tolore

@shadow archangel Be more consistent with your defense, you get tagged by a lot of really random crap from tager in the first match, that's the biggest advice to give almost anyone looking to improve. Also a lot of the successful tactics you are using are actually not very good, but are still working because your opponent is also inexperienced. For example j.d, either you're messing up the cloud motion too much, or using j.d way too much, j.d is awful without bug support. Random spider laser super worked out, but doing it out in the open like that is incredibly dangerous(unless you are reacting to something, which you weren't). The aerial super is basically worthless, you got lucky your opponent got hit by it the first time, and the second time he was doing something you could have punished anyways with more damage and less meter. Obviously you've got some combo's to learn, you drop a lot of combos, and get a lot of hits that should lead to combos then you don't follow it up. Also the basketball loop(6a->a bug->6a->a bug etc...) is out dated, you can always get a 6C loop off of anything that gives you basketball loop(epeically since 6a->a bug itself leads to the 6C loop). You also need to back up your clouds better, especially against tager. Sledge is very punishable against arakune if you properly back your clouds up. Instead of trying to keep away after throwing out the homing cloud you should rush in after it, if he tries to sledge you can air dash back cancel into j.b(the downward angled one) and get a combo, if he tries to do his super armor charge up move you can j.d him and you should remain far enough away that his anti air grab can't get you. Also if you have the cloud that floats above their head he cannot anti air grab you, he'll be hit by the cloud before the active frames of the move comes out.

j2A > 5B > air combo is explained in the locked stiky and asked numerous times throughout the various other stickies. http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6199 http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5935&page=14

assuming you mean the j.2A dive cancel and not the airdahs->.hold back dive cancel you can do j.2A->5B->jump->j.A(possibly a second j.a)->j.B->j.C->j.d->6C loop[X1]->jump->j.c->j.d.

It has a ton of invincible frames but they don't matter since if the opponent is smart they will air dash in such a way that you will invincible through their air move, then they will land, then they will block the 5C. To hit people out of an air daished attack you often have to do the 5C before they do it, or so quickly after they do it it becomes prediction instead of reaction, you have to basically GUESS and tha'ts not good with moves like 5C.

5C on an opponent who is aird dashing in while likely get you nothing because they'll land during the 23 frames your move starts up, if they are hakumen they'll counterit on reaction(if they are good/know that they can react to anti air). really for 5C and 2B you just gotta know from experience when you can do it, lots of moves beat both, some lose to one, some lose to the other, and this all changes depending on the height and angle the opponent is coming in at. Other options for anti air is jump j.a, pre empt jump j.6a/b/c, spider laser(not usually recommended), if you have 100 % meter block dead angle->spider laser->curse. Arakune's anti air game is really limited by his slow slow 5C, so it can be tough.

not exactly, it just makes the 3 frames only affect the release of 2, instead of having to press B twice with timing and release the 2 with timing. if you press B before the 3 frames you still do another dive instead of canceling, and if you do it too late you land, all it does is make the B after you land guaranteed.

ahhh I see, I don't really have that problem on stick but i coudl see it being annoying on pad.

Why need to hit confirm, if you whiff there's enough time to realize, and you want the 5B whether it hits or they block it right?

thanks to veteru's advice i'm finding the dive cancel quite easy(at least in practice mode). The method he recommended was to press and hold b after you hit the opponent(or they block) while still holding down, then release down. This makes it super easy, I went from not having any idea on even the timing of cancelling the dive, to doing the dive cancel and combo after it about 60% of the time in about half an hour. the basic input looks like this [2]A->hit the opponent/the opponent blocks->wait(for a split second if you hit them low on their body, slightly longer if you hit them high)->->almost instantly release 2->continue holding B the 5B should come out at that point. Ways to fail and how to fix them: Another dive comes out: you are pressing B to early Dive cancel into 2B: releasing 2 too late don't dive cancel at all: releasing 2 too early if you need clarification or anything just ask(As a not [] means to hold the button I think tha'ts standard notation).

I doubt it, I played like 60 some matches right when the game came out and never played again. I have a ton of live comp so I don't bother going online mutch.

