Essay

No man left behind. I-No Discord Chat Perma-Invite, Original Dustloop Article with Links to All the Character Discords

*fist pump* If it stole Sato away from Guilty Gear, I can't knock it. Are there any online resources for the game we should browse ahead of time?

Ottawa does not. Sooomeone might remember how to Vatista, maybe, but that's about it.

33 second mark: Jak finally hits the breaking point and declares my character a game in her own right in an attempt to convince himself that playing against her is supposed to be fun.

I actually don't think that we ever had a Kokonoe in Ottawa. Afro thought about maining her, but I don't think he stuck with the game. Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

Honesty, I'd say do the IAD route whenever you can in the corner. Just drop the link VCL > c.S in almost every case* of multi-hit starters and go straight into j.S-H xx P.Dive. For example, against some characters (Millia and Zato spring to mind) the regular jc IAD j.K tends to not reach if you have an opener that pushes you back further than a point-blank, corner-pushed j.K > 2K starter would. In those cases, you might think to do the j.H xx S.Dive route, but a lot of the time it turns out that a sjc. j.K will reach those characters' juggleboxes in time not to drop (when the regular-jc. version wouldn't). * Now, I said "almost every case" because you can actually still land [(2-ht opener)-6P-5H jc. j.K-S xx ffVCL, VCL, c.S] on several characters, despite what I said in the other post. Turns out that the issue seems to lie in the first active-frame whiffing underneath lighter/skinnier characters' juggleboxes after the VCL because the regular-jc'd IAD variation juggles them higher with the second VCL. Either doing the sj. IAD instead (which I'd recommend) or delaying the VCL link (very hard to get right—don't rely on this) can work to squeeze in that extra hit. Anyway, by end game, I'd hope to only go for a non-IAD route in cases where a stray note added a bunch of hits to my confirm. Or, as well, when I'm feeling [(2-hit opener)-6P-5H jc tk.H.Dive, VCL, c.S...] to convert on characters like Ky at low life, when their guts rating makes tk.H.Dive combos' damage equivalent to the IAD routes.) That's part of the picture, but it's really going to depend on your opponent. If you have the time, I'd train against random block to work on hit-confirming [1-hit]-6P on its own. That way, if you're not feeling the options off of 5H, you could cancel into 2H (deceptively fast recovery on whiff, or more frame-advantage on block), pepper them with a 2D, take a chance dash-cancelling out of 6P at frame disadvantage, or cancel into a special earlier than they probably expect.

I've played around a lot with the corner BnB I linked on Tuesday and figured I'd share some of my initial findings. First off all, here's the gist of it transcribed (hopefully the superscript, numbered-list and Dustloop's new paragraphing don't screw with the readability for Tapatalk mobile users): (single-hit opener)1 6P-5H, jc.2 IAD j.K-S xx ffVCL, VCL3, c.S3jc. j.S-H xx4 P.Dive, airdash j.H xx ffVCL, 2S5 xx HCL6, grounded note7 Notes: If you commit multiple hits before the 6P, there is an easy solution to keep the combo from dropping against most characters: replace the [IAD j.K-S xx ffVCL, VCL] with [j.H xx S.Dive]Both normal- and superjump-cancel IAD's can work (except against Sol, May and I-No), but each has a different effect on height-control later in the combo. The regular jc. version recovers faster after the ffVCL, which lets you juggle them higher-up with the VCL after the ffVCL—this can help keep heavier characters higher, but would force you to add even more manual delay against lightweights. The sjc. version recovers later and only just gives you enough time to link a VCL after the ffVCL—this is good for consistency against the lighter characters, as you can just rely on the game's 3-frame input buffer for the VCL link timing without worrying whether you let them fall long enough. Also, if you're too late with the c.S on the jc. version, chances are most characters will air-tech, whereas, if you're too late with the c.S on the sj. version, those same characters will get knocked down (and your c.S would OTG)You can mix in Hasegawa's favourite corner BnB piece here by replacing VCL with HCL for an extra point or two of damage against non-lightweight, wide-jugglebox characters; however, because HCL doesn't move forward like VCL does, you'd have to have started the combo closer to the cornerThe Nico video skips the [VCL, c.S] on Venom, Bedman and Potemkin, which seems reasonableI find it very useful to delay the j.H xx P.Dive cancel (i.e. late-cancelling, and not charging the P.Dive at all) in a lot of cases; it's the only way link it against Zato, and Axl, and helps tremendously with adjusting Venom, Millia's and Elphelt's juggle-height. At the moment, I'm doing almost no charging of P.Dive against anyone, and am just switching between immediate and late-cancelling into it insteadBecause of Potemkin, Bedman and Leo's weight, it is very hard-to-impossible to link 2S, but because of their wide-juggleboxes you can link a c.S there instead for even more damage If you suspect that you're juggling a light character like Elphelt or Millia too high by point 7 in the combo, I recommend just cancelling into HCL~D and going for a Note YRC setup instead (EDIT: or just skipping the note and whiffing a j.H to airthrow in their tiny tech-window)From my limited experimentation, this corner note setup from this is sick. You're far enough away to avoid a blitz shield's hitbox, and the note builds enough hits to re-meaty them after their BS invulnerability wears off. (That might vary depending on characters' wake-up speed?) You have enough time to land and go high again relatively safely—say, if you wanted to dash block or j.D FDC block reversal's and bursts. You can just wait to confirm what they do and still have time to safejump after the note wears off. You even seem to be able to loop back into it off of most successful mix-ups, especially if you account for bullet #1Overall, I'd say this is a very advanced combo due to the nuance of height-control and adding character-specific delay, but it's definitely worth learning. In casuals this week, I was already starting to convert a lot of my corner abare into it—AA's, j.D's, VCL YRC's, etc.—and getting better damage+oki results. I'm betting this was Snowking's issue. More-or-less, I categorize all my confirms into "one-hit" or "multi-hit", depending on how many hits there were before the 6P. His would be a one-hit-opener combo, as any further hits before the 6P would not leave enough un-tech after the VCL link to link a c.S. If he wanted to open with a dash in, confirm off a landed note, or chain from a 2K and still keep the c.S, his options would be to do a non-IAD combo, link a 5P-c.S sjc instead, or go straight into j.S-H xx P.Dive instead of VCL'ing, which might all involve using different enders. Frankly, being able to confirm both ways pretty important, IMO, since there are a lot of ranges (depending on push-back and character-hurtbox-specifics) that can prevent the 6P, 5H or IAD j.K from comboing. We all want to be able to convert optimally off of non-point-blank j.S's and j.H's, right? Directly link into those 6P's on landing when you can spare the low/jc-able c.S, I say.

