Angel-tastic

@KiT Beely: Izayoi is a contender for "Worst Character in the Game"™, which I don't agree with i might add, but she's considered bottom tier, so I wouldn't play her if you're looking for a high-tier character; only if you actually think she looks like fun to play. It's the same deal for Tsubaki. Izayoi could be considered stronger after the patch, but so far I don't think there's too much BBCP 1.1 footage of her yet. I agree with Sashi that Rachel is the strongest character out of those you're considering, but Haku-men is pretty strong too. Also, the characters' names are "Mu-12" and "Nu-13". I don't know which character you all are referring to with "Mu-13". Mu-12 is Noel's super mode and Nu-13 is the Sword Summoner.

Yeah, I was actually kind of hoping for maybe a DP that costs a stock or something in BBCP 1.1 since, like you say, in practice you don't know what the opponent will do, so the situational invulnerability isn't all that helpful. 6A seems like its sometimes OK for countering jump-ins and IADs, but there was one game where I did that and guard-pointed the aerial attack... and then 6A whiffed and I got hit anyway, so I stopped doing that, and people use a lot of lows too, so it's difficult to use on the ground. The times I've gotten 6A to work, it did a fantastic job, so I see potential in it. Though it's no DP, it could be the next best thing that doesn't cost resources. It's still very risky nevertheless.

Greetings all. There's one thing I'm wondering about if anyone knows yet. Is it still possible to do a normal air dash in Gain Art mode in BBCP 1.1, or do we have to do the angled dash?, which is quite nice I might add, but the straight one is useful too.

I seem to recall reading that after the patch, in addition to fixing 5B's hurtbox so that you don't get countered anymore when you "clash" with another attack, they were also fixing the "vertical hit-box" somehow. I'm assuming this is so no one can low-profile it anymore, so that would be great if that were the case. Actually, the Gain Art overheads should be quite a bit faster than average. j.B is 9 frames and j.C is 12 frames ,and the hover-dash start-up is 4 frames IIRC, so 66 j.B is 13 frames and 66 j.C is 16 frames. (EDIT: Hoverdash start-up total is actually 9 frames, so that's 18 and 21 frames respectively, but that's still quite fast for an overhead though.) I think the main reason they're so easy to counter is that you can't easily get close enough for them to actually hit that fast, and your opponent knows you can't dash into a low, so they're just waiting for your hover-dash so they can anti-air you. If you can actually force the opponent to block somehow, a lot people seem like they respect Izayoi's faster than average overheads, and won't attempt to counter them because you have enough other options that it would be too risky. Also, just for some cute things I do, I like to use Gain Art 3C, 6C, and CS Gamma a lot in neutral and block-strings, as well as her teleports. Most are at least somewhat unsafe, but that's so much extra stuff for the opponent to keep track of that a lot of people never see them coming. You just have to use them at appropriate times when you think the opponent is going to do something specific. After the patch, I'll probably use 6B a lot more too with the frame 4 low invulnerability, and 6A with frame 4 guard-point. Heh, I just realized that after the patch, Izayoi will have a move with frame 4 invulnerability against everything; CS Alpha and Aegis Blade have frame 4 invulnerability against aerial attacks, and normal mode 6C has frame 4 body invulnerability. Her defence/counter-attacking could be really interesting if someone learned how to use all of these competently. If you knew what attack the opponent was going to do next, you could instant block +4 moves and counter whatever they did next (besides throws) with the appropriate attack. EDIT: Oops. I forgot the inactive frames for the hover-dash. Thanks Celerity!

It's not that they're too far away, but rather that the 2A makes them a little too high to hit, so you have to delay CS Alpha ever so slightly and wait for them to fall a bit. The timing is indeed really hard though. I never actually use that combo. That said, I can't get it to work on Amane, but his hit-box is really strange though, so I'm not sure if I'm timing it wrong or if that combo just doesn't work on him at all. It works on the other 3 though. EDIT: Just to clarify, CS Alpha will hit Amane, but the last Aegis Blade won't. I think his hit-box is probably too far away or something. The other 3 have lower/wider hit-boxes I think. @Celerity: Speaking of this combo, I remember you mentioned that there was a way to make it work from a max range 5B, which I haven't been able to do. I tried mashing it out as fast as I can, but I can't seem to get the 5C out fast enough to hit them with CS Gamma no matter how quickly I input it. Am I still missing something? Delaying Valkyrie Astraea leaves them too far away for 5C at that range.

I remember SKD mentioning this at some point in the past. You have to add in an extra 2A to make that combo work on those characters, i.e.: Throw - (214B) - CS Gamma - 214A - 2A - Aegis - 214C - CS Alpha - 214B - Aegis

While we're on the topic, is 4/1 also the date for the BBCP 1.1 console patch? I've heard from a few people that it was supposed to be next week, but I've yet to see a date for it though.

