kro_

So who won? I left a little early.

I'd just buffer 236a after 6b instead of trying to combo. If you think it's worth it, 6b 236a RC dash 5b etc on hit confirm.

5b is cheap as hell. It's like a B version of Noel's 5a in CT.

More CS tonight at AI

You asked for it. I hope you're happy.

Guess it was removed

6c should connect after 5b CH at the tip since Tsubaki moves forward a bit.

Took note of the damage on some of her more common combos. 5bb 2bb 5cc 236a 214a 22c (lvl 2) - 1961 dmg2c CH 5b 2cc jc j.c dj j.cc j.236a j.214c - 2128 dmg5bb 5cc 22d 6cc jc j.c dj j.cc j.236a j.214c - 2976 dmg22d (lvl 3 unblockable) 6cc jc j.c dj j.cc j.236a j.214c - 3281 dmgCH 236d 5c 2cc 5c 2c 22d 6cc air combo (~4k dmg, tager-specific?) Check @7:30 in the Tager match here The first four are practically BnB's now so taking note of exact damage seemed appropriate. I'd like to test whether or not that bolded part can be applied to other characters. It does a lot of damage and would be worth it even if you have to RC to do it. edit: fixed link

I should be able to make this.

I played Rachel in the arcade again. You can combo j.3db after 5b counterhit. Also managed to do 5cc wallbounce combos in the corner windless. I'm not entirely sure what makes it possible, but I did them on Hazama and Tao off of frog approximately 2 character lengths away from the corner. It's hilarious and I managed to fill up my wind bar to full during the combo. Notation: 5b 5cdc frog 3c (1 hit) 236a delay 5cc 5cc 5cc. I think 3 reps is the max and you can probably cancel that last one into frog for oki or iris. As far as general strategy, I spent a lot of time jumping around and blocking, running away behind one of the random poles on the field before attempting to even summon pumpkin or frog and spending lots of wind to do ridiculous things that lead to little damage - yet hard to avoid damage. My blocking has improved considerably ever since playing CS. Rachel is a good character to pick up when you want to work on blocking. I seem to play better when I resign myself to playing the "let's see how many hits I can IB" game and think about what kind of ridiculous crap can I pull off with wind. Basically, toying with the opponent. I pulled off a decent win streak playing like this. ~1/2 of my wins were time-outs and some of them had both me and my opponent sitting around half life

Spent some time experimenting with Install combos. It's possible to do 5bb 5cc xx install and then combo into 5b again Genei-Jin style. I found it easiest to do 5bb 5c xx install since it doesn't push the opponent back as far. Didn't manage to look at the exact damage number, but I managed to do the following: 5bb 5c > 214214d (3 charge install) > 5bb 22d 6c 22d 6c 236236d for 3500-4000 damage (just estimating by lifebar). It might be possible to do another rep of 6c 22d, but seems unlikely.

I think you all need to listen to this and move on.

Soldier!

If you end an air combo with j.214d midscreen, you can use 236c to catch a sliding opponent and RC into 2cc air combo. Alternatively, you could probably do a 22d after the 236c and do the same thing. So in some cases it can take the place of charge meter when you want to add extra damage. I think heat meter use will generally gravitate towards RCing unsafe moves like dp or fishing for random shield charge CH. Install has the potential to not only increase her damage output but improve her mixups as well. It might be a viable tactic to simply activate Install near the end of a match and just go nuts on the opponent until you can land one hit into super for an unburstable finish.

Well, the McRib just came to California a couple weeks ago if that's any incentive.

Best to just wait for frame data to do that.

People don't like her because she's fully-clothed.

No, it's not possible. Empty jump 2d low works well when you have a pumpkin. Whiff j.c also does the job. But it's still not a very confusing mixup if you have decent reaction time since most people just block low as soon as your feet touch the ground. j.2c air combo ender works on everyone. It's not exactly suicidal to end with j.2c since it is possible to pumpkin upon hitting the ground and wind into a mixup. However, that mixup is hella slow. It might even be possible to dp her before she recovers from summoning the pumpkin. Better off using the opportunity to back off and summon safely.