Any complaints about me putting myself in twice—that is, on both my main and my sub's page?

Curious and thought I'd ask: You didn't actually make it to Evo, I take it? I noticed your username in the Xrd brackets, but I gather you probably just reserved your pass and couldn't make it to Vegas. I might steal dat $70 option-select next year if I'm on the fence again by the end of the spring. ;D

Been playing around with the 2S xx HCL, 214P corner juggle ender that got some stream-time at Evo, but obviously not enough, as I didn't realize it was this close to universal: Check out this Nico vid demonstrating it being performed on the entire cast, with only minor adjustments for the heavy characters. Perhaps Mynus or one of our other cunning linguists could confirm whether there's any extra vital information in the text at the beginning and end?

Happy national holiday to all you anime players in the exotic lands to the east! I actually snuck in and out of MTL on the weekend, so I must apologize for not making time for games. I owe each of you an Xrd FT5 for this heinous oversight. Forgiveness, please.

Blah, I'm going to skip Gonq tomorrow. Shoulder's roughed up with some sudden tendinitis and I want to cut down on the driving. Hopefully this'll disappear in a week or two with the stretches I'm doing. Rep God Gift hard while I'm gone!

It's an arcade match, and Sin's food meter changes colours. Definitely 1.1

Which will also include a special guest appearance by Ottawa.

Going to skip out on the Gonq meetup tonight. If you were on the fence about bringing equipment, my as well, as it'll be one Xrd setup without mine.

Yes! It was a great time. Look forward to the next one that we can come out to. Also, Blade, where would you be moving to?

This weekend was killer. Has anyone seen the cover of the new OST? There's a new character featured on it: Edit: I guess there's a tradition of putting random girls drawn in GG motifs on the JPN OST covers though, so it may mean nothing.

Oh man, I seem to be working every other Saturday, but if your bi-weeklies end up coinciding with my weekends off, I am for sure going to try and make it out to as many as possible

Everything you ever wanted to see I-No do in a combo video: GGXrd - I-No neta movie!

There should be players there from 5PM, but I won't be there until after 7

Well, would we ban him if this alleged 50-second-timer-scam-for-50-tension glitch finally gets revealed? Or just enacting the glitch itself once we find it, ala Waldstein? Or LET IT ROCK?!

Weather was fine until it heard you were coming, ya lousy bum. Free to come out to the college for casuals Thursday evening?

Hope you had luck finding it in stores. It was looking like there was a supply issue after the shipping union strike in California, and my local EB wasn't getting any copies besides the one I preordered. You can always go digital though.

Merry Christmas, people! My second job loaded me up with a bunch of work for the holidays, but I'm still hoping to sneak away for some casuals some time before the New Year's. I hear good things about the US Xrd netplay patch too, and it'll probably drop on HK and JPN PSN soon too. Errybody get your netplay on! I recommend trying to level up in M.O.M. mode online because it looks hilarious. I was going to Like this, but then I read the second half. Would suck for you to have to brave Boxing Day crowds for a measly HDMI cable, but get on it if you need to. You've waited long enough for lagless, HD training mode!

Too late. Technically I just DQ'd myself because KOF was running so late it conflicted with +R, and I was supposed to be in pools at opposite sides of the building at the same time. Next time I stick to the one true game, God's Gift, and no other.