Killey

Her sweep is safe on block but punishable on IB with 5A (timing is weird though) but since she can cancel into droit it makes you scared to try and punish it. What I was trying to get at before is that she can keep you blocking by making you afraid to push buttons with her frame trap options and her significant damage output.

I don't think this match up is bad at all and during the Arcade release the Japanese had this match at 5-5. The match can landslide one way or another but like I said before this is a match of footsies and making the right reads as both sides have answers to each others tools. Mitsuru's damage output comes from AA's, CH/FC starters and she can only create those opportunities through frame traps. She can't really get a whole lot of damage from stray non-CH grounded hits or without blowing meter. Also, she doesn't have many options to open someone up as her mix-up game is mediocre at best. The only reason she can get those CH/FC starters is because she can put you in extended block stun that at some point you have to challenge her strings in order to get momentum. This is where the mind games come in because all of her frame trap options can be beaten with a move that Narukami has but if you make the wrong read your eating the CH/FC. There's no one encompassing move that beats all of her options. The same goes for Mitsuru players when we have momentum. They have no encompassing move that beats all of our footsie tools or oki options. Every hit from us either puts her in the corner, does big damage (with meter), or leads into a knockdown into oki. The challenging part is that you have to earn those hits more so than other match ups and Mitsuru has ways to make up for your damage output. The match up reminds me of Litchi vs Jin during the CT days. I would never challenge a blocked 5C because she has a ton of things she can cancel at any point that can lead into high damage if you push a button at the wrong time. It's best to just instant block it out (on a good Mitsuru player) and wait for an ideal opening. If they cancel into droit and you IB it, it's a free 5A punish into a knockdown for 5D oki.

Picked up a few combos from Jiyuna's stream against a SSS rank Yu. Corner: 5D oki, empty jump 2A, 2B (1 hit) xx 214A (Reset), 5DD, 5B, 5C, 2C xx 214B, TK 214B, 2B (1 hit), 5C, j.B, BD xx Ziodyne - 4601 Damage 5C (on jumping opponent), OMB, 5D (3 hits), 214B, TK 214B, 5DD, 5B, 5C, j.BB, j.BB, BD xx Ziodyne - 5480 damage 214A, OMC, 2B (2 hits), 5B, 5C, 2C xx 214B, TK 214B, Cross Slash - 4424 Damage I really like the first two combos. Empty Jump 2A doesn't net you good damage and you just end up back in the knockdown into 5D oki so you can go for a tricky reset into 4.6k damage that could end the round. The second combo only works if you hit them out of the air with 5C if you hit them on the ground the 5D will whiff. I usually fish for 5C if my opponent has bursted as it can lead into 6k-7k damage with 25-75 meter but I find myself catching them out of the air with 5C trying to chicken block. This is a great alternative OMB combo if you can hit confirm it.

The match up is dumb because it's completely momentum base and whoever can get the other person to the corner. I feel that when Narukami has momentum it's a constant guessing game with 5D oki. When Mitsuru has momentum it's a struggle of who can read the other person better. Mitsuru has a set of moves that will beat out a set of Narukami moves but there's also a bunch of moves that Narukami has that can counter that. Whoever makes the right reads gets rewarded heavily for it.

-J.2A is garbage for creating pressure it is only good at creating positional advantage from combos, oki setups, or throw baits -Limit the use of raw 5D. You should really only use 5D after 2AB. You lost a lot of momentum by doing that and it reset the neutral game a lot to Houshen's favor. -Limit the use of raw Raging Lion. It seemed like you were throwing B Raging Lion out at random when they can be DP'd on reaction. -Your spacing game needs work. Less jumping around and more ground game. -Vary your pressure strings more those 2A's and 5A's are a lot better than people think.

You could just react to her air dash j.B with 2B anyways though. I guess it's useful to cover the droit and or 2AB options but it seems like a delayed droit would catch the tail end of your j.B though. New notes on the match up: -Mitsuru's 2AB goes under and beats 5B, 5C, 5A - She can use 2AB to travel under these normals during the footsie game or if she makes a read that you'll challenge some of her block strings. -214A (Raging Lion) will CH her 2AB - On the flip side, if you feel she's over abusing 2AB in block strings or during the footsie game you can use A Raging Lion and CH her into a knock down to start the 5D oki or you can do 5C xx 214D into big damage.

