ryokoalways

5D has 7F combo window. Only 5A and 2A are faster than that (3C and 2B are both 9F). No one has a large enough hitbox to be hit by 2A except rachel.

Litchi Combo Video by H.H.

Honestly, unless you are hurting for damage/have no meter, just hop twice into your opponent's face and play mix-up game. Pressure off stagger is very effective.

Carl vs Ragna Note: really good carl. Not eesuke, just same color.

A good hakumen player can apply plenty of pressure even when he is blocking, so there is no instance where you are forced to block for a prolong period of time if you play defense correctly. jC can't outrange jD. To just beat 6A, do hotaru or jD. Best way to deal with 6A is to condition ragna into doing 6A at non-optimal distances with jC conditioning and movement. Ragna should not be able to 6A hakumen for free under any circumstances.

Dealing with dp is a simple matter of guessing right. There is nothing else to it. But never back down after you get a knockdown. That is a no-no. You can beat ragna's jC with jD and hotaru, whichever you prefer. By the way, there is nothing wrong with just blocking it. It's hardly a bad thing. Ragna's 5B is a good move, but it hardly seals hakumen's options. You can beat 5B with either back dash gurren cancel or kishuu (which goes right under it). Depending on spacing, you can also just hop hotaru. If you are getting backdashed by Ragna, you are not controlling your space correctly. You should go watch some more match vids and note the correct spacing to engage ragna at. Don't just air dash in from a million miles away. As for GH, it 's just a high risk/high reward move with a decent hitbox. Just play it and punish it hard when you bait it out correctly. It's hardly spammable under any circumstance. Neutral tech should be default for 80-90% of the techs. There are only certain instances where roll tech is safe. And yes, your first choice should always be block. Blocking is not a bad thing. Play solid defense, create space to work with, then try to find an opening.

It would be easier to base it off a video if possible. Most of the time it's a simple matter of hakumen player playing impatiently, playing bad defense, or have bad space control.

Ragna combo video- Death Unlimited by Tetsu

Thanks for the correction. I will keep that in mind.

If you are comboing into 5C after Counter jB, I'm pretty sure you are descending on hit, in which case the Bang's j4B is way too slow. Generally jumping with Bang isn't a good idea because jA/jC (or any non-cross-ups for that matter) will lock you down (or counter you if you mash out jB). If you really want just dp him in the face, or throw him in-between moves (both options are usable vs cross-up as well).

Beating act pulsr is all about reaction. If you are trying to do it online, then you have no choice other than to psychic it. If you recognize act pulsr quickly enough, you can beat all 3 with just 3C, with B version being the smallest window (but that one also is the least return, so it's not really a big deal). If you aren't as confident with your reaction, hotaru will beat all 3 with plenty of window to spare. The most reliable way is just block low and look for throw/tick throw. That's generally how I approach it unless I have a decent amount of meter in stock, in which case I just take the fight to them. Also, you can only punish C pulsr on IB. If you get IB, start into renka>enma combo. If less than 4 magatama, 3CX2 and gain some ground on her. I approach from the ground for most of the match from the ground. From neutral, I don't really AD more than 2-3 times per round. This is because in the worst case scenario where Nu guesses two AD correctly, you would have sustained enough damage where you would be forced to play completely out of your game plan due to time constraint, and that's going to make it really hard to come back without a mistake on your opponent's part. Just sit tight, get meter, and then move in (slowly) for the kill. Hakumen can take nu out in back to back combos of any variation, so it's not that big a deal.

The only change I've noticed from BBS is Hazama getting +.5 in 4-5 of his match-ups. Everyone else is more or less staying the same.

depends. You want to have long combos that do not have specials inbetween hits as specials that use more than 1 magatama will cause the meter to stop auto-gaining (and also reduce gain from hits). Purely from just number of hits, more hits will of course result in more meter, which also has the benefit of being a longer combo.

I lied about 8 magatamas. There is a very inefficient combo option for max meter, but if for some reason you are going for the kill with opponent in the corner and still have max meter, then go ahead. It takes total of 10 magatamas, and only adds about 200-300 more dmg than the 7 magatama counter part. hotaru>j2C>5C>5C>renka>enma>j2C>5C>2C>j2A>j2C>2C>j2A>j2A>jC>5C>shippu Require fatal starter. I don't see this happening ever, but it's good to know I guess.

The first super jump is to nullify the pushback during the combo as some characters are thin horizontally and will be unreachable without closing the gap during the first launch. The second super jump is to gain height for characters that are thin vertically.

