Airk

Question about this combo: 5BB > 5CC > Mugen > 623D > j.236D > j.214D > dash 2CC >IAD j.CC > 5C > 2C > jc j.C > jc j.CC > j.236A > j.214C Is it POSSIBLE to do a ground ender on there? (After the IAD) It always seems like they're too high for it when I finish the IAD (maybe my spacing is screwy) and then they tech before they fall low enough for a 236B? Is this a fringe case where you CAN'T do a ground ender?

Yeah. Some of those were phenomenal. The worst part is that even if you bait the drive successfully, it seems like it's hard to get a meaningful punish.

I thought it was kinda depressing, overall. Spinoza: *does his best to apply legit pressure, gets little out of it* Yuu: *Pushes drive buttons and turns the round around with a 4.5k combo* Enjoy your low tier. Also, do we have any idea why Spinoza kept charge cancelling his COMBOS after 5CC? Was it just him being flustered into super bad hitconfirms, or do you think he was trying to catch out Noel mashing drive DURING a combo or something? He did it at least 2-3 times, mostly in the second match.

Mostly this, but also, try to consciously think about what you're doing instead of letting your hands go into autopilot reflex mode. Even if you react too slowly, you'll be cognizant of what's going on and be better able to deal with it mentally. Do not allow THIS to happen. Remember - even if you lose, you don't lose anything, so there's no point in getting too worked up.

Lambda IS a pretty reactionary character though - you shouldn't, for example, just be throwing out 2D or 6D and hoping your opponent obliges you by jumping into them; You need to be able to react to them jumping with 6D, airdashing with 2D or j.2D, and dashing in with 5D or j.2D. Once you can score a hard knockdown from a combo, you can set up your sickle storm oki (or if you're lucky and you can sneak out a sickle storm on an opponent at neutral) then you can start some offense and go in and start pushing buttons proactively, but Lambda's main business at neutral is to react and frustrate the opponent into making a mistake.

I seriously do not know if I will be able to make it to this, but since I'm already missing all the events I was planning to get to this year (Hi, family medical issues) I may make a stab at getting to Evo. That said, if I just stumble in at noon on Saturday, will I be able to sign up and play?

There needs to be a sticky for this stuff, but I shall channel LK for this: Yes. :P Seriously. In order to get better, you should do all of the above (In no particular order): Go to your local gatherings if there are any. Try to interest your friends. Netplay, while understanding what is different about Netplay. Practice in training mode. Go to touraments. All of those have benefits. Playing offline makes you better at playing the game in its 'correct' state, with no delays that do things like make Gauntlet Hades nearly impossible to block. Netplay, so long as you understand its shortcomings, will give you a far wider scope of matchup and player style experience than you'll ever get by just attending your local stuff (And let's face it - it's a lot easier for a lot of people to sneak in an hour of netplay in the evenings than it might be to travel to a local event every evening - even if there were a nightly event, which there probably isn't. Any playing is better than none.) Training mode improves your execution, particularly on weird situational stuff that you won't get a chance to practice that frequently in real matches. And going to tournaments supports the scene and gives you a chance to play with good players .

If I had to guess, since the Mook is "official" even though it's done by a company outside Ark Sys, that ASW probably provides the data. There really doesn't seem to be any other feasible way for them to get this sort of precision without like, reverse engineering the game data, which seems like it'd be a lot of time and dubious legality.

Yes, but if you think about it, if you've gotten a guard crush, odds are that your opponent has already burst at least once that round, which makes it less likely that they'll have another one handy to stuff your Mugen.

Thanks! I feel totally free to Noel though. @_@ Ugh.

GGs to Nemesis et al. Thanks for putting up with scrubitude.

uh, well, it looks like a projectile? >.>

People always seem to be playing when I need to go to bed, so yes. :P z.z

Well, there are plenty of characters that don't have them, but stop exagerating. Put in TEN MINUTES per day of NOTHING but doing DPs, five minutes facing left, five minutes facing right. Do that for a week and tell me you're not markedly better. Heck, if you even just spent the time you spend complaining about your execution on message boards practicing, it'd probably make a difference. :P Ten minutes. Daily. DPs.

Don't worry Kiba, _I'M_ still dissapointed in you.

How does looking at the controller help you control what you do with your fingers?

Definitely NOT Hakumen if you're looking for "great mobility" - he's below average for the game, and none of the others you list are what I'd consider "above average"; My first suggestion was actually going to be Hazama. The other characters with "above average" mobility would be Rachel (who might fit your description), Bang, and Tao, both of whom a little weak on the space control angle, at least in the traditional sense. Oh. You could try Valk too. I don't actually know anything about MK9 though, so how any of those concepts translate to BB is likely to be a little weird, since by definition, almost everyone in BB is more mobile than MK characters, and many characters control much more space than characters in more traditional games, just due to the way BB works.

