[SpA]Relentless

Haha that one is awesome. Did you test on which characters it works on? (I don't think A cannon hits meaty like this on everyone).

I think one reason why jpn. Rachels don't save up wind for neutral game as much anymore is because of pumpkin nerfs since CT. Back then it was a legitimate tactic to have a pumpkin out then sit on wind all day long because it didn't disappear after some time. Now it vanishes after only 3 secs after it has been winded (and 5 or 6 secs if it wasn't winded yet). Whenever you have to resummon it, it creates a little opportunity for your opponent to get near you. So it's probably a better idea to use it all at once to force damage onto them, then get it back all at once during the combo. Tbh I liked CT Rachel's wind management and neutral game more, but I guess it can't be helped I think I'll go and watch your matches now Herbal Grey, I'm especially curious to see how you handled Litchi.

Guardcrush Stun duration is a total joke in BB. That Litchi player probably got himself a drink before he finished Kure Hane off >_>

A Sledge has a little less recovery, you can't directly punish it anymore. If you IB you're at a huge advantage though (you can get randomed though with 720 or MTW I believe), on normal block you're can also get A bustered.

Sakaku, king of all videos, thanks for taking this task over. I'll at least help out with posting new vids if I can.

I tested around a bit and winded 3C does indeed go under 6B(m). If you mistime it badly it will trade though, because the hitbox is bigger up close due to Litchi sticking her foot out as well. What's interesting is that Rachel can actually crouch under 6B(m) at a little less than max range (and ofc farther) - but only if she's not crouchblocking (really just holding 2 instead of 1). I suppose if you pay enough attention you could switch from crouchblocking to crouching on reaction to avoid the stick. It is possible to do 5D, 3C after the stick whiffed to punish them, however the timing is pretty strict. That said, I don't think any Litchi will guard low immediately after 6B(m) unless you give them a good reason to, so this should work well for tripping them to keep them honest. i don't think that this is tactic that should be relied upon, but it's something to keep in mind. Winded j.2C will really only work on prediction because 6B(m) is a great jump catch tool. i think it's kind of risky to guess with it because if they use itsuu instead, they can snipe you out of the air. 3C is probably the better choice overall. Mixup-wise I think I should use fuzzy guards more. They work alright against her too.

j.A - trolling Tager since 2008

6B(m) = I'll never understand why Arcsys gives the best poke of a character the best proration and properties. Summoning in this MU: No. Rushing down with high/low: No. Wat do?

Herbal Grey were your matches recorded by any chance?

Refer to the 'common execution problems' section in the combo thread.

Is this staged or are they cutting out a lot? I can't believe they're finding so many people with a sense of humor : D

Why are you crying about a move that's -2 on block? You get the advantage if you guard it and it's easy to IB.. if you get into a Tager blockstring then you seriously did something wrong and deserve it anyway. Rachel dominates the neutral game in this MU.

If you block a lobelia from long range, you can't punish their summon. It's way too + on block. Alternatively they can use TK iris to lock you into blockstun from across the screen. Free summon as well. They'll have plenty of rods if you let them win a projectile war. Zoning shouldn't be a guessing game, you should be reacting to what your opponent is doing.

Except if you let them win a lobelia war, they'll get a free summon :9

It's almost like Toki Mirrors in HnK. 'Oh I blocked something, welp I'll fetch a drink in the meantime'. Except you actually have to kill in more than one combo in BB :9 Although, there will be a GG tournament in Sweden in May and guess who will visit it: N-Otoko himself. I would KILL to play Rachel Mirrors against him. Too bad the chances that I can go there are next to zero T.T

Should be self-explanatory. Make an account, click upload and follow the instructions. Nothing special really. If you have slow upload speed you might want to reduce the filesize of your videos but it's not necessary.

General gameplay when zoning/playing defensively: Have pumpkin and frog out. Throw lobelias. If they block/don't approach, eventually the frog will get near them. If they block it, dash in and mixup. Poles help extremely with this because they discourage them from airdashing. If they try to avoid lobelias/approach you, anti-air them with 6A (close-range) or lobelias (farther away - not against Hakumen pls), or poke them if they try to dash in (2A, 5B, 6B work best depending on the distance). For the last two options, if they managed to outmaneuver you or you reacted incorrectly, the pumpkin is your last line of defense. If they barriered your 6A, chain into 5B and go into pressure. If they somehow manage to get you to block and the frog is nearby, he will eventually safe you by hitting them, making them block, making them get away or forcing them to throw you (be prepared for this). If they try to kill they frog, wind in with pumpkin and punish their attempt. Some chars have safe-ish ways to kill a frog (for example Ragna 3C jc barrier), in this case sticking to zoning tends to be the better option. Some safe ways to get a pumpkin out: Be fullscreen (lol - MU dependant though), make them block lobelia or TK sword iris from long range. Some safe ways to get a frog out: Same as pumpkin + have a pumpkin out (if they try to punish frog summon, wind pumpkin in their face). And obviously if you somehow knocked them down. If they managed to avoid all your shit and got you to block, well that sucks for you. Your best option to get back to neutral in such a case is bursting or dead angle . If they're doing unsafe strings though you can try and IB 5A or IB 2C, but that's kind of risky (but really anything is risky at this point so you might as well try it, also if you never use 2C they'll never have a reason to respect you and bait it). Zoning doesn't work against some chars at all though. Lambda, Mu and Hazama counter it exceptionally well, and it's harder against some other chars as well (Platinum when she has bombs/missiles, Taokaka, Litchi, Carl, ...), so you're better of learning a more aggressive style too and adapt on the fly.

