Magaki

This one ?

I think he mostly was talking about pre-patch. As for jB, do you mind giving the source for "jB leads to the same combo" Errol ? That sentence would either mean that jB leads to the same combo as jA pre-patch or that jB isn't an S starter but a special starter so it's quite vague.

Holy shit ! Shyn and Errol, you guys are amazing ! Anyway, I thought he mentionned something based on the changes because he talked with a guy called abeshi_valken that also talks with Takenoko. I thought they were exchanging informations. Guess I was wrong to think it was the case. Btw do you mind taking a peek at Suya's tweets during the 15th of february ? You might not find a lot of useful stuff though. Seems Suya talked mostly with a lot of people at this point (Ryo, Kouya, Miya etc).

After grinding it out non-stop, I noticed something silly I do but forgot to mention: I have the habit of waiting a bit after doing 5B>5C>Air combo to decide which ender shall I use based on height. In other words, You have to delay slightly your jump cancel (or hjABC itself. You just have to delay something.) to make it meaty. I noticed it when I decided to stop doing it as usual and try to speed it up. Another important point. It seems that even if you delay it, you don't hit on the "first frame". So if you do it right it means you will hit the opponent during the ~4th frame. So it's much less reliable than it looks like. (I first tested it with a friend holding up back and after trying it ten times in a row, I called it a day. Tested it much more today and indeed, if you don't do it right at the exact frames (thank god buffering exist), opponent can jump out of it.) Another detail I mentionned on skype: I'm certain everyone know this but backdashing is the best way to deal with w5C. Problem is that while you only have to watch out for Valk's and Relius' backdash in the corner, a lot of characters can just backdash and escape pressure quite easily this way. Hope that helped even a little bit.

Hakumen's main worry while waking up is whether or not you will use the command grab because Yukikaze gets beat by throws. I just use standard enders and put myself in w5C range. If he rolls away, he ends up just before me so I can mixup/throw him. If he emergency techs/delay, I run at point blank range to get in w236C's range. You have to make Hakumen keep guessing between whether or not you will grab. If you're too far for a throw, he will know that your only choice is to meaty or bait Yukikaze. This situation is obviously less advantageous than being in throw range. Don't abuse the command grabs though or he might try to tk Hotaru your nuts.

*Use a gem/magic to summon Shyn* Suya seems to have tweeted a lot about Valk recently. Can you translate interesting stuff he said for us, plebs who don't know how to weeaboo ?

I don't think you got what a VS starter means. Exactly when you hit the opponent with wjA, 4 frames of hitstun is removed on all your moves from now on. brjA>h5B will never link. After that, hitstun will keep decreasing meaning we can barely do 3-4 hits that are extremely fast before the opponent tech nevertheless. Any wolf>human transition will never work in those conditions because 5D>5B/5C is way too slow and that's why none of your combos will work. Just do the maths. The BEST THING we can hope is brjA>w5B>w5C>wjA>w5B>wjB. Allows us to do quite a lot of things on oki but the timing will be extremely tight. Anyway, forget about wjA. If you want an overhead in wolf, you have to use either wjC or 6D>wjB. wjA is garbage in CP1.1 and will only prove to be a waste of wolf gauge.

Nah. Opponent get hit standing if they try to jump out of pressure. Did you try to do the 3C as fast as possible ?

No Valk in it sadly.

We are just back to square one anyway. Waiting for arcade videos and hoping that Uma no Hone/Zekuso/Suya/Takenoko or whatever Valk bro will find something. If they all drop him like CP Arakune though, the answer is clear. Based on Takenoko though, we have a buff that we totally needed: 6A on CH floats higher ! Let's just hope that there is/are other unannounced changes that might fix the situation.

I hope they buffed wjC's hitbox. I don't want to just rely on spamming command grabs 24/24.

It just means that if Sturm whiff, only the first attack will come out. Not the rest. Supposedly it's a buff but only for people who Sturm randomly. As for wjA being VS, that's indeed a huge nerf. Would mean we would only be able to properly mixup with wjC but then again, the move is mostly viable as a meaty. Anyway, it's not the only move that got nerfed this way. Let's just hope that they will actually change the combo system OR that wjA becomes a special combo starter like Hazama's command grab.

