TD

Poppycock. You must lose to win. How else will you learn to play?

He's probably net playing while thinking about these problems lol. Shrug

Always ib at least the second hit so it's even on block. It's really easy to do so once you block the first hit, just tap 4, you cannot be punished for it unless she tries a mixup using RC (even then, many mixups from this is gapless). After that it's just playing Rock Paper Scissors with her options and your own. Jump is the safest bet, counter is more risky but will beat anything quick and offensive she does and switches sides even. As for j2d, you can also jump ib the first hit and as she whiffs the second hit, come down with jb ch into a full combo. If you sniff her about to do this attack you can prepare by just jumping with the grab OS just in case she decides to air grab instead.

I sold my copy... People play 1.1 over EX? I may have to re-buy.

I have a really good peeve. No one is playing early morning ;-;

Who the hell is sendatu? He comes seemingly out of nowhere and starts thrashing rin-hime like he's some sort of pink pudding?! Outrageous! Amane's pressure against people with few defensive options reaaaally show in the latest video. Rin kept a cool demeanor mostly, but I could tell he was getting flustered - as if the exaggerated sighs weren't enough. Still, this is one of the top Rachel's who has been playing for years, so this was nothing short of impressive.

Congrats, then. Now all there is left is to do the different routes consistently in real matches.

There is a such thing as p1 and p2 in this game. P stands for proration, or how much damage reduction your (next) attack hits for. The 1 stands for the first hit of the combo, and p2 for every hit after the first. Every move has a p1 and p2 value in the wiki. The higher the p1/2, the higher the damage will be on the subsequent hits, so a combo with a high p1 and many high p2's in the beginning will do more damage. Carl p2 on 2b must be low enough where both combos will do the same damage. What this means for him? Any time you can to use the first string. Be mindful though that lower p2 does not always mean worse if the situation calls for that particular sequence.

Good luck with your works should you put in the effort: I'm sure you've found this to be a... Sobering... experience. A minor touch of realism next time should do you a bit of justice.

No one is wrong really. Play who you love the most, period. Well unless they are bad and you're the extremely competitive type. Might not want to pick bottom tier then, but anyway. No one can deny playing who you love and slowly understanding them is very rewarding, frustrations aside. Playing a basic character is not a bad strategy but I think that is more in line with people who have experience with fg's and just want to be on board with the mechanics as fast as possible. Considering you OP are a completely new slate, progress between playing a beginner friendly character and who you like even if they are hard, -may- be affected negatively. Not to say it will, or it won't, but there is a higher chance because regardless of who you pick, you need to learn the game in its entirety at your level with no prior fg experience. I think you should try both. Although I personally lean toward playing who you love, you yourself need to figure out how you want to do this. If you play a basic character, you might learn faster, then again you might not, and there isn't a huge reason to stay with the game if you end up not liking them down the line. You also have to learn your fav character from scratch if you do get good with ragna for example, which you may find to be frustrating. Playing who you want if they are an advanced character, WILL frustrate you and might make you quit for a bit, but landing those combos or getting the gameplan down potentially amplifies the good feelings you would have doing so compared to doing a regular character's combos and stuff. Either way you are going to need some support. Whoever you are interested in playing at the end, be sure to check the forum's character threads for videos, combos, and ideas. Ask questions, you will get the support you need. No question is too stupid for an answer - just make sure you look around before asking. No one likes repeating themselves ad infinitum.

Beat by the whole roster though? I mean, damn. At what point do you think it's not them being a dick? I mean even if they were... I see your point icekin, I read it earlier. One match of this is patronizing. But... The whole roster? I'm not even worrying about this person's questionable personality anymore. Training mode straightaway.

Not saying you are wrong, but if it took 5 seconds there is probably more to the story. Like what range, what frame, etc, considering these two attacks likely won't be used in the same frames your recorded and tested on, more or less. However if it is indeed correct and you have an option dark ranger, that is good. I'm at work so can't test anything. Don't as my why I'm writing articles at work please, because I really do not know. Lol

Ah. This is the exact 'small options' I was referencing. They may not work against ANY of her other tools (hypothetically speaking), but instead having a chance to beat one of mu's best options. Without lasers. Good job.

