Skankin Garbage

I actually think the tech hit motion is fine for pad players. In fact, it even allows me to do a Tech Hit OS with Talbain that's probably not possible on stick.

I've updated the first post with resources. Queries are always welcome - no question too small.

I've added a link to Talbain's wiki page on Mizuumi, written almost entirely by myself, which has most of his basic gameplay covered: - General Strengths/Weaknesses - Detailed breakdown of normals/specials/EX attacks/throws/Dark Force - A primer on Talbain's movement, including his walk and his dash - A breakdown of Talbains B&B combos and most frequently-used Hunter Chains - A brief stated opinion on his matchups, based on the 10-point scale. Let me know if you think anything else needs to be added.

Talbain can, if there's enough room, jump up and do an Air BC: 3 9 ? ? ? (who cares about the last three?). Just like most of these escape maneuvers, there are things that Rikuo can do to to prevent it from happening, and that's where the mind games begin.

I just wanted to clarify something about BB Hood's unblockable, for the uninitiated: The way BB Hood's unblockable works is, whichever way her J.Hk is blocked, her opponent is committed to blocking that way (her J.Hk hits mid). - Thus, if her J.Hk is blocked standing, then if she lands during the blockstun, her lows will be unblockable. This is the most common way it's used, and defenders can deal with it by crouching to block J.Hk if they see it coming. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ggja0jCQ-o#t=8m26s - If J.Hk is blocked crouching and she lands during blockstun, her overheads will be unblockable. However, her T+Mp overhead is not fast enough to take advantage of this. She can do an instant J.Mp against characters who are very tall when crouching, like Victor; but, most of the cast is safe against this possibility. Against the mixup indicated here (J.Mp -> J.Mk or J.Hk), both can be dealt with by always going for the tech hit. Another good mixup to use is to simply come down on your opponent with J.Hk, or any other Jump-in (probably J.Mp or J.Mk). This makes it a bit harder to tech, and will create the same situation. I usually see BB Hood players do this to me on wakeup; they jump to where they think I'm going to roll, and come down with J.Mp or J.Hk, creating a wakeup High/Low mixup from the air. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ggja0jCQ-o#t=11m42s

Because, wtf, there's no Bishamon thread? I know some of you guys know what's up with Bish. Get in here and rap with us.

Felicia's best anti-air is everything. Seriously. S.Lk. C.Mp. C.Hp. Chicken Guard into somethin Best way to deal with the throw OS is to do your command throw, or try and throw a normal in after intentionally getting reset by a S.Hk. You can also try using Dancing Flash, since that's also invulnerable on startup. Something to look out for when using command throw to beat the OS is, Talbain's command throw will beat yours. However, if he starts going for command throw, he can't do the OS, so you can jump out of it.