Ragna has better damage, range, priority, and good positioning off combos that always seem to end in knockdown or 22c. Tsubaki is a little faster, and most of her combos end with knocking the opponent far away from her into the corner. This would be an advantage if her normals had the reach to execute a good zoning game, but this is not the case. She can potentially have better mixups and improve her damage though, so we'll just have to experiment or wait and see. She's far from being a bad character, but I can't really see her ending up anywhere other than mid tier.

Has anyone been able to find ways to combo into install besides throw? I'm pretty sure 1-2 bar install combos would be better than comboing into barless super if there were more setups. Bars drain a little faster than how Rachel's wind used to recover in CT. So, I guess each bar lasts ~2 seconds.

To George

Upon further inspection, what I said about frogs not being able to be winded backwards is false. Apparently, you can only wind the frog in the current direction of the opponent.

I've been playing a lot of Tsubaki at AI. 5b > cc > 5b and 5b > 3c are great pressuring tools. It is possible to do 5b CH, cc, and dash up 2a into a BnB. You can also 5b CH and hit confirm into far 5b 22d to start a wall bounce combo. Charge cancel in general is really good. Being able to cc after any combination of 5bb, 2bb, or 5cc makes it tough to identify the gap and poke out of it. Generally, only jabs and reversals can poke you out of tight cc blockstrings. Keeping that in mind, it is pretty effective to cc out of your opponent's jab range and continue pressure that way. When you feel like the opponent wants to jab, cancel into 3c instead of cc to stuff their jab attempt. 3c being jump-cancellable and comboable makes this approach very safe. The 3c jc j.c link can be pretty tight and it feels harder to land on opponents with smaller otg hitboxes like Carl. However, I'm pretty sure it works on everybody. You can even jump straight up instead of jumping forward for the j.c. Just make sure you dash forward before doing 2cc. 3cc seems to have very good priority as an anti-air or to catch opponents who try to jump out of blockstrings. 2c is also pretty solid. 3c is very good for catching rolling opponents and I believe it can combo into 3cc followup into air combo pretty easily. Her 6a overhead is decent in terms of speed, but oftentimes the opponent is too far to land 5cc. In these situations, it is better to do 236a directly after 6a. 236a/b/c RC can be treated a lot like Ragna's hell's fang RC. You can go into the followup to catch a counterpoke or RC and do a quick mixup. j.214d CH against an airborne opponent causes floor slide. It's long enough that I managed to run all the way to the corner and do a combo on their sliding body. 6c seems ideal for this. One of Tsubaki's strengths is the ability to do another attack even if her first move whiffed. In the air, doing j.bb allows you to do two attacks much like dictator's j.strong in sf4. Against Tager, I was able to hit him with 5bb followup even though he backdashed my 5b. If it hasn't been mentioned before, j.cc causes her to float a bit so using it on a grounded opponent makes it difficult to land and continue the combo in time. j.c's hitbox angles downward farther than it looks. I haven't tried her kara-throw yet, but simple jab-ticks combined with fast run speed and charge cancels should make her pretty good at landing throws. I haven't figured out how to combo from air throw, since I didn't have many chances to land them. Her range is a problem for sure, but I think her fast footspeed, backdashes, and cc can make up for it. Damage is also kinda low, but it's mainly because I don't do any combos that go beyond 1 or 2 charges. I haven't had too much difficulty gaining charge meter. Once you show the opponent that they can't approach you recklessly through proper use of anti-airs, it's pretty easy to create that space necessary to charge. Charging in and of itself is great baiting material. It's always useful to have at least 1 charge meter for D dp, full-screen 236d punish, and a decent combo option off far 5b (22d). 236 series is useful for getting away from a jumping opponent by going under them. j.214 series is useful for getting away from grounded opponents by flying over them. 22d > astral is easy and a crowd pleaser