Tip: Try to get used to doing instant overheads by applying the wind AFTER the jump cancel, instead of before. Inputs are like this: 5A/5B, 9, 2AD (press A and D together). It has many advantages: - Less obvious, because there's no downwind before the jump. - No accidental superjumps/you don't have to buffer into a 2A/2B. - Fuzzy guards become easier, because wind became active later (keeps you lower after the dj). On chars with a small crouching hitbox, you can input it as 5A/5B, 9, 2D~A (D immediately after the jump, A with a slight delay - think kara/piano input from various other games).

That's probably the only time you're going to win with 6A against Hakumen, if you anticipate the airdash. If he simply jumps in with j.2C, he will beat you 99% of the time. (I love how kotokot is the only person right now posting legit technical stuff ) kirbster - Don't give up, you seriously won't regret it. Try playing different games you usually don't touch and do a bunch of combos there. It doesn't really matter which game, variety helps greatly and will make you more relaxed.

If it's not gapless on IB, then it's not gapless -__- For example on Ragna you can do 5B j.2DA with no delay, and he can't reversal it even on IB. If it has a gap on IB on those chars you mentioned, then j.A was delayed. And if you have to use 2D before you jumpcancel 5B, then it gets even easier to react to the jump (sure you can do 5B 2D 2B without jc inbetween, but most of the time this will be a waste of wind).

Polka, attacks with different levels cause different blockstun animation. If I'm not mistaken that's the reason why kotokot says 5A j.2DA is a faster overhead on Rachel than 5B j.2DA (not because 5A starts up faster). It doesn't matter that it's not gapless because Rachel can't reversal it. I believe something similar happens with Tao's hitbox too (iirc you can use 5B j.2DA but not 5A j.2DA because of the way her hitbox changes in blockstun). I don't think this discussion about reaction time will lead anywhere though. Knowledge of your opponent will always play a role. Blocking overheads is neither pure guessing nor pure reacting (except Rachel 4B ). But playing games with faster mixups will definitely help overall (seriously, you should all play HnK. I can't stress enough how much I love it :D). Unless it gets unfair (try blocking Yeti's high/low mixups in Vsav )

I didn't mean it that way, just that I feel like he's doing that on purpose (obviously he doesn't) It's hard to hitconfirm j.B into 5B if you want to leave fuzzy guard as an option.

j.A 2D is easy to react to if you got a small crouching hitbox. I don't think I got hit by a single one against Sakaku (and vice versa). Either it whiffs if you do it too early or you can easily block it in time. I also managed to block most empty jumps into lows. I didn't even try some myself though, shame on me. I should've gone for more fuzzy guards/j.[C] mixups but haven't practiced them enough beforehand. Ironically everytime I tried a j.B 2D fuzzy guard he decided to not block it and my 2nd high whiffed (just to clarify: Of course you're right when you say people get hit by 2d j.B occasionally. But it doesn't work consistently and if you want to fuzzy guard, a single j.B is extremely hard to hitconfirm). 4B can throw off IB timing but if the opponent also never tries to IB... what do? I managed to hit him with it sometimes when I did it 3 or 4 times in a row with TK iris/empty jump 3D inbetween (as I said - when he fell asleep :D) Worst thing of all though was getting hit by 3CD 5A pressure resets. That shit is impossible to IB :/

It's worse when you got the opponent cornered for 30secs and can't figure out how to open up his defense Rachel's immune to j.A and nobody gets hit by 4B in a blockstring unless they fall asleep or aren't used to holding back for such a long time (Hokuto No Ken conditioned me pretty hard to IAD bullshit :D) Throws get very telegraphed after a very short time. Staggering normals is useless if the opponent never tries to mash out. It wouldn't be such a big deal if BB had traditional guard bars, but no, instead they decided to further reduce her guardcrush abilities with 5CC and 4B nerf. No wonder Rachel mirrors tend to end in timeout. Only way to win consistently is to convert the first hit you get into maximum damage, then sit on the lifelead for the rest of the round... I wasn't patient enough and always tried to force damage onto you, when I could've just zoned you after getting one combo in. You deserved the win.

Sakaku is so broken it's not even funny.