Oh, I see what you mean. Air D Sonic Saber does that, but Ground D Sonic Saber starts moving immediately. I feel like you could probably still space the D Saber so that the cross-up works though, especially considering the push-back it has on Izayoi, but I guess that depends on how early it's cancelable. I don't think I've seen any Izayoi players use it yet from the 1.1 streams, so it's hard to say.

They reduced the start-up by 6 right? That means that D Sonic Saber would be as fast as A Sonic Saber now, so probably would make a pretty good cross-up. Expensive though, but I'm sure it will come in handy if you have extra stocks, especially since D Sonic Saber should be better for pressure resets now anyway.

Yeah, certain characters' quarter circle specials take priority over their DPs, and Amane is one of them, so if you input 6236C (which is what I do for Izayoi since her DPs take priority), you'll get Raibu instead of Gekiren, so you have to make certain to actually input 623C. The patch is standardizing the input so that DPs always take priority, so you won't have to worry about that after the patch.

Greetings all. I've got a quick question for anyone who might know the answer. If you charge Izayoi's Crusade Seraphims, how long does it take her to attack after you release the button? I'm guessing it's different depending on which one you use since the stance cancels are different lengths, but I was curious since sometimes instead of stance cancelling CS Beta, you can catch people reacting to it by charging it instead, then attacking with it, so I was wondering how fast that actually is. So I'm really excited about the new airdash. Before I was worried that it could make cross-up j.C harder to do, but it actually looks like it's much easier now. I guess that makes sense since you're flying toward the ground, so you'll land faster. Also, it looks like this makes it harder to anti-air Izayoi as well, since you can do what Koeru was doing in one of the streams and super jump -> airdash down j.C cross-up, which besides being trickier to block, leaves you safer from a lot of anti-air hitboxes it would seem. I'm sure we can bait and punish anti-airs now too with double airdash by doing a really obvious forward dash -> airdash back -> airdash forward j.C or something. @Justice: Yeah, I was also really hoping airdash mix-ups could work after the patch. I'm not sure how you control her airdash yet, but I wonder if it's possible to IAD into the downward dash and do a low somehow. Her airdash looks much faster too, so that seems like it would be really effective. Hopefully whiffing air throws and stuff still makes her fall even faster. @Rhannmah: I was thinking about the possibility of stock-less combos as well, and that would open up some interesting options. If we could do decent damage without stocks, then we could still do a good combo to finish the opponent after we run out of stocks and don't need the corner carry and oki from her stock specials anyway, instead of feeling like we have to switch back to normal mode. Also, that could benefit Trans-Am as well, since if we could do a stock-less combo after activating Trans-Am, then the 4 stocks actually aren't that much, especially if Tran-Am combos do more damage now. Likewise, it could make D Sonic Saber better in blockstrings too since you could maybe do a combo for 1 stock, then use the other 2 for D Sonic Sabers in our blockstrings or something. That said, one thing I was excited about that I actually don't think works now is doing CS Gamma mid-screen after GA 3C. That doesn't connect does it. Oh well.

Oops, I guess that was just a typo above (the combo was written with alpha after the second 3C, so I got confused). I was thinking that would be a really strange way to avoid CS Gamma, so that makes sense. Yeah, that's what I think too. Since we can do CS Gamma mid-screen anytime now, we'd probably be getting 4k+ off of everything if they didn't do that, although nerfing the 3C P2 to 79% might have been preferable actually. The CS Gamma nerf means all the normal mode combos do less damage now too, but I guess the point of normal mode combos is to get stocks anyways, so probably not a bit deal in the long run; or maybe the normal mode P2 is the same as now, since CS Alpha and Aegis Blade have different properties depending on which mode you're in. It's a possibility I suppose. @ Celerity: Yeah, comboable 3C could make Trans-Am pretty sweet now. Hopefully there's a way to get the combo to do a lot more damage so we could take advantage of 6 stock combos if the opponent let's us get extra stocks. That would be pretty cool. It could be like Arakune curse combos, except with stocks.

I remember it the other way around the same as Celerity, where someone wrote "Crusade Seraphim B" and thought that was shorthand for CS Beta, whereas it was supposed to be shorthand for 236B, which is CS Gamma. The translation was "low Crusade Seraphim" or something IIRC. Anyhow, that combo doesn't even use CS Gamma at all. I wouldn't think that the CS Gamma proration nerf makes it that bad to not even use it, since it's great for extending combos. Also, is 3C only special cancelable? I haven't seen anyone use anything after it other than Crusade Seraphims, which is still very helpful, but I'm curious though. Yeah, Ouja Zanrouga will counter you immediately even in midair if you're near the ground, so it doesn't look like that works for safe-jumps.

