Dreize

I am laughing so hard right now. Oh boy.

From what I've heard, there are still quite a few online warriors/randoms on XBL. There is a matchmaking system with ranked matches, but with player matches it's essentially a lobby-style type thing. And to be quite honest, the XBL matchmaking/GG's thread seems to be pretty active with random nonsense so I'm sure that you'll be able to find people to play with. Good luck.

http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?13322-CSE-XBL-Match-Finder-GG-Thread-v2

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. Drive change is going to be extremely awkward week 1. And so is wolf meter management to be quite honest, remember watching week 1 CP Valkenhayn play? Everyone was losing their wolf meter and people kept using command grabs in order to supplement. Hah. Wolf control on pad feels stiff-ish, I don't prefer it. Additionally, I can't use the wolf break IOH on pad as well. Unless I put two hands on the face buttons, or if I put C on one of the triggers (which is really awkward). If I could assign the same command to more than one button it would be fine, but I can't. No worries. I just can't believe that absolutely no one does it. It seems like something that would be obvious. Plus we've seen that combo routes which involve nacht rosen do good damage in CP.

Well, 6B > 2C never worked in Extend either unless you're talking about a 6B FC. I wouldn't be surprised if 6B > 2B > 2C > 236C doesn't work anymore though. We only ever used the 2C > 236C route for a few things in Extend. We used it when the 6B in 2C > 6B > 236C would whiff, and we used it when we wanted to keep the proration low-ish (usually involving a rapid cancel somewhere in the combo). I mean, Kiba. We both watch a tonne of CP Valkenhayn play, yet none of us have seen it. I guess it's safe to assume that we lost that gatling as well. Even off of a h[j.C] I've been seeing j.C > 2B > 5C > 236B~236B instead of j.C > 2C > 236C.

Sure, why not. I have a few, actually. "Bring down the sky!" --Valkenhayn while using mondlicht "Try it, old man, and you'll find my teeth at your throat." --Hakumen during Valkenhayn's Extend storyline "Hazama felt good. He felt great. Shattering the mind of a sweet, diligent girl and drawing out her darkest fears and desires gave him what could only be described as indescribable pleasure." --Hazama's feelings after telling Tsubaki about how Noel was the source of all her troubles "I remember this one time, I tried to greet a friend of mine with a "fist-bump", as the young folks tend to do. But I somehow missed the mark and punched right through his head." --Valkenhayn during Makoto's gag ending "Quit your whining, you vapid bag of antlers. Boobs are the foundation society is built upon...! Boobs equal power...! Simply put, bitches, I have the boobs so I make the rules! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!" --Litchi during Platinum's gag ending

You'll still see it, just not as often. w[5B] still launches on aerial hit. Hah, that's not even half of it amigo. You should have seen how bad it was early on for us. I will admit, I was a tad worried at first. Luckily, a few of our nerfs were universal and the new wolf normals ended up being better than expected. Arcsys was kinda playing with fire when balancing Valkenhayn, and luckily we didn't get burned. What I mean is, without those 2 new wolf normals we are unquestionably the worst character in the entire game. But with them, we are actually quite a solid/strong character. We're certainly not even near Extend Valkenhayn status, but that really doesn't matter anymore. Besides, Extend Valkenhayn needed balancing. Not to my knowledge, no. I speculated that 6B > 2B > 2C > 236C, etc would work but I have yet to see it. I've mostly seen 6B > 2B > 5C > 236B~236B. No, we didn't. We still have the wolf break system as well. Honestly, just practice Extend combos; a lot of general rules/concepts will carry over. Neutral stays pretty much the same as well (aside from drive/wolf meter changes), so get that down. And if you'd like, feel free to upload some of your play and post it in the critique thread, I'm sure that either myself or Kiba would be happy to evaluate your play.