Valk's changes in CP2: Wolf Gauge – Anytime Valkenhayn transforms into a human, the time before the Wolf Gauge recovers has been increased Wolf Jump A – Combo starter time has been decreased Wolf Jump B – Combo starter time has been decreased Ground Kunig Wolf – Decreased the startup time Sturm Wulf – Is now a catch attack instead of a full animation super. Increased speed of the animation portion Source: Xie on SRK. Honestly, the nerfs are really quite vague. If wjA is indeed the worst that could happen and be a VS starter, we will never be able to get back the wolf gauge we used hindering a lot Valk's mixup.

LMFAOOOOOOOO Brb picking Arakune next event.

There is honestly no trick here we can give you as it is something quite basic. Only thing you can do is to practice it again and again until it works.

Posting here to remind people that the event is tomorrow. Make sure you don't forget !

Double post because this is something completely unrelated and I'll forget to post it again if I don't do it now: Kiba found a new tech quite a while ago particularly good. Midscreen, when you have to do the usual 5B>5C>air combo, instead of ending it with jBBC or hjBABBC, end it with hjA>jB>jC. Exactly when you land afterwards, press 3C. If the opponent tried to delay tech, quick tech or roll (backward or forward), he will get OTG'ed by the 3C (if the opponent rolls away, you pressed 3C way too late). If you get a hitconfirm with 3C, press 236A right away for more corner carry. If you don't get a hitconfirm (opponent emergency tech), press 1DC for a wolf loop. It will allow you to meaty the opponent on the first frames and you will be exactly in w5C range allowing you to avoid most DPs except Litchi's, Tsubaki's and Ragna's. Obviously, it got the same weakness w5C has which is backdash beats it. If your opponent is backdash happy, just do 3C>6D>wjA instead. Summary: Stuff>5B>5C>hjABC ender. 3C while landing. 3C>236A on hit. 3C>1DC if it whiffs. It's an excellent tech which works midscreen so I would strongly suggest you to learn it.

Of course. Will be glad to count you in !

Well, your question actually makes sense and might help people going through the Q&A thread. Just make sure you post there next time you have a question though.

It's both the pushback and directional influence.

If you do 1DC for the wolf loop, you will always move backward. I'm gonna explain exactly how the wolf loop works: The goal of the wolf loop is obviously to land another airtight/comboable w5C right after a first w5C. For that, you need to obviously be on the ground and the only way to cancel w5C is with a special. Rasen wolf ([X]D in wolf mode) is obviously what we use. Problem is that Rasen seems to have some landing recovery. If you notice closely, Wolf Valk will do the same animation as when he lands from a normal jump. Except that you can cancel right away with a normal one but there is an important delay with a Rasen wolf. Just do w5C>2D and mash w5C afterwards to see how important it is. In order to avoid it, we brake Rasen Wolf BEFORE Valk lands. If you do it this way, you won't have to suffer any landing recovery and the second w5C will be done right away thanks to advanced input. It's quite important to understand because if you had a brake like for a brjA, it means you pressed 1/4C way too fast. If you get a delayed w5C instead, it means you pressed it way too late and went through the landing recovery. I think the reason why you're getting confused is because you're thinking that brjA and wolf loop is the same when it's not. Rasen Wolf is done in 2 steps: -Wolf Valk stays idle for a while "charging" his move. -Wolf Valk dashes in the desired direction. A brjA consist of braking exactly during the first step in order to stop your momentum and be in midair. The wolf loop is done during the second step. In other words, between the first step and the landing, you have to press that 1/4C to be able to pull it off so you will ALWAYS end up moving according to whether you pressed 1, 2 or 3. Finally, considering you will do a w5C right after, the push back will push you some distance away with a 1DC, really slightly with 2D4C and not at all with 3D4C. If you still have troubles, I'll try to explain it more clearly. P.S: Kiba, could you please move 50-50's question and my posts in the Q&A section ? Honestly don't want to go off-topic in the combo thread.