I guess I'm the closest thing to a "Talbain expert" here, so here's a lengthy elaboration for your "Bufferable aerials & special moves" blurb, gbursine: Talbain has the ability to cancel AND kara-cancel most of his air normals into Beast Cannon or ES Beast Cannon. There are a variety of useful implications for these, whether your opponent is meeting you mid-air or plans to deal with your offense from the ground. Let's start with air... - When meeting an opponent in the air, Talbain's ability to cancel air attacks into BCs provides you with a useful tool to deal with people who Chicken Guard. For starters, you can cancel his medium attacks into BCs instead of canceling them into more mediums or hard attacks. This will slightly alter the usual timing between attacks, and even alter the spacing (since the BC startup will completely stop Talbain's forward momentum), making it an viable counter to people who chicken guard too frequently against Talbain - a phenomenon that gives many wolf players trouble. No matter what happens in this situation, there is some sort of benefit: 1. If the BC connects after a blocked attack, you get a knockdown off of an air-to-air instead of a reset. I don't think I need to explain why this rules. Moving on. 2. If the normal-to-be-canceled hits the opponent, your Air BC will put you back on the ground with wildly-altered timing, depending on your height relative to your opponent's. In most situations, this is actually SLOWER than just landing normally. However, the wide variety of different possible timings (even if it's slower than normal, different timings make it more difficult to mindlessly AG Talbain), and the possibility of landing behind your opponent at certain heights make this a powerful option. Also, each additional BC is that much more meter you have to play with! 3. If they successfully counter your attack with a chicken guard, you are going to be slightly farther away from your opponent than you would be if you had retained your forward momentum. Not exactly a game-changer, but not useless, either. 4. If they block your attack and don't go for the chicken guard, the Air BC will keep you close to your opponent. Also, the Air BC will usually reach the opponent after they hit the ground. Damn near anything they try apart from blocking will get beat, and in almost every situation, the Air BC will reach them quick enough to hit the opponent out of THEIR pre-jump frames, meaning they can't just jump out of it or land and try to chicken guard again. This doesn't come up often, but it's worth knowing. *Bonus: If you're playing an extremely catatonic player, you can use kara-BC to build additional meter by jumping backwards and doing J.Mp, J.Mk xx BC. Hooray! - A short blurb on chicken guarding with Air BC: It rocks. If you successfully block an air string, counter with Air BC for a free knockdown! This is also useful against people with long air chains to keep the offensive pressure on, or Air Dashers who like to attack from the farthest possible range (jump up, chicken guard the air dash from near the ground, counter with Air BC). - Against grounded opponents, there's generally two ways to apply the cancel/kara-cancel BC: 1. If you know your opponent is going to attempt an AG, jump in, do something like J.Mk, and cancel it into an Air BC. This will keep them from immediately countering with something (unless they want to be rewarded with a knockdown), allowing you to stay in close even after being AG'd. The counter, of course, is that they could just anti-air you, or even worse, if they simply block both attacks, you won't land in time to block their counter-attack (i.e they get a free ground chain on you). 2. Using kara-BC, you have a pretty cool option select that can be useful against opponents with SRK-type attacks or other anti-air normals/specials. Though, in actual practice, it's not foolproof, it's still pretty damned useful: As you're descending from your jump, press J.Mk and kara-cancel it into a BC. Preferably, you want to do the J.Mk from a distance where it'll whiff. What happens here is, if they jump at you, or try and counter you with a normal, you'll beat them with your J.Mk. If they try instead try an SRK, it will whiff and they will instead be hit by your BC. Naturally, as I mentioned above, this isn't going to work out 100% of the time. If your opponent does a move that can beat your J.Mk, it won't magically win because you're doing a cool option select. Also, SRK attacks that move the opponent far enough forward will still beat this, so it's generally intended to beat Jab-SRKs/vertical Demon Cradles, slow anti-air normals (Anak's C.Hp, Jedah's C.Mk), and other anti-air specials (Jedah's Nero-Fatica, anti-air projectiles).

Haha, the cumulative numbers are exactly what I'm trying to avoid with my explanation, though. When you look at mine, it shows that the fourth and fifth are the most important inputs for the tech hit, and that the third hit has almost as much a chance of initiating it as the fifth. I guess it just depends how you like to view the information...but the cumulative numbers always looked more misleading to me :P

I don't know if anyone will find this useful, but for push blocks, the whole 25/50/75/100% thing never jived with me logically...mainly cos I think it's misleading. I like to think of it in terms of actual probability, so I had my friend do the math for me a while back and figure out the actual probability of getting a push block on each input. Here's the info, from the vsav wiki: You have a 0/32 chance (0%) of AG'ing on the first and second inputs. You have a 8/32 chance (25%) of AG'ing on the third input. You have a 12/32 chance (37.5%) of AG'ing on the fourth input. You have a 9/32 chance of (28.125%) AG'ing on the fifth input. You have a 3/32 chance of (9.375%)AG'ing on the sixth input.

