Marisa

Any practice is to your benefit, especially since Carl's modus operandi doesn't really change much. Carl tends to focus more on movement and positioning than he does anything else, so practicing ls going to mostly be getting into the habits that most benefit his playstyle and moving Nirvana. The hard part of Carl is getting the sync right, after that it's converting random hits into knockdowns for his oki and mixup game. That's been his basic strategy since CS and for the most part every iteration since has just tried to enforce that. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Taking a wild stab, I get the feeling she won't be much of a puppet character. Part of what makes them so difficult is position and resource management, and if you're cutting positioning it's too different from a puppet master. I'm definitely thinking she'll be largely Minerva based with Cel herself mostly walking around looking oblivious or (for the few moves she'll do herself) accidentally hitting people. I'm also guessing she'll have a super that disables drives for a short duration, the obvious heal, and a reversal. The Astral will probably be something "nice" like Amane's. Playstyle I'd guess as being more of a spacer, relying on Minerva's larger attacks to keep the opponent at a better range. Maybe focus more on harassment and chip damage, though Minerva makes me think she could also be a heavy hitter. Not sure which fits better for a beginner friendly character, large attacks that make it harder to move in but don't damage much or when it hits it's a hit that matters. Probably the former. Total shot in the dark based on the feel I got from story mode.

Map as many buttons as possible to shoulders and practice practice practice Sent from my AOSP on Toro using Tapatalk

Don't think it's been mentioned, but another small bug in the PS3 version was that only the player selecting music got a different song. The other player just gets one of the two character's songs

Yeah, Justice and Kliff are both balanced for play in +R. How well is yet to be seen. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Nailed it. Some also just like the "fancy combos" and a few others think knowing combos make them win. It's really hard to convince people that fundamentals (and for GG system mechanics) are far more valuable assets than anything else Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Ultimately, I'd recommend checking out the whole cast. While there are characters that are easier to learn the game with, having fun learning is going to get you more excited and you'll probably learn faster/better. Knowing what kind of character you typically like would make suggestions a lot simpler. Some of the more typical archetypes are: Shotos - Sol and Ky Charge - May Venom Grappler - Potemkin Zoner - Axl Speedster - Chipp Shadow/Puppetmaster - Eddie Bridget Clearly not all inclusive, but it's a start. GG's cast is pretty diverse, so if you have a favored play style it should be fairly accommodating. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

If it's anything like PSP BlazBlue was, the console release will probably be about 3 weeks after. Just enough time for them to make whatever money they're going to from the impatient. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Being not lazy and actually filling this thing out. Dustloop: Marisa Location: The vast cornfields between Matteson and Bradley/Bourbonnais Transportation: Car, rides for gas + excuse to be not lazy about going PSN: Marisaze P4A: Shadow Labrys BB: Carl, kinda sorta sub Rachel GG: In order of competence: Bridget > May > Anji > ABA > Eddie AH3: Lieselotte SGs: REALLY bad but played Wheel of Fortune pre-patch

Yeah, Bridget and May are the only two that I've put any serious effort into learning so I'm glad they're at least close :V ABA, Anji, and Eddie were some passing fancy that never fully panned out. I did enough with them for a feel but not really enough for much more than a maiden reaction.

I've given a fair shake at a few characters, while I'm not very good with many of them I have a general feel: Anji - particularly easy, really the most difficult part thing I had with him was getting the feel for his guard points May - Also not exceptionally difficult, very straight forward gameplan and not really that challenging as long as you're good with charges. ABA - Kinda effort but Moroha damage makes her seem less so. Orbs loops are probably the only real difficult part. Bridget - Definitely both an effort and hard character. Setups take a decent amount of execution, and taking advantage of his movement and Roger requires some rather quick and creative thinking. Eddie - (Forgive me if I'm off on this, I've not played much of him) Hard character, but not really effort. It's difficult to wrap your mind around what you need to do with him, but the actual requirements are more "relaxed" than some other characters. To clarify a little, to me, effort characters are ones that are more demanding physically (strict timing, lots of buttons and motions) while hard characters are ones with unique mental requirements on the player. And yeah, Ruu is a perfect example of why some argue that Bridget is the most mobile character in the game.

Again going to throw out that Bridget might be a fit for you. More mobility based than Carl with long range pokes, but Roger/yoyo fills a similar role to Nirvana. Even while inactive it's a threat zone, learning placement is a huge part of Bridget's game, a limited number of unblockables (mostly used as oki), and almost useless while being pressured. Biggest downside to Bridget is he's low tier in AC and ACR, but it's GG low tier so really you just have to be good at playing and you're still fine. As I said before, I've felt more "Carl-ish" with Bridget than I did with Eddie, but I also stopped playing BB after CS1 (for pretty much the same reason as you, didn't like what I was doing with Carl) so I could be a little confused on how he plays in CSEX. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIrTSCnptZA I know CV's aren't the best place to get an idea how to play a character, but it kinda shows off a little of what I'm talking about

Bridget has some puppet master like qualities too. I've found him to be my current goto for that. Eddie really does feel kind of weird and not really what I like about puppetmasters so I know what you mean... Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Mine is marisaze if I'm not mistaken. My computer is almost always on and Skype open, so it's kind of a crapshoot if I'm actually there or not... Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

Netcode seems good enough for friendlies if nothing else. Losing a ranked match vs a random due to lag would probably piss me off pretty fast though. But I never play ranked so whatever. Sent from my Galaxy Nexus