Wait what? Her j.A is pretty fucking godlike so I don't see how you can challenge it with j.B. I'll experiment in training mode but can you go into more details? Use everything in the book but you have to play upon the Mitsuru players weakeness. If I notice they can't block empty jump low I'll do it more then mix it up with a high when they get comfortable. The one oki option I like for this particular match up is the fuzzy guard setup because it's easier to land it on Mitsuru. Seems like you can really fuck with someone's head if you land a few fuzzy guards because now they have no idea how to react block to your high/low/left/right shit.

I actually fought a really good Yukiko player who kept me in lock down for a few seconds. I'm actually not sure what to do other than block the high/low and hopefully find a gap. I'm not sure what to do in this match up other than get in close and run the game plan. All I know is that there isn't a safe place to Burst in her more advanced combos because she's usually far away from you during them so you have to just eat the whole combo or burst during the initial hit confirm. BD's are also extremely risky in her pressure game because the actually strings also keep her away from you. She has below average health so I have no qualms with blowing a OMB to end her before she gets into awakening. -Her 2B goes under 5B. -No air unblockable normals so AA capabilities are limited. However, getting hit by her 2B or 5C in the air leads into 3-4k damage. -She has a couple of tricky cross up/non-cross up setups 1) She'll sandwich you with her Persona then use it to bring you close to her then jump over you into a back dash so you have to guess between an air turn cross up or a non-cross up. 2) 5A, 5A, jump back air turn, back dash, j.A (can cross up or not cross up depending on spacing). The non-cross up hits extremely deep That's all I can remember at the moment.

I found a better way to practice the combo. Set the dummy to crouching, block everything, disable block switching. Record the dummy with a 5A and hold it down (so it can tech the knockdown) then hold back for approximately 260 seconds. If you do 2A, 2A, 2B (2 hits), 5B, 2AB, 5D then go for the fuzzy guard setup the the dj.A portion comes at the 260 second mark so the dummy will switch to crouch blocking without the ability to switch to high block. The record timing may vary between characters but this was done with Yu vs Yu.

Yes, it's her throwing you into the corner. I know she can get a 3k damage from a corner throw combo but I've had people try this on me since they couldn't do it.

A Droit is -2 on block and you recovery from a grounded instant block 2f faster, which should put A droit at -4. I've already tested point blank IB A Droit and it is a free 5A punish. B Droit is even on block so you can't punish with anything but you can at least challenge her follow ups after instant blocking it.

Honestly, that's something you have to experiment by yourself in training mode. We can tell you to hit the j.B deep but to get a feel for it you need to mess around in training mode. I believe someone mentioned earlier that the fuzzy guard setup timing differs between characters but I believe Mitsuru was one of the characters that were consider easier to land it on. Here's how I practice the fuzzy guard string in training mode. Set the dummy to block everything, record the dummy doing nothing or crouching, replay the recording doing standard 2AB, 5D setup then play around with the j.B, dj.A timing. The recording will be done by the time you do j.B and the dummy should be able to block everything. If the j.A is blocked high the timing was correct but if it whiffs you didn't hit j.B deep enough so you need to adjust your timing from there. If you want to test the combo on hit then set the dummy to crouching and then replay it during the dj.A part. If someone has an easier means to do this in training mode let me know as I couldn't find the dummy actions I wanted. Kind of spoiled by KoF's training mode. lol

If you understand fuzzy guard then there's really nothing to figure out what causes it. When an opponent blocks a deep jump in attack and they switch to a crouch block the game will still register their standing hit box for a moment. Under normal circumstances an immediate j.A point blank on a crouching character will whiff but if you do a deep j.B then dj.A the j.A will hit (if the opponent is crouching) because the game still sees the opponent's standing hit box.

