[CS2/EX] Hakumen Info and Discussion

[ryokoalways]

New hakumen is better at controlling close-mid distances, so use that to buy time. From some of the new vids, you can still make them pay for being careless. It's just more costly for hakumen to do avg dmg. The flow of the match for hakumen would be to fish for a decent starter and burn 4-5 magatamas, doing some dmg and getting corner knockdown, then use 3 magatamas and go for a addtional set-ups.

Basically, instead of being able to make a move at 3-4 magatamas and be extremely threatening, you need at least 5 magatama to be able to do any sustained attack (you basically need 1-2 more magatama than CS1 for everything).

[Arcknight]

At the risk of looking newbish here I have a question. How exactly do you do that IAD after the TK Hotaru or jc the hop? I have seen that mentioned and looked around for an answer but I was unsuccessful.

This is probably obvious but I also wanted to mention that due to lower mag charge speed Hakumen players should definitely try and anticipate/bait bursts more often. I have wasted many a star on an attack that was bursted out of resulting in waste. Now this will only hurt more.

If that was stated elsewhere I apologize!

[GNkyrios]

u do the hotaru, land, then IAD(9,6 input), then u have to time the jC so u can combo into 2C or 5C.

PS: didnt knew u can only get 1 star from the same move with zanshin, i saw in a video multiple 6D on a DD and only got 1 star.

[zreb]

TK hotaru and hop hotaru you have to land first and then IAD. On FC you can combo out of it with j2c, but you can only do j.C if it's not a counterhit. If you did it way up in the air you can just air dash before you land, but you'll have to look at the spacing closely to make sure you can j2c if it was FC. Jump cancelling hotaru I believe is only for corner combos (or if they blocked it.)

Pretty much everyone should be actively thinking about when their opponent might burst, not just Hakus.

And yeah, you get the star for the catch(grab,) not for the parry itself.

Edited May 18, 2011 by zreb

[Arcknight]

All right I had thought of that possibility but I wasn't sure if that was exactly it or not. Thank you for that information. I will have to practice that a lot I guess.

I also agree everyone should try and bait bursts but since I play Noel the most it's pretty hard if half the time I'm in drive and can't stop. ><; Oh well.

[mAc Chaos]

TK hotaru and hop hotaru you have to land first and then IAD. On FC you can combo out of it with j2c, but you can only do j.C if it's not a counterhit. If you did it way up in the air you can just air dash before you land, but you'll have to look at the spacing closely to make sure you can j2c if it was FC. Jump cancelling hotaru I believe is only for corner combos (or if they blocked it.)

Pretty much everyone should be actively thinking about when their opponent might burst, not just Hakus.

And yeah, you get the star for the catch(grab,) not for the parry itself.

Hmm, makes me wonder what would happen if you caught Carl in repeated 6Ds by countering that one Nirvana super...

[zreb]

Actually, funnier than it giving lots of stars, it does lots of unprorated, unburstable damage. ...

Edited May 18, 2011 by zreb

[ryokoalways]

you don't need to land to AD off hotaru. That was true even in CS1. It seems in CS2 the recovery is even less, and you can still do an additional dash off the counter reset.

[zreb]

For TK/Hop though? I thought you had to IAD those. I realize you don't land for high hotarus like in the 5 star midscreen combo :x

[ryokoalways]

You need off hop hotaru. Off tk type heights, I don't think so in CS2. If you check the carry combo vid, there were several instances where the hakumen was basically a handful of pixels off the ground, and just AD right after the hotaru (which is why I think the recovery got further reduced).

[mAc Chaos]

Actually, funnier than it giving lots of stars, it does lots of unprorated, unburstable damage. ...

So you get a star every time? I could see us almost KOing Carl off that alone and finishing it with a Yukikaze from the stars we get.

[zdravkelja]

I played it whole last night. Combos are a little bit harder. I don't like that Renka>Kishuu>6C, you have to charge 6C a little... But 7k with 5 stars in the corner

I can do almost all Hotaru dashes. The only problem is Renka>Kishuu>hop>2C>tk.Hotaru>airdash j.2C.. Do I have to land or not before airdash? It seems to me I have to do it before landing, but looks almost imposible.

Edited May 18, 2011 by zdravkelja

[Spark]

You have to airdash without landing.

[zreb]

You need off hop hotaru. Off tk type heights, I don't think so in CS2. If you check the carry combo vid, there were several instances where the hakumen was basically a handful of pixels off the ground, and just AD right after the hotaru (which is why I think the recovery got further reduced).

Hmm.. I always thought low TKs were too low for just airdashing. I'll have to mess with that once I get the timing down better.

