Kuuhaku

Pretty much combo rate change balances out the damage buffs. Which is I guess why Rachel's damage remains overall slightly lower. It's kind of surprising that they chose to go that route to balance her damage though. If that's the case, then it might just be referring to on whiff. 2C P1 makes me laugh.

Hmm... that looks pretty cool.

Ah, I see. I was actually thinking of a different setup. You are correct on this point. Whoever asked about the anti-air- if you're not confident that you can hit Hakumen, backdashing or moving out of the way is also an option.

Kotokot- Pretty sure Hakumen's instant overhead (or at least the only j.B instant overhead setup I know from Haku) does not work on Rachel. It only works on a few characters, namely Bang, Ragna?, and Relius. There's a few others like maybe Carl? and probably Tager... I don't remember too well. Almost positive that Rachel is not on that list though. If you wait and space it right, 6A does beat j.2C... Though the timing can get weird depending on where Haku is.

If it was netplay, also keep in mind lag. While you do have some time to mess up with it, it's not much so that could equally be a factor.

It still ultimately comes down to hitboxes and I'm pretty sure that with most characters that j.A doesn't hit them on the first active frame because Rachel has to travel downwards. We did some preliminary testing with the CPU performing gapless 5B 2D j.A and Spark doing IB DP to get out with different characters. Because of Tager and (maybe Hakumen's) hitboxes, they might not even be able to get out on IB. Though we didn't go as far to test this because we decided to play iDOLM@STER instead. If you really want, I can also put that on my to-do list. Oh yeah. Some characters are noticeably taller or shorter during their blocking animations. Ragna would be an example of a character that gets taller and Noel would be an example of a character that becomes shorter. I was told a list of characters that get taller at one point, but I forgot. The only other character I remember is Carl (taller). This is more or less the explanation of why Noel specifically is a pain in the butt to hit with j.A.

Yes. If j.A doesn't hit them rising, there will always be some sort of delay because j.A won't hit them right away. That being said, I have kind of a weird theory that wind timing is why you have to delay for shorter characters. Delaying the jump cancel seems to make it more consistent because wind effects Rachel less (Rachel's momentum is different depend on when she starts moving during wind which is something I noticed when messing with level 3 j.2C timings). At the same time it's kind of weird because Rachel moves fastest at the beginning of wind. This is also something I'll mess around with. Or if anyone else wants to try, they're more than welcome to. As for why 5B 9 2D j.A is more consistent, Rachel moves forward and will hit the top of their hitbox. At the same time, because she travels more, there's even more of a delay. In most situations it won't matter unless they're really fishing for an IB DP to get out, in which case you can try to read it and block after you jump cancel 5B. Then they'll feel stupid because you air blocked their DP and you're about to kill them.

That -8 is only if you allow 5B to recover without doing anything else. Since you jump cancel the move (assuming first active frame), you only take into account it's blockstun which is determined by it's level of attack. Since 5B is a level 3 attack, it's total blockstun is 16 frames. You also have to take into account jump start up which is 4 for Rachel. On IB, it would look something like this: (5B Block stun) 16 - 3 (IBed) = 13 - 4 (jump start up) = 9 - 8 (j.A start up) = 1 On not IB, it would look something like this: (5B block stun) 16 = 16 - 4 (jump start up) = 12 - 8 (j.A start up) = 4 This is assuming j.A hits them rising, which I think only occurs on Tager (maybe Hakumen) and also assuming that you jump cancel on the first active frame. On most characters, I'm assuming on IB the gap is like 1 frame. So yes, on IB you can DP or backdash.

That's because it's not gapless on IB. Any character with a reversal can IB 5B and hit you before j.A comes out. At the same time this is extremely unsafe because you could also block as you jump cancel 5B. The only exceptions may be Hakumen and Tager because j.A hits them much sooner since their hitboxes are extremely tall. Hazama having a reversal is nothing special in this case. It does not make the string somehow magically work differently on him than it would with any other character that has a reversal. Spa- I'm sorry, but you're going to have to get some correct information. Gapless simply means that there are 0 frames gap, therefore you can't mash out, back dash, whatever because you're still in block stun. IBing is a mechanic that's meant to create gaps to give characters opportunities to get out. Both gapless and strings with gaps have their uses depending on the situation and what you're trying to do. Having a gapless and safe string into an extremely fast overhead that works on just about everyone is something that only Rachel has though.

No. Our testing showed that Hazama and Rachel are also gapless.

It will hit Noel too, but you have to delay it more so gapless is impossible. Delaying the jump cancel will make it easier to hit shorter characters, but even with the delay it is still gapless. On IB though, it's not gapless no matter what.

You have to also take into account the start up animation which is seven frames. Throws are a total of 20 frames. So green throws are within reasonable reaction time. SPA- Pretty sure this is a no. It's the first I've heard of it. Nothing in the system or even sprite sheets would suggest this. Finished testing with Spark. 5B 2D j.A is gapless on everyone but Noel and Litchi (doesn't work on Litchi). This is assuming normal block. It is not gapless on IB.

