Airk

How can you not notice that two characters who are somewhat too good and three characters who are somewhat too bad is HILARIOUSLY BALANCED compared to a lot of fighting games that many people think are "very good"? :P Seriously. It's not a contest against games with characters with ToD combos blahblahstuff. Litchi and Bang are not THAT good, it's just that when it comes down to the bleedingest of edges, you need every advantage you can get. /shrug. Can't say I've played it; Not really interested in going to the effort. Can't be bothered to divide my attention. Seriously people, we could all be playing MvC3. Hahahaha. If you're playing this game AND arguing about it on a forum, you are doing it wrong, and need to find something that's actually fun for you. I question your sanity. Life is too short to waste on dumb stuff.

I still fail to see the proof of the so called "competitively inferior" nature of this game. Yeah, great, it's popular to bash it, but you know what? It's still fun, you're all still playing it and discussing it on a forum, and therefore, it is still a good game. Sometimes the ridiculous negativity of this place is...er...ridiculous.

I agree that we need to be consistent - it's very strange that we don't have the "air blockable" notation on jumping attacks. However, another question I have is, is there such a thing as a move that is ACTUALLY air unblockable? As it, even if you barrier, it still hits you? Obviously moves that are unblockable period (Jin's 623D 2nd hit when held long enough, etc.) but otherwise? Presuming that there aren't any moves that are air unblockable without being fully unblockable, what we really need is just a notation that tells us whether a move needs to be barrier blocked in the air or not. "A" seems to do well for that, as long as we provide tips that indicate that if a move DOESN'T have an "A" then it is still air blockable, but requires barrier. Ugh. So messy. Brain hurts.

Best finish ever. I am still laughing.

I like the Mook format also. Also, I think there's an error/mistranslation in the Tsubaki data; Under "Macto Maledictis (214214D)" the note says "cannot use any D moves while in Macto Maledictis"; Unless this move has COMPLETELY CHANGED from its CS1 incarnation, the whole point of this move is to be able to use D moves without using any charge gauge. Can someone please verify the translation?

Don't learn Tsubaki until after CS2, her world will be changing then anyway. :P

Well, the comboes being discussed were CS1 combos, I believe. CS2 combos aren't really under discussion since no one is really playing with them.

Word on the street is that Ragna is the easiest character to learn. I wouldn't know, but that seems to be the popular consensus. He is, however, one of the least mindgamey characters in the game.

Holy CRAP. Did he just charge cancel 5CC in time to BLOCK A GREEN BURST? If so, that means the recovery on 2D is basically noexistant. o.o Also, clearly, I really need to learn how to do short dashes into my attacks; All the good Tsubakis are using that to stay in their opponents' faces.

oooh. I like the new formatting. Now I can just sit here and champ at the bit waiting for the Tsubaki data. >.<

It depends. If you have charge, you don't want to go into 2BB - you'll want to go straight to 5CC>22D and follow up from there. If you don't have any charge for 22D however, you're better off doing the 2BB bit, because it results in your combo doing slightly more damage since you can't follow up after Decus anyway. (Except in the corner, I believe). Well, if you want, you can skip Veritas; It doesn't add that much total damage by that point. Yeah, Ragna is going to be an ugly matchup for a while. Though a lot of new Ragnas dash in very aggressively, and you can stuff that with a 236X. In general, because the A/B uppercuts are more widely applicable. There's not really any advantage to using the C version at all except that flies up higher into the air. Yeah. 2D for general charging, 5D after you've gotten a knockdown is a decent place to start. You'll learn better as time goes on.

That's a good point; If you're just getting hit while standing, you should just be holding downback.

So let me get this straight: MrNick2D: Help me pick a character. I want one that has mindgames! Eshi: That's not enough of a criteria, everyone has mindgames. MrNick2D: Okay, so forget that and just help me pick a character. ... Unless you can give us some actual feedback, I'm going to say: Either pick someone you think looks cool, or play Rachel. :P

Honestly, I'd tell you the reverse of what MashThat5A said. If you're learning, mash to hell and back. Maybe you'll get out of a combo, or maybe you're playing someone who is good enough to go for some sort of reset. If the former, remember where that was, and selectively mash there in the future. If the latter, well, you were probably going to lose anyway, but now you know when NOT to mash in that combo. There's no real substitute for experience, but you won't GET any experience if you're afraid to try to mash out. Just resign yourself to losing some matches while you figure things out.