Took a look at the videos and overall it seemed like you were still getting use to the game. Here's some of the issues I spotted. Neutral Game: Your neutral game needs a lot of work because you were relying on a lot of jump back, air dash forward j.B/j.BB or IAD j.B/j.BB and random Slides and Raging Lions to get in. Slides are punishable on block and Lions leave you at slight frame disadvantage unless blocked in the air or whiff, in which case you are completely susceptible to punishment. You were air dashing in raw instead of setting up the air dash so you left yourself susceptible to AA punishes, which Lord Knight and Andy capitalized on. You're committed to jumps and air dashes in this game because you can't chicken block mix-ups and there's no barrier guard to save you from air unblockable moves. You have to use your jumps and air dashes a lot more wisely otherwise you get AA'd into a fat combo like what LordKnight did to you. You should have picked up on this as well since you were 2Bing people out of the air in those matches. You gotta stick to the ground more and utilize Narukami's 5B and 5C for poking and footsies because that will lead into the OMC combos or 2AB knockdowns into 5D oki. Close Game: Your pressure game pre-5D oki needs a lot of work because you fell into muscle memory habits of doing 2B, 2AB, 5D which is a really bad block string. Doing a string like that leaves you within attacking range for your opponent and this gives them the ability to counter hit you and crush a persona primer. LordKnight knew this and just did Droit in reaction to your 5D string. You gotta mix up those pressure strings more because going into 2AB is not a tight string a mash BD will get through. Have to learn to end in jump canceable normals so you have options to either escape and reset positioning or create a different mix up opportunity such 2A, 5A, 2B, jump cancel, Air Turn Back Dash, j.B cross up. Up close utilize more 2A, and 5A but remember you can only string a max of 3 A's together so you need to stagger them if you want to maintain pressure. You can create frame traps this way as well so you can do something like 2A, 2A, dash, 2A, wait, 5A, 2A dash 5A, 5A, dash 2A, 5A, jump cancel, etc... Look over your gatling tables and play around with strings but just be sure to vary it up as much as possible so you keep your opponent guessing at your actions instead of them getting use to patterns. Cancelling into A Raging Lion once in a while isn't bad especially if you have 50 meter to OMC to combo into a knockdown and start the 5D oki. Oki Game: Needs more work as the majority of it was AC through them into 5DD or A/B Raging Lion. Play around with this in training mode more so you have more variety to keep opponents guessing as well as a transition plan in case your oki gets blocked. It should be a case of your opponent has to guess once during the 5D and then guess again within the subsequent block string. Make sure you time your 5DD so that it covers gaps within your strings so you don't eat a BD to the face. Learn the optimal combos post oki because you skipped out on a lot of damage so you can maintain the 5D from behind pressure when it's not particularly good as it limits your mix-up options. There's better combos that maximize damage, corner carries, and ends in 2AB back into 5D. Combos: You're still learning so it's not a big deal but you weren't doing the most optimal damage combos. In your air combos j.B is 2 hits you should let the 2 hits connect before going into j.BB. Save your super cancel Ziodyne in air combos because it doesn't really add a whole of damage and resets positioning. Save that meter for either ground Ziodyne combos or One More Cancel combos as you can get 4k-5k damage from a OMC combo instead of a super cancel combo. That 50 meter can also be used as a free in since it lets you do random Slides/Raging Lion into OMC to get in and maintain pressure. Burst Management: There's some rounds against LK where you eat a 4k combo and then Burst at the end when you have little life left. What's the purpose of that? You're close to death and LK just needs to touch you to win and then you're going into the next round with no Burst, which will take the majority of the round to recharge. You should have Bursted at either the start of the combo (recognize where his jc'able normals are so you don't get baited) or in the middle when the Persona is out so you can remove a primer as well. Otherwise cut your losses and go into round 2 or 3 with a Burst available.

Yeah, feel free to correct or challenge any of the information. I'm not an expert but I want people to gather as much information as possible as this is probably one of the characters that people will be facing the most later on. Mitsuru gimmicks to be aware of: -Blocked BD, land, Super - This is a gimmick similar to Yu's Ziodyne anytime during or after his BD; however, this is not a super cancel like Yu's as she doesn't lose blue life by doing this. It somehow cuts her recovery time from a BD down and both of her supers have start up invincibility. The odd part is that she can only do this if you block the BD. If the BD whiffs then you can go for a max punish ground combo. You can punish the blocked BD with 5B before she can do a super but the timing seemed really tight. It's something I wouldn't risk if they are desperate or have 100 meter to OMC the super for safety. In those situations it's best to 2B immediately after blocking the BD and go for a air combo instead. -Forward Throw (Corner), Bufudyne - If you neutral or air tech backwards you'll eat Bufudyne because you air teched and Bufudyne is air unblockable. You'll need to air tech forwards immediately in order to escape this tech trap. -CH combo into B Droit ground slide to corner, Bufudyne - What happens is that B Droit causes a ground slide. If it carries to the corner and the opponent is close enough they can do Bufudyne after wards. If you tech immediately from Droit you end up air teching and get hit by Bufudyne since it's air unblockable. If you don't tech Bufudyne will OTG. If you tech late you will avoid the Bufudyne and be able to punish the opponent.