Here are the basic ES BC patterns. Interchangeable parts of the variations are noted. Any one of these variations can also be started from an ES Air BC (4).: 1. The Zig Zag: 6 9 7 9 2, OR 6 7 9 7 2 This is the most basic variation; it leaves the opponent in roughly the same position on the play field (relative to where they got hit), and the downward finisher sets up Talbain for a pursuit attack or just a long time to set up his wakeup game. The second version is good for switching sides with your opponent. - Against some characters, it's easier to connect the final hit with 1 instead of 2. 2. The Staircase: 6 8 6 8 6/3 This is another very important variation, as it will corner an opponent from almost anywhere on the playfield. It's advantage in positioning is huge; however, the trade-off is that you're left in an awkward position: the opponent is in the corner, but you are cornered. Thus, your options afterwards are limited to either a late pursuit (places Talbain on the opposite side), or to dash away from the wall. Despite that, I hope the advantages of being able to corner your opponent at any time underscores how important this variation is. - Note that this variation can not be started from an ES Anti-Air BC (9). 3. Stairwell: 6 9 4 9 4/1, OR 6 7 6 7 6/2/3 There's no technically important reason to know this variation, other than that it's by far the easiest to land all the hits with. It's good to practice this variation for no other reason than if you panic or hit an ES BC unexpectedly (not because you threw it out randomly!), you can have this variation in your muscle memory to ensure the maximum amount of damage possible. The second version switches sides with the opponent. 4. Corner Variation: 6 8 9 9 3 Fuck 6 9 9 9 9. If you really want a good corner variation, this is the right one. Every direction change has a logical explanation: - 6 is the first hit...logically. - 8 is the second hit, because 6 9 will whiff against Demitri and Rapter. - 9 is the third hit, because 6 8 8 (or 6 9 8) will whiff against Lilith...and only Lilith, that bitch - 9 as the fourth hit is the only reliable way to set up a downward finisher against the majority of the cast (you can use 8 as a fourth against wide characters) - 3 is the only downward finisher that will reliably connect against the entire cast as well (2 works against fatties) Thus, this is the only corner variation with a downward finisher that works universally against the entire cast. Learn it, love it. 5. Guard Cancel: 9 1 8 4 8 Though most of the variations can be started off of 9, this is probably the easiest one to do off of a Guard Cancel. Keep in mind that while you'll start out in one direction, you'll be moving in the opposite direction in the second half. - Not that I should HAVE to explain this; but for completion's sake, know that you can't do this variation off of any other starter than 9. 6. The Elevator: 6 9/7 8 2 8 ...Because, hell yeah, lol. Like the Stairwell, it's a good muscle memory habit to know that you can do 8 2 8 after landing a diagonal upper (9 or 7). Using 7 instead of 9 switches sides with the opponent.

Every character does a bit of 'zoning', because it's hard to just walk (or jump) up and start killing your opponent. Thus, characters threaten their opponents aggressively, with relatively safe moves that either move them forward quickly, moves that knockdown, and getting resets anti-air normals. There aren't really any characters that do zoning to win, like you might see in other fighting games. The closest thing you have to that in VS are Demitri, Victor, and Anakaris, because their zoning is more defensive: - Demitri does fireballs and uppercuts (though, admittedly he has a dashing uppercut). He's got the Bat Spin, too, although that can be risky. His zoning game looks a lot like ST Ryu's on crack. - Victor's safe attacks which knockdown don't move him very far forward, if at all. On top of that, he has normals that don't cause pushback, AND normals that cause resets even on grounded opponents. Thus, the majority of his zoning revolves around predicting his opponent's approach, and throwing out an appropriate normal to reset and knockdown. - Anakaris has lots of extremely defensive tools which can be difficult to master, but when used in tandem can really make it difficult to approach due to the threat of being knocked down, or even just being evaded and countered: coffin drops, cobra blow, curses, tri-jumps, and anti-pursuits. Keep in mind that, even though their zoning games are defensive compared to the rest of the cast, they all have an offensive game which they need to use in order to win. There's no such thing as zoning or turtling your way to victory in Vampire Savior.

Atsuta.

Alright, so here's what's up with unblockables for Talbain...there's two of them. I'll do my best to inform you, but my understanding of them is not absolutely thorough, as they are both a bit gimmicky and I don't use them much. For the sake of understanding, I've underlined the unblockable attacks in the combo notation for this thread. 1. ES Beast Cannon unblockable: When an opponent blocks a BC that's going straight downward (2), the next hit, if done quickly enough (6 or 9) will be unblockable. I don't know exactly why this works, but it's not a crossup, because you can do it midscreen...although it's hard as hell to do. I'm 99.99% sure that you need to do the 2 into 6/9 fast enough for it to count as a block string in order to get this unblockable to work. As far as practical applications go: - If your opponent is just sitting in the corner and blocking, you can do a 6 9 2 6/9 8 ES BC, and the last two hits will connect for marginal damage, and more importantly, a knockdown. Again, this COULD be done midscreen, but it's much harder and you have better things to be doing. - You can also bait DPs to land the unblockable by doing 6 9 8 2 6/9. The 8 will (hopefully) avoid the DP entirely, and then you can come straight down on them and set up the final hit of the ES BC to be unblockable. If you are playing high level players, this will probably be the only way you see this unblockable come up in play. - You can also mix it up by doing 6 9 2 and then landing. This allows you do just do a Throw option select, or even block to bait a DP. 2. Dark Force Unblockable: The very first attack that Talbain's Mirage does after starting a Dark Force is not unblockable, per se; however, it doesn't cause an opponent to guard if they are holding back. Thus, if you can find a way to make your very first attack in Dark Force a meaty attack, you can set up a situation where the opponent gets up into a meaty Mirage attack, which they won't be able to block. While this sounds totally sexy, the reason why this isn't broken is because Talbain's Dark Force randomly picks between two different variations, where one set of Mirages hits faster than the other. Since there's no way to predict which one you're going to get, there are no 100% guaranteed setups for this unblockable (e.g you can't get a knockdown, activate Dark Force, and have a 100% chance of landing any meaty combo you can think of). What we do have, however, is a setup which will either get the unblockable or wind up being extremely safe, courtesy of KENGALLON: - Activate Dark Force, P Throw, C.Mk xx Quick Move, C.Mk xx ES BC When an opponent techs Talbain's P Throw, Talbain can do C.MK at the earliest possible moment, which is a 100% setup with one of his DF speeds. I've attached a flowchart to help understand how this will pan out in a real match. It's important to remember that Dark Force is a defensive maneuver. When you activate the Dark Force, it's not to do the unblockable; it's simply another way for us to get a knockdown and safely escape pressure. Enjoy.