I wrote this up in the arakune thread, I figured I'd put it up over here also. Here's some stuff I've learned playing against a hakumen several times a week. sorry for the double post but I think this warrents more than an edit more hakumen options: You can't anti air hakumen, if he IAD's and J.c's it's safe jumped since 5C is so slow, so you can only do 5C as a predictionary anti air against this tactic. BUT even worse hakumen can IAD and do nothing to get in virtually for free, once he IAD you have several options, anti air, he can on reaction counter, j.a, he can block(which should be doing if he doesn't see the anti air coming out), or jump up throw, which can easily be teched. I've tried other things such as 2.b and 5.b, neither of these seem to work particularly well, they either get blocked, beaten by j.c, or j.c still lands safely. Hakumens anti cloud options: floats above his head cloud: IMO the worst cloud against hakumen, he CAN 2.C this, but if he just throws it out it'll get punished. The problem is hakumen has no problem turtling under this cloud and then reacting to what you do. If you try to spit for pressure he can either on reaction instant air dash and j.c for punish, or (if he's feeling cowardly) just counter it. If you try and bell bug he can IAD j.c for punish, or if his reaction is a bit slow get a free nonpunishable 2.C to kill the cloud and get some meter. Trying to pressure him from above is pretty tough because his 2.c is a decent anti air(and kills the cloud), and if he can't 2.c your aerials I almost guarantee he can 6A it(his 6A is godly). homing cloud: This one is pretty nice, the biggest problem with this one is that it moves predictably and at the same speed towards the opponent which means he gets an easy counter on it(counter is completely safe if it counters a projectile even if it doesn't hit the opposing player). He can also jump C it in such a way the the only way to punish is with a bird(6a/b/c) that goes over the sword and into hakumens face(which is somewhat hard to do on reaction to his 6C as you have to place yourself at the right height at the right time). spit and anti air actually do not work here, anti air either clashes with the still active sword and does nothing, or he will land immediately after the active frames and be able to block. Spit just gets cut by the sword and then he lands and is able to block the second hit, he can always land and block j.d even if it's out before the active frames of j.c end. shield cloud: this cloud is probably the best against hakumen, he has no realy safe ways to destroy it. Here are a few of his options. He can try and 6C it in such a way that you will also get hit/be forced to block, this is the best option iif arakune is low on life. But if he 6C's you can spit, sword will cut the first hit of spit and the cloud(and you most likely) but the spits second hit will get him and curse him. He can safe jump IAD 6C to destroy it, which is still an irritating option, but a lot of the time the extra active frames will get him anti aired(and jump up and j.a him is much better because even if he blocks it CAN force a cloud hit). A crazier option(that deserves mad style points if he does it) is command dash into the cloud and counter it, that one's pretty risky for obvious reasons. Once hakumen is cursed! Now things start to look pretty sweet, but hakumen still has some decent options, mainly in counter. Once he gets cursed he will likely/should turtle up, your best bet here is to use bird stabs and dives to try and cross him up while he has to block bugs. You can try and blockstring him, but that's very risky, as I have mentioned before arakune's blockstrings are full of holes(literally, there is no place in his block strings that don't have a hole), which means hakumen can almost guarantee counters against. Unless you manage to perfectly fill the holes with bugs so that he does not exit block stun he can watch for a bug and counter in such a way that even if you bait it by stopping your string the bug/a cloud will set off his counter anyways and wreck your curse, wreck your momentum and deal some damage to you. hakumens anti air: hakumens anti air is sweet, it crushes arakune's dives, it crushes arakune's downward angled normals, and it is very hard to bait and punish. It recovers too quickly for fake dash in j.d or j.a/b to punish it consistently, and arakune is too slow in the air to double jump and punish(and j.c will often clash or even lose unless you are way up above them in which case nothing else works so he has no reason to forward punch). Arakune's block strings: more notes on this, jump cancelling 6A does NOT bait the counter that can go in between 6A and 5D against the hakumen I play against. He watches for the jump and if you jump he does not counter. He also does not seem to counter when I decide to do nothing after 6A, I'm not sure how he knows not to counter but he has never countered when i try to bait it with this(and if I try and do 6A->2A he jabs me out every time). I'm going to see if I can figure out anything else I can do in here to bait counter(maybe teleports?). Overall I think hakumen is a lot mroe solid in this matchup than people give him credit for, although th elevel of play required and matchup/frame data knowledge to pull most of those off is very high. Even with all that it's going to be an uphill battle for hakumen. anyway tell me what you think! good advice? am i full of crap? any corrections to be made? addendum: seeing brave hippo answer the question reminded me of something else to add. Most of the time arakune will super jump back, double jump and throw out a cloud, then try to mix up their way back to the ground. Usually what the hakumen i play against will do is block and wait to see me jump, then IAD and land under me and will try and tag me on the way down. I believe if I try and dive or bird or teleport 2C will counterhit me out of it. If I block the 2C it often destroys the cloud I set out, or he can jump and airthrow. I'm not super solid on all the options in this interaction, but it's definitely something to play with.

