TheArm05

Kanji is a rare case that actually has a lot of trouble approaching Liz. Blue life is just too easy to randomly lose against most characters IMO it is a huge risk Mind Charging at >60%. Chie flailing with j.A/B ,Mits holding forward and pressing A, Narukami dash up 2B, Yukiko Fans. All go from being not a huge deal to being the end of the round. I already know that the first video we get of Damosu vs a good Mits is going to bring back the sadness. Damosu vs Minori would be a bloodbath. I still plan on playing Liz hard but I won't make the mistake of her being my only character again. I am picking up Mitsuru or something.

Shuffle time is just a horrendous F-Action. They need to scrap it and give us something that at least has some kind of decent use. Since Liz is now much more in line with the rest of the cast in terms of damage there really is no excuse at this point for her dp to not at least fall under the "bad" category (Labrys) instead of the "useless" category.

Since it seems like Koko will make it at least another month or so before the banhammer comes down I'll drop my thoughts on this matchup. Azrael has tools to deal with her shit but she is just STRONG so it is still difficult (he isn't near as bad off as most though). 3C straight up shits on Azrael. Far and away the number one move to look out for. If you eat it it will usually lead to 4k+ depending on the meter they spend and how they confirm it. Simply put we don't have a solid answer to this move. 2C/5C/gustaf all lose free. 6C works occasionally due to low invuln but is slow and gets bodied by 6A. The best thing to do is instant block the second hit and either backdash or start pressure if you are close enough to 5A. 6A is the best anti air in the game. She can react late as hell and still anti air an IAD j.B. Attempting to jump/airdash in is reserved for reads or punishes only. Don't fuck with this move. j.2C is a brutal air to ground move. If she is smart when using it you can't anti air her with anything. However with enough experience against her you can start to spot when you can anti air her with 2C. I have experimented with 6B against it in training mode and it seems ok. I will test that next time in casuals. Don't bother with the usual 5A/5B anti airs unless they like jumping in with j.A/B for some reason. As far as what to do in neutral. She will run and you will push forward. If you can trap her in the corner you win. If not you lose. Watch for the graviton place > teleport when her back gets against the wall. Remember you can always BHS the recovery of teleport. You can eat traps with 66 > 2147B for free stocks just be careful if she tries to go in for a mixup. Eating a full fireball is two stocks. I learned a bunch of phalanx combos just for this matchup (and Mu I guess). For super ball punishes there are a couple of really strong options if you have OD + 50 that basically immediately win you the round especially since phalanx stocks are so free in this matchup. Koko's back to corner [OD + 50 + 1 stock] Super Ball > OD > 5C > delay > BHS > ball hit > phalanx > 66 > 5B > combo [OD + 50 + 1 stock + UW] Super Ball > OD > 5C > delay > BHS > ball hit > phalanx x2 > 6D > combo [OD + 50 + LW] Super Ball > OD > 5C > delay > BHS > ball hit > 3D > combo You should get the idea from here. It uses the falling super ball as a free RC. Any of these combos break 7k pretty effortlessly and 9k if you super again.

Yeah it sucks for Koko players that they wasted their time if she gets banned. It also sucks that ArcSys released a character that is so obviously strong that she completely renders the majority of the cast obsolete. The real question is do we want to play a ~6 character game or a 15-20 character game? Kokonoe will define the competitive environment of this game if she is allowed to rock. Honestly it isn't even about her getting 1st in every tournament. Anyone who saw NEC pools knows exactly how much effect she had on the entire tournament and that was with everyone being shit with the character. Honestly I just want to play this game so I prefer whatever is healthiest for the scene. I play both a character that can kind of fight her (Azrael) and one who just gets dumpstered (Rachel) so I know what it is like playing against this character from two extremes. The Rachel player in me says that Kokonoe is an abomination that may as well have replaced my character on the select screen because she is just better than Rachel at everything. The Azrael player in me says that I can deal with this character and it won't be so bad. Take that however you want.

ASW forcing us to play even MORE risky in p4u2. Clearly Liz is much stronger in awakening then outside of it so it will be all about when you choose to mind charge. Damosu got mind charge off for free a lot because he was against shitty kanji. I feel like this will be an entirely different problem against Mits/Chie/Aigis/everyone else. I hope they at least made Mind Charge full invuln. I liked a lot of the options I saw Damosu using. j.C > j.D seems really useful and Thanatos in general seems to have a lot more options in terms of remote control. This was my favorite part of Liz before and looks like even more fun now. All that being said I am still SCARED. Mits/Aigis/Narukami all look stronger, Chie will one shot us, and zoners will still outzone us. I hope new Liz can keep up.

