Andarel

Boo, "is hard now" =/= "is less rewarding." Bah. Secretly ASW screws around with all of these changes before the final release.

Did they decrease the window?

What is this Gundam in a Bang thread. Btw opponent randomly boosting into Heavyarms full open is the best (most facepalm-worthy) way to win.

Eyelasers and TK Jetpacks. Eyelasers and TK Jetpacks everywhere.

Well, no duh. The main thing is that you'll be stuck blocking eventually...we're now looking at air-unblockable 5B/5C moves and only -2/-3 on IB, which is less than jump startup...so that's a worse option now. CA was generally reliable, not sure if it still is.

Yeah, Arakune/Lambda are going to have trouble getting out of the defensive, especially when cornered. I get the feeling ASW wants Arakune to be good at both RTSD and zoning depending on the situation, but don't mess up or you're screwed. Not sure how Lambda will play, though. Her new toys look fun.

If there's a 2-frame gap (plus their next move's startup), you still can buffer a 5a into that or a reversal. It's just hard. And if Bang wants to keep you in blockstun forever, it's your blocking skills vs. remaining nails, which are much less scary now that they don't bounce. Blocking skills everywhere. I'd rather see throws tweaked than the roll system. Slightly faster to come out / slightly decrease pink throw tech time and trigger time. Weakening IB makes solid wakeup blockstrings much scarier anyways, which is great. EDIT: Rolls away from the opponent need to be weakened, though.

If it's truly godawful and the blockstring is over 6 seconds, you'll be IBing all of it automatically and gaining heat like crazy anyways. It's got some worrying implications, particularly with Bang, but with some of his moves being slowed down I don't think it's a bad thing.

Yeeaaahhhhhh.... IB -> backdash (and IB in general) and chicken blocking weakened. Plus CA nerfs. What do you think the best ways will be to get out of pressure come CS2? Still, good shit ASW.

Reading that, I'm not sure how that "but" is a bad thing. If you've got a tricky/unsafe move, it will still be unsafe. Slightly less unsafe, even. It makes solid aggressive tactics more viable, and gives the aggressor an extra few frames to set up a gimmick. Increasing the viability of gimmicky blockstrings is good, and it's even better when you look at how it works with an actually solid blockstring. And less dealing with things like lol5a. Basically, if you want to use Hell's Fang, go ahead and still get punished for it if it doesn't connect. Letting players use more moves in blockstrings = a good thing.

The window may have been nerfed too - that's harder to check. It's at 8 frames in CS1, right? No matter, good shit ASW. I'm kind of amused by the fact that I can see combo damage decreased but games lasting less time anyways. I just wish hitlag (hitstop, whatever this community calls it) was slightly lowered. In general, though, gotta say I'm hyped for CSII. Rachel and Tsubaki no longer crippled, Noel with better normals, Tager almost having functional blockstrings (weaker IB helps a lot with this), Lambda getting new toys, Jin having oki again, Bang and Litchi less autopilot (far as I can tell). Just gotta hope Tao throws aside her loketest wheelchair and grabs a Segway before the actual release.

...what? Well, if they wanted to weaken defensive options and strengthen blockstrings...I can't see this change being a bad thing. It's like ASW is making good changes or something. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but aren't more untech frames a good thing? Or am I missing what they mean by it.

^ Yeah, that's why I'm interested in what happens with it. If it was a nerf it'd be a weird one, but considering it may still connect to dj.2DD...that wouldn't change much. If we get some sort of oki after aerial sword combo, well, as unexciting as Lambda's oki game is (secretly, somewhere, people gettin' hit by dash 4B) I can't complain about more opportunities.

Bah, Nu was a zoner and we know how much damage she got off random hits. If ASW makes it so we get better damage off random sword hits or 236D (which is a fine combo starter, especially if we can combo after ground-hit 5DD with something other than 236B), it'll far more than make up for the loss of a crappy DP. The real gamebreaker for better or for worse will be the changes to j214D rather than j.DD or 5DD, I think.

