix ups while other characters can mix you up safely behind frame advantage or set ups and they can get BIG DAMAGE off of hitting the opponent behind this safety. When you have a character who you can beat by mashing when you SEE their mixup cannot have the best mixup in the game. Also I guess you'll have to quit then Orion cuz I've seen Spark block the Valk/wolf mixup then disrespect it and kill Valk.

He relies on solid oki and footsies damage. Not to mention Valk's pressure in the corner can be ridiculously hard to deal with if you don't have a reversal like Tager or Arakune. Also as for Valk's defense, if you play really aggressively, you'll hardly be in a defensive situation. Valk is meant to be pure, fucked up rush down that is just relentless and unforgiving. The risk/reward of mashing out of his pressure is pretty even cause if you mess and he hits you, you eat shit. You hit him and get him in a reset, he'll eat shit. Total give and take.

There are a lot of characters that have solid oki and footsies, except other characters get more reward for it. Just about any character can be relentlessly pressure people in the corner if you are doing it right, but if a upper tier character pressures you, mixes you up and if you get hit you just don't eat shit, YOU STRAIGHT UP DIE, valk doesn't have the ability in CS2 to instill this fear into an opponent in CS2 (God forbid you get hit by hazama mid screen when he has 50 meter). The risk reward for mashing out a valk is nowhere near even, some characters can mash you out and take 50% life for getting that sweet counter hit, this can happen every time you try to pressure them, this is not even. The same can go for an opponent who is mashing and gets CH by valk but hey learn to mash at the right times.

Why I feel like Valk is low mid - mid tier at best is because sure he's a good character and yes he has tools and options, its just other characters do it better. I feel like you guys only rate Valk as you seem him by himself but you have to take into account the other characters options, because it's a fighting game which i feel like you guys forgot about. One of Valks weaknesses is having no reversal while other characters for example Jin does have a reversal and can do damage and have good oki. When you take other characters options into consideration vs. Valk options seems to be lacking in some area's

I'm 100% convinced he will be A tier, hes a solid character who has trouble on defense. Hes the same as Bang just minus the Nails and add the Wolf.

Your doing it wrong.

[TD]

yea valk has to condition ppl and even still he aint that hard to block. give it a month, everyone's going to be blocking hima's blockstrings :P

he's more of a frametrap/bait char with good mixup IF YOU RESPECT him alot. rachel? she has all the gdlk mixup. not valk.

[Sahgren]

Dusty, you seem to be having a grand ol' time going around proclaiming that Valk's mix up is "unsafe", but you have yet to say why exactly it's more unsafe than others. Despite frame advantages, any time a character attempts a high/low/throw mix up, there will be enough time that mashing 5A/2A will poke them out of it. Wolf mode is special in that mixing up high-low doesn't leave enough of a gap to poke back, in return for reducing Valk's defense to 0.

Getting predictable will get your mix up blocked. Period. Even for Valk (it's not like it's a literal unblockable). Still, forcing the opponent to guess whether you're going to do an overhead, go low, or c-grab after every single attack without a chance to strike back isn't what could be considered a weak mix up, especially in a game like BB where nearly everything can be beaten with a good reaction time.

[Dusty]

Dusty, you seem to be having a grand ol' time going around proclaiming that Valk's mix up is "unsafe", but you have yet to say why exactly it's more unsafe than others. Despite frame advantages, any time a character attempts a high/low/throw mix up, there will be enough time that mashing 5A/2A will poke them out of it. Wolf mode is special in that mixing up high-low doesn't leave enough of a gap to poke back, in return for reducing Valk's defense to 0.

Getting predictable will get your mix up blocked. Period. Even for Valk (it's not like it's a literal unblockable). Still, forcing the opponent to guess whether you're going to do an overhead, go low, or c-grab after every single attack without a chance to strike back isn't what could be considered a weak mix up, especially in a game like BB where nearly everything can be beaten with a good reaction time.