Too bad he threw the last round in the dumbest way possible so once again we see a Liz go one and done. Dash cancel 5C looked pretty good but the Teddie never tried mashing 5B. If any safe followup after 5C DC stuffs Teddie mashing 5B then it is really legit. That Liz did ok but still I haven't seen anything that impresses me. Almost everything he did he could have done before and he did SO MUCH LESS damage...

I would never taunt at the start of a match. That seems like a pretty dumb way of losing half my life in BB. The GGs after the match is just standard online game courtesy although I only usually send one to people I played 3+ matches. After you win you can do anything you want for a second or so. Sometimes I try to finish my combo. Sometimes I rapid. Sometimes I Azrael 3D the corpse because thats my favorite move in the game. I don't mean it as disrespect I am just having fun. Some people just take things too seriously. In CT the corpse beating lasted A LOT longer. At least you don't have to deal with entire corpse combos anymore.

Noel 4D is a PROBLEM for us. It straight up invalidates most of our normally good meaties/oki. Dump/6A/5A/5B/2C/6D/5D all lose hard to her 4D. Basically on her wakeup you have to 2A/2B/3D her everytime or risk getting bodied by 4D. I don't think we have any setups that are safe to both Fenrir and 4D. I will spend some time this week trying to figure one out though. Fenrir is also too fast to 6A post flash but active 6A will beat or clash with Fenrir every time. My Noel matchup exp is pretty weak atm so I am wondering if anyone with more experience against her knows any useful tips for dealing with 4D effectively.

You can 6A through Ragna ID. It is more difficult than most since it has a shitload of active frames but it is definitely doable. The hardest person to get 6A to work on imo is Jin. His C DP is really slow and his D dp is pretty fast. Finding the timing to be able to beat both with 6A is hard but at least 6A beats Yukikaze free. This is my go-to combo with 50 meter and no weakpoints. It is really solid. For getting the j.C > 6A for me I wait until Azraels slides all the way through from leopard before rapiding into IAD j.C. This way makes the j.C able to hit super late as they are lower so you can land into 6A. The main reason I think this combo is the go-to though is because if they have UW you can instead do land 6A > Valiant. Makes this combo really versatile.

The important thing to remember about falling j.C combos is that j.C has A LOT of hitstun. This lets you delay the crap out of j.D and it also gives you plenty of time to hit the followup after falling j.C. If you manage to make the falling j.C connect then it is almost guaranteed you can at least hit sj j.C as a follow up. It is also significantly easier in the corner/on large targets (it is free as hell on Tager). Also as far 6A vs counter assaults goes. Most people are just terrified to be blockstringed to ANY extent by Azrael. Even more so when he has UW/LW on people. A lot of the time people immediately counter assault the first move they block so something like 5B > 6A beats that. 6A also beats most DPs/supers/5A/5B mash. If they don't counter assault you can usually backdash after 6A and be fine so it isn't a really a huge risk. 6A doesn't beat bursts either since it is invuln instead of armor and invuln gets beaten by bursts.

Yeah I have experimented with mid-Valiant resets. I haven't found any really practical ways to use it but there is one that is pretty strong against Tager since it at least starts with no weakpoints. 5BB > OD > 5B > Scud > 5A > 5B > 2C > 3D > Valiant > (6 5C)*3 > 6 2C(SMP force standing reset) > 6 6D/3D > combo You can keep using valiant charger for a bit after the 6D/3D to continue the combo and since scud reapplies both weakpoints you get really good damage from the reset. It just takes a HUGE upfront payment with meter/OD for a rather risky setup. One thing to note is even though you have not actually used 236D in the reset combo you can't use it to get a second valiant charger extension. Apparently you only have a set amount of charger time a combo which is odd as fuck. In case anyone didn't know 6A beats the shit out of counter assaults. This means you can blow up counter assaults by doing a blockstring of 5B > 6A or 5AA > 6A into a full combo which is really devastating since 6A is a rather strong starter.

