kro_

Anime Convention?

It looks like they got rid of the delay for aerial BBL since he managed to combo it after a j.c. The wind regen rate looks good. Something between 3-4 seconds to regen 1 stock after use. I didn't see a frog life meter or pumpkin recast meter, but I did see a frog recast meter that lasted ~2 sec after the frog went poof. Frog crawl speed is decent. Winding the frog and tempest dalia look like fun. Tempest dalia seems to have good frame advantage on block when a bull comes out. 6a still has a huge hitbox. I'm not noticing a delay in 236b/c so if it's there it should be minor. Air sword iris is awesome. 5b after j.2c on hit and j.2c after j.c in the air aren't looking good. That player didn't j.2c after a corner BBL. It might imply that you can't even special cancel it on hit, but still nothing is certain. What was that movie that had the goat in a typhoon during the preview? It came out around the same time as Volcano. Tempest dalia reminds me of that.

Interested but the date is still too far away to make a commitment. Is there a pre-reg deadline or scheduling/timing info?

I wonder if it's possible to 3c 236a otg into frog, then 3c 22a 3c into another frog before the frog recast timer is up. Either way is fine to me though, frog combo into frog + pumpkin oki was too good anyway but frog otgs are definitely needed. Things are looking a little more hopeful, but I am still concerned with: 1) Speed of wind regen - I read that the speed gradually increases with time if you go without using wind for awhile. Hopefully the initial speed of recovery isn't too slow and the max is faster than the current rate. This change might actually be better for players who use all of their wind quickly for stronger combos and mixups. 2) If j.c has enough untechable time to follow with j.2c - I want to keep air combo into super even if it does less damage for forced knockdown. Also, j.2c into pumpkin oki. This also requires the following: 3) If j.2c can be canceled into normals or specials on hit - As long as she can get good damage off of a fast overhead on hit, her mixup game is still a threat though much riskier. This way she'll have a fast but very punishable overhead (j.3dc) and a slow, interruptable, but safe overhead on block (4b). j.3dc should be RC-able on block if it already isn't. 4) Hitstun/blockstun of pumpkin - At least enough to not have a gap if you follow it closely with a quick normal. It would be a real pain if for example, you hit the opponent with pumpkin during 5cdc and the low hitstun from pumpkin prevents 5cdc from comboing. I'd be pretty satisfied if these conditions were met. The recast timers for pumpkin and frog prevent the silly corner guardcrush strings and make her midscreen oki weaker. Punishable j.2c on block prevents safe, continuous overheads. The gradually increasing speed of wind regen also shortens how long she can keep up a pumpkin-assisted zoning game, which took advantage of slow but steady wind usage to keep people out. The nerfs would be significant, but she wouldn't be unplayable. Also, I am now suddenly interested if the giant King George XIII with a crown on its head will stay active after doing Tempest Dalia. Maybe it will have the characteristics of unlimited Rachel's frog: not disappearing on hit, high hp, and continuous shocks until killed. If this is true, then it might actually be worthwhile to fight without using wind for awhile in order to get him out.

I was thinking about why Aoniku did j.2c air combos instead of frog combos on Nu again and I think I came up with something. When you summon the pumpkin while the frog is hitting the opponent and end the combo with j.2c 214a oki, the pumpkin is not in a position where you can force her to block it if she rolls away. It's too high to wind horizontally and too far to wind diagonally. By ending the combo with a high j.2c, he can summon the pumpkin at a position where he can wind it diagonally and hit Nu whether she rolls right or left. Not comboing the frog means it is still actively hopping towards Nu, so you still maintain the frog oki to cover quick rises and neutral techs.

Personally, I think a lot of these changes were smart. Slower c attacks, non-jcable 5d/4d, and smaller sword hitbox were the things that I wanted to see most. 5dd not comboing into 4dd on standing opponents is consistent with everyone else's overhead attacks. Attack-based mixups involving act pulsar is a good incentive for implementing a close range game. I won't say anything about range and damage potential until more info is released, but they are on the right track.

