Teyah

I'd have to disagree with that list, TGS. As far as respective tier lists go, Slash Millia having consistent knockdown, good damage, and decent abare should put her above AC Millia and her better mixup. On a related note, when I last visited Seattle (summer of last year), the local players told me that many Japanese message boards were considering Millia and Faust to be the S Tier of Slash. They seemed pretty certain about this, as they have a Japanese player among their group who could back this claim up. While Faust as S Tier isn't beyond the realm of possibility, I was skeptical to believe the same of Millia. In theory, putting her in the top/upper tier may make sense, although practically, I simply don't see it happening in Slash.

Though why would you want to use Emerald Rain on wakeup, instead of opting for mixup? (Emerald Rain leaves you at very little advantage, as opposed to Disc oki pressure) Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't seem to make much sense... which is probably why blitz automatically assumed that's not what you had meant.

Ah I was talking about a 6H after midscreen Pin aircombo, as I was contrasting #R j.H knockdown vs Slash 6H knockdowns. Random CH 6H should be followed by B&B into another 6H knockdown, of course!

As far as combos go, Millia only has the Pin loop for damage and consistent knockdowns from the air. Whether it be midscreen or corner, ground launch or aerial launch, you'll need to be able to convert hits from each of these situations into knockdowns via Pin loops/combos to optimally play Slash Millia. Millia got nerfed in Slash mainly by the loss of #Reload j.H, but also in a few other more subtle ways. Loss of knockdown/combo on her regular throw, decreased hitstun on her 6K, and the requirement of Pin for B&B combos all severely weakened her midscreen mixup game. Regarding #R j.H, the move was simply too powerful and had to be toned down in some way, otherwise Millia would simply end up in the upper tiers again. Not only did it guarantee knockdown, but also kept you very close to your opponent and gave you the perfect timing for Disc okizeme (wakeup mixup). The knockdowns that Slash Millia now gets with 6H leave her much less time for Disc and mixup setup (especially from midscreen), which leave more possibilities for escape.

Ah, okay. Though, the problem with the 5H into S Disc FRC into stuffs is that there's simply too much space to cover with only like a +5 or so frame advantage... which isn't nearly enough to allow any sort of consistent mixup. For crossups at that range, the best (and probably only) crossup you could safely attempt would be IAD across j.K xx S Pin, AD back towards and go high/low with j.K-S / j.K, land 2S... but that's not all too great of a mixup, considering the many ways your opponent could escape that. It seems alot easier to come in with something like this: Safe advance via combination of ADs and Pin -> falling j.K-P-K, land, (optional hitconfirmable short 2K string to combo), FB Disc... And then work your 2 mixup chances in from there. Seems alot safer/more practical to try, especially since Millia runs by tension so easily. But who knows, we don't have AC and speculation can only go so far...

S Disc FRC happens before the Disc even comes out, so the disc doesn't form.. meaning you can't do any sort of disc mixup from it. j.S/H/D are all cancellable by airdash on connection (hit or block).. which is good, but hard to take advantage at midscreen due to j.S's slow startup and horrible hitbox. More than likely, you'll need to burn through a Pin and/or (double) AD to get into a safe position for j.S, which lessens the usefulness of its ADC... I believe we talked about j.H floating on grouded hit 2 pages ago, didn't we?

Yeah, aircombo to S Pin to 6H seems almost identical to #Reload Millia in terms of tightness. I'm also fairly certain FB Disc also locks opponent in on the ground as well, which explains why I have yet to see anyone escape via FD'ing out. S Disc FRC appears kind of gimmicky and useless, but that might just be me. It seems that the FRC is still ~5-10F into the move, so using it as a recovery cutter isn't that great, unless up close where some silly throw mixups might be possible. One of the more important changes I see in AC Millia is that j.K seems to be a level 2 (level 3?) move now, which of course allows it to combo to j.D and now j.S much more easily than before. However, the added stun also gives Millia frame advantage off a simple air-to-ground string like j.K-P-K... which should help a ton in mixing up into throw or FB Disc or what have you.

Yeah, I do the same pretty much. For example with Millia, Turbofall xx Disc is much different than Turbofall, Disc (and both have their uses), and I believe I've also used xx to refer to an active-frame cancel (5P xx 5K) in a recent post. Though I do sometimes tend to write it in redundant strings/combos (such as 6H xx Roll) for clarity's sake.

