Agni

...I am unworthy. Goddamn Japanese players, making everything look easy.

Well, I just did some casual matches with my friend today. Here's what I can surmise: -I'm still a mashy fuck, but I am getting better, especially in how I actually take into account spacing and footsies now. And some of my favorite parts were zoning my friend with Rachel. -I still need to remember that backdashing does not guard you against anything. -I need to get better at reacting to situations. There were several times where I was basically locked down and I couldn't think of a single thing to do. What's worse was that he wasn't even doing combos or something, he was just mashing. -Platinum's bubbles are fucking amazing. -Heart Car'ing into a meaty attack is a really, REALLY stupid idea. Nonetheless, it was fun practicing against my friend. And I'm honestly convinced I got better by the end, even though he kicked my ass 3 times out of the 5 battles we had. I haven't had much time for Blazblue given how I've bought a shitload of new games, but I'm glad I got this practice in.

Ah, okay, got that.

Would it be possble to use them for midscreen oki after 236B? Heart Car sends the opponent skidding a lot when used away from the corner, so my idea is that you end a combo with 236B, and then fire a missle. If you time correctly, your opponent will eat the missle as they get up, forcing them either to roll back into the corner (not good for them as Plat seems to have a really strong corner game), jump over it (if they airdash towards you you can just bubble them and combo from there), roll foward (which leaves them close to you and capable of getting comboed), or they could just get up and block it (allowing you to run up and perform a mix-up). Would this actually work? I'm still a newbie so these tactics probably wouldn't work, especially since I remember missiles having a large recovery period (though RC'ing could help this...but there's probably better things to us RC for...).

Yeah, I guess you could say that one of the things that's motivating me is the hope that I one day get good enough to get hate mail on PSN because I out-zoned some scrub like crazy with Rachel. I'd never ragequit (that's just pathetic), even if I was getting blown to pieces by a pro. I guess a real problem is that even when I get an opening in, it's really hard to figure out what to do. If my opponent could counter every possible tactic I have (which wouldn't be that many), I'm going to have think damn hard to formulate a way to get in there and start doing some damage...I suppose that's what you mean fighting people better than you can really help you get better?

Okay, I was getting a little salty* there, but I've had it happen to me in other FGs. I guess I can learn spacing from matches. But I'd like to get a little more familiar with Plat before going online. *: I need to point out how dumb this word sounds, just use "whiny", no need to invent a whole new word to mean "being a whiny ass".

I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to take from getting owned that badly, how am I supposed to learn anything from abject failure like that? I know, I know, "you learn from mistakes" but there's a limit.

Holy shit, this. Part of the reason I don't go online is because some douche is gonna come up and body me with a double perfect 4 times in a row. What the hell would I learn from that?

Aw shut, might as well ask this. What exactly are the Cat missiles used for? Annoying opponents? Hitting people trying to airdash to you (though bubbles would probably be better for that)? The wiki doesn't have any description for them yet so I'm wondering if they are actually useful or are so pointless no one really gives a shit about them.

Ah, I guess so. Some of those combos in Moy's thread seem like they'd be damn hard to pull off in a real match.

God fucking damn, Plat is complicated. How am I supposed to remember all of those combos in Moy's combo thread?

Okay, after practicing more today, I've isolated my problem with inputs, and it's pretty simple. I am simply mashing the stick WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too fast. Maybe it's the speed of FGs, maybe I'm just nervous, maybe I'm just a noob, but I have this tendency to mash out the inputs so damn fast I just mess up and make mistakes. I'm pretty sure that if a pro player heard my fightpad as I did specials, they's silently weep at the horribke things I'm doing to it (seriously at the speed I'm mashing these buttons I'd break a top-of-the-line stick in like a week). I found that once I stopped having the patience of a ADHD-addled kid*on meth and speed at the same time I actually could get these damn inputs out. I've hit what I like to call the "retrospection" stage. This is the stage when in any performance art, be it FGs, writing, drawing, or whatever, where you finally art starting to understand how the pros do their stuff, and you're just barely breaking through and learning and getting better. The problem is, you're still an amateur, so you look at your own stuff and think "That's no good, I'm doing something wrong...", but, parodoxically, you aren't good enough to figure it out fully and fix it. Which is immesnly frustrating, and something that I spent 2 months in with regards to writing. But once you get past it, it gets a lot less annoying. The problem is getting past it, which is only excerbated by my introversion and difficultly in actually going out and fighting other people. ...All these big words probably make me look like a douche, right? *: Ironically, I do have ADHD

Does handness matter much for stick? I'm left-handed and I already notice that for my fightpad that right hand can get tired of pressing buttons. But it may be because I use this layout: A B (B+C) D C (A+B) I use my thumb for this layout, as using fingertips would be horribly awkward on a tiny fightpad smaller than a normal PS3 pad. As such, I "packed" all the attacking buttons in there so I wouldn't have to reach far. I don't even think lefty sticks exist, so it's not like I have a choice much, but...

