Kinkuli

Early impression of azrael is that he is largely the same as in "vanilla". Only noticed Sentinel dump input change, Growler's new blowback arc, Hornet bunker changes and OD changes. No idea how the cobra change should work, dogura had no idea either. BD change is pretty much unnoticeable. Blowback arc for Growler looked funky and it looked like tao could maybe still punish growler but dogura told me that that is not the case so all is good in the kingdom now. Tried 2 dual weakpoint combo's with new hornet. From midscreen Forward throw - 6A iad jC - bunker - 5A TC valiant still worked atleast on tao. Feels harder to do and might be character specific. Not sure it it's worth the effort. In corner forward throw - 5D - bunker - 5A - aerial still works. Not sure about all chars but litchi and tao got hit and i'm pretty sure it will work on every char. Like said didn't notice anything new on cobra, still had to time leopard after cobra hit. So uh, no idea about this one. OD changes are sweet. Impossible to drop older combos and it actually opened new routes. Dogura posted something like 5A 5B ODc 2C 6D sentinel 5D sentinel valiant 5Cx4 6A stinger, dmg 6100. So i guess more optimal combos will use 6D sentinel 5D sentinel valiant instead of the old 6D 5D valiant route. UB "blockstring" in OD looks like something to 5D gustaf 5A 2D stinger. New Sentinel input is sweet. I watched a stream earlier and got an idea. Midscreen TCL dash tk sentinel might be thing from now on. It's pretty sweet. Tags rolls, plus on block BUT loses to some reversals like ID (beats all reversals jin has!!!). It might be really good in some matchups. PS. 2A TC valiant still whiffs on litchi. Most likely same situation with other chars which had this problem.

Yay for improvement! What i noticed is that at some point you autopiloted 5B 5BB 2A gustaf. You also did crossups now which is good. I saw you doing tiger and 5B but i personally like doing 5a and tiger. I don't think i saw any 5Ds though. People plz it's the god overhead! Use it! If you are getting DPd or mashed out then you probably need to few things. Use frametraps to discourage mashing, anything to gustaf works out pretty good. Bait DP's now and then and punish (captain obvious i know). Also it helps if you can react to IBs. You seemed to recognize the situations where gustaf got IBd so this shouldn't be a problem. Also try to look for patterns how people like to react to different situations. Sometimes you have to make a hard reads sure but if you play enough you should get a hunch how people usually like to react.

I would probably just do 5D gustaf to 5A 2D BHS in OD tbh. If that works that is. But that's pretty obvious and i don't think Azrael has any air tight setups to 5D so...Probably just better to use OD for comboing and leave gimmicks at the shelf(if they happen to work sure go ahead, abuse them!). BD duration is like psh whatever. Don't give a fuck. Might wanna tone down BDing in corner though, if one happens to be a fan of that. Hornet got nerfed and buffed. I like the chaser change. Not sure how to feel about losing dual weakpoints. To be fair i only used the corner one which you get with UW and throw, so i don't really mind that much. Either way i'm probably gonna head to Hachioji to on 19th to test out stuff and maybe get games in. I really want to see the cobra changes in action. It's probably really minor but still. Just want to make sure it doesn't fuck up corner combos or combos to valiant but i'm pretty sure no(there might be examples in jaepo vids but meh, don't remember ;(). PS: Shoutouts to people being salty at Azrael BD in general thread.

Backstep duration from 26f to 28f Negative penalty resistance from 6 to 5 Added special cancel to D moves during Overdrive Possible to cancel to sentinel from 3C after 26th Frame instead of 30th frame (i think?) Hornet bunker hitstun 30f to 24f, Frame advantage from -19 to -13, float after hitting is lower. Hornet chaser trajectory changed, i think they mean that if you hit with bunker while opponent is high then the chaser part also chases higher, making it easier to continue comboing. Adjusted the blowback on cobra strike Sentinel dump input is now 214C Growler field hitstun changed from 17f to 27f, adjusted the blowback on hit. Might have made few errors here or there buti think that's pretty accurate.

