Stellarcircle5

Both new characters look really solid. And I must say I was almost won over by Nanase and her relentless rushdown, definitely a character I would mess around with. Digging Byakuya's voice actress as well. He sure is unsettling to listen to. I'm pretty confident that neither will wind up in Akatsuki-tier, Nanase in particular. I'm getting so hype for this game, it's so close yet so far! On a side note, I have a question. Does anyone know the frame data on Gordeau's Grim Reaper? That move looks broken as shit and I'd love to see how absurd it's properties are.

This all day. Playing Valkenhayn under a subpar connection is suffering. All those height/distance dependent confirms become a guessing game on whether or not you pick them up too late. Good thing there are so many Azraels and Terumis to remind me that at least some people enjoy themselves online.

On Kokonoe's wakeup, you can OS her teleport with w.jC > w.5B/w.5C If she does not teleport, you get the overhead, if she does, she gets punished by the 5B/5C during recovery frames. Not a universal OS, but a good one against the crazy cat lady.

The 6 way mixup had me drooling, that sounds amazing! Thank you so much for the tips!

Hey guys, I'm back yet again for even more matchup questions. Simply put, I find the Ragna matchup to be one of if not THE hardest matchup in the game for me. With the wolf gauge nerf it seems that he literally gets to dictate the flow of the match if I ever try to go on the offensive. Here are some problems in particular I have: - At round start, all of Valkenhayn's options lose other than "run the hell away". - The Ragna I play is ridiculously smart when it comes to my bait/punish attempts. The only thing I seem to be able to punish in neutral is whiffed Inferno Divider. How unfortunate that he knows this and never uses it. Everything else recovers too fast it seems. If there are any ways you guys are able to coax out unsafe moves from him without being too obvious about it, let me know please. - I know that Valk's 2B low profiles Ragna's 5B. This is HUGE, but like before he knows this and uses 5C to make me eat shit instead. - Ragna has no qualms about running at you from full screen. When this happens I start to panic. Any button I press seems to lose and wolf moves get stuffed as well. - His pressure and mixup, while basic, is incredibly stress inducing. He is literally able to stay in my face until he decides to use Gauntlet Hades. This seems to be only way out if he has you in the corner (without system mechanics that is). - In the event that I do knock him down, running oki on Ragna feels super risky. Even the most carefully spaced w.5C on his wake up fails me most of the time. - His air normals are MASSIVE. All my anti airs seem to trade at best and air to airs seem unreliable. I don't usually use w.jA as an air to air anymore because you can't get anything good out of it. Should I be using it more to discourage Ragna from airdashing at me? - I won't even get into this in detail, but having to turtle for wolf meter almost always spells game over for me. Every time. I might even say that I may be playing this matchup a bit too passively, but I'm not sure where it's safe to go in. I found this matchup was super difficult in Extend, but Rags was absurd in that version, unfortunately it dosnt feel all that different in CP. His buttons are just too fucking good. Any tips would be appreciated, overcoming this matchup would make me feel so much more confident as a player.

Over the last couple of days I have had multiple run ins with people role playing in lobby mode. The same type of thing you would see on tumblr and shit. Otaku emoticons... Otaku emoticons everywhere.... This not why you bought the game. Please stop.

Hey, a man can dream. I knew it was futile from the beginning.

That poster from Imagine is fantastic. Starting to weigh my options now, maybe digital isn't the way to go. Orie, HNNNNGGGGGG!

Do we know any new optimal w.5C midscreen counter hit combos? Ever since the patch I've been scratching my head on what to do. If I go for the previous combo I would use I still get around 3.5 to 3.7k, but the amount of wolf meter spent just isn't worth it. Anybody have any ideas? For the record, my old combo was w.5C > 6D > 5D > 2C > 6B > 2C > TK 214B > 6D > 5D > 2C > 6C > 236A > 5B > 2C > j.B > djB > j.C Can't quite remember the actual damage but as I noted before it was around 3.5K, maybe slightly higher. Thanks in advance.

Hey guys, I know the P4U threads are generally pretty dead, but I had a question regarding this character. I was thinking of messing around with her since I really like her mixup game, the problem is I play on pad. I've heard that Shabrys isn't all that bad for pad players, but I'd like a second opinion. Would it just be as simple as mapping D to a shoulder button or are there better ways to go about it. My current setup is have C mapped to R1 and D mapped to L1. I'm also having issues with unwanted Asterius moves coming out. For example, I do an AoA and use C as the launcher, but that causes Knuckle Train to come out making me unable to end the combo with Flame of Hades. How do you guys bypass this? I'm sure these are all entry level puppet character questions, but they've always spooked me in terms of execution requirements, so this is my first foray into this character archetype. Thanks in advance (I was gonna post this in the Q&A thread but it was locked so...)

I just want to give some shoutouts to Shinsyn and Mike Z for giving me the extra push I needed to get over my fear of getting bodied by good players. It had been an issue for a long time and I couldn't be happier. Thanks guys, this community rocks.

