Dime_x

Should we have a strings thread? Like basically varying strings and what they are good for? Or would that be to convoluted/only a circle jerk that no one goes for...

Good stuff guys im sorry for the doom and gloom of my earlier post, but i just thought things were going to be different offline and was down on them not being that way, and also, yhe fact that the people i have to play against all main top tier or close: Millia,ram,sol,zato,chipp... Was the lineup i was playing against and im not just learnong leo, im also learning GG since this is my first GG game (i never got into BB and skullgirls is vastly different from this game) so having said that, ive had to make leo my second. After using him against axl and ram and even chipp i can see that the flaws arto numaerous for me to rely on him for my GG experience alone, but hes by far still my favorite character in the game... Even if he can barely move against ram and axl. Ok so, moving on... The one thing i really liked about kazunokos play and something that i meant to do offline but never really did that will shore up some of the weaknesses i was feeling, was to do 5k c.s 6K. For whatever reason i wasnt aware that 6k was cancelable lol So this will be my new go to string. ALSO: Though its character specific after that string on hit, leo can link 2p against some characters! which means he can then gatling into 5k and finish the combo from there. Its a MUCH easier link against crocuhing characters whereas the link against standing characters feels like a 1 or 2 framer. So use it to confirm crouch and then link into crouch comboable gatlings, or on standing hit just cancel the 6k into rekkas. Sorry but backturned "reset" doesnt work offline. I got interrupted every time i used that offline. Oh and aaginst an opponent with a burst DO NOT go into rekka series while facing the corner but not exactly in it... My opponent was bursting me into the corner and then destroying me with corner stupidity. And even if leo burts after that, since he is the one cornered he doesnt actually get out of the corner... So its a real shit thing to have to deal with. I have an answer for when my opponents try to punish my blocked 5h now though... Sweep. Sweep is fully delayable from 5H and forces some respect. Another answer i theory fightered up is on blocked rekka 1, just backdash rather than allow myself to be pressured afterward. They can read this and punish preemptively... But i digress. Something else: Throws arent breakable in xrd... I didnt know this. But now that i do, an ok throw starter is 5k>throw. A pretty decent pause there, but the kicker is that the throw is option selectable with 6K whihc is unthrowable. So... Ill have to try this. Also, the best player in my group was saying that if leo had any throw invulnerable moves, that spamming them on my opponents wakeup would be a good look since people mash throw on wakeup.. And he was right. I got a good amount of counterhits from doing 6k on my opponents wakeup. After things like sweep or hitting them with 28h. But i ate alot of reversals as well so... Perhaps not the best thing, but good to keep in mind for good reads, especially after sweep hits. 5k cs 6k dash (repeat) might be a good try on block. make that the threat and then start to do f.S or dash FD break >throw to counter their interrupt/block on good reads. 2p 5k repeat once. Might be a valuable pressure string as well since leos 5k is plus 1 and his 2p is 5 frame startup thats only a 4 frame gap for them to mash through... Will take actual testing offline to see how things work out. Some things will be good snd some will be terrible... As goes with all things theory fighter.

Kazunokos leo wasnt impressive at all except for his opponents unwillingness to block. Most of what i saw from kaz seemed to be day 1 stuff and along with kazunokos skill at spacing and reading situations he went on a tear against people. Netplay is a REALLY bad way to see how a character plays. You play people with your one string and mixup and ot works over and over again. Looking at longer sets is when useful info will come out, or when people know the matchup at length. It kinda isnt fun to see kaz flowchart the same thing over and over and get wins because that isnt indicative of anything outside of ranked. This is in no way to say that id be able to even take a round off of him, but he was winning because hes good, not necessarily because his tactics were. Yesterday i played against an opponent offline, he WOULD throw 6H and 236H on reaction and other than that, never pressed buttons (except in one situation) he was using ram. Leos weaknesses became super apparent really quick, not only against that guy but against the other people playing the game. The people i played against blocked alot... Most of my dash ins would get blocked. Other than that my opponents would just stay in the air the whole match. Which is pretty anti leo. I couldnt footsie with them well because leos dash is slow compared to most runs. His buttons are decent but without a run to set them up they wiff all day or you get caught out not pressing things and get put into pressure. His AA is suspect because it lacks active frames and leo is really hard to force the opponents hand with because of his neutral. All in all i found ALOT more weaknesses with him than i thought i would. Like when i see jap players playing and stuff, they tend to get alot of their starters to actually hit. With leo i feel like all my starters are going to get blocked and an on the ball opponent will catch my 6H and 236H on reaction which leaves with me with not a whole lot of options. Going into rekka1 on block was putting me into my opponents pressure, blocked f.s was getting punished everytime as was blocked 5H... So i felt like i didnt have any deep string enders that were any kind of safe as far as not allowing me to be put into pressure easily agterwards. And since my deep strings were so unsafe, it made me really have to be super accurate with counterhit setups. I just felt like i needed to be WAY more accurate than my opponents to win, and even my correct guesses could be wrong since leo is a frame trap character, i can giess right on frame trapping a normal, but if i mistime my frame trap to early they block, if i do it to late im the one that gets countered... It just doesnt seem to bode really well for leo imho. If they are mashers... Or its online then leo is pretty beast if he gets first block... But if its offline he seems to suck. At least from what ive plyed against for now. If one of his fireballs werent a charge it would do really well for him, but right now his neutral feels kinda bad and so does his offense.

