Doonpa

One thing to note about trap canceling is that its actually done with j.214CD, so you are actually canceling into a falling SB trap for those shadow combos. Originally we thought it was done with regular traps as there was no fluctuation of her meter when she would perform this attack but it turns out that this doesn't matter for her. You don't lose any meter and you just pretty much just recover immediately out of fangs if done correctly.

Hilda Vs Gordeau Notes -Shield Mortal Slide (preferably both hits if possible). Reason why this is super important is not only is it easy and gives you GRD, but it should ideally push Gordeau far enough away so that you don't get caught by the Assimilation follow up that Gordeau players LOVE to do to stop you from hitting buttons after Mortal slide since its negative on block. If they try to be a moron and Grim Reaper you instead, you should be able to stuff it. If its EX grim reaper, the super flash should eat your input. If they try to command grab, you should be far way enough/be able to jump it on reaction. -Watch Gordeau's GRD at all times. When Gordeau has Vorpal, you should expect the Gordeau player to command throw you while its still active. So for the next 17 seconds if the Gordeau player has you blocking, I'd put particular attention on anticipating the command grab in this situation. Look to upback divekick it if you can. If you guess wrong or something, he'll have either caught you standing with a low (worst general scenario for guessing wrong) or he caught you out of the air which is fine generally unless they were ready to hit confirm it. -Watch for 6B and shield it on block. Reason being is that Gordeau players always cancel 6B into 22A, and between those two hits there is a gap that you can reversal/mash out of. For Hilda, her fastest attack is 6f (2A), which means that without shielding 6B, you'll trade unfavorably with 22A So its super important that you shield this attack when you can react and block 6B so that you shut down Gordeaus autopiloting into 22A. - The stupid 66C frame traps. Basically, Gordeau players love doing 66C 22A x N vs people. Generally the answer here is to mash a reversal, but Hilda can't really do that. So you have to do the same thing you do to 6B to 66C. Shield it and mash 2A. BUT here is the thing. Gordeau players also happen to like doing 66C into a purple/gold throw Assimilation and that beats people trying to mash 66C. Unfortunately I haven't really worked around this yet. For Hilda it seems that you can do a delayed crouch tech (2A~D, 3A+D, which ever) and be able to tech the throw and still get a 2A out, but I can't guarantee that trying to use this OS will let you cleanly beat Gordeau if he does 66C 22A instead of the gold throw. Also, if Gordeau tries to do 66C into a late assimilation (untechable this time), you should be able to just mash him out of it cleanly without a problem. So basically, shield 2A beats 2/3 of this scumbag character's general go to options in this situation cleanly. -Watch his meter. EX Grim Reaper is a big problem for Hilda. It can be mashed between her strings to flat out punish her and can stop her from running her j.[C]/2A game. Be sure to bait this out on wake up whenever you can by keeping your space and go for 22B/C lynchpin on oki instead or simply run up and block first, then continue with her mixup after confirming the opponent is blocking a Gloom. -Don't try to interrupt Gordeau in the middle of IW. Wait for the entire thing to happen on block and then punish. THINGS TO TEST VS GORDEAU: HOW TO STOP GRIM REAPER xx 236C AND THE GARBAGE HE DO AFTERWARDS ;; This match up is totally winnable, but it definitely needs to be done in neutral. Once Gordeau is in, your chances of winning this match up drop tremendously. Meter management is ultra important in this match up. Deny him Vorpal and always keep your meter as high as possible for emergency guard cancels and for 236A 214C in neutral. Gordeau really can't do anything about that (much like the majority of the cast). If you know you can't win the round because of timer/health difference, hold your meter and try to gain as much of it as you can. Fighting Gordeau without meter is almost suicide.

After you do something like 22A/B or 623A, hold down your B button and continue your combo from there. So an example combo would look like this: 5B 2B 2C 623A(earliest moment where you can hold down B for B lynchpin) delayed 3CC 22A(latest point in combo where you can hold B) 3CC or dash C, then release your B button so the B lynchpin comes out. The minimum time you need for lynchpin to be charged is 46f which is relatively short, so you have a lot of time in the middle of combos to get the necessary charge. Basically the idea for Hilda combos is to use the time during any of Hilda's specials to hold your button there.

Oh derp, see this is what i meant lol. Thanks a ton Dai, I'll fix that asap. Any other criticisms and stuff are totally welcomed. My goal for this doc is to eventually have everything with a "??" next to it answered, incorporate proper frame data and hopefully better combos. After that, I'd like to move the info on to the DL/Mizuumi wiki once everything has been looked over by others and is properly filled out. EDIT: Also can we get a skype group?