shh, you saw NOTHING! there are lots of semi safe ways for hakumen to get rid of the clouds(most of which I listed, and why they are hard to punish), if arakune is literally doing nothing you can punish 2C's, but since the start up of j.d is so slow if you do basically anything he can get a free 2C off. The cloud that floats above his head is the hardest for him to safely kill(since he basically has to 2C), but it also affects him the least.

well like I said, it's unsafe to just randomely do it, you gotta wait for arakune to do something, few if any arakune's will just sit there and wait for a 2C(and if thye do you can free IAD at them). But if they try and throw out a bell bug or spit you've got free reign to punish the move or kill the cloud.

2C kills the overhead cloud everytime...

which one is yukikaze? I'm not sure off the top of my head? Also any comments on any of the stuff I listed off?

Anything that makes america better is alright in my book! I really do hope it helps, a lot of this stuff requires a ton of match experience or freakish reaction time(my hakumen opponent has both ). The sooner more people figure this stuff out though, the sooner me and other arakune's can figure out ways around it! Most of the credit should go to the local hakumen who shall remain nameless because for WHATEVER reason he doesn't want people to know who he is. Like I said in that other thread, he generally beats me, and it's not through lack of me trying. I'll give this a few days for other arakune's to pick at and then i'll post it in the hakumen thread if it hasn't been ripped apart by other, better arakune's.

sorry for the double post but I think this warrents more than an edit more hakumen options: You can't anti air hakumen, if he IAD's and J.c's it's safe jumped since 5C is so slow, so you can only do 5C as a predictionary anti air against this tactic. BUT even worse hakumen can IAD and do nothing to get in virtually for free, once he IAD you have several options, anti air, he can on reaction counter, j.a, he can block(which should be doing if he doesn't see the anti air coming out), or jump up throw, which can easily be teched. I've tried other things such as 2.b and 5.b, neither of these seem to work particularly well, they either get blocked, beaten by j.c, or j.c still lands safely. Hakumens anti cloud options: floats above his head cloud: IMO the worst cloud against hakumen, he CAN 2.C this, but if he just throws it out it'll get punished. The problem is hakumen has no problem turtling under this cloud and then reacting to what you do. If you try to spit for pressure he can either on reaction instant air dash and j.c for punish, or (if he's feeling cowardly) just counter it. If you try and bell bug he can IAD j.c for punish, or if his reaction is a bit slow get a free nonpunishable 2.C to kill the cloud and get some meter. Trying to pressure him from above is pretty tough because his 2.c is a decent anti air(and kills the cloud), and if he can't 2.c your aerials I almost guarantee he can 6A it(his 6A is godly). homing cloud: This one is pretty nice, the biggest problem with this one is that it moves predictably and at the same speed towards the opponent which means he gets an easy counter on it(counter is completely safe if it counters a projectile even if it doesn't hit the opposing player). He can also jump C it in such a way the the only way to punish is with a bird(6a/b/c) that goes over the sword and into hakumens face(which is somewhat hard to do on reaction to his 6C as you have to place yourself at the right height at the right time). spit and anti air actually do not work here, anti air either clashes with the still active sword and does nothing, or he will land immediately after the active frames and be able to block. Spit just gets cut by the sword and then he lands and is able to block the second hit, he can always land and block j.d even if it's out before the active frames of j.c end. shield cloud: this cloud is probably the best against hakumen, he has no realy safe ways to destroy it. Here are a few of his options. He can try and 6C it in such a way that you will also get hit/be forced to block, this is the best option iif arakune is low on life. But if he 6C's you can spit, sword will cut the first hit of spit and the cloud(and you most likely) but the spits second hit will get him and curse him. He can safe jump IAD 6C to destroy it, which is still an irritating option, but a lot of the time the extra active frames will get him anti aired(and jump up and j.a him is much better because even if he blocks it CAN force a cloud hit). A crazier option(that deserves mad style points if he does it) is command dash into the cloud and counter it, that one's pretty risky for obvious reasons. Once hakumen is cursed! Now things start to look pretty sweet, but hakumen still has some decent options, mainly in counter. Once he gets cursed he will likely/should turtle up, your best bet here is to use bird stabs and dives to try and cross him up while he has to block bugs. You can try and blockstring him, but that's very risky, as I have mentioned before arakune's blockstrings are full of holes(literally, there is no place in his block strings that don't have a hole), which means hakumen can almost guarantee counters against. Unless you manage to perfectly fill the holes with bugs so that he does not exit block stun he can watch for a bug and counter in such a way that even if you bait it by stopping your string the bug/a cloud will set off his counter anyways and wreck your curse, wreck your momentum and deal some damage to you. hakumens anti air: hakumens anti air is sweet, it crushes arakune's dives, it crushes arakune's downward angled normals, and it is very hard to bait and punish. It recovers too quickly for fake dash in j.d or j.a/b to punish it consistently, and arakune is too slow in the air to double jump and punish(and j.c will often clash or even lose unless you are way up above them in which case nothing else works so he has no reason to forward punch). Arakune's block strings: more notes on this, jump cancelling 6A does NOT bait the counter that can go in between 6A and 5D against the hakumen I play against. He watches for the jump and if you jump he does not counter. He also does not seem to counter when I decide to do nothing after 6A, I'm not sure how he knows not to counter but he has never countered when i try to bait it with this(and if I try and do 6A->2A he jabs me out every time). I'm going to see if I can figure out anything else I can do in here to bait counter(maybe teleports?). Overall I think hakumen is a lot mroe solid in this matchup than people give him credit for, although th elevel of play required and matchup/frame data knowledge to pull most of those off is very high. Even with all that it's going to be an uphill battle for hakumen. anyway tell me what you think!

