Airk

Do we HAVE to play this game again? Look at other character's frame data. NO ONE has a bunch of moves that are still plus on IB that don't have tons of startup. This is how the game works. Terumi is no worse than anyone else - better, than most IMHO, 5B being +2 is huge - in this regard. Having to find some way to catch your opponent napping is pretty much how BB is supposed to be played, notwithstanding a few characters whose gimmicks allow them to play it differently. Does he maybe need some minor tweaks? Sure. Is he anywhere even close to first in line for tweaking? Nope. Has Arcsys ever done 'minor tweaks' to characters in a balance update? Certainly not for THIS game.

Oh yeah, because it's totally fair for one character to have a 50 meter reversal super that people need to spend tons of lab time practicing special magic punishes when EVERY OTHER 50 meter reversal super in the game is like -30 and can be punished however you want. Yeah, and when have they EVER done that? They could have had amazing balance in Extend by this method, but instead they kept up the whole "throw spaghetti at the wall and randomly change around/nerf the low tier characters." nonsense that they do every single time.

I disagree. Most characters have a hard time baiting it except by blocking due to the hitbox. It will hit most characters out of their backdash. How do you suggest it be baited in a situation where RC is available?

Yeah, but Jin's C DP ALSO has such a massive startup that some characters can literally whiff a meaty 5B through it and still recover in time to block. It's not very good. I too feel that sG is...incorrect when he says that most DPs in BB are as good as ID. Hell, I protest even REFERRING to Hotaru as a DP when you needed to go through 4 frames of jump startup to do it. Growler is okay. Tsubame is good but not available half the time and is not really appreciably safer than ID. If you start talking about Tsubaki/Makoto/Bullet DPs, you rapidly see that trying to say that "most" reverals don't even come close. Hirensou isn't even close and costs 25 meter. The only ones I think are comparable are Mu's and Kagura's.

You see, I don't actually feel that her matchups are bad because it's super hard for her to get in on these characters, but because it's too easy for opponents to get out once she does because our normals are weak and our mixup is full of holes (and really, how bad ARE her bad matchups REALLY? Aside from Kokonoe.) Still, none of that is a 'redesign' to fix. Similarly, changing the balance between ease of getting charge and applying pressure isn't exactly a big redesign either. A bigger boost to charge cancel charge rates could be all that's needed there. Nothing you've mentioned comes anywhere near to "complete redesign" which is really the issue I had with your statement. I guess I can give you Bullet, but Bang starts with all his nails (duh). Ignis starts out unsummoned but with full GAUGE. Amane doesn't start in "burnout". Izayoi has the same issues as Tsubaki. No action charge please. I'm SUPER tired of being compared to Order Sol. Buh. I guess my brain isn't working today, sorry. =/ Yeah, that makes sense. Clearly, the solution is to make the hitstun on 46D>236 two frames LONGER, so that even if you fully charge 22D it's just a combo.

Good, because the idea of Valk/Tao/Hazama getting buffs while Bullet/Makoto/Tsubaki got nerfs would just be super stupid. I mean hell, Hakumen doesn't even really have a meterless "reversal" either, so hopefully this is just them BSing.

I was actually thinking about something related to this the other day; What do people think of the idea of Tsubaki STARTING each round with 1 charge? I mean, Hakumen starts with 1 Magatama. Most other characters start with their special magic gauge ENTIRELY full. Valk doesn't have to futz around before he can wolf out. Rachel has wind right away. Why are we special and bad? (Yes, Tager starts without spark bolt, but that's only one move. Arakune's curse starts empty because Arakune.). I think it would be an interesting and easy change that might have very nice implications without being crazy good.

Oh, on hit? Well, whatever, they could reduce the amount of stagger on [4]6D>236D by 8 frames without damaging our ability to do anything off it, right? 6C is only 23 frames of startup, so 30 frames of stagger should be plenty? That would give everyone time to jab out of an unblockable. Kiba, I'm still kindof confused. You don't think that Errol's changes plus unblockable would result in top tier Tsubaki? I mean, there are just so many minor changes that could be made and have big impacts without creating some sort of "complete overhaul" that the idea that the character can't be good without being "redesigned" is just foreign to me. Is it LIKELY she'll be top tier? Absolutely not. But it's not her DESIGN that is keeping her from getting there. That's what I think is unfounded. You could use...uh...421. :P But yeah. 46C is bad. 46A as Errol suggested is probably the easiest fix, but I guess they could use like... 63214 on a button that's not used by the command grab since that at least doesn't have a 'D' version, but that has heavy overlap with 214. I guess I could live with a Haoh-sho-ko-ken style 632146 or something.

Yeah. They 'nerf' him the same way they 'buff' Tsubaki - by nerfing/buffing and then saying "But these changes would be too radical by themselves!" and then buffing/nerfing to compensate so that nothing really changes that much. Good job guys, way to fine tune the game.