So I wrote this up to help LK learn about Hilda. It doesnt really have anything I'd expect people to not know about and stuff, but I figured it would be a good thing to share with everyone since its nothing too crazy to keep hidden: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s462/sh/9ac9939d-267b-4e6e-a385-6709051182df/75a6cfeb84077740813154f2647a2f9d Basically my attempt at a general guide. Its definitely not perfect as the game is still new (in the states) and is strictly based off of my own knowledge, so I'd appreciate concrete feedback/corrections/proof reading and editing from anyone willing to help out. Any information i've gotten from other sites/people I have tried to cite in this doc, so if theres any issues with me using said information please let me know. Note: I'll personally be reviewing my opinions on moves and stuff on my own and make this a bit more professional. Wasn't originally going to share this with the public lol.

Not sure if this was posted already but here's a 200% + CS combo ender off any combo into a lynchpin knockdown: Any combo into B lynchpin, 5[C], 236A, 22C, CS, (236A) 22C. What happens here is that you get to spend 200% meter but thanks to CS you get to build back some meter depending on how much GRD you had before the 2nd super. Its better than doing something like 236A CS 236A 41236+D after a 5[C] since it nets you more damage and builds you back meter so I think this route is pretty useful if you really need a kill but want to get a little meter on the side for the next round. You'll pretty much always get at least 4k+ off almost any starter this way. If anyone has a bigger damage/more meter efficient combo that uses 200% and CS then please share. Trying to avoid VO here as well since it'll take away all your meter and not really give you a chance to build any meter back.

I think a good portion of the BB cast are just POSs to fight online and they happen to be relatively common characters like Kokonoe, Noel, Jin, Tager, Bang, Mu, etc. So i'd say just netplaying BB in general is pretty friggin irritating. Also, it really irritates me that even after all this time, the vast majority of people who've been playing BB since CT/CS1 and are playing CP still rely on really dumb netplay tactics like indiscriminately mashing, YOLO IADs, not blocking, purple throws, random AHs, overheads xN, etc. Putting lag into the equation and trying to deal with all this and more is not a pleasant experience and usually leads to me just stop netplaying immediately after a really distasteful match because its definitely not helping me appreciate the game and I'd rather not dislike a game for the retards who play it like that.

SB Shot nerf is reasonable as it did way too much dmg. Autocorrect 5D is so nice to have again. Air double fangs are incredibly safe on block assuming you hit with them very low/late. A and B version should be around -2 or -1 and SB might actually be 0 on block and they are all fast (9f and 13f start ups). Since she isn't forced to go straight into snipe stance, you can probably continue pressure on an opponent who isn't ready or has a 7+ frame 5A. Good times. Theres way too much to this character that is unexplored. On another note, all Shadow characters have more health than their regular counter parts (I think they all have 2k more health), so S.Naoto might even be very viable despite not having a burst/awakening. The health buff plus the other tweaks to Shadow characters seem to be very interesting and definitely worth investing time into, especially a character like Naoto who can shave off Fate counters pretty easily with 50/75% meter assuming you play well enough to build the meter to pull off a fast kill.

Main differences between Shadow Naoto and Naoto are the Shadow fury activation, no burst and auto combos. Shadow characters build meter very quickly and require less meter to do things like OMC, use supers, etc. Frame data is identical according to the mook (but its been known to be inaccurate often) between the two characters. One thing to note about S.Naoto (Shadow characters in general) is that during Shadow fury mode she has the ability to free cancel moves kinda like a KOF character so you'll see stuff like Naoto doing grounded B fangs and not enter the snipe stance follow up as a result of this. And Shadow characters don't get extra ailments. Characters across the board generally got more moves with ailment affliction. Naoto can now poison, which adds on to her ability to already silence and put fear on an opponent.

DQing Colpevole was greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

P4AU is going to get a balance patch update guys. Lets hope we can get some of Naoto's vanilla shit back like autocorrect 5D and her old trap start up, proration, and untech time lol.

