Airk

I wouldn't count too much on any of this; New combo routes mean crappy new damage when people have very little time to figure anything out (i.e. loktest); But also, it doesn't look like CT adds nearly as much damage as it used to so...

Whoah; That...has all kinds of interesting implications.

Seriously? You make adjustments to what you do based on how many HP (total, not current) a character has? (This is not sarcasm, this is me being Really Surprised.) Anyway, I'm not super familiar with Ragna in his current implementation, but Bullet's damage with drive is REALLY explosive. And c'mon, she's ALWAYS going to get heat up sooner or later unless she gets completely steamrolled. All she has to do is land one combo.

okay, the Exceed thing is pretty cool looking.

I don't think 236D actually 'teleports' - it just looks like it crosses up again, and there was some weird hitbox interaction there. That's just a guess though. Also, after 6BB is probably a terrible place to do 22B, since it's the most obvious, but at least it reaches. Seems pretty slow though. Hope they do something interesting with our old moves, but so far I'm not seeing much.

Bullet doesn't have a hop dash though, she has a step dash, so she should be able to micro dash by cancelling it just like Hazama does?

"Practice combos on both sides" is basically Fighting Game Learning Advice 102. Fighting Game Learning Advice 101 is "Practice moves on both sides" (since doing a DP facing left is pretty different from doing it facing right.). This is regardless of your control input, really, though it may be somewhat more important if using a stick.

Bohemian Polka has a good suggestion there for how to learn meaty timing ("meaty" being the term for an attack that hits on the first frame when a character is no longer invulnerable during wakeup.) but that's not quite the same thing as training "okizeme"; If you have a character like Rachel who has a good option that covers all the bases, I would suggest first finding some good oki strategies for your character and then setting the training dummy on 'random' wakeup and using the same jump action setting that BP mentioned. Then do a combo, and follow your strategy. If your opponent gets hit during their wakeup, it means you successfully covered that wakeup option. But you'll need to do this a bunch to make sure you're covering all the bases. How much value this has depends heavily on how strong your character's oki options are though, so you might be better off asking THAT question on the Rachel forum.

I don't think there's a guide, but I can do a quick and dirty explanation. To really understand oki in BB, you need to first understand the wakeup options. Those are detailed here, but to summarize: Quick Tech; No invulnerability, happens fast, no visual cueForward roll; Tiny bit of invulnerability, moves you forwards, can roll through the opponent if they are close enough.Back roll; Some invulnerability, moves you backwards, can roll through the opponent if they are close enough (and behind you). Essentially useless in the corner because the invulnerability wears off before you stop rolling, and there's no backwards to move to.Neutral Tech; Full invulnerability, obvious white flash."Delay Tech"; Neutral tech done later, to mess up your opponent's timing. Vulnerable to being picked up into a new combo if your opponent is ready for it.Okizeme in BB boils down to trying to restrict your opponent's wakeup options as much as possible. In an ideal world, you want to be able to force your opponent to neutral tech and block (or maybe DP, though I think some characters have setups that beat most DPs) on wakeup. For example, Rachel has some setups where she can deploy George on top of an opponent who is knocked down in the corner, and George will activate while they are waking up, so if they try to roll, quick tech, late tech, or neutral tech and do a non-invulnerable move, they will get electrocuted, so they are forced to wake up with a neutral tech and then either block or DP, since anything else will result in them getting hit by George. Other characters have different sorts of setups that cover different tech types, though for most of the cast, it's harder to cover all the options, and it's virtually impossible for anyone to cover all the options midscreen, so most oki happens in the corner in BB (since in the corner, back roll ceases to be a meaningful option.). The most basic form of corner oki is simply to stand far enough away that your opponent can't forward roll past you, and then throw out an appropriate attack based on what they do, but this is actually much harder than it sounds, because of Quick Tech and Delayed Neutral tech, which, between them, forces you to react to things over a fairly wide span of time (and quick tech also doesn't have a good visual cue that it is happening, making it harder still to react to.) This is why most forms of oki involve some sort of move that lasts a long enough time that you can throw it out there, and it will catch quick techs and forward rolls, allowing you to focus on a neutral or late-teching opponent. Does that help?

I'm going to flip the question everyone is asking around and say "Why WOULDN'T Bullet be better than Ragna?" What does he have that she doesn't?

Anime community is notoriously fickle, plays whatever game just came out for like 4 months, then drops it for the next one.

That'd be great, only the post I quoted doesn't say that, so I wanted to clarify. If you want to keep arguing, go back and read my first post in this thread.

Awesome, bookmarked. And holy crap, someone is older than me.

Except that this is what I said like two pages of posts ago, and now people are asking "Why does it have to be one or the other?" and the answer is "Because he probably doesn't bloody well have time to play both."

He can, but if he had time to play both, why would he ask?

Hey; "Just play both, LOLZ" is NOT a valid option for some people. I barely have enough time to not be completely awful at one game, and nowhere near enough skills transfers between these games for me to be able to play more than one, the time just isn't there. So pick the one you like, yes, but don't believe the people who say you should just play both.

Got suggestions for exercises?

I think you left out the famous GG emphasis on oki, which is seriously mitigated in BB by the various wakeup options. Also, I'd have to dispute your last point, since I hate KOF and love SS, but I prefer BB. :P

Baseless speculation is baseless.

Take MORE breaks. And no, that's not snarky advice. Take breaks BEFORE you start to hurt. Take a break at LEAST once an hour, probably every 30 minutes. This is mentally useful as well as physically. They don't need to be LONG breaks - 5 minutes or so is fine, but do something different. Stand up. Stretch. Get a glass of water. Do ten pushups. Walk the dog around the block, whatever. The idea here is to reduce your chances of some sort of repetitive strain injury by breaking up the monotony and to let your brain absorb info. Also, definitely stop if something hurts. Don't try to man up and power through it.

BB all the way.

I'm not even counting on there being a Western release of BBCF in time for Evo next year.

Though Blazblue does seem to be doomed to be on the "Your game will never be at Evo because release dates" release cycle. x.x

That's pretty nifty. And so far beyond the level I am at right now. x.x

Yeah; The two games are pretty divergent in terms of their play experience, so I suggest you mess around with both and then play the one you like better. /madness