Bedsheets

It's day 1, probably smarter to try to focus on learning one mode at a time. Then you can figure out the gaps in that mode. Then learn the other mode and learn the gaps in that mode. Then you will have an idea of when to switch. Day 1 people were trying to play Amane as a zoner, things take time. Alt response: An Arakune player being salty about Nu? I am shocked! :3

You guys are too sweet :3 I am mostly having a great time playing Amane, sometimes I just get frustrated with myself for not being at good at fighting games as I want to be, but the only way to get better is to practice. Throwing myself at Japanese arcade players after having not played fighting games for six months is just a rough way to do it sometimes! Let's just say I am looking forward to the console release as much as you folks are (good god I would love to just be able to sit for a few hours in training mode with Amane). And besides, the arcade is a great way to get some free heat. Northern Japan is too damn cold, someone needs introduce this country to the glory that is insulation, and central heating. More on topic, tonight I mostly played against Hazama, Ragna and Tager. Hazama seems like it is going to be a tough match up for us. When he is at range he can basically fish with his chain for free. Amane's Cs don't reach far enough or cover enough space and the ground drills take too long to set up. We can't play the zoning game at all. Getting safely into that middle range where you can hit the enemy with your drive or j5b while still being out of range is optimal. It's just hard with how mobile Hazama is. Ragna I would call a pretty even match up. Ragna of course has his really good, far reaching normals (5b, 5c) so you will have to play a tight footsies game. Also keep his mind his DP on wakeup to try to punish meaty drills. Over all I'd say it really comes down to whatever player has the better mechanics and decision making. I feel like fighting Tager is in our favor. Popping OD at the start here felt really good. Tager is just so big and slow that it is hard for him to get around eating a lot of chip. Abuse the long range on your B normals and cancel them into drills for lots of good pressure and damage. That said he is still Tager and one good command throw can turn a match around. When magnetized try to stay to the ground because his new air to air throw will ruin your day.

I am quite digging doing OD at the start of a round. I think some players still think that you did it on accident and then are shocked when you drill chip away a good chunk of their life. Nothing really new to report on the Amane front from tonight's games. No one played Nu so can't comment on the matchup yet. Right now I mainly just need to focus on stuff as a player (not getting flustered, not dropping inputs, etc). Still though, Amane is fun. j5b controls an absolutely stupid amount of space, is the main thing that I put to good use tonight.

That sounds like a pretty good description, yes. His Cs are good in combos and for people trying to get out of his pressure, but, they aren't good for keeping people away from him. I mean, half of them suck the enemy towards him!

A pressure/momentum character. He wants to fish for knockdowns to make you wake up into drills. He wants to keep making you block his higher level drills. He wants to constantly be applying pressure. It's not really traditional rushdown but, its not zoning either. He doesn't want to play keep away. He wants to constantly be at a middle distance where he can drill you but your fast normals can't hit him. And while he is making you block stuff he wants to command hop at you to make you block ambiguous cross ups.

Amane is not a zoner. People think he is when he first see him but he really isn't. He is too easy to rush down to be a zoner. People have no real reason to respect his ribbons, which is what people think are his zoning tools. And there is no way he can hope to hold a candle to a real zoner like Nu. That said he does crazy chip and with high level drills he can do crazy damage and he has good air mobility, so, I assumed lower life as a counter balance to that.

I am more surprised at Amane having more health than Bullet. What?

Why am I stuck at work for another 4 hours. Nu is out today! Can't wait to start seeing footage of people actually playing her. Hopefully some people at my arcade will be using her so I can get some footage of my own. I would play her but, I am miserable with her. And besides, Amane is pretty much demanding 100% of my attention right now anyway.

I think of the three new characters that Bullet is the most "vanilla" of the three. She is definitely more of a Ragna than a Arakune or something. I don't think she is boring, personally, just more standard. Having some more straight forward characters is a good thing, in my opinion, helps round out the roster.

I believe Tao can get 4k meterless off of a midscreen throw. I feel like the damage you can get off of throws in CP is a lot higher in general. I forget the numbers but Azrael can get some pretty obscene damage off of midscreen throws. Gotta start practicing those throw techs.

For what it's worth, so far, Bullet has been a lot of fun to play against. Which is always an important factor.

Diveman: Yes, I can! (This is from memory, at work but, I believe I remember all the primary details). So, first, Amane sets his drill heat level to 3, so he will have his most powerful drills, and then waits for his drill to cool down some so he will not overheat. He does a low to the ground j.2B which causes the opponent to become airborne. He does a little air comboing followed by 6C to get the enemy into the corner. He does level 3 2D to get the enemy in the air and then does jumping level 3 6D, which wall bounces at level 3. Since both drills are level 3 they do a ton of damage. He then overdrives to make his drill distortion drive even stronger. He does his DD, and then RCs it. The drill super carries the enemy from one of the screen to the other. Amane, because he RCd, can now run/dash at the opponent to keep pushing the end of the screen further back, thus extending the DD for massive damage. It is basically a very impressive training room combo. You will likely never see it in a real match, but, lots of neat things can be learned from it.