I agree with you. Especially when those characters have interesting play styles. A lot of people often cite Yun, Eddie, and (more recently) Rachel. Characters like 3s Chun, sf4 Sagat, and Nu get a lot of hate. But how difficult a character is to play ceases to be a factor at high level. People don't make tier lists based on that. People stop being awed that you can use a difficult character and care more about how to beat you. If that's too hard to do consistently, then that character is still going to be classified as broken. Rachel is broken. And since they have the chance to balance things out they should do so. It's just that so far, they are totally going in the wrong direction. Rather than making certain aspects of her gameplay less abusable, they are completely forcing one half of her style of play on us that's actually weaker than the previous incarnation. Carl. Also, Rachel is broken. You don't even have to look at matchups to know that. Just look at what she can do and think about it for awhile. She can precede every mixup with a projectile via pumpkin or frog (think jab sonic boom and aegis reflector/doom assist). She's the only character with short hop/triangle jump style mixups. Best anti-air normal in the game. Zoning is effective against everyone except Nu. Her corner trap is almost as deadly as Arakune's. Actually has good midscreen oki. Pumpkin trades can cover mistakes. The amount of versatility she has naturally leads to unpredictability as well. Sure, her moves have relatively slow startup and range, she lacks a DP, and can't do much without wind. But the advantages here far outweigh the disadvantages. The way she is now, it is very possible to keep herself in an advantageous position throughout the entire match. It's almost expected.

I'll use Noel for the next tournament I make. But I'm switching to Rachel if I lose Been kinda busy lately but I will be back once I adjust to my new schedule. Enjoy your wins while you can guys.

Does that happen even if Rachel blocks the attack? Either way, it doesn't seem like a major nerf to me. In fact, it seemed more like a glitch than anything. This part is confusing. Is it just for otg's? If so, then you should be able to combo into frog if you keep the opponent standing (e.g. 5b 6b 236a frog hits etc). Anyways, assuming you can't combo into frog, you can always do something like 5b 5cdc frog 2b 5b otg into air combo. If you can't j.2c after j.c, then you can still chase air techs with pumpkin, 6a, or start zoning. She's not going to be helpless, but it feels like they just removed half of her gameplay options. Actually, it feels like they removed any semblance of versatility for practically every character in the game that had it. Everything just sounds shallower. Not cool, but I'll just wait for gameplay vids for now. Less speculation, more playing BB:CT. Also, I am totally going to drop Noel as a sub and replace her with Tsubaki. Update: TK sword iris here I come.

What can you do off j.2c on hit?

Another vote for paying attention to the wind meter. I noticed that Jackal would just sit there and crouch block after he spent all of his wind meter to regen wind. You can't let him get away with that and need to make him afraid of staying grounded for any long period of time. Rachel isn't very threatening with no wind and can't do much with just 1 if you stay at 2c/3c range. So go nuts with 2c > wheel/crescent/feint/throw or 5dd > 4dd/236cd/act pulsar mixups to pile the damage and make him pay for not conserving wind. France seems to have a lot of good players based on those videos. I am impressed

I'm sorry your character sucks so bad.

Holy crap. Triple tourney with big turnouts. I'm coming next time for sure.

Try activating 2d a little later. You need 2d to counter the upward momentum of the chair launching the opponent. If you hit 2d too early, you'll waste the wind on a static opponent that's still in shock animation.

I probably won't be able to make this tournament, unfortunately

Most everything you need to know is already in the first post. In general, Rachel doesn't rely on rapid cancels much unless she's out of wind. You have to super jump if you want to land those extra hits in an air combo. I don't know what your execution is like, but most of her combos aren't really hard unless they're explicitly stated as such.

In that video, he touched the ground after doing j.3dc. Touching the ground kills most of your momentum so you don't fly over him, though it's still possible to do it without touching the ground with correct spacing.

