Maho

It wouldn't be so bad if it was over when you get in once, but that's not really the case unless the Ram player has very weak defense, Leo pressure isn't that great against characters with 4f normals like Ram's 5P. That kind of move combined with IB, it forces him to block after moves like 6K or 2S that are usually his main pressure resets, 4f normals also punish 236S on IB which is really a problem for him. Neutral YRC in indeed interesting against her like many other hard matchups where he have trouble getting in, sadly in that kind of matchup, Leo don't build that much meter in neutral, especially as you're forced to FD break a lot, so you won't be able to use it that often.

Matchups against grapplers aren't usually really good for characters like Leo, you need to be close to do your thing but as the same time you don't want to be for obvious reasons. So first thing, he can punish 236S on IB with PB if you do it too close, doing it after 5H will make you too close everytime, so poking with max range fS into 236S is a bit safer, note that you can be PBd between the two if fS get IBd but if you're not too predictable, that shouldn't happen that often. Of course if he looks for this, you can try to go into the second rekka to beat the PB attempt, here doing that on block is even worse than usual, you're forced into a stupid guessing game as rekka 2 gets punished by PB on block and your only way to beat it is to do rekka 3, so unless you have meter to RC you're betting a third of your life for a 37 dmg reward, and of course if he IBd rekka 2, you're screwed either way. For stance mixups, his backdash and the low invuln on megafist might look annoying at first but they aren't really that much of a problem, when you want to go for a low do bt.K~P+K~P+K, on hit block you'll get the classic bt.KPK, if he does backdash or megafist, bt.K will whiff but bt.P will come out right after it to CH the megafist (forward or backward don't matter), it can punish backdash on most situations except midscreen j236H because bt.P won't have enough range, in that situation you can use the bt.K~P~S~S OS to punish backdash with a bt.S but this loses to megafist. bt.H will punish backdash from 236H when done asap, from a rekka/2D knockdown you'll have to delay it a few frames or it will whiff (and you'll probably eat a PB right after), this looks risky but it doesn't really matter as if he mashes or try to throw you, you will loss even if you do it asap. Potemkin players I encountered tend to use low blitz quite a bit against bt oki, probably because they know we might fear getting reversal PBd if we go high and therefore Leo players are inclined to start with bt.K, now if you see it coming, you can either bt.H or backdash (safer as it also beats high blitz and you're safe from some mash), then if there was a blitz, walk forward a bit and do CH btS > 63214H > dash 2P > 5k > cS > jK > djK > djH > j236H for some good damage. Don't use bt.D on oki against a Potemkin that looks like he knows what he's doing, he pretty much doesn't have any reason to mash anything other than PB there, PB beats more things than any other mash (including bt.D) and only loses to bt.K, P, and backdash btS. The only thing he might mash other than PB is the mirror super (loses to bt.D and forward dash), but even there I would recommend to backdash as it's a lot more safe than going for bt.D, note that if you do a bt.D and that the Pot does a crouch blitz, you can get a CH bt.S punish. You can also try to do oki out of stance, a good number of Leo's normal have short recovery so you can punish backdash attempts, for example after a meaty 6K or 5D, if the Potemkin backdashes, you can punish with 5P, and by doing it with 4P you'll be safe from yolo reversal hammerfall. You can also do meaty 2S > 4K for the same result but with a low starter (that combos on CH), 2K > fS > 2D another good low option (double tap fS and 2D to be sure it gets out if 2K whiffs against a backdash), but you need to hit with the last 2 active frames of 2K to punish the backdash with fS, it will also beat reversal hammerfall without having to think about it, and if you space it right (not really hard) you'll be safe from reversal throws, he also won't be able to punish the 2D even if he IBs all the string. 6K is really cool for this thanks to throw invuln but you have to be wary of blitz as it's a mid, 2S can be done outside of throw range so that good too (though you need to be close if you want to go for a 2P combo), but if you want to be able to do the backdash punish with 5D you'll need to be quite close and be exposed to reversal throw (also 5D gets punished by PB on IB), note that meaty ranged 5D is safe against anything Pot can do on wakeup (except high blitz of course). In neutral, you can avoid the slide head knockdown with 5K on reaction, if you're react fast enough and are in range, 5H can punish it afterwards. For combos, he's one of the characters you can get 2P after a standing 6K hit (6K > 2P > 5K > 2H > rekkas), you can also get 2P from 2S a little farther than against most of the cast, from CH AA 6P you can do 6P > 6H > 236H > jP > jK > jS > djK > djH > j236H, 236H will make Pot bounce in two ways depending on how it hits, but the combo will connect in both situations. In stance from a close knockdown (not j236H) you can get bt.K > P > K > S > H > S > rekkas for a bit more damage and good corner carry as the third rekka won't switch sides, from j236H you can get this with bt.K > S > H > S > rekkas, from bt.D you can either go for dash K >S > H or dash K > P > jS(1) > j236H for a bit more damage.