Dark ranger I will try to answer this question to the best of my ability. Having not touched sf since I was a wee tyke, I will not pretend to know much about it besides characters and hadouken. There are footsies in bb. They are either extremely fast like a roller coaster of beasts, a flurry of fur and fists, or they are slow as molasses (see: tager's matches). They never disappear, though. Fast or slow, if neither player has the advantage, they HAVE to play footsies no question, zoner or rush down, and literally anything from standing still to walking to attacking and defending and summoning (zoners) counts toward that. Why it is so difficult to see in some matches and not in others is simply the pacing. Bb is a fast game, granted. What you are asking is more matchup related, though. I'm not too fluent in makoto this version, but I will try to exposing my thinking when it comes to pokes like these and throw in some makoto specific examples. In games where a character has a long poke, it os usually paired with a weakness. Bad recovery, slow startup, maybe can't combo it, etc. to make up for all the utilities long pokes tend to have. In someone like say ragna's case, his 5b doesn't have any glaring weaknesses, never has. It's that good. Another, not as looked at feature of long pokes is the hitbox, or where it is hitting. If you look at the neutral not just in horizontal spacing, you will of course notice that it doesn't really hit to high above him but at his midsection. I'd call that mid profile. You have high profile, most jumping attacks and mak's Lightning arrow for example, to hit this. You have specific low profiles in this game that either annoying low profile everything (Tao crawl), or are useful in certain situations (kokonoe 2b, bullet 2b, mak 3c before, not sure about this atm). As you said you have tried high profiling him, so try low profiling. Can makoto 2b be spaced such that it will go under his 5b hitbox and hit his other leg? Can 3c low profile later in its animation? She also has that wannabe dandy step thing, a bait if you will that is risky but CAN out space his 5b and counter attack. But this is matchup specific. Ragna 5b is different from mu 5c. I'm pretty sure you cannot low profile her 5c at all as makoto, not enough range and 3c is too slow to punish. But because it's overall recovery from start to finish compared to ragna, you have more leniency to do an aggressive high profile attack such as lightning arrow again. But there is another factor, the lasers. You must learn their timings, rate of fire, when they stop homing, placement (determine how fast laser will not you), in that order. If you are on the aggressive, do not worry so much about totsuka or stein explosion because they are more zoning/setup oriented (basically, she needs time and/or space). Lasers are the beginning of any halfway decent mu's plan. All this says is that you need to be more patient against these characters, but in different ways. Ragna vs makoto is a true, traditional tootsies match of wits. It can go fast or slow until the first real oki situation. With mu though, she holds all the cards in neutral. But only neutral does she hold a significant advantage, you have to try and get her before she gets a stein up. It is important to remember that in a dksadvantaged matchup there may not be an end-all to a specific situation, you might just have to eat it or look for the tiniest nuances to give your counter rate the highest percentage possible. Let's say at a very specific spacing her 2b does beat ragna 5b. It may not be reliable but it is now something that could be learned and used once in a blue moon. Combine that with the high profile options, back dashing, and barrier, and now you have a ragtag group of options that MIGHT beat his attack. Sounds sad right, but having these small chances to attack are so much better than NOT having them. And, you can technically train yourself to be good at fighting with them, improving your chances even further of it becoming less of an oppressive neutral for makoto. My last bit is influencing decisions. Please do not just those moves out. I know it was a joke but, just in case someone takes it seriously... Don't. In fact the exact opposite, the more life you lose the more careful and precise you need to be. Anyway, getting the mu to 5c or ragna to 5b. In my experience, they will do this within range to discourage any horizontal attack. Whether to show you you cannot pass, or to harass you, they will begin doing this in fear that if they do not, you will simply exploit this front. While waiting in neutral (especially vs Ragna, if he is the turtle type you have time to think), actively look for and count the times they do 5b, 5c, stein, whatever. What are YOU doing? Without looking at your character, answer the question. The foe is looking at you, not their character, if they are good; they should already know what they are pressing as if they are fighting makoto in first person. See what I'm getting at? Keep backing up, the foe is counting. When you see them suddenly run up and start a string, it wasn't out of nowhere. You are being watched. Keep jumping randomly in neutral, get thrown, it wasn't a page out of Madame Gypsy's book of Psychics, you were being more predictable then you may have thought. Just as there are high low throw and strike mixups, there are profile mixups and such, but these are based more off your foes actions. My point being, especially in a bad matchup: you have. To mix. It up. All the time. Keep the foe on their toes, make THEM attack brainlessly in an attempt to pin you down. Too turtley yourself? Next round, go balls to the wall aggressive. Next round keep it slow again. Bet the foe will just wait for you to rush in again... But it won't happen. What happened? You are in control for that brief moment, that's what happened. Control them, and influence them to your will without them knowing.

Couldn't agree more. If you want to win you are going to have to put some more elbow grease into it. If you think you've tried your hardest, you haven't. It's one thing to lose to one or several characters but losing to the whole roster means you need to evaluate your plan. No reason that should happen to anyone who didn't just pick up the game 10 minutes ago. Evaluate.

Even if you cannot find someone you like, you can always build their arms and legs. When you come back to them, at least they will be able to run and grab things. Although extremely limited in function, progress is progress and should never be underestimated, as knowledge is considerably harder to let go of than say, money, or friends, or something along that nature. At dark ranger, well that is advanced stuff: mind games, something every short range character in this game without gapless instant overheads needs to be able to know very well. That is another subject, perhaps one I can touch upon later today or tomorrow. 2a stagger pressure and frame traps are your friend, as well as frame traps. Anything below 4f gap since that is the average jump startup which you can hit people out of. Lows and dash in 6a will also stuff jumps. You kind of have to create strings to beat mashing and jumping and then you need to guess in the beginning until you get the foe to do one of these, barrier, or ib, and then know their options from there. Backdash? Dp? Panic? Anyway, maybe tomorrow. I ALREADY SAID TOO MUCH (and now... I must kill those who know... the secrets... Jk)

Basically then, it's both ideas combined together, and not one or the other. Frankly I never delay my ja and never even thought about it, which implies there may be more than one way to go about it. Whichever works, as long as as jb is as low as possible while still keeping the wind effect to potentially fuzzy.