I don't think Black Hole NEEDS to be removed. It certainly should be toned down significantly. Remove the invuln on it and massively reduce the p1 (wtf 120% reverse proration?). This way she could use it for oki still or as a special way to open people up who block her fireball but it would lose to counter assaults and if mistimed reversals. I also don't think you need to double shit on Super Ball. Either make it go away on hit or take away the startup invuln. Having both makes this move retarded, just one is reasonable. It should also disappear on its own much more quickly. I think that the most overpowered part about this character above all is her Graviton and its meter. The meter depletes absurdly slowly and activating it doesn't use up much meter at all. I think the meter should go down MUCH faster and activating should empty the entire bar. Lock her out of its use for a couple seconds after but have the meter recharge more quickly. As of now Kokonoe barely has to even think about using this move and it just gives SO much screen control and ability to confirm combos. This change would mean she has to actively decide if she wants to use it for zoning or combo damage, and it would allow really good players to position it smartly to allow her to do both. Personally I hate the idea of a frame 1 invuln teleport but it really isn't that bad once you learn to play around it. I could also make a decently long list of other moves I consider too strong (her 6A especially) but honestly just nerfing the hell out of graviton would go a loooong way to bringing her in line with the rest of the cast.

Exactly the point though. Banning characters in a fighting game should never be taken lightly. It also should not happen if only one player comes out and starts dominating. Like I said earlier don't ban her until we have a major that is more Kokonoe then not in top 8. If she never wins anything anyway what is the point of banning her? As a point of reference we let CS1 Valk rock all the way through the lifespan of the game. He was just as bad if not worse than CP Koko.

She is ban worthy if used to her full potential. I fully believe this after watching gods like Tsujikawa. The thing is I don't live in Japan I live in America. Americans are not doing truly broken stuff yet and are barely going past the just generally good shit she has. She is definitely very strong even here, but until she starts dominating (and winning) majors she won't and should not be banned. When we see 6/8 of top 8 as Koko then that is when we legitimately consider banning her. However when players are using her and get to top 16 then lose to fking Noel or Kagura I see no reason to ban her yet. The biggest problem I see is that everyone KNOWS shes broken. So everyone (me included) is spending time to learn the character as a sub/potential main. This is going to lead to an unhealthy game state that is just entirely Koko or anti Koko. There is just no way for characters that can't fight Koko to do well in tournament and there are quite a few characters that just get demolished by her.

Online play in fighting games is notoriously shaky at best. You just lose so much compared to offline play even with a good connection. If you really want to experience fighting games to the fullest you have to play offline with people.

6D has an enormous hitbox so it usually doesn't whiff horizontally (it can happen in extreme cases). If you are connecting 5A > 5B > 2C then 6D should always work as long as you do it fast enough. Are they hitting the ground after 2C? If so then you are doing it too slowly. They shouldn't air tech after 2C in such a short combo so I don't really think you could miss there. Like with a lot of Azrael stuff you can't just mash out the next move, you have to time it. It just takes a little practice. I have been messing around with j.D > RC > j.C combo routes. AA 5B > j.B > j.C > delay j.D > RC > j.C > T(whiff)C > valiant is SO strong. It reaches almost 5k and if you have meter for BHS ender you can break 6k. I am going to try and implement a bunch of combos that start with no weakpoints and add them in mid combo at the next casual session I go to.

Spent a while in training mode yesterday messing around with some of the stuff I learned from LegendaryRath's new combo video. 5C FC > CT > 623C > combo is SO MUCH damage. I didn't know we had enough time to dump on them after a CT. Honestly this starter is so efficient that with just UW on them I don't think it is worth it to OD anymore. Although double weakpoint 5C FC> CT > OD > 3D > combo is still the king of damage for Az. That dump combo doesn't use up 3C,6A,or 2C either so it lets you do the optimal valiant corner extension. Thanks for the vid LegendaryRath.

I suck at the j.]C[ > 2D > j.C > 6A > 236A combo so I don't try it anymore. The windless version that you posted is good too but again I always seem to have them at the wrong height at 6A > 236A and drop it. The j.Cs in my combos are there because you can stabilize the height of almost any combo by timing the land 5B/6A correctly. It makes it so much easier for me. For the actual way to input the double j.C combo. The way I do it is press j.C once and hold it down then after a brief pause where Rachel floats I let go of the button and immediately press j.C again and then do 2D as fast as possible. You can probably do it a lot of different ways. It takes some getting used to but that part isn't hard. Getting the timing for the 6A after landing is a lot trickier. Too high up and you whiff the followup, too low and the followup doesn't hit right.