Round start 2H will beat fS (favorable trade at worst), 5K and 2H, only loses to 2D, it's pretty risky though as you can get punish quite hard (6H) but it's interesting to do sometimes to make him think about pressing buttons there as CH 2H really hurts. S fireball is another decent choice, loses to instant j2K but will beat/trade with a good number of standard round starters. S fireball is actually really strong in this matchup, Faust doesn't have a fast air dash so it's not as risky as in most matchup to do it without YRCing it, it's really strong against his fS keepaway and also beats 236K, just be sure to not do it too much when you're too close as a low j2K can CH you. Of course Faust can bait it with a 214K but it's really a hard read as it has slow startup, and his TPs aren't really a good idea in this matchup. When you see a TP, just wait a bit and throw out a 5H, with the right timing it will CH all 3 TPs, you can even CH YRC doors or at worst hit the YRC startup, note that specials won't autocorrect if he TPs in your back but normals will, 214S YRC is safe for Faust but also for you as you'll recover in time before he's in range to hit you. If you 6P a j2K, there's a character specific combo that will do a bit more damage than the usual one : CH 6P > 6H > 236H > jP jK > djK djH > j236H, you can replace jP jK with jS for a bit mire but it's not as stable as it can whiff at some ranges.

Note that 2P won't hit Axl if he cancels low chain by a mid or high one asap, if that happens, after your 2P whiffed you can go straight into an S fireball that will hit him if he goes for another chain while the fireball is active, YRC is recommended as Axl can delay the next chain a bit and hit your recovery. YRC will also allow you to close the gap, and if you get closer Axl stance isn't really scary at all, at the right distance after a blocked low chain, 236H will CH if he tries to do any other one (for the distance, go in training and do one backdash with Axl from start position), but he will be able to block if he cancels the stance asap after the blocked chain, 236S will hit even if he tries to cancel but you need to be a little bit closer for this. Honestly his stance is annoying at first but once you know how to defend against it, it's not really that strong. Another few things, some Axls like to do rensen on block then another one right after it, S fireball will stop that and will also beat the low followup if he does it a bit too far (YRC will allow you to get an iad combo), the low followup is safe on block done close enough on normal block, but if you FD the whole thing you can make the last hit whiff and punish with 236S. Upward followup must be IBed to get a punish with 5H or 236S, but you won't get it from max range. At round start 5P will beat his 5P and also 6K, two common round starters from Axl, you'll be safe from 63214S and even be able to air thow it if you're fast, at least IB it to get the advantage. It will trade with fS which isn't really good for you even if you can mash out the stagger and not get comboed, his fS loses to jump forward jK j236H but you're exposed to 6K. His DP hits behind him so you can't get it to whiff with 236H like you can with Sol or Ky, also don't do 2D or rekkas into H fireball without meter to YRC, his reversal DP will punish you. On block it's easy to punish, just go for 5H into rekkas. Overall this matchup isn't easy but feels fair, he can zone you out but it ain't easy for him to do so.