Nope. I don't think there were any notable azrael players attending jaepo so nothings been tested i believe. Gotto wait for the patch.

I think there are some routes from jD ODC jC etc. You should find those on combo thread but i haven't seen a lot of them in JP matches though. One thing you can always do is do the Valiant combo without activating OD and after 3C or 6A to OD activation to scud. If you have low enough health you can do pretty damaging combo if opponent makes a wrong read. Be ready to bait DPs though. People like to mash DP in those situations usually. Apart from those, no imo. Dogura used 5A 5B ODC at mixup night but that's more or less the same as 5B 5BB to ODC. I think i saw him do OD once whole mixup night. Having that burst is just so valuable when you are fighting kokos, taos and valks all day =/.

Thanks! My hands were shaking quite a bit after the set. I derped real hard few times in the sets but yeah. Next time i'll have his head! The sets against the arakune/jin player were bit funny tbh. I did worse against his kune than i should have, even if i won.. Also the patch can't come soon enough..i did multiple correct reads on rachel player i played next with growler and ended either punished or back in pressure ;(. Bit sad i couldn't talk to dogura during the event but i tweeted him and he invited me to the next MUN! He also wanted to play sets i think :3. All in all had fun even if i dropped out pretty fast. That galileo set was probably the current highlight of my whole career haha.

Apart from like few entries, that list looks pretty logical. I really would like to know the reason for jin being slighty in favor for azrael and why is rachel even. Also Relius and Litchi seem a bit weird but yeah. Might need to ask him at mixup night. Maybe I'll learn some ancient chinese secrets! Nu probably isn't there because you can get phalanx stocks so easily in that MU. After you get stocks, it gets really dangerous for Nu to use her ground swords. Even if you just randomly throw out one, you still probably have 1 or 2 more and you can always just get more. And like Rath said, once you get in, she dies pretty much. Though you need to be sure that she can't use calamity sword or w/e that big ass sword move is. But ofc you can't just rush in. You need to be really patient in this matchup, but it pays off pretty fast.

Pretty much yeah. Crouch confirms also pump up the damage a bit. On standing however one needs a weak point or meter like you said. I think it's pretty good to remember the CT combos tbh. They add a weak point so you can pump out more damage. Need to be right next to the opponent however =(. I personally find myself using 5C most of the time because welp people like to wakeup DP so they usually have UW. And without you can just use 5D or 3D. I like 5D more personally, because i get opponent to the corner from everywhere and i don't think that it loses that much in damage compared to 3D anyways.

It really depends where you are in the screen, is OD possible? If so how much hp? Weak points? If you get corner 5C CH then the world of pain is imminent. It's atleast 6,1k with 25% meter. If you already have UW it can crack up to 6.5k+ with 25 meter or closer to 7.6kish if you spend 50% meter. with OD even more. Midscreen depends on a lot of situations again. If you have UW then its around 5k without meter and fullscreen corner carry. Considering most characters don't get this high numbers of their fatal counters i would say Azrael's 5C CH is pretty deadly :3. Anyways the combo thread should have a lot of FC combos listed. Should find good ones there.

Overdrive D Attacks – Can now be special canceled Hornet Bunker – Decreased recovery, when it activates a weak point, the knockback is smaller Cobra Spike – Adjusted the knockback to make it easier to combo into Leopard Launcher Sentinel Dump – Input is now 214C Growler Field – Increased untechable time, now blows the opponent much higher Translation from Xie and should be a lot more accurate than mine. I guess i was wrong on the untechable time for hornet. Seems like 2 weakpoint combos should still be in. EDIT: Also might be better to swap to these translations for the Azrael changes thread. EDIT2: Fast work there! Great job!

Yeah they probably want to get rid of dual weakpoint combos. I guess i can agree with that. Sentinel change i'm pretty happy about. Easier to use it in valiant combos!

