Sahgren

If anyone is passing through the Rohnert Park area, could I get a ride with you? I can pay for gas/parking/tolls if necessary.

Try doing 2362369C to get the air DD to come out right after you leave the ground. The timing is a little funky though, you need to very slightly delay the super after jumping or else Valk will land short, but you don't have a very large window to delay it.

Merkava Unreal Black Thing wallpaper this time. There's also an announcement that they'll be in the Jan 30th edition of Arcadia, so let's hope that some useful info will be in there.

Looking at the system data, Valk's human backdash has the same 5 frames of invincibility as the majority of the cast. On the other hand, it's the fastest recovering backdash in the game at 16 frames, the next fastest are Noel and Taokaka tied at 18 frames and everyone else is 20+. While the recovery seems like it'd allow you to punish something you normally wouldn't, 5 frames isn't a very large window to invul through something, especially if you consider that basically everything that takes more than 16 frames to recover has 3+ active frames.

It is, especially with 2C > 236B > RC. Then again, 2C > 236B > RC just goes into the exact combo that Warriorkiller listed (or at least a variant), so it's a moot point.

Since it really is important to playing Valk, I'm also going that you should abuse his wolf movement in neutral more. Flying around the screen and making the other guy impatient both opens up more options of approach and gets the opponent to do something you can take advantage of. You should also vary up your approaches more. At the beginning of those two videos, horizontal wolf cannons were consistently hitting the opponent and leading into a combo. As time went on, your opponent adapted to that and an increasing number of your wolf cannons were either interrupted with HF or blocked. Mix in coming in from above and just moving forward for [w]5A/j.A to take advantage of him respecting the wolf cannons and open him up. Look into optimizing your punishes and hitconfirms. You can punish a blocked Carnage Scissors with 2C/6B, and there was a point where he whiffed an ID, but you only attempted to punish with [h]5B. Aim for hitconfirming into Rozen on a crouching opponent; even if you landed two 2As, you should be able to land a simple combo into a bit more damage/meter gain off of Rozen than 3C > 236A.

I agree with it for the most part. Though I do wonder why he specifically mentions IB Barrier as a defensive option for Valk only. I'll have to put more thought into using his backstep as an option for escaping pressure too; I always thought of it as a step above most of the casts', but not amazing, so I might be underestimating it.

It's just a different way of doing the 4 cannon corner combo, so it works off of a 6C starter, yes. It also works off of 3C, you just have to be really close to them. I will comment that that's the combo I generally use to punish a baited DP or the like in the corner, so it does actually come up every once in a while for me.

For dealing with pressure: It's honestly best if you just hold onto 50 meter to CA your way out. Your meterless options really come down to IB > 2A/6A/jump out thanks to Valk not having a DP. Don't be sad to just get back into neutral; Valk has one of the best neutral games in the game, so it isn't that horrible a thing if you just escape without hitting back. For the combo, I'm just going to assume you mean [h]2C instead of [h]3C, since the combo doesn't work with that many [h]3Cs. All I can really tell you is to hit j.D immediately after jumping, then input j.B as quickly as possible. Don't worry, you'll get it with practice.

Nope. Not a lot of info on anything at this point, which is part of the problem. If it means anything, there were some Twitter posts a while ago by the company stating that they care a lot more about having a PS3 port for their games than a 360 port. They were specifically talking about Melty Blood, but it might influence what they do in UNIB.

Thank you, Roki.

Gordeau wallpaper this time. On the positive side, they'll have to release info on the two new characters eventually in order to keep giving us Twitter avas/wallpapers instead of actual updates.

That is something to consider. He may be doing that to both allow himself to block and make them not want to poke thanks to 2A > 2C being a frame trap and 2A > j.D > 3C > j.A jumping over most low pokes. At the very least, it's another way of going about it. It looked like Nisi was jumping backwards after a certain point in order to avoid getting caught by Delyuku's IAD > j.A. I do have to wonder if Delyuku was just messing up meaty 214B though; being able to jump out means that everyone can just jump back > airdash backwards to get out. If you mean having Valk IAD forward > j.A, I'm not entirely certain. Relius' 214B looks like it recovers really quickly.