Projectiles are pretty dangerous to use outside of oki against Elphelt IMO, I use S fireball YRC as a poke sometimes, H fireball in neutral can get sniped or genoised on reaction so I don't use it much. Actually even without that, she have time to throw and upward grenade for cover when she sees you do an H fireball and go above the fireball, and you won't get much out of the meter spend. As for the combos and confirms, well that's pretty obvious I need some work with this character (to be fair I wasn't probably at my best as I was sick at the time), I actually remember the autopilot you talked about and was like "damn I suck' just after it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH1WyNKtJxg Another set against Alioune, if you have any ideas to not get beat-up as much, please share. I've tried to use fS into rekkas in neutral, it's not as good as her fS and combos only on crouch/counter but it's faster than 5H. I've tried to bait Bridals with fS~236P+S OS, it's quite risky but 2H is guaranteed if you auto-guard a ground bridal (she can try to PRC but you'll hit her out of it anyway, at least untll the patch), not as good against an air bridal as she can YRC after the autoguard and be safe, she can also block in time if the bridal hits low enough, the real risk is her going for YRC before it hits which is a much more common tatic for air bridal than it is for the ground one. Also if you hit with 2H before she hits the ground, it will CH which is nice but it's very hard to change the followup on reaction. Not specific to this matchup but I've start to use rekkas into dash 4-6H YRC for midscreen oki, with proper timing you can make the fireball hit meaty, you'll see me do 6H YRC sometimes, that's what happen when you mistime it a bit, you have to YRC the 6H because your opponent can throw you otherwise.

Fastest reversal in the game is Elphelt's judge better half, but she gets up a little slower than Sol, so you have to delay your timing a bit. Actually, that's the hard thing about safe jumps in GG, you have to time it depending on the opponent character wake-up timing, which varies quite a bit from one to another.

A successfull blitz just takes 10 points of the opponent RISC meter, it doesn't have a fixed proration percentage as a starter.

So in the general news thread, Mynus told me Zidane had an offensive OS for Leo stance mixup, I asked him on twitter (here's the conversation) and worked on it a bit. So after some tests, I do bt.K~P~S~K+H, you have to do this quite fast like a plink, on hit it should do bt.K > P > K, and if the first bt.K whiffs, it will do bt.S > H to punish a backdash attempt. Now lets look at the frame data, bt.K has 7f of recovery and bt.S has 6f of startup, so that's 13f total, assuming we hit meaty with bt.K on any of the 3 actives frames, we should punish 16f and more backdashes (outside of Slayer's of course), but it's pretty hard to do honestly. We can do it on two characters after j236H, Sin will get hit airborne for a knockdown, and Potemkin will get hit on the ground but we'll be too far to combo without RC (also backwards megafist beat this OS). So depending on the timing of our bt.K and the opponent backdash we will get bt.S to hit either airborne or on the ground like last case with Potemkin, the input I posted above is good when you hit airborne as it grants you a knockdown, not so much on the ground as you'll too far to combo without Rcing the bt.H. Now there are others inputs that are better if you hit on the ground, but they'll be techable if it hits airbone unless you confirm into RC and air combo. - bt.K~P~S~S~236S : will do K P S 236S on block and K whiff > S > 236S if backdashed, pretty hard to do right. - bt.K~P~K~S~236 : will do K P S 236S on block and K whiff > K > S 236S if backdashed, against some characters bt.K doesn't have enough range to punish a backdash, also less active frames than bt.S makes it hard to punish the only recovery frame of Pot's backdash, but it has 1f faster startup than bt.S so it can help sometimes.

S flashkick should just be full invuln untill active frames so it can be used as a reversal, you would trade H flashkick knockdown for a faster startup.

Yeah I made the link between the 6P recovery nerf and the new chain, but it's pretty sad and will hurt in some matchups, against characters like Elphelt or Sol that can delay their jump in with Bridal or Kudakero, AA 6P will be more risky.

Well I kinda understand the feeling, it's pretty simple, Leo have one of the worst neutral game of the game, and Elphelt one of the best, so it will feel really hard, because well, it is. Also, she doesn't have a command throw super, judge better half is blockable, so if your opponent always goes for it when you're close and he ahve the meter, just block and punish, all its recovery is counter hit, so you can get some good damage even without meter.

