Skeletal Minion

The OD/Burst icon turns into a gauge that shrinks over time. No other way to tell AFAIK

Yes. If you do something that activates the catch but are recovered by the time the attack comes out (by canceling or using a low recovery move), you can block any counter except Yukikaze.

Ok, NOW using Tsubaki over 6B seems worth it. 9k in the corner for only 5 mags to start and OD ? I'm sold. And YAY at countering bursts! The good news keeps coming in.

It's a neat gimmick, but very risky, so don't abuse it. Also works with some DPs/reversals (Inferno Divider and a few others), you really have to get the exact range down though. It's not a bad idea to whiff something as they're waking up to bait them into doing the DP, like correctly space yourself > 2B whiff as they're teching > max 6C just before they've landed from the neutral tech. Wow, that looks crazy plus on block. Regarding the potential fly over, it would be amazing if characters he hopped over could be mixed up with something like hop Agito > immediate j.B (to hit from the front) or slight delay j.B (to cross up). If that works, I hereby deign it the sG mixup

Also: knock Rachel down. Stand JUST inside cat chair range as she wakes up. Right as her neutral tech ends, max charge 6C. Charging 6C makes you lean slightly back, enough to make cat chair whiff when it would have otherwise hit. Enjoy your FC 6C combo. If she doesn't neutral tech, just don't do the 6C.

My favorite scumbag tactic against Rachel is IAD early j.2A. If she anti-air Lobelias you cut it and hit her with the orb immediately, then land > 5C > whatever. My thought process behind Haku crushing guard is this: You have 6 stars, they have less than 50% barrier. CT > CT (guard break) > 5C > OD > combo Something like that. Probably not something to solely aim for since saving stars for more practical uses is advised, but situationally useful.

^Timestamp links are a good idea, but I'd like to humbly request that people still include the actual time to skip to in their posts. Timestamp links don't work on Tapatalk (phone app I and others use to browse DL), so we must still manually skip. 4.5k from 2D? NIIIIIIIIIIIICE. On CT, I think Hakumen will be a guard crushing machine considering he gets 2 stars WAY faster than other chars get 25%, meaning we can CT much more often. I'll be able to run my GC 6C shenanigans, but with a much better attack :D

Zantetsu ignoring the 60% char combo prorate only occurs on the first hit IIRC, plus the second hit has meh proration. Makes sense to do Zan(1) > CT or Kishuu.

mAc that is sigworthy. Also, heads up: just made some room on my FL and I think some DL/BB people may have been deleted by mistake. If someone reading this is one of those people, message me and I'll re-add you. Room up in a few if anyone wants to play.

^At first glance I thought Hakumen's said Berserk, as in Guts or his Berserker armor from the manga of the same name, but then I got really disappointed Edit: Can't wait to fight endless Rachigos online

You realize Aksys and Arc System Works are two entirely different companies, right? ArcSys is the Japanese company who makes GG/BB/P4A, Aksys is merely an American localization company. Aksys works with ArcSys a lot, but they're entirely independent of each other. Aksys isn't involved with GG's XBL/PSN port at all, which is probably why they're ignoring you.

I don't think OD'ing at the start is worth it. Hakumen's auto gain is approx. 1mag/5sec at neutral. That means if you don't land or receive even a single attack on hit or block, you're going to have three magatama 15 seconds into the match. OD'ing at the start nets you 3 mags in 3 seconds. Basically: Cons - Lose access to Burst for ~50 seconds, can't activate OD to make attacks whiff, can't combo into OD activation, cashing in a potentially large reward in exchange for a small one since OD'ing later (after taking some damage) will net you more stars Pros - Gets you three mags a whole 12 seconds earlier? I just don't see it. There's also a theory fighter question: realistically, what good does having three stars right at the start do for you? Most Hakumens pseudo-turtle as the round begins to build meter anyways, making start-of-round OD pointless. Even if you activated and went straight in, what are you going to do? For example, maybe Kishuu to get in, then try for a meager two star combo before you're back to gasping for stars? His new auto gain is fast, but not instant, and I'd say running out of stars mid-offense is much worse than not having any at the start of the round. The only potential use I'm seeing as a possibility is for certain tricky matchups where you need to stick to them like glue ASAP (Nu, Arakune, etc). Even then it doesn't seem like something worth doing every time. On 6D combo theory: an important thing to note is the buffed proration. At 80%, I think it's plausible to spend stars to follow up. Maybe 6D > 5C > Zantetsu(1) > Kishuu > stuff? 6D > Renka > stuff? I'm sure something more optimal will be discovered but those are just two examples.

