Adelheid

Am I the only one who can more or less understand them when they're talking about magic? There's pretty clear analogues with music theory.

Bomber doesn't have a zero in it.

As my playstyle has matured, so has my Axl Wishlist. Some of these things you've seen before. Whatever. 1. 9-frame Axl Bomber. 2. 9-frame 6K. 3. 4-frame 5K. 4. Fully invulnerable Bentengari S and Bentengari H. 5. Rensengeki raising guard bar.

So here's something. Awhile ago there was mention of Raven being playable in the US release. There any truth to that? I mean he's clearly not there from the start.

I honestly don't think Paradigm's unpopular because he's bad, because his troops are just so strong and all his abilities are great (especially Strategem)... But I really doubt he's the best, either. I figure it's just because he's not very interactive. Since Paradigm isn't that strong in and of himself, can't combo very well, and has few moves, he's bad at fighting other Masters directly, which doesn't appeal that much to most people who already play Guilty Gear.

There's not enough people in this thread proclaiming how awesome this game is and how awesome Aksys' work on it was.

This is apparently a pretty widespread belief. I'm going to claim it was only changed to 5 for AC.

Eh, I never really meant that 2K is a safe thing to do against Sol, as it's pretty much not... But I really can't see it being reacted to. It goes active too fast; people just don't have 7-frame reaction time. Clearly, of course, if he's VVing things randomly he's not reacting to anything (except you rushing him, clearly) and you can just rush at him and then block and punish (unless he uses VV RC, in which case mixup, but whatever, it's sol). It doesn't appear to me that you and Shoto have actually said different things than I have; perhaps I phrased what I had to say poorly. Doesn't matter too much, I suppose. Tyrant Rave starts up a frame after H VV, so if you're avoiding that you should be avoiding Tyrant Rave, too.

Really? Sytha, Teyah, and I were screwing around with X+ last night, and it really seemed like it wasn't there. But yeah, off-topicness

You can always go with a perfectly spaced 3P, which will clash with VV and barely hit him if he just blocked, then trying to pressure from there. This is safe, but it doesn't actually get you much. If you feel like having two-frame timing and awesome execution timing for ridiculous shenanigans, there's always the meaty Benten S FRC > holding back, using the hit pause on either you blocking VV or him blocking/getting hit by Benten to determine your next move. The real advantage to this is it gives you an excuse to be right next to him on wakeup, allowing for you to go for other oki, most notably TK bomber, which if not for this threat a Sol player would just look for and VV on reaction. I should also point out that you probably should not be getting VVed out of 2K, as that is unreactionable. If he's just always throwing out VV, then just punish him for it. Run up and look like you're going to do something, but instead FD brake or backdash to block/dodge VV, and punish the crap out of him. He'll either stop doing that, or you'll get lots of free wins. As for general oki, Axl's not great at it, but he does have lots of solid options. Between 3P, Bomber, and IAD j.S he gets massive advantage off of any real hit and even if the opponent guesses right and blocks Axl is still at frame advantage and can keep pressure, and the opponent basically can't throw you out of these. He also has a lot of lesser options like 2K, 2H, and 6H which aren't quite as good in most situations but serve as extra options, and have their own specific purposes (for instance, Ky is just really bad at dealing with a well-spaced, well-timed meaty 2K). Going for knockdown > rushdown doesn't work on every character, and there's some characters that even though it does work on it's not really ideal, and Axl probably needs to get that knockdown different against a lot of the characters it does work on, but in general that's a pretty solid strat.

Er, I totally see the purpose in using Kokuu in that situation, but generally you TK something to get it as low to the ground as possible. I don't see why that's necessary when 963214S gets it extremely low as well, and is a much more intuitive motion. Admittedly, though, that TK backdash Kokuu seems pretty cool and probably could not be cheated in such a way - I had not considered it.

It was fixed in 1.5, though, wasn't it? I know it was fixed in X+, but being PS2 exclusive no one played it, so.

I don't really see the purpose in TK Kokuu, actually. 963214S has always been low enough for me.

Well, that's... That's basically true. I don't actually know anyone who doesn't have that issue. It's more or less just going to be like that - It's really just a matter of practicing it so that the motion doesn't feel awkward.

I'm pretty confused by that crazy 2S for oki at 0:50 of the first vid. I'm also very surprised the Robo player did anything there except go to instant block whatever string you were tried there and then DP super > combos for the kill, but... Not every Robo-Ky can be Spark, I guess. By the way, nice color.

Gold Sol? Gold HOS? Gold Faust?

"If you pick them, you don't get to press buttons."

Wouldn't 623214S+D work just as well?

Hmm. I spoke some pretty harsh words a few months back. I wasn't confident it could be done well. I'm happy to say that I was wrong about the quality; seeing the video, I'm quite happy, quite impressed.

Eh? Once someone has begun to faultless in the air, until they stop faultlessing or they hit they ground, they cannot be crossed up. As long as they've begun faultlessing before you get to the other side of them, then they're safe, if they had at all good timing.

You can't cross up the opponent if they're air faultlessing, so you probably shouldn't use this move for this, specifically, against experienced people, at least if they have tension (or if you're willing to blow 50% to drain their tension, but that seems pretty sketchy unless they have little enough that you can drain it all and AA them for a combo).

This reminds me; I heard from tolore that John Wu said that the people he was translating for at Evo said the same thing.

Beta Blade has 1-8 full invuln, 9-12 strike invuln, and auto-JI, actually. 'tis all there in his frame data.

You say that like Dogura hasn't clearly proven that Japan can't block dust any better.

So here's an interesting but stupid oki mixup: Meaty TK Bomber/early TK Bomber > 2K. Axl Bomber has a fairly decent recovery time and then 2K isn't the fastest move in the world, but Axl Bomber's visual effects make it ambiguous as to what you're doing for part of it. It's not something I'd recommend as a real strategy piece due to the whole "well there's 26 frames of recovery and startup there" thing, but it's definitely something I'd do just to screw with people every so often.