Im also having major troubles with this matchup. The ram im playing against is decent.. Not mashy, but abuses movement and swords and just basically airdashes around and then sets swords and then waits for swords to go active and goes in on me... Its extremely flowchart and the kicker is that rams f.S destroys leos f.S (rams is a frame faster) and it destroys leos HS plus the worst thing, ram has a run whereas leo doesnt. And lol... Shes a keepaway character with a command grab that she can combo off of... Idk but leo feels really sluggish here and having little mixup isnt helping at all. The ram just sits in block all day and waits to poke out with 2k. Most of my 6H pressure gets thrown...on reaction if it came from 5H. Not having an overhead is really cramping my style with this character. And the worst part of all, i cant full rekka anywhere close to the corner because ram bursts the second hit and puts me in the corner and she generally gets advantage.

Would anyone care to theory fight the reason for venoms relatively high standing in xrd? (Besides the fact that there 3 really good venom players out there)

All my testing has been in leo v leo training mode... Should have said that earlier. Also: The primary difference between fast and slow 236h is that the slow one pushes the opponent for the first few frames of startup, only after that does the move crossup. This can be seen by doing 236h point blank. And then doing it from midrange, and then doing it from max range, so: The difference between the fast and and slow version is that the fast version SKIPS the initial pushback. I was thinking that holding the button or the timing/speed of the cancel might have something to do with it, but the above recording seems to prove that false.

I really dont know. I tried it from S and no dice it doesnt seem to work from S. So fuck it im looking at other stuff: Newest thing is that arcsys seems to have really taken their time into balancing leo with regard to hist string theory. I guess most characters are like this such as his 6h and 6k only being chainable from certain moves, but something i just noticed as well, is that he has delays which is no particular discovery, but that his delays differ: 5f.s delay 6h works as a chain. But 5f.s delay 6k isnt delayable nearly as long. The most obvious reason is so that 5f.s>throw/6k isnt a complete mixup. But the further ramifications is why this is exactly and what the rule is... Is it that 6k the move itself cant be delayed very long when done from a chain, or is it that 6h has an ability tp be delayed for a very long time from any chain? After further testing it seems to be that the h moves (5h and 6h) can be delayed more time than normal from far s. What this seems to mean is: In the string 5k>5s>5f.s: We have a natural mixup of canceling into 236h for the running crossup, or delaying the 5h instead to try and counterhit the opponent out retaliation attempts, this of course also hits from the front so it might be a good mixup for the crossup 236h. Of course all this is tertiary strats, but im just looking to find ways to add some strategic complications into leos game so i can seek to keep opponents confused and myself from getting bored... Im trying to find as much "deep" stuff with leos strategy as possible. I know i can flowchart ksh6h pressure and confirms, but, it seems so simple that im trying to find some more strategic depth in the character, because doing chain into rekka into okizeme all day just becomes mindnumbing after awhile.

Ive finally looked into this and i do think the close 236 H is faster. 5k,5s,5h xx 236h wont combo unless done from a dash in starter. Also, when doing this fast/close version of 236h, it doesnt seem cancelable into the followup rekka, so it cant knockdown even when combod into unless you use rc. The best application of this knowledge seems to be to use the crossup against expected crouchblocks (fast 236h doesnt work against standing block since the opponent will start walking backwards and inadvertently not allow the close range 236h -edit... Actually that doesnt seem like whats happening: Going on in training mode, i found that when the 236h gets blocked...it ALWAYS gets blocked a second time, in the next chain. Then every chain i do after that the 236h combos... For what seems like 10 times or more, then randomly it wont combo, and the next one never combos but then all the next ones do. Another hypothesis: Some sort of flag is being raised... Ive tried holding 236[H]... doesnt seem to make a difference. Ive tried doing it with the risc gauge up... No difference. -edit 2. The rule of 2 is now gone in training mode. Im literally able to get 5h,236h to combo 10 times in a row (or so) and then i CANT combo it 10 times in a row (236h gets blocked after 5h hits) This doesnt seem random since it almost always happens many times in a row. My timing isnt so inconsistent as to THAT inconsistent. range doesnt seem to be all that tied into it either since when the combo is working i can do the 5h from pretty far away and the 236h will still combo, yet when the combo isnt working, even if im point blank it wont combo. We really need to figure this out imho, it may have applications for other move properties.

