Nab looking for BB character advice

[Lamme]

Hello everyone!

Registered here today mostly cos of my interest towards the upcoming Persona 4 Arena game, but I'm now also thinking about picking up the newest BlazBlue (the extended version). My question is which character to pick?

Some background: I played BB:CT years ago, but only for like 10-15 hours before trading the game away so I can't say I have much experience in the series. While I did play the game I mostly played Noel as I liked her style and her name is pretty much the female version of my own name Joel (lol best reason ever).

However after reading a few threads here and over on shoryuken.com I noticed that there are lots of people disliking Noel for some reason, I think one of them is the fact that she is an easily accessible character with somewhat easy combos etc. (How can this be a reason to hate someone? ) This has lead me to thinking about switching to another character, but am not sure if I should just fuck everyone in the eye and continue with my Noel or be a nice guy and focus on something more likable?

I've never played any other anime fighters either, so it's not like there would be any specific type of style that I'd like. I'm open for pretty much anything but Ragna and grappler characters.

If it helps, in SF4 I usually play Juri, sometimes Cammy and in Soul Calibur I play Pyrrha or Hilde.

Thanks!

[Celerity]

P4A upcoming? I guess you live in Europe? :P

To be honest, who cares whether other people get salty about your character. You should revel in their tears. If you like Noel, just play Noel. Otherwise, Tsubaki is also a pretty accessible rushdown character, and nobody is ever going to complain about you playing her.

[Lamme]

P4A upcoming? I guess you live in Europe? :P

To be honest, who cares whether other people get salty about your character. You should revel in their tears. If you like Noel, just play Noel. Otherwise, Tsubaki is also a pretty accessible rushdown character, and nobody is ever going to complain about you playing her.

Heh yeah I live in Europe. One can only hope that the game wont be dead before it's even released here lol.

Anyway, I think you're right and that's how I usually think myself as well, it's just that the amount of hate messages towards Noel came as a surprise for me which made me wonder. Thanks for the advice!

[Airk]

Otherwise, Tsubaki is also a pretty accessible rushdown character, and nobody is ever going to complain about you playing her.

No, people will complain about literally anyone. Even the worst character in the game. I got hate for winning with "Baby's first rushdown character" a while ago. And then you get the whiny "You always run away to charge" people, as if you're supposed to stand there so they can hit you while you charge.

Fighting game players are whiny.

[Eshi]

Noel's drives are all beatable, but if a good player hits with one of them then BOOM 4k damage. She's very high risk high reward - people dislike her because playing "disrespectfully" with drives is top tier against players who can't adapt.

[Lamme]

Okay well currently playing with Tsubaki, and I wanted to ask if there's anything you can do to stop your enemy from escaping/recovering from your combos before they're over? I get them in training mode but as soon as I go play against a real enemy they escape in the middle of the combo. Am I missing something here? (Currently stuck on Hazama last boss of arcade mode for 2 hours since I don't have any combos that would keep him still for longer than a second which means that I get hit way too much and end up dying constantly)

[mAc Chaos]

If they're getting out of your combo in the middle of it, it means you messed up the timing. If you do the combo right, then they should be stuck all the way through it.

Unless you're talking about hitting them while they're blocking. In which case, that's called a blockstring. That requires some different moves than just dealing damage once you've landed your opening hit.

[Lamme]

Hmm I spend pretty much the whole evening yesterday practicing 2 bnb combos and I thought I got the hang of them but I guess not...the timing is really really strict then, I don't think there's even a point for me to try to them in a match, rather just do specials. Ooooor then swap to Noel and roll my face on the stick for instant profit. >.<

[mAc Chaos]

Just find simple combos you can do in match, then slowly add on to them.

It's natural to be able to do the combo in training mode when you can do it at your own pace, then have a harder time when you're in the heat of a battle. It happens with every combo and becomes second nature over time.

But make sure you can REALLY do it in training mode. If you try 10 times, and only do it successfully once, then you haven't got it down yet. It needs to be ingrained in your muscle memory so you can do it without thinking. If you can do it ten times in a row without messing up, then you can do it. The reason you drop a combo a lot of the time is because you have to think about it consciously. You will land a hit, then go "Oh, what do I do now? Right, it's ____" but by then it's too late. It needs to become reflexive.

[Nemesis]

I often do not even "see" what I am currently doing -- I try to see what I am doing several moves/steps in advance -- perhaps you havent realized yet bb is the kind of game where you can already be performing new inputs during the animation sequence of the move your currently doing (a good example of this is Inferno Divider or Hells Fang or gauntlet hades from ragna )) the quicker you input the sequential move the faster it comes out (for rangas moves I just listed) this MAY be your current issue -- I only mention this as I used to have the same problem and could not find a way to time ending my combos with distortions until I realized "omg I can input this shit like years in advance" aka canceling

[00Bubbles00]

Try practicing the timing of your button presses by not looking that TV and just looking at your controller when inputting the combo. For many combos, its best to be able to press the buttons right without needing to look the TV to see when moves are starting and finishing.

