Dream Maker

Not sure where to post this but I just got the game a few days ago and wanted to share a few setups with air 236HS. Haven't tested in real match yet but could be a good starting point. From normal throw (midscreen only): Throw > Running jump > jS > jD (2 hit) > j236HS > wait a bit and airdash > (projectile hits once) mix between glide hit into combo / jP whiff land into low into combo >> j236HS from this setup should be low enough to hit most characters crouching with 1 hit, but may whiff on some, need to test more. EDIT: Actually I assumed it would work on characters around the same height or taller than Sol but after testing on everyone it whiffed on Leo and Kum for example so it may also have to do with their wakeup animation or timing. Characters it works on: Elphelt, Sol, Ramlethal, Sin, Johnny, Chipp, Millia, Zato, Potemkin (for him all 3 hits obviously), I-no, Slayer, Venom, Axl, Bedman (2 to 3 hits if done well), Jam. So it's still a pretty good portion of the cast. Some characters like Axl, Ino, Elphelt, Millia or Jam seem to be a bit harder than others, and generally you want to get the jS hit after the running jump as late as possible. If done well you can get even 3 hits on Bedman. From a 236S combo finish: When you use 236 S to finish a combo, you cannot setup an okizeme with 236HS but a tked j236HS should work perfectly unless you're too far. 236S (KD) > j236HS > land > IAD > mixup >> Maybe I'm doing something wrong but in this setup I've not be able to get the jP whiff trick to work, as the character is too close. Mixing between glide hit > jS > jP > jS / glide hit > jHS > 2K seems like it could throw off the opponent's timing to block but doesn't seem great. So a simple empty jump into low / airdash into mid mixup could just be the way to go here.

Guess I was wrong about the 5H, 6HS, 623S part not giving critical in this situation. Don't know why but I kept thinking that, I remember it failing in many cases but that must be from a different starter. Anyway glad we could be of help!

I also think adding 6HS is better and leaves you with a better positioning to followup in a air combo than plain 5H. Try 236HS (CH), 214K, JS, J6HS, land 5S, 5HS (1), 6HS JC, jS, jP, jS, JC, jK, jS, j6H, j236HS, (RTL) Should work on most characters if you delay the 6HS more or less depending on the character weight. If not try replacing 5S by 5P. Against Elphelt and maybe a few others you need to pick up with a late jHS (2 hit) after 214K, a bit tricky and it lowers the damage quite a lot but that's the only thing that can make it work. Also AFAIK with this combo starter 5HS > 6HS > 623S won't crit most of the time, which is why we need to wait for the update. Edit: mistake in the combo jS, jP, jS after the first jump and not jS, jK, jS

Personally I think the Hawk Baker changes are a pretty big deal, potentially giving to Sin access to his stronger combos from pretty much any hit assuming he has enough food meter. Considering the implications in terms of both damage and post-combo positioning (623S clean hit > 214S > Eat gives knockdown, food and enough room for okizeme mixups), I guess it's only fair they nerf his damage a bit to compensate. The way I see it, Sin will deal less damage from big punishes and random CH hits but overall should have more opportunities to land good combos from all sorts of situations.

Full Sin changes: 5P: - Damage up from 8 to 12 5HS: - Second hit is now jump cancellable - Recovery frames down from 30 to 24 - First hit damage down from 30 to 25, second hit damage up from 30 to 35 2HS: - First hit and second hit damage down from 32 to 28 jS: - Active frames up from 3 to 6 - Recovery frames down from 22 to 19 jD: - Now triggers a ground bounce on CH 6P: - Is now jump cancellable - Recovery frames increased from 15 to 18 Hawk Baker (623S): - Makes opponent float even when hitting from longer ranges - When hitting from longer ranges, untechable time is the same as for a close range hit - When hitting from longer ranges, the pushback is shorter Bull Bash (214S): - Damage down from 60 to 50 Elk Hunt (236K): - Active frames up from 5 to 6 - Recovery frames down from 12 to 11 - The move's hitbox and Sin's hittable hitbox are bigger when the attack comes out - Damage proration of 90% added when the move hits as a first hit - Opponent floats higher when hit Beak Driver (236HS): - Opponent is now blown far away on the first hit Air Beak Driver (j 236H): - Landing recovery removed RTL (632146 H): - Fixed bug that caused Sin to stop in place when inputing followup motions at high speed Calorie gauge: - Gauge color now changes when under 1000 Red changes are supposedly new from the previous loketest, but a lot of black ones were not reported before. Strike-through changes have been reverted.

