Final Ultima

[6/16/2013] Masakichi (RG) vs. Kazuhisa (IZ) [Notes] Gamechariot Ranbat Pick Ups [6/16/2013] A-ru (PL) vs. Rousoku (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot Ranbat Pick Ups [6/22/2013] MinH (RE) vs. Masakichi (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot Weekly Tournament [6/22/2013] Kuromitsu Imako (BU) vs. Masakichi (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/22/2013] KAQN (RG) vs. Shugetsu (TG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/22/2013] KAQN (RG) vs. Zobon (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/22/2013] Suya (VK) vs. Nakamura Kyo no Mascot (RG) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland 4on4 Pick Ups [6/22/2013] Onna Kishi (AZ) vs. Koji (RG) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland 4on4 Pick Ups [6/26/2013] Miya (RG) vs. KAQN (HZ) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/26/2013] Zobon (RG) vs. Miya (JI) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/29/2013] Marian (RG) vs. Washi (MU) [Notes] Gamechariot Weekly Tournament [7/5/2013] Fumi (RG) vs. Kami Ninja (CA) [Notes] [7/20/2013] Ciel (HK) vs. Kimi (RG) [Notes] Kakeo Sanshou 4on4 [7/24/2013] HARA (RG) vs. Rocha (HZ) [Notes] Central Hachiouji HWB [7/26/2013] Kiyokawaka (RG) vs. 0 (BU) [Notes] Tachikawa 3on3 [8/3/2013] Unknown (MU) vs. HARA (RG) [Notes] Central Hachiouji Pre Tournament Casuals [8/3/2013] Willa the Ignis Fatuus (RG) vs. HARA (RG) [Notes] Central Hachiouji Pre Tournament Casuals [8/3/2013] UNDER (TG) vs. HARA (RG), Part 2 [Notes] Central Hachiouji Pre Tournament Casuals [8/3/2013] Mabbupuku (RE) vs. HARA (RG) [Notes] Central Hachiouji Pre Tournament Casuals [8/3/2013] Gentarou (NU) vs. HARA (RG) [Notes] Central Hachiouji Post Tournament Casuals

I think it's worth noting that the screenshots depicting Roman Cancels show Sol's Tension Gauge with what appears to be a sliver of tension (presumably the tension gained from the 5HS and Gun Flame). That sliver is a dark blue colour, and the HUD explanation still shows that 25% tension is green, so the Tension Gauge still changes colour in the same increments as before. I wouldn't count out FRCs just yet.

Famitsu have released a new article covering Dio Brando and Enrico Pucci. http://www.famitsu.com/news/201307/25037097.html We also have some news regarding All Star Battle League. On the 7th of August, there will be a Group G consisting of the two most recently revealed characters and a character from one of the previous groups that didn't make it through, decided by vote. Whoever wins that group gets the final slot in the 16-man bracket. After that, there will be a drawing to determine the match-ups for said bracket. In case that wasn't interesting enough, there will also be a new PV.

[6/15/2013] kou (NO) vs. KAQN (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/15/2013] tomo (AZ) vs. Shiratama (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/15/2013] Gelato (HZ) vs. Shiratama (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/15/2013] Shiratama (RG) vs. Kuromitsu (MK) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/15/2013] Shiratama (RG) vs. Yoshi (NU) [Notes] Gamechariot [7/3/2013] Udon (JI) vs. Ora (RG) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 2on2 [7/3/2013] Osoba (JI) vs. Ora (RG) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 2on2 [7/3/2013] Jasu (VK) vs. Ora (RG) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 2on2 [7/7/2013] Yamanchu (RG) vs. Kuguiaya (TG) [Notes] Amipara Technoland [7/7/2013] Hoge (TK) vs. Makisho (RG) [Notes] Amipara Technoland [7/13/2013] Ariti (MK) vs. Satoru (RG) [Notes] Playspot Big One A vs Tachikawa A [7/13/2013] TAG (MU) vs. Satoru (RG) [Notes] Playspot Big One A vs Tachikawa A [7/13/2013] Usagi (TS) vs. Satoru (RG) [Notes] Playspot Big One A vs Tachikawa A

Full matches for Groups E and F. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8DwmMKs3o Josuke's HHA looks like it'll be pretty useful, since it crumples on hit. From what I've noticed, hitting a crumpling opponent still treats them as standing for much longer in this game than in say Street Fighter IV. The CPU really needs to learn when to stop charging things. Joseph keeps getting hit for building meter and Okuyasu keeps going for point blank unblockables.