After playing and talking to both Eshi and Hellfire at UFGT, I think its time we got some more info on this matchup. All I can say is DO NOT sleep on Amane. This character gives Valk a very hard time, and it's not just because I got ruthlessly bodied. If anyone has anything they could share that would be great. For now I have a few things I took note of: - Gekiren (623C) is air unblockable and can be RC'd for a tech trap reset. Eshi caught me off guard with this one. - His 6A is really big. - His j.B is really good against wolf. - 6B(2) whiffs on him midscreen. Why. - His pressure is honestly super scary if we don't have meter. (I don't really know where his strings are mashable so if someone could add that in it would be great.) I was told by both players that this matchup is actually in Amane's favor, and after what I saw I'm inclined to agree. He seems to control every bit of space that we want to be in. Any thoughts would be appreciated so that we can prevent another Valk from being like me, walking into this matchup like it will be free and getting wrecked :P

So I was one match away from making top 32. Not the best, but I'm pretty happy with my performance considering I only had a week to adjust to the changes. Thanks to all the guys here sharing their tech that helped me make my first major a memorable one! Kokonoe too stronk.

Azraels who love to throw out Sentinel Dump all the time. Your character's existence already has me conditioned to not press buttons, why must you insist armouring through everything when I do decide to make a move. Sentinel dump -> Sentinel dump -> Senintel dump XN also appears to be a blockstring in lag. Couple that with its massive invisible hitbox and its all fun and games. God this character is dumb sometimes.

So I found out that I will be on Nobody.Exe's stream this Friday at UFGT. I'm in pool B1 starting at 3:00 PM central time. Tune in and potentially cheer me on as all of the best Valks we have are across the pond, so we only have 2 representitives at UFGT including myself. Wish me luck, I feel like I'll need it. The stream: http://www.twitch.tv/nobodyexe

9 Azreals and counting. Weeeeee! Also filling in the last guy from our scene, ChipDamage Kiefer - Arakune

If you play Valk, the best description I can give is that his neutral is very matchup dependent. Now don't go quoting me on any of this, because neutral is still the weakest part of my gameplan but I can still offer some advice. One thing you need to realize is that despite the fact that you are playing a super rushdown heavy character, it's not always a good idea to go in. Because wolf can't block, players will be more inclined to just throw stuff at you (Ragna's Hells Fang, Azrael's Gustaff Buster, Terumi's 6C etc...) meaning that if you can't effectively approach due to them exploiting your inability to defend, you want to make them over extend themselves and make them eat shit for it. Did Azreal whiff a fullscreen Blackhawk Stinger in an attempt to tag you out of wolf? Use D command dash to get in there, score a 5C counter hit, carry him to the corner, and start your vortex. Oftentimes characters with strong normals and defensive options are the ones you want to play this game against. On the flip side, there are matchups like Arakune, Rachel and Nu where you just need to play the opposite. Find the opening in their zoning, get in, and kill them for it. These matchups are typically much more straightforward than the type I discussed above. TD covered neutral better in general, so take a look at his post of that's what you wanted. I just thought I'd give some specifics. Valkenhayn in 1.1 is more reliant on strong neutral than he has ever been, so start practicing, and good luck!

I think he is trying to ask if it is worth learning Koko at the price of being scorned by people. To that I say yes. Kokonoe, while very strong, is not unbeatable. Pre patch she sometimes felt invincible, this isn't the case anymore. She still has incredibly strong neutral and powerful oki setups, but her damage potential has been normalized. Is she dumb? Yeah. Is she heinously broken? No. I say go for it, you've picked a really good character.

I'm glad that Takenoko came around. He probably realized that with Kagura, the struggle is too real. I think with him, Uma, Suya, and Yuitaba among others, we have a pretty solid lineup of players to watch still. Still though, RIP Hima Valk 2013-2014: Taken from us by the scrubby Terumi army.

Some of our corner combos actually do less damage now. w.jC into optimal stuff now does 3.2 rather than 3.5. This seems like something that happened across the board. Unless there happens to be new optimal combos that I'm missing...

I'll agree here, I barely even get to play online because nobody wants to deal with Valkenhayn. It's like they don't realize he is virtually impossible to play effectively in lag.

For me, Seth's best colour name is without a doubt "Natural Tree". Is there really any other kind?

So I have to send my Valkenhayn through boot camp again one week before UFGT? Das it mane.

Oh lawd.

There is not much I can say about this matchup that makes it sound reasonable for Terumi. All I can say is j.D and 6A are pretty good against Valk. j.D in particular drives me up the freaking wall. If you are playing Valks that cancel Nacht Jaeger into command dash on block, you arent playing very good Valks. A good Valkenhayn will typically start mixup from a blocked w.5A or h.5B and only use command dash after select normals, not specials. But yeah, Valk kind of runs a train on Terumi. Its probably the easiest matchup in the game for Valk IMO.