The difficulty in creating effective mixups is the one and only hole in Talbain's offense. While it seems negligible at first, the problem becomes more obvious as you play opponents with greater skill. The immediate goal in mixing up with Talbain is not necessarily to land hits; but rather, to avoid getting AG'd, as AG really hurts Talbain compared to other pressure rushdown characters. Here's some tips on how to accomplish that: 1. Know your pressure strings. When you're in on the opponent, do small, intermittent block strings, mixed in with Quick Move (D+3K) to stay on top of your opponent. Doing repeated C.Lps, C.Lp -> C.Lk, C.(light) -> C.(medium), and C.Mp -> C.Mk with varied timing in between will catch your opponent's AG attempt. This won't do a lot of damage, but it will give you an effective way to gauge your opponent. For example... - Based on whether or not your opponent is getting hit by the strings with frequency, you can tell if they are trying to AG, counter attack, or are simply sitting there blocking. - Based on how frequently they are AG'ing your attacks, you can determine how long you can keep up the pressure strings before attempting a mixup/frame trap. It's important to cancel C.(light) and C.Mk into Quick Moves at time, since Talbain has no other way to move forward while applying ground pressure. Quick Move has a bit of a mixup built into it as well: C.Mk xx Quick Move is the standard cancel; it is safe on block, and it keeps Talbain at roughly the same distance away from his opponent from when he started the move. C.Lp/C.Lk xx Quick Move is the fancy cancel; this maneuver will actually cause Talbain to gain some ground on his opponent and allow for some more tricky stuff (walk-up throw, easier dash cross ups, or even just variable blockstun pressure), but it is NOT safe on block. You CAN be hit out of this cancel, so it's important not to just do it all the time, and especially not against an opponent who is jamming out on AG, as they'll hit you out of this without even thinking about it. 2. Be aware of all your mixup options. When establishing ground pressure, you actually have a lot of options: - C.Mk xx ES BC: this one seems really obvious, but keep in mind that this is a frame trap from certain distances. If you know your spacing, you can do this from a distance in which it won't combo, making it dangerous to just blindly AG. This might seem scrubby, but it's probably Talbain's most important deterrence against people who just one-hit Tech and immediately rush in afterwards. - Dash: Depending on your opponent and your placement on the field, you have a few different options. D.Lk/D.Mk are the typical overheads, and will be used most of the time - D.Lk can also cross up against shorties (Talbain, Morrigan, Lilith, BB Hood, Q-Bee, and...someone else, I forgot lol). D.Mk -> D.Lk is a good one for midscreen against tall characters (Demi, Anak, Vic, Rik, Jedah, Bish), especially after landing a damage chain, as it usually sets up the spacing just right. - Normals: There's a lot of untapped potential in Talbain's normals for mixup. Light attacks obviously will continue block pressure, but also, C.Lk is especially good for baiting Guard Cancels. Throwing in C.Mp or S.Hp after a Quick Move is really effective for variable block pressure, since the slight differences in timing will catch people who AG mechanically. S.Mk and T.Mk are good proactive defensive options, as they are good for pegging people who try to jump out of your block strings and cause resets. - (Walk foward), C.Hk: This is Talbain's only low knockdown option, so while it's not that flashy, it's still a powerful tool. - Tick throw: You could command throw; but, even if the opponent techs the throw, they are likely to be cornered, which is wonderful for you. I'd just do the normal throw. Command throw can also queer up the Throw option select. - Anti-Air BC: Also another proactive option for people who try to jump out of your block strings. This is a wonderful option against high/low rushdown characters. - Normal BC: The normal BC has a mixup in and of itself; you can do 66 with staggered timing between the first and second hits to try and catch AG'ers, 64 to avoid being reset by an AG attack, 6 (cross behind) 4 for a cross-up, and even 6, throw/command throw to catch people who are too catatonic. - TK Air BC: The proper way to TK Air BC is 23696+P. This is admittedly not particularly good at punishing any specific thing; however, it does lead to big damage if it hits, and it's very safe on block if done low to the ground, allowing you another mixup option, or even the opportunity to bait an attack so you can hit them with your own GC. - Jump: The jump has its own built-in mixup, too. You can mixup between jumping in with a normal (vary the timing and the attack for AGs) and empty jump into command throw for people who are blocking too much, You can also do J.Mk xx Air BC, which is an extremely low-risk frame trap (when done from far away), combo (if done right on top of them), or reset (if they tried to jump away). Jumping in and chicken guarding is beautiful against characters with DPs, as you can then counter the blocked DP with J.Hk or Air BC. Finally, jumping backwards and doing Air BC is a slightly more defensive variation of TK Air BC. - C.Mk xx Dragon Cannon or C.Mk xx Quick Move, Dragon Cannon: This is an extremely gimmicky option used only for opponents who are on the verge of losing a life and are panicking. Don't do this if you have the opponent in the corner, or they will have all damn day to react to it. Here's a match of me vs. Mar which showcases several of the options I've mentioned here. Keep in mind that, since Anakaris can't tech hit, many of the really long ground pressure strings I did are a bit stronger here than they are against other opponents: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc-iWhJRvp8 3. Reset smart. Take advantage of good air resets. If your opponent is going to land far away from you, do a meaty dash. If your opponent is going to land close to you, mix up which side you are going to be on when they land and do a ground chain. If they are landing close, and you think they are going to jump or AG, do a meaty S.Hp -> C.Hk for a knockdown. Do a throw sometimes. Jump straight up and run a jump mixup. If you wanna mix it up with Talbain, you've gotta dig a little deep. But, it's worth it; if you wanna WIN with Talbain in high-level play, you'll learn how to mix it up!

