AchedSphinx

From the news thread.

So it looks like gravity replaces 22A for Nu since it appears she can cancel into moves pretty quickly afterwards, appears special cancelable as well. The recovery and start-up on gravity seem really quick. So 22A is kind of there in spirit. Should be easier to do the combos now at any rate. Also her combos look pretty cool as well, though I still think the 22A combos were cooler. I'm optimistic to see how flashy her corner combos can get (and overdrive combos for that matter). Also, projectile lv2 hype. That will make certain match-ups a bit easier. Her 236D~C pulls the opponent right to her, so I can see some sick combo routes for that. For instance, full screen 236D~C > 3C looks like it might work because she will recover in time, and they don't tech right away. Though I guess this depends on the starter and proration. Her gravity gauge seems to recovery a bit faster (recovers in 4 seconds or so, in CP it was about 5.5 seconds). They just changed where the meter begins refilling visually. Not sure, but I think her 6C now causes hard knockdown since she was able to do 6C > 66 > 3C. She can also do 4DD twice in a combo, not sure if this is hit only though, and can rep her drives 4 times on the ground. 4DD also cancels into 5DD now and 4DD might have faster start-up. Her 5DD is jump cancelable, might be on hit only (she could jump cancel 5D, not 5DD before). Her j.214D can be feinted so that she's recovering toward the ground and j.214D comes out any way. So she might be able to pick up a combo afterwards without RC and could make for some kind of mix-up. I wonder how legit 5DD > 4DD > 5DD > 4DD will be. Double overheads, no one blocks those! Anyways, that's enough outta me. I haven't played BB in awhile so I could be wrong on a number of things.

Mitsuru j.A ridiculous recovery. 5A ridiculous recovery. Droit B and SB pass through if close enough. Her C attacks don't freeze or charm. Tentarafoo is unblockable. Overall damage increased.

I've only seen it done like 2B > 2DD > air back dash > 5AAA.

Mixedmethods, I got your invites, but I tend to forget check my messages. So yeah, just keep sending them.

Minazuki's cross over All-out Attack is really slow, so it's easy to punish. So if you block it, Sho is screwed. Not worth the risk, but I see some players use it anyway. Since you're having trouble with it, just go into training mode and set the dummy to randomly toss out the All-out Attack until you're able to read it. The knife thing isn't anything to worry about. You can super jump over and reposition yourself. Sometimes they like to toss out the knives and do swap sides thing. Just block in the opposite direction. I normally assume that if I'm blocking knives, the Minazuki will do the swap sides thing. A few hours in training mode should help. Just save the replays of the guy that beat you and record what he did on the training dummy. Eventually it'll click.

Anti-air him, you get a free FC combo. Or DP him if you have a decent one. Also, just tossing this out here, but if you block it, don't mash afterwards. Minazuki is plus. For Marie's j.C, it loses out to any air normal with a decent horizontal hit box.

I wish I got more of these kinds of Kanjis.

GGs ciddy and Kenjuro. I'm hoping to play some of you NA version guys soon.

Yukari can't do much versus Mitsuru max range 5A. By blow up, I assume you mean she used her DP. That's the point of max range 5A, so you can react to stuff like that. If she does DP, she'll stop right in front of you, then you do 5A > sweep > droit SB, 4k damage combo. If she's midscreen and does it, you punish with droit A. Her options when you're at max range 5A are high-risk/low reward. You have to take these sorts of things into account. Besides, at a distance, most players are less inclined to DP. If you're close up, they'll more than likely to DP because Mitsuru isn't at a good range there. Of course this is stuff you'll have to observe quickly in a match. Also, the reason why Mitsuru 5A is the correct way to bait DPs is because it also beats rolls and jumping. Doing a max range 5A with Mitsuru limits the opponents options. Just ask yourself, when you have the opponent in the corner "What can my opponent do?" For Yukari it's either DP, Block, or Roll. Don't mash 5A the moment they wake up, since you're baiting something, it can't be baited if you mash. However, you can mash 5A on their wake-up if you've conditioned them to respect your 5A. Trust me, Mitsuru's pressure is scary because she's really safe when she does it. All and all, it will take practice. Mitsuru's combos are pretty easy, but her gameplan is tough. She's plays like a zoner. You always need to be mindful of your spacing and place yourself in favorable positions.

