TheRealBobMan

Well, Sidewinder loop is hard in that it's character specific for everyone, and it's dependent on hitting the opponent in a specific part of their hitbox. So like with Axl, Sol wants to do his big flaming punch right to his balls, and if he does, Axl wall bounces and takes extra damage. Then you loop it as many times as possible. If you have a background playing games that are really spacing dependent you might pick that sort of stuff up faster than you will the dexterity needed for other things, so still consider Sol. Unlike SF4, you don't have to learn a bunch of back-to-back 1-frame links. I would put Baiken on the easy side of things, but yeah, hitting any FRC is hard, and she sort of needs to hit her tatami FRCs in some matchups, as well as the FRC on her j.D to maximize damage. Fortunately, Faust does not need to FRC at all, and he even has probably the biggest FRC window in the game on one of his moves (his G-spot super). Jam has FRCs, but you can get things done just by spamming that stupid dragon kick and FB puffball. I'd say Jam fits your playstyle more though. Also, since you have a SF background, consider Slayer. He has to link stuff more than he can cancel, but if you're used to it already you'll probably enjoy playing him. He hits hard and has crazy abare. Go ahead and map 3 buttons to 1 button if you have to until you get used to it. It's definitely hard learning stick and a new character at the same time, and I can speak from experience since I switched to I-No when I got my stick. At some point though, after you've gotten used to playing stick, manually hitting your FRCs by pushing 3 buttons might be more efficient and lead to better options, depending on what character you play.

You can do stuff with Sol as a beginner, but Sidewinder loop is hard. If you want to be able to compete without having to learn harder combos and FRCs, Ky is probably a better choice. However, you said that you want rushdown and combos, so I'd suggest Chipp or Millia (Ky puts pressure on but wants to be at 1/2 screen). The problem there is that Millia is actually pretty difficult, and while Chipp isn't super hard, he's probably in the top 50% for execution difficulty instead of being near the bottom. I'd honestly rate Baiken near the bottom for execution difficulty, so if that's too technical for you... I can't suggest Pot because his mobility is low and he has a charge move... try Jam? Ky, Jam, and Faust all seem like good choices for what you want, except that Ky/Faust want to zone more than rushdown, and they don't go for big combos. Jam can hit for 50% of someone's hp by doing 236S > D > repeat until meter is gone. Or if you don't have meter, you can 22K to charge cards up, and use 236K > 236K until your cards are out.

What do you out of the HCL 6FRC6 depends on character weight/hitbox, distance from the ground, distance from you, and position on the screen. In the corner you could probably j.S > FFVCL on Sol, but at mid screen and not close to the corner with Sol somewhat high, you'd have to do something like j.H > j.D > regular VCL. Some characters in the corner will let you do HCL > 6FRC6 > FFVCL without the j.S in there, and that'll change based on whether you did 6P > 5H > TK HCL, or 5K HCL, or STBT(S) > 5K > HCL. So yeah... lots of variety. You really need to wing it based on all of that stuff, and also if you think they'll burst or not. Sometimes you'll need to just do j.S > j.H > land > follow up, sometimes just j.H > follow up, etc. I think FFVCL > HD j.S works on lightweight characters like Slayer or Baiken. It might work on other characters if they're higher in the air, but Sol's hitbox is damn weird so that might be giving you problems. You can't do HCL > 6FRC6 > whatever any lower to the ground than the JI version. When you TK it off of 6P > 5H, you're more airborne and have more of a window for the airdash, but when you JI it you're as low to the ground as possible. You wont be able to do certain follow ups on some characters when doing stuff like 5K to a grounded opponent > HCL > 6FRC6, but you'll still have some kind of follow up in all cases as far as I'm aware.

There should be a way to bring up a keypad on screen and just type stuff out with your stick. It's what I do. Also, if you're going through a web browser, that's probably not the chat I'm referring to. There's a PSN chat room that you can access through the XMB. You just need an invite from someone.

If you're ever going to play on an arcade cabinet, you wont have that option. It's better to try to learn without it. Besides, some inputs work out well if you're hitting 3 buttons since you can negative edge out other inputs. Gunflame FRC Wild Throw or VCL FRC Sdive are examples of that.

Switch to May. CH 6P > IK all day long.

Yeah, you're probably just playing against scrubs. I do quick play a lot and maybe I'm just lucky, but I run into people that are like 30/300 and are willing to lose to one-button playing for 3 rounds until they learn to get around those moves, repeat X5 buttons, and exchange friend requests to play at a later time after they've learned more. Or maybe you're on ranked play? Every time I get on there, seems like I only run into run-away Venom/Axl players that will absolutely refuse to play again if they ever lose. If you're on PSN, you need to get added to the Dustloop chat and get matches with those guys. Everyone in there is great!

OH ****, you're Mojo? I'm trying to get online a little bit more again, but it's rough with my work schedule. You guys might see me around on some nights at like 10:00PM PST. Maybe.

