Airk

Nah. Hakumen's is better. Both whiff on crouchers. Both are 5 frame startup. Both can be used as an anti-air. but Hakumen's is air unblockable without barrier and +3 on block, vs Hazama's +0. Hazama's _2A_ is better than Hakumen's, and as a result he probably has better jabs overall, but straight up 5A vs 5A, Hakumen, no question.

Not really; 6C can be mashed/backdashed and doesn't really get you anything because you have to jump cancel it if they just block. C fireball has like 27 frames of startup (I think 25 in 1.1) so is a pretty large gap. Charge cancel has you at -2 and fairly far away, so if you try to close you'll probably get beat by whatever button they push. Jump cancel is great and all but if it's all you've got your options are very limited and your opponent will be looking to AA you. Back in Extend, you could do 5B > 22A for a knockdown which at least got you choice of charge or positioning, but in CP 22A is gone and while you could do 5B > 22B it's a harder hitconfirm (22B is slower than 22A was, and CP hitstop.) AND 22B doesn't knock down anymore, so it doesn't do you much good. So basically your best option from a 5B non-CH at long range is to retreat to neutral and try again. =/ If your opponent isn't good, you could go for one of the other options, but they're all unsafe.

Er, so what? The problem with Tsubaki isn't that it leads into no NORMALS at max range, the problem is that leads into NOTHING at max range. There is literally nothing she can do after a max range 5B except jump cancel or do an amazing hitconfirm into 22D that gets you nothing unless they're cornered or you have another charge. She has no way to confirm a max range 5B even into pressure. Relius can at least start his (very strong!) pressure game off a 5B > 6D. And sorry Raziul, but no, you are paying the price for having an INSANELY GOOD 5A. (I would argue that it's actually the best 5A in the game.) If you want a character whose 5A doesn't whiff on crouchers, feel free to play Tsubaki and see how great it is. :P

I was noticing Konan doing that too; Looks like it's the equivalent of what a bunch of other characters do (Jin and Litchi both come to mind here, though humorously, both of THEM just got given excellent 'standard' anti-airs.). The only problem I can see with this is...how do you know WHEN to use it?

Uh, can't Relius just do 5B > 6D at long range and get pressure more or less for free?

Oh, excellent! That all makes sense then. My faith in how things work is restored. Thanks! (Note that we -probably- don't have to worry about getting 6C'd after 5B/5C because of the threat of a delayed gatling to something with body attribute, since Koko 6C only has foot invuln.)

Barrier Pushback in this game makes me super sad, because it always seem to screw me up far more than others. /plays Tsubaki Oh. That explains it.

Wait, hold on. x.x A move with 18 frames of blockstun. A move that becomes active on frame 21. that should be 3 frames because of how startup works, right? (It lists the first active frame). Or is there a one frame 'tax' before you can cancel, so you really only get 17 frames of blockstun?

The two are pretty wildly different, IMHO. Noel has basically all her tools available at all times (excluding those that involve meter, but whatever); If you do something dumb and throw yourself into her 4D or something, she can do a nearly 5k even if it's the very first thing that happens in the round. Tsubaki is super dependent on Install stocks for damage, and is literally incapable of doing more than 3.6k without stock or 25 meter. Noel's game is pretty standard, honestly. There's not much to differentiate her from a character like Ragna except that she has different options to beat you up with - her basic gameplan is still "get in your face and do stuff until you get hit, and do not stop" whereas Tsubaki basically NEEDS to find ways to get charge or she's going to require way more combos to beat her opponent than her opponent needs to beat her. This forces a fundamental change in the pace of the match. It's also why she is bad, because she doesn't really have anything to compensate her for the fact that she needs to get charge, and due to how generally poor her normals are, the only way she can beat a lot of characters is to pin them in the corner and hope they never get out or get a chance to play the game.

That last seems like a delay/execution error. That or the frame data is wrong on Kokonoe's 6C is wrong. 5CC > 6B is a 3 frame gap, Koko 6C is foot invulnerable at frame 4 unless the data is wrong. Which it could be. Actually, if someone with Kokonoe wants to test this, it should be easy to discern where the error is.

Couple of quick whiny points: Initial info about Tsubaki's DP is still for Extend Frame advantage chart for charge cancels is still broken.

Does it look like THIS?

Pfff, lies, there are tons of good food options in Cambridge. Though, uh, this gathering isn't IN Cambridge either. :P

Sorry! It kinda snuck up on me and I wasn't able to make it. Did we get decent turnout? Is it a PS3 slim? I have an extra power cable I can bring if that's the case.

This is sortof irrelevant though, and I kinda hate how it keeps getting brought up in discussion. The idea behind balancing is NOT to make all matchups 5/5 - that's an impossible task, and I would think that would be obvious. The objective of balancing is to match the matchup chart as closely packed as possible. That means that if a character has a 3/7 matchup where someone stomps them pretty hard, they need to have some 6/4s or a 7/3 to compensate. Some characters are going to win some matches. Tager is always going to be sad against Tao. But he's good enough against some other characters, that means the game is pretty close to balanced - so long as Tao is also weak against some characters. While, yes, you don't want any extremely unbalanced matchups (honestly, even 7/3 is pushing it, IMHO), the idea is NOT to make them all 5/5. Muh. Anyway, I still think that A) Kokonoe needs more nerfs and B) people don't understand how not good Tsubaki is. :P

Yeah, this is another fun side effect of CRT play, but honestly, I never react to the green exclamation anyway. It's always either the animation, or me getting thrown, so...

okay, lemme rephrase. There was lots of arguing about what they actually meant.

