Airk

Dunno; I suspect people were mistaking the change in active frames for a "better" hitbox on 5B, and the greater speed of 5C was causing people to use it for things they couldn't use it for before. Then again, I have no idea how people actually get this data.

Aye; Change in active frames doesn't necessarily imply a change in hitbox.

GGs to Danny Schme for some much needed Valk practice (clearly, I need a LOT more.); And thanks for giving me that one at the end! I need to go to bed!

Don't think so? 5B had a pretty large one in CS2 (changed from CS1). 5C, I've seen no signs of the hitbox being less terrible. :P

A couple of things I can add: Try to space yourself a little more carefully in the corner. Don't stand right on top of your opponent, or they can just roll past you. Stay back closer to the edge of, or just outside of, jab range - you can always dash in and do something (or hit 5B) when you see them neutral tech, and it's much easier to stuff a forward roll at that range. Never(for certain values of never) run after and then jump at a Hazama player when he's getting up after your burst/counterassault/whatever. Inevitably, this leads into them doing stance->flashkick->Jakou->Things that hurt a lot. Indeed, jumping at Hazama on his wakeup is generally not a good idea unless you've done a safejump setup. His "stance DP" might not have frame 1 invulnerability, but if you get CH with it due to a badly spaced/timed jump, it leads into a LOT more damage than just getting, say, an Inferno Divider to the face. If you knock Hazama away with a burst or CA, do run after him to close the distance, do not jump at him afterwards. You can DP Hazama out of most of his pressure, honestly - particularly if you see him go into stance. Don't overdo it, but also make sure to show them that they can't harass you for free. While mixing it up with overheads is good, that Hazama player didn't seem to be blocking your lows, so until they start doing that, there isn't necessarily a lot of reason to do it. A strong blockstring for people who just like to block is 5B(B)>2B>6A - I notice that a lot of people (myself included) do 5BB>6A, but I don't see 5BB>2A>6A very often (partly because if you're sloppy with your motions you can end up getting 5BB>2B>236A...which is not good.) and I suspect it'll catch a lot of people out. You may want to consider bursting his air throw combos, because they can be stupid damaging (I want to say like 4k+ without meter). x.x At the very least, be -wary- of his air throws. You are respecting him on wakeup too much - especially when he has less than 50 meter, a meaty 5B can be bad news for him on wakeup. I'm going to guess that that B-DP "corner ender" is a misinput and you meant to do 236B>etc? Not much to add about the Tao match, except that it was kinda hilarious when you hit with the overhead like 4 times in a row at the end of the first round. (Next time, hitconfirm better. ) Edit: And yes, though it looks like it shouldn't work, Tao can crawl under 2A. Not under throws though. :P

Awesome. I shall leave this cleanup in your (plural) qualified hands.

Doublechecking more Wiki stuff here; Blockstrings section says: "2A > 5B is standard. It's solid and has no holes. " Is this true? 2A is back to level 0 in EX, and 5B is slower now. 2A should give 9 frames of blockstun, and startup on 5B is 10. People should be able to backdash/DP/whatever this now? Anyone checked? (Not in a position to verify, myself.) "The 2A > 6A is as simple as a move that's + into a overhead" 2A is not + anymore. ;_; Not that it actually matters, since you're cancelling here anyway, and all that matters is how much blockstun the move has (less now.)

I get a fairly adequate two bars to you from Boston. :P On my thoroughly generic internet, at that.

Right. So Hotaru blows up throw and "wins" against us just blocking because it leaves him plus, but loses to meaty attacks, while counters blow up meaty attacks but lose to throws and "blocking". Could be worse, I guess.

Is there anything we can do that DOESN'T lose to TK Hotaru on Hakumen's wakeup? (Okay, fine a perfectly timed meaty should beat it, right?)

6C is jump cancellable on block, so trying to punish it with either of these might be a bad idea.