@Mynus: Awesome! : )

Mynus, get off your butt and help with I-No, or I'm going to do it. Contact DigitalWatches for help with Axl. Can't wait to see the Sol video. : )

I'd rant about why I don't like tripping, but let's change it up just a little bit and talk about some of the other mechanics in Brawl we don't want to see come back. 1. Random input lag. Whenever you pressed a button, there was input lag of 0-2 frames that was random. The Project M guys recently figured this out and fixed it. That's such a horrible oversight. 2. Extra lag when landing on the stage after using certain moves. I'm not talking about recovery frames! If you did your upB and grabbed the ledge, then jumped around and eventually landed on the stage, you'd have extra lag when finally touching the ground. It varied from character to character, move to move (SideB, DownB, you name it), it was minor enough that most new players wouldn't notice it, and major enough to screw people up. You can play around it for sure, but it's pretty frustrating. If they really want to do this, at least make more of the moves make sense. Wario can move when jumping off of his Bike, so why does he get an extra 20 or so frames of landing lag when he touches the ground after spending 10 seconds in the air?

Yeah, there have been announcements already that 360/PS3 are getting a patch sometime in the spring. If there's a date for Vita, I would imagine that it's good news for the patches. I don't know if they'll be super soon after, but I doubt they'll get delayed.

Maybe this is a good place to ask. I'm not seeing the Skullgirls section of the forum right now. What's up with that? Was it removed accidentally? Is my browser just messing up (both at home and at work)?

Finally watched the new one with audio. Once again, good stuff, and thanks for the hard work. *Pst* Do I-No 3rd. : )

Telling new players to start with Sol probably isn't the best idea either. He needs some FRCs, and sidewinder loop is hard. You can get by on scrubbing it up with VV CH into bandit revolver for only so long. He's pretty difficult on execution, even if he doesn't require as much forethought as Dizzy or Zappa. Ky is simple, but also needs his FRCs. Explain Faust next if you want to do an easy character. He's fun and wacky, but doesn't need FRCs, and people might be interested in figuring out what to do with his items.

What info do you need to make your video for a character? Do you need footage too?

Contact DQRF. He's busy with school now, but he was into Overture for a while and basically stopped for the same reasons. If he has an online subscription, I'm sure he'd be down for some games from time to time.

If Mynus, Honnou, Pestilence, and Buckles all happen to be busy, I'll definitely help with I-No.

Hey yeah, I recognize that handsomefatman url. You frequent Sirlin's forum right?

Thanks Novril! I can't wait to watch this with audio when I get home from work. We really need more people to pick up this game and I'm glad you're putting forth all this effort to try and entice new players. So... did you start trolling online with May's 6P yet? Or land a hit and teleport spam with Chipp?

Sounds like vs CPU, Arcade mode, Survival, and MoM would be good modes to play then. MoM is silly because you need to do things you wouldn't normally do in order to get a high score, but it can keep gameplay fresh in the process I guess. For Survival, just play classic style (no upgrades), or avoid buffs that would affect what you normally do (don't get speed). You can also start practicing stuff with double airdash a little early like this if you want. More importantly, vs CPU will force you to learn to not drop your punishes when the comp does something dumb. Just don't get into the habit of doing something stupid because CPUs wont get around it. CPUs exist to punish your gaps and give you reaction training. Might as well take advantage of that. If you can combo a CPU, you can combo Kusoru. If you're not getting VV'd constantly anyway...

Hah, I only just started trying for machine gun CL stuff. I actually negative edge that, and Sdive out of VCL FRC, among other things (like Stroke(S) out of throw FRC for lulz when practicing). Just make the effort to release one button slightly earlier than the others, or hold the others and only release the button for the input you use. Of course you have to release the others at some point though. You could also not be getting the forward input on time. Does anyone know if the order of reading button presses also applies to specials? Like, if you do 632146KS, do you get HCL or VCL? I'm pretty sure if you did 6321456KSH you'd get super, but I don't know about special moves.

Super Jump combos used to never work for me, and I still mess them up a little bit because I haven't practiced them that much. Just start off doing 6P > c.S > j.S until you stop dropping that. You wont super jump if you try to buffer it too early, so, depending on what feels right for you, either adjust your timing by getting later and later with the 29 or 28 or whatever you need, or do your jump like normal, but then do the 29 after. I think the latter way actually puts a jump install on the super jump so you can jump out of the jump, not that I-No really does stuff with that (that I know of anyway). Once you've learned the timing from 6P > c.S > sj.S, you can just apply it to Sdive > c.S > sj.S, or other situations. Then again, if you have trouble getting Sdive > c.S in the first place, you might as well practice the full combo.

I think there are 2 small issues here that are combining to give you a problem. It doesn't look like you're actually leaving the ground before the HCL, so you're doing the JI version which has the smaller window. That alone makes it hard. You say you can do the JI version, so I think the other issue is the timing difference between the lvl2 5K and the lvl5 5H. There is a different amount of hitstop between the two... about 2-3 frames or so. If you're really good at 5K > HCL, but not really used to 5H > HCL, your muscle memory might be messing up there. I wouldn't think it's an issue because you actually get the FRC on the first 2 attempts, so your timing seems to adjust fine (you're probably just doing the 6FRC6 too slow there), but you drop the FRC on the 3rd attempt.

Has anyone ever written up meter gain combos for I-No? If you airthrow or f.S or otherwise do something really prorated, sometimes it's nice to do a Hdive loop and drop your damage output a little if you can get a substantial amount of extra meter. Any comparisons of meter gain vs damage on combo variations lying around?