Naoto P4U2 Frame Data is up guys. Missing info on traps though and gun shots http://www.dustloop.com/wiki/index.php?title=Naoto_Frame_Data_(P4AU) Rejoice and be sad all at the same time lol Non official change list (just comparing the old data with her new data). Not listing proration changes/damage changes for now, I will probably edit this post again to include those and not be so lazy and include more info. These are just some things to note at first glance. - 5B and 5C are dash cancelable -2B's head invul moved from 9-11f to 6-8f -AOA is now 26f start up (was 24f) and is now armored starting on frame 13 to 26 (was 16-24) -Sweep start up is now 10f (was 8f). Officially low profiles/chest invuls things 4-12f - 5C is now -14 (was -11) and recovers in 26f (was 23f) -5D now recovers in 55f (was 50f) - 2[C] is now 18f (was 29f!!!!) - 2C is now special cancelable - More recovery on B+D -Proration nerfs on B fangs and SB fangs - Mudoon proration nerf, now air unblockable. -Changes to number of skulls taken off by certain moves all across the board except for shotgun.

Some obvious and not so obvious(maybe?) thoughts about P4U2 Regular Naoto (Haven't seen enough S.Naoto to comment since S.Characters don't seem to be very explored): Overall, as far as what kind of character Naoto has become, I feel like she has become a lot more of a stable and straight forward as a character in terms of what she is trying to accomplish. I think every character was designed with some kind of goal in mind in both P4U/P4U2. Easiest thing to use as a reference would be vanilla Chie/Narukami which were both focused on knocking you down and repeatedly comboing you into the same situation. In P4U2, I feel like she is geared towards taking away your fate counters as much as possible now due to the nature of her moves that take away fate counters and the buffs around certain moves that now take more fate counters like traps. Needless to say, Naoto makes her money off of landing SB Gun super to really wreck people by inflicting fear and silence at the same time plus the huge loss of fate counters. In P4U, you had two choices to kill for the most part: SMP or Fate. Now the game kinda made it clear whats what with how much lower her metered damage is. You aren't getting 8k for 50% meter in this version, you'll be getting around 4k unless some crazy combo routes/glitches get discovered. You want their fate. If you can kill them without using Mudoon or Hamaon, than all the better. So I think your "goal to win" is pretty straight forward this time around. Naoto's base damage is still decent since she has a lot of ways to combo off various confirms. Thanks to air fangs, you have a nice way to end air combos that bring you back to the ground pretty quickly and leaves your opponent airborne. 2C being special cancelable is a blessing and makes it so much better of a move as a result. The big daddy damage she use to have is definitely not there anymore per 50% meter used. I don't think theres anymore argument there. Sure she can kill with 150%, but how practical is that? I wouldn't really use that as an argument that her damage is still "high" since I think everyone can do pretty big damage or kill with that many resources. Ultimately, I feel like her neutral game is harder in this version, but much better. Having 3 of any traps out is great, having a faster 5D is cool, D trap not dying to air attacks, and Venom Zapper makes it so that space control seems to be better. Reduced hitstun on traps is really big and makes it harder to get damage off what I feel has always been the move everyone fears when fighting Naoto. I think the gun meter nerf to Naoto was meant to kind of kill the notion of "Oh Naoto can just spam shots all day and run away". Obviously we all know how risky shots are but the nerf makes it so that resource management is a must now so well placed shots are encouraged. Basically, if you enjoy playing a strong but risky neutral game and don't mind the work, Naoto is still great to play. Just don't expect to run entire games back or have the strongest punishes ever. I think Denpa illustrates what im trying to say best. From the footage i've seen of him, he only had like 500 matches played vs what he had back in vanilla P4U, but honestly he has been the only consistently high placing JP Naoto player out there and I trust his style of play to be an example of ideal Naoto play. So if you guys want to see what I mean, check out the video thread ludwig updated. Oh and lastly, I think Naoto has really stupid set ups and tricks in this new version that I can't wait to try once the game drops. I've thought about quite a bit of things already that I'd like to try before I share lol.

I can play in these again, so throw me back up in there Rath lol

Lol we must acquire a new secret 5th for this one. We didn't plan on using our last one nor did we even have a secret 4th until the last second lol EDIT: Secret 5th try out rules: -Must be a god in lag -Must be able to carry an entire team on their back -Narukami/Chie player preffered but not necessary Try outs start immediately.

I think its generalized to only have players from NA since its the most sensible way to weed out (more likely than not) bad connections from players due to relative distance. But if you have a decent enough connection despite being out of the country and want to play, then I don't see why not. Now if you have a laggy as hell connection though.... RIPRIPRIP

Ah I see, welp. Looks like everyone running a train on Colpevole will most likely have to wait huehuehue.

lol so do we even know who is actually playing in this? We have plenty of volunteers but no definite "yes"s to anything here.