How could both blitz and I be wrong? I was basically disagreeing with what he said, so it's impossible for that statement to be true. Anyway... I just now realized that I was referencing the wrong Millia vs ABA vid. The one I was thinking of was a different vid set in ABA's stage, which I had just watched. Though the idea in my above reply still holds true, I may have misinterpreted blitz's post because I had a different vid in mind. As for the three knockdowns without follows, let me try that again: on that youtube vid around 3:10, the first knockdown was impossible to followup (late Bad Moon on FB Disc), the second combo was stopped for knockdow[finput][/finput]BA stun, and the third combo was stopped as a burst bait attempt, most likely. On another note, it turns out that Throw -> Lust Shaker is just barely techable, though I'm sure you could get knockdown off of it on the heavier chars at the least. Something to watch out for, anyway.

If you're giving up B&B damage just so you can get a knockdown to possibly score another B&B then something's wrong... I'm thinking that wasn't the reason. 2S-5P xx 5K-6K is a slightly faster way of getting 6K out, and you can always opt to do 2S-5P xx 2K instead, which might not be a bad idea. As far as whiff recovery goes, it's better to just end at 2S, since 2S-5P recovers a frame slower than 2S itself. Also on hit, you'll have to deal with that extra damage scaling from 5P-j.K before your B&B... FB Disc, TK Turbofall FRC, land -> Roll is silliness, but might just work. FB disc, 6K FRC -> Roll is pretty evil as well, but both of these use 50% tension to just set up. I'm seeing a potential problem with FB Disc and crossups though. Since crossups only work on opponents who are not in blockstun, in any case where you can successfully execute these, your opponent could have just (FD) jumped out of the FB Disc. Since FD jump is probably the best way for opponents to escape any sort of Disc pressure, you'd best be able to read your opponent well before risking two guaranteed high/lows just 'cause you wanted to be fancy.

You can already get an aerial launch from non-FB Disc, Bad Moon (FRC Disc makes it easier, but it's not required)... so launching from FB Disc -> Bad Moon is pretty much guaranteed. With FB Disc you almost always get two high/low mixup opportunities per setup, as opposed to just one with regular Disc. I believe I've seen 2S (blocked), 6K (hits) -> followup work, so there's plenty of time to do any combination of high/lows that you like. The only set that may not work is Bad Moon (blocked) -> 6K (hits), which is probably a bit too slow to follow up with anything. Then again, 6K xx Roll to crossover, followed by 2P-5S© -> aircombo might work in that case... who knows. Best to just wait till AC hits consoles where we can all test this stuff, anyway.

If she has the ability to get consistent knockdowns from her B&Bs, then I would also agree that she may be better than Slash Millia... but, relative to the rest of the cast in each game, she would still be worse off than in Slash. Alot of other chars were given major beefs in AC; Millia was mainly given better mixups at the expense of big damage and possibly knockdowns (or at least free knockdowns)... which she needs to get into those mixups safely anyway. I don't think the tradeoff was worth it.

Kaqn played much better against Shadow than he did in his earlier match on Gamechariot. Particularly interesting was his air combo to FB Disc, land 6H for knockdown - if he had chosen to cancel 6H into Roll, he probably could have followed up with generic far-away wakeup pressure. Still, good to know that consistent knockdown is a possibility, if at the expense of 25% meter. Koichi is looking solid enough, given his long absence from Millia play. The main problem that I saw wasn't in his play, but in that fact that Millia simply has trouble dealing a decent amount of damage in her B&B, and can't get many openings from the (seemingly) inconsistent knockdowns either. Of course, her older problems still persist: her at-neutral game remains weak and the raw damage ratio per successful hit is always going to be heavily skewed in her opponent's favour. And now, she's not even able to dish it out or put herself into favourable situations as well as in previous games... so I think it's pretty safe to say it will be an uphill battle for Millia in AC. http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/1632/millia7wj3.jpg http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6281/millia5nv5.jpg (Also by same artist)

AKA - I agree with pretty much everything you said about Eddie in your last post, so I won't get too detailed there. You seem thoroughly convinced that 22H FRC is not the way to go, so I'll have to do some testing with that when I can. That info on FD making the mixup easier to 'see' in Slash is especially interesting, as I had always noticed the j.K mixups were less effective in Slash but couldn't quite place why (I had blamed hitpause/blockstun, originally). Anyway, good discussion. Also, it'd be great if you could post more in the Millia forums! I'd actually be very interested in hearing what you have to say about her gameplan, as that can vary quite alot from player to player... moreso than with many other characters, it would seem.

