Bedsheets

No, Nu is tomorrow. The game came out on the 21st, a Wednesday, and each time released character is spaced out a week from that. So, the 28th of November and then the 5th and 12th of December. Freaked me out for a sec because I won't be making it to the arcade tonight, but, I will be there tomorrow, cell phone camera in hand.

However, I have not been able to combo off of it, or seen someone combo off of it on a regular hit. It is an odd overhead.

It feels that way, at least.

Heh, yeah it's all good. For Amane, as he is the character I have played the most, I can give a little more nuanced pro/con list. Pros: -Good chip with drills -Good oki with drills -Good mobility with his command hops and his j2b which cuts horizontal momentum and makes him drop straight down -Pretty solid normals (especially 5b, 3c and his drills). Cons: -Squishy -No DP or invulnerable reversal outside of his 632146C drive. -Can not set up ground drills at neutral (takes too long to go into the stance and summon the drill, a ranged character will just projectile you and a fast character will just run in or IAD and hit you. Even if the drill is starting to come out getting hit makes the drill go away). -Cs are not good at neutral. They only hit at very specific ranges and have terrible recovery if you can not revolver or special cancel them, which you can only do on hit. If you whiff with them you are getting punished either by a ranged attack or by a dash in combo. (Amane is not a zoner). Cs are good when you KNOW you will land them, such as in a combo or when the enemy is already blocking. Pro/Con: Amane is a heavily momentum based character. If he can get that knockdown and set up a drill and build up his drill meter, especially if he can get you in the corner with drill meter, he is very scary. If he can't get going, if he gets stuck at level 1 drill, or gets stuck in the corner he is very, very weak. I expect as people get better at Amane we will see rounds where he looks unbeatable and rounds where he looks worthless.

I am probably just being a pinch salty because I am getting my ass beat at the arcade as Amane. But really it is just that I am not at the level of Japanese players yet. Amane is really fun and I am glad people are starting to catch on to how important it is to build and maintain drill level.

He needs his drill level to be 3, but low 3, as to not overheat mid combo but still get the damage and the wall bounce. The combo also starts off a very specific height jumping attack. It is certainly an impressive combo, but, don't expect to see it in a real match too often. It is a little funny, a couple days ago people were posting how the new characters looked good, except Amane. Now Amane is clearly super OP. People need to stop being so knee jerky this early into a games life.

Only got to watch about half of the new Amane videos before I had to head into work (which is where I am now posting from, booo!) Still though, what I saw so far is awesome. So many things to steal. Can't believe I did not think of ODing at the start of a match. Amane is the only (i think?) character that really benefits from his OD after it has expired, getting level 3 drill out of the gate could be really good. It is definitely a high risk high reward play. Because there is no guarantee that you will get to make use of the level 3 drill (enemy could avoid you, you could overheat early, etc) and you may end up kicking yourself pretty hard for getting rid of your burst first thing in a match. I definitely can't wait to experiment with start of the round ODing though.

Amane's D moves do indeed build heat on whiff, but not a lot as compared to on hit or block. Edit: Watching one of the recent videos very closely, we can see that when Amane had a ground drill summoned that was not hitting the opponent, it did not cause Amane to build heat, but it did stop Amane's heat meter from decaying.