I'm fine with them spicing up her playstyle. If she gets better at controlling space (which slowed-down swords really screwed her over in, though the 214D buffs between CT and CS made a little progress in helping...) and her combos get more varied (really, her combo game is pretty linear) I'll be happy. It looks like Arcsys is trying to give her more options, and since that's one of her big problems in this game, I'd like to see where it goes. Shenanigans are always good. Apparently Sickle Chaser is good now. Could this be the game where both 214D and 236D are actually useful?

Buffs that solidify Makoto's shaky mixup game in exchange for nerfs that screw with some of her gimmicky combos? Whodathunkit. Anyways, no aerial tech after 214A~CxN combined with better (How, exactly? Faster?) 214A~B will make 5C's options more interesting. Shame it's probably still easy to mash 5A her out of the dash...if it's fast enough to beat out mashers, though, then wow. Might be possible to do silly things like 6c 214A~B 6a, though not optimistic about that (6c 214A~C~A doesn't even come that close to connecting...). Any idea if 214A~C~A/B were changed at all?

In all honesty, isn't that kind of a strong assumption to make when we don't know what that change even actually means and/or how it'll affect her combos and zoning game? If it lets us do silly nonsense like 5DD 236D d.6DD etc. against people in the air at certain ranges (I doubt it's got that much hitstun or 236D was made fast enough), and if it somehow makes her get a more rewarding setup off predicting a dash with 5DD than 5DD 236B...I won't be complaining. Shame I don't think we'll get any Nu-esque RC shenanigans to launch after 236D though. Regardless. I'll need to see or mess with the Crescent tweaks to judge those. Did we get an opinion from Goro this time around? I remember the summary tossed out had people being quite happy with Lambda. Not surprised that she's stronger, but I'll have to see some videos to truly believe it.

I'm thinking (hoping) it means: 236D connecting with an aerial opponent now just bluebeats, bouncing them up and down until they realize they should probably tech out of it. Since I think 236D has more hits (6?) in the new loketest, could it be that a blocked 236D will catch people trying to jump out of it (hits are closer together and snag them out of jump startup) and do a little air-bounce combo to set up for whatever the hell you want? Considering how long a connected 236D stuns for due to its multiple hits, especially if they get caught by the 2nd or 3rd hit rather than a later one...dunno, some aircombo? Might be too far for 236C to connect. @4B - They have more time to stop holding downback between the two hits. Still not sure why Arc would do this, but whatever.

Does that mean that gravity overall is increased? Making the game faster/less floaty is a change I can get behind, I suppose.

Moves that send people up-forwards? I got nothing. A few pages back there were some more Gravity Seed and other changes, I think? I don't remember seeing those translated on the big list of translations though I may be wrong. How solid does Makoto look - or rather does her mixup seem any better? Earlier changes seemed pretty crippling to her, but any changes that make it simpler for her to get in or get past blockers... Where these translated, by the way? Didn't see it anywhere, may have missed it. ☆ボーナス補正削除？ …ボーナス補正が消えてるキャラが多数いるようです カルルくんの2Dもおそらくないです ノエルはどうなんかな？ ☆重力の影響が強め …Λの話じゃないです ID後や空ロベ後、相手が落ちてくるスピードも速くなってます スタイリッシュですね

The attack level of a move determines its hitstun and blockstun. Increasing the attack level increases both.

So with 4B being significantly easier to punish (and still doesn't combo on standing non-ch, right?), and the j214D nerfs...how does she overhead again?

You need to jump in between them, and see how far they fall. Her combos are all about spacing. There are trickier things involving j.214D~C, but for now get everything perfect.

So wait, are a lot more things (b/c moves) air-unblockable now like was said earlier? If that's true, then the 5b buff is just a side effect of that. Are Lambda's 5C/6C air-unblockable (if 6C wasn't already, I can't remember)?

So stunedge, that means she has to commit even more than she does now, but the reward for hitting with them is bigger? 236c links, or something odd like 236a -> 5b? I dunno if Goro would have tested this, but 236a early cancel with things other than grab? Damn, though. These are going to be interesting... Batousai, I think the C-Wings thing is j236C, jD for a moment, continue air combo. That seems odd to me, but if it works...