I think you're confusing what neutral is. Neutral can be a precursor to putting your opponent under pressure, where having a meterless reversal can be a good defensive option, but meterless reversals usually don't have a place in the neutral game unless you're Ume Shoryu'ing. In BB, it's incredibly rare to see this happen--you're not going to see Ragna straight up ID during neutral unless he has gigantic titanium balls or is trying to die. Meterless reversals are not a requirement for a character to have a good neutral game anyways. See: Tao. Not trying to be a dick, just clarifying.

Wait, so he can Enma from 2D? I thought that follow up was only available on 5D. Is it both? Just 2D? All counters? That would be amazing since that would avoid the garbage prorate, but I'm probably being overly optimistic

Not sure tomorrow afternoon will work since I'm pulling an all nighter to drive my roommate to the airport for NEC this morning. I'm probably going to pass out for the day when I get back, lol. I've been playing almost every day here lately, so I'm sure we can get some matches in soon.

GGs to everyone in the room tonight, ArgentZero, Aoi, and a whole bunch of other people. I forgot how fun this game can be.

GGs to everyone I've played lately, it's good to be back. I just moved to Atlanta a month back, and MAN the connections I get from here are so much better. Three bars everywhere.

^That's actually with a CH 3C or CH 6B starter, then 5C (reread his post). A raw 5C would be even more and possible allow for something longer/better since it's a better starter.

That 5k combo was quite ballin'. I figured Haku's trademark damage would come back as combo theory improves. Looking pretty solid so far (aside from counters being a train wreck, but I can deal). Hype levels... Rising... Has anyone figured out why CH 3C > 5C works? More untech time/different property on CH 3C or (god I hope this is the case) faster 5C?

I just don't see guaranteed combo ability being worth a 5 star investment. Maybe if I had a rack of meter stocked, but outside of that it just seems too expensive.

^Oh yeah, I forgot Hotaru could be used to follow up Tsubaki. I still don't see how spending 5 stars to perform a slower overhead that can be 2A'd on its startup is going to outweigh 6B though since it's faster and free (meaning it also avoids meter cooldown). At first I thought 6B would suffer lower damage output as a trade off, but I just saw this combo: CH 6B > 5C > Zantetsu > 2C > jump cancel stuff. Three mags, 4K. Delicious. The problem with 6D isn't that you now have to "yomi it." Haku already had to do that when choosing which high or low counters, and when to do it (e.g., "What's his next attack in his string going to be? Which counter would be appropriate?"). The 10F startup makes it impossible to use in many situations where it was strong before. Literally finding enough time to perform a 6D is the main issue.

Ok, now that I've got a brief moment I can comment with a few initial impressions. - 4C Feint is a great idea. It seems like a smart way to buff it without it winding up too strong. Coupled with the proration buff, I think 4C could be as useful as it was in CS1. - Agito looks much better than I anticipated! The way Hakumens are using it to pressure is really cool, and its anti-anti-air capability sounds great. Really excited about this. - Tsubaki is uncomboable? Welp, I guess that makes it the new Zantetsu now that 6B is comboable, faster, and free. Time to forget this move existed. - Speaking of Zantetsu, DAT PRORATION. Very happy they finally realized how awful this move was and buffed it accordingly, looks like it will be good combo filler when you want to burn stars for damage. - Crush Trigger looks buff too. Decent damage, huge range, and 100% P2 for only two stars? Yes please. - j.2A pushback nerf seemed unforgivable at first, but I've seen a few instances in new vids where it causes a mid air launch under certain conditions. Might be cool, we'll have to wait and see. - Autogain buff: YEEEEEEEESSSSS. Too bad his combos are so meter inefficient at the moment that it's a waste, lol. Surely this will be more impressive once combo optimization picks up though. - Proration/damage buffs on normals: this seems to have happened with a lot of other characters as well. I like that SMP's implementation will vastly reduce overly drawn out snooze fest combos, but the game as a whole seems too low damage now. Notice how GGAC+R universally buffed HP by ~10% since they felt damage in AC was too high? In BBCP, I feel they should have done the opposite, lower all health by 1.5k or so (in addition to the current proration tweaks). It's wonderful that the game plays faster, but rounds still seem to take forever since low combo damage allows both players to make a ton of mistakes. - The Shippu wave loop will most likely be a silly gimmick unless a practical way to set it up is uncovered. Right now it requires Shippu's wave to hit a near fullscreen standing opponent, which I don't see happening outside of FC lv3 6C. - Counters = WTF. If the risk of eating a 5K CH was bad compared to a reward of a meager 2K before, they are now an utter abortion. Making them blockable is the worst thing they could have done and totally ruins their concept--that's like making command grabs techable or like taking away Inferno Divider's invincibility. They honestly needed to be buffed, but if they insisted on further nerfing them, they should have made them somewhat similar to how they were in CS2 lokes: instant startup, unblockable, a free mag, and a flat uncomboable damage output of ~2K, with removal of CH state for the second half of recovery frames. Discussing new strategies and uses for his counters are almost moot since those can all be answered by, "Oh, he might counter? Well, I'll just bait and block it." I might comment more later, but for now my opinion of Hakumen is mixed. He's much improved from the lokes, but his nerfs and buffs seem quite polarized. It's as though ArcSys said, "You know how we took away so many strong things about Hakumen? Well, we're not giving them back, but here are a bunch of new toys to play with to make up for it." How he'll fare overall is a coin toss at the moment. We'll see which side faces up in time.