When playing online with a bit of lag, everything visually is just thrown off and you need to be able to hit the combos by just button pressing memorization.

[nstalkie]

Hmm I spend pretty much the whole evening yesterday practicing 2 bnb combos and I thought I got the hang of them but I guess not...the timing is really really strict then, I don't think there's even a point for me to try to them in a match, rather just do specials. Ooooor then swap to Noel and roll my face on the stick for instant profit. >.<

If you are just going to do specials with any character, you'll get destroyed by any player worth his salt. Why many people are so upset with Noel is actually that they kept losing to the drive spam that she can do. When I see a beginner Noel, I think: "ok probably drive spam", when I see a beginner Jin: "ice car coming thru !". In any fighting game, you'll get destroyed if you just use special moves btw, BB is not alone in that (think ken that does wakeup shoryu all the time in SFIV).

For your combo practice, it's really a matter of practice. Like other people said, you are probably waiting too long before actually inputting the next move. Many times, you don't want to wait until you see your move on the screen before inputting the next move. Especially with Tsubaki: I noticed that in her trials, you almost "dial" it quickly and the whole thing comes out (if you are practicing that bnb that I'm thinking of right now). Normals cancel into other normals in BB (and P4 too btw). Not everything will cancel into everything, but it's not like in SFIV where only a very select number of normals are cancellable into other normals and you have to perform a lot of links. For most combos, you don't have to link moves like in SFIV, just press the next button in time.

Why your combos work in training mode and not in a real match:

- training mode is different from a real match, as you are relaxed in training mode, can think it over for a while, opponent doesn't move, etc... like others said: it's normal for many players to be able to do something in training mode, but not in an actual match. Keep training and putting that stuff into muscle memory and after a while you won't even have to think about it anymore.

- "but the opponents escape my combo in a real match, while i can do it in training mode and do it exactly the same there". Well, look at that combo counter. Notice that sometimes it becomes blue ? that means that your opponent could have escaped your combo at some point (the hit on which it was escapable is listed below the combo counter). For a REAL combo, the counter will stay red. You can set the dummy to automatically tech from your combos so you can see it immediately where it's escapable. I don't know the exact training mode option, because my PS3 is not turned on at the moment. Also: you can set the dummy to block after 1 hit, you'll probably want to set that on as well. If you are doing the combo and suddenly the dummy blocks a part of it: it means you have not done your combo correctly and were way too late with one of your inputs.

- Make sure your combo is actually a combo Maybe it doesn't work on all characters ? Throws during combos will always be escapable btw.

If you haven't played through the tutorial mode, I highly recommend doing it. You don't have to do all parts yet or remember EVERYTHING from it, but definately give it a try and try to incorporate things from it in your gameplay over time.

Always cool to see new people get interested in the ArcSystemWorks games.

[mAc Chaos]

Oh yeah, what nstalkie just said reminds me. Make sure you set the dummy in training mode to tech.

You might think you're doing the combo right, but really the whole time the training dummy just isn't trying to escape and letting you hit them.

[Martian Buddy]

Oh yeah, what nstalkie just said reminds me. Make sure you set the dummy in training mode to tech.

You might think you're doing the combo right, but really the whole time the training dummy just isn't trying to escape and letting you hit them.

Also make sure your training dummy is set to "Block after First Hit", so you can make sure the combo you're trying is an actual combo. With it set to Block after First Hit you can guarantee that the combo is usable, as opposed to the combo working because the dummy isn't blocking any hits.

[Celerity]

Also make sure your training dummy is set to "Block after First Hit", so you can make sure the combo you're trying is an actual combo. With it set to Block after First Hit you can guarantee that the combo is usable, as opposed to the combo working because the dummy isn't blocking any hits.

I think it's more beneficial not to do these things, so that you can repeatedly go through the entire combo and get it into muscle memory regardless of whether it blue beats. If you get stuck on something halfway through the combo and set the training dummy to tech, you're going to have a lot less experience with the second half, and spend even longer trying to get it down. It's pretty easy to see when the combo goes blue to fix mistakes.

[TheGreatReptar]

The blocking after the first hit option in BB's training mode is kind of annoying. I feel it tends to block for longer than it should. It's really not that useful when you're practicing combos, since BB's hit counter goes up and will disappear when a combo resets as apposed to SF4 where it internally keeps track of the number of hits then only displays the total number at the end of the combo.

[Lamme]

Wow I'm amazed how many have replied, thanks for your comments!

