qwerty

holy shitt

so this is kinda old news, but i'll post anyways because it hasn't been mentioned yet. when you block her 5DD, you can actually 6D (one frame counter) her incoming 4D. if you instant block the second hit of 5DD, you get a ten frame window, but you can do the counter without the instant block. unfortunately, if you're far away from her you don't really get enough time to dash in and punish, but if you're relatively close you can nail her with a 6C CH.

i didn't say you were defending him, but those are two things that lag has nothing to do with.

he didn't fd AT ALL and he bursted at 60% blame the lag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG1r0XLIiyk i'll just leave this here

hey so next time you block hell's fang and it's followup, remember that you have a guaranteed 6C CH (even if you don't ib). and we all know what's guaranteed after 6C....

considering i regularly practice against the only taokaka in the us worth mentioning, i would say your assumption is wrong. tao is a goddamn cunt who won't stop fucking moving. she can semi-bang install runaway with her drive cancel gimmicks, and quite frankly the only reliable way to knock her out of it is 5A, since 6A is too slow and baitable and trying an air to air hotaru against it is just a waste of good meter. the only air to air attempts you should be trying are j.B or air throw, though i generally recommend staying grounded as her air pokes > yours. j.C is actually incredible for air to ground since all of tao's anti airs suck and will eat j.C's all day. and if she guards you can either do a shitty gimmick throw (works sometimes) or mix up into tsubaki or land and 2A -> renka (2A is really fast and renka scores corner knockdown). but seriously, stop using 5C against her, period. it will NEVER hit her because she has plenty of ways to hit you out of 14 frames (especially if she instant blocks shit, because then she has an extra TEN FUCKING FRAMES to get in and punish) and tao does a lot more damage than your average netplay scrub would make you think (and for no meter to boot). i guess the best way to sum up my thoughts on this matchup is that you should really only go for your safe options because she can punish most everything else way too easily. half of the times i lose to taoftw it's because i do stupid shit like go for counters when i shouldn't and do autopilot 6A which she can easily punish. but when i play smart and go for nothing but safe options i basically have it made because she can't really punish moves like 5A and 5B. it sucks to have to use your "weak" options when you could just be all like SEEEEIIIYAAAAAH but it's the only thing that works. that being said, keep in mind that 5B gatlings into renka and that renka can be canceled into zantetsu, so it's not like you lose your damage potential by not pressing C like a maniac.

speaking of renka gimmicks, something i've done that seems to work alot is to jump in, land, and renka as soon as you land. they're either going to be blocking high because they expect a j.C or they're going to try and AA you with 6A/uppercut. if you land outside of their 6A range you can usually still land renka. uppercuts you just barrier i guess.

the problem with j.C is that hotaru only gives you a jump cancel. but 5C (and 6C!) link just fine.

reversal backdash -> tk hotaru. not that hard really. anti air with long vertical range and startup invul. sounds like a dp to me. yes, you have one frame to get into the air where you're vulnerable, but that is essentially a nonissue considering how fast hotaru is. plus let's not forget there are real dp's in this game that have no startup invul (jin's A dp comes to mind). regardless, it's there to be abused from ground to air and i'd like to see if anyone can come up with a decent followup for it.

i've used hotaru to escape tao's command grab super and tager's 720.

so, in case any of you didn't know, hakumen has a dp. no joke. you know hotaru? that move you use to reset during air combos? it also happens to have startup invul and incredible vertical range. it also happens to be near impossible to punish. the only real problem i have with it is that i can't seem to find any decent followups for it. if it connects, you only get one double jump. i'll usually follow it up with j.C (into tsubaki if i have the meter and it'll kill them) but i'm wondering just how creative you can get with the limited comboability it gives you. tl;dr: what are some combos you can do off of hotaru that aren't just j.C -> tsubaki

it's hard for me to describe it, but there's a range where hakumen's j.C will completely beat out heat knuckle. i'll try to see if i can get a replay of me whoring the shit out of it up sometime. but yeah, even though it is a great tactic, you do still have to vary your approaches, something i'm struggling with against tager. i tend to get nervous and choke when approaching from the ground, since he has 5A, A sledge (which any good tager WILL bait for counters with), 360, spinny super, or god forbid a 720. if you ask me though, this matchup is more or less even. both characters have adequate baits and punishes to the point where i can't contest a clear advantage between either of them.

arakune is definitely a pain, but i feel that if you play smart you can earn your wins. he can be punished during landing recovery (god damn i harp on this so much but it's seriously the only guaranteed punish you have against him) and you can catch him during dumb cloud setups that are done way too close to the ground (though most good arakunes won't be doing this very often). of course the hardest thing about the top three for hakumen isn't knowing what to do, rather being able to do it. you basically can't afford to make any mistakes because they all have incredible oki games and from there your only second chance is coming from a burst.

i basically just try to punish arakune during landing recovery and sometimes get up close when i think it's safe to. yep. also if you do the overhead cloud thing, don't do the dive towards the ground thing afterwards, cuz my 2C will be eating you and the cloud.

play a good nu. no, really, i mean someone really fucking good with nu, then come back and try to read what you said with a straight face.

oh shi- epic mirror matches incoming

she also has 2D, which in most cases you'll need to barrier/j.D.

j.C usually autoguards all of them and lands a CH on bang, at least in my experience.

if you blocked a burst, you'd be guard crushed you silly goose.

noel in general is pretty fucking easy to beat in all honesty. her mixup game is poop since the only decent low she has is 3C (which can be guarded on reaction) so just stand there and block dat greed sever. and as reaVer kinda said, if she follows up the greed sever with flashkick, you have a guaranteed 5D right there. follow that shit up with 6C -> shippu for like 4800 damage. even against relatively good noels i find this to be a pretty easy matchup. you can counter a lot of noel's shit (2D her 3C's, lolz) and she doesn't take damage very well either, so as long as you play smart this matchup is yours. edit: forgot to add that it's also pretty damn easy to 5D her greed sever on reaction as well.

the only times you can escape command grabs are when you're thrown during guardstun or when the throw is comboed into. when either of these happen you get the pink "!!".

just be cautious of his guard points (any decent bang player will try to bait these, especially if you're j.C happy as many hakumens on xbl are) and be prepared for his mixup on neutral techs. also, 6A and 6B are your friends. seriously.

but teching through a backwards mawaru at just the right moment when you're in the corner is a bit easier said than done. :\ plus then if i tech through the mawaru she has a chance of landing 4D on me which is even worse.

i don't know, i seem to have a decent time waiting out nu's pressure (her midscreen mixup game really isn't all that good, and most nu's just do 5DD 4D 236D for pressure anyways) and finding my opening. of course, it is still hard as fuck to actually win, because you can't make any mistakes, but it's doable. my hardest time against nu is wakeup, actually. if i tech forwards, i get whacked by the forward mawaru- if i tech backwards, i get whacked by the backward mawaru. any time i wake up i hope she acts stupid and does gunflame instead, since that's actually punishable depending on the distance she's at.