The second part I agree with. People should give themselves leniency to perform a myriad of options should any of the blocking or hit scenarios occur. I am not sure what else to say besides this seems to be an issue with newer players in general. It is something that goes away with more knowledge and experience, or rather, it -should-. There is like, no plausible reason I can think of that supports the belief that one should just do the same blockstring from a starter, not until one reaches the higher levels where mind games come into play. I am not sure how to feel on the first bit however. There cannot be flesh and organs without the skeleton. One needs a skeleton of combos, the bare minimum, to playing a character efficiently, and especially if the player is learning mostly optimal combos. Situational awareness should not be as prevalent when one is learning combos, of all things. That is something that comes when one knows there character's neutral, offensive and defensive options to an extent. Considering in most subforums' combo threads there are several ways to do a combo, optimal one first usually, should imply that not 'everyone' thinks this way as you say. However, I do think that people go about learning stuff their own way. Again, skeletons. You need a bare minimum of combos in order to at least compete, and become, a low level player. These people know one or two combos from different starters at best. These people can have fun at the game with people similar to their level. Do not learn more, do not evolve, aka, stay a skeleton. But assuming this is not the case, one fleshes themselves out differently. Once you have a few dial-a-combos, you can begin to learn more about the character while falling back on security in real matches until one feels comfortable with the new information. While everyone will go about building their bodies differently, I do think one should learn these to have a BARE MINIMUM, functioning combo skeleton: -at least one combo from the best/longest poke -if applicable, the most universal combo route that leads to a knockdown (or other favorable position) on standing, crouching and jumping foes, and which moves lead into these scenarios -combos from/into super, if applicable -the easiest, high damage punish your character is capable of. (This assumes you know the basic gameplan of your character as that will decide what is best in any given situation) This covers all defensive neutral situations such as poking and anti-airing, it covers punishes, and it covers what to do if you get a stray hit. Not everyone has all day in training mode like some of us (not me anymore QQ), so a simple 20 minute startup like this can give a new player an edge especially if they have played fighting games before. Of course, and I cannot stress enough everyone goes about building their bodies differently. As someone who seems to learn at least 11 characters in every iteration of bb, I can say with confidence that going about it like this will kick those training wheels off and get a player ready for some action. Do understand that I am not actually talking about new players, I am merely referencing players who simply do not know what they are doing, which so happens to include new players. There are players who have played for years and are basically, still skeletons, one way or the other. Everyone remembers Star-Demon, I am sure. Prime example. Honestly I see your issue as though players who play you simply do not know what is going on and need to visit dust loop more often.

When using 2dja mixup, you must confirm what to do next during ja block stun. So it's ...j2a delay jb into confirm/fuzzy/low etc. completely safe string even with delay. delay the jb such that you can confirm if ja did hit the foe, and if they blocked, which mixup to do. This helps in optimizing ja combos, confirming, and mixup. It's a practice thing. If you are landing you are simply doing it too late; dial it back a few frames This method works for me. What soniti is probably saying, correct me if I am wrong, to j2d slight delay ja jb.

I have $4,000! It's right inside the bear trap I- er, someone set dangerously close to the edge of that cliff. Be warned: someone (totally not me.....) will attempt to push you off if you try to get it. ...ok seriously. Good luck. I definitely recommend looking into a much, MUCH cheaper alternative to your current goals. It is practical to get much bore bang for your buck with the less expensive items. We just need to be able to see and hear the video and it needs to be good. In this case more money does not necessarily mean more quality. Just... Quantity, and if you want that... *points to bear trap*

He still has throw setups, it's something lol Best places to charge are basically midsceen after a combo ended... Or after 6c, which will switch positions. In the corner he gets oki. Honestly the best way is the 6d way. If you can't do that, any other way is a risk of neutral OD, or a counter hit.

Any vids of her overdrives? Gatlings seem short on paper...

She seems more elegant than comical, I'm guessing this is just a charade of some sort. Either way, another trap character is welcome. Dat crouch tho

I see. I was more wondering about the on block part. But if he can't 360 at least 2b, then yeah. What about ib backdash, 360, or just in general for the meter? Even with the trm setups tager shouldn't be taking much dmg, and Tao mixup is not the best. Or even ib yomi jump 360 or throw? I'm assuming 6b has some early foot invul, doesn't sound like a great neutral tool.

Why were those a problem in the first place?