Thank you, Kiba. I'm a little sad that I can't contribute now; I don't have Extend and can't test things. Useful for the people that do have it though. I don't think I've ever seen someone do [h]2A > 5D > [w]5A as a way of slipping into wolf form for pressure before. He actually just seems to like flipping inbetween human and wolf randomly; there were a couple points where he'd do [w]j.A > land 5D > [h]2A for pressure, despite having near full wolf meter, just to jump cancel into j.D > 3C > j.A. I personally can't figure out the logic behind it.

As in match up threads? CSX is out on console now (albeit not localized outside Japan), so it would seem like a good time to put up the threads and start adding info/asking questions.

Sorry for the late reply, Jiggmaster. This thread lists some useful tricks for moving around. One I'm personally fond of is [h]9D > 6j.D, since it allows you to move long distances while still letting you block for most of the movement. While not an approach, it is good to learn how to cancel [w]4C/7C with [w]5C for safety. It allows you to use the invincibility frames from [w]4C/7C and backwards movement to gain distance without throwing you straight back into whatever attack the opponent throws out.

Orie wallpaper and some Q&A. The two new characters have yet to be revealed.

Huh, good to know. Is it possible to do 2A > 2C instead or will they tech before the 2C if the combo is too long? I don't have Extend meself. If I ordered it now, it'd arrive at the beginning of February. With the NA version coming out February 14th, I might as well just wait the extra week or two and save some money. 1) Some good uses of meter are to RC 236A to extend a combo/pressure, [h]j.C > RC > j.C for an instant overhead into a 3k+ combo off of any jump cancel-able normal, and CAs for defense. 2)I have mixed feeling about 6A meself. On one hand, its horizontal range is pathetic. On the other hand, it's also a viable option for interrupting staggered pressure. Keep it in mind as it is an option, just don't rely on it. I wouldn't use it as an AA though. [h]5A, [h]2C, and [w]5B are all better options for that. 3) I'm actually not certain about this one. All I can say is that I personally have a hard time against Rachel and Mu.

Carmine wallpaper and Unreal Black Thing and Vatista Twitter avas. On the plus side, they're releasing these all at once instead of staggering them out.

It's the year 2012, play whom you want to play and ask what you want to ask. People who would insult you over something as stupid as choosing to learn a character in a video game aren't worth listening to. All else fails, the world ends at the end of this year anyways. Are there any questions you'd like to ask now?

I don't know how strong you think he is, but he's extremely close in strength to his CS2 version. He was/is one of the strongest characters in CS2, and everyone both above and at his level on the tier lists got nerfed whilst he stayed the same. If you wanna learn him, feel free to post here if you have any questions. Nobody currently plays Valk; I'm personally not going to throw a fit if more people try. @Golden: He's actually been top tier since CS1.

If you mean "dive kick" as in Yun and Rufus dive kicks, Valk doesn't have those. Nobody in BB does. The closest you'll get is probably Ragna, but it's just a regular old dive that generally isn't used in the same fashion as a dive kick. Nobody can (or should be able to) convince you to play the character based off of two short sentences. You have to try him out yourself and see whether you like him or not before making a decision.

Happy New Years all.

Congrats to Toan and Hex for their modship.

Ah, just wanted to clarify that you were serious. And Valk's defense is widely considered to be his weakpoint. His health is comparably low at 10k as opposed to the average 11k and he only has 4 primes pre-burst as opposed to the regular 5. His only meterless "reversal" is a guardpoint that doesn't start until frame 5, gets beaten by grabs, and requires their hurtbox to overlap with Valk's body. His pokes are all fairly slow, which makes them less than ideal for poking out of pressure. Beating attempting to jump out isn't anything new. His best defensive moves require meter. Counter Assaults remove your own primers Extend and reversal super both has no vertical range and requires that you have a full 100 meter to make it safe.