If you're down backing, pressing 1, and you do 6, you will get droit B all the time. If you want to punish somebody for doing a DP, I suggest not doing sweep feint. You'd be better off just standing at max 5A range and waiting to see if they DP, or roll, or jump, and react accordingly.

GGs to Greek, LK, Skye, Bloo, Maigo, pwndemon, Flux, hiro, Yogame, Pozer, and everyone else I played.

Already well-known, but I'll put it here anyway. When Mitsuru does her auto combo, or any combo that ends with a grounded droit A, Yosuke can mash 5A to beat Mitsuru doing 5A. Your best answer after doing that combo is to either back dash or block.

I should drop in sometime. The Shadow Mitsuru slot appears to be vacant

The match-up is definitely better than it used to be. Sure Chie can do some cute things and can low profile some things, but she doesn't have that one-hit oki thing anymore. The best way to deal with Chie is to space her out. If she's jumping around a lot, 2D will probably serve you quite a bit here, depending on the distance they're jumping. If they're jumping on wake-up, 5A or 2B will defeat that. If they're doing DP on wake-up, 5B beats that. Damage doesn't really matter one way or another. Both Chie and Mitsuru had their overall damage knocked down slightly. What matters is controlling neutral. If she has you blocking, be wary of her doing IAD cross overs and such. She doesn't have the crazy oki anymore so she can't go into safe overheads reliably. j.C is not reliable anymore. The recovery increased so it's not something most Mitsuru's rely on. For air-to-air stick with j.A. It out ranges everything Chie can do in the air and it also has a lot of active frames. Also, as a bonus, if you get a j.A CH and they're low enough, you can follow up with 2B and combo. j.C has it's uses though. Such as j.A > j.C > jc for air-to-air blockstrings to make your air game a bit safer and also j.C slows down Mitsuru's momentum, which can be useful. Like every Mitsuru match-up, your job is basically to get them in the corner. Chie can't do much against Mitsuru's 5A at max range. Plus Mitsuru's auto combo is a lot better now, so it's easy to confirm into damage. There are also throw baits, dash cancel throw baits, 5B feint throws, stagger pressure, dash throws, j.B > OMC > j.B, 5C > back dash 5C, etc that you can use to open her up in the corner. If you want to succeed versus Chie, and most characters in general, manage your spacing, don't be afraid to back dash, IAD back, etc to get a favorable position. And also try to keep the opponent at near 5A max range.

If the opponent IBs a lot, they won't be pushed away. Margaret is weak to stuff like that. And people in Japan are mad dogs at IBing, so it should be interesting to see how things go. I guess the number one pro-tip for dealing with Margaret will be IB everything she does.

I suppose that makes sense. The NA version is a patch behind. Only a week until I get to play against my NA bros and broettes.

Well, you don't actually have to mash. You can advanced input the 5A and you'll get it out before Margaret can throw. I think you can still use the throw if the opponent has a slow 5A like Mitsuru or Sho, but you'll need to be weary of the distance. And though Margaret can't be punished for doing 2C, I guess the main issue is that it stops her pressure and she's forced to defend or try DPing. An interesting route that might be effective is 5C > 214AB. It beats both roll and jump out. I wouldn't recommend the other versions since they're negative. 5C > 214C whiffs. 5C > 236D whiffs if they're close enough. If the opponent is really good at IB, they won't be pushed back a lot. If they try to roll during 5C > 236C, they'll just block. However, if they IB the 5C, they can roll and get a counter hit. 5C > dash cancel > throw will work. However, Margaret seems to be slightly negative on the dash cancel. I was able to mash 5A with Yu even after I blocked afterwards. Like before, if there's a delay, she can block it. If 5C is IB, well, it just makes it easier to mash 5A. Eventually people will learn how to deal with Margaret, so I'm coming up with ways to combat that.

A video would help, since I'm still not getting the results you're getting. I just tried it with Yu. It was the same situation as Yosuke, Yu's 5A will beat her doing throw. The window is probably within 1F, because if I delay it slightly, she'll get the throw counter, in netplay I could see this working basically. DP won't hit Margaret because she's down backing and Yu's DP is 10F start-up, so he's unlikely to do something like that. He will 2B based on distance since that will beat her doing grab and possibly her DP. Overall, I think the situation itself will be determined by Margaret's distance from the opponent.