Yeah, Diavolo's time erasure counter looks incredibly powerful. He can erase time as a combo breaker at the cost of half a stock of Heart Heat Gauge too, which is actually pretty worrying. Speaking of counters though, oh man, Joseph's taunt counter. Not only does he predict specific taunt quotes, but he even gains an entire stock of Heart Heat Gauge for landing it. I wonder if Esidisi's is as good. We never got to see it gain meter last time because he was in Heat Mode when he activated it. Edit: Also how did it take me this long to notice that Mista starts getting nervous and losing meter whenever he has exactly four bullets left? This game, man.

That's fine by me, my two favourites in that group got through anyway.

I kinda feel sorry for Giorno. He used Kakugo Mode to cover the start-up for activating Gold Experience Requiem. He's the only COM we've seen so far to use a Puttsun Cancel in a match, and he actually did something with it. Still loses every match. He gets an A for effort though.

Regarding multi-hit moves having reduced GB+ on additional hits: It's not just related to multi-hit moves, but rather any additional hit blocked while the opponent remains in blockstun. And as you say, the figure is just the base number halved and rounded down. There's a table for it on the Japanese wiki, so we should probably add it to the Dustloop wiki too. As for attacks having increased GB- while the Guard Balance is flashing, I have no idea what exactly determines the point difference, but I imagine that the reason for it is to be prevent you doing too many Counter Hits in a row. As a rule, you can only do up to four Counter Hits in a row off a maxed out Guard Balance. The only exception I can think of is for moves with a GB- of only 1 or 2, such as Grand Viper, which will allow for a fifth Counter Hit. Sol's ground throw and command throw don't need to be changed because they can't Counter Hit in the first place. His air throw can Counter Hit on a flashing Guard Balance, and so has an adjusted GB-. Edit: Urk, took so long testing things out that TheRealBobMan made the four Counter Hits point before me.

It was pretty disappointing, but there's still some stuff to take out of all of this. First of all, character themes are more or less confirmed at this point, which is great. You can hear most of them pretty well whenever the sound effects aren't obfuscating the music, and in my opinion they sound really good. Clarifying on one of my suspicions from the exhibition matches: Buccellati was shown clearly ignoring the hitstun of Avdol's jump-in attack while throwing an attack of his own during Kakugo Mode, then almost immediately retaliating with his Heart Heat Attack. Then, when Buccellati stood still and Avdol went for his Easy Beat combo string, Buccellati stunned as normal. Kakugo Mode seems to only grant armour during attack start-up and active frames. After all, the only time we've seen it in effect so far was when Buccellati was Counter Hit, and the only other time Buccellati has been Counter Hit in footage during Kakugo Mode was when he got K.O.'d by Josuke. (Edit: I suspected for a while that the lack of super armour may have had something to do with the opponent being in Gogogo Mode, but recently reading some Japanese text on how the mode works made it pretty clear that it's actually just because it only works during attacks. My apologies for any confusion on the matter.) Regarding Johnny, I'm still wondering what the corpse parts are supposed to do. I'm pretty sure they're not required to upgrade Tusk. And now for something that threw me off a little: Pillar Men either do not have recoverable life as standard like vampires, or they take non-recoverable damage from Stands. It's a bit hard to tell with the highlighty nature of the videos, but Esidisi (ACDC) is only shown with noticable recoverable life once, against Caesar. This might be because it was the only point that he took damage from Caesar that wasn't just constant Shabon Cutters, or it could be that said damage was incurred as a side-effect of an attack that we didn't know deals recoverable damage. I'll need to look at some better quality footage so I can see if Caesar's normals dealt recoverable damage or not. Edit: After watching a slightly higher quality video, it seems that the Pillar Men do have recoverable life, but Stands don't deal recoverable damage. I guess that makes sense, Stands were originally introduced as "ghostly ripple", after all. Pretty easy to get confused about something like that when the COM just spams Stand attacks on Esidisi all day. It's actually kinda cruel. He doesn't have to cry about it though.

