Alpha152

How was the turnout? Work's keeping me from attending. I should be able to go on the 9th or West Toast but if not there's always AX I guess :/

Nice, all of them look great. A lot of people are Personafying their sticks, getting hype for the game.

Good point Transient, Bang manages to blow up 4D even after a whiffed move. Not to say that every Bang will always 5A > 2A for pressure but if 4D catches him enough times he can easily adjust to Drive proof blockstrings.

Comparing Bang's air approach to Tao and Valk isn't accurate because unlike them, his resources are limited. My main match-up experience with Bang is against Turntablist who has a great offense but tends to overuse his nails. Without them, Bang becomes much less of a threat. Countering his air game is only a problem when he uses nails to cover his approach. If Bang dashes or jumps in without nails 6A and 4D are pretty effective tools. Of course his two air dashes make it harder to time an AA, but they are still good. Now his neutral game and offense is where he gives Noel problems. His 5A/B are both great pokes and his nails let him start pressure for free(at least up to 4 times). Using D during his pressure is risky but can sometimes gain good results. Most of his normals have foot attribute so 4D will get blown up by a lot of his blockstrings. It becomes even harder when he uses TK D nails to extend his pressure because it's frame tight to any of Noel's normals if done correctly and even if he happens to TK from a farther distance, 2D and 4D get beaten out by its foot and projectile attributes. One place where 2D does work is when Bang tries to re-enter for pressure and starts with a 2A. However, if he decides to use 5A/B then 2D will get beaten, but then 4D will beat his 5A options. It really becomes a guessing game of which move he will use to start pressure and which move you use to counter it. I think it's good to attempt the guessing game when he has nails because that's where the fear of his rush down comes from but it's definitely better to block when his resources dwindle. My last note is about his blockstrings without nails. A lot of Bangs like to end pressure with 6A since it's +1 on block. If it's done at max distance it can be hard to out-poke him since his 5A/B have good range even when IB'd, but if he uses it at a close distance then Noel can start her pressure or beat out whatever he throws out since he's at -2 and his fastest normal is 6f. One of his most common frame-traps is 6D/2C > 623B. This is mostly punishable only on IB because it leaves him at -10. Since the push back from his blockstring into 623B pushes you too far to optimally punish, the only thing you can do is 665A. Unfortunately Noel does not get a decent combo from a non CH 5B like other characters do. However, if you are in the corner with 50 meter and he decides to frame-trap with 623B, an easier punish is to 5B > Thor into a combo that nets you 4k, gets you out of the corner, and puts Bang in the corner. The good thing about IB'ing 623B is that you can punish Bang any time he tries to frame-trap with 623B, the bad part is that it's very frame tight but I'm pretty sure a max distance 623B can still be punished. If in fact it can't be punished with 5A at max distance or you decide not to 665A at a closer range, you can at least 5B > 5C > JC to start pressure.

Thor combos are my specialty :3 There are many instances for using Thor and even though the damage doesn't justify using 50 meter, the heat gain and corner carry certainly make up for it. Most of these combos are situational but I think they're worth knowing: [max range] 5B > 5C > Thor > 662A > 6C etc. (useful if you know 5/2C > RC > 665A will whiff but still want to optimize damage) any air hit-confirm > Thor > 662A etc. (this is especially good because you can turn any air hit-confirm into a 2.5~3k combo and gain around 30 meter plus oki) [if you're in the corner, max range] 5B/C > Thor > 662A (same concept as the first combo and you get to put your opponent in the corner) 5/2C > RC > 665A is the optimal meter combo but Thor is an alternative in situations where that combo wouldn't normally work. Aside from that it's stylish and can bait bursts And please continue to ask questions, the more people ask, the more we get to think about and understand concepts and mechanics we normally wouldn't think about. In general, it increases our knowledge and makes us better players

j.D is awesome for throw baits and is one of her better damaging options. Another place where I use j.D is against wolf Valk. If he does w[C > j.A/j.B] or w[236A] to get in for pressure j.D will beat it most of the time and can be followed up with SR or any other combo, but it won't work so well against the 236B version. It's still a risky option because he can punish easily if it whiffs but gimmicks like j.D > AT/SR can sometimes catch them off guard when they try to punish. Gimmicks work sometimes and if the payoff is good enough it's worth the risk, just like TK RB at the start of a round :3 just don't become reliant on it.

I can answer the first two questions. There is really no difference between d.5D and d.5B in that string. d.5D does 1 more damage and has 1 point higher of P2 than d.5B, a very minimal difference. Corner carry is another difference but I'm not sure which one is better for that. d.5B is also much easier to use since there is no timing involved so aside from character specific combos d.5B is generally preferred. j.D is not a reliable counter(assuming you're talking about air-ground) because of the punish you can receive if blocked but if you have meter or know your opponent is going to anti-air you then it is a good counter, high risk/high reward.

To the untrained ear it may have sounded like that; however, it was actually an insightful and intelligent discussion...

Most likely PS3. Major tournaments usually use 360 for Capcom fighters

I would like to go and level up, unfortunately school and stuff keeps me pre-occupied. Once June hits I should be able to attend more often.

My 2 cents on 2D - If you do choose to block it, the attack is -1 on block. Noel can use 2/5A to counter anything he does if he decides to attack, obviously anything besides 360A/720 or MTW. However, if he does 2D from a further distance where the move hits in its later active frames then he is at an advantage. By how much really depends on the distance used but unless IB'd(still can possibly trade) it's better not to press anything. Now what I've been trying to work into my game is to j.D inside of that mid-range where Noel's 5B will whiff but Tager's 2D will still connect. Unfortunately it's not invincible to 2D but it should work better compared to jumping and hoping it whiffs because her hurtbox is higher up than normal.

I know RayzyrByrn won and I got 2nd, then I'm pretty sure Numakie got 3rd and Cow 4th

GGs to everyone today. I had fun like always, except for that awkward, fake hype during the filming. I will try to attend more often. edit: and shout-outs to Xie for keeping the scene together with these organized events

Melty Brood Haven't played that in a while, I'll make sure to get bodied.

I don't know if it's worth bringing up(or if anyone cares) but d.6B's startup was supposedly increased. On the wiki it shows it as 21f startup which is the same from CS2. Is this a mistake on the wiki or did it not change?

That's good to know, thanks for the clarification.

Ok, so does that mean comparing hitboxes against each other is not an accurate way of viewing hitbox changes? Another example not dealing with invuln is 5B, in CSX her hurtbox was moved forward compared to CS2 but this nerf was not mentioned.

After looking at the new hitboxes it seems that the buffs to j.B and such are not correct, or is comparing the new and old hitboxes side-by-side not an accurate way of determining this? Is it also possible that the frame data was taken incorrectly? 4D was supposed to be buffed but after looking at the CSX hitbox it looks like its head and body invlun were taken away. CSX 4D CS2 4D

Couldn't come the past few times but I'm hopefully going to make it next time(assuming there are no venue problems). And Xie, you have the next event after the upcoming one as 5-28 which is on a Monday, typo?

JP CMV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImrfNgNzgh4 Japan (partially) stealing my set-ups, me salty.

He's been too busy with LOL(lol)

Small typo here unless 6B > B+C is intended.

fix'd...?

Wow that really sucks How about hosting it at FFA next time?

Not so much game play related but kind of relevant, do most tourney set-ups with Asus monitors use HDMI or VGA connections? I would also like to know how input delay from HDMI compares to VGA.