Same here. I agree with everything except brjA. Reason why this has always been around is because ASW obviously wants to make him the mixups god and that's pretty much the main reason why Valk is Valk. Anyway, I still would rather prefer minor changes made on Valk for buffs/nerfs and major buffs for the mid/low tiers. Massively nerfing the tops and buffing others randomly only feel like we are just switching the top tiers which doesn't help a lot balance-wise. But then again, Valk/Hazama and Tao don't get it because of their strong drives.

First, what do you mean by directional influence ? It's quite hard to help you if you use terms that are so vague. If you're referring to pressing 1/2/3D for the wolf loop, then it's quite self explanatory. 3D makes you move forward so that when you do the w5C loop, you stay on the same spot because of 3D and w5C's pushback. 2D will push you back slightly and 1D quite a lot. If you're referring to the break during the wolf loop which is done with 1/4/7C, it's always the same command and will have the same result.

Not really. You pretty much said everything Valk had to do however it lacked some datas. Considering that I sub(ed) Azrael, I just added what I knew. Only way for Azrael to win is if the Valkenhayn he's facing is screwing up so the matchup is even worse for Azrael than you might think.

Sorry for not replying earlier. Here are a few things I would like to clarify. Neutral: -An Azrael trying to play footsies by using moves like 5C, 3C, 2C or other kind of pokes is an Azrael assuming the fact he will get owned by a lot of recovery. If you see him whiffing one of those moves, it's a free ticket for a 6D>wjA punish. -Azrael's vertical range isn't that great compared to other anti-airs. Cross-ups works wonders against him too. Using tactics like wj236A>(X)D isn't a bad idea. -When Azrael usually have 50 meter to do BHS if you have 2 weakpoints, you can only jump barrier it to block it. If he does 5C>BHS, you can CA him during the superflash. Defense: -Learn his framedata. 5A is +1, 5BB is +5, 6C is +2 and 2A is +2. Gustav is +1 and 623C is +12 (the latter lose to mash 5A and is easy to react to. The guardpoint starts really early so you have nothing to fear.) -Gustav is used to get in if he's too far for a proper pressure. Most of the time, he will be too far for 5A so he will go for 5B. You can poke him out of it with 2A or just backdash. IBing Gustav is however the best choice. -He got no way to safely use 6D or 3D. Poke him out of it with 2A on reaction and punish him. -2C on block is bad. His only choices afterwards are 3C, 6D and 3D. Keep blocking and react to the 6D and 3D. If you block 3C, he's massively in disadvantage. If you notice 6D or 3D, mash 2A. -5BB>5D is a common gatling. Expect it. He can also go for 2D but it will be a link. You can do something simple like blocking high then low if you don't block anything. Of course, if he decides to go for 6D or 3D, mash 2A once more. -All his drives are bad on block. Don't let him reset pressure ! -Go in training and look closely at his particular animation when he dashes forward. Poking him out of it might not be a great idea because he can cancel his dash with a jump and hit you by doing something like 662147C. If he does that though, he's in disadvantage. -The first two parts of his rekkas (236C>46C>6C) can be cancelled with Valiant (overhead) and Hornet(low). Both are massively bad on block. Offense: -Azrael's only ways out are his DP and his backdash. His DP gets owned by w5C quite easily. It's actually the easiest DP to deal with. His backdash got a lot of recovery. Against backdash happy Azrael's midscreens you can do something like w5A>w5C. If the w5A whiffs, he will get hit by the w5C. Obviously, it loses to his DP unless you're like me and worked on your okizeme. In that case: Growler's startup is 11 frames. w5A's recovery is 7. If you tried to meaty him with the last active frames, you will recover before you get hit by Growler making him whiff it with the right spacing. -Tao, Hazama and Valk makes Azrael hates his own Growler. On HIT (not counter), you can tech and press jD>6D to PUNISH HIM ON HIT. Which is really hilarious. It's one of the reason why Azraels typically don't DP against those 3 characters. That's mostly because Growler got 47 raw recovery (If he hits you on the first active frame it's 53) for only 17 frames of hitstun on hit. More than enough to punish him with character possessing a good air mobility. -BHS isn't a reversal. It's the case for Scud. Anyway, recognize the startup and remember to press 7D against BHS and 4D against Scud ! Don't have anything else to add. Azrael is pretty much dog food if you know how to deal with him.