Warhound

Right, well, I have experience dealing with zoners from the perspective of a gimped character (Hakumen). The main thing, just like any zoner, you have to do is play patiently. It can feel like a losing battle when she's just hammering you from all sides with swords and buzzsaws but, just be wary of the pretty obvious overhead from fullscreen (6D?) and you'll be okay. Basically the key thing to do vs a Nu is to advance slowly but carefully. Jump/block a few times, dash forwards sometimes to shake them up. And when they guess wrong, all it takes is one dash and and a Gustav to get in her face. Eating swords with growler is basically what Lucalibur says up above, it's odd. Most of the time, your growler absorbs will have to be from reads. Don't just get growler happy, but that's a common rule altogether. However, there is one special she does as a pressure reset that is free phalanx stock. I believe it's 236D, whenever she crouches down to throw up swords from the ground in a wave, you can eat that one for free. Make use of forward dash cancel, if you didn't know you could do that already. This match-up is tough, but there really isn't much to it other than be smart about getting in, and once you're there, do everything in your power to stay there.

No, I guess it's not fair to say he doesn't have ANYTHING for an AA tool, I use 2C quite a bit for AAs to stuff jump ins or outs. But, like anyone, you have to be preemptive with him, if you can get him right as he's dashing in, or right as he's about to start it, great, you can stuff his j.2C. But after a certain animation frame, most tools you have against him will lose and it's all ogre. It's not like we're dealing with Ragna's 6A here. Speaking of which, I beat a Ragna today by implementing Az's 6A to stuff jabs and and his 5B, which probably turned the game around for me. Is there any application for 6A in this match up? It could stuff his 5C in some occasions.

I guess the Jins that a fight have probably been using him for awhile, and he never changes all that much, he just gets different combos. So, the ones I fight are pretty confident, and just keep on attacking. That j.2C man...I don't know why I can't get past it.

I think that's something I kind of sorely need, been losing to a lot of mashers lately. Especially Ragnas.

Hey guys, was wondering if you could all grace me with your knowledge of 6A. I find it a rather curious move, meant to stuff mids, am I correct? What applications could this be applied to?

I'll see if I can't dig up the video from the archives and see just wtf happened, but thanks for all the plethora of advice. I think a lot of it had to do with me not being prepared for her items, and Platinum is mostly a pretty foreign character for me. I never played against many, and she just has a bunch of crazy shit going all at once. Throwing out zoning bubbles, random items, friggin' cat mallet. Ugh. It's also worth noting that she came around during a time in which I just left BB for awhile, and I was never interested in playing her so, I just never learned her ins and outs.

I just got tore up by a Platinum the other day. No other answer for this than just learning about her and her moveset, but is there basic "rules of thumb" you guys would reccommend against her?

I've several people saying that Az is just "mash whatever and win". This is GameFAQs we're talking about here, but even still, those people seem to think that we can just throw out whatever we want and succeed, when it really takes one IB and a jab to turn the pressure over to their favor, should the Az player start getting predictable.

Yeah, honestly, I'd rather they just make intros unskippable until the system's like "Aight, we cool. Have at it!" No one likes waiting through the match up X vs. X screen, but it's necessary.

Wait, why does the Sentinel input need a TK to it, why not 66214C? Also, I wanted to know why you guys think people refer to Azrael as a top tier "S" character. And why apparently people think he's braindead, which I think he's the opposite, not as ridiculous as Carl or Amane but still has his own issues to work around. It's like people think we control a teleporting Ragna or something.

Doesn't sledge usually have super armor? I thought Gustav would lose to that. I know mixing in moves like 5D and 6C are good for stuffing grabs at least.

"S Tier" to me always meant things like CT Nu or CS Vanilla Litchi. Azrael is strong in the right hands sure, but he seem to (and I will admit total wrongness on my part if I am) have much in the way of total roflstomp MUs besides MAYBE Tager, but even then, I feel like it's just a weird MU, not a completely advantageous one.

Yeah, I play Az, sorry, should have clarified.

Okay, so I know I come back here every other day to complain, but I think I have pinpointed why I'm so awful (besides dropping combos, no ability to hit confirm and an inability to fight Tager in general). My pressure. My pressure is so god-awful, so fragmented, that apparently you can just throw out a super counter, or one of Tager's throws and you can pretty much beat me. I don't know which strings are air tight, or is there really not much Az can do, and we just have to be unpredictable?

Okay, well, I'm fighting this Jin, and granted he knows what he's doing, but jesus, everything I do loses to this guy. His 2A is faster than ours, his 5B is faster than ours, his 5C is faster than ours. It's like he has an ABSOLUTE answer to everything we do.

Man I hate fighting this piece of ass shit, all he has to do is mash grab against me, and auto win. I know we have some major advantages, but, I fucking hate fighting Tager.

So basically we're tanking and waiting to punish in this match up. Because I'll be honest, this is horrendously frustrating.

I'm sitll pretty much a novice but, as far as I could tell, there wasn't a whole lot I could do against j.D (the cross swipe in the air, if I didn't say the correct input) but yeah, it just shuts down my approach, I can maybe 2C it, but that still feels risky.

Why is absorbing out of the question? Or is it like one of things with Tsubaki where we just gotta kind of Yomi it? Screw that move, her DP pisses me off. The whole fucking match pisses me off.

So, we should potentially be able to get more stable double weakpoint combos off of throws now, yeah?

I really don't like this match-up, mainly because of how annoying Terumi is a character, and partly because his corner combos last for about half a fucking century. All I ever seem to do against Terumi is trade blows, but when he gets you in the corner, it feels very difficult to get out. And I don't know about you guys, my slow-ass brain can't react to his command grab, only time I ever get out of it is when I just decide to jump out of pressure. He seems to have superior A to A game as well, his j.B is about on par with us, and his j.D just out right beats it. I know this isn't a desperate struggle of a match-up as the Murakumo units, but it's hard to stay calm when all he needs is a jump in attack to connect in the corner for you to stay there for about 10 uninterrupted seconds, sans a burst.

Well good news, guys. I'm doing better, I think I just needed to learn, cool down and come back to try again. I'm winning some matches, mostly by the skin of my balls, but yeah, getting some wins. Still having a hard time forcing myself to apply weakpoints, but even that is steadily improving. Don't know when I'll actually get to do a Valiant during a match on purpose lol

Okay, so you're saying that, if it was a regular punish and not even a CH, you'd rather go for 2A > 5A > 5B > 2C > 6D? For a weakpoint? Or omit the A's if they aren't close enough. 3C would be a great punish, but a lot of the time it seems too slow to do that.

So I have a question for you guys, I think the biggest problem I have is that I'm not sure what to punish successful IBs, against my opponent, with. What combos do you guys usually go for mid-screen. Do you go for piddly damage but apply a weakpoint via 5B > 2C > 6D/3D? Or push em to the corner with 5BB > TCL? I know this is largely character dependant, as well as dependant on what move is used on you. But let's say you IB the ever so present Terumi 6C. How do you guys react? For example, Hakumen is mah boi, and so I know that one of the best punishes you can do with him is 3C, to which you 5C > Enma/Kishuu > loop. Or if it's not a counterhit, 2A > 2B > Renka (1) > Enma/Kishuu > loop. Stuff like that, feel free to go in depth.

Jesus, I'm not at all used to fighting Platinum. THis sucks.