Thanks guys for the other BLEED vids! You may be right, after all that was just my impression after seeing 1 match set, but what he did in this one was pretty impressive IMO. I don't think BLEED is lacking that much on conversions though I really liked the stuff he pulled off in this set especially that pick up after CH 236H here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wj7_Z0Opk_w#t=824 But to be fair I haven't seen other matches of him yet and the only matches I saw from JT is pretty much him getting owned over and over by monsters like Ogawa or Woshige... Need to see more match of both to have a definite opinion.

Sorry for the double post, BLEED is playing Sin in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wj7_Z0Opk_w#t=683 Most solid Sin play I've seen so far personally, too bad there isn't more.

Finally remembered where I saw it! The infamous timer scam bug: https://twitter.com/crstrz310in/status/544765070350118912

I saw a video of it but can't remember where. I just know it involves RTL and him stopping after the second "RTL dash" upwards and staying at the top of the screen. No idea how to do it and where I saw it but I'll try to find it again.

Regarding moves forcing standing, it's very specific but it basically helps certain moves to connect after them, kinda like the forcing crouching thing. For example 2HS forcing standing allows you to combo 2HS(1), 5HS(1), 6HS into big combo when you punish something like a DP. 5H doesn't normally hit on crouchers. For jHS the use is more debatable... Since it's very hard to connect after it I tend to think that the move doesn't actually really benefit from forcing standing, but it's possible that they did that to help getting through as many hits as possible. But that also means that with the good timing and spacing, you can connect 5P after it which normally whiffs on crouchers.

Besides c.S, Sin can also force crouching on hit with 2K and f.S, I think he's probably the character with the most attacks like this in the game. Also this is not directly related to this but I think this is worth mentioning since I don't recall any other character in the game having this: 2HS and jHS force standing on hit.

You're talking about 623S (the DP move), right? This move does indeed have a clearly established clean hit property which I believe is the one you are mentioning. I've seen people here talking about clean hit properties on 214S (the huge overhead move) but I haven't actually seen any proof of it so far.

No, I think this is more about RC forced proration kicking in in one case and not in the other. If you look at the numbers, they start to differ at the very first hit after the throw (64 the first time, 67 for the second). It's very hard to see any timing difference on the video, but I'm pretty sure this is it. In the first case you hit your opponent with 5H just before the black background goes off, which means proration applies, while in the second case you hit just after, which removes any forced proration. I'm not sure there is actually any clean hit property on 214S and 236H, besides 236H having different damage and hit effects when charged.

I think you should read this if you really think comboing into instant kill is a thing that matters that much in this game: http://www.dustloop.com/forums/index.php?/topic/10040-comboing-into-instant-kills-heres-the-lowdown/#entry874892 Maybe I'm missing something, but I fail to see how the ability to combo into an instant kill while having the opponent at less than 20% health on the last round and while having close to 100% tension can even remotely matter on tier placement. I'm also pretty certain most other characters have a way to do this as well. Besides, a critical 623S at midscreen is not easy to come by in a match without spending 50% tension. You can do dash 2D at point blank into crit DP in training mode, but good luck landing that on an actual opponent.