If you haven't played through the tutorial mode, I highly recommend doing it. You don't have to do all parts yet or remember EVERYTHING from it, but definately give it a try and try to incorporate things from it in your gameplay over time.

I've done that, and ended up learning a lot of new stuff! I probably don't remember everything since there's so many new things but it has certainly helped me.

I often do not even "see" what I am currently doing -- I try to see what I am doing several moves/steps in advance -- perhaps you havent realized yet bb is the kind of game where you can already be performing new inputs during the animation sequence of the move your currently doing (a good example of this is Inferno Divider or Hells Fang or gauntlet hades from ragna )) the quicker you input the sequential move the faster it comes out (for rangas moves I just listed) this MAY be your current issue -- I only mention this as I used to have the same problem and could not find a way to time ending my combos with distortions until I realized "omg I can input this shit like years in advance" aka canceling

I'm aware that you're able cancel pretty much anything in this game (compared to SF for example) and it'll probably be harder to actually come up with stuff that doesn't cancel into other moves. I'm not sure if the speed of my execution is the problem though, it often feels like I would be inputting stuff too fast since the moves wont come out at all. I just got to practice more.

Also make sure your training dummy is set to "Block after First Hit", so you can make sure the combo you're trying is an actual combo. With it set to Block after First Hit you can guarantee that the combo is usable, as opposed to the combo working because the dummy isn't blocking any hits.

So far I've used the "block after first hit" option in training mode, but I've also tried the recovery options like quick, random and the others. Didn't know that the combo text changes color from red to blue though, that's a nice thing to know!

Can't wait to get home to continue my practice sessions. I'm still unsure on who I should choose as a main character though, not sure if I like the constant D charging when playing Tsubaki...

[Airk]

I'm aware that you're able cancel pretty much anything in this game (compared to SF for example) and it'll probably be harder to actually come up with stuff that doesn't cancel into other moves. I'm not sure if the speed of my execution is the problem though, it often feels like I would be inputting stuff too fast since the moves wont come out at all. I just got to practice more.

It's DEFINITELY possible to do things too fast in this game - I do it sometime when I get tense. Basically, you can only have one move "pre-entered" at a time - so let's say you're playing Tsubaki, and you push B, B, C, C, but you do it REALLY FAST, so that when you get to the 2nd C, Tsubaki is still only doing the second B move onscreen, then you're only going to get one C, and if you stop pushing buttons at that point, you'll end up only doing 5BB > 5C instead of the 5BB > 5CC you were trying to do. But if you do it slower, so that you press the 2nd C while the animation from the first C is happening, it will work.

So you can't just mash stuff out in a huge string as fast as you can - you have to wait for the animation to catch up at least a little bit.

[BeautyIsPower]

In my experience (having done all of Tsubaki's trials) you have to get a "feel" for the combo. Certain combos have a rhythm to them, I think this is true for both Noel and Tsubaki. I remember one combo involved 5b 5b 5c 5c 623C and then IMMEDIATELY follow with a whiff 214B. Noels involved some too but I forgot those. I recommend trial mode, since it's already set the comp to tech and you can get the hang of certain aspects of the character. But you have to find the rhythm for certain combos, which of course comes with practice.

[InWithTheAshes]

It's less getting an actual "feel" for them as much as it is just simply doing the combo until it becomes ingrained within your muscle memory., towards the point where you can perform it without really paying much attention towards how you perform it. I doubt you're still checking this thread O.P., but if you are, then listen to the people who said that, because it is very fine advice.

Oh, and BIP, since you're new, a tip: Challenge combos suck. They're either impractical or not the best thing you're allowed to do within the situation. Go look up the combos from the character subforum combo threads or make them yourself using the frame data/ trial and error (Preferably frame data, that's generally quicker).

[BeautyIsPower]

I know challenge combos are bad, but it was just something to do when I was bored or to just say I did. But I believe Tsubaki's are not too impractical, same with Mu-12.

[Celerity]

A lot of the stuff you learn in challenge combos is used in your actual BnB's, so it's not a terrible way to learn. You'll have to switch up a few moves here and there to make it optimal, but the difficult parts are usually the same.

[Airk]

It's less getting an actual "feel" for them as much as it is just simply doing the combo until it becomes ingrained within your muscle memory.

I think you're talking about two different things; He's saying you need to get a feel for the timing, in the sense that some moves have to be done REALLY FAST and other moves need to be delayed a bit, and other moves have a large amount of leeway.

You're saying you need to get this stuff into muscle memory, which is true, but which you can't do until you figure out the timing.

You're more or less both right.

Tsubaki challenge move combos are okay except for some of the later ones which involve wasting a lot of charges. Still, most of them at least have pieces that you'll be using somewhere else. You can never really learn too many combos for a character. Even learning 'bad' ones will help your execution.