This part is somewhat confusing to me. What move are you using before 2C? I tried experimenting with 5C > 2C and roll. If I rolled when 5C > 2C was close, I would get a counter hit. 5C > 2C > grab to catch the roll works if Mitsuru is point blank with her 5A. Otherwise Mitsuru will win every time. 5C > 2C > grab doesn't work on characters with quick 5As like Yosuke. You get counter hit. I didn't use 5C > 2C > short hop, because it won't come out anyways, and you'll probably either go for grab or DP when they do roll. The problem I see with roll is that if Margaret just down backs, she's no longer applying pressure, so it makes things tougher I suppose.

2C will whiff rolls. Margaret is going to need some tech options for rolls. They seem pretty effective considering her 5D can be rolled through. Backdash beats nearly everything. If the backdash escapes the sphere part of 236D, then you'll get out free. Backdash probably doesn't beat j.2C because it makes you airborne and you can't block for a certain amount of frames. 236C might beat a backdash, though I suppose it depends on the character since they all have different recovery. Though using 236C to punish backdash is risky. 5C I'm not sure about. It probably will whiff, but Margaret will recover in time to block.

236D seems effective. Always catches me when I try to jump. Not sure about roll though.

I've played a number of Margarets. Don't think I've ever made them Persona broken. I persona break S.Lab and Elizabeth all the time, difference being Margaret's personae aren't exposed most times. Only exception being if she does that spear thing followed by 5C, I can pick off the 5C with 5A > backdash. Maybe if she does j.D or j.2C I can 2D it with Mitsuru. She's also pretty hard to anti-air because of j.2D and j.2C slowing her descent. I guess the only way you could really persona break her is if she does 5D/2D a lot and you break it that way. If she does get persona broken though, then that's probably GG I'd imagine. She needs the persona to push the opponent back so she can have some semblance of safeness and her only defensive option is a techable DP. Though Margaret does have the benefit of having a faster DP than Elizabeth. Problem is, her DP is Fatal Recovery. Overall, Margaret is really fun to play. She has quite a bit of elegance, the exception being her throw whiffs. Man she looks dorky when she whiffs a throw.

Thanks for the info. There didn't seem to be much info on burst safe routes so I just put this out there. Though, I guess it would be better to put this in a place where someone new to S.Mitsuru could find it easily. I forgot how crappy 2B's SMP was. Doing two or three in a combo might be rough for a burst safe route. Though, the non-burst safe route it's fine. Good stuff on the Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows > OMC > bufula SB for the corner. The cool thing about S.Mitsuru is that I'm learning new stuff about her every day. Though I wish I could play her more. Netplay makes it pretty rough.

Okay, I think I figured out how to make all of S.Mitsuru combos burst safe. Whenever you're about to go into shadow fury do Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows A/B (depending on distance) > OMC > droit B > bufula SB. In every case you should get at least 5k damage (exception being the throw route). If they don't have a burst, go for the regular 7k damage route. There was an instance where the opponent was able to burst the bufula SB, but I'm guessing that was due to lag, he also got hit by the rest of the bufula SB and I was still able to finish the combo up. For auto combo route. Do 5AAAAA > Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows B > OMC > droit B > stuff. For crouching confirm route. Do 5AA > 5B > sweep > Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows A > OMC > droit B > stuff. For throw route. Do Throw > Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows A > OMC > droit B > stuff. For air throw route. Do CH air throw > 2DD > 4 > sweep > Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows A > OMC > droit B > stuff. These options are effective midscreen. I'm not sure about the corner, since droit B will be a bit closer. For Reako's route, if you do 2B before 2DD the proration is bad enough that droit B > bufula SB won't connect. An optional route for 2B starter would be. 2B > 2DD > 4 > sweep > Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows A > OMC > droit B. Here are a few tips that might help. If the opponent is airborne when you go into Shadow Fury (for instance sweep > Shadow Fury) then do Myriad Arrows A. The B version will cause the kick to whiff. Also, try not to hold forward when you do Myriad Arrows A, otherwise the kick will fling the opponent in the opposite direction (though you could make use of this to get them closer to the corner). Another thing, you have to watch the proration. Adding in 2B to Reako's combo killed that combo, so you have to be mindful of how many hits you're doing before you Shadow Fury. Sweep > Shadow Fury > Myriad Arrows A, is burst safe, so you can do that instead. Forgot to mention, you might have to delay the droit B a bit so that it lands. The delay isn't much and it's easy to do.