The stun damage formula is based on base move damage.

[5/29/2013] Shigu (VK) vs. KAQN (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [6/19/2013] Ten Mikado Kain (AZ) vs. RUI (RG) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 3on3 [6/19/2013] Masu (RG) vs. RYO (RE) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 3on3 [6/19/2013] Masu (RG) vs. Hikaru (HK) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 3on3 [6/21/2013] Kabi (RG) vs. Ronitta (JI) [Notes] Fujisawa Funfun Casuals [6/25/2013] Hayami (RG) vs. Meri (BU) [Notes] Mizonokuchi Taito 4on4 [6/25/2013] Hayami (RG) vs. Minoru (RC) [Notes] Mizonokuchi Taito 4on4

Another month, another set of reveals. Dio Brando and Enrico Pucci

[5/11/2013] Yutta (RG) vs. Yumura (TG) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/11/2013] Yutta (RG) vs. Miya (JI) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/15/2013] Hai (PL) vs. Onegai Jayoku (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot Ranbat [5/17/2013] Firu (AM) vs. KAQN (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/18/2013] KAJIN (RG) vs. arts (JI) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/18/2013] KAJIN (RG) vs. Asabishi (RE) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/18/2013] KAJIN (RG) vs. Nanaki (PL) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/18/2013] KAJIN (RG) vs. Mahiro (MU) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/18/2013] Asabishi (RE) vs. Benishouga (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot [5/22/2013] Mahiro (RG) vs. Shadow (AM) [Notes] Gamechariot Ranbat [5/22/2013] Maou (HZ) vs. Gomikazu (RG) [Notes] Gamechariot Film (HK) vs. Run (RG), Part 2 [Notes] Shura no Kuni @ G Com Wajiro [6/19/2013] Ryuusei (JI) vs. HARA (RG) [Notes] Central Hachiouji [6/19/2013] HARA (RG) vs. Ryuusei (JI) [Notes] Central Hachiouji FT5

His reveal in PV5 doesn't show anything to indicate that it's timed. The name under the life gauge even changes from Kars to Kars (Ultimate Thing), which seems unnecessary if it only lasts for a few seconds. Incidentally, "Ultimate Thing" is the strongest bit of furigana I have read in quite some time. I'll probably never be able to refer to it as Ultimate Being or Ultimate Lifeform ever again.

You might be right. That being said, for the time being I'm still expecting it to be at least somewhat more generous than moves of that variety tend to be. Much better to be wrong about that than vice versa.

