MadRhetoric

its just haku-men's generic 8 star combo... but milking the most damage possible with an impropable 6C CH into renka. The kick into j.2C > j.C was nice though, I didn't know you could squeeze in that j.B between 2C and j.2C like that, every bit of damage helps. anyway nice vid, the combo against tager is a cool gimmick. There were a couple other useful ones worth trying out.

like the guys above me said renka is probably the easiest but you can also do it off of gurren

I thought that it would be nice if mugen worked like furinkazan, as in you unlocked gates by landing counters and once you had them all unlocked + 8 stars you could activate mugen and you were in that mode for the rest of the round. But hell even having an activation like blood kain would make it at least useable rather than total garbage. I also thought of a few other things that would make it useable. Like your stars don't start draining until you use a special after activating it, or while in mugen mode you get a free second burst.

this works and its the most obvious way but he's having trouble with consistency, and I've found what helps my consistency is rolling. The problem with this way is its a ton of jerking since you have let it go to 5 then back down, then up, then down again for the j.2C. I find just rolling it from the 2 to 4 or 5 rather than letting it return to neutral by itself, then rolling it back up the side to 9 makes for a smoother motion that lets the sjc come out more naturally when you're trying to perform it consistently. It also helps with making sure you super jump in the direction you want rather than straight up because you roll the stick along the side. This technique is also good for regular super jumps, I use it a ton especially against Nu-13 because it allows you to go from a blocking stance into a super jump and back to blocking quickly and smoothly. Tage*Proto: Usually its best to keep at least 2 stars for 623A~A and if 2 is all you have its usually not worth it since you need at least a third for gurren > 6C to make renka worth doing at all.

try going 2C > 4269 or something like that. I find its easier to do it consistently if you roll it.

I usually use the standard but my favorite alt color is his Zero color scheme. It even colors his slashes green like Zero's saber.

Tage*Proto: It depends on your stars. 623A~A combo is going to get you the best damage for only 2 stars, plus the long duration of the combo and large number of hits if you get them into the corner means its good for star building as well. 214B combos can do more damage but burn through your stars quickly. 214B and 623A~A are comboed into from different moves and are used differently so if you can hit with one by all means do it, but when you're at low stars you should try to be using 623A~A BnB until you have enough stars for a powerful 214B combo. The exception is the j.2C loop off of 214B if you're right next to the corner. Allelujah: I won't lie, 2A is his best all-purpose poke. That being said its not his only option, the other ones just take more pratice and foresight. If you learn how to use 6A and 6B invuln to CH those are extremely useful. You can also pratice inserting counters into blockstrings whether in a natural gap or forcing one with an IB. 214B and dash j.214B can be useful because of their speed, invuln, and low/high hits if you know when to use them. Throwing is also another option, especially CH throws, but you have to be careful with them since you can get punished hard if you're not careful. If you're not right next to each other 5C, 3C, and 5B become options as well.

Tage*Proto: Nice j.2C loop at the end but you need to work on your combos. You kept doing 214B in situations where you should have comboed off of 623A~A. Also your approaches need a lot of work. Dash in j.C is great and all but that's not all Haku-men has. Learn to properly punish with pokes like 2A and CH with 6A, 6B, 2C. Also don't forget about hotaru and tsubaki, great for catching people off guard. Allelujah: Good job learning the core combos. However, you use barrier way too much. In both of the last rounds against Jin you blew all your barrier, went into danger and lost. Haku-men is the hardest to guard crush except for Tager. Learn to IB instead of barrier to make yourself hard to crush, save your barrier, and get stars. You seemed to be afraid to stay close because you would barrier them away and jump back constantly. Haku-men fights at close range so you should get comfortable IBing blockstrings and punishing. There's a technique called aggressively blocking that's core to Haku-men's game. He can't rushdown but he shouldn't simply back down either. You stand your ground and don't get pushed back easily, and you move forward even to just pressure them by blocking. Haku-men is played defensively but NOT passively. You aggressively block and when you see an opening you punish them hard. It seems like new people to Haku-men only know how to IAD j.C. That's a useful technique but that's not all he has and if you don't make your opponent respect your approaches when you start fighting higher level players they will walk ALL over you. Even varying dash timing and height or empty dashing into a possible throw is a start.

