Justice7541

It's actually not tight at all. You can run for a pretty long time after throw which gives you more than enough time to charge when coupled with 2H hitstop.

5D can be spaced to catch rolls. Backdash is your safest option for when you see Ardha appear and aren't sure which grab it is. As for match start stuff: - If Margaret does Gale Slash, you can crouchblock and punish with 2A. TBH I'm not sure why so many Marges start with this move since it's not really safe. - If you think Marge is going to start with 5B, hold D (to unsummon Koro) and neutral jump. She will go under you and you can punish recovery with j.B. Unfortunately you won't get a ton of damage off this since Koro will be offscreen but you can still scoop like 2k and oki. - If you think Marge is going to sweep, do jump forward 5C j.B. You can also sweep since yours reaches and is faster, but 5C is safer. If you guess wrong you'll have to block but I don't think she can actually punish any of these options since 2B won't hit during air unblockable frames. If you guess right you get a punish so you can force Marge to start playing a little bit more conservatively at least at the start of the match.

It's easier than it looks. You actually need to delay the H-VDolphin a bit so they will bounce backwards instead of forwards which gives you plenty of time to charge it. The hard part of this combo IMO is hitting the RC on the right frame so you don't airdash over them.

What's the fastest way to grind out Sin? I've done all the easy character combo challenges and missions and I'm only up to like 180k. Is there anything else that gives you a good amount of points? Seems like netplay doesn't give anything and offline versus is pretty negligible.

Ken tech dump since NEC is over and shit: Blockstrings/mixups: 2A 2B 2C 236B 2C repeat = Kubo's infinite blockstring. In corner: 2A 2B 2C 236B (Koro ends up behind) 236C+D jump back j.B = fake crossup. Ken looks like he'll sideswitch but he actually stays on the same side. Alternately, do empty jump 2A/airdash j.A for a standard high/low mixup. 2A 2B 5B 2C hop j.B dash 5A jump forward (block) 2C > airdash j.A or land 2A = setup for high-low mixup with Koro cover. Should be airtight or very close to it up until the jump if done right. After jumping, either do immediate 2C to catch their roll/AA or delay it to cover the mixup itself. 2A 2B 2C 236B (2B) ~B = roll frametrap. Koro will 2C CH them if they try to roll the Gigantic Attack on reaction, otherwise Gigantic is + on block and you can just run back in for more pressure. 2A 2B 2C 236B~B 214D = easy mixup setup once they start respecting your Gigantic. 2A 2B 214D AoA = Netplay mixup. Koro makes this + and if your opponent is mashing a fast DP (i.e. Narukami DP) the superarmor will catch it. Still okay to throw out occasionally. Dash 214C+D = + on block throw lol. 214C+D gives you both throw and SB Dogwheel at the same time so even if the opponent techs the throw, Dogwheel will still "meaty" them out of the tech invul frames and you can continue pressure. Rampage > 2A 2B 214C+D 5B jump forward > airdash high/empty jump low mixup > repeat = Silly Rampage mixup. Ken can jump cancel all his normals in Rampage so this ends up being as many as 5 totally airtight high/low mixups. Beware as Guard Bonus will give them 150 meter for this if they manage to block lol. Combos/setups: 2A 2B 236A 236D 236B 2B j.A(1) 236D j.B j.2B 236B to: - jump forward (backdash) 2C = Simple crossup setup. - jump forward (late backdash) 2C = Depending on height Ken either backdashes over them for a crossup or collides with their hitbox and doesn't crossup. Pretty ambiguous but can be DP'd. - ~A followup > 214C, neutral jump > close to ground airdash j.A = 214C will lock them down for the airdash mixup. If they try to roll you can just land 2A for a punish. If they respect, either do j.A(2) for a double overhead or j.A(1) j.B(whiff) 2A for a mixup. Beware as Mitsuru can wakeup Bufudyne this setup, Akihiko can parry Koro and Corkscrew, and Minazuki can counter super. - 236D airdash j.B = Gimmick mixup. Crossup protection keeps this from ever being a crossup but depending on your timing it may look like a crossup even though it isn't (crossup protection won't apply if you don't ever actually cross over). 2A 2B 236A 236D 236B 2B j.A(2) j.B jc j.B 236D j.2B forward jump j.B j.2B 9jc (block) > meaty 2C = pseudo-safejump. You can do falling j.A if you want for a weak mixup (it can be fuzzy blocked) if the opponent has a slow DP (>10f). Beware of Sho's Moon Smasher as it can catch you on the way down. 2A 2B 236A 236D 236B 2B j.A(1) 236D j.B j.2B 236B Rampage 236236C+D DP 236236A+B OMC 214214C+D = "Burst-safe" Rampage combo. If not in corner, they can burst the first hit of the DP but it will whiff and you can take pressure again. In corner, they can only burst after the second hit of DP, before you do the super (if they burst the first hit in corner you will punish them with the second hit automatically). You can bait this by going straight into 214214C+D as it will invul through the burst and punish it. Damage isn't that good (only about 5k) but S.Ken builds meter super fast so it's still kinda decent. Other silly stuff: 5C~A+C = Koro attacks while you roll, making it unpunishable unless they avoid the 5C or hit both you and Koro simultaneously. Also crosses up if close enough which is pretty funny.