I thought he was doing that because the frog was too far to combo. After the j.2c, the frog will be on one side so Nu would be less likely to roll towards it. So it does have some use in getting her closer to the corner. I like how he uses held 3c to prevent rolls and manages to combo into it if she does roll.

He stands just out of range of her CA and slowly chips away at that barrier and guard meter. But as you can see in the last vid, it is vulnerable to reversals and it's totally possible to just mash IB for meter. Great pressuring tool though.

In order of frequency: -air super to bait and punish AA's -rc and punish green/blue bursts -rc after blocked spring raid -stuff into 2c rc into 6a 6c drive loop -far 3c 22c rc into 6c drive loop -ground super after 2c or 214a for unburstable finish

Although she can't get a lot of damage off of 2b and 2c without meter, 2b > 6c > 2c is one of her more common blockstrings (the other being 5a x n dash 5a x n). 2c has frame advantage and a bit of a vacuum effect along with great guardcrush values. After a 2c, Noel usually has a good chance to dash in 5a to restart pressure or dash in 6c to catch you jumping and start the loop. She can also go for a 3c for low, 2d for high, or directly into throw. If she has meter, she can cancel 2c into super or rc 6a > 6c > drive loop. She's also fast enough to chase you down if you try to backdash after a 2c. So generally, I think it's best to block low and react to the 6b and 2d overheads. 6b overhead will either come directly or after 5a's. You can poke her out of this fairly easily. Since Rachel can duck under 5b while crouching, Noel cannot chain into 6b from 2b. So once you see that foot come out, the only overhead she can do is 2d. Watch for the 2d and chair it or block and punish. If she goes for the 3c slide, remember that she is vulnerable after that and punish with 5b. If you try to jump out of pressure, make sure you barrier while doing it since her 6c has 5 frame startup and is air unblockable. Finally, if you ever come across a Noel that knows the Rachel only 22bc loop in the corner (~6k dmg meterless), stay out of there. One last thing that hasn't been mentioned before is her CA. Unlike other CAs it doesn't attack and instead acts like a roll that goes behind you. Expect these in the corner. Her best chance to use it is right before you do a j.3cd since whiffing that leaves you vulnerable long enough for her to get a free combo. In the corner, that can be a 22bc loop.

j.3cd connects after 5b if the opponent is crouching. Try and check if the opponent was crouching the next time you do it. I think you were getting a reset since some people tend to hold down back while getting comboed. The combo should always work if you omit the j.3cd, but will probably do less damage than you were getting.

Wish I could have stayed for singles. GGs to everyone I played during teams and casuals, especially that tense match with Tushar. I'll be going to warzone next week for sf4 and bb. Hope to see some of you guys there even if it's just for casuals before BB starts. Perhaps we can play a little mbaa too.

Play against a Tao that can do 4k meterless taunt combos and you will stop doing cat chair in a hurry. Haku's IAD has a lot of momentum so anytime he does it he'll be making contact with the chair, and I've never seen a Hakumen player use his long airdash just to bait chair since he'd get hit if you did 6a. So I do find 2c useful in situations where you don't have enough time to 6a, but only when you really know that your opponent is committing himself to an attack that moves his body forward. But it's best to just block really. His mixups aren't exactly fast and he needs multiple stars just to get a decent overhead. If he actually spends all of his stars just to guardbreak you (which shouldn't happen if you have barrier), he won't have enough meter to do a half-decent punish combo. All Haku players really need to learn how to IB > parry. Easier than IB > DP, safer than a direct parry, and gets you out of so much stuff once you have a basic handle on your opponent's blockstrings. It even does what DP can't, which is punish a projectile-based oki game in the corner (i.e. Rachel and Litchi) since he vacuums you in if you're anywhere near him - even if you were just sitting there blocking. It's the reason I stress zoning in this matchup. If you don't like zoning then you need to bait parries mid blockstring and be unpredictable. Throws work pretty well until Haku figures out how to buffer throw breaks into parries.

Just got MBAA working and having a ball with F-akiha zoning. Just wish it were more effective...