Soo azrael changes. Im not 100% sure about translation so yeah... D moves have special cancel during OD Growler has more active frames. More hitstun and blows enemies farther(?). Basicly Growler is now safe on hit. Hornet bunker has less untechable. Sentinel dump is now 214C instead of 623C. There's something about Cobra strike and Leopard launcher but im not sure. Might be that it is easier to hit with Leopard launcher if you hit with Cobra strike!? EDIT: Dogura is hype as fuck about Azrael stuff! Hornet changes might mean few things, but too early to say?

On the topic of running away. I just usually do just dash in after they whiff their pokes. Dash dash, dash to IAD or dash tk gustaf are pretty decent options. Once i'm in range i might try to use 6C to tag their jump or whatever they try to do. Thats pretty much all you can do if they have HP lead. Now if YOU have the HP lead then you can just stay where you are and poke with 5C and AA with 2C. After they have to come to you, you can also start trying to get on the offence as they are coming towards you. But like zeth said, it's more in the design of Azrael than anything. Having no real forced oki is also pretty bad. From time to time i just wish ASW would scrap the current teching system and just copy pasted the one from GG. It just gets annoying sometimes to guess from all the options people have while they are down. But then again on correct read azrael brings the pain :3.

2A meaty isn't that bad in this match up really. It basicly takes away her 4D mash on wakeup and let's you run your basic pressure, albeit in a bit modified form. Once you do it few times the noel players usually, if they are smart, stop spamming 4D. Now 4D can be a problem if your pressure strings get to a point where you are at 5B/5BB etc. stage. At that point 4D becomes a real threat but luckily you can still gatling to 3C to blow it up. Other than that, i'd personally try to play this match a bit more carefully. Her drive moves are the god and atleast in japan people tend to use them preemptively A LOT. If you notice some habits your opponent have, like where they tend to mash 4D then you can try to blow it up with 3D for tons of damage. Might want to hold back on 5BB to stuff in this match up because 4D. Even if 5BB is is +5, it leaves you in bit of a bad position in this match up imo. In a nutshell: 2A oki all day everyday, if she has 50 meter then you need to read out reversal fenrirs. Once you condition her not to use 4D on every wakeup then you can run more of your pressure game like 2A 5A 2A, 2A 2A, 2A 5D etc. Crossups are also pretty good i suppose. Be careful with AAing because she can use preemptive jD.

What i noticed was why no mixups!? Even if it's tager you should use your 5D more. Most of the time you just went to either 5A 5B IAD crossup or 5A 5B 5BB. Saw few 5Ds but you probably should mixup with like 5A 2A or 5A 5D, 5A 2A 5A etc. But yeah confirms, execution, mixups for starters. There are some players in Finland so if you happen to know Blodwig then he might be able to help you reach them. Lanruisen is probably the best one there atm. Not sure how active they are but....

I believe other chars can punish it too but the situations are more specific rather than just hitting with it and tao tech jDing it. Also i'm pretty happy where azrael is tbh. Just make the DP unpunishable on normal hit and leave him alone otherwise.

Yeah growler not blowing opponent away would be nice but i think that if they just change it to be non-punishable on hit, then it's ok. If they do that then i find that growler blowing opponent away is a fair trade off. Getting phalanx from hitting growler would be really cool but it also would be really stupid in some match ups. Though it would give something nice to work with in Valk match up! Also BB @ Evo2014. I'm probably gonna attend. I still need to figure out stuff like hotel room or if i can get 1 or 2 or 3 people to share room with me.

You already can dash cancel 6B, asking for jc would just be asking for easymode tbh.

