Collapsed: *yawn*:
In truth, I was initially planning on providing you with a long-winded and thoughtful response but since your initial comment was so baseless, random, and borderline trollish I figured that I'd respond in kind. The "decimate" part wasn't meant to be taken seriously, it was mere hyperbole. I thought that I made that abundantly clear.
The irony is this: You accused me of using a character (Valkenhayn) who has an easy/auto-pilot neutral game (your words) yet you yourself use/main Tager and Relius; two of the most notoriously easy characters in the entire roster (popular opinion, not indefinite fact). Valkenhayn, on the other hand, is widely considered to be one of the harder to use characters in the roster alongside the likes of Carl, Taokaka, Rachel, Litchi, Makoto, Hazama, etc (again, popular opinion, not indefinite fact). You have also proclaimed on numerous occasions that the characters that you use are not easy to use.
Now, I'm not one to solely rely on silly ad populum tactics; but it does serve to demystify a few questions that I would have had. For instance, it tells me that you have not jumped to this conclusion (that conclusion being that Valkenhayn is one of the easier characters to use) because of popular opinion, as popular opinion explicitly states otherwise.
So, could it be because of personal experience? Well, maybe. Yet every time I see you play Valkenhayn you fail to properly redbeat any of your combos (unoptimal combos, might I add). Additionally, you constantly fully deplete your wolf meter, you don't know basic/essential blockstrings that you should know such as 2B > 5B > 3C, and your neutral game in general is severely lacking. Who knows though, maybe you transform into a good Valkenhayn player and acquire essential knowledge when you don't play me/I'm not around. That must be it.
Also, you don't seem to understand this simple concept: Easy To Play =/= Easy To Win With.
Tager is an easy character to play. His combos are easy, his neutral is simple, he's not too complicated, etc. However, when you get to a higher level of play he becomes harder to win with. This does not mean that he somehow becomes a harder character to use, just a harder character to win with.
Understand this.
He works so well for me because I put in the work with him since the very beginning. If I had picked another character my playstyle would have molded in order to fit his/her character archetype. Who I started/stuck with seems to determine how I predominantly play BlazBlue. However, this can change.
The rest of this might as well be common knowledge. Obviously good Valkenhayn players are extremely scary (he's probably the best heavy-rushdown character in the entire game, and he can control the pace of the match quite well because of this).
Woah there, thanks for the free-of-charge psychoanalysis Dr.Phil.
However, all you're doing is re-stating what I already know to be true. This was the plan since the very beginning, certain people can attest to that fact. I wanted to stick with one character since the very beginning, that character was Valkenhayn. I stuck with him through thick and thin and made sure that he was my full 100% priority in BlazBlue. At the time, other characters were a needless distraction that would only serve hinder my progress with him; and as a result I blocked everyone else out. My three favorite BlazBlue characters were Valkenhayn, Litchi, and Rachel. At a certain point in time, I gave in and picked up Litchi as my official sub and started putting in work with her. However, it was short-lived. Soon after, I dropped her so that I could once again fully prioritize my growth with Valkenhayn. This is why my neutral game is only solid with Valkenhayn (a fact that I am well aware of and have stated on numerous occasions).
Since then, I've made pretty good progress with Valkenhayn; and have now finally and confidently decided that truly picking up a sub is something that I can do without remorse. Nowadays, as far as I'm concerned; the only relevant BlazBlue characters (to me) are the two characters in my avatar. Valkenhayn and Rachel. That's why I have, on numerous occasions, called Rachel my "serious sub". While Hakumen, Bang, Litchi, Tager, etc are my joke-ish/irrelevant subs. Once again, I've explained this on numerous occasions. However, you can still technically claim that they are indeed my subs. But I care little about them, and as a result my neutral game with them is lacking. I've put in little-to-no work with them in comparison to Rachel.
My combos with Rachel are also lacking, but I'm getting better. And my neutral is severely lacking, despite all of my time spent with her. Why on earth are you even telling me that my neutral with Rachel is bad? I've already said the same god damn thing a million times already, I'm well aware of this. Things just haven't "clicked" with her yet, I went through the same process with Valkenhayn. Also, I need to spend more time watching a busload of high-level play like I did with Valkenhayn in order to get a better grasp on her neutral. Learning a character's neutral is by and large harder than the combos. That's why learning optimal combos first is what I normally do. Combos are generally static, whereas neutral is very dynamic. However, make no mistake; they are both essential.
You couldn't be more wrong.
As I stated earlier, I tend to learn optimal combos first. It's apart of my process. Neutral is an extremely important aspect of fighting games, everyone knows this. However, that does not mean that learning optimal combos isn't important; it's just another piece of the puzzle. Forget your misguided preconceived notions about how I operate as a player.
As for the whole "Combos aren't everything" remark, how did you envision my response? Did you think that I would say something along the lines of "Oh my god Safros, thank you for opening my eyes; this is such a monumental revelation! Combos aren't everything! This is so profound and enlightening, who would have thought! You have uncovered one of the great FG mysteries!".
Tell you what, let's play a game; a "quote vs quote" game if you will. In order to stick with the theme that you have presented, this one is from Ratix as well. He said "When a certain someone leaves the house he/she tells me that there is food in the fridge" (please note that I am paraphrasing in order to leave out details that are irrelevant such as who the person is).
It's so obvious that there is food in the fridge that it doesn't even need to be said, it's common knowledge at this point. Likewise, It's also obvious that combos aren't the only relevant part of fighting games, you don't need to tell me this; Safros.
Anywho, that quote right there pretty much sums up a sizable portion of your entire post, as well as the quote that you presented. Redundancy.
Thank you so much for telling me all of these things about myself that I am already well aware of and in some cases have stated on numerous occasions (though you were off on a few things, as I pointed out).
Don't bother. Your post was terrible and I regret reading and responding to it already. All you pretty much did was state things that I and many others am already well aware of, some of which were untrue.
What a vapid, useless, and uninformative read this was. Oh boy.