Well, it's time for the expected "Learn challenge 3, combo 1" comment here; While doing 5B>6C does work when you get a counterhit, I suspect you were just mashing it out and it's pretty unsafe. =/ You got a bunch of 5BBs in, and being able to turn those into 1800 damage or so will help a lot. I see you've already got into the habit of cancelling specials into others on hit. That's going to be a building block of your combos forever, so keep at it. At the same time though, try to limit the number of random 236Cs (and Bs) that you do. 236D is generally safe-ish, and 236A is actually pretty safe if you space it correctly at max or near max range. Defensively, you are mostly doing an okay job of not just randomly hitting buttons, which is a good start. Get in the habit of blocking low rather than just holding back, though - not only will this keep you from backpedaling away from your opponent, but you'll also, overall, block more stuff. You will have to remember to stand back up before doing a 5B though. Also, try to get in the habit of using the A or B "uppercut" - those both have some invulnerability on them, which will generally work to your advantage. And while I hate to discourage you from charging (which I think you probably don't do enough of), be wary of using the standing charge (5D instead of 2D) against opponents that can rapidly attack at full screen distance (Jin, Hazama, Lambda, Tsubaki, Tao, probably some others I'm forgetting.); The best time to charge with 5D is after a knockdown. Once you HAVE charge, you'll probably find it easiest, as you go along, to start experimenting with 236D - because on hit, this lets you go into whatever combo you like, so you can re-use whatever combo you're comfortable with. 22D and 214D, while both excellent combo starters as well, will require you to learn more advanced and difficult combo bits - though it may still be worth playing with 22D as an unblockable. Mostly though, practice and play. Set aside 10-15 minutes and work on a combo. Play Arcade mode at a difficult you feel comfortable with and learn the ranges of your attacks, and what you can punish. Play more matches, relax, take it easy, have fun.

Where's the love for 2A? :P It's safe, and it hits things that would go under 5B!

So I know DT already linked to the excellent "How to use frame data" article, but that's a pretty big wall of text and it doesn't actually explain how gatlings work, either. Here's my distillation of how to check for gaps in block strings. (Note: You'll need more than the frame data. You'll also need the Attack Level data from the System Guide.) First, look at the frame data for the first attack. Observe what Level it is, and how many active frames it has. Now look up that attack level in the Attack Level data - the line you care about is the Blockstun line. Now, subtract the number of active frames of the attack-1 from that. You subtract the active frames because you can't gatling out of an attack until it goes into recovery frames - any remaining active frames still need to animate. So if you're looking at Bang's 5A, subtract 3-1=2 from the level 1 attack blockstun of 11 frames - leaving you with 9. That means any attack with 9 startup frames or less will hit you before you leave blockstun. If you are instant blocking, you just reduce the blockstun from the attack level data by 5. Of course, in order to DO anything with a gap, that gap needs to be bigger than the attack you are trying to squeeze into it - I assume, though do not know, that Makoto has a 5 frame jab. This means that you need to have at least 5, preferably 6 frames between the end of blockstun and the first active frame of the next attack... so IBing 5A>2A gets you nowhere. If you IB this and try to counter: 11 frames, -5 for IB, -2 for active frames, you have 4 frames left. The startup on 2A is 8, so you have enough time to start your 5 frame jab, but 4 frames later, Bang punches you in the foot and gets a counterhit. On the OTHER hand though, 2A is a level ZERO attack, so the math THERE is: 9 frames of blockstun, -5 for IB, -2 for active frames, leaving only 2 frames of blockstun left once he cancels, if he tries to go into another 2A, which is 8 frames of startup... well, 6 frame gap is enough to jab him out. Other things to consider: Frame 1 invulnerable moves. If you have a move that is frame 1 invulnerable, all you need is a 1 frame gap - enough to start up your invulnerable move. Then, even though you would technically have been counterhit (Like in the 5A>2A example above) the attack that would have counterhit you goes right through you, since you're invulnerable, and then when your attack becomes active, you hit. This is why frame 1 invulnerable reversals are powerful. Goofy stuff in the frame data; If you look at, say, Bang's 5B, you'll notice it has a bunch of notes in the frame data. First, it gives 17F of blockstun. That overrides the value from the attack level data, so use that instead of the usual 13F for a level 2 attack. 2nd, it has a special Hitstop value. Normally, hitstop for the attacker and the defender is equal, but for some attacks (for reasons that, truthfully, I don't understand) the frame data sets custom hit stop, where one person gets more than the other. You need to account for that difference too, so 5B effectively has 19 frames of blockstun, since it has 17 "real" frames of blockstun, AND two frames of "mismatched hitstop". x.x Okay. Maybe this wasn't any less of a wall of text than the link DT provided, but it's more specific to gatlings and blockstrings. Clear as mud, right?