If you are looking for a "gapless" safe on block move then 236S might be the best bet, or 46S. Of course 6K is always an option, but leaves a pretty big gap. all in all youve got 3 safe but minus options, and some gapped but plus options. Also, probably an early go to is to do 236H for the crossup and then do some delays into non crossups if they start blocking, or some delays into 5H if they start mashing... if you make sweep your go to though... And this is esoteric as hell, an ok "mixup" might be to dash 2K>5c.S>5f.S>5dust Not really a mixup i would go for, but if theve been previously trained to block the sweep low, the the dust might catch them off guard.

One way to NOT get help is to go on a forum dedicated to a character and call the people that play that character, mashers. While asking for their help no less. You come of as "hey mashers that im better than, could you tell me how to beat your mashing, because im so good that i need your mashy advice". Anyways to answer your question, without video we cant really give you any advice WITHOUT guessing at the problem. And not knowing your character doesnt help either. So i will just guess the problem and give you an obvious answer even though you can use the replay function to see what strings your opponent is using and then recreate those strings in training mode and find out your own counters... We will help out. The string that you are probably having trouble with is leos infinite blockstring: 5K>S>H>6H (repeat) The important part is that 6H is plus 5 on block and that the 5H>6H string has a throwable gap in it. So, you have to go into training mode and look at what leos 6H looks like, and when fighting leo players, learn the patterns they are using to chain into 6H and throw them in the startup of 6H. Thats the counter, just throw them. Leo has other plus on block moves but none that allow him to repeat his string indefenitely, also, what you call mashing is just a leo player doing a chain over and over again and you not knowing the matchup and getting counterhit alot. The easiest way to beat any pressure character like leo is to not let them start their offense in the first place... Easier said than done, but its so fundamental that i would be remiss to not point it out. As further help. Go into training mode and record leo doing the string i mentioned, and then practice throwing him between the 3rd and 4th attack. It will be good practice for you since you have lots of leos to play against. Also, this kind of training against specific characters are how top players become top players. They practice ways to beat character specific things. Try not to come into a character forum and call people mashers though.. It isnt a good look.

I feel like we should start discussing leo strings /gatlings ie, what strings he has and why to use them over his basic strings: Leos go to string atm seems to be K>S>H but that string ends in either a huge gap or a minus on block move. Another string that we leo players might want to take a look at as a go to, is 5K>c.S>f.S We have a few new options with this string that increase flexibility and may be safer overall than the standard string but ultimately are a bit lower damage than the first string: If this string hitconfirms against a croucher we can tack on 5H>rekkas and we have 3 hits to confirm crouch as opposed to the first strings 2 hits to confirm. If this string is blocked we can go into 6H as a risky throwable option but good on block and does big da,age to the opponents risc gauge. Or we can do 6K if we think the opponent will go for a throw, and if they do we get a stagger. If we think they will try an interrupt, we can press 5H and go for the hugely damaging CH 5H>6H starter. If the opponent gets hit while standing, we can go directly into rekkas for the knockdown, or we can go into a sweep for a different oki look. So, MANY more options from this string than from the first one. But that isnt the only string of course, we should try and find alternative strings and what they can be useful for and what leos best strings are imho.

Tbqh i feel that the dash through is the primary mixup option. You ALWAYS have to play the player, but i dont feel like "respect" is hard for leo to get in that situation. He has meaty moves and countermoves. In order to beat the meatys the opponent has to hit a 2 frame reversal window, just to be allowed the privelege of leaving themselves open to the counter. The K in the BT P>K forces the opponent to hold their block down and away from leo, which opens up the dash mixup of rekkas>236H wiff>immediate dash through. Leo can also bait the reversal/mash by rekkas>236H wiff>44 dash>stuff Some opponents wont want to give leo respect... But thats ok... Leo is happy to put his foot in peoples ass till they get the hint, and he has lots of ways to do it.