Yeah, Izayoi's new abilities sound really legit, so I'm super excited to see all the new stuff, especially the new Gain Art movement. Also, regarding the Terumi match-up, I got wake-up Ouja Zanrouga'd today and my safe-jump got countered and then I was afraid to do oki for the rest of the match. What am I even supposed to do about that? It's not really a big deal since most Terumi players don't use that move, but it's kind of unnerving that he can do that. Of course I could just do 2B, but then he can do the Gouga Soutenjin that I was trying to safe-jump to begin with, but safe-jumping Terumi actually seems like a really bad idea. Maybe if the opponent likes to do that, you could try to bait it by jumping, don't attack, and just block (which I did the second time and got a Fatal Counter his burst), which seems smart to me, but it still seems kind of tricky. What kind of oki do you all use against Terumi when he has meter?

It is. This hardly ever matters since you can't cancel it into anything and it's really hard to punish, but if you use it at a silly time and get hit by a projectile or something, you'll fall over and have to tech just like if you got hit in the air. I'm not really sure what "Aerial Mirage Thruster" is referring to, but I'm assuming that would just be 214D, since that's the only one you can use in the air. If so, 214D teleports you onto the ground so long as the opponent is on the ground too (or even like a meter or so into the air), so I wouldn't expect it to start teleporting us into the air. I'm sure it would've been mentioned specifically if Izayoi had a new Mirage Thruster. Also, j.236D - 214D - 5D doesn't work right now by a rather large margin, and j.236D is cancelable pretty early, so I'm skeptical about 236D - 214D - 5D as well, but we'll see.

So I've been trying this combo with different confirms and it is indeed easier using confirms with less push-back. That said, I don't really like the confirm from the video I linked to (j.B - 2A - 2B) because then the combo does less damage than a typical combo with a typical confirm. Mid-screen, I usually do j.C - 2B - 5B, and I haven't been able to get it working on anyone with that except Nu and Makoto. I'm probably still doing something differently though. I'm finding that it's pretty easy to do on Hazama, but hard to do on Noel, which is different than Surf's experience. Right now I'm trying to time the Valkyrie Astraea for when they're falling after CS Beta, and 5C as they're about to hit the ground. Is that what you all are doing too? How are you getting this to connect with a max range 5B? If I delay Valkyrie Astraea after a max range 5B, then I'm too far away for 5C to hit.

Well, I'm sure CS Gamma -> Rapid~5D will still work, so we can do that at least. I don't really blame the devs for that change though, since they probably don't want there to be a meter-less way to get stocks back in Gain Art Mode (although I think the D Sonic Saber combo was Challenge Mode #28 though, so maybe not).

Greetings all. So in the video thread, a video was posted today where the Izayoi player was using a mid-screen combo I'm rather curious about that goes like this: Confirm - CS Beta~Astraea - 214B - 5C - CS Gamma - 214B - 5C - 2C(1) - 6C - Ender I've been able to get this to work on about half the cast in training mode, but sometimes the boldfaced part doesn't work and I'm not sure what I'm doing differently. In practice, I've only been using this combo against Makoto and Nu because it seems to work against them no matter how you time it. Against the other characters, does it make a difference what confirm I use, or do I just have to time Valkyrie Astraea, 5C, and CS Gamma a certain way for it to work? It would be cool if I could use that combo a bit more often, since it does pretty good damage.

Also, I was hoping that they would be able to update the console version before the US release. For the people who didn't import BBCP and who were playing it for the first time, it seems like it would be kind of jarring for the game to come out pre-patch, and then change drastically a week or two later. I like the patch itself though because my character got like a dozen buffs pretty much.

So I was wondering, does anyone know the exact criteria for inputting 236236. Sometimes in practice mode it won't come out even though the arrows tell me that I input the directions correctly. Do I have to input it in a certain number of frames, or hold 6 for a moment before doing the second motion, or let the stick return to the neutral position in between the quarter circles, or something?

So wait, since the D Sonic Saber start-up is reduced, doesn't that mean the opponent can't jump over it anymore if you use it after 5C?, and it's not like you can mash out of that or backdash it either, especially with universal backdash nerfs. It seems like it ought to be a legit guaranteed pressure reset against most characters now unless I'm missing something. That's totally worth 2 stocks if it's as good now as I think it is. Also, even though it's less + on block now, I feel like the GA airdash having more acceleration and being controllable could let us dash into lows somehow, maybe something like 236D - 963 - 2B would work. That would be so awesome if that were possible. So anyway, I'm sure the combination of reduced 5C knockback and 3C being cancelable is going to open up a bunch of new combo paths. 3C moves you closer again like 6C, but keeps the opponent close to the ground where you can keep comboing them. Maybe now we can do stuff like 3C - 5C - 2C(1) - CS Beta/Gamma - etc. I feel like that should let us get 5C - 2C(1) into places it doesn't quite work now, so I'm really excited to experiment with it. I'm glad they fixed the 5B hurtbox. It's kind of a nuisance when you try to counter something with it and then YOU get countered. 6A and 6B buffs seem really significant for defence as well. Between the two of them, it looks like they'll beat almost everything without invulnerability, so you just have to figure out whether you need to counter a low or not. One thing I'm not sure about is what difference Trans-Am being twice as long really makes. Doesn't the combo clock run out after 4 Trans-Am hits anyway for typical combos? Edit: Grammar

