Oiboi

Hey guys, long time no see. Been pretty damned busy for a while but I've got my own place set up in citrus heights. I saw there's a few other players in my area; if you guys are down for games hit me up and we'll make something happen. I'd love to make Dogfight but I lack transportation right now so the 5 hour train ride is a little unrealistic for me. In the meantime I'd be hella down for online matches for XRD on PC (I'm a poor ass fucker, sorry, don't got a ps3/4)

I see, thanks for the tips. I'll try lowering my settings and see if that helps it.

I tried a few player matches but the delay was all dreadful. My net has been somewhat skippy lately but I ran a speedtest and it seemed to be okay (14 mb/s down, 1.80 up) Not sure if that's simply not enough bandwidth to the handle the game or if it was someone else on my network, or my opponents network, that was causing the problem, but it seemed universal in every match I tried. Any tips I could try to improve the connection would be nice.

By the way, did you guys notice that the ghosts have a new attack? 6S with the ghosts does a move that looks sorta like 5HS but it's closer to zappa and upwards a bit. I haven't experimented with it much yet, it's sorta slow so I have no idea how useful it would be as an anti air, but it doesn't look like it has much use other than that. Maybe it can be cancelled into 2HS for a higher explosion? I know most of the S ghost pokes can be cancelled even before active frames into 2HS to adjust the positioning of it. The weird thing is that I never heard about this move at all and discovered it totally on accident. Never even seen it in vids.

If you've got tension and you're midscreen and land a hit, just edguy RC dash edguy RC dash edguy/corner loop. This will put them into the corner anywhere, even the opposite corner. If you get deep enough into the corner you can even chain 2 edguys together without RCing. That combo looks pretty decent for pushing them into the corner. Remember that 6HS launches them away too so that's a useful tool as well. Most people can get hit easily during groundslide, even with air hits (j.S or j.HS should connect on just about everyone except the very small characters). In fact this hit effect opens up a lot of combo opportunities against certain characters like faust, potemkin, and dizzy who have huge groundslide hitboxes. You can usually link anything into an Edguy or Darkness Anthem, and then follow up with an air combo that sets up perfectly for a land->2HS->6HS combo loop. Raou is pretty easy to use once you figure out what goes into what. Also, don't underestimate the power of 6P/5K in landing hits, people get scared and try to counter Raou but Raou is only active when you use one of his attacks. So you can do a lot of fake outs and be very aggressive. Don't forget throw mindgames too.

Some notes on stuff I've been practicing with: Sword: 5S doesn't move. It goes forward slightly then returns to original position before attack, so this is very good if the sword is near you and you need to initiate. I believe 2S behaves the same way, though it might move forward a bit, can't remember right off the top of my head. Sword slide is extremely situational now. If you can't connect with it, do not ever use it. The whiff pose is just too long. Instead, if you need to bring the sword back, try jumping backwards, doing a DP, or TK'ing swordspin. 2HS will sometimes spin back at the opponent if it is far enough past them. I've only seen this happen once or twice though, I don't know how useful it is. 5HS is a great attack to advance and push the opponent away with. 6HS is very nice too, and although slow, can lower the swords position as well. 2S->Swordswipe makes swordswipe come out very low, useful for stuffing sweeps and low character (i.e. mirror matching zappa for instance, faust when he's crouching, etc.) Air sword is pretty weird. j.S seems to move the sword forward quite a bit. j.HS moves it forward and down. If you position it right it is possible to do a 2HS j.K j.S dj.K dj.S swordspin combo still. j.HS is great for jumping backwards and repositioning and keeping the opponent down on the ground, especially if you think they will try to jump over the sword. Uppercut still has that weird FRC timing as you guys mentioned, that's actually a really old thing with it. The FRC is right at the end of the active frames, and it's tricky to get the timing right if the sword is a great distance away since you don't have the same visual cues. The best I can offer is pay attention to the blood splatter, it's just around when it reaches peak height. Dog: Dog is vicious still, positioning him feels better somehow now. Doing extendend combos is hard however, due to the new pushback and limitations on dog timing. Part of it is intuitively knowing when you need to do a dog chain attack and when you need to move him. It also depends largely on who you're fighting. 5D is strong. Very very strong. It has a whiff range if their on top of the dog (for instance, in some situations you can get the dog completely in the corner on top of the opponent and all moves will whiff there) but if you can position him just right it can be very hard for opponents to escape. Knowing when to use 6D and 8D will keep them scared of the dog. I haven't mastered long combos yet, so I generally take advantage of short combos with intense pressure and simply keep my opponent guessing on what I'm going to do next. You can fake them out by making the dog do something and then throw them instead, if they have a particularly good defense. Dog+Zappa synergy is improving well for me. It feels really easy to command the dog and zappa at the same time now (5D run in 2K c.S f.S 5D still sorta works, but due to pushback you can't really keep that up long. But you can quickly reposition mid combo string and continue the pressure/combo if you know how, j.P seems useful here). Ghosts: Ehh. They seem pretty weak now, in comparison. Still great pressure and screen control but nothing really changed here. Raou: Is it just me or does edguy launch them higher/farther? I was having trouble getting the Edguy RC 6HS to connect, it felt like a different timing. Anyways, Raou is still a monster, and the new aerial moves are silly. I haven't gotten much use out of them yet but I can see where it'd be ridiculous.