Whoah, this thread moved a lot while I slept. I will try to answer as many questions as I can. The mechanics between the ground drills that he summons and the drills that he attacks with on his arm are different. The ground drills are called with A, B or C after you go into his drill stance using 236D. Those drills stay out for a fixed duration, based on your drill level, and then disappear. You do not need to hold down the A, B, or C button to have those drills stay out. His arm drills are called using a direction plus D and last as long as you hold down the D button or after a fixed length (also based on drill level). Or in the case of 6D it lasts until you let go or the drill over heats. So far all of the drills feel safe on block, or, at least, no one has punished me yet for blocking them. They seem to have enough blockstun and pushback to be safe. This goes for 5D, 6D, 2D, jD and j6D. Well, I have ran into some issues with 2D where it catches the enemy at a bit of a funny angle while they are in the air and blocking so they fall out of it and then, because I am still holding the button and was not expecting them to fall out, I eat an attack. But, clean hits of 2D seem safe. That 8k damage combo posted earlier is amazing. Impractical, but amazing! I believe someone asked if you could do the combo (for less damage) at lower drill levels. I believe no. Your drills gain additionally properties on hit at high levels. j6D for example wall bounces at higher levels but does not at level 1 (I am not sure if it gains the wall bounce at level 2 or just at level 3). 5D seems to gain some kind of crumple stun on hit that you can probably combo off of only at level 3. I think someone asked if you can have multiple ground drills out at a time via RCing. The answer is no. When you have a ground drill out you are no longer able to enter the drill stance (I guess that might mess up some drill stance cancel combos too) so there is no way to get another drill out. The only moves that come out of drill stance are the ground drill summons, so you still have access to your normal drills. Now to catch up on all of the videos that got posted!

Ah, I did not know that. Good to know, thanks. For Amane's 632146C DD: Level 1: 1.5k damage Level 2: 1.9k damage Level 3: 2.5k damage OD: 3.5k damage Each rank popped the enemy up higher in the air but I did not combo off of it yet. On hit it overheats the drill, on whiff the drill level does not seem to move at all.

Amane has a j4C? I thought all he had was j5C, j2C and j6C. Also j5D can combo into j236C :3

Now. I may be getting slightly ahead of myself here but, watching some of the recent Amane videos, one of the combos the guy does is 6A > 5B > 5C > 6C > j5C > j6C > j2C > 236 A/B (not sure) > j5D Later in the same video he does j2b > 236C > RC > 2C > 6C > j5C > j6C > j2C > 236 A/B > j5D. Now, this will probably be the first thing I test when I get to the arcade today but, assuming j5D functions like standing 5D you should be able to special cancel it, which means you can special cancel it into 236C, which means, assuming hit stun decay does not stop you, you should be able to combine the two combos into: 6A > 5B > 5C > 6C > j5C > j6C > j2C > 236 A/B > j5D > 236C > RC > 2C > 6C > j5C > j6C > j2C > 236 A/B > j5D > 236C > (Drill set up) Like I said, may be jumping the gun a bit but the possibilities this character has is getting me quite excited. This is some Nu/Lambda level air combo stuff.

Originally because I really liked Guilty Gear, and CT looked awesome. Now, I am getting back into it because I moved to Japan.

School gets out at 4 but then a lot of students do a club activity. Work it varies but, around 4 or 5. So yeah, things will probably start getting busy in around 3 hours.

Probably the idle screen or one guy practicing. I mean, it's now 2:15 on a Monday here in Japan. Most people are still going to be at work or school. And that stream went up a few hour ago.

I think, honestly, is that with streams and stuff you are getting the audio straight. But, really, the machine is set up to be played in a loud, noisy arcade. The sound effects seem loud to me when I am watching a stream but when I am at the arcade I don't notice them too much because they are barely above the general noise level. For home use you can tweak the volume levels to your liking anyway.

Interesting. I did not expect his 632146 C to scale so strongly with drill level. It shouldn't be just OD making it stronger, all OD does is set your drill level to 3, so, any time your drill is at 3 that move should become scary. It feels like a total waste of 50 heat at level 1 though, I can tell you that. If I manage to get the machine to myself I will try to see damage at level 1, 2, 3 and overdrive level 3 (to see if there is a difference, my guess is no but everything is worth testing at this stage). 632146 D has its purpose, even if it does cause your drill to overheat. It does good chip and good damage and does full screen carry even on block. Being in the corner is pretty scary given how squishy Amane is so, it can be worth it to get out of that situation. Lots of good stuff in that most recent video, I am going to have to watch it a few more times once I get off work but before I get to the arcade. Lots of good stuff to steal from that. I think 3k damage off of a random air-to-air mid screen is pretty awesome, even if you have to RC to do it. Don't forget Crush Triggers! Given how much barrier damage Amane can do already, I think CTs might end up being a pretty good use of meter for Amane. I think you could end up forcing some people to block your CTs after you catch them with a ground drill. So many things to test!