So some day 1 stuff I workshopped. I'm super scrub at this game so I dunno how practical these are really but: Ground poke > 2D SHDolphin (Slash Horizontal Dolphin) RC 6[6] c.S 2H HVDolphin (Hardslash Vertical Dolphin) 66 c.S j.S jc j.SH Ensenga - Only works off good starters, i.e. c.S. Off worse starters you will have to do c.S 5H HVDolphin instead. - Dash as far as possible after the RC. You need to get as close as possible as the HVDolphin needs to hit cross-under so they fall towards you instead of away. Ground poke > 2S SHDolphin RC 66 5D~9 j.HHSHD jc j.SH Ensenga, OTG 2D - You need to get the opponent as high above you as possible during the dust combo otherwise Ensenga will not give knockdown. (Corner) Ground poke > 2S SHDolphin RC 66 5D~6 6P 5H 6P 2H HVDolphin 66, OTG 6P - Doesn't work on everyone. Haven't tested exactly who but it doesn't work on Elphelt so I know it's not universal. 41236[X] 6K ]X[ (Dolphin Ride j.66 j.K j.H) c.S 2S SHDolphin RC 66 5D~9 j.HHH Ensenga - In corner, the 6P loop works instead. - If the hoop is set up behind May, you can do Dolphin Ride. If it's on top of the opponent May won't be able to ride the Dolphin so just use it to link after 6K normally. 214P/K YRC > Ball Hop (hit) j.H 66 c.S j.K j.S jc j.S j.H Ensenga - Ball or j.H can cross up depending on the spacing of the ball hop. Still trying to figure out good mixups using this.

So I've using May to do missions and it seems she lacks damage off most starters? Unless she can punish with OHK or the mission gives you meter for RC it seems difficult to pump out a lot of damage even if you get a counterhit. Am I wrong about this or should I just start using Ram-chan for easy meterless damage in trials?

You can negate the superjump by charging down for a few frames before doing the TK input. So it'd look like 5A[2] 369A+B or whatever.