Hey guys, I'm down for getting more casuals and stuff in. I'll try to be at tourneys more regularly too but playing against the computer isn't helping me learn the new stuff very quickly. Hit me up if stuff is happening (my skype is xanderbase).

Honestly that's always been the better way to play Zappa, and they definitely wanted to push that in his design this time. The thing is that rushing down just always worked really well because no one expects a random character have so many options in unique situations. But now we need to think more about our positioning, especially with the new dog pushback and sword. I think the best way to approach a fight with Zappa is to be very very observant. Just watch how your opponent approaches, and shut them down when they attempt attacks-- Summon still works great against a lot of moves and you can throw it out to reaction on a lot of stuff. And of course, 5K, 6P, 2D etc. are all fantastic moves to use to counter stuff. Eventually I'll be getting some streaming stuff set up. I need it for more things than just GG so it'd be a good investment, and I can record some stuff for Zappa. Will probably be a while though.

Oh man that proration too. He was hitting for like, 1 damage by the 10th hit. Ouch. Yeah dog is a shadow of his former glory... Sword is ridiculous now though, I feel kinda defenseless if they get past it somehow though.

Oh man. I was so busy with stuff I didn't even realize this came out. Loving it so far, zappa is a whole new can of worms now. I'll pitch in with any help as it's needed. The dog got nerfed pretty bad, it's really difficult to do anything with him now. Even a basic combo is wonky. I thought it was just me being out of practice but after I read your comments on it I realize that the pushback changes really hurt him. So loops are either really difficult or impossible now, from what I can tell. Still, the dog is still good obviously, just can't get crazy long combos anymore. I'll do some practice and try to condense my thoughts of this together here or in whatever love thread we come up with to try and keep everything together.

Wow I have been so busy, I didn't even realize +R came out until just now. I am hella down for games. I plan to make the Dogfight this weekend at least, we'll see how it plays out but I can't wait to try out my new zappa.

Yes, for XRD. Clearly showed both Axl and I-No in the clips. I couldn't see anyone else that would be unconfirmed, though. EDIT: Ugh I'm a dumbass and posted in the wrong thread. Just noticed that, sorry haha.

Axl and I-No were just confirmed in a short trailer at the SCEJA press conference! I couldn't catch anyone else. Get hype!

As I understand it, everything is 'canon' so long as you account for any indiscrepancies. That is to say, One thing may happen to one character (Zappa getting freed from jail by Faust on accident), but that could turn out to later not really make any sense (as it does with Faust's story). However, it still happened; I think it's more like a snapshot of the character interactions and less a literal series of events. The exceptions, of course, would be the main "Canon" games, GG, GG2, and GGXRD, where everything is more or less on point with the story framework. What I'm getting at is that the stories in XX and the drama CD's and such may or may not be canon, but they could be understand as how a character behaves and interacts with other characters (and even shed light on histories between characters). That out of the way, this means that XRD is pretty much certainly going to have a complex story mode, perhaps as in depth as the Blazblue games have been getting. I know a lot of GG players don't really care for story mode stuff but I enjoy it myself, so I'll be looking forward to it.

Hey good to hear the scene is still going strong. I'm still alive, sorta haha. I'll try to make it to next months Install and I'll see about heading out there thursday to hang if people will come and play me. Dunno if I need to bring my 360 though for GG.