The best starter in wolf mode is w[5B], for human mode I'd just go with h[2C] since it's relatively fast (and a h[2C CH] leads to big damage in the corner if you use the 2C CH > 6C route). The biggest issue with the w[5B] re-launch nerf is the fact that our corner carry off of random wolf hits (w[j.A], w[5A], etc) is slightly nerfed. I mean, we can quite obviously do something such as w[5A > 5C > 6D > j.A > 5B > j.A > j.236B > 6D, etc] but at the end of the day we're using 2 command dashes instead of 1. Though we could potentially do w[5A > 5C > 6D > j.A > 5B > IAD > j.A > j.B > 5B x N] for solid corner carry and a sub-par IAD ender. Since we now have the w[5C] gatlings it's not too big of a deal though. All versions of beast cannon are laughably sub-par at best as pressure tools in my opinion. w[j.214A/B] is practically useless outside of being a semi-rare combo filler and for situational anti-air baits. You'll see it being used a bit in the Valkenhayn mirror as well. w[j.236A/B] is slightly better but really nothing special. At the end of the day you're committing to a 22 frame start-up mid hitting attack that is negative on block. They're also quite easy to get hit out of (especially during start-up). Beast cannons can be a solid ranged punish though (kinda like nacht rosen in this regard). They can also be good for movement since they use less wolf meter than rasen wolf. But using them regularly for pressure is just a bad habit, plain and simple. And like nacht jager you can get away with it a lot of time on netplay since people don't know the match-up (which just further reinforces the bad habit). Using it on occasion as a pressure tool is fine, but don't become even remotely reliant on it. Especially since you need to dish out more wolf meter to make it semi-safe and applying further pressure is pretty much out of the question.

I was wondering... Welp, than it's entirely my fault. I somehow miscounted it earlier. We're currently at 73, I triple checked. Sorry about that.

Yeah, that combo is very good for wolf meter conservation. Thanks for adding it, but please remember to "up" the combo count on the OP every time you add a new combo.

Odd. I am having issues with them as well. It was working fine last night.

BBCP 6/1/2013 Urban Square Tournament Tsuge shige shigu tsugu (VK) VS Tsujikawa (TK) l Part 2 Tsuge shige shigu tsugu (VK) vs Noel Tsuge shige shigu tsugu (VK) vs Noel l Part 2 Tsuge shige shigu tsugu (VK) vs Noel

Yeah. The 3 examples I gave were pretty solid, so just work your way up. You'll get it eventually. It will become muscle memory in due time. I play on pad as well (unfortunately). Transitions from wolf to human and vice-versa tend to be the hardest part about Valkenhayn's combos. Anytime.

There is no actual trick to it. Input the w[5B] almost simultaneously while inputting the jump; then immediately input D followed up by j.B. Press D too late and you'll get a blue beat/they will tech, but press it too early and it won't come out and you'll just end up going into w[j.B]. It'll take a bit of time to get down. What you can do, though, is work your way up. Practice getting this down first: w[5B] > j.D > j.B > dj.B > j.C Then this: w[5B > j.A > j.236A > j.236B > 5C > j.B > j.B > 5B] > j.D > j.B > dj.B > j.C Lastly: w[5A > 5B > j.A > j.236A > j.236B > 5C > j.B > j.B > 5B] > j.B > j.B > dj.B > j.C The starter/proration values near the end of the combo affect how lenient the j.D timing becomes. Thus, working your way up can be quite beneficial. Feel free to ask any future questions here, we don't bite (well we do, but we're not mashing out wolf normals right now; so you'll be fine).

49:34. Hah.

You already know that I'll be helping you out with this. I'll probably be PM'ing you most of the time though instead of posting here. But a few things to take note of right off of the bat that more or may not be intentional: Valkenhayn has 10,500 health. Just a small typo. It may also be important to note that our defensive options have gotten even worse since our meter gain has been nerfed which means that we have less for sturm wolf/counter assaults. As you know, new to CP h[5C] is geschwind cancellable (we don't know how useful it is yet, but I've seen it being used quite a bit with great success). Well, we do have the new w[5C] gatling after w[5B] now so using w[5B] on block isn't as big of a deal. I know the title says "[CSE-CP] Valkenhayn Strategy Guide WIP" but I think that we may have to prioritize on one game while taking things that still apply from past iterations and putting them into this guide. Unless of course, you were already planning on changing this and it was just a really rough-ish draft. If that's the case, feel free to ignore this.