To be honest, whenever they are in the danger state they have been one combo or a couple hits away from dying anyway, and Amane's damage is already variable based on drill level. Their life bar does flash danger when they are in the state but to be honest I am not sure if they take more. It is something I will try to pay more attention to in the future.

I think good counter strategies will be people no longer crouch blocking his overheads and falling for his dash crossups. Somewhat joking but, with new characters not only do people have to figure out how to play them but also how to play against them. I think in a week from now you will see a lot fewer players falling for Azrael's more obvious stuff (I watched a match video where an Amane crouch blocked his overhead three times in a row...)

Enough :3 In some matches I feel like I have taken off 1/3rd of peoples health bars with chip. Of course, then they realize they need to barrier, and then I end up getting them into the danger state. Good players strike a balance between eating the chip and using their barrier. I need to start experimenting with drill oki into crush trigger set ups. :3 :3 :3

I am having a lot of fun with Amane so far. I'm not really sure if I would call him a zoning heavy character though. He's not like Nu or something. His C ribbon attacks seem to make for better combo parts than combo starters. He seems better at punishing you for trying to get near him than actually zoning you out, if that makes sense. Which I guess is a form of zoning. But enemies do not have to respect his ribbons like they would Nu's swords. He seems to get better damage off of combos that start close to him, and the majority of his drive attacks are close range. His drive is his drills, not his ribbons, is what I am getting at, I guess.

Probably whenever Arcadia puts out an issue focusing on BB:CP. I will keep an eye out for it at my arcade.

Didn't get to play very much today but I had a couple minor finds, potential combo parts. You can do 5B > 5D > 236C as a combo. I am not 100% sure how 5D stacks up to 3C in terms of combo filler, might depend on the level of the drill. Some combos will require 3C though because 3C sweeps and 5D does not. You can also do 5C > 3C > 236C as a combo against a standing opponent on regular hit. Not sure if it is the best combo that you can get off of a non-counter hit 5C but, it is something.

I want to scream at nearly every video I have watched of Amane players. Most of the footage I have seen players never build his drill gauge past level 1. They don't use his drill stance to charge his gauge, they don't place ground drills. They don't use his 6D adjust his drill level easily. They do not abuse his chip nearly as much as they could. I was having no success with Amane and then changed by playstyle away from what I had seen in videos to heavy drill abuse and did much better. I could keep my drill pretty consistently in the level 2 and 3 range. I think people are getting too distracted by Amane's flashy Cs and are ignoring his drive, which I think is a huge mistake.

When it comes to "get off" me moves, Amane does not have a DP or anything of that sort. Amane, does, however, have some moves with some pretty good push back such as his 5B or his 5D. 5B into 5D pushes enemies pretty far away. Amane's 6B or his backwards command hops (214a/b) can be used to create distance as well. His C distortion drive (632146C) has start up invulnerability and his D distortion drive (632146D), while not being invulnerable, does carry the enemy to the other side of the screen. So both are useful "get off me" moves in their own way. Most of my games today were against Bullet and I found by best bet to get out of the corner was doing and in air command hop, and then letting it change my facing, into either a jB or jD to control space to cover my escape out of the corner. His crush trigger seems to take a while to come out and has a pretty distinctive animation. Still, I got my opponent with a couple of times, and, given how much chip (and therefore how much barrier damage) Amane can do, using crush trigger to eat into your opponents barrier gauge could be quite useful. In some situations if you forced your opponent to block a drill summon you could also force them to block your crush trigger, so, if they barrier that is potentially a ton of barrier damage. SoWL: Some characters use their drive mostly as combo parts, such as Ragna, or use it rarely, such as Hakumen (which you mentioned). Not everyone uses it as like, there main footsie tools and attacks like I feel Amane does. And the trick with Amane is using his drives makes them stronger, and not using his drives makes them weaker, so, he has an incentive to use his drives a lot more than most characters. To be honest, I am not sure why it took me so long to use his drives as much as I do now.