Yeah they are reversed. His dash away from the opponent in backturned is 13f invulnerable, his dash towards the opponent has no invulnerability.

Oh bah... Ok good to know. That does indeed kinda suck... But more importatnt imho is that 5k doesnt prorate. Also.. Does BT P prorate? And finally, do moves only prorate when used as the first hit of a combo or do they prorate no matter where in the combo they are used?

BT P is a no timing meaty after post rekkas 236H wiff. It is by far the better choice imho. It is a better hitconfirm and it sets up a mixup between BT P>K or BT Px2>H I wouldnt worry about the P not initially hitting low since the k afterwards does AND because this is primarily a left/right mixup rather than a high/low one. Going low during your left/right does cover more bases, but imho the move specifics for leo in that situation make using P the much better choice overall.

Not according to the one im looking at... But mine could easily be wrong, such is any frame data. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/tgwGI0U6SvHXq5ViIHgBveg/htmlview?pli=1

170 damage: 5K>5S>5H> rekka x2>RC> 5K>5S>5H>rekka x3 If the opponent is crouching you can do 5S>5f.S for extra damage (186 for 2 extra far S attacks and 177 for 1 extra far S attack) doesnt have the corner carry that rekka x3 rc has, but leos best mixups seem to be midscreen left/right oki after rekka x3 anyways. Speaking of rekka x3: Following up with 236 H wiff, it is better to do BT P because it will ALWAYS hit meaty, whereas earliest timing BT K is easy to wiff. Also, using BT P>K>S is a better confirm than BT K>S. The mixup to this is to use BT dash crossup as the main mixup. Also use BT P>S before the crossup to have a basic 3 way mixup between high/low/crossup. I think this is leos mainline mixup and its available after rekka x3 which makes it pretty good. BT mixups should go straight into rekkas as well with the same okizemi setplay. Its like sf4 ibuki kunai mixups, in a nutshell. Also, some other very important stuff: All of leos highs and lows scale damage... Except for his BT K. Also, his 5k DOES NOT prorate. So thats extremely good. -edit Nope his BT K scales as well.

236H frame data is wonky. Cant jump test it on block/hit either since the crossup version leaves leo backturned and he cant jump in backturned. The frontal versio is jump testable though and leo is definitely at plus frames (holding up makes leo jump ever so slightly earlier than the blocking leo) I dont know how to test backturned frames... First would be to see if chip can punish with his jab and move on from there i guess. -edit... Wait, no. Leo cant block in backturned... Lol Idk how to test backturned then.

... My bad... I read you wrong. Me fucking up again. I thought you meant canceling into 46H not 46S. I seem to be having trouble with the notation for GG, my brain sees words and assumes they are other things that they arent... Its weird because i dont have this problem on skullheart but its the 3rd or 4th time its happened here on DL.

Good stuff tomo... I didnt know throw range was THAT small. Wow. Ok. But i tested the frame trap you mention and in leo versus leo it gets beat by leos mashed 4H. So im pretty sure it will work in many matchups since leos H is slow. So mashing 4H in the leo mirror will stop 5H>6H and 5[H] and 5H>236 S and 5H>[4]6S and even 5H,2K Character specifics will no doubt apply to certain things. And even though reversals are also possible for leo to use offensively, i dont know how much i could consider a reversal a mainline string.

This is the first thing ive read that gets me down on leo (or at least his pressure). Ive gone over all the options in training mode and i cant find a way to BEAT this other than to just not do the move and do something else. Many ways to avoid it but no ways to beat it that ive found, even sweep is fuzzyguardable into throw, which can be beat by delaying the sweep perfectly but then leos at negative frames on block with no real reward on hit and still a very hard timing to hit in the first place. 6H is still available raw if gatlinged from 2K or f.S for a different look, but the throw mash is strong and works against those moves as well of course. The only guaranteed way of getting a 6h to make contact that i can see is using rc for the plus frames, and thats waaaay to expensive just to get a move blocked. The problem is that leo needs to be +0 on blocked 5[H] but hes at terrible minus frames after the move. The opponent can even mash throw out of 5H>6H on hit... I dont really know what to make of this guy if you can just easy os against his prime pressure tools, it looks like an oversight by arcsys, but im 99.9% sure that isnt what it is. So idk... But this makes him... Idk... But it isnt good.