^j.B is completely unchanged AFAIK.

Figured I'd compile Haku's changes for people who haven't followed the general thread by conveniently placing it in one location. This should also help weed out loketest changes that didn't make it into the final release. - Nearly all moves received proration/damage buffs, a few received proration/damage nerfs. See below for values. - Magatama auto gain buffed to approximately one mag per five seconds at neutral. Cooldown now applies to one mag specials; still 90F. - Hop speed increased. Dash cancel timing requires faster input. - New system mechanic: Overdrive. Greatly increases magatama auto gain, allows drives to be special cancelled, enhances Yukikaze's graphical effects. - New move/system mechanic: Crush Trigger. Large sword swipe, slow startup, costs two magatama. Instantly breaks guard if not barriered. Counts as a special move, so it can be special cancelled into. 100% P2, strong in combos. - New move, Agito (j.214A). Performs a downward kick in the air, costs one mag. Not overhead, but can cross up. Comboable on CH due to ground bounce. Can be performed during hops. - Zanshin greatly changed. All drives received proration buffs and may be special cancelled while in OD. Attack followups for all counters are blockable (Yukikaze excluded as it's still unblockable on catch). All drives received damage buffs and grant one magatama on successful catch, including any projectiles caught. All counters, except for 6D and Yukikaze, are uncomboable (all are comboable in OD). In addition: * 2D counters low/mid, 1F startup. * 6D counters high/mid, now has 10F startup, short recovery, highly buffed proration (45% > 80%), possible to combo without OD. * 5D catches high/mid, now chargeable (charge lengthens active frames at the cost of lengthening recovery). * j.D now has minimum height requirement, otherwise unchanged. - J.2A no longer has "pushback" effect; combos involving J.2A > air dash > J.2A no longer work. - 6B now comboable on CH. - 4C feint(!) by pressing A before active frames, works on both 4C and charge 4C. - 6C now fatals at all levels, forced at max charge even mid combo. - 3C now chainable from 2A. - j.C now wallsticks. - j.2C floats lower on air hit. - Forward throw now staggers. - Kishuu unchanged, confirmed to still have projectile invincibility (thanks eliram). - Renka first hit bonus prorate removed. - Hotaru's recovery now leaves Hakumen at an increased height from ground. - Tsubaki uncomboable (Not sure about this, needs confirmation). - Mugen now always drains at 3x speed, but can be neutralized by OD's extreme magatama gain. Crush trigger unavailable. SMP/combo rate changes need confirmation. Ending with Shippu or successful Yukikaze during OD immediately ends Mugen, but does not enact meter cooldown until OD has ended. New damage and proration values (Credit goes to itsme for finding these on JBBS): Character Combo Rate: 60% Name Base Damage/P1/P2 5A　350/90/77 5B　590/100/89 5C　1210/100/92 2A　300/100/77 2B　450/90/89 2C　1150/90/92 6A　620/80/89 6B　590x2/90/92 6C(1)　1500/100/94 6C(2)　1700/100/94 6C(max)　2000/100/94 4C　700/100/89 4C(max)　1600/100/94 3C　1200/90/92 JA　320/90/77 JB　590/90/89 JC　1300/90/92 J2A　780/90/70 J2C　1100/90/92 5D　1800/100/60 2D　1800/100/60 6D　1400/100/80 JD　2000/100/45 F. Throw　1400/100/60 B. Throw　700x2/100/100,60 A. Throw　1400/?/? CT　1000/80/100 Guren　560/100/92 Enma　860/100/72 Renka　750x2/90/92,60 Zantetsu　2100,750/90/94,62 Agito　800/?/92 Hotaru　1200/90/82 Tsubaki　2800/90/92 Shippu　3200/100/60 Yukikaze　3800/100/30 ※CT, Zantetsu(1), Tsubaki and Shippu aren't affected by the combo rate Please correct/point out missed stuff/provide confirmations and I will edit this post accordingly.

So how's Haku's cool down? Is it still 90F on 2+ mag specials/180F for Distortions? How does cool down affect his mag gain rate during OD? Any confirmed changes on Mugen? I'll comment more once the tryptophan wears off :P