Thanks for helping with the translations dude. Lots of good stuff is in that doc and in Omex's. j.C hitting overhead is silly as hell and in terms of general balancing, i think its a bad idea to have, but at the same time I think its absolutely wonderful for us to have such a strong tool looolol. Along with SB Gun super, if we can end our combo at just the right time and get some kind of safe jump j.C oki, we'll get a busted Fear 50/50 via fuzzy that will lead until a Fatal starter combo on everyone. The weakness of the current fuzzy we have in P4A is that you never had to stand block j.C, but now you definitely will have to. I have more to say about the other changes, but I thought this was a lulzzy change. I'll post more thoughts about the rest of her changes after class.

Me vs Bace offline play at my apartment. Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePCvcl5wn4U Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TItTinDwY88

So I want to talk about Naoto C trap setplay in corner post air hit 236A~D knockdown: The reason why I'm going back to these fundamental aspects of Naoto's corner oki is that all the set ups have flaws that I decided to go back and mull over because of LK's discussion of Mitsuru's setplay behind corner D bufula. Naoto's oki holds two different layers of mix up, revolving around the timing behind the C trap's initial set up, and around after the opponent commits to blocking the C trap. So ideally we have the first situation which is delay C trap/meaty C trap which essentially results in a Throw tech + DP bait. Delay C trap opens the opponent up to getting thrown or hit before the C trap, but the meaty C trap counter hits an opponent who tries to throw tech too early in anticipation to the situation as well as allows for DP baits if you block for a brief moment. This is a 50/50 situation as throws are way too fast to react to, and C trap activates too quickly to disrespect. If done properly, reacting to the delay should be almost impossible. Now the second part of the mix up, the traditional high/low aspect of the mix up is mainly what I want to reevaluate. Lets first understand the different speeds of what we can use as part of our high/low mixups: Lows 2A: 7f start up 2AB: 8f start up 214A~B: ??, B shot itself is listed as 4f start up, so id say this is roughly a ~7-8f+4f low set up taking into account the start up of 214A. =~12-15 start up low i'd say. Highs short hop j.A: , 17f+6f=23f (reactable) IAD j.A: , 8f+14f+6f=28f overhead (reactable) AOA: 24f (reactable) 2nd hit of 236A: actual move has 10f start up, but 1st hit adds 16f of block stun, making the second hit easier to react to, so i'd say this is about as fast as AOA with some gross mathematical adjustments. =~26f (reactable) So the issue we have here is that in reality, Naoto's mix up is bad because there is a large gap between the start ups of her high options and her low options. What this means is that outside of the usual silly delay C trap throw/meaty throw pseudo 50/50, Naoto's shit loses to a simple OS involving briefly blocking low, then switching to high guard. This is of course disregarding using OMC, Hamaon, and SB traps for cute tricks. So the traditional answer to solving this problem is to simply delay whatever move to match the speed of your slowest move involved in the mix up to create the 50/50. But, the problem here lies in the fact that all of Naoto's high attacks are technically all blockable on reaction, with AOA and short hop j.A being the fastest at ~23 and 24f. So delaying 2A or 2AB long enough to create the mixup still won't guarantee you'll hit the opponent because they guessed wrong. So, my question to you all who care is how do we turn the mix up after C trap into a real dirty 50/50 mixup that requires guessing instead of relying on poor reactions? You also have to take into consideration the relative safety of the mix ups and the amount of block stun a C trap gives you to mix up off of. Figuring out these kinds of things is what makes fighting games hard. EDIT: Forgot to give big thanks to Omex and Bace for throwing me some frame data info on short hop and IAD for my mix up comparisons.

I highly recommend this one if you can do the 2[C] link consistently. Otherwise doing 2A 2B 5C or 5AA (5C) B fangs xN works too for similar damage though you probably won't get the kill on Kanji from max health. 236A, B shots into Mudoon should only really be used if you need the kill and you know a low damage SMP will be enough to do it. It's not a route i'd use for a punish. I'd probably do it if i low profile something with sweep and confirm it with 236A or something to kill. It's good to know since those situations do come up, so that particular SMP route is good under the right circumstances.

I never understood what the post above this one was trying to get at, but switching any punish that usually involved 5B as your starter with 5C then 5B is amazing thanks to 0 P1. It boosts any of your SMP's damage by at least 1k that start with 5B for example. Just wanted to point that out for anyone who cares about optimizing their punishes for 50% meter or something and still cares about this version of P4A somewhat.

