Orrax

If you can find him.

Thanks for the input! Yeah, the FD against Testament didn't really do much. I think I was afraid of his overhead, so I kept trying to keep him as far away as possible, but it didn't really help -- especially not when I was doing it against beast. For Zappa, crouching under j.H doesn't really bother me as much as getting CH out of j.S by his 6P, so I tend to opt for j.H since they both whiff. And you're right to say I froze up -- I had a free punish and I completely missed it. I've got some time right now and I'm not sure when I will again, so I just went ahead and commented on your matches. I mostly just made notes of a few things as I watched. Sorry if they seem discombobulated: VS Anji - Hitting that fuzzy guard setup would have been hype but was probably too risky in that situation. You already had a big life lead, and you were gambling a lot on him either blocking it or whiffing the j.D. I find 6P and 5K on oki against Anji tends to lose to autoguard or Fuujin -- I prefer safe jumps, lows, GF, and even WT oki. The gold burst was asking to be thrown -- I think you were in range for WT and opted for 5K instead, which whiffed. Nice j.VV RC. More WT in general against Anji -- he's pretty weak against it. On the whole, very well played. VS A.B.A - A.B.A has a very late wakeup, and it looks like it was throwing your oki timing off. I don't recommend using Riot Stomp against A.B.A; even in the corner, she can punish you very hard for it, and it seems to lose to pretty much anything she throws out. Don't try to beat A.B.A's stuff when she's on top of you. You can air grab if she's jumping predictably, or sweep 5H (I think that's the move), or sometimes get away with VV if she's really close (if she's farther out, it's not worth the risk in my experience), but mostly I try to FD jump out and create some space. Also, the longer you block, the more life she loses when she's in Moroha. Try to keep your guard meter from get built up too much (easier said than done, I know) and look for your way out. I like to use FD a lot against her because it pushes her out and I don't like her cranking my guard meter, which she does really well. Super jumping can also help you get away and stay above the range of her large upward hitboxes. VS Testament - I don't really have much to say to this one. I thought you played well, and nice job blocking. VS Justice - This can be a really annoying matchup; I'd say it's slightly in Justice's favor. Don't automatically cancel 5H iad j.PH into VV -- it's very easy to miss it, so always hit confirm it. First match looked good -- I didn't have that much to comment on. Running in on Justice is actually really hard; it's pretty much impossible to not get tagged by all sorts of stuff, including Micheal Sword. Run in FD brake, which you were doing, is pretty much the way to go, but sometimes you can get past stuff quickly with iad j.P, which hits Justice standing, and iad j.S is ok too, but slower. GV is actually a pretty good way to get under missiles, and I saw you use it once, but it can be risky because Justice can pop the missile early. You can also super jump to get over stuff, but getting predictable with that usually gets me air thrown. You're right to use VV as AA against Justice; I didn't see Eshi doing it very much, but her air to grounds will beat or trade with pretty much anything else (2H can sometimes work). On the whole, I again thought you played pretty well -- the matches were close, and you may have won if not for a few bad VVs near the end. I thought you had the general idea right (cautious but also somewhat opportunist approach), but you weren't utilizing all of Sol's tools for getting in as effectively as you could have. You also did not do the worst burst against Justice, which, in my experience, is to burst her throw when she has 50%. VS Robo-Ky - Saw at least one run in low against missiles that probably should have been run in WT. Don't mess with his oki rocket; just block it. I know it's tempting to beat it, but unless your timing is spot on, I wouldn't risk it. 5K loses to his air-to-ground, but 6P can beat it. Robo's still got a really good air-to-ground, though, so messing with it can be pretty risky. Can't miss those DP punishes. I'm seeing a lot of j.P oki, but I'm not sure why you're opting for that over j.H. I'm also seeing a lot of random VVs -- I get the feeling that he's winning the poking war, which really shouldn't be happening. I see you CH fishing with 5H, but 5S is probably the better poke in this match-up. 5H is good, don't get me wrong, but 5S catches more jump attempts. If Robo delays his wake up and you did safe jump oki, you can just land and do j.H oki again on reaction and get another safe jump. That's all I've got. Sorry if it was a bit disorganized, but I hope it helped.