I am not even sure which two wind combo you are talking about. You can definitely do CH 6A >66 5B > j.]C[ > j.C2D > 6A > 4B > 66 5B > 6A > 236A > 66 3C > 214A > 66 5CC Personally I use CH 6A >66 5B > j.C2D > 5B > 6A > 236A > 66 3C > 214A > 66 6A > 4B > 66 5CC

I picked Liz BECAUSE of the huge combos. I loved how her combos looked and I liked this character a ton from P3 so the choice was easy for me. If they take away the huge combos but make her a legit character that is fine with me. I always did pretty well with Liz already. If we lost the huge awesome combos AND shes still shit at touching people then I will be really sad. I don't think I will switch characters since I like Liz so much and I have so much fun playing her, but I am definitely picking up a sub in case she is shit again and because I need a sub anyway.

This matchup isn't too bad imo. Valk does have an advantage because he can for the most part just pick when he is going to engage on you since he is so much faster. Playing against our good Valk player I started out just throwing 2C, 5B , and j.B all the time to catch him as he was trying to go in. However this strategy quickly becomes obsolete once the Valk learns to just sit patiently and whiff punish you. What I have found that does work is to just slowly and patiently advance on him and try to force him to block you. Once he blocks you are in there. You have to stay on him when you hit him the first time since he is perfectly capable of running away and timing out your weakpoints. One move that is significantly better in this matchup than usual is j.C . It can tag Valk when he is WAY above you due to its great hitbox. If you score a counter hit with it they are untechable all the way to the ground which allows for easy follow ups into huge damage. w.5B wrecks your jump ins pretty hard. As stated above you can bait it with j.2C but that doesn't lead to anything. Primarily just avoid going air to ground vs wolf Valk. 5C is obviously a good poke/counter poke tool when he is using human normals. Max range Az 5C is just a little bit farther than Valk 5C. If you find yourself opened up (happens a lot, thankfully his damage is low) you have a decent amount of options to get him off of you. Growler isn't great put simply especially since they can just space w.5C and bait it automatically. It is still good to use it sparingly to get some breathing room if he is going too nuts though. Backdash > 5A in the corner is a fantastic option if you get the read on the right move. Some wolf approaches get blown up by backdash. One more thing if he does wakeup Sturm Wulf you can 6A post super flash and beat it clean for free. If you knock him into the corner you get a huge combo too.

I've been doing j.2AD > j.B > 5B > 5CC > 5B > 6A > 236A > 3C This gives a pole and is probably about the same damage. You really can't get much off of a j.A starter. I need to get used to doing j.2AD > j.B > dj > j.BAC instead of j.2AD > j.B > dj > j.ABC for the much better starter from that mixup.

For Fatal punishes I just do 5C > 214A > (66) 2C > 5B > any normal launched opponent combo. Aside from the starting part of the combo being fatal doesn't change much. Huge damage example (Corner) 5C FC > 214A > (66) 2C > 5B > j.C > j.236A2D > 5B > j.C > j.236A2D > 5B > 6A > 236A > 6A > 4B > OD > 66 6A > BBL > 236A > 236A 8D > BBL 8k+

I never had any problems playing Rachel vs one of our stronger player's sub Bullet. She does ok ish in the matchup but she just doesn't really have the speed to get in easily like a lot of the other faster rushdown characters that can give Rachel trouble. She is also constantly in the predicament of "I want to get charge,but he will just fill the screen with shit". George + Pumpkin + pole >>> heat levels imo. A lot of the time you can counter hit her out of the charge recovery too. If she gets in with heat level 2 and meter to burn you can get blown up rather quickly. So I don't exactly think its free but i think it is in our favor.

It really is just a matter of preference. The highest level players of pad can do just as well as stick players. Honestly the only reason you see more "good" stick players is because many stick players grew up playing in arcades and got used to that for fighting games. The fact that they have been playing for years is why they are better the peripheral is irrelevant. For me personally though I was /ASS/ on pad. I couldn't do dragon punches either direction, couldn't dash to the left consistently, and sucked so bad at instant air dashes. I can do all of these effortlessly on stick now. For me the difference is night and day but I have been bodied by enough pad players to know that it does work just fine at high levels.