[214B (1) > 236A > 623A > 5C > 41236C (1)] xN is the basic loop. You can finish with 6C > shippu before mugen runs out for the best damage. There are a few others I know of, a tsubaki/hotaru loop and a shippu/yukikaze loop but I haven't bothered with them since all are only for show. This combo can be done off of a 6B CH > Mugen > 214B but the opponent will just burst so its not too useable.

I'll just post my favorite tensionless combos, I'm sure they're covered in the first two posts of the thread though. 2Ax4 Very useful for just wasting time and getting some stars. j.C > 2C > sjc > j.2C > ad > j.C You have to hit an airborne opponent, if you're on the ground you can just 2C and omit the j.C. if you hit the corner remember to j.2C xN instead of j.C. If you're right next to the corner you're better off doing the j.2C loop instead. Air throw > j.C (or j.B if you're very close to the ground) > 2C > sjc > j.2C > ad > j.C This one is probably his best star-less combo, good to go for air throws if you have no stars or don't want to use them. 6B CH > jump in j.C > 2C > sjc > j.2C > ad > j.C 6D > jump in j.C > 2C > sjc > j.2C > ad > j.C For the 6D one depending on the distance you may need to walk forward a bit before you jump in, or super jump if you're really far. there's plenty more but those are the ones I find myself using the most. ryoko already posted his highest damage but its extremely situational. The best combo for 8 magatama is close to what he posted but its 214B (1) > 41236C > 5C > 41236C > 3C You can combo into the 214B with whatever, 2A, 2B, 5C etc. or just start with the 214B. Damage varies depending on how you start it. You can milk more damage if you're in the corner by hitting 2C instead of 3C, then j.2C > j.C. Corner version does a little over 7000 damage. Very simple combo, easy to start with lots of options and huge damage so I recommend it whenever you have those 8 stars built up. after 236A my favorite followup is 623A~A so I can do his air BNB. If you wall bounce them I usually do 6C > Shippu but if you don't want to use stars you can hop forward and hit 5B or 2C > j.2C > ad > j.2C

that haku-men is GOOD. excellent combos, excellent maneuvering and good counters. His pressure against that Nu-13 was excellent as well. Who is he? The Arakune didn't seem like he was properly pressuring him though. I've seen Arakune a lot crazier than that one.

mugen is pretty much worthless. If you hit 8 stars and use it, you've got to quickly apply pressure (pressure with haku-men rofl) and try to get a hit so you can combo while you still have enough time to do damage. You're either not going to hit fast enough and you would have been better off just patiently waiting for a hit and then using your 8 stars to combo, or you'll be hit and comboed for the duration of it or just blocked the entire time. At any rate you've lost your 8 stars. Haku-men's an opportunity character so its better to save the stars and use them when you have the opportunity. your other option is to use mugen in a combo to guarantee you'll be able to take advantage of it. the only combo I know of and learned myself is 6B (CH) > Mugen > 214B (1) > 236A > 623A > 5C > 41236C (1) > 214B (1) > etc. its flashy and fun to do but logistically its shit because first of all its hard to do since you need 8 stars and a 6B CH, second of all your opponent will just burst and you'll end up wasting 8 stars. If your opponent has already used their burst they most likely will be killed in the next combo regardless so mugen is totally unnecessary. You could argue since it does a huge amount of damage its good to force an early burst but for 8 stars its just not worth it, plus 214B (1) > 41236C > 5C > 41236C > 2C > j.2C > j.C does comparable damage for 8 stars and not only is it much easier to hit but if your opponent bursts you'll still have however many stars left over for immediate combo potential. tl;dr I'm just agreeing with what you said in a lot more words.

the mugen combos are worthless and his other ones aren't maximized for damage at all.

oh wow so THAT'S how you're supposed to use akumetsu. I always wondered how you were meant to buffer that.

your combos need work. Watch some Buppa vids and learn what he does, or go to the combo thread.