If the mods feel like it's worthwhile to keep this thread open, then by all means; but, I should mention that I'd be more than welcome to discussing anti-Talbain strategies in my thread, as well.

If you have a question about Talbain, I will answer it to the best of my knowledge instead of saying "LOL BC" or "LOL J HP" as most other people will. Go EDIT: Here's some resources: http://vsav.mizuumi.net/wiki/Gallon - Talbain wiki page updated mostly by me. Contains basics, move analysis, combos, etc. http://vstalbain.blogspot.com - My personal Talbain blog. I'm not sure how often I will update it; however, I do make a point of recording every detailed explanation (from Dustloop or anywhere else) I give about Talbain in this blog, so it's a a bit easier than scanning through this thread and various other ones.

I've wrote a tutorial that focuses on explaining the game, specifically to people who have a moderate-to-high amount of experience playing other fighting games. The best thing I can tell you, other than 'read it', is: - Don't play this game like it's SFA2. - Don't play this game like it's 3s. - Or ST. Or Guilty Gear. - Or Marvel. Or A3. Or anything. Vampire Savior LOOKS like a lot of fighting games you may have played before, but even the most innocuous of things, like the role of fireballs in VS, are different from other fighters. You can find the tutorial here: http://vsav.mizuumi.net/wiki/Tutorial If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to let me know; there's definitely a section or two I ought to update.

What's the best Bomber Loop in AC? I've taken to doing: - Any startup (Rensen FRC, Throw, TK Bomber), Dash in, S.c -> 2S (JC) j.D XX Axl Bomber. Is that the best one? Are there any good ones that use the Dust Axl Bomber? Also What's the best finisher for Bomber Loops in AC? I'm usually doing the loop twice, and then I dash in once more and do S.c XX S Bentengari. I'm thinking that if there's no really good finisher, I would probably just omit that part so that they'd fall cleanly without being able to tech. What do you guys think? A few other questions... Does anyone feel that, now that TK Bomber is an overhead, that there's no more use for Dust combos? It seems like TK Bomber is still faster than Dust, and starting up bomber loops off a TK Bomber does the most damage out of any startup by a pretty large amount. Any particular reasons to use the Dust Bomber besides racking in a bit of extra damage at the end of a round, or as a midscreen finisher? As for midscreen finishers, do you think that Dust Bomber is better than Kokuugeki for a midscreen finisher? Lastly, after Axl's DP+P counter XX super, what are some good tag-on combos if you hit someone out of the air?