Er, what? No? [4]6D>236D only has 20 frames of blockstun (which incidentally has no relation to how much hitstun it has, so it could easily be changed without influencing the ability to followup with 6C on hit). There's no way you're setting up an unblockable that takes 39 frames to connect off a move with 20 frames of blockstun. Even cancelling out of the aura on the very first frame, your opponent would still have 19 frames to punch you in the face. [4]6D>236D aura is good, but it's not THAT good. It's not even CLOSE to THAT good. In fact, it's probably not even as good as the OLD j.236D > j.214D aura, and the only way you could set up an unblockable off that was with a rapid cancel. There would be no 'free' unblockables here. (That said, the frame data on the shield rush aura doesn't really add up, but even if we assume that it's 30 frames of blockstun, they can STILL jab you out of an unblockable.) Anyway, I think the rest of the cast has BS that is just as good as this, lots of which doesn't even cost any resources. I'm with Zouf. Tsubaki deserves to actually be strong for one game. It's stupid how characters like Hazama are top tier every game as if Arc is afraid to touch them while Tsubaki's best incarnation was basically square in the middle of the pack. Anyway, at the very least, they need to fix the character specificity of her stuff. Yes, fine, we can keep a few character specific combos that are BETTER than average, but this whole "Well, on these six characters you need to use THIS version of this basic combo, and on THESE twelve characters you need to use THIS version, and on 4 other characters you need to use a THIRD version, and on three other characters you can't use this combo at all." stuff HAS to go. There's NO reason for that. And honestly, the thing that bothers me the MOST about Tsubaki is how there's basically no reason for why half her stuff is as dumb as it is. I also disagree with the, as far as I can tell, completely unfounded opinion that you somehow need to "change her around completely" to make her good. Sorry Kiba, but I think you're completely wrong on that. Hell, weren't people just saying "OMG, just bringing the unblockable back would make her too strong!"? Because that's about as far from a 'complete redesign' as you can get. Hell, removing recovery from j.D would make a huge difference, and that's about as minor a change as you can get. Take all of Errol's suggestions, add no more landing recovery on j.D, and you have a pretty sick character with fast mixup, excellent pressure resets by using jump cancel normals into a sort of swallow moon mixup with j.D and you've basically made nothing that even resembles a 'complete' change to the character. This is almost as silly as statements like "Litchi will always be good." (don't get me started.) I also disagree that there's anything wrong with her DP, but that's opinion. :P

Yeah? What's Ragna's pressure reset? Dead spike at -1? 2C with it's huuuuge range? Blood Scythe with it's "just wait for me to leap sloooowly up into the air" animation? (Seriously. 37 frames of startup? Making Dead Spike look fast!) Exactly which rushdown characters DO have good ways to reset pressure? Bang with Tk D-nails? Sure, there's Tao, but she's Tao. It's not like she actually has moves that are plus. I am actually in favor of REMOVING easy pressure resets from characters who have them (F- you, Hazama!) not adding more. And honestly, the difference between 6B being +1 and +2 is trivial. Punish people who mash jab with 6BB or 22B (especially now that 22B CH is GOOD, rather than the crappy like 1.5k you got from it in Extend.). No one is going to be able to REACT to you dashing in after 6B. They play unsafe because they can. If you were that good, you could do it too. Ever seen how many DPs Daigo Umehara throws out? It doesn't really have anything to do with frame data.

I disagree; Look at most characters that aren't ****ing Hazama and you'll discover that having more than one move that is plus is pretty rare. I don't think we need more moves that are plus, we just need our actual offense to be more threatening - which is why I like Errol's changes to 6A and 2B, and why I think it'd be super excellent to lose the landing recovery on j.D. See, here you're wrong. They're not "more respectful" in general. They're more respectful of Konan and Kuresu, because these guys have earned it.

These are all excellent and frankly, would probably make her really solid all by themselves. But if we're making wishlists I'd also like and/all of the below: 2C unnerfed (Still don't understand why it was changed in the first place, when so many other characters got good AAs.) 5BB to step forward again like it used to (It doesn't even LOOK right right now.) Remove recovery on charging, ESPECIALLY j.D, but might as well do them all. Charge cancelling won't get any better because you leave the minimum 18F duration. There's really no reason for our drive to be penalized like this. Hitbox added to the tip of the sword (I mean, FFS, it's a sword!) on 623X. Unblockable back please. Or at least, charged 22D guardbreaks without barrier the same way Platinum's hammer does.

Er, yes, that's true, but it's supporting his argument, not refuting it. Basically: "We'd feel bad if you'd been working on this character for two years and now all your work is for nothing. We don't feel bad if you've been working on this character for two months. Sorry."

So what? Just because other people have the same small amount of time invested doesn't magically make it a lot of time. Again, so what? They still don't have that much time logged. The sooner we ban, the better. Or, if you are Tsubaki: Phase one: Character is awful Phase two: Character gets moderate buffs Phase three: Character is halfway decent Phase four: Character gets nerfed again? o.o (Thanks, CSExtend!) Phase five: Character still competing for low tier!