Regarding Sin's tier placement, I'm a bit more positive than I was originally but I feel like he will end up in the lower mid-tier. He's definitely not a bad character like Potemkin but I think he has too many limitations to reach the top, unless people somehow find more reliable ways to bypass them. Those limitations being: - High reliance on food gauge/meter/positioning in order to deal high damage combos, often a combination of 2 of these. While most characters only have to deal with 2 factors (meter and positioning) I feel like this is a minus point for him, and food jauge gets down very fast since you need to use it in combos, neutral and pressure. In most cases I don't think the damage makes up enough for the amount of gauge spent. - Very few ways to open up the opponent unless you are very close to the opponent which is often hard to achieve. - More often than not, eating after a combo is mandatory and in most cases it means giving up an okizeme setup, so giving up one of your best ways to open up your opponent. - Definitely above average neutral, but characters that have better neutral than him (and there are quite a few) are very hard to deal with. IMO the key to winning with him is to manage the neutral game and your food gauge very well and end combos in a way that allow you to eat and keep pressure whenever it's possible. If you can do that then you will do great. He also has some really good stuff regardless: - Elk Hunt (236K) is retardedly strong both in pressure and neutral thanks to its speed, + block frames and low profile stance. I think it's his strongest move by far and helps in a lot of hard matchups. - The 236K/236H spam combo that can be confirmed from a lot of things, does good damage and is very easy to do. By far the most practical combo to do in a match, oki is pretty much a no go after it though. - 6P is probably one of the best anti-airs in the game even if it's sometimes hard to combo from it.

Typically you don't really want to air dash in with Sin as his air normals are bad in air to ground situations. But if somehow you need to dash in and are confident you will hit the opponent, I feel like jS into jK works best to reliably connect combos afterwards. jHS hits quite deep but it's still pretty bad vs anti-airs. It is also very hard to connect into a ground combo because of the low level of each individual hit, but also because it forces standing on hit. I feel like jHS is best used in air to air battles and also as an okizeme tool to set-up 50/50 mixups when it's possible (many good setups with it on this thread).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdL7IozDsEU JT (Sin) vs Ogawa (Zato)

Yes, it definitely has some invincibility at some point but certainly not on frame one. I already got countered trying to use it as a reversal.

Sorry if I sounded like all doom and gloom on Sin in my post, that wasn't my intention. If I really thought the character was shit and doomed (which would indeed be a stupid thing to think 1 week after the release), I wouldn't have tried to contribute to the subject and wouldn't have asked questions as well. I'm not trying to shoot down the character for the sake of it, but as Titanium Beast mentioned I think it's important to be aware of his weaknesses and try to figure out how to cover them. Having hundreds of combo options does no good if you have few practical ways to set them up. And yes, oki is pretty damn important IMO in that game. If Sin had Axl-like neutral he could get away with having even no oki options at all, but this is not the case. Hell even Axl has some normals with long activation time that he can use to meaty an opponent waking up. Actually every other character in the game right now either has a way to set up a projectile okizeme or at the very least has a good normal to use as a meaty. By the way, according to posters on the japanese BBS, 2H's activation frames are 2,2,2 so 6 frames total. It's not great but not as bad as I thought, with Anji I used to be able to set up ghetto meaty okizemes with a well timed 2S and it also had 6 active frames. @stickystaines: Thank you for the useful info! I'll have to try that when I'm back home but looks like an useful setup midscreen.