When you say D follow up do you mean 5DD? If so you shouldn't be using that during the initial part of the oki you should be saving it for the mix-up or to extend a combo. If you don't mean 5DD then here are some answers: Question 1 - It depends on your combo string into 2AB. If you do a long string into 2AB, 5D then you'll need to dash forward slightly before doing jump B. Question 2 - It's exactly as it sounds. You do 2AB, 5D then dash empty jump into 2A. You save the 5DD if you land the mix up or to maintain pressure if empty jump 2A failed. Question 3 - From midscreen your only choice is to OMC into 2B, etc... For the corner, you can do 5A, j.C xx 214A, and then you have several options after 214A.

Raw 5D in block strings means your opponent gets a free CH Droit into pressure or a full combo if your back is towards the corner provided they're paying attention. Mitsuru's BD has a large hit box but it's slower than Yu's and can be safe jumped and chicken blocked (past the initially unblockable pre-jump frames). You can definitely still go for cross-ups and other mix-up options during 5D oki but you gotta properly space yourself to get the right timing. Most people do 2A, 2A, 2B (2 hits), 5B, 2AB and then try something like dash quick escape 5DD or dash jump air turn j.B. At the range after 2AB the time it takes for you to dash to set up the cross over or cross up has a gap that lets the opponent BD. If you do something like 2A, 2A, 2B (1 hit), 2AB you don't push the opponent far away. During the quick escape mix-up the string is tight because they're still blocking 5D by the time you get to the other side. In the dash jump air turn j.B situation it becomes a safe jump setup. If you do nothing during the cross up you can just chicken block and punish them on recovery (provided they don't do a super after wards). You should always be weary of BD's anyways and do some baiting to figure out how the opponent plays like. Yu definitely has a lot of fancier and trickier mix-up options during 5D oki but a lot them leave gaps that are susceptible to a BD. Have to do the conditioning early and figure it out from there but this is more general strategy then vs Mitsuru.

Pretty sure it doesn't because you should land first and if they tech in the air at the first possible moment you can go for an air grab. If they late tech then you should be at the advantage provided you don't back dash. If it's a huge problem you can opt to sacrifice some damage and instead of doing the 2B, jc, j.BB, dj.B, j.C xx 214B variant do 2B, jc, j.C xx 214B. It doesn't corner carry as well but doesn't leave you in the position that the other variant does.

I think from my own experiences as well as what I've read around this match up is 5-5. After narrowly winning a tournament against Mitsuru, I'm beginning to hate it greatly but I suspect Teddy and Aigis are going to piss me off the most later on. Anyways, here's the information I've gathered so far and I need some help banging out other ideas on dealing with Mitsuru. Instant blocking seems to be your best friend in this match up for reasons I'll list as I go on. This becomes a heavily footsie based game because both characters have ways to control each others air approaches. In the footsie game your tools are composed of primarily 5B, 5C, 2C, Swift Strike while Mitsuru has 5A, 2A, 5B, 4B, 6B, and Droit. The biggest caution for Yu is that 5C and 2C are slow and leave Izanagai out for an extended period of time making them susceptible to Mitsuru's 5A or A Driot. Mitsuru's 5A is a bit slower than Yu's 5B (at least according to Lord Knight), however, it out ranges your 5B so you can't take it head on. Her 5A also has lengthy recovery time so if she whiffs 5A in your face you can actually whiff punish with dash 5B. If your opponent is poking at max range with 5A you can actually use 214C/D/CD to shrink your hit box and beat it. It's not something I would go to often as if it gets baited you're going to eat big damage. If you instant block 5A and the opponent stops their offense there you can punish with 5B or if you make the read they'll push the offense you can throw out 5C it'll counter hit whatever normal they use. If they opt to do 5AAAAA... if you instant block the last hit at any part they stop the chain you can always punish with 5B. The tricky part is when they start canceling 5A strings, 5B, 4B, or 6B strings into 2AB. Mitsuru's 2AB can also be held down to cancel the trip, which gives her ways to set up frame traps and tick throws. It leaves Mitsuru in a counter hit state but she's safe on block but if you instant block it you can punish with 5A (the timing is weird but you have to delay the 5A after the instant block) and it'll be a counter hit. Her 2AB is a bit slow on start up so if you anticipate that the opponent will do 2AB in a string you can actually just BD it even if they decide to feint the 2AB. I think it's possible to BD her 2AB on reaction but obviously this is easier said than done in tournament pressure. Now this can go one step further where she can Droit right after 2AB to catch you pressing buttons for a counter hit. Droit on counter hit is not something you want because she can get good damage from it into pressure. If it's B Droit it ground slides and in the corner you're going to eat a 3-4k combo. Droit leaves Mitsuru at slight frame disadvantage (-2 for A version) but it's safe on block. If you instant block it though you can punish with 5A into whatever. Again, if you make the read that they'll try to push the offense you can throw out 5B instead and it'll counter hit whatever normal she decides to through out. Keep in mind, however, that if Mitsuru anticipates this she can either BD or Bufudyne after. 5C and 2C in the footsie is incredibly risky for the Persona but if the opponent gets comfortable with your 5B range you can use 5C or 2C (at further ranges) to start countering their pokes. Some of this will need to be done pro-actively rather than re-actively but landing a counter hit or fatal counter 2C can lead into huge damage. Mitsuru's 5B, 4B, and 6B crush lows and hurt a lot on counter hit especially if you're close or in the corner. Some of Mitsuru's frame trap game involves this normal and she can put you into a block string and use 5B, 4B, or 6B to go for a counter hit or fatal counter. She can charge any of these normals for extended hit stun or cause fatal counter on full charge. This being said the charging takes some time and she can be hit out of it but the question is if you want to push buttons given her other offensive options. 5B leaves her safe on block and she can either cancel into Droit or gatling into 2AB, which beats out any counter pokes if you instant block it. You could still go for a BD but there's some obvious risks associated to that. When getting rush down by Mitsuru you kind of just have to take it and block. This is why instant block is helpful because not only are you building extra meter but it allows you to punish certain strings or patterns from your opponent. There's a bit of reading required in some situations though but it's rough if you're in the corner. It's a pick and choose your moments because if you guess wrong you're eating a fatal counter combo into 3-4k damage and that's something you don't want.

