[CS2] Taokaka General Discussion

[KM Riku]

Not only that but Tao can use the j.8D~A loop from more setups than taunt loop (6A AA for ~3,1k for example). More untechable time for DE was definitely a great buff and Tao will improve more since a lot of stuff isn't fully explored yet ([2]C forcing FC in combo for example)

[Ronove]

Yeah, I guess that's why she's able to get full damage even when hitconfirming off 2A, the buff at her drive's untechable time prevents opponents from being able to tech too soon. This coupled with the IB nerf is making her pressure really scary. She's become sort of like Makoto, in the sense that any hit of her regular blockstring leads to the same setup/combo without having to worry for the opponent to tech when the combo is hitconfirmed off 2A or 2B starters. The only thing that changes is obviously damage depending on what the first hitconfirmed normal was, but still being to able to fully capitalize off ANYTHING is going to be sweet.

Her style overall hasn't changed that much, but atleast now Tao has less worries about trying to forcefully create gaps to get her best hitconfirms in and instead she can take almost any opportunity. I say almost because clearly the vids have shown that are still occasions where even if a blockstring was hitconfirmed she can't go into her regular BnB path (like when 5B is hit too far and the 236A could whiff, I've seen some Taos use the bowling ball or use [2]8D to atleast keep the pressure on the opponent's wakeup). But it seems to be rare compared to the times when she was in the range to go into her j.8D loop.

Edited February 2, 2011 by Ronove

[KM Riku]

I played a little of CS2 in my PSP (for god sake, the PSP 1000 pad is horrible). Here some notes:

-Taokaka combos in general are less character specific, doing combos against Hazama and Litchi is not horrible anymore. Also I think you don't need to delay j.8D too much after a j.C.

-j.8D~A is not difficult if you already knew taunt loop. I still have some problems doing it midscreen after 3 j.8D~A (also this shitty pad is not helping), but most of midscreen setups only use 3 or less anyway. In the conner is much easier to do it.

-You can j.B+C->RC->[2]C FC just like you can do using 4B+C. As follow-up, midscreen you can use 5B->5C and 6C in the coner/back to the coner (if you do it earlier). I couldn't test it very well, but from what I saw it's not worth speding 50 meter that you could use for CA or AB2 combos.

-The j.D nerf isn't as bad as I thought it would be. In my opnion, this nerf will only make the Hazama/Arakune matchup a little more annoying.

EDIT:

-I thought about posting her challenges here, but they even worse than CS1 challenges

-As I feared, j.2D~B doesn't cross-up anymore 3:

Edited March 30, 2011 by KM Riku

[Ronove]

Surely you've got guts playing the portable version.

I can't use a pad at all when I'm playing fighting games, let alone PSP's controls (though I do own one myself I certainly do not use it to play fighting games on it).

Anyway, having translated Tao's frame data I found other subtle changes besides those that were already known... for example AB2 lasts longer than it used to in CS1. The most significant changes seem to be involve her drive moves (more hitstop) and slight damage/proration nerf compared to CS1 (but the damage nerf is compensated by the new j.8D~A loop). Or like, her 6A is a little bit slower (12 instead of 11) in startup but is barely safe on normal block (not on IB).

Overall Tao has remained pretty much the same in terms of game plan and things that she's able to do (minus the taunt loop), if her matchups are going to change it won't be due to her changes but rather because of the other characters' changes instead.

Edited March 31, 2011 by Ronove

[KM Riku]

Any explanation how the fuck combos starting with j.C and j.B are doing so much damage even without the loop now (3,7k midscreen without loop? That's even more than we could do in CS1 with taunt loop)? In coner, a combo with a j.C starter does the same or even more damage than a 6C starter combo (~4,2k if I remember right)

About Tao matchups, seeing from the videos I would say she might have a slightly bad matchup against Rachel and Jin. Not sure about Makoto...it seems more like...until she catches you, Tao has the advantage...but in the moment she catches you, hope to have meter for a CA or to your opponent to screw up the pressure...it was good to crawl her 2A 3:. I would say or it's a slightly good matchup for Makoto or even.

