Ryock

Holy crap, after two days of training, I think I'm finally starting to get the hang of the new May. Feels a lot more different than I thought it would from previous iterations. Things feel tighter(specifically for her), and I feel it's much harder to get damage without an RC. Playing her as a setup feels kinda odd, but I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it. I can't help but feel though that nearly every attack I have has lower priority than a great majority of the cast's moves. The only real big exception I've felt is 6P, which is great considering that move always had great priority. It really feels I have to rely on dolphins and CH confirms to get anything going because of it. Nearly every time I throw out a j.HS, 5HS, or j.2HS it gets beat out, forcing me to take a step back and set stuff up instead. I got a good question though; what are a lot of you using for typical oki? A dolphin or beach ball? I find the beach ball has been getting me better results since it controls the air a lot better, but I have found some fun uses for the dolphins if you can fit in a 6K, then combo on from there.

I have to agree actually. It was extremely sad how poorly organized the situation was for BB and the prize money was ridiculous. You have much simpler games like SF, MvC, and hell... even rock paper scissors giving out more money than this game did. I wasn't even bothered that I played like an idiot, cause the money and wait time didn't even feel worth it. Some of the stations didn't even have all the DLC characters and the tournament, unlike SF, MvC, MK(I think I'm forgetting one more) was for one day, and wasn't even covered on a stream.This tournament only cared about SF and MvC3 honestly. There was some neat hype for MK every so often, but that's about it. I was sorely disappointed with this BB tournament.

Short intro: Yo, I be Ryock. Ryock is a name I have been going by for about 10 or 11 years now. Been maining Rachel since the arcade version of CT came out. I stopped playing her during CS1 and have picked her back up in CS2. Unfortunately, I am still making the move from Xbox to PS3, so I have yet to get a stick and really practice her the way I would like to. That should be remedied soon though. I love anything intellectual, whether it be philosophy, theory crafting, and tactics. Because of this, my love for fighting games and RPGs is extremely high. Been playing RPGs for about 12 years now, and have 18 years of experience with fighters(been playing since I was 4). I'm a very easy to talk to, very laid back kind of guy =) Dustloop Username: Ryock PSN Username: RyockVermat XBL Username: BlizzardWizards(I don't really play Xbox anymore though)

Yeah it is. I was giggling to myself over the easy 3500-5k combos that I was able to do just screwing around.

Wow, the lyrics version of Rachel's song is really good. A great welcome back for Rachel :D Gotta start practicing as soon as my stick finishes o.o

Rachel is a big reason why I picked up Blazblue in the first place. Like the majority of people, Guilty Gear was the big reason I even knew about Blazblue, and I kept up with the updates. As every character got announced, I wasn't really too excited. Noel was the only one who was appealing to me for a while just cause she used guns. But I'm a zoner at heart, as I've always played zoning characters. Then Rachel was announced and I raised an eyebrow to her. I kept an eye on it until footage was released of her being played, and I was hooked. I was like "I WANT TO PLAY THAT CHARACTER. SHE LOOKS FUN." CT came out, and I had a blast playing her. I liked how hard she was to learn and how unique her fighting could be because of her wind. Then CS came around... and I was convinced I was done with Blazblue. The nerfs were way too much for me to deal with and I was really upset. I wouldn't have had a problem if she was PLAYABLE, but they nerfed her beyond reason. When the console version was coming out and Mu-12 was mentioned, and I watched her for a bit, my interest was slightly re-ignited. So I picked the game up again and picked up Mu. I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. She reminded me a lot of Dizzy, and even more so when they released the Dizzy color costume for her. She plays very comfortably to my style, and having started with Rachel, I picked her up rather quickly, and is who I play now. With the Rachel repair on the horizon though, I've started picking up Rachel again in preparation for when she finally becomes playable again.

After weeping a single tear for my previous maining of Rachel, I looked for something that would suit my playstyle, and Mu immediately caught my eye without ever seeing how she played. Played her for a bit, and I was already thrilled to how she played. It was even funnier that she had a color scheme of Dizzy, as Dizzy was a character I really loved playing a lot, so that sealed the deal for me. Still playing her atm, may switch to Valk depending on how he plays, and will definitely switch back to Rachel if she becomes playable again.