Here's how I manage my stocks in case it gives you some ideas. I mostly just use them for Valkyrie Astraea and Strike Fall, so the plan for me is to use 2 stocks per combo, which should be enough to win the round. I try to switch modes with 6 stocks like Celerity does, and I usually get my stocks from this combo: Confirm - CS Gamma - 214A - 2B - CS Alpha - 214B - CS Alpha At the end of the usual midscreen combo (Confirm - CS Beta~Astraea - 214B - 5B - 5C - jc.B - j.C - jc.B - j.C - Strike Noir) you can also add on 5A - 5C - jc.B - j.C - jc.C - Strike Noir, but I only do this if it would put the opponent in the corner, as otherwise the ~500 extra damage you get isn't worth spending another stock IMO. Also, when Izayoi was first released people used to do 214D after Noir Edge several times (I think the "Noir Loop" is what people were calling it), but that barely adds any damage, so I wouldn't do that unless I thought I could win the round with that combo, since it just wastes your stocks otherwise IMO. Also, if I anti-air with CS Alpha, I just do Strike Fall, since the anti-air combo does damage rather inefficiently compared to it's stock usage IMO, so I think going straight to Strike Fall oki is better. 214D can be good against zoners sometimes. When you're fighting Nu, if you see her do Spike Chaser or 4D, you can counter her with 214D -> throw or something since the recovery for her moves is so long (like 50-ish frames average). You can do that for all of her drives and specials, but those two are the only ones I think are slow enough to react to though. Also, you can use A Sonic Saber and then try to D teleport right as it hits to start a block string, but the opponent can punish you if they jump over the projectile, so try to only do that if they can't easily dodge the Sonic Saber. Those are the only things I really use 214D for outside of combos. I used to use D Sonic Saber a lot as a pressure reset, which works fantastically well IMO, but I've been trying to do that less since the stock usage is getting increased soon, but it's still helpful if the opponent prefers not to jump too much. They can just jump over it of course if you use it in obvious places. Some people like to use Air D Sonic Saber as corner oki after strike fall, but I usually just do j.C safe jump. 2C seems to work well against characters without DPs, but it's too obvious to use against characters who can wake-up DP though.

To interrupt the defence discussion for just a brief moment, I was wondering, was it ever confirmed if the BBCP 1.1 release date for console got moved forward? I heard that it was going to release around the beginning of April, but haven't been able to find an official source for it. That would be fantastic if that was the case.

Honestly, while Trans-Am does the most damage midscreen, it's only like 500 or so more damage than Justice Phorizer would do from the same confirm, and 4 stocks > 500 damage pretty much 99% of the time. On top of that, when you're close enough to the corner (like 75% of the screen pretty much), you can just do mid-combo Justice Phorizer -> 214D -> 5C -> etc. for 4 stocks (3 after the patch) like Celerity mentioned in the combo thread, which does about the same damage as Trans-Am combos IIRC. Trans-Am is pretty hard to combo into as well, and 2C counter combos with Justice Phorizer can do 5k+ damage anyway for 2 stocks. And with overdrive or in the corner, Justice Phorizer seems like it's always better. Trans-Am isn't bad by any means, far from it in fact, but in general it just seems like Justice Phorizer is better in every situation. If the supers weren't competing for the same 50 meter, people would probably use Trans-Am a lot more often. It might be cool if Trans-Am cost 4 stocks and no meter or something, so people could still use it if they had to Counter Assault or Rapid Cancel. I think 4 stocks is worth a super; that's what Haku-men pays anyway, although he only has one meter. 25 meter and 2 stocks would make it really tempting to use as well. I think 4 stocks + 25 meter is fair for 5k+ damage, especially since Trans-Am is kind of hard to confirm into, and that's not that much more than a 2C confirm gives you anyway.

Yeah, this is kind of the mindset I have for instant blocking. I look for particular moves and sequences my opponent does that I know will give me opportunities if I instant block them. For example, I try to instant block Terumi's Jakyou Messenga because it's punishable with Izayoi if you do that, but not otherwise. I don't try to instant block everything though, especially since Izayoi has no DP. I just try to instant block the things that leave openings that wouldn't otherwise be there.