Pretty sure 6C JC was never 'out' for the upcoming patch, they're just adding special cancellability and making it more negative on block due to hitstop shenanigans. Not super clear on that though, the translations were always iffy. Autopiloting 5BB has been my bane forever, and it sucks even more in this game. (I really wish I understood why they thought 5BB needed to be nerfed in multiple ways. Was our mixup off it 'too good'? Haha.)

So what I'm taking from this is that the assertion that no one plays Tsubaki so that's why she's bad is a lie. :P

Yeah. I'm inclined to agree. The problem with treating all moves the same for purposes of damage scaling is that how negative a move is starts to become irrelevant. "Move is -6 and can only be punished by a jab?" -> Jab into huge combo for 4k! "Move is -20 and can be punished by WTFEver?" -> WTFEver into huge combo for 4.5k? That's NOT how it should work. But it kindof IS in Street Fighter.

The humorous thing about this is that for once, there's no real room for "Oh, she's ALWAYS going to be good because of her design" nonsense.

I really don't grasp what you're saying here. Hitconfirming with multiple jabs in SF4 reduces your damage. This is also true in BB. Starting a combo with a couple of good strong attacks in SF4 increases your damage. This is also true in BB. Ragna doing 5B > 5C > Hell's Fang > Followup does markedly more damage than just doing Hell's Fang > Followup (2k+ vs like 1300?) So... I disagree with your assertion that comboing into a special off a couple of attacks does less damage than the special by itself? Sure, specials done late in the combo will lose a lot of damage, but the same is true in SF4... At the end of the day, combo damage works in fundamentally the same way in both games: The more hits you do in a combo, the less damage subsequent hits do. In SF4 it's STRICTLY the number of hits you do, whereas in BB the TYPES of hits matter. That's the only real difference.

If you are punishing D mash, yes, you are playing bad Noels.

I hope you understand that nobody pities you. :P

Actually, it sounds like some people here don't really understand how damage works even in a "simple" game like SF4; For example, using extra jabs to hitconfirm actually reduces your damage in that game, which is as it should be. But setting that aside, I think you are unclear on the ACTUAL effects of damage scaling in these games. Yes, correct, just throwing out a special is usually a bad idea. (Note: It's usually a bad idea in SF4 too). That is working as intended. If you're using a special move, you are probably using it for a reason - invulnerability, covering ground, etc. Some moves you can combo off of, but -usually- they are used for movement and controlling space, or improving your situation. (Your example of P4A Yu doing sliding slash into super is a good example of this, actually. The sliding slash is being used as mixup - getting 2k and change for 50 meter off a move that can be punished on block is pretty awful.) Combos off jabs are very low damage, partly because of damage scaling, but actually mostly because of the 'starter value' that caps the combo at a shorter length of time. This is because jabs are fast, easy to land, and yes, low risk. Again, this is similar to SF4, where comboing into an ultra off a few jabs will generally get you lower damage than just doing the ultra raw. Combos off heavier attacks lead into more damage, because those attacks are (theoretically) harder to land (Note: This breaks down somewhat when you have characters with absurdly good 5C attacks.) and thus, allow you to do a longer combo for more damage. In terms of what combos you should learn, it depends on your character, but a beginner should learn the following TYPES of combos: A "short combo" that you can do off 5A/2A, because you're going to be pushing these buttons a lot, simply because they are fast. (i.e. if you are within jab range of your opponent, you push 5C while he pushes 5A, he's going to hit you and get a combo, because 5A is faster). These combos generally won't do a lot of damage (most characters can get somewhere in neighborhood of 2k off this) but you'll be hitting these a lot, so it's important to know. a "normal combo" - which will probably work off your 5B and/or 5C. This combo will be longer and more damaging than your short combo, and will come into play at ranges when jabs aren't appropriate. Most characters can do the same combo off 5B and 5C, with the latter doing more damage. A "punish combo" - which will vary with starter depending on your character, but with the objective of piling on the damage when you get the opportunity to do whatever combo you want (after blocking an uppercut type move, for example). These combos can do a LOT of damage. A combo of a throw, because throws are useful for mixup. And then there are a pile of variations on those - combos off your anti air. Midscreen vs corner versions of the 'normal' combo in particular (there's usually not too much difference on the jab and punish combos). Combos off air throw. Punish combos that vary depending on the resources you have available (whether or not you have 50 meter for a rapid cancel can make a huge difference in your damage output here, as can whether or not you decide to hit Overdrive.). Combos off less commonly used normals or certain specials. Etc. But if you start with the 4 types above (or depending on character, you may want to replace the throw combo with an anti-air combo) you won't go too far wrong.