I would say that Amane's defense is his big weak point. It feels like he has a low amount of health (not sure if this is true or just how it feels). He has no DP type reversal. Which DD is Drill Matsuri? The one where he summons a bunch of drills? It has no invulnerable frames, so it can't be used safely as a wake-up reversal. It comes out pretty quick but it will not beat a meaty. His other drive, the dash attack, does have start up invulnerability and can be used on wakeup, however, it is not safe on block. It can be RCd of course to make it safe but that takes 100 meter, so not really practical. As an Amane player you are going to have to get very good at weathering block strings, and finding the gaps that you can sneak in a 5a during, and knowing when you can do your CA. Especially if you want to start using his burst for OD. Being stuck in a corner as Amane is very bad news. If the enemy is in your face, all of your Cs will whiff, your 6b overhead will not cause you to jump back and make space, you can't fabhop backwards, there is no room to set up a ground drill, your Ds have too much start up to contest As up close, etc. You will need to be patient and smart. If the enemy lets you air tech in the corner though you can just jump + fabhop out though, in my experience.

This is from a bit back but: I really agree with this assessment quite a lot! Dante: No problem :3 Color wise I think I am going to have to stick with ganguro Amane. It is just too trolltastic.

Yay! A video of an Amane player that plays like how I play Amane. It is nice to see my ideas about the character vindicated. This guy just has a lot better decision making then I do (when to block versus when not to block). But yes, this is the kind of drive heavy play I have been advocating, instead of C heavy play.

It's because Azrael and Bullet do not have someone living in Japan feeding the thread raw hype :3 Kidding, I think you guys would be super hyped up even without me. You guys get me hyped about Amane, nothing makes me want to run off to the arcade and play him like reading this thread. Speaking of which, looks like I have a lot of good Amane videos to catch up on.

Delicious.

I totally forgot Amane had throws >.> Good catch! Throw ranges seem very short in this version of BB. Amane's especially, I am not sure if his is actually shorter than other character's, or just that in comparison to his Bs, Cs and Drive it feels short. Also the fact that he has so much push back on a lot of his moves, combined with how good his chip is, has lead to me ending nearly every block string with the enemy way out of throw range. Still, no reason to ignore a tool we have at our disposal.

So, it seems to me that Amane starts to go from okay damage to serious scary damage when the opponent is airborne. I am noticing that a lot of his big combos are starting off of things like an AA 6A. With that in mind, I think it may be useful to figure out all the ways Amane can get the opponent into an airborne state. 6B fatal counter makes the enemy airborne and wallbounces 3C does, but this can only really be followed up for airborne stuff in the corner j.236C does, but this can only be followed up on via RC It looks like his CT does, but I have only seen it landed on already airborne opponent, good for a relaunch at the very least. I will have to test j.2B at a low enough height makes the enemy go airborne (based on that 8.5k damage video, and another video at a higher height) even on regular hit! If they are in the air and you are on the ground 5A or 6A into 5B seems to be the best generic combo starter. If you are both in the air already and low to the ground it seems like j.5B leads into a lot of combos. So, it seems like forcing enemies into the air (summoning ground drills should be good for that :3) and using j.2B crossups are going to be pretty big when it comes to getting consistent high damage combos with Amane. Everything else requires meter or the corner. Are there any other ways to get the enemy airborne that I am missing? Or some impressive Amane combos I may have missed that did not involve getting the enemy in the air somehow? All of his combos against grounded opponents I have seen are serviceable but generally seem quick and dirty compared to the air combos he is capable of.

Hm, perhaps j.4C makes j.2C comes out. I think the main point here is that Amane has 3 jumping C attacks j.5c which comes out diagonally downward j.6c which comes out parallel to the ground j.2c/j.4c which comes out nearly straight down

I believe so. Unless j.4C has a very similar animation and just a slightly different angle, he has no j.4C. j.5C is definitely angled diagonally-downward, but isn't the one which is almost straight down (which is j.2C).

If you can do it on hit you can probably do it on block. But, to be honest, in the Amane vs Nu-13 fight I can't really see using Cs outside of combos. Amane is never going to win the zoning fight against Nu-13. Amane's "zoning" is just too slow and has too many angles it can't cover. I personally do not think of Amane as a zoner at all.

To be honest, I don't really feel like Amane needs a good overhead. I mean, sure, getting through your opponent's guard is always good but, with how much chip Amane can do he is the character who cares the least if his opponent is blocking or not. Amane could not have an overhead at all and he probably would not be that much worse for it. That said, I would not be surprised if we find some neat applications for it down the road. I am now wondering if you can cancel the jump back animation at all with either his command hops or other special cancels, or if you have to ride the whole thing out no matter what. Most people I have seen have tried to combo his Cs off of his overhead to pretty much no success.

Eh? I have not been following either character closely because I have never mained either of them but, doesn't Nu have like, stances now?

Hah no problem man. ... Is it sad that my first thought was "How can I blow off my dinner plans tonight?" and not "Oh well, I guess I don't get to see Nu tonight."