Edited March 31, 2011 by KM Riku

[Ronove]

j.C and j.2B starters lead to more damage because their proration was buffed (P1 90 and P2 89), even her j.A has pretty good proration in CS2. It's pretty damn sweet because Tao often manages to score one of the two during her pressure/mixup, and it's going to make people respect her jump-ins (which could add an other layer of mindgames when going for hi-low mixups.

vs Makoto looks even in CS2. She has good AA but Tao can still run around and pressure/mixup safely, has great jump-ins that lead to good damage, and she can crawl and generally bait and punish. Biggest problem vs Makoto remains her j.B and overall better abare and post-combo situations (corner oki, which Tao suffers a lot until she's got 50%). vs Jin and Rachel it feels like we're almost back to our CT matchups, I say almost because Tao is definetely better now, but these characters now have a strong corner game and that's still one of Tao's weak points.

[edit]

I just watched Seiji's match vs the Mu-12 player (Maguro), and boy I am amazed:

- First off, the most impressive thing now is that Tao is able to deal 5K off j.A with 50% meter on a cornered opponent. This again is due to proration buff to all of her aerial moves. The combo that Seiji did was (on a cornered opponent) j.A > j.C > 5B > 3C > AB2 Ender , which is also not hard to pull off.

- second off, and again corner related, Tao has a different combo route when the opponent is near the corner (almost midscreen): (j.C >) 5B > 3C > 236A > 5D~B > 5C > j.8D~A > land > j(9).236B > j.D~B > j.2D~C > j.236Bx5 , deals 3.2k damage. Cool thing about this combo is that it allows Tao to keep the opponent close to the ground meaning that after the j.236Bx5 she gets pseudo-knockdown and oki (crossup as shown in the video, but potentially even ground left-right mixup and crossunder with 2B). Again, this works only because when she's able to reach the corner after her 5C.

This stuff is truly amazing and definetely makes Tao a hella lot more dangerous than she already is.

Edited March 31, 2011 by Ronove

[Stan McJeeves]

This news coming from the portable version sounds great. Curse you for putting region locks on my 3DS, Nintendo. I guess I'll have to wait until the fall for the US version (if Aksys even announces it).

[KM Riku]

Doing a combo with more than 3 j.8D~A midscreen is very annoying. The first 3 j.8D~A pretty much have all the same timing, but after the third one you need to delay the next j.8D~A/2D~C more for each repetition...but most of pratical miscreen setups only use 3 j.8D~A (with the exception of 6A that you can do it 6x, but the max I got midscreen was only 4). Also another midscreen problem is that sometimes after 2D~C you need to jump before doing 8D~6, otherwise it will miss...but until now this didn't happen too much. However, in the coner it's pretty easy and fun :3

In general I wouldn't say that j.8D~A loop is harder than taunt loop, but I think it's easier to screw it up.

Edit: My friend took some Tao matchup chart done by 3 players from jbbs:

＼|Rag||Jin||Noe||Tag||Tao||Rac||Ara||Lit||Car||Ban||Hak||Λ11||Tsu||Haz||μ12||Mak||Val||Pla|

猫|6.0||4.5||5.5||6.0||-.-||4.5||5.5||6.0||5.5||6.0||6.0||6.0||5.5||5.5||6.0||5.0||5.0||6.0|

猫|5.5||5.0||4.5||6.5||-.-||4.5||6.0||5.0||5.0||6.0||5.5||6.0||5.0||4.5||5.5||4.0||5.0||5.5|

猫|5.0||4.5||4.5||6.0||-.-||4.5||6.0||5.0||5.0||6.0||5.5||6.0||5.5||4.5||5.5||4.5||5.0||5.5|

Kinda surprised about Tao having such good matchup against Arakune.

Edited April 1, 2011 by KM Riku

[Stan McJeeves]

Edit: My friend took some Tao matchup chart done by 3 players from jbbs:

＼|Rag||Jin||Noe||Tag||Tao||Rac||Ara||Lit||Car||Ban||Hak||Λ11||Tsu||Haz||μ12||Mak||Val||Pla|

猫|6.0||4.5||5.5||6.0||-.-||4.5||5.5||6.0||5.5||6.0||6.0||6.0||5.5||5.5||6.0||5.0||5.0||6.0|

猫|5.5||5.0||4.5||6.5||-.-||4.5||6.0||5.0||5.0||6.0||5.5||6.0||5.0||4.5||5.5||4.0||5.0||5.5|

猫|5.0||4.5||4.5||6.0||-.-||4.5||6.0||5.0||5.0||6.0||5.5||6.0||5.5||4.5||5.5||4.5||5.0||5.5|

Kinda surprised about Tao having such good matchup against Arakune.

If I'm reading that chart correctly (although I doubt I am), it looks like Tao has a positive match up against pretty much anyone who isn't Jin, Noel, Rachel, Mu, or Makoto. That's actually pretty good considering most of the characters I listed are S(?) tier.