No luck, then. D: But you can still get used to some of the different fundamentals! Dizzy might be the closest, but honestly I don't think anyone in +R is that much like Ramlethal. Bedman, I'm not sure either -- I feel like he's closest to Venom, but he's still pretty different. Of course, you could just do what most people do when they're not sure who to play: pick Potemkin, Slayer, Ky, or lol Badguy.

I really wish more people were playing +R. Unfortunately, it's mostly just me, Ryuuka, Zeromus, H-F Blade, and Ryd at the moment, and pretty much all of us are longtime Guilty Gear veterans. I think there may be a few other people playing, but I'm not sure. That said, I think +R is actually a good training platform to prepare for Xrd -- the fundamentals are pretty much the same, the game itself is very good and very balanced, it's reasonably priced, and, assuming you're playing a character that will be in Xrd, you can start learning the basics of a character now. I'd really like to see a group of players start together and practice against each other, which would mean there would actually be people to play against who haven't already been playing Guilty Gear for a long time, but no one's taken the initiative yet.

Machaboo's been on a rampage ever since he switched to Sol. BB to BB might be pretty character specific, like in Slash. And I've thought that about BR, too -- I've definitely seen a few situations where it looks like it would work. Now that you mention it, CH Fafnir has more than enough untechable time to combo to BB, but I've never seen it. Maybe it whiffs with the ground tumble animation or something.

She's Ramlethal Valentine. But most people seem to be calling her "Ramlethal" now.

Double Post Footage of Koichi's Ramlethal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxxAQb1PI8 He's playing against Ogawa and Machaboo, though, so don't expect him to win. He lost all the Machaboo matches, but I only watched about about a third of the Ogawa matches. He got close a lot of times, and it looks to me like Ramlethal has potential (she actually reminds me of Mu), but it's still early.

[04/12/2014] Ogawa (ZT) vs Machaboo (SO) [Notes] FT10 H.H Stream [04/12/2014] Machaboo (SO) vs Koichi (RA) [Notes] H.H Stream, matches until the end of the video

I saw today that 6P GF 6P (air hit) GF also works, so, yeah, it looks like the air hit untechable time is very much like +R.

Now that you mention it, I can't remember seeing anyone do it. But I'd be surprised if you couldn't -- it worked in #Reload, and both BB and Fafnir look similar enough in Xrd. I'm guessing most people would probably go for BB>j.D-D>Fafnir for the extra one-rep dustloop damage.

Looked to me like the spiritual successor to "Kung Pao: Enter the Fist."

Just watched the 012 footage -- first I've seen of him in a while. He did something I thought was interesting, using j.D-K JC j.D Kudakero to extend combos a little. Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MT0ZjA9qBxY#t=318. Also, thanks to Final Ultima for linking so many vids.

I think it went something like: Higher tier: Zappa, Dizzy, Faust, Chipp Everyone else tier: Everyone else Lower tier: Bridget, Robo, Venom

That was pretty sick. And it looks like he might have been able to continue after 5D a little? Not sure.

I meant to post my matches from SCR a while ago, but I've been busy so I'm only just now getting to it. From the singles tournament: http://www.twitch.tv/thebrett/b/507113971?t=47m vs Baiken http://www.twitch.tv/thebrett/b/507113971?t=65m30s vs Testament (accidental random GV losing me a round and then accidental taunt, ugh) From the two impromptu free team battles afterward: http://www.twitch.tv/thebrett/b/507113971?t=474m20s vs Zappa http://www.twitch.tv/thebrett/b/507113971?t=524m20s vs Johnny http://www.twitch.tv/thebrett/b/507113971?t=527m45s vs Testament http://www.twitch.tv/thebrett/b/507113971?t=530m50s vs May There are only a couple people I have to play against locally, so most of my match-up experience in +R is against Ky and Justice. Any advice is appreciated. That said, I think I could use the most help against Zappa and May. I've never done very well in either of those match-ups. Re-watching these made me realize just how much stuff I drop. =/

In AC/ACR, doing the kick followup adds a bunch of CH state, but I don't remember if it goes all the way to the ground. I think it may go until you touch the ground, and then it's just crouching recovery. I'm not sure if the same is true in Xrd.