Bang's pressure is far superior with nails as he can force you to sit there atleast in CS1, i believe D nails was nerfed in CS2 but bang gets frame advantage in CS1 even if you IB TK D nails, then he can 5A which MAKES you sit then go for a frametrap, overhead that can gatling into another overhead, or command grab, bang obviously has more options than valk. valk cannot make you sit there. The other main difference is YOU HAVE TO RESPECT BANGS MIX UP, even if you try to mash out of bangs overheads he'll counter hit YOU, you don't have to respect anything about valk's mixup. If he's pressuring you and you see him transform into wolf mash that 5A or GTFO, his overheads are slow and he can be hit out of them regardless of what valk does. (Or you can play SF4 and uppercut when you smell bullshit and hit valk)

Ragna can mixup under the safety of dead spike

Hazama can mix up of 5B (it's +2) or he can jabaki and Rapid cancel for safe mixup

Litchi has staff oki

Rachel has George and instant overhead J.A

Makoto has orb

Plat has bubble and hammer...goddamn that hammer......

I could keep going

All of these set ups for mix ups you HAVE to respect or else guess what your gonna get counter hit, Valk doesn't have anything like these to make the opponent respect you on offense.

VS. wolf mode pressure block low and react to that thing flying at you for the overhead which is pretty slow. Command grab? Just have decent yomi which is required for high level play. How hard is it to block the wolf mix up again?

Btw you shouldn't be guessing on blocking mix up you should be REACTING.

[StarryShade]

Btw you shouldn't be guessing on blocking mix up you should be REACTING.

You just kinda...proved your own point false, the reason Valk has such scary pressure and offense is BECAUSE it's so hard to react to, you're practically forced to guess. But this is America, no one can block. And yeah Valk even has human pressure you have to respect. I'm sorry but a standing 2C CH is really fucking scary to me in BOTH games.

[TD]

i dont think its how long you sit, with valk its a matter of how much respect is given. he has frame traps and ways around mashing. he has a mix of very safe things (pressure) and very unsafe things (mixup) and its the valk's job to get the respect he needs to dominate. l mean look at makoto and rachel, two short range chars with very few chances to pressure without having to do something risky and get back into point blank range, but with very safe pressure once in, and ways around mashing. goes to show you dont need 20 seconds of pressure in order for a char to be great.

valk can stop/bait many escape routes from many chars with his bs normals/specials, its just a matter of applying the right one at the right time.

cs2 valk can do great imo with safe pressure, good mixup and ways around people who dont block. you just gotta be creative. l personally like cs2 valk WAY better (hence me learning him :P)

[GenoWhirl]

Safe, unsafe, whatever. We all know the best way is to mash 7C

All day

[Sahgren]

Funny, you claim that Valk's c-grab doesn't mean anything since yomi can beat it, and that the fact that he can freely double overhead and switch between highs and lows in wolf mode isn't good mix up because it's "slow", then you list double overheads and a c-grab as Bang's strengths, despite Bang getting nerfed just as hard (or possibly harder) than Valk, and that his double overhead/c-grab are all just as slow/slower than Valk's in wolf in the first place. Just to be certain, are we even talking about the same game here? The Bangs are all sad that their pressure isn't as strong in CS2 for a reason.

As for what you listed; you're apparently claiming that Valk's mixup isn't safe because he doesn't have oki that forces it to start. That's all fine and dandy, people bitch about BB not having true oki for a reason. That doesn't mean that once he gets in with wolf mode, he automatically going to be hit out for trying something.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Sahgren

[Guardian]

You can't block valk on reaction; his mixup is equivalent to Millia's. If you're blocking wolf mix ups all the time, then the valk you're playing isn't that great. I seriously doubt anyone could consistently block a fuzzy guard mixup several times in a row, and I'm not talking about from C dashes.

My God I wish I could make a video to put some of this to rest

[Sahgren]

You can't block valk on reaction; his mixup is equivalent to Millia's. If you're blocking wolf mix ups all the time, then the valk you're playing isn't that great. I seriously doubt anyone could consistently block a fuzzy guard mixup several times in a row, and I'm not talking about from C dashes.

My God I wish I could make a video to put some of this to rest

Actually, I wouldn't quite mind a tutorial-esque video along those lines. It'd be good to learn about more mix ups with Valk, the ones I'm doing are too reliant on me having full wolf meter to get any damage off of them.