I'm pretty disappointed to be honest, I kinda expected S flashkick to be reverted back to its useless 1.0 status because it looked strong, but I hoped they kept the others changes in, bt.D damage reverted is bad, it was something to discourage delay mash 1P on stance mixups and it's gone, and we even get a nerf on 6P :/

I don't think you always have to go for a stance mixup too, for exemple in the corner I like H fireball YRC oki more than j236H restand, you're safe from reversals and a simple empty jump 2K or iad jK is hard enough to block. Stance mixup isn't quite as scary as a lot of people seems to think, the only situation where it feels really strong is after a throw as the long knockdown gives you the time to meaty bt.H and dash through bt.K safely.

I also don't really like this matchup very much, like you said the neutral is very hard for Leo, if you happen to block, well that's the same shit for everyone against him and it's not good. You can iad jK jH over drills when Eddie isn't there but you kinda need to anticipate it, you can end up being 6P'd if your prediction was wrong. When he goes for an unblockable, always try to H flashkick it, you'll get hit by the last hit of the drill but if he happens to miss his safe jump (to be fair, I never got safe jumped once of any time i got my reversal out yet) that's quite less damage. You can also try to blitz but you have to guess high or low, also that way make sure your oppoent does his setups correctly, I've seen Zato players that pretty much always hit their setups the same way (always low first or always high first), if you can see a pattern, blitz gets a lot easier, and actually if there's such a pattern, you can block it. Zato's normals are pretty slow, so he suffers a lot on defense and most players like to dead angle a lot, so look for it when he has meter by staggering your pressure, or doing YRC OS when you meter allows it, if you're feeling confident bt.D does work for that too. If you happen to block one, you can get a crouch combo for the punish. When he does far drill and you block it, a lot of players like to summon Eddie from the puddle immediately after with shadow S, you can get a CH 236H in between (easier if you've IBd the drill) but it will lose to normal summon and normals.