Glad you're enjoying yourself! I too am still way too mashy, but slowly, we improve. Well, actually it does, but only at the very beginning of the backdash (if the backdash lasts about half a second, you've only got any invulnerbility for about the first...1/12th of a second or so. 5 frames or so as most characters.). If a move makes contact with you after that, yup, it'll hit. This is experience more than anything else. Keep practicing. 5 games is barely anything.

I disagree. A player with excellent fundamentals will get more wins with Ragna because he is a better character, but a player with excellent fundamentals will actually make a MORE marked improvement on a character who ISN'T so stupid easy. Or to use numbers some numbers that I am totally making up because they make it easier to explain, an 'ok' Ragna might have a... 50% win rate. Whereas an okay... Makoto might have a 35% win rate. And a Ragna with excellent fundamentals might have an 80% win rate, and a Makoto with excellent fundamentals a 75% win rate, but the improvement for having those excellent fundies would be greater for the Makoto player (40% improvement vs 30% on Ragna.) Or that's my theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it. I would argue the opposite - that he's not a good character for beginners because they'll get some wins and think they're good at the game when they're actually just...playing Ragna. :P This. But also this. :P

Yeah yeah, fine, I mentioned that one anyway. Don't make me edit it to say "other obvious..." 214X? or j.214X?

Remember: No one was born with good execution. If you practice enough (which may be more than you are willing to) you should be able to do any combo in the game. Also, in general (not sure if it applies to the TK loop or not, but...) nothing in this game is 1 frame, due to the advance input buffer. Not that I'm trying to persuade you not to play an "easier" character - I'm just trying to encourage you not to give up on on a character you like just because your execution doesn't seem to be there. You're going to hit an executional wall sooner or later with everyone (Even Ragna, though you might not care) and you'll have to practice, so you might as well practice on a character you like than a character you just picked because you didn't hit an execution barrier right after picking them. Right?

So lately, I've been noticing that I'm finishing a LOT of rounds (frequently on the losing side :P ) with a full heat gauge, and I can't help but think that there must be SOMETHING I could be using that stuff for other than the occasional counter assault. Our supers just seem so BAD now that, since it seems to have become harder for me to tack 236236C on at the end of stuff, I rarely even bother to try. While I clearly need to start working on integrating rapid cancels into my gameplay (Outside of 3CC > RC), I'm not really sure of good ways to do so - we don't have any obviously useful RC combos like certain (*COUGH*RAGNA) characters do, so it seems like it would be best in applying pressure? What do most people do with their heat gauge?

This is sortof a defeatist attitude; First off, there's a lot of Hazama stuff you should probably learn BEFORE you worry about the TK loop, and second, well, it's probably a bit extreme to say that you "can't" do it. Can't do it YET maybe. Can't do it ever? Seems unlikely. But now that I'm done berating you, I shall put together my execution difficulty tier list. :P Stupid easy tier: Ragna Normal Tier: Everyone who isn't in one of the other tiers Tricky tier: Rachel, Hazama, Valk Hard Tier: Carl, Tao I might have Carl and Valk backwards, and I'm sure people are going to show up and tell me how wrong I am, but the real thing is - there's not THAT much executional difference in the cast (Except for Ragna :P) but some characters are harder for most people to wrap their minds around - this is why I'm rating Carl/Tao/Rachel/Valk higher up on the curve.

This is not true; Several characters have true unblockables - but they generally all require charge time to set up. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are Jin 623D[Hold], Hakumen's Shippu[Hold] and Tsubaki's 22D[Hold]; All of which require a significant amount of hold time before they become truly unblockable, but once they get to that point, they are truly unblockable - by which we mean "there is no way you can block them". :P I believe Arakune also has a Carl-style pseudo unblockable involving the bell bug and any low hit. It's not THAT slow; It's 48 frames long, only 28 of which are startup, and most tech options take 30 frames to complete anyway. So unless you perform a knockdown that lets your opponent act practically before you do, bubble oki is acceptable. Now, admittedly, there are situations in which it's not appropriate, including any kind of air combo ender, and it may not be valid midscreen because people can backroll out of the way, but in the corner, at least, it still seems quite viable, depending on what combo ender you go for. Almost all characters have combo enders that will allow for punishing of roll techs.

Yes it does. You are timing it wrong. Also, 214D has no properties that specifically relate to projectiles. It goes through moves that don't have the 'foot' property, which none of Hazama's chains do. However, there are 10 frames of 'startup' on the move before the invulnerability kicks in, which is kindof a lot when you're trying to react to something like a chain. It's honestly not likely to be a good way to close ground on Hazama, since even if you -do- go through the chain, you won't HIT him unless he's REALLY on autopilot, so he'll just attack you during your recovery. 214D is a good move, but it's really only useful when it's going to make contact with your opponent. It's not really a valid way to just 'dodge' projectiles at full screen.