It's just my impression after a few days playing the game, but I already feel like this character is actually gonna take a quite lot of work to be competitive. He has (potentially) devastating combos and a good keepaway game, but is lacking in almost every other areas. I mean, Sin may look hella strong on paper but once you take him out of training mode into a real match it's really painful to see how all the super damaging and stylish combos you spent time working on actually never work on opponents who know what they are doing. For most of those to work you need to get in real close first, which is not gonna happen easily as unfortunatly Sin doesn't have great jump-in options nor does he have any decent okizeme option (on that he's probably the most lacking character in the game right now in my opinion). I'm curious to know how you guys manage the neutral game with him. Personally I got killed too many times trying to get in... So unless my opponent is Axl and I really have to try to get in, I just wait and try to keep the opponent at bay with fS, 2S, 6P, cancelling into Beak Driver or confirming 6P with a combo (when cS doesn't just whiff). Mixing in some Elk Hunt and Bull Bashes at mid range is also nice to get the opponent off guard. Unfortunately combos options aren't great here either unless you get a counter hit. Getting 50% tension to cancel that Beak Driver from midscreen and capitalize on pokes seems like an imperative to me. After that I'm usually able to land a small combo such as fS > 236H RC > dash in > 2HS > HS (delay) > 6HS > 623S > 214S > Eat and go into a ghetto okizeme from there. Speaking of okizeme what do you guys use? Personally I am using both dash in 2H and jS depending on the situation. Neither of them are great, 2H is very vulnerable to DPs and jS in particular cannot be set up easily but I don't see many other choices, unless of course you have 50% tension to spend on Voltec Dein. On the bright side though there are ways to eat AND set up these okizemes if you end combos with plain 5H into eat, low air hit 214S into eat, or 236H charged air hit as low as possible into eat. The last two allow you to go into 214K > jS oki, haven't been able to determine yet though if it is a safejump in those cases. From 2H you can go into: - 2D > (236K) > 623S > etc... depending on the range - jD > 214S > etc... - 5D And from jS: - Throw - 2K > 2H > etc... - jD > 214S > etc... Anyway since the game is just out I think most people are still searching for a good gameplan with this character but I'd really like to hear how you guys manage the neutral game and okizeme situations with him. Most posts here have been about combos, but doing some more brainstorming on other stuff would be great.

I don't have too much experience playing the game so I might be wrong, or maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you guys are talking about... But as far as I understand the new RC system this "command throw option select with YRC" thing should already not be possible. If you are able to YRC a move, it means you did the RC before the move even went active. So a YRCed command throw wouldn't even have caught the opponent in the first place. To make this option select thing work you would have to PRC the throw, which is slower and not as meter efficient.

Axl can only chain Haitaka attacks up to 6 times, after that he is forced into his stance exit animation (which takes quite some time). So if you wait for that, you should have enough time to approach and at the very least reach a distance close enough so that it's not safe for him to use Haitaka anymore. Trying to escape or break-in at any other moment is pure suicide in my opinion, at least for most characters.

No man you didn't get it... I'm not saying you shouldn't try to mix up with 2S, it's a very legit mixup and I use it myself all the time. All I'm trying to say since the beginning is that it's better not to chain 2S into 3S cancel 5S in this precise situation. What I'm advising to do instead is to throw your butterfly, then dash 5K, 2S and then: - If 2S is blocked, wait for the move to recover and dash into pressure while your opponent is blocking the falling butterfly. - If 2S hits, cancel into 5HS which will work in this situation thanks to the butterfly hits. Sorry if this wasn't clear.

Dash 5K is indeed generally better to use than dash 5S right after shitsu okizeme, not because of pushback but because it's faster, thus making your opponent less likely to escape and leaving you more time to combo after the 3P mixup if you choose to do it. But my point still stands regardless, the pushback difference between a dash 5K or a dash 5S as a first move after shitsu okizeme is negligible anyway since you have the dash momentum. What ends up killing your spacing on block is the 3S~5S part after 2S, because 1) 3S cancelling stops your dash momentum and 2) your 5S will be blocked just right after the falling shitsu hits, which push your opponent back.

In this case I wouldn't recommend 3S cancelling 2S into 5S, because you're basically "wasting" (or at least making worse) potential pressure if 2S doesn't hit.... 5S will hit on block after the 2hits of the shitsu, and with the opponent too far away from you to take real advantage from the usual benefits of a blocked 5S. When you use 2S to break the guard before the shitsu hits, believe me it's better to wait and see and use 5HS to confirm the hit (which will work thanks to the shitsu hits) or do nothing if it's blocked. Then if 2S is blocked you should still have enough time to dash up 5K into pressure.