Honestly you don't really get in often against Elphelt, most times it's her that gets in and then you try to find a way to get the advantage back. Here's a few videos of me getting rekt by Alioune a week ago, by far the best Elphelt I've played : http://youtu.be/ev9ITvZomsY (this one has some Millia in it too) http://youtu.be/-WvrKBJ3gdo http://youtu.be/tgVyIoTXXwg http://youtu.be/WdbQ-6SjTW0 Maybe i'll lower the quality a bit in the future, 720p60 is nice but takes forever with my upload, like 10 hours for one of this sets :/ So after this matches I look more into the matchup in training, first for the unblockables : - The corner loop : unless you have 37,5% to blitz both the nade and the shot, you're fucked, if you have only 25% you can try to IB the ande then blitz the shot in case the Elphelt misses his timing, sadly for me Alioune doesn't miss much. - Shotgun loop into YRC nade : this you can go for 632146H, can be baited but not enough time for her to YRC after the freeze, you can of course blitz like that (I could hit her out of pressure after the 3rd BS here, but it depends on what she does), or even better you can backdash YRC. If you happen to do so, 236S is guaranteed unless she YRC the rifle stance, but it's risky as if she YRC and blocks, you might get by the grenade explosion, so I prefer to jump out. But this is extremely hard to do due to the YRC slowdown that affect you on wake up, I played again with Alioune last thursday for like 3 hours, and I got it only 2 times :/ - High proration setup : this one is used mostly when there'e too much hits to go for the meterless loop and doesn't have meter to YRC, it's not a true meaty so it's actually pretty easy to blitz, just be sure to do stand blitz as the grenade can whiff if you do it crouch. If you don't have enough meter to blitz 2 times, you can try to backdash and most times the grenade explosion won't combo after the shot, depends on the grenade timing. So now let's talk about neutral, it's pretty simple actually, almost everything she does is better that what you do and her grenade is the bane of your existence :/ - Air to air : Elphelt's jD destroys Leo air to air game, you can do much about it, only thing you can do is to hit her before it gets active. - Air to ground : Elphelt's anti air game isn't the best but it's decent against Leo as his jump ins are so strong either, her 6H can stop your airdashes attempts if done early enough, her 2S can low profile jK and jH easely but she can do it too late as it lacks invuln, if you're directly above her, her cS is really strong and you can't do much but block. Raw YRC is good for baiting 2S, j236H YRC is interesting if you want to stop your momentum. - Anti air : 6A is good here but air bridal can fuck up you timing, good thing is that Leo's 6P have fast recovery so most times if you do 6P AA loking for a jump in and that he bridals, you'll be able to block in time. Also when you 6P her out of an air dash jump in, just go from 6P into air combo (of 6H combo on CH), cS will whiff most times in that situation. You can AA 6P bridal but you have to wait, so if you're looking for it, you might end up blocking a jS jump in. - Ground : her normals are quite better than yours, 5H can work tou outrange fS but it's pretty risky as her 5H and bridal can fuck you up, fS is ok but will lose most times against her own, it works decently against bridal, and have less whiff recovery than 5H so that's a better choice I think. fS into 236S is also more interesting when looking for a CH because 5S > 5H > 236S will bring you closer on block, an Elphlet can punish 236S on IB with her 4f 2P if close enough. Your best option here is clearly S fireball, but without meter it's a risk as she can air dash above it, if you've YRCd and it hits, just dash in then 5H into rekkas. The big problem in neutral is her grenade and Leo doesn't have good answers to that, you can negate the initial hit of ground toss with a S fireball YRC and then try to get on the offense, if you don't have meter to YRC, you'll probably get iad punished so be carefull. Upward toss is a bigger problem conbined with her strong normals and bridal, if you can get under it while havinfg a charge, S fireball YRC is also good, but that won't happen that much. If she does it from fullscreen away, you can do an H fireball right way to negate the initial hit and get some cover to go away from the explosion. - Round start : pretty much you have to block, you can 2D if your opponent goes for 5H, otherwise you'll probably lose if you push a button. - Offense : her 4f 2P is a real problem if the Elphelt player is good at IBing, if your opponent goes for that a lot, try to space your pressure reset 6K and 2S, then delay a 5K a few frames to whiff punish a 2P mash, not easy to do though. In stance, it's the same stuff as against any non meterless reversal character, when she has meter, her super can be baited by bt.D and also by backdash, a bit more safe and you get a stronger punish but it also gives her the option to YRC the super. - Defense : That's probably the part we need to work on the most as Leo will block a lot against a good Elphelt. First bridal can be punished with 2P when badly spaced, from a farther distance if IBd, beware of Elphelt mashing throw there so you must be sure it will punish, if you're not, throw is a safer option. Her overheads aren't too strong, 6A is 22f and can only be done from 2P, 2K, 5P and cS, 5D can be done from pretty much everything but has short range, but getting hit by it in the corner leads to major damage and probably an imblocable setup. I've tried using blitz on 6A and 5D but then Alioune started doing YRC on those, the risk is pretty high if you're back to the corner, same thing for 6A > bridal, you can blitz between but that's a risk if he has meter, might as well IB bridal and try to punish there, a throw is guaranteed from 6A max range if you IB bridal. But last time we played Alioune started to do 6A into 236H~H, it's not a true combo as you can theoritically mash out of the stagger, but it's pretty hard to do even if you know you're gonna get hit, honestly I doubt I could do it in a match. This negates the blitz option unless you're very close as shotgun is a projectile (blitz the shotgun then 5P will punish in that situation), it's plus on block and if she has meter to RC can ead to a 5D combo. Shotgun pressure is really hard for Leo to deal with if he's back to corner, if the guy just do non charged H~reload x n, it's not so bad, you can IB 5A if very close, from farther away you can do IB then YRC and pretty much hit with anything unless she YRCs the next shot. But that's only if the Elphelt mindlessly does shotgun H over and over, when her options are mixed up well, it's very very hard to deal with, I pretty much sit there and look for the command throw to try to mash out most times.

There's a post in the combo thread with midscreen combos after a bt.D.