Yes, but I'm going to try a more zoning style with her.

Hello. New Rachel player here. The loli vampire shall be my sub below the loli magical girl Platinum (whi is my main). I thought myself a rushdown kinda man, but I find myself enamored with Rachel's zoning/set-up style. On a rather unimportant note, my name uses a French/Italian pronounciation, and is pronounced "An-yee", not "Ag-nee".

Yeah, that's it. I have a MASSIVE problem with mashing the attack button before I actually complete the motion. I also have a problem with mashing too hard and doing an extra motion. 214214 for me tends to be 2147214. I guess it's the small movement space of my PDP fightpad. Anyway, I'm gonba be maining Plat and subbing Rachel. I played through Rachel's story, and I found myself liking her zoning/set-up style.

Yes, I have all the requirements. It's the input--that 9 in there is what's messing me up. I think I'm mashing the stick too hard.

Okay...I now have CSE, and I've been having an abnormal amount of trouble with inputs. It can't be that I'm bad at them--similar inputs don't give me the same problem in Arcana Heart 3. One good example is Platinum's Astral (236236C). For some reason, I have an annoying amount of trouble doing this, as I accidentlly input 2369236C, causing me to jump up in the air and do Swallow Moon. I guess this is just another case of nerves making me mess up.

Okay, I practiced against some COMs in AH3 today. Heah, it's not as good as fighting real humans but the shame of losing is less (at least a COM can't laugh at you after bodying you to pieces) and my mom's probably watching Netflix so I'd be painfully laggy online anyway. So, I noticed these few things: -I suck at this still. -I still have this aggravating tendency to "Panic Mash"; I cannot even begin to number the amount of times I hit 214A/B/C when I wasn't even intending to jump in the first place. on the opposite hand, I find myself flubbing anything that isn't 623 still -I'm still not familiar with gatlinging and my character's links enough to come up with combos on the fly. Most of my "combos" were simple A-B-C shif except for this one time where I did something like j.A j.B j.C [HC] j.A j.B j.C j.E j.A out of nowhere. I dunnk even how the hell I did it, I just hit j.A and somehow I just managed to connect the rest. -Me against zoning characters: hilarious stupidity. It basically boils down to me going "WELL I GUESS ILL JUST RUN ACROSS TO MY OPPONENT HALFWAY ACROSS THE SCREEN THERE NEVER MIND THAT THERE'S A PROJECTILE THAT'S GONNA HIT ME IF I DO" My god I ran into Maori's sisters so goddamn much It's like I'm running across the screen and Maori summons her sister And I know that I'm gonna get hit across the screen unless I block or jump AND YET I RUN INTO HER EVERY. GOD. DAMN. TIME WHY AM I SO STUPID

Hah hah, I'm just starting to do that. While practicing in AH3, I quite often try to see how many combos I can come up with without checking the wiki.

That's almost certain to happen. If she does, we need Saya vs. Ragna and Saya vs. Jin themes!

That's not possible. Just make sure you're holding 4 for Barrier Guarding, shouldn't be that difficult if you aren't mashing.

-Platinum vs. Ragna theme -Jin vs. Hakumen theme (seriously why do we still not have this?) -Rachel vs. Valkenhyn theme -Playable kokonoe - English system announcers These don't really matter for Gameplay but it's better than suggesting a fuckload of "balancing" that probably won't even work anyway

It's amazing how I've gotten better in one day than I had in 2 years. Thanks to me actually understanding gatlings now, I found myself expermienting with combos in AH3. I remember hearing someone say that FGs aren't about memorizing long combos by rote, but more like knowing which moves can lead into each other, when you can do a cancel for more damage, etc. I finally got what he meant by that.

Some more practice and the most complex thing I was able to do somewhat consistently was JA JB JC [HC] JA JB JC JE, which isn't really all that complex--it's a basic gatling with a cancel--but it's a hell of a lot better than anything I did before. The most difficult part was timing the homing cancel--you have to wait for JC to hit twice and send the oponent flying, then cancel into homing. I kept mashing Homing as soon as I hit JC. Some practice fixed that, though. This practice also showed me how important gatlings are to these kinds of FGs. I spent a lot of time figuring out what moves could easily combo into each other. It's surprising--these combos aren't as complex as they first seem; they're just built off of gatling chains. Damn, now I want to get CSE as soon as possible so I can start maining Platinum (don't you dare look at me like that)