The following are listed as most efficient damage output/return combo pieces in relation to magatama usage in the corner. Do not apply these standards to mid-screen combos as other factors will also have an effect on combo choice for that situation. Note the for hotaru starters, only 6C (fatal or normal full charge) can precede it. However, for renka starters, any starter can precede it (5A,2A,5B,2B,5C,2C,3C,6C). At the point, it's simply a choice of how much meter you are willing to burn when you land a hit. I'd say that don't burn optimal number of magatama unless you get a 5B,5C starter. With others it's probably better to just go into renka, knockdown and reset (Unless you are going for the kill, of course). Also note that if you chain 3 or more pokes of any type (2AX3), the combo won't work (god forbid it take anyone that many hits to hit confirm). 2 Magatamas: hotaru>j2C>5C>2C etc Returns 1.9 3 Magatamas: Same as 2. 4 Magatamas: hotaru>j2C>5C>5C>renka>5B/2C etc Returns 2.2 5 Magatamas: renka>zantetsu>2C etc Returns 2.3 If fatal, hotaru> j2C.5C.5C>zantetsu>2C> etc 6 Magatamas: same as 5 7 Magatamas: hotaru>j2C>5C>5C>renka>Zantetsu>2C etc Returns 2.4 7.5 Magatamas: renka>zantetsu>2C etc into shippu Returns 0.2 (Because you burned 2 of the magatamas you got in the combo on shippu) (Note that while 7.5 variation does about 100 more damage, it's obviously a lot less efficient. Only do this if you are going for the kill) 8 Magatamas: same as 7/7.5 Again, any starter will be fine, for instance: 6C(fatal)>6C>5C>part 7.5 can either go for 10447 damage or 5B>part 7.5 for 6939 Similarly 6C(fatal)>6C>part 7 for 10278 or part 7 for 7331 One more point is if you land a variation with a number of magatamas that doesn't match (say, renka starter with 7 magatamas, or hotaru normal on 5 magatamas), just fall to the previous combo on the list. Edit: typos

Makoto Fatal Combo

Tsubaki Combo vid- Mind as Judgement

The only change that can be easily argued is that when Arakune is getting comboed, the curse meter should decrease normally, not at a lesser rate. I don't get the purpose of giving that perk to Arakune.

Arakune gets 100% meter off 3 reliable starters, which isn't always available due to positioning. The others only work if the opponent isn't patient and falls for a frame trap. A few others require 50% meter, which will only happen after arakune either got curse already, or for some reason the other guy decide to feed him IB meter. Characters that have a major design weakness will never make top tier, as that weakness shifts all match-ups down. Arakune has only 2 match-ups that are against him, but many are also 5:5, with the 5-6 advantageous ones no higher than 5.5 on most (there were either 1-2 that are 6:4). Just as it can be said that good Arakune players will be able to find the opening to land a 100% curse, other top players will be able to space correctly to make it significantly more difficult. Again, don't blow his "unblockable" IKO curse mode out of proportion. That's not the only phase of the game. Other players aren't retarded to the point to being unable to prevent it from happening.

The 5C>6B/2C mix-up option for bang can be option selected with regular block on 5C into yukikaze/IB low. There is a timing on the input of yukikaze (2 half circles for the option select) where if 6B comes out, yukikaze will come out, and if 2C comes out, you will simply IB it. This is a good option select to use, as most of the time bang will simply go for the mix-up (it's good, after all). Unless you think a gimmick play is coming (5C>delay command throw/nothing), it's a pretty good thing to use. Second, if Bang decides to do the cross up j4B, there are certain situations where 2B will shrink Hakumen's hitbox enough for j4B to whiff, such as meaty wake-up j4B, j4B cross-up at about 1 character length, etc. Generally only delayed j4B will hit 2B, but that's not too likely to happen because players wouldn't delay cross-ups as it will make it more obvious. Edit: I forgot to mention, if you are confident in your ability to play footsie, try to zone Bang's 5A/5B as much as possible. If pre-empted, Hakumen can beat those moves, but if the Bang player gets the distance just right, the trade-off is severely in Bang's favor. However, if that's the case, Hakumen can punish by backdash into gurren cancel, which will catch 5A/5B's recovery frames into a decent punish.

Should mention chain cross-up hits, and be aware of early chain cancel traps. Hazama's ability to create openings at distance are actually fairly gimmicky if the opponent plays the zoning game well imo. Appreciate the write-up, some good information I was unaware of.

Curse is awesome and all, but Arakune will never be top tier material.

From the first vid, his approach is more or less correct for a defensive play. You can't really outmash tao, and you sure as hell don't want to play trading game against Litchi at that distance. Bad combo selection/hit confirming and lack of real mix-up usage aside, he did well with defense, but fell short with his zoning. I'd say he should have been more aggressive when he had 5+ magatama, but otherwise, as far as game plan it's fine. Sit on your ass and work slowly for an opening. Hakumen can easily secure a combo into corner knockdown into a second combo off mix-up/bait options, so you are never out of the round until you run out magatamas.

jD will always return the most efficient amt of damage if you see 2D coming. You can burn a lot of meter to get more damage if you IB 2D into 5A/2A starter (in terms of meter/damage efficiency it's terrible, however), but unless you are going for the kill, it's better to use jD (or 2D if you are more comfortable with that). Edit: Also, the best option would actually just be dash at tager and just hotaru, but you need good spacing and fast recognition.