The iad j.P CLSW is burst safe on everyone, but it also doesn't work on everyone. I don't believe I've ever gotten it to work consistently on lightweights. I seem to remember it not being too hard on Axl, Slayer, and Faust, and it can technically work on a few others, like Sol and (I think) I-No. The full combo is WT iad j.P CLSW, j.CLSW, j.CLSW, BR, but it's a lot easier if you leave out one j.CLSW. Even the BR is burst safe on some characters (pretty sure it's safe on both Axl and Slayer if spaced right, but I'm not sure about Faust). Also, iad j.K CLSW is burst safe and works on a few characters as well, most notably Faust. Doing iad j.S CLSW is not burst safe on anyone, iirc. It should be possible to do iad j.P/K FB SW on some characters that iad j.P SW doesn't clean hit, but the follow up might be tighter. I haven't really done much testing, though.

I liked Zato's theme. I agree that Chipp's was disappointing. I don't think it was a bad song, but, imho, it just doesn't live up to the original Suck a Sage. The same goes for the new Zato vs Millia theme. It's good, but it's not Still in the Dark.

I like most of what I've heard from the Xrd OST (and I think I've heard almost all of it), but that's not because I think it's an improvement. Well, the recording quality is a definite improvement. And a theme or two did get better (Sol's is the most notable), but most didn't really improve, and some got worse (I-No's is the most notable here, imho). But, on the whole, I enjoyed it. I'm not going to rank themes, but Sol's and Potemkin's stood out to me the most.

Oh God, loading the video thread is going to be a pain now. Unless I can figure out how to change the number of posts per page, that is. I guess I'll mess with my avatar later. Huh. And there's a chat now. Interesting. EDIT: Actually, loading isn't taking me very long. Also, apparently both Dogura and N-O are playing Sol. What the hell.

I think people just like to block high when their opponent is in the air (as they should). I doubt it's an overhead.

Sounds like the Hori is a good choice, and I don't really think I need the XBox compatibility as I already have an adapter. Thanks for the info!

I thought so at first, but I got used to it. And I'm wondering where Valentine is as well. By the way, I've decided I am going to buy a stick, and not a cheap piece of shit like last time. I probably should have just bought a Qanba when I was at SCR, but I didn't and now it's too late. Ideally, I'd like something decent that I can use and that wouldn't be too hard to replace the parts on down the road if I decide to keep playing stick. I have a few sticks I've been looking at: Hori Real Arcade Pro V3 SA Kai: http://stores.horiusa.com/playstation-3-real-arcade-pro-v3-sa-kai/ Qanba Q4 Black: http://www.eightarc.com/qanba-q4-black/ Mad Catz Arcade FightStick PRO: http://store.madcatz.com/categories/fightsticks/Mad-Catz-Arcade-FightStick-PRO-for-PS3.html <-- I'm not leaning towards this one because it's ugly and the last piece of shit I bought was Mad Catz. Thoughts on these, or recommendations for something else? I don't think I need a great stick, but money's not much of an issue for me right now, so I am willing to spend a little more on something that's better.

I'll play #R. But there's no reason not to play +R. Enough changed in Xrd that I don't think it's really going to make that much of a difference.

Wow, I guess "soon" actually did mean "soon." If anyone wants to play +R online, let me know and I'll invite them to the matchmaking chat room. There were actually a surprising amount of people in there today. I wonder how long until the room dies again. Yeah, I'm glad I went as well. It was fun. Looking back over the stream archives of my matches is telling me a lot about what I'm doing wrong -- and making me cringe at some of the things I did. At least I seemed to play a little better in the team battles after the tournament. I need to find the matches where Ryan beat BrkrDave twice. Those sounded hype.