Why that setting though? IB by default has less blockstun. The reason for counter hit and not counter hit as a test is because if you don't land a counter hit that means they never even left block stun. Where as if you do land counter hit they left block stun and thus their move started up. I tested it multiple times too and got consistent results. If you're talking in sheer speed, yes 5A jc 2D j.A will always be faster because of numbers- 5A's 6F start up versus 5B's 8F start up. The reason why 5B is used more is because 5B into j.A overhead is gapless. If it's gapless, she has nothing she backdash because she's stuck in block stun. Also, as I stated earlier, even if you delay it 1-2 frames, it won't matter much at that speed. Still beyond react-able time. Keep in mind reasonable reaction is around 20 frames and we're talking between 12-15 frames. You're much more likely to run into someone mashing inputs because they want out than run into someone who can consistently react (not guess) and block switch at that speed.

Even if at worst it's 1-2 frames slower, no one's reacting to that. It's called an instant overhead because it's beyond the ability of people to reasonably react and thus you must guess if it's coming or not. It's a 50/50 because in that same situation Rachel can do a low.

Uh... I just tested it now. j.A doesn't work period on Litchi because of how her crouching hitbox is shaped. I'll do a recording of what I'm doing, but jump cancelling forward causes it to hit at the very top of their hitbox. http://youtu.be/OICPPhUGjek First version is gapless (5B delay jc 2D j.A). Second version there's a couple frames gap (maybe 1-2) and this is done by 5B 9 2D j.A. Tested this by mashing 1AAAAAA while in block stun. If I got a counter hit, then it has a gap. No counter hit and it's gapless. Also did testing on Tsubaki and Noel. Noel I can't seem to get a gapless version on, so in CSX this might pose a problem with her being able to 4D through it. Tsubaki you can do it normally and it's gapless. Re-did testing on Rachel. She is the same as Hazama. I'll check out Makoto and Platinum at Spark's. kotoko- 5A 2D j.A works, but it is not gapless because 5A's blockstun is not high enough. The point of gapless instant overhead is you can't reversal through it.

It's because it can easily convert into 2B and by the time they see j.B, it's too late. The way people "react" to things that aren't 4B are 1) you do 5B into overhead in the same spot so they just react to the 5B and stand up or 2) They stand up when they see wind spent. They actually have no idea what you're going to do which is why stuff like 5B jc 2D 2B and 5B 2D 2B is dirty. Do you have a means to record what you're doing? Or... if the PVR is there, I'll try to get a video up or find a video of it being done.

No... jump cancel is usually 8 for 5B 2D j.A. You need to jump forward when jump cancelling the 5B to hit short characters. Still won't work on Litchi though because of how her hitbox is shaped.

Try 5B 9 2D j.A it should work fine on all of those characters.

Question: Xie, mind if I ask why you assessed Rachel's reward assessment at B-? The reason I ask is because her average damage is actually pretty high in most situations unless she gets a 2C or j.A starter. It was toned down from CS2, but only a few combos saw that much of a reduction.

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Should be fine. I did all my testing on CS2 as well. Pretty sure no one's crouching hitbox changed in CSX (though it would be nice if Litchi got fatter).

Yeah. You're doing it incorrectly. Hazama is tall enough to where you can even make instant j.A combo into j.C. The two options I listed above for Rachel also work on Hazama too. Should also work for Platinum as well, but I'll double check it when I go to Spark's place. I don't have Platinum. 99% sure it does though.

Herbal- I'm not sure if I'm just not reading your post right, but j.A instant overhead works on all of those characters but Litchi. kotokot- Yes. 5A. j.A is a good option too. 5A j.A is not gapless, but Rachel doesn't have anything 1F so 5A j.A does work as an alternative. If you're having the issue of 5B j.A whiffing, then switching to 5A won't help unless you're doing it because they're barriering and you want to lessen push back. SPA- No. You cannot react to 5B 2D j.A. They're purely guessing because you're likely using it at the same spots in your block string. If you were to do your same block string but instead do 5B 2D 2B, they'd probably get hit because they're just standing up because they think you're going to do it, not reacting. Hence it's a guess. With Rachel you need to time it a bit better because of her crouching hitbox, but from testing it out now, it doesn't look like she leaves block stun after 5B, so j.A hits her about the same time as everyone else. Even if at worst it's like 1F slower, no one has 13F reaction speed. If someone did, they probably would have won SBO already. There's very few characters in BB that have an overhead option that fast, and most only have it in special circumstances. Also, 4B isn't for throwing off IB timing (though I guess you could use it that way), but rather to change up the timing of your overall block string to see if they're really paying attention. If there's a lot going on at once (pumpkin, george, or they think you're out of 4B range) there's a good chance that they'll get hit even thought that thing is awful. Staggering your strings though is for throwing off IB timing on top of fishing out mashing. If they're busy focusing on when to IB, that's less attention span going towards mix ups and setups. Also... a good way to get it to hit consistently on Rachel is to slightly delay the jump cancel from 5B or to jump forward while doing 2D. The first option is easier though, second one is probably easier to confirm into combo.

j.A is an instant overhead and also gapless. j.b is slower, but still pretty fast and is good for fuzzy guards. Rachel offense does have some trouble with ORE GA BARRIER, but barrier now wears down pretty fast so you can't rely on that either.

Thanks for posting that. So many people getting blown up by 4B.