[Ronove]

They're all positive, IMO.

A 4.5 isn't terrible, it only means there's a slight disadvantage. This could technically mean that she's able to fight on equal grounds with the strongest characters and have comfortable matchups as well.

[Domethieus]

I'm having trouble with Taos 8D~A loop from the 2nd time onward. I can get the first one easily but everytime I try buffering her either 8D~A or 2D~A, it comes out as 5D lolol. Any help on this?

Tao does seem to have good matchups overall.

[KM Riku]

I'm having trouble with Taos 8D~A loop from the 2nd time onward. I can get the first one easily but everytime I try buffering her either 8D~A or 2D~A, it comes out as 5D lolol. Any help on this?

Tao does seem to have good matchups overall.

You are doing it too fast, keep holding 8 or 9 (I think 9 works better midscreen, but I can't test it right with PSP Fat pad >_>) and press D~A when the opponent stops spining and fall. I still have problems doing more than 3 j.8D~A in a midscreen combos though >_>

Edited April 1, 2011 by KM Riku

[Domethieus]

For midscreen, you just need to input it faster but delay the ~A a bit. I got the midscreen to loop 4 times for me till I had to finish it with the J.8D~A > J.8D~9 > 2D > 236B lolol. Got the damage to 2.8k with 6A start

[KM Riku]

For midscreen, you just need to input it faster but delay the ~A a bit. I got the midscreen to loop 4 times for me till I had to finish it with the J.8D~A > J.8D~9 > 2D > 236B lolol. Got the damage to 2.8k with 6A start

My problem usually is not hitting the fourth j.8D~A, but hitting the 2D~C/fifth j.8D~A after it...it doesn't hit no matter what I do. After the fourth j.8D~A, I tried to a neutral 2D to see if I was doing the cancel too early...but it was not the case. Anyway, 6A->j.8D~A (3x)->finisher does 3k and doing all the 6 j.8D~A does 3.3k...it's not a big difference and doing only 3 times midscreen is safer. All other midscreen setups is 3 reps or less.

Edit: Okay, after some more testing...doing j.C->5B->3C->236A->5D~B->5C->j.8D~A (3x)->finisher against some character can be a little annoying (...Hazama for example), however the combo works without problems using only 2 j.8D~A for 3,8k. The damage difference is less than 100 and is more confortable to do.

Edit2: Forget what I said in the first edit, her 2D can be done a little faster than the j.8D~A and I was doing it too late.

Edited April 2, 2011 by KM Riku

[zeech]

So, now that people have the game and can try stuff, can someone please tell me if Tao has any simple and moderately damaging (ie. better than 5B > 5C > 236AAAAA > 5D ) combos that dont require drive cancels (on hit) ?

Edit: fine, changing mains then T_T

Edited April 3, 2011 by zeech

[KM Riku]

Short answer: No

Long answer: No

Tao needs drive cancels in her combos even more now because of DE same move proration and her 3C not being Drive Cancelable anymore. And I already said this to you, but...if you can't drive cancel in her combos and don't want to learn it...change your mains because you won't do any progress playing Tao without using her drive cancels.

Edited April 2, 2011 by KM Riku

[Scalpel]

4b+c -> 236cc -> 2d~9 -> j.c -> 9d -> j.c -> 9d -> 236bbbb

Wondering if this is still an available combo with the important bits bolded. Haven't played in a while and it's looking like CS2 Kaka is a completely different cat from CT and CS to me.

Also about her new drive loop, is the 8 in j.8D bufferable from her jump? As in jump, and hold the stick in that position to buffer the 8D.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Scalpel

[Stan McJeeves]

As far as I know, I don't think the combo you have in bold works. The following is pretty simple, and it's Tao's basic BnB combo ender:

(j.8D~A loop) -> 2D~C -> j.8D -> j.5D~6 -> j.C -> j.8D~6 -> j.3D -> 236B x5

As for the new loop (the j.8D~A loop), what I usually do is jump (and hold the stick at 8), press D, then cancel with A, and repeat. So to answer your question (if I'm reading it correctly), yes, you can just hold the stick up instead of needing to push it up twice. If you need more info about combos and the like, check out Tao's CS2 combo topic.

http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?11373-CS2-Edition-Taokaka-Combo-and-BnB-thread.