I notice that I attempted a few rising j.C > rapid > j.C set-ups on wake-up but I kept getting DP'd out of it. Should have just done 2A x N > jump cancel > j.C > rapid > j.C. Additionally, I also noticed a few raw goddamn nacht jagers. What sort of evil villain possessed me to do such things. Oh well. That actually was a botched up sturm wolf attempt (I messed up the timing). You can kinda tell by the way I recklessly sped forward with the geschwind wolf. I definitely could have optimized that w[5B] CH confirm, I was really confused though because I could of sworn that his j.236D hit me (it certainly looked like it), and I kinda just auto-piloted into w[j.A > j.236B]. Funny how I completely forgot about that (especially since I've been actively advocating the notion that the song being played in the video needs to be Valkenhayn's CP theme). Thanks for pointing that out. I will be definitely be implementing a few new things into my play to better combat the Jin match-up. Yeah. Agreed. That was a really silly mistake on my part. Should have paid more attention to his bursts/the round we were on. No idea as to why we both saved our bursts. I honestly thought that he was going to use a burst during the command grab combo I did on him in the second round. A while back (I think I told you this before as well) I just decided to do nothing after a well spaced 5C on block (since I dislike our meter-less follow-up options). But for some odd reason, I must have gotten back into it. It's a bad habit I guess, which is just reinforced by the fact that I can get away with it on netplay most of the time. I will make an effort to eliminate it in future endeavors. I don't use the Masashi ender, but I do use the Joker ender on occasion. They're a bit wolf meter intensive. I think I'll start using them more in certain match-ups though. Oh, I saw the w[5A] > 6CD > grab stuff long before it was mentioned here (since I watch a lot of Valkenhayn play) but you were the one who really got me into it since you throw a lot in your play. Plus, human throws had been largely omitted from my play for quite a long time which I was never really too pleased about. Anyways, thanks for watching. I have a few new things I'd like to flesh out more during practical play.

Here are a few matches of mine, it's not my best play by any stretch of the means but it certainly isn't my worst. As of now, I lack consistency. My play varies from "He's pretty decent" to "Does this guy even play Valkenhayn?!". I most definitely need to put in more work before CP hits in order to reach the level that I desire. Neutral needs work too. Backstory: These matches took place last night, we had a 2 bar connection so I could actually (for the most part) execute combos and move around in neutral properly which was nice (though there were a few lag spikes that you wont be able to see via replay, I think his connection was being shared with someone else). Anyways, I still loathe playing on pad but I've learned to manage. If I recall correctly our set ended at approximately 16-7 in his favor, so overall he most definitely outplayed me. I've come to enjoy playing against his Jin. I normally don't save replays very often, but I've sorta come to cherish being beaten convincingly in fairly long sets as it offers a substantial learning experience. I uploaded 3 losses and 2 wins which I figured would be good for variety (I would have uploaded more then 5 matches but the recording -> editing -> rendering -> uploading process is long/tiresome, plus 5 seemed like a nice round-ish number). Please forgive the lackluster camera work and sub-par quality (especially during the last match), watching it in 720p kinda helps though. Re-watching my play now, I notice a lot of funny/questionable decisions on my part; and quite a few missed opportunities. I was experimenting with 6A a bit too. Thanks to Kiba for inspiring me to use human throw's more often during my play. Ah well. - First match - Second match - Third match - Fourth match - Fifth match