Having played this matchup a lot, I'd say it's pretty bad for Ken. LK has it pegged at 5.5/4.5 Marge's favor, I'd personally put it at 6/4. Whatever it is though it's definitely one of Ken's worst, relatively speaking. - Marge has a distinct advantage at round start. Her options are generally just better than yours because she can hit Koro and you can't do much about it. If she opens the round with sweep, it will hit Koro out of any action EXCEPT 5C which will go over it, and it will lose to your sweep since yours is slightly faster. Her 5B will beat any Koro option (including 5C i believe) and will also counterhit your 5B or sweep. I haven't extensively tested what beats what at round start but suffice to say that Marge hits Koro very easily at round start and that gives her tons of cancel options. If for example you start the round by jumping, she can do 5B to hit Koro then God's Hand you out of the air, or 5B > Gale Slash to kill Koro and be too far away to be punished. It is possible to bait her out by unsummoning Koro at round start and then baiting her now-uncancelable poke but it still requires a pretty good read on her actions and if she does nothing you're left without Koro vs. Marge's superior neutral. - Marge's neutral is strong for the same reason that she can cancel off Koro whenever she wants. Sweep hits Koro anywhere on the stage unless he's in the middle of a move that puts him airborne (so basically just 5C and 214X) which means that as long as Koro is active she can basically sweep whenever she wants for free and you can't do anything about it. Her moves also do a LOT of damage to Koro (sweep > Divine Vacuum basically OHKOs him) so expect to be playing without assistance for a good deal of the match. Your best bet honestly just seems to be to throw out 214D a lot so Koro isn't totally useless while you approach and try to bait out a bad attempt to hit Koro. - Her j.C is Adachi tier. Don't challenge it. - Fireball/Iceball (j.D/j.2D I believe) is dangerous and she can scoop a full combo off it. Koro's actually pretty good for blocking the fireball in this case as Marge has a fair bit of recovery after this move, but he will take a big chunk of damage in the process. If you do have Koro in a place where he can 2C/214C to intercept a fireball, make sure you go in hard immediately after it so it counts. - Ken doesn't really seem to have a ton of options for frauding his way out of Marge pressure so you're gonna have to react legitimately for the most part. Roll is an easy way to get out of pressure in general but it's not foolproof as she can bait it with a hop or space 5D to grab you even if you roll. I believe you can safely backdash 5D/2D mixup if you react properly to Ardha coming out. The moves you want to watch for are God's Hand (you can react to this easily by watching the space above your head, the golden hand appears quite early) and 5D/2D (5D catches standing and can be spaced to catch rolls, 2D looks like 5D and can catch jump-outs and hops). Personally I've found that it's difficult to react to both God's Hand and 5D/2D at the same time if you are watching the Personas as they come out, but fortunately you can safely down-back and ignore the Personas actually hitting you and focus on watching Marge's animations themselves. God's Hand and 5D both have pretty distinctively slow animations (God's Hand = Marge turns away and opens her book, 5D = Marge pulls out a card and holds it in front of her face) so if you just focus on watching for these two animations you can roll/hop on reaction and get a free punish. Basically think of it as watching Liz when she goes for 5C > 5D/2C. - In the event you get her blocking, you can pretty much go full ham and there isn't a ton she can do about it. Marge's R-Action is a command throw like Liz's (albeit faster) which means it will lose to jumping mixups pretty handily. Late airdash j.A beats it for the most part BUT beware as she can still time the grab to invul the j.A itself and catch you as you land, and it will counterhit and be untechable. Doing the airdash a bit higher allows you to call out the DP safely but it makes the mixup less ambiguous. Otherwise just run standard pressure and watch out for Power Slash as it can reversal you from pretty far away.

I think it just means that j.1B and j.3B inputs will give you j.2B instead of j.B, like how doing 1/3X on the ground gives you 2X.

15f overhead that no one will see/react to vs a 30f overhead with a telegraphed flash. Not exactly the most ambiguous mixup ever.

