TITANIUM BEAST!!!

AllyOfJustice: There's a lot of loaded assumptions in your post. I mean, we have firsthand feedback from dustloop members who've been playing the game since it came out in Japan that the game is not, in fact, "simplified", at least, not to the extent that it makes the game any less deep. Don't let marketing statements from the developers influence you so much, I've seen you posting and repeatedly asking about whether or not Xrd is dumbed down and several times people have told you no. Relax. Second, if you ever assumed that the game was going to get a ton of coverage at E3, or be relegated to anything but random anime game status, you were deluding yourself from the start. Of course the game is going to get overshadowed by big names like SF and MK. People liking BB more is almost irrelevant, as BB isn't exactly super popular either. And the whole "no new characters for console" statement has been directly contradicted by earlier statements, so I dunno where you got that from. In short, chill out with the melodrama and just wait for the game to come out.

Err, overreacting much?

Increased untech on 5HS in +R lets you do IAD j.K after much more easily. So you can do stuff like IAD j.K-HS for max damage off of those combos. Character specific, though.

If you have meter, you could probably do jump+FD and if you happen to clear a chain, use YRC to slow down Axl's recovery so you can airdash in and/or punish. Probably a better use of the meter than BS.

Probably just out of range? Damned Fang doesn't seem to have a lot of reach in this game.

Sorry, I've been kinda distracted. I'll make time to look over them soon.

Zato/Eddie has always been a strong character, with maybe two versions where he's not that great (Slash and +R). However, when you watch Ogawa play him, it's like an entirely different character almost, so you can't put too much stock in trying to rank the character from watching him. He's generally on a whole other level.

That's the way they designed the move; as is, it would be way too good if you could cancel into it. The only game you can cancel into Fafnir is +R, and that's mostly because +R Fafnir functions in a totally different way.

I'm bored, so I'm gonna start posting IK combos. New juggle properties make DI able to kill people at much higher life totals than before.

Not in Xrd. Now, people often combo into 6P from Fafnir in juggles, thanks to the tumbling state. But Xrd Fafnir is like pretty much every non-+R version of Fafnir in that you cannot special cancel into it.

You can see Faust players using 5S(f) RCs to convert pokes into damage in matches, though maybe not as often as you would expect.

Abare /= random damage, I thought? Thought it referred more to attacking out of disadvantage.

Fafnir was + on block in #R as well.

Fafnir was + on block until +R re-introduced the non-FB version. It goes something like this: XX-Slash: 17F startup, +3 on block, cannot be cancelled into AC: FB version, 11F startup, +7 on block, cannot be cancelled into. +R: Normal version added back, 19F startup, -13 on block, can be cancelled into. Xrd: Back to XX-Slash version? To be clear, while I'm not sure if Xrd's version is actually slower or the same speed as the original XX-Slash version, the way it animates gives the impression that it's faster. It seems to animate more subtly, which may make it harder to react to. However, you now have an audio cue as well, which may make it easier to react to. Of course, if you take YRC into account, it may all be irrelevant. EDIT: Updated with frame info.

Let's not look at FRC through rose colored glasses. When the mechanic worked as intended, it worked beautifully, but there are definitely a fair share of overpowered FRCs and useless FRCs. The whole attitude of "let's bring back FRC, YRC is dumb," just comes off as old timer syndrome, in a way. The game is not going to magically be better if you take out YRCs and put FRCs back. And allowing YRC during hit or block stun is just, no. The mechanic seems powerful enough as it is.

He deserves it! Plus he looks fun and cool. Sol top tier 4ever plz.

nuuuuu leave Sol alone

If you watch the recent vids of Mugen, you'll notice matches where he does the 2K -> GF YRC oki and would then use the delay to airthrow the opponent if they attempted to tech after the 2K, then combo them afterwards. Pretty gross.

Command grab? Fat chance. Ragna will never be Sol, give it up.

It would be nice if we could get some video examples of Sesh vs a Potemkin. Personally, the matchup never really bugged me, and given that OS got nothing but buffs in +R (and Pot got nerfed), it should be no big deal. Regarding specific things that have been said here, I would recommend playing outside of Pot's effective range most of the time. Keep your midrange poking to a minimum, as all it takes is one errant Slide Head to end up in a bad spot. The fact that you can Charge at long range means that you control the match, as far as I'm concerned. Use long range Charging to build Level and bait Pot into Slide Head and other risky stuff. You have quite a few ways to directly counter Slide Head (BRP and Fafnir being pretty obvious, RI works sometimes too). Go in after baiting some type of mistake from the Pot player, try to knock him down and pressure until you feel the match returns to neutral, then get out of there and go back to your mid-long range game. Defensively, of the three given options for gettng out of offense (jump, backdash, attack), they all have clean counters that will blow you up (properly spaced PB should snatch up your 5K), so your best bet is to not be on defense in the first place. If you do end up on defense, just be patient and pick the best option for the situation. I'm a fan of 1FJ -> FD, personally, but mix it up. Yeah, you could eat a Heat Knuckle, but if he guesses wrong on that, free combo, so it is what it is. Be patient and try to get a read on the other guy.

Being part of the camp of players who believes balance is overrated, I personally really like the way ASW has designed most of their games. Regardless of tier discrepancies, you generally have a nice variety of playstyles available and most of the characters are viable. You're never going to get perfect balance and frankly, making balance a high priority in game design doesn't usually turn out well.

I remember a player from our forums who lived in Japan stating once that what we see in videos is a tiny, tiny fraction of the actual play going on in Japan's arcades, so it's not really prudent to take what you see posted here as representative of the overall level of play. There's a lot we don't get to see, and what we do see is just what happened to get recorded.

This doesn't prevent you from playing him in a more creative way, if you want to. Who says you have to copy everything other players do?

Watching more videos, it definitely becomes more evident how the BE change affects combos. There are certain situations where you will have to do simpler combos and sacrifice some damage and Heat gain due to the shorter untechable time. Things like these midscreen conversions where you do an air sequence into BE late in the combo no longer allow any followup, whereas before you could get a DID to end your combo with a knockdown.

Watching HARA, seems like 3C -> 22C after BE in the corner still works. Not sure exactly how the BE nerf changes his combos, dude still seems to be rampaging with him.