It's nice to see a member of the big three acting, err, "derpy". Hah. Saw that w[j.B] fuzzy set-up, we really don't see it too often. Nothing new though, we could do it Extend against most of the cast if I recall correctly. I didn't know that we could confirm the second w[j.B] into w[3C > j.A] for a combo though. Odd. The set-up uses a bit too much wolf meter for my liking as well (2 command dashes). Plus he was already using quite a bit for the wolf sweep loop too. Wolf meter intensive set-ups + wolf meter intensive combo's = good luck managing your wolf meter. I just know that these new wolf normals are going to garner so much damn salt. Getting hit by w[j.C] on wake-up into 3.5k doesn't sound too pleasant. Additionally, added this to the combo thread, looks good: [*]j.C > 5B > 5C > 2D > 5C > 2D > 5C > 2D > 5C > 6D > j.A > 5D > 5C > 236A > 2C > 6B > 2C > tk.214B > 6C > 3C > 236B [3927 DMG, 28 HG]

The Valkenhayn fests are always so great. New stuff for the combo thread as well. Ryuu kept losing his wolf meter, but the implementation of the wolf sweep loop into his play was amazing. And is it just me, or was Zekuso secretly trolling PRFARMY or something? -3C rapid cancel tech. -Fully depletes wolf meter for no plausible reason. -h[j.B] x N without confirming into anything (he even had meter) -Astral. Welp.

Don't just casually watch Nu matches, scout out competent Nu players and analyze how she/he is conveying herself/himself in neutral and jot things down accordingly. Practicing against bots for executional purposes is fine and all but getting to play real people whether it be offline or online (preferably offline) helps a person develop a strong neutral game. Also, playing people who are similar in skill level is also a plus. If I were you, I'd do this: 1. I'd have a few practical BnB's down pat. 2. I'd then take a look at my frame data in order to better understand my character (especially since the Dustloop BlazBlue wiki is quite neat & accessible). 3. I'd then attempt to create a few semi-decent blockstrings (you should at the very least have a rough of understanding of how to apply pressure with your character). 4. Lastly, I'd watch a busload of competent Nu play and adamantly take notes/observe and attempt to implement things I've seen into my play. After that, going online and playing people is a solid option. Try new things. Build upon your neutral regularly while religiously watching Nu play. When you start winning a bit, begin expanding on your reservoir of combos. Learn how to combo off of random hits, start to learn how other characters work in order to improve blocking/match-ups, keep expanding on your neutral, etc, etc.

Collapsed: Valkenhayn's bad ending dialogue: *Hazama had just finished seriously harming Valkenhayn* Hazama: "C'mon! Speak! Roll over! Play dead! PLAY DEAD, GODDAMN IT! HAHAHAHA!" Valkenhayn: "(Noooo...!)" Phantom: "..." *Phantom teleports Valkenhayn back to the Alucard's castle* Hazama: "What the eff! Hey...! HEY! Who said you could teleport that geezer outta here, HUH?!" Phantom: "..." Hazama: "Aw, I guess it's just as well. Don't want him dying on us, after all." *Hazama later goes on to say* Hazama: "Don't tell me you've still got some free-will rattling around in there..." Phantom: "..." Hazama: "Hmph..."

The new one worked well, Kiba. 125 results for Zekuso, 72 results for Hima. Excellent.

Some of my play is a bit questionable, so I'm slightly hesitant. I typed "ヒマ ヴァルケンハイン" into Nico, and I got a bunch of CS2/CP Hima play. Damn. Do you know what the, err; "secret code" for Zekuso is?

Well, Hima is back in 1st in the dan rankings. I guess talking about dan rankings is kinda pointless though since they fluctuate far too often. I was actually attempting to look up some old Extend Hima/Masashi play today on Nico; no luck. I do not know what to search/how to find old gameplay. Oh well. I may just upload some of my own play and do some good ol' self-evaluation. Neutral needs work. Yeah, tell me about it man. I'd love to see Zekuso's matches. From what I can tell, I didn't notice any substantial blunders in his play when he went against Abarenji; he seemed to be doing pretty well actually. He even managed to get a perfect in the second round and his pressure seemed to be on point. Word. Give me the Masashi vs Noze match please.