Ehm Azrael can just hit platinums counter with 5A and hold back to block the followup and punish you. If the azrael you're playing is bad then sure it works! Now i give you that Platinum can zone him out if she has the correct items. Problem is that once azrael gets in and get few hits, you're pretty much done. And if he happens to get a HP lead and you get him of your neck. Then you need to come to him and that's where he wants you. And really, you link a match of a 12dan platinum against a 2dan V-13? Really now? Sure dan ranking isn't clear indication of skill but you can clearly see that the platinum player is better player So if you wanna NTR everyone into thinking platinum is good then that video really isn't the best proof to give tbh. Sure she isn't garbage, Dogura ranked her around B tier in his latest list so there's that. Then again when you think of S tier and A tier in this game, B tier is pretty bad already. Top tiers in this game don't give a shit if you have few good normals or few good options. If you ever want to win something that really matters, your character NEEDS to have bullshit to deal with the current top tier. Platinum does not have bullshit. She's borderline solid sure but that just isn't enough in this game. We can talk all day about OUTPLAYING your opponents but those things have nothing to do with how good or bad your character is. Whelp im done. Gimme the patch so i can go grind Azrael in arcades. For now i guess i'll go spam funnels to Full boost lobbies. EDIT: Don't really feel like wasting space for a post so I'll just add reply here. Just tell your friend stop autopiloting to 5B and maybe use 5A gustaf, 5A 2A gustaf etc. Sounds like he could just do that and you would eat conterhits all day. This or just direct him to Azrael subforums where people can teach him how to azrael. Because frankly, if he knew what he was doing, you wouldnt want to push buttons. Atleast not 5A.

So i read dogura's wishes for the next patch and i agree with most of them tbh(Azrael changes, and don't buff arakune!!). https://twitter.com/jiyunaJP/status/430862176518017024/photo/1 you can find them here. One thing that would be REALLY REALLY cool, like dogura says, is that growler wouldn't be punishable ON HIT. I die a bit inside every time i hit tao with it and they just tech and JDs to punish. Soooo stuuupiiiiid.

Actually there's a lot of decent and really good platinums in arcades. The fact just is that she isn't that of a good character mostly because of the reasons Xie gave in his document. And to top it of she isn't "dirty" enough. Even if she gets correct items in correct times, she's just honest at that point. Nothing that major to abuse tbh. She also dies to pressure and what you know all the top tiers have pretty damn good pressure in this game! Anyways. Nerf valk, koko and tao. Don't neuter them, but make them a bit less silly. Do something to hakumen, he's pretty dull i suppose. If you want to go nuts, give azrael BDC, ODC to gustaf and a command grab #kappa.

I guess that's true also. However you still need to hit with that 5B and tbh if you opponent isn't sleeping or just derping around, i don't really see it happen that often. Most of the times for me opponents either open up with 2A/5D/throw or from crossup dickery. And i still believe even if you confirm 5BB you still need to be fairly close for the "optimal" 2C 6D to hit so that you can still continue with 5D? I guess you could just omit it and use TC valiant instead :3. I might have a bit of an hakumen syndrome in this regards . You either get tons of damage or you dont get shit! Though this does give me somethings to think about! Thanks for that zeth! EDIT: @Rath probably something along 5B > 5BB > ODc > 2C > 6D > 5D > 236D > {6>5C}*4 > 6 > 3C > 6A > 5D to get UW back and if you have more OD time just end with 3D instead i guess.

The "problem" with Azrael OD is, for me atleast, A. You lose burst which can make your life hard in certain match ups. B. It's hard to confirm to anything good aside from punishes to really unsafe moves. One thing they could do to make OD more tempting would be adding ODc to gustaf. This way one could hitconfirm and still be in range to do OD combos even from farther ranges and not just from in your face situations. But then again that's not how Azrael works so meh. Also screw dandy step, just add pilebunker!

One thing to keep in mind is that IF (really big IF here) they happen to add new moves to Azrael's repertoire, then there might be more routes where one could abuse the OD change. In this context however it doesn't feel like that of a big deal. Easy combos just got easier. Ofc it's also possible they dick around with how D moves work when you hit weakpoints with them. Not really seeing them doing this though.