Was waiting till i got some online matches when my connect was at a decent speed (12 mb/sec) to really judge the game. Played a guy about 2k miles away, a distance that i play people in skullgirls in all the time and have good connections with despite 90-100ms. Well, this guy and i went at it in around 7 frames of variable delay. Its completely unplayable and feels like more than 7 frames of lag, and inputs only come out about half the time. Wanted to see whats up and went to training mode and played at 7 frames delay... Pretty bad, but somewhat playable because of no dropped inputs. Once i get some locals to play against i will test again with people in my city, but so far xrd gets a VERY miserable F for online play. Its about as playable as old cvs2 online or laggy sf4. This is probably only "good" netcode to people that are within 500 miles of each other and have over 30 mb/sec imho... In other words... Bad.

leo looks to have lots of ways to keep people honest about using IB to hit the 6H after the 5H: 5K>5H>6H is the threat. The opponent can IB the 5H. So instead do 5K,2P>5K If instead the opponent wants to IB the 6H... Then leo gets a REALLY NICE mixup: 5K>5H>236H There will be nothing for the opponent to block because the 236H crosses up on near the exact same frame as non crossup 6H would have hit. So a very simple left/right mixup both from non prorated starters coming from 5K pressure. Leo has an answer for seemingly everything if thought is put into his movelist. That doesnt make him top tier, but i certainly dont think that IB is going to be an end all against him either.

I feel like ive said this at least 20 times if not more I even said that leo wouldnt be all about the infinite blockstrings at highish levels. I mean to any seasoned fg player this should go without saying imho. Nothing is so good that you can just do it all day with no variance. There are no strider doom traps here.

Yes drake that is exactly what ive been saying this whole time Leo's pressure is the mixup. With this game having so many ways to punish blocking besides rote blocking mixups (you can damage their RISC gauge, their fd gauge and keep them from gaining meter since they are blocking) so leo kinda really doesnt NEED blocking mixups. His mixup is based on knowing that if you block against him forever, you will be in high RISC, no meter, and he will have a ton of meter. Once that is established he also has a parry to make you not want to throw stuff out and get hit by huge ch combos. This is why i said he has offense that approaches millia or chipp in crazy pressure.... Plus having a good reversal and all the other things he has. I dont really think he NEEDS to be a tricky character... I think he just does what he does and gets given damage. Like i have said, i could be wrong but, evaluating his tools he just eats the hell out of RISC and FD bar, after which his offense is just pumped via damage and no knockback. The infinite blockstring is good for now, as i mentioned, but eventually i think we will need to be very careful about where we throw out 6H because of its inherent gap. What my epiphany was a day ago, was that instead of needing to dash in, to reoffense, leo can just 6h as his dash in. So strings such as 236s, backdash, 5H>6H, 5k become possible. And finally... Well not finally, but yeah: 5k combined with 5H i think is going to be a monster of a chain because of the synergy of 5K moving forward, and 5H sucking the opponent in. Of course there is a gap there that leo can be hit out of... But i digress, leo is the one in charge and he puts the gaps where he wants them. So to go on with what i was going to say a day ago, leo is a pressure character and low level Leo's i think will be based on his "infinite" pressure into 6H chains. Higher level Leo's though, imho will be more centred around the threat of infinite pressure in order to counterhit the opponent, and so he will be more based on delays and stuff... Imho. I liken his style to tekken hwaorang. Hwaorang has infinite blockstrings that dont push him away, but he has weak/low damage mixup. His damage comes from counterhits. At higher level though he doesnt really use infinite strings but instead counter hit setups. In tekken he gains nothing from his opponent blocking, so, many opponents just block him for long amounts of time looking for a good read on a breakout, in GG however, leo gains either FD damage, or RISC damage. So leo DOES gain something from going for the pressure option and predicting correctly and getting blocked even if it doesnt do health damage, he's still gaining something tangible other than just mindgames and reads. Defending against leo, besides the obvious "dont block him in the first place" defense, seems like it will be mixing fd and regular block so as to not allow either to get really hit hard, as well as jump back FD and DA and instant block. Jabbing leo out of his pressure i think is going to become harder and harder as leo players become better and better and start to realize where they can force advantages based on certain spacings and followups. Like 236 s on block up close can be followed up by backdash > 5H or 236s on block from further away can be followed up by 5h to try and counterhit or wiff punish an errant 5p since it will be way out of range of 5p, but still in range of 5H. Another way to think of him is like a pressure character that uses his pressure to make the opponent wary of sticking out buttons, but then leo uses that hesitation to go into stance and get those nice high/low mixups. I dont really think he has to be played in either way, its just up to the leo player to play him how they want to in whichever style. /perhaps or perhaps not.