I actually have some general observations to add to that too. Stylish Move seems to have a pretty generous window, considering that the less than wholly competent COM manages it on multiple occasions. It's hard to say how much invulnerability it has, but it looks very potent. The opponent is in hitstop (dodgestop?) for almost the full length of the animation. The Guard Gauge does drop by about 20% whenever you do it, but it's hard to tell how crippling that is, if at all. Depending on the speed of normals in this game, the neutral game may end up being very safe out of pure necessity. Josuke uses Stylish Move to dodge "Ariariariari" and responds with "Dorararara". This triggers Rush Mode. This suggests a couple of things about blazing fist specials. First of all, they have a crazy amount of active frames, although that should come as no surprise. Secondly, notice how Josuke is actually pretty damn close when he throws it out, and he's throwing it at Sticky Fingers who is currently just punching the air off to his side. This suggests that the conditions don't actually require that the moves themselves "clash", just that one blazing fists special touches another one in progression. So you might see this happening off trades or something. The amount of Heart Heat Gauge you lose from being taunted has been reduced significantly. In PV4, DIO taunts Josuke with his iconic WRYYYYY! and Josuke loses about half of a stock right there and then. As Pete mentioned, now it's more like an eighth of a stock. This is probably for the best. Buccellati's Heart Heat Attack deals damage to himself, as we already knew from the latest Famitsu article, but now we know that the damage he deals to himself is recoverable. I wouldn't be surprised if all self-inflicted damage is recoverable. Recoverable life functions somewhat like focus damage in Street Fighter IV. If you take a hit, you lose it all. In the case of DIO and the Pillar Men, all damage they take is partially recoverable, but being hit by a move with the Hamon property attached to it removes all of their recoverable life. Match-ups in this game are going to be bananas. Josuke's Barrier looks really good. As Pete mentioned, it's too large for Buccellati to get around in a single sidestep. With good positioning, you could easily bait an opponent into doing something really stupid. Jumping over it or dodging around it looks like it would be really obnoxious. Gogogo (Rumble) Mode and Kakugo (Resolve) Mode seem to only activate once you return to neutral, much like Awakenings in P4U. Buccellati clearly gets knocked into the appropriate amount of life, does an ukemi, lands, and then enters Kakugo Mode. The confusing thing about Kakugo Mode is that Buccellati still seems to flinch as normal, so I'm wondering if either the original entry was misinterpreted and it's just a defense boost or if both characters entering their comeback mode cancels each other out. Either way, Buccellati was hardly taking a massive amount of damage from Josuke even though he was in a mode with raised attack power. Jonathan's Zoom Punch is damn slow. It doesn't seem to have much range compared to the anti-air one shown off in PV4 either, but apparently it can be extended by holding down the attack button, so that explains that. Jonathan's Heart Heat Attack does not appear to be classed as a Hamon attack, despite having the Hamon visual effect. It seems to compensate for this by doing a pretty sizable amount of damage though. I can only imagine that Sunlight Yellow Overdrive will sting like hell on DIO though. The full Road Roller animation is ridiculously long. I am perfectly okay with this. DIO's "This is "The World"!" special appears to have a decent amount of invulnerability during that momentary teleport. When Jonathan tries to hit DIO with the Sword of Luck & Pluck, DIO uses Stylish Move to dodge the first hit. The second hit then clearly whiffs even though it looks like it should've at least hit The World, if not DIO. The additional hits of Sword of Luck & Pluck look like they might auto-correct to an extent, possibly because they're additional commands and not automatic follow-ups.

I seem to recall that the Japanese version of Calamity Trigger actually had both Japanese and English voice and text options for Story Mode, but the English options was omitted from Continuum Shift onwards. One of the Japanese trailers for the console release even demonstrated English voices and text in a short clip. That said, it's doubtful that this function will suddenly make a return.

Adding this because SoWL mentioned it elsewhere but seems to have accidentally omitted it from the post here. Buccellati's Unique Trait

An update to be made regarding Sol's changes: As the changelog for v1.10 indicated, Sol's Tyrant Rave damage was changed between v1.00 and v.1.10. The mook (based on v1.00) lists the damage as (25+25n)x3+84, but as of v1.10 is now (25+30n)x3+84. The frame data and character pages have been updated accordingly. Thanks go to SKD and his now broken hands after mashing his very first Clean Hit Grand Viper on a Vita for the sake of these tests.

That... and importantly, if they've stated that the game will have 30+ characters... why would they stop at 29?

[5/24/2013] Ittousai-chan (RG) vs. Matsu (MK) [Notes] Taito Station Machida Ranbat [5/29/2013] Niya (RG) vs. Shino (NO) [Notes] Central Hachiouji Singles Tournament [5/29/2013] Niya (RG) vs. Sazanami (LI) [Notes] Central Hachiouji Singles Tournament [5/29/2013] RUI (RG) vs. Kohe (RC) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 3on3 [5/29/2013] Winker (RG) vs. Kohe (RC) [Notes] Shinjuku Sportsland UDON Cup 3on3

Yes, 22C has 8 active frames in BBCP, up from 3 (although it was possible before BBCP), and probably.

Hitting a downed opponent may treat them as if they're airborne, but downed and airborne are two clearly different conditions. Therefore, do not use the word "only". If someone new to BlazBlue were to read your posts and come to the conclusion that 22C doesn't work on downed opponents because it "only works on airborne opponents", or even worse... that 22C's function is "obviously an anti-air grab", then that is spreading misinformation.

Watch your choice of words. Last time I checked, 6B air hit > delay 22C, CH 3C/2D > delay 22C and hell, even a stubborn refusal to ground tech > 22C does not constitute high level thaumaturgy.