When you guys say 5D starter are you referring to when 5D OTG's because the opponent doesn't tech? It's the only way I can visualize solshido's combo working.

Update to the previous info. j.D does not hit as an overhead so no unblockable setups. It might be deceiving to new people but they can essentially down back you until you give them a reason to block high. Izanagi will not cancel his action if you block something from your opponent only if you get hit. In general, anytime your persona is out on the screen and you get hit the Persona will disappear and you lose a Persona primer. This kind of makes Narukami susceptible to Persona breaks a lot since his Persona is out for a long time during 5D, j.D, 5C, 2C, 236C/D and 214C/D. I really don't like the fireball because Izanagi is out far too long and any hit causes you to lose a primer and in terms of space control it's not that great. 214C/D is unsafe on block and Izanagi is out long enough that if you get punished you lose a primer. All other Persona normals also keeps Izanagi out for a long time. Since his gatling table is limited, I feel hesitant in his pressure strings. 5C, 2C back dash cancel keeps you safe but leaves Izanagi exposed. You can't leave yourself on 5B though because you're at frame disadvantage and it's not jump cancelable on block. Naturally you have to end in 5C then IAD back but doing this too much can get you punished same goes for jcing IAD back 2B. 2B, 5C, 5B is doable but again leaving yourself at 5B is bad. 2A, 5A is good but you can't reverse gatling and the frame advantage on these moves is minor that if you try frame trapping or don't properly gatling into 2B or 5B mash BD or super can beat you. It's something I have to play around with and get use to finding optimal strings but it seems like you're always unsafe unless you're doing 2A or 5A.

Sorry if this is too late of a response. j.2A does not force tech but it causes a knockdown and they can only neutral tech in that situation. The interesting thing is you can do 214A (OTG) to see if they tech and then 2B them if they do because 214A puts them in the air. As you said, you can cancel into j.D but the oki game you get off of j.D isn't as good as 5D. There's a bunch of interesting things you can do off of j.D in those situations (maybe unblockables or really hard to block situations) but it really depends if the opponent is reversal happy or not. If Narukami gets hit while Izanagi is waiting to come down then it cancels Izanagi and you lose a Persona primer. I'm not sure if Izanagi gets cancelled out of j.D if Narukami blocks something like Shadow Labrys.

Wait, D Fireball has Fatal Counter properties?

What time does the venue close on Friday? You have it listed that P4 is starting at 5:00PM and I think there's a high possibility that it'll have a good number of entrants from the franchise alone. Is there going to be enough setups to run the P4 tournament if 30+ people enter?

http://ja.twitch.tv/godsgarden Kazunoko running a train with Yu on ranked matches. The Yu oki game is really solid and Kazunoko is maximizing damage back into repeated corner oki setups. It's kind of flow chart right now but really effective. lol