Getting knock down puts you at disadvantage even with easier reversals, it's not like every character in the game has a DP, it's just something you have to consider when doing oki, also when reversal are hard like in Xrd, what's the idea? That you can oki a DP character like he doesn't have one because chances are that your opponent messes up his input? What do you do against a guy that can reversal 100% of the time even with the 2f timing then? But speaking of reversals, I kinda like more the way they are in BB (in CP of course, not the old stupid shit like CS1 ID), having counter hit recovery and bad proration (a good number of DPs doesn't have any in Xrd), so you don't get as much damage with a RC and you'll get punish worse if they blocked, so they are easy to do but in exchange you take more risks. The only bad thing I can see with easy reversals in Xrd is Sin doing 623S into 236K, being +3 after a blocked DP is pretty stupid, but well I play Leo so blocking when I do oki isn't really an option most times.

Actually reading you made me remember how Bentengari worked and I might understand what they meant comparing it with the new S flaskick. Bentengari used to trade a lot, and when it was with a move that didn't have too much hitstun you could combo out of it as it launched the opponent high enough, so maybe we get the same thing and so can combo into j236H from a trade?

Maybe they just don't saw that stance mixup isn't as strong as it seems once you start to do other things than blocking, I also wonder about the DP comment as it was compared to reload bentengari, and it wasn't really a godlike DP as far as I remember. For the fireball being back to not going fullscreen, I would be ok if it has less recovery, it feels too long for a charge move IMO.

Where did you get those numbers? I don't know if it's only negative edge that makes the difference, but I just tried to do the reversal DP against Ky's meaty 6H from Xrd missions in #R PC, and it feels a lot easier to do.

YRC does get you out of stance now, it would be cool for mixups if it doesn't but YRC couldn't be used as a fast way out of stance anymore so I'm not sure I want it. Throw invuln on raw 236H would mean that you can use it as a mixup on wakeup (depending on distance it goes crossup or not) and you'll get a combo with meter or CH, also a mixup on block. It would also be a bit better in pressure, of course the opponent would be able to mash out with normals, but normals needs fastest reflexes, and it would get rid of the OS throw that's easy to do against it. Rekka 2 on block is more gimmicky, when Rekka 1 is blocked your pressure is over and you're safe unless IB'd by a few characters, if you do Rekka 2 you're exposed to a punish unless you have meter and having throw invuln wouldn't change that. Not being able to throw there would just give you a safe way to go for the new Rekka 3 gimmick "do I stop at -6 and hope my opponent doesn't punish or do I do another move that's even worse on block to fish for a CH?" The problem is unless they change it, CH Rekka 3 isn't a big threat unless you have meter to combo out of hit (there'e no ground slide state like CH bt.214S), so the payout isn't really worh the risk IMO.

- 5K into 6P : It's nice for conversions on 5K air hit, you get fS a lot of times and that screw up combos (or make it impossible), also this means that there will be one use for a far CH 2D > 5P > 5K on lightweights, as it will result in some nice damage and oki. - Fireballs changes : really nice for neutral and pressure, one thing i fear is that [4]-6H YRC oki will suffer a lot from blitzshield buff. - 214S throw invuln : I was hoping for raw 236H to get that, this is really gimmicky. - bt.D : YRC is interesting, we'll have to wait and see for how long we can wait to do it, damage buff is nice and needed IMO as easier reversals will be a big problem for stance mixups,especially against DP characters. - j236H : it should have been like that from the start, more a fix than a buff. Hopefully he'll get more changes, because with those only, Leo is better but not by much, stance mixup is still a guessing game that doesn't favor really favor (just think of easier reversal backdashes), you just have more damage if you guess right with a counter.

Yeah I know that you can hold 3 to charge down while running but like you say it's pretty risky. I did run a few tests to see how much charge we can get in Leo's dash, his charges looks to be 40f and his dash his around 25f total (I counted 17f of active dash and 8f of glide), so I guess we can get about half a charge during it. But what I should have said is that if players used this, would it make Leo really that much better? His charge moves aren't that strong in neutral, the only thing I would be interested in charging like this is to go for a fireball S YRC, but if I need to stop for like 20f after the dash that's not really good, I could do dash~4P~4K~fireball S (5P~5K chains on whiff) but that's a long time going forward while not blocking.

What do you mean? If you happen to hold back or down while dashing with Leo, it will stop your momentum.