Glad to help out. 6B will lose flat out to a wakeup 2D, actually, because while apparently 2D isn't 'airborne' on frame 1, it IS foot invulnerable from frame 1, and, well, 6B is only Foot. I prefer 'Arcsys! Fix our normals!'. We have such garbage normals it's kinda funny.

Wow. Konan footage, all of a sudden no longer quite so rare, eh?

Er, first of all, 6A is not HL anywhere. It's an overhead, and only has H - I just doublechecked. Second of all, you are confusing the 'block type' with the 'attribute'. For block type H is 'High' and L is 'Low' - meaning that 6C can be blocked standing or crouching. But if you look at the frame data, the 9th column is labelled 'attribute' - that's the one that has H ('Head'), B ('Body'), F ('Foot'), T ('Throw'), P ('Projectile') and so forth. THAT is what is checked when evaluating Noel's invulnerability states. You can have a move that hits High, but doesn't have Head Attribute (Example: 6A) or an attack that has Head Attribute, but doesn't hit high (Example: j.214X). Don't confuse the two, or you will....be confused.

Uh, neither of those moves has Head anymore. Both did in Extend, but they're both just Body now. I don't think there are any grounded moves that have Head invulnerability anymore, so there are no options for beating 4B 'automagically', especially since the invulnerability got lengthened in CP so it no longer wears off before the move becomes active. If you have her in the corner, meaty throw may work - it's not clear at what point 2D leaves the ground and therefore becomes throw Invulnerable, but throw will beat 4D as long as you're in range to grab her. It's probably worth someone with the game testing to see if meaty throw beats 2D as well. That would be useful to know. Worst 2B in the game FTW! Seriously. I was bored, so I checked the data for every other character. The only characters with worse proration on 2B are Noel (but hers starts up in 7 frames.) and Tao (Ditto). Litchi 2B[e] (which low profiles and has hilarious range) and Mu's 2B have basically the same overall proration (Actually, they're slightly better - they add up the the same effective starting proration, but have a higher P2 so they're better than ours mid-combo.) Pretty much everyone's is faster than ours too (Exception: Bang, but his 2B is...odd, since it's also not a low). Rushdown character with non-rushdown normals! >.< Someday, I would like to have a talk with whoever designed our normals. Both 2B and 6A should be 2-4 frames faster than they are.

I have gotten some of the HATIEST hate mail for using TSUBAKI. The one I -especially- remember was from a Hazama player, and it's like "Dude, you have pretty much every conceivable advantage in this matchup, STFU."

Updated. Also, when you're talking about 5BB and say "Unfortunately you will find that you rarely get this to hit, and even if you score the CH, following up into 6C is a difficult (but optimal) confirm as 5BB doesn't not inflict a lot of untechable time." do you mean "You're unlikely to hit with 5BB 'raw' and the CH followup into 6C is difficult"?

Yeah, but the point is that the opponent doesn't know that, so they're probably sitting there going "Big jerk! WTF does he think he's doing, going AFK right as the match starts?"

Questions about stuff I'm seeing on the wiki. Re: 3c - "You can also use this and it's follow-up for oki after a knock down. " Really? I thought we'd basically declared this dead? Or are we just talking about using it to catch rolls? Re: 3CC - "The added invincibility to the move also ensures a FC hit if they press buttons." how does head invulnerability help ensure a FC, pretty much the only grounded moves with Head attribute are slow overheads and stuff that wouldn't be used to punish? All normals tidied up. Will try to do specials or something tomorrow. Editing is dull x.x

Text needs some general cleanup and editing; I'll do what I can as time allows tomorrow, and hit you with any questions I have about intent.

AFAIK, block switching doesn't IB. Also, this whole plan of "You know, just instant block flawlessly for a while and then counter assault out" only works up until the point when the player decides to like, do a mixup. It's not like "keep you in a blockstring until until they can hit you with a black hole" is their only option or something. Oh, and also, you're wrong Valk beating her to 50% just from guard bonus - watch the video more closely. Kokonoe is at 51% when Valk is at 48%. She probably could have gone into blackhole a couple of hits earlier, which would have rendered the CA wasted/ineffective because the black hole is invulnerable from frame 1 until like, forever. (I mean really? 218 frames of complete invulnerability?) Regardless, being able to put the opponent into a situation where their ONLY option is "instant block and reversal or hope you build enough meter to counter assault" is just absurd with how easy it is to set up. (Because no one should ever get hit by midscreen 2A, right?) This is the problem. It's simply not a case of "oh, hey, give people more time and they'll figure out how to beat Kokonoe." It's actually the reverse. New ways for Kokonoe to kill people are being discovered MUCH faster than ways for other people to fight back.