Steve French

Sorry, didn't word it properly. By "standard crappy grab" I meant the C+D one, not megidola. That throw is much better at catching evasives than megidola, but you can't really get much out of it damage-wise.

I too counted 7 real-time seconds on all fear versions. As for fear itself, midscreen its somewhat unimpressive due distance and that people can outright crouch it. It might be a good *ahem* scare tactic to fish for DPs or extend your 5A combos but that's about it. Corner however I think there's potential for more intimidating stuff. While C and D fear go off screen in corner, SB fear tracks and might be a worthwhile 25 SP investement thanks to 214C/D. In corner the command grab is somewhat underwhelming unless cough up 50 SP to cancel it into riser. With fear applied, you can get a 3K meterless combo at least. 4K if you have riser buff and use slide route. Not just that, if you wait about 3 seconds before executing your command grab fear combo, you get back the meter you spent on applying SB fear and a bit extra. The downside of this set up that I see is that first; you have to get them to the corner and find a way to apply regular/SB fear. Second; if they are feared and you eat a hit or a DP while trying to grab them, there goes your set up. Third; Unless you know it's coming and you are properly positioned, they can A+C dash through the command grab. Even the C version is too slow to catch on reaction. But there some solutions to some these problem. Test the waters by baiting their DPs. If they do get hasty and DP, that there is a 5C fatal pain train to discourage them. If you think they are more likely to dash through, use the C+D grab. Although you can't follow it up with anything but a OMB (and IMO that's an absolute waste of a burst unless it'll win you the match), its fast enough for you to successfully keep them pinned in corner for another attempt at some fear shinnanigans. Making them more desperate to do something dumb to attempt to get out or play overly defensive so that you can command grab.

I say the slide route is worth learning to an extent and here's how I justify it: 1st, slide route doesn't affect just 1 or 2 routes. It can affect most major routes where Adachi has to spend meter. With the slide route, while the difference is not in the thousands, you would be upping the damage of most of his repetoire. This on the other hand can be felt when a bigger portion your meter-dependant combos are doing 300-600 more damage. This also brings me to the 2nd point: Adachi is meter hungry, incredibly so. On sweep alone you spend 25 sp and sacrifice almost all meter gain for that extension. If possible yes, I would like to take that extra 677 damage. I think this goes double for your unblockable set ups where you burn 50 SP for mandala buff + another 50 SP for Riser's rage status. Finally the nice thing about the slide route is that if you feel that your 5B height is off/you're not confident enough/your connection is being a dick, you can opt out of it. You have time to decide up until J.C whether or not you want to attempt the slide. The way I learned it is for now just focus on getting the slide from stuff where it is easy to get a consist 5B; sweep and 5D. During those routes the most problamatic drop point (in my case anyway) is getting the J.C timing. Other than that if you can master the usual J.C loop, adding the slide isn't too painful once you know how it behaves. Especially compared to landing instant air dash J.C after 5C.

Behold! I have come out of lurking to share what I know about Adachi's slide route. I've been testing the slide quite a bit over the weekend and Red's correct in terms the juggle is very important to get 236BB to slide. However there are 2 other factors I observed that affect whether or not the juggle causes a satysfing slide or a dissapointing throw; the height of when you land your 5B to into 2C>J.C>stuff and your opponents hit box. Here's what I mean; Red's corner 3538 dmg is good, but I can make it slightly better by adding a 5C after first 5B to make; Corner Sweep>SBGunshot>5B>5C>2C>Hop>delayJ.C>236BB>5B>2B>J.2C>J2.D. This does 3902 dmg w/out Riser and 4290 with Riser. The caveat is this combo works on everyone but Kanji, Yukiko and both Shos (can't test on Margaret, don't have her). Against those 4 you omit the 5C I added otherwise it will always grab. A similar route with same rules can be done off of a 5D starter for all the unblockable enthusiasts. Corner or Close to it>5D>5B>5C>2C>Hop>delayJ.C>236BB>5B>2B>J.2C>214A(3297 dmg w/out riser, 3621 dmg with). The height thing comes in when you're doing more advanced combos. With sweep or 5D its very easy to get a consistant height with your 5B when you hit them, this is harder to do (for me anyway) with combos where you connect it off of 236236B. So for example: 5AA>5B>5C(1)>236AA>236236B>5B>stuff into slide. I found that if 5B hits them too low you will have to adjust your J.C timing to be a bit sooner, otherwise it will likely grab. But anyway, those are my observations on the slide route so far. Its good damage wise, but can be very finnicky depending on combo routes. Online lag will likely kill me. Also on the topic of poison; I've eyeballed it and I believe poison off of 5C or J.C under mandala will deal about 100dmg per second, over 5 seconds. So that's 500 "invisible" damage on top of your combo if you have at least 1 5C/J.C in it. The time refreshes for every subsequent 5C/J.C, effectively increasing Adachi's combo dmg by a good 600-800 dmg from the sweep/5D combos alone. You can probably get more if you had a good counter or fatal starter with lots of C buttons in it. Anyway that's all I got, back to obscurity.

Of the same week? Which shipping option did you use?