..... what. You can't block the first hit of carnage scissors and renka, but you have the time to try and figure out the timing to counter it? like ryoko said counters are needlessly risky in this situation and prorate your damage. If you have no stars to combo with 214b or 623a~a you're better off hitting with 6B for a counter-hit combo.

wow those matches were just amazing. Jack G sure has an excellent haku-men, as expected.

I do 2C > 529 like you said but that's just what I've found I liked the best and practiced and got used to, I tried rolling it from 4 to 9 but imo that's just needlessly complicated and takes longer unless your stick doesn't return to neutral quickly, which it should. Also yeah, you don't need to return the stick to 5 yourself, that just makes it harder. I just hold 2 for the 2C, then release to go back to 5, then 259 all in a smooth motion. It just takes practice to get used to is all. About button mashing, it depends on what you consider mashing. A lot of mashing during your combos is just wasted energy, and with most of haku-men's its literally impossible since they have specific timing and aren't just gatlings. Hell even his gatlings like 2a > 2a and 5a > 5a have a certain timing to them, you can't just mash. What this doesn't mean is that you have to press the button a single time for every move in the combo, you can double or triple tap buttons to ensure a move comes out with the correct timing. It's different from mashing in that its a controlled technique to make sure you don't drop the combo. It's not as necessary in BB since you can hold a button and it repeats the input for 5 frames but its still useful and I do it, just not on every move. for instance during 623a~a > jc > late j.C > 2C > sjc > j.2C > ad > j.C I hit all the inputs just once except on the landing 2C I will triple tap (mash) it because the timing on that can be tight and cause you to lose the combo fairly easily if you don't bring it do it immediately when you land. hope that helped sorry if I wrote too much

My advice is to use 6c to cut through her distortion drive and be ballin as fuck

I've only run into a few haku-men and all of them were terrible, just HURRRRRRRR flying around the screen with j.C and 6C and no follow-ups. I don't play online much though (got to level 30 and stopped) because even tiny amounts of lag annoy me.

what character are you trying to do it to? Most of the time Nu, Arakune, Bang, and Carl can't be hit with the j.2c if you only jump normally out of the 2c (you can in certain circumstances if the timing is absolutely perfect) because they're too light, you need to super jump into your j.2c. Against everyone else all I can say is just time your jump cancel from the 2c sooner and try to hit the j.2c as soon as you're in the air.

as far as I know the only reason you should be using backthrow anyway is if the corner is directly behind you.

Ugh I thought that was just me, I can have mountains of trouble fighting even the crappiest of people just because of lag.

Japanese term, means attacking from a disadvantageous position or defending from an advantageous one. in this situation it means performing a combo off a landed hit, where the hit was used to defend against something. Like the anti-air abare you combo off an attack you used as an anti-air. Normally when people use the term abare they're talking about getting the most out of any hit you make with a combo.

A normal jump will work on a lot of characters in most instances, but some, like Nu and Arakune, you generally have to sj to catch them because they're lighter. Off the top of my head I think its only necessary on Nu, Arakune, Carl, and Bang but don't quote me on that I may be forgetting someone. Also sj can be useful on the other characters since if your timing knocks them up too high you can still miss the j.2c EDIT: Forgot that I wanted to ask about counter assaults. I haven't used them at all since 6A, 6B, and IB counter have been plenty for getting out of heavy block strings. 4 stars seems pretty hefty but it might be worth it, Haku-men certainly gets heat much faster than the other characters. I haven't experimented with it but are there any decent combos you can get out of it to make it worth while? Or is it just much better to use his drive since you end up plus a star instead of down 4?