I think you're more likely to get meaningful, Tsubaki-specific advice here. Beginner Mode is more likely to tell you "work on your execution, n00b" :P

I don't know if that's you asking for advice (in which case, I have none, really. Except that you dropped your Mugen combo both times. >.> How'm I supposed to copy you if you don't do it right? ) or whether you were offering the video to me for examples, in which case, rockin', because visuals are bloody helpful when you don't really know what a combo is supposed to look like. Going to try to memorize what that midscreen 2 charge looks like from this. Also, the Astral at the end made me happy.

Certainly he seems to be showing up in a lot of Japanese videos lately, so at the very least, they haven't given up hope for him. (Unlike, say, CS1 Tsubaki, who basically didn't exist)

SearMe - here's the deal, coming from someone who has recently gotten over this issue himself (With help from DuskThanatos, but folks aren't giving you the full explanation here.) First, if you're not getting the super jump on the 6CC>Stuff with Tsubaki, you may be inputting the superjump too EARLY. Try waiting another moment or so before trying to superjump. This has worked well for me. The usual NEXT problem that everyone has in that combo is getting the j.C to connect after the superjump before the opponent techs out. THIS is where the advanced input comes in - as soon as you complete the superjump motion, hold down C. This will advance input your jump C so that it won't miss.

One of the other tricks I've discovered about the way _I_ play, is that if I play for too long, my performance actually gets WORSE (maybe I'm getting frustrated), but if I take a break for the day, then next time I come back, my execution will be really on point. So... don't grind too hard. Remember to take breaks. Also, keep some replays of yourself from a long time ago, and watch them when you need a morale boost. Because I was watching some replays of myself from mid December, and holy cow, my execution was TERRIBLE. Makes me feel much better to realize that I'm now messing up much more advanced combos way less often than I used to drop really basic stuff.

oh, I'm not saying the super version of that combo isn't useful - I land a 5BB WAY more often than I land a naked 22D, so having something more productive to do off that hit when I have 2 charges is bloody nice.

Awesome; A couple of editorial points: Looked at the Valkenhayn data, I assume * means "refer to notes" even in places where it doesn't explicitly say that? (P2 value for 6B, 6C) Also, why are the frame advantage values for those items in quotes? (It'd be nice to have this stuff in a footnote or something... or is this going to be in the tooltips?). Some people's frame advantage has a "�" in it too? I like the sound of bullet points for the notes; Maybe make them collapsable/expandable?

Okay; I'm a little confused here. You listed both of these, but you seem to be indicating they're...well, hold on. Here are the combos: 22D>6CC>s.jc C>j.c CC>j.236A>f.214D>5C>2CC>s.jc C>j.c CC>j.236A>j.214C - Two charges, but doesn't seem to work if prefaced by 5BB>5CC because they tech out around the 2CC point. I can do this one. 5BB>5CC>22D>6CC>sjc j.(B)C>j.CC>j.236A>j.214D>(land)236236C - this is the one you just pointed out, with the super ender. Also two charges, seems to be the "end it early and go into super" you reference. So...both of these combos use j.214D. I'm already spending charge for it. I can't spend charge to extend things any further on the 5BB>5CC version, right? (Not worried about the Mugen combo right now. Will start with the throw version. If I can get past that, then I'll worry about other places to use it.)