I can do almost all Hotaru dashes. The only problem is Renka>Kishuu>hop>2C>tk.Hotaru>airdash j.2C.. Do I have to land or not before airdash? It seems to me I have to do it before landing, but looks almost imposible.

I haven't perfected this combo yet, but I tend to have more luck with it when I don't try to 2147 the Hotaru. Doing it as high off the ground as possible without them teching is how I understand it has to be done, so I just input the super jump separate and then the hotaru. Maybe try that if it's giving you trouble?

But yeah, they're tight links.

[itsme]

Regarding catching the Nirvana super; I tried it and I think they changed something somewhere because there's this "hole" between the catches where Carl can tech out compared to CS and so I don't think you can do a full catch into kill combo against the Nirvana DD.

[zreb]

It looked like she was able to pass through if you started too close. I didn't test it too much, but I did get at four 6Ds off before messing it up. It definitely isn't exactly the same as the classic "6D 6D 6D 6D" video on youtube.

[Sophisticat]

Dustloop ate my post!

Anyway, new links off Hotaru are perplexing. Why make them so tight?

In any case, I've just figured out that for TK, you just need to make the TK be a certain height, AD, and you'll get it. It's actually easier than IAD off hop. For the height, it seems to be anything where you can drop down at least enough to be able to AD right after.

Off IAD, though, I'm having trouble doing j.2c -> 2c after. It seems that j.2c has to connect as low as possible for it to work.

As for corner combos, surprisingly easy and high-damage. Love e'm.

[Spark]

Regarding catching the Nirvana super; I tried it and I think they changed something somewhere because there's this "hole" between the catches where Carl can tech out compared to CS and so I don't think you can do a full catch into kill combo against the Nirvana DD.

They did this because all of Hakumen's counters do 100% guaranteed damage, if you could 6D Carl over and over again it would do huge damage to him every time you caught the super. That's why 2D bounces higher now and 6D has further push back.

[Arcknight]

Wow these new strings look a lot harder than anything I've been doing up until now. The timing on that stuff just seems ridiculous!

Killing Carl outright with counters would have been the most hilarious thing in the world too.

[ryokoalways]

They increased ragna's dp hitbox by just enough so that you can't backdash it during oki-setup. This blows ass.

[Koopa_Klawz]

when exactly can you do an AD after hotaru/tsubaki?

[zreb]

You have to be higher off the ground than TKs typically allow for. Tsubaki feels a little more natural to AD out of, but Hotaru feels kind of weird cause of the high recovery.

[WolfCrimson]

I'm just dropping in to say I don't get why some people are saying Haku is bad. While it's true he doesn't do huge damage midscreen without magatama, he could attain it really quickly with D counters, like 2.5 magatama per counter + follow-up combo (except for j.D), and usually doing D combos or low-mag combos let's you take the opponent to the corner where the big numbers are.

[zdravkelja]

Change to IB makes hakumen much less intimidating during block strings. Risk/reward againt A/B block strings are now too horribly in opponent favor to try to punish. This wouldn't be too big of a problem if hakumen had a real back dash. Hakumen needs to create more space than other characters to be able to back out safely.

Hakumen's poke starters got nerfed noticeably. Add the fact that 120% on renka is

gone, anything that's not 5C starter has far greater reduced damage than just the overall tone down for everyone. This means opponents will almost always win risk/reward in the middle of the screen.

To clarify, hakumen's C moves are not faster. All of them are the same, and jC is slower by 1-2F. The most interesting speed increase is jB going from 10F to 8F. This means fuzzy guard jB>tsubaki becomes a very important mixup tool anywhere. I would think overhead jB should be usable on more than just tager and hakumen now, but that would still need to be tested. And of course there is improved kishuu, which is now safe against IB dp punishes in IBed entry.

Additions such as ground strings and magatama off catch are offset by the fact that Hakumen's meter gain got nerfed (longer static after specials) and catch is much less reliable. Reduced combo capability also makes meter return much worse in the middle of the screen. Again, IB nerf also makes magatama much more valuable. I could spam hotaru all day in CS1 and never go below 3 magatamas. I know for a fact that won't be the case in CS2.

Only real buffs were hotaru (corner, also since it can work as a gimmick cross-up that's actually reliable), yukikaze (marginally, still not accessible enough to make a big difference), jB, tsubaki (thanks mostly to jB), kishuu, and 6A. Hakumen became worse in most situations and became better in much more specific situations. Losing flexibility and options is never a good thing.

So, it makes sense he went down in tiers, but he is still good enough to compete no problem since he still has mix-up options (which are actually much improved imo).

...

[mAc Chaos]

How did his mixup improve?