[Akira-Shiro]

Does her fatal into 6C gives wall bounce. Also whats up with her taunt ?.? no one does it anymore >.> is it useless now or people just havnt found a way to cultivate it into her new j.D loop

[Lord Knight]

taunt doest have positive proration anymore

6c is wallbound not wallbounce, so no fatal 2c > 6c unless near the corner

EDIT: tao 214d auto turns around now? you dont have to do 2147d anymore?

gdlk

Edited May 5, 2011 by Lord Knight

[Mystic d]

taunt doest have positive proration anymore

6c is wallbound not wallbounce, so no fatal 2c > 6c unless near the corner

EDIT: tao 214d auto turns around now? you dont have to do 2147d anymore?

gdlk

6C CH is still a wallbounce. and i can't wait for 214D autocorrect

[Akira-Shiro]

OHHHH 214D auto-correct.. thats why people are able to do a 214D J.c crossup........

[KM Riku]

well...2C doesn't fatal unless fully charged, but you can [2]C FC->[6]C midscreen (6C fully charged does wallbounce midscren)...but I doubt seeing this happening unless you guard break (lol guard breaking with Tao). 2C CH still staggers, so you can dash->5B->6A/3C.

Taunt's P2 is 20% and her drives now have same-move proration...so using it in her combos is impossible unless you want Astral or you bait a burst and use taunt since it's P1 is still 100%

Now that I have played Tao CS2 more and I'm doing her j.8D~A loop with dash constantly, I'm going to write more impressions:

-Tao, in general, feels easier to play since her combos are less character specific because of j.2D/8D direction change, her drive has more hit stun, so doing combos against Hazama/Litchi/Mu isn't a pain in the ass now, and she has more reward after pratical starters than Tao CS1. Even doing 2 or 3 reps of the j.8D~A loop must not be hard at all and the damage difference isn't that big in most of setups.

-After playing more, I think that j.8D~A loop is much easier to learn than taunt loop. It's less character specific, have less repetitions, you don't have anything annoying like 6A->JC->j.2D~B, even if you don't do all repetitions the damage difference is very low in most cases and the commands are easier

-Even though j.2D~B doesn't cross-up anymore, 214D auto-correction is awesome. Sometimes you may not be able to do a 3C->236A later, but you still can do 5B->6A->loop. Also her throw range is good again, yay :3

-Tao's max damage without gold burst is pretty much 4-5k. Even with gold bursts, her damage doesn't increase that much...so it's not worth using it in the middle of her combos. Of course, this isn't important at all since her damage from more pratical starters increased

-The new j.B isn't as useful as I thought it would be. The first hit being a overhead is kinda useful, but the hitbox is not that great to hit crouching characters. At least it's useful to combo after a Hexa-edge.

-Another disappointment is that 2C fully charged forcing Fatal is almost useless. In every pratical setup you need to spend 50 meter that you could use for a CA or AB2 finisher and it doesn't add much damage (like...500dmg). [2]C after a guard break would be godly, but unfortunately Tao doesn't have any useful move to break primes (at most Hexa-edge or 22C's 6th hit...but both are predictable)

-The only thing that I don't really like in Tao CS2 is that now her combos are too limited because of Dancing Edge same-move proration and taunt nerf. Even with taunt loop in CS1, you still had some cool alternatives with similar damage in most of setups (like 1 taunt->22C). Now I feel that I'm stuck with j.8D~A loop. Of course, this doesn't make Tao a worse character or anything...just that she's more 1-combo-character than before.

-In the end, I feel that Tao CS2 is more confortable to play than Tao CS1.

Edited May 6, 2011 by KM Riku

[Lord Knight]

i was weirded out cause whistler was doing raw sandoori and i was sooooo impressed, so i practiced 2147D without using a jump cancellable move beforehand. . .

now that i know it JUST WORKS, im not as impressed but its still really good

[Stan McJeeves]

As Riku pointed out, Tao definitely does feel easier to play. It took me around a week to get the tauntloop down perfectly, but I was actually able to get the j.8D~A loop into muscle memory in about an hour or so. As for Tao seeming like a 1-combo character, I think we'll be seeing a few new combos and tricks once CS2 hits the consoles. That way, the pros will have more time to play around with her in training mode to find some more combos and the like. I'm definitely looking forward to the improved 214D, as it'll be pretty fun to be able to quickly bounce around the opponent now.

One question though: I know I might be going nuts, or it may be due to updates, but CS2 seems to feel a lot slower and a lot more generous than CS` when it comes to reaction times (and how much time you have to string moves together). Has anyone else noticed this? I've noticed this with a lot of characters besides Tao too.