Warhound

It may be the micro dash after OD that I'm missing, but the timing feels so tight, I guess I never figured you could fit one in.

Az really just kind strikes even most of the time, or gets dominated by those with good zoning power/really good neutral. I've never fought anyone as Az and felt "Aw man, I'mma stomp dis bitch character in da ground."

Soooooo....I can't do his challenge that starts with CH 6D~C. The one the goes CH 6D~C > 6C > 6D~A > A orb > 5C > 6D~C > 2D~C > B orb > 2C > 5C > OD > 5C > 5D28D. I ALWAYS end up right on the outside of his distortion's range, no matter how close I get with 2C. WTH do you do?

I'm not an expert, but I have the theory of how to use Azrael down pretty well. Responses in RED!!!! I hope those helped. Take them with a grain of salt, I'm sure vet Az's will come in and tear me a new one soon enough.

Jesus, I was using the only move that would NOT beat that goddamned thing lol fuck me. I think the worst part of it was there was a lot of awkward situations in which one of us wiffed and we were like: ok block!.....okay guess I'll start att- *hit by 6D* oh goddammit! Y'know, those types of deals. Alright thanks for the help, I see what I can do with all of this.

So what do you do when they have lvl 3 drill and you're stuck in the corner? Pray?

Right gotcha.

Okay, I rechecked the wiki, I apologize replace 2D with 6D. My bad. Sorry to bother you guys, I tried to check the wiki but it doesn't tell me anything about her 6D...or really any of her drives.

Hey yo, Az player here. So I fought this guy and he ended up beating me (was kind of to send a message afterwards essentially taunting me so, y'know, he was a cool guy) and he kept beating me by throwing out, what I believe is Noel's 2D? I noticed he got out of retaliation a lot by chicken blocking and ended up right outside of my range in neutral, which is bad because at this point any 4D or in this case I suppose, a 2D beat anything I normally use in neutral. I know 4D is vulnerable to lows, like Az's 3D or 3C, does the sane go for 2D? Would 6C be appropriate to throw out?

Yeah, thanks for the small synopsis. It sort of does, outside of blocking her drive (which for some reason I've never been able to punish, I'll just chalk it up to netplay) I still find it hard to poke the holes in her pressure. Any time I try, it feels like an Az mirror match, never sure when the hell to throw out 5B, because you don't know what's going to hit who next.

So maybe it's just because Azrael needs to be in her face, which is an ideal way for her to fight as well, but I find this matchup to be very annoying if the other guy knows what he's doing. Her pressure is friggin' obnoxious, and her normals have some weirdly long range to them, her 5B especially. What makes her so lol broken-needs-to-be-rebuilt-from-the-ground-up terrible? I'm sure she sucks ass against zoners, but then again so do we. I was even reading up on the Kagura boards and their responses weren't anything like "watch out for these few things, but otherwise this matchup is free."

I thought it was rather awkward too. Is this what you usually resort to? Or do you have a handle on Kagura enough to do 5DA?

I'm not used to charge characters, I suppose, even Kagura's few charge attacks kind of throw me for a loop, because I'm used to the instantenousness of quarter circles. I think it's the part of the combo where you throw out the A boom to chain into 5A > 6B > 5C, as sometimes the opponent ends up too high. I guess it's just in need of a delay, but I hope it's just me needing to get used to him.

So, I'm practicing Kagura's combos in an attempt to, at some point, play him. But I gotta ask, are his combos really this annoyingly difficult to do? B>B>3C>2DC>5DA>dl[4]6A>5A>6B>5C>6DC Like just this one alone is getting me flustered. I can complete it like 10% of the time. Granted I'm practicing on Terumi to blow off steam but still.

Since we're on the topic of his drive, do all Haku's online seem to just abuse their drive i.e. holding 5D down? I mean, I just can't bring myself to do that. Kisshu > 2A > grab all day nyukka.

Ah, that would be his 6D~B, I think it's called Dragon's Mirage. Yeah, I think you can just backstep out of that, might want to do some tests to see if spacing changes the outcome any, but I think you can pretty safely dodge out of it.

If they attempt sonic boom oki, you can, of course, Growler. Just be prepared to block afterwards, because they'll be on top of you very soon. Backdash is always a good option to get out of pretty much most things Kagura can do, there are a few moves that will get you though if you do it every time. Is there anything in particular that he's doing that's getting you?

"An offensive technique where the attacker leaves a small opening in their offense, goading the defender into performing an attack. This opening is designed such that the attacker can easily counter the defender's attack with his own." Basically you are purposefully giving your opponent a chance to attack, but the window you give them is so damn small that when your next attack comes out, they just eat the move, rather than you getting hit. Feel free to correct me if my layman's version of it was wrong.

Poor Hakumen ;/

I honestly don't know why Jin needed his for anything other than to accent the fact that he's GAAAAAAAAAAAAAASP HAKUMEN FROM TEH FUTURE. He's got his own shitty DP why does he need ours? Maybe outside of Netplay it's a viable strategy but, yeah his 6B is wonky and I hate it.

Hakumen doesn't have real pressure, his shit is gimmicky as hell and has a TON of a holes in it. A lot of the stuff you're going to do is poke them with 2A or 5A (but mostly 2A), chaining into 2B which will sometimes catch people unawares. Throw out 6B to scare them into blocking high once in awhile. Alternate between ending your pressure with 3C at max distance so they can't punish, or continuing it with Kishuu. Something that is kind of staple in Haku's pressure has been 2A > slight delay > grab. The slight delay is to ensure you don't get a purple/pink throw instead of a regular green one. I don't know what the word is on 6A, but it's probably no good for pressure anymore. Agito (his aerial ink kick) is a great approach tool, as most characters can't really deal with it (exception is maybe Rachel with her absurd 6A) and you can immediately follow up with j.B with some safety. Get used to fishing for CHs with 3C, as it leads into his loop pretty easily. You can certainly get in their face, but it's not really one of Hakumen's strengths, I would say. You would do well to incorporate zoning into your game, as he has tools to deal with long distance foes: ie: cutting projectiles to make his little black hole.

I'd get in on that, but it'll probably have to wait until the weekend.

Oh yeah, that definitely sucks as well, but I still stick behind them being able to just throw out Jabaki to stop us from doing anything on the ground.

Oh yeah, whatever command his "Jabaki" is.

Based off of my consistent bitching and egregious amount of salt around here, I'm far from an expert but I'll offer my thoughts to the discussion. I still don't see how this is in our favor, but then again, all I get to do is netplay, in which case Ragna, Terumi and the like are king. Again, this matchup doesn't appear in our favor. Much like Kagura, his DP blows up some of our standard pressure options. Dash crossup is great when he isn't mashing his jab, that's probably your best way in, as (and I haven't tested it) it seems to just kind of stuff ID no problem. This matchup is painful and stressful, Ragna still almost always has 50 heat to work with, in which case his pressure will seem never ending and his wake-up and other ID gimmicks give him a free out. Good luck, bitches.