I seriously need help on this matchup. I think I'm getting better, but it's just not good enough. I feel rather helpless, and if you'll talk to people who face me, I play a more patiently oriented Rachel, as I'm a natural turtle. So I have no problems blocking and evading all day waiting for openings. However... the fact that I'm getting punished for blocking, for pumpkin summoning, for frogs, for lobelias, for MOVING or even thinking is getting really aggrivating, so I'm hoping for some tips or something. Just having a hard time finding an opening, and every time I think I see one I either don't get it in, or get punished for it by a 30%+ heat-less combo... the way I see it against Nu, Rachel gets three shots and she's out. Halp. I need a lot of it.

Well, you are right Discotheque, there is a good chance a lot of the nerfs don't stay on arcade release. I'm just worried that it'll turn Blazblue into a bit of a boring game, since honestly Rachel's the only reason I have any interest in this game to begin with. If she wasn't in it, I doubt I'd play it, simply because of her style of technical attacks based on wind usage greatly intrigued me to see how she'd play when she was first announced. Her entire character is incredibly interesting to me, so all these changes feel extremely forced and odd. A lot of them don't make much sense to me especially since of the top three, she was the least complained about. Frankly, it just ticks me off. I hope you're right, I really do. I would hope she's as interesting to play in CS as she is in CT.

So it would seem... they don't seem to have a very strong thought process if this is their idea of balance. I love how just about every character now has new combos, new ways to do stuff, and overall, a lot of the cast looks pretty solid now. Except Rachel. I don't really have much hope for them to buff her considering from what I heard, they want to release this in winter? So that's something like December or January I'm thinking.

@TheRealBobMan If you do want to start a loop on somebody from jackhound, there's two things to keep in mind. 1: who are you attempting this on? Some characters you'll have a harder time doing this on due to their hitbox. 2: Unless you're in a corner, sometimes I have to FRC my dolphin so I can restart a loop. If you get lucky and manage to hit somebody with a CH 2HS, or a 2D, then SHD is the one you want to use, and the timing for 2D is a lot stricter than 2HS, but definitely well worth it. For 25% tension, you can eat up almost half their life bar in one combo with something like this.

May, being a charge character, you gotta get used to holding the stick in a direction for an extended period of time, sometimes buttons if you use hoops. So, I hope you've played someone like Bison before. I think May's a fairly popular character, but with Blazblue around, people kind of moved from GG to that. The lame loop is usually something like: 5S, 5HS, SVD, rince and repeat as needed, finish as needed, change as needed. For some characters, you'll have to get used to something like 5P, SVD. If you have trouble with it, basically what you're supposed to do is charge down while your HS is in its active frames, so that when you let it go, SVD comes out. It takes a little getting used to, but it's a lot simpler than a lot of the other combos other characters have.

I'd be okay with the pumpkin's current range if they didn't nerf the hit stun to hell. That makes the pumpkin almost useless in a lot of ways. Based on all of her current normals as well, it seems like only about a quarter or less of the combos that have been made for Rachel currently still work... maybe. That's me being generous. I'm wondering if they even realize how unplayable they're making her. I'm wondering if during a character's production if they even test the character first to see if they themselves can get combos off and such. Cause it doesn't look like it.

I had a LOT of trouble with Ragna when I first started the game, as I had no idea how to really get the pressure off of myself. But I always had a lot of trouble with Sol as well, and just about anyone with a DP. Tip: IB, wait, and 2c are nice. Try not to be predictable with 2c though, as the good Ragnas will be expecting it. IBing, 6a, and 5a, and 5b are my best friends when dealing with pressure. When all else fails, you could counter assault though.

For me, sometimes Jins gamble ice car if they get knocked away and expect a 236B or pumpkin. In this case, away knocking them away in whatever fashion I may have, I find 236A works a lot as well, but only if you add 8D to it. Helps make up for the delay on it quite a bit as sometimes I found myself getting punished for doing a normal 236A. This matchup really frustrates me at times, as I have trouble with their block strings.