So I went to AI again and played about fifteen matches with Rachel. I also got to go through the majority of story mode before getting challenged. At full screen, you still have some options even though your zoning is slower. Since you can activate iris in midair, it's a little easier to retreat while keeping the opponent frightened of running into lightning. Old zoning tricks still work like shooting lobelias to chase air techs and making a pumpkin wall. The frog does not move backwards if you wind backwards. It was my mistake to jump to that conclusion since it was offscreen when it activated. Chair hits a little better horizontally. I pretty much had to rely on it much more often to get out of pressure. TK sword iris and TK pumpkin come out faster than grounded sword iris and grounded pumpkin. TK pumpkin is still significantly slower than CT pumpkin though. TK frog + wind down to recover faster still works. Escaping pressure often involved super jumping up out of the opponent's immediate reach, summoning pumpkin, and then winding 2d or 3d while double jumping to the other side of the opponent with j.b or completely away from the opponent. 5cc wallbounce is fairly useful for lengthening combos. Doing something like [5cc wallbounce > 236b > iris > frog] helps to create a defense. I find it worthless to rely on pumpkin defensively if you're right next to it. Many characters can force you to block something way too easily and make the pumpkin disappear before it actually reaches them. It moves too slow. However, it is still useful if you can manage to summon pumpkin, backdash once, and let it occupy that space between you and the opponent. I tried doing multiple 5cc wallbounces in the corner, but generally the opponent would fall too low to the ground to do another. Might need to use wind next time. Also, 5cc wallbounce seems to do forced knockdown early in a combo. I did a late 3c after they hit the ground and it still comboed. Might be useful for setting up a corner trap. I came up with this combo midscreen: [5b 5cdc frog 3c (1 hit) 236b 5cc 236b sword iris with 2 poles worth of damage] If you try to cancel the 3c otg into pumpkin and attempt to 3c the opponent again before the frog finishes hitting, the opponent will tech out. That is how slow it is to summon grounded pumpkin. When you have a pumpkin out, doing stuff like crossup j.3dc 236a is pretty effective. There is a gap between j.2c and 236a if you do not use wind. However, if you do use wind then it's nearly impossible to get punished directly for it unless you were at point blank range with the opponent. Pumpkin is useful here as soon as the blockstun from 236a wears off. Repeatedly doing crossup (or not) j.3dc 236a with pumpkin or iris to cover gaps works well for landing projectile damage quickly. The problem with this is that sometimes the pumpkin just randomly vanishes even if I didn't get hit or use it 3 times. I know the pumpkin vanishes after a set period of time. However, I do not know if that set period resets/shortens after using wind or if it is predetermined at the time of summon. This needs more testing. j.2c will combo into 236a on CH. You can wind the pumpkin forward after j.2c 236a hits and combo into it with a quick 5a or 5b. Tempest Dalia does not have startup invincibility. You must have at least 1 wind to activate it. It takes about as long as BBL to activate, but the bats move pretty fast. They seem to travel during the super freeze so it's faster than you think. It can be useful to punish opponents at a far range where you normally wouldn't be able to reach in time. You also get frame advantage on block if you have 2 or 3 winds at activation so you might be able to combo after it on hit. You can combo after it with 4 winds (king george shocks the opponent into a long untechable time similar to gold burst) very easily. Comboing after 6b CH is hard. At not even max range, I managed to combo into it by winding forward immediately and doing 5a 5b 5cdc. I had many failed attempts doing it with just 6d5b. This was against the computer. It's not something that most people can expect to hit-confirm in a real match. It might be possible to do tempest dalia after a 6b CH. I'd have to test this again. 3c9d 5b works if you activate the wind later or wind straight up. However, the damage is so bad and you leave yourself so close to the opponent after the combo that I'd generally suggest just setting down a frog after 3c instead. Random frog > BBL landing with Rachel + 3 poles did about 3500-4000 dmg. In lifebar terms, it did about as much as one of Litchi's better BnBs. Maybe some 5cc wallbounce followups will add more damage. I used lots of 236a and 6d236a to stuff approaches. Also used lots of chair to break pressure. Things that I generally avoided doing in CT because Rachel had better options are pretty important in this game. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I played a lot of Tsubaki in my remaining time at AI. I love using her. She's fast and she's both exciting to watch and play. I even managed to rack up a couple of decent win streaks toward the end of my time there. I'm fairly certain I'm going to main her in this game. I also never really felt totally outclassed against an opponent while using her. I can't say the same about Rachel. I'll keep up with Rachel stuff, but I'm not going to focus on using her anymore until Blazblue: Accent Core comes out. R.I.P.

GGs today to everyone I played at AI this afternoon especially Itemnazo (sp?). You're really good with clap-loop less Carl. My Tsubaki leveled up like crazy fighting you.