Ok so i decided to share another little trick that I've been holding out on telling people because im just evil. So there's another layer of oki/pressure that you can try doing involving a specifically spaced C trap that is done in such a way that it is just outside of the opponent's hitbox range so that the trap won't activate as long as they are crouching. If they do anything to extend their hitbox such as attacking, jumping, or standing, the C trap will activate. Now there are plenty of ways to set this up, with the most common and reliable being in the corner using a knockdown via air hit 236A~D then set a D trap on their wake up, then a 5A canceled into C trap. The C trap should be spaced naturally by the 5A canceled into C trap so that it is just outside of their crouching hitbox range. The beauty of this is that it lets you get WAY better mix up then regular meaty C trap oki since you have the trap completely covering you while preventing them to do anything but roll and mash DP, both of which are easily baitable by simply sitting there blocking. If they activate the trap by standing up, you can react to the blocked explosion, indicating that they stood up so that you can hit them low quickly afterwards. You also have the option of going for AOA/ short hop j.A tricks as well among many other things such as throw, etc. Now the big problem with this set up is that the gap between 5A canceled into C trap is quite big and leaves you fairly vulnerable even with a D trap going off underneath. Most characters have moves that are fast enough to interrupt this, which is why you'll want to avoid this set up against characters with faster 5As and DPs. But, characters like Labrys and Liz EAD since their DPs suck and their 5As are slow, which is why you'll see Denpa go for this mainly against them. This set up can lose to something like roll, but if you condition them to sit there and take it via throwing the opponent before the traps go off, then they'll be less likely to consider it an option to go to. I personally don't like replacing my standard C trap oki with this set up since its not safe against the stronger characters in the game. But, I do like this as a neat trick during pressure if I've lulled my opponent into just blocking me until i push myself out. Having a C trap hovering in their face is an unpleasant surprise off something like IAD j.A delayed j.B into C trap for an opponent. Everyone should remember that this is a very specific little trick that relies on respect and spacing heavily to pull off.

Ok so Cynthetik asked ludwig and I about what kind of blockstrings we use when we play Naoto. I figured that i might as well post them up here too so everyone interested can see it too instead of just on twitter. And it doesn't hurt that theres no 140 character limit here lol. Blockstrings: Basically any string thats designed to not be mashable when blocked normally. IBing these can potentially create gaps where you may DP Naoto in between or sneak in a fast normal in between (i.e 5A 5C, if you IB 5A you can mash out before 5C comes out I believe) -5AA (short string to set up a tick throw) -5A 2A 5A or 2A 5A 2A (switching between standing and crouching normals can kind of confuse the opponent so its nice) -2A/5AA 5B 5C 2AB (string meant to push you out to get a max range sweep) -2A 2A 2A (triple low cuz why not) -2A 2A 5AA -5C 5B 2AB -5AA 2B Of course there are more but these give you the general idea of how to go about doing simple blockstrings. All of these can be extended, but thats up to you guys to do. Now i'm gonna bring up how to extend your pressure and cool tricks to try on people. Unfortunately Naoto's not great at extending her pressure for too long, but you have to do something! -5A/5AA/2B/5C into air options like IAD, regular jump, etc.: So basically you'll use this to go back in on people via air approach. What you do off this is entirely up to you of course. Be mindful of your spacing and of how much respect your opponent is giving you. Its not hard to blow this option up with a properly timed 2B or air throw so beware. -Some string xx 2[C]: Grounded pressure reset with the intention of making your opponent block Naoto's only plus normal (its +8) which should give you enough time to follow this up on block. This move is reactable and is punished by the entire cast by simply rolling through it on reaction. -Some string into 236A~Ax5 canceled into Hamaon: 5th shot of A shots into Hamaon is a blockstring, so if you have the meter and really don't want them to get away you can do this. Not so worth doing midscreen unless you have a burst and they don't. If you do open them up off of it Hamaon midscreen, you don't really get anything, but its okay to go for in the corner since you get SMPs off of it without spending extra resources. -low IAD string like IAD j.A j.B delayed j.D: If you do this right, you can land and use the fact that the Persona will wind up behind your opponent to do some cool pressure using 5C in such a way that you'll push the opponent closer to you. So you can do something like 5B 5C after landing from j.D, cancel the 5C into D trap, and roll through the opponent for a cross up since the opponent gets pushed close enough for the trap to connect. Other ways to reset your pressure is to simply stagger and mix in EX traps to keep the opponent scared of hitting a button since the risk/reward of mashing traps is mostly in your favor if they don't know how to deal with it properly. There are plenty of other cute tricks to use during your pressure, but everything except the last thing i wrote about is pretty standard and safe to generally use. Last one takes work to incorporate and make it work for you properly.