I've messed around with her and wasn't able to find anything great, damage-wise. But stuff I did find/mess around with: - SB Risette Field (orbiters) makes ALL of Rise's normals unburstable while it's hitting. - Risette Fields can be detonated during Hysterical Slap for a bit of extra damage - Hysterical Slap can be OMC'd into Risette Live in corner (requires a bit of timing) So it is possible to do something like Rampage > Risette Field > Hysterical Slap OMC Risette Live, but it does like no damage. Shadow Rise is primarily good because of Rampage unblockable gimmicks which can pile on a fair chunk of free damage if they ever drop below 50 meter when she has 100. You can do stuff like blocked 5A at start of second round > 5AA Rampage 5AA 2B 236C+D 236B 22A+B 236A+B dash SB Risette Live for an airtight unblockable string into about 5k. Still really just a gimmick though unfortunately.

It's literally just sweep > hold up during. It's just more practical off jump loop cause you lose way less damage not doing the rekkas after a jump loop than after just 3-4 normals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHMVGGJi4Nk So that doesn't work lol. Worth a shot though.

May's always been able to do big damage and also rack up a ton of dizzy. Sorta looks like Xrd damage in general got toned down but I seem to recall being able to take off roughly that much in AC and +R with just a 5K starter. Keep in mind that I-no is a pretty low-defense character. So whether May does more damage or less compared to the average damage output of other characters I have no idea, but it's definitely less than in AC. +R isn't really that comparable either since she got huge dizzy with multiple 6P hits in her corner combos.

HK version has always been cheaper. And I guess DFC isn't a full price game to begin with. Also keep in mind that the jp PSN mark-up rates are just ridiculous.

May seems a lot more oki-oriented in this particular version of the game. Whether that means she's more of a setplay character now who lacks damage, or if it's just a straight buff, I'm not really sure since it seems like damage output in Xrd seems to have been reduced a lot vs. in previous games. Also I'm not super familiar with GG balance history but I believe May has always been one of the lightest characters, not a heavy.

3.2k for 1 stock off j.C is pretty decent even if it doesn't give oki. Could probably have ended with oki if he had another stock too.

You're saying he shouldn't learn to fuzzy jump? I'll admit I didn't actually see the matches in question but I don't think bringing up a useful defensive OS, especially in the context of the Minazuki matchup, is "misinformation." That said I'd rather not derail this particular thread either so I'll just leave it at that.

Learn to fuzzy jump, it makes the Minazuki matchup borderline free.

I don't think Ken has any way to escape any of his Heat Riser > 5D setups? Maybe if he does raw Heat Riser > 5D without silencing you first but otherwise it seems like you're just totally screwed once he gets you with Heat Riser. Even 5D > 5D > 5D > combo works, I've been 100%'d off a DP before.

This should probably go in the Shabrys vs. Yu matchup thread but: - A Lion (the lower, faster one) is -4 on block. You can IB 5A for a punish, otherwise he can DP. If he does start DPing after blocked A Lion you can just start blocking and punishing his DP for big damage. Just make sure you run under him when he DPs so he can't super cancel it into Ziodyne to bait your punish. - B Lion is neutral on block and his pokes are faster than yours so don't press anything. You can try to roll or DP out but he can do Raging Lion feint (hold B during B Lion) to bait that. Unfortunately there's no guaranteed way to escape the B Lion for this reason. Yes, it's stupid. Yu is a stupid character. - Yu is a dumb character and it shows. There's really no safe or easy way to escape his mixup. Fuzzy jump OS does help a bit versus Heroic Bravery mixup (throw/frametrap/DP bait) but unfortunately it's still a really strong mixup and there isn't a clean way out of it, again because Yu is a stupid character. Again, i want to reiterate that Yu is a fucking stupid character.

Minazuki's version is way slower and much more obvious, and you can't control the spacing. It's not even really comparable other than sharing the same animation. j.2C has a giant hitbox that beats most AAs and can bait out a lot of DPs, not to mention it'll cross up if done properly and it's fantastic for punishing stuff after baiting it out with a jump (i.e. jumping over Yu's Cross Slash then punishing with j.2C).

So, Sho's j.2C is literally godlike? Like "why would anyone pick Minazuki over Sho if it means losing this move" godlike.