you can map buttons to the shoulders for stuff like that, or play with multiple fingers on th ebuttons. I've seen people play eddie like that(I've also played marko in garou like that). Stick is obviously better but it's not at all impossible.

you also don't usually see it because that move is beyond terrible. Also thought I'd mention you can safe jump your instant air dash C, or instant air dash into nothing and watch for the 5C and counter on reaction o rjust block/throwbreak if he does something else. Arakune's 5C has 23 frames of start up.

Looked pretty good, one thing to watch out for is in 2AXN->6A, hakumen can counter in between that on reaction if he's looking out for it. also in the second round you lost it looks like you got kind of panicky, you just started throwing out stuff and dropping combos.

you can also faultless and release if you need an A or a B bug, that's what I often do.

actually thinking about it black snake plays pad, he's easily th ebest venom in american and one of the best players.

It's a decent amount o fhealth, people like ranga have less than 10000, tager, bang, and hakumen have over 11000.

It's not necessarily just hitting 5a 5b(also as a not what matter is RELEASING) you may have to use directional input. The unfortunate part about this(and why IMO arakune is harder than a lot of people give him credit for) is that the direction you input is different based on a lot of factors. The biggest one is where the enemy is on the screen. so say the combo j.D->BCA bug, is just releasing 5B 5C 5A. But if they are in the corner it's going to 6B 6C 6A, and if you are in the corner it's going to be 4B 4C 4A. Some combo's don't even work at certain screen position, for example the normal 6C loop, 6C->5C->2C->5B bug 6A bug, you are already holding 6A for mid screen, that's as far over as it gets, so once they are in the corner this no longer works. So in the example you posted it'll be 5C(release) 5B(release), mid screen, and then 6C 6B in the corner, there might be a range where 3C 3B is required. edit: I also find the 6C loop to be just as easy if not easier. The hard part about 6 C loops is all the start ups and getting the recurse. But all the combo's I transcribed could have gone into the 6C loop.

rachel combo 2a->5B->5D->Cbug,Bbug-> jump cancel -> 6A->236C-> Cbug B bug A bug-> jump-> j.6a ->236 C -> C bug B bug -> jump -> j.c-> j.D jin combo 2a->5B->5D->Cbug,Bbug-> jump cancel -> 6A->236C-> Cbug B bug A bug-> jump-> j.a ->236 C -> C bug B bug -> jump -> j.c-> j.D 2nd rachel combo, 2a->5b->5C(release immediately)->C bug->jump cancel->J.6a->jump cancelj.6a(not positive if htose were A's or not, might have bene B or C)-> 236C -> C bug B bug -> jump-> j.c-> j.D these combo's are really bad though, in the same situations you can get a 6C loop, which in addition to looking much cooler does about 3000 more damage.