That's a whole big pile of questions, and I'll try to go through them one at a time. #1: Recognizing blockstrings - really, there are only two ways to do this, and they complement one another somewhat. The first method is to play a lot, record your matches, and then watch them with an eye on blockstrings. This will at least tell you what that particular opponent was using, and expose you to some of the common stuff. The other method is to go through the frame data on the wiki and look at the revolver action table at the bottom for each character. Note which moves cancel into which. This will help give you an idea of what the OPTIONS are. Combine these two pieces of info and you should be well on your way. #2: The only way to "reliably" IB is to practice and be able to guess which moves your opponent will do next. It's easiest against predicable opponents, so if you see someone doing the same blockstring over and over, try to IB it - try to be aware of what your opponent is doing so you can beat it. Getting the timing for IBs down is really just practice though. #3: The only way to block reliably is to know what your opponent might do and practice. Most practice will come from "real" matches, but there are a few other things you can do. First, you can practice against the CPU - set your training dummy to CPU and raise the AI level (or whatever it's called) to 100. Then just block everything you can and see how long you can last. The other way you can practice is to use the excellent recording feature in Extend - you can record up to four slots and have the game randomly play one back. So for example, you can record Ragna walking forward a moment then doing each of these: 5B>5C>2D 5B>5C>Gauntlet Hades 5B>5C>Gauntlet Hades > Late Followup 5B>5C>3C Then play back, and Ragna will do one of those actions at random, and you have to block. (And in the case of Gauntlet Hades, punish correctly) You can obviously do more complicated stuff too - run in 2A, run in 6B, run in 2B, Run in throw, or some stuff with rapid cancels, or whatever. This is a very strong tool, and I recommend you use it. #4: Throw escapes are 45% being ready and thinking "Okay, he's in a position now where he could throw me, so I have to be ready to tech!" and 45% just practicing to be able to hit the buttons quickly. You can get pretty good "reaction" teching practice against some of the AI opponents - Ai Taokaka loves to throw, and AI Jin does it a bit too. AI Ragna pretty much never does. So mess around with that. The other 50% is mostly just recognizing "Hey, my opponent is real close, he could theoretically throw"; The last 10% is just crazy reflexes that you build up over time teching lots of throws, but if you are ready and have practiced, you can tech 90% of stuff. (That said, you'll pretty much never be "ready" 100% of the time, but those are the breaks. Heh.) #5: Wakeups - this is a big, complicated issue. The "short" version is that you should never roll backwards in the corner. (duh). You should only forward roll or quick getup in the corner if you have a really good reason or are willing to take a really big risk. Generally, you should neutral tech in the corner. Midscreen, you should make an informed decision about how to get up based on where your opponent is, whether you want to be close to them, how close you are to each corner, etc. It's generally "safe" to back roll midscreen except against certain setups (Tsubaki 3C oki, for example) but you may not want to move yourself closer to the corner, or you may want to close in on your opponent (if say, they are Lambda.). But the tldr version is: If in doubt, neutral tech. The information on the invulnerability and stuff can be found on the wiki again. Also, I think at this point it would be smart for me to recommend the Beginner Mode show, done by our very own James Xie, which does an excellent job of explaining answers to a lot of these sorts of questions. You can find the archives on his twitch tv channel or on Youtube.. The first episode or two might be a little bit on the basic side (particularly "ep 0") but James is pretty amusing, and the later episodes get into all kinds of good, meaty stuff. Strongly recommended.

Tonight was brought to us by "lots of people playing Jin"; Our super secret stupid tip for the day is that you can get out of a LOT of his stupid BS corner reset nonsense by air teching FORWARD instead of back/neutral, which just causes you to drop back down into WTFever he decides to try to hit you with. Seems like this is one of the #1 l33t Jin strats online. :P

The sad thing is that the A-DP will -trade- because it hits so much slower, but 5A just pokes him out quite reliably.

Been playing lots of Ragna players lately (this is my shocked face) and I sortof realized something; Due to the way Ragna's 5B works, you can pretty much totally disrespect Ragna players who try to do Dash 5B from Dead Spike outside of fairly close range - since Ragna's 5B only extends its hitbox to his foot on frame 12, unless he's close enough to hit you with the "early" hitbox, you can just mash 5A and CH him quite reliably. This might work against dash 5C as well, though I've never actually seen anyone do that, but will lose to dash 2A/5A if they start catching on. But if they are autopiloting dash 5B, this is pretty much your solution - even if you barrier block Dead Spike, this should work fine (should actually help, thanks to the added pushback)

Sorry I had to leave 'early', but I had dinner plans. Thanks for the games! I feel like I'm improving.

Eh; To be honest, until you start learning pretty high level stuff, all muscle memory is good muscle memory, because doing a jump cancel is doing a jump cancel, regardless. No real harm done in practicing execution in any game, really.

I'm in. Can show up whenever. 3pm is easy. Don't mind if it ends up just being casuals, but will be sad if no one will play BB with me.

Now I'm fixing the terrible grammar in the Makoto section. :P It's a slow day at work. Though none of these moves are as good on block as they used to be. /mourn. (Particularly 5B. Profound sadness.)

Fixed. I certainly feel comfortable making edits of THAT scale.

Thanks! I can edit and have been on grammar control duty, but I've been trying not to change content unless I know for sure it's a typo or something. (Aside: Down at the bottom it says Tsubaki's best moves to use on block are 5A/2A and 5B; Is that correct?)

Was looking at the Wiki and found a couple of weird things that I don't know what to make of: In the 5C section, it says: "This is probably the best normal that Tsubaki can use to as the changes has given it increased speed." The best normal she can use to....what? In the 2A section, it says: "This can also be used for tick throws, but it is inferior to 5A because 2A induces just a little less blockstun." but both are level zero and can cancel into throws; Why do we think there is less blockstun on 2A?

Ohhhhh. Okay. Lemme give that a shot.

Transplanting this here: The 22D combo is super easy and excellent. Got it on the first try, will practice. Struggling with the throw combo - they always seem to tech out really high after the 2C; Should I be delaying it a little after the 5C?

Thursdays, huh? Not ideal for us working stiffs, but I might be able to drop by from time to time.