Just a short response here, as I can't keep up the lengthy posts given the amount of work I should probably be doing about now: - Instant blocking the 22H shouldn't result in one being able to escape, from my experience and observations on it. There still doesn't seem to be enough time for the opponent to do anything other than possibly jump a bit into the air only to get pushed back down into by a rj.Eddie. I've also not once seen this string broken out of the way you describe on a good amount of Jap Slash Eddie matches, which is why I'm a bit skeptical here. - A main point of mine as to why not to focus on landing the relaunch SG combo is that one requires to connect off the very first mixup, something that occurs only ~30-40% of the time on the average from my observations, and requires very tight timing that risks you giving up free damage from the 22H variant of the UB. That's where we differ, it seems: you say the 22H is easily escapable, I say it's not...

So you're saying that originally, you were in fact trying to emphasize that 'all of Eddie's tone-downs make Eddie worse'... excuse me for being a bit skeptic here. That's along the lines of saying 'all of Ky's buffs make him better', which is a very general and pointless statement to make. SG (2nd hit) knockdown into backdash -> far drill FRC is easily meaty. You can't just 'get up and run away' from it. Surprised you didn't know this. This bit in particular confuses me. If you don't backdash, your far drill will be offscreen and totally miss. It sounds like you are getting the combo I listed confused for something else - I'll dig up an example from a match vid when I get back home and post it up to show you what I'm talking about here. True, if you always get them with your first shadow mixup - which you generally do not. Oftentimes, you just barely have the meter for SG + Shadow S knockdown, if you go that route. I think you're exaggerating the threat of FD to Eddie's pressure in general. If you're finding your specific Eddie strings pushing you back too far by FD, you should try working empty fly dj.S-H or Damned Fang in there. 2K-Shadow P and even the first rj.K are not requirements in Eddie pressure strings, so if you're having problems with them then simply try something else. It's rare to see good Eddies get frustrated from being FD'ed away repeatedly, even in Slash.

Well it's worth it if you can get it, for sure. But due to its overall difficulty, amount of gauge required, and the overall increased pushback in Slash, that's not going to come very often. How often do you see vids of Slash Eddie landing a relaunch SG + mine? I suppose the far drill could be IB'ed, but then you can always opt for IAD j.K-P-K to guardbreak instead, which should push them back down into the mine for UB. Yup, I accounted for this in the two followup combos that I posted above. I would have to disagree here, and say that shadow not jacking up gauge on block (in combination with weaker moves) is the biggest nerf to Eddie from #R to Slash. Not being able to do lame 4-hit combos to SG for 50% damage followed by mine for the other 50% at the end of a shadow pressure string is a pretty huge change!

Japanese Matchup Rating (outdated): 6.0 Teyah says: 6.0 General Strategy: This matchup should basically consist of Dizzy attempting to run away and set up her offense, while Eddie chases and attempts to lock her down with the Shadow. Once she gets enough distance, Dizzy will be summoning fish and spear to discourage empty summoning from fullscreen on your end. At any point during the match when the Shadow gauge is available, your main goal should be to avoid her summons, get in close and force Dizzy to block. Once that happens, you can summon with -S- or -K- to force a mixup series. Neutral: No Shadow This is the only point at which Dizzy may try to rush you down unprotected, usually with 5K from the ground or j.2S/j.H from the air. If Dizzy is rushing you while you are summoning, -S- should hit her out of pretty much anything she tries. While on the ground and without a shadow, Dizzy's rushdown often begins by poking you with the tip of her 5K. This can be very frustrating at first since her 5K goes through your 2S - which is generally Eddie's best poke on the ground - and allows her to combo into 5H xx Ice Spike for easy knockdown and mixup. This can be dealt with in a number of ways: 236S will move your hitbox backwards a bit, allowing you to safely summon and hit Dizzy out of the move. If you do not have gauge available you can try to beat her out at some risk by using a pre-emptive 2K, 22S, 6P, or 5H. 2K is probably best since it is quick to activate and recover, so you the window for punishment on whiff is very small. However it's usually best to just play it safe, and escape via BD or a backwards jump/AD with something to cover you on the way down such as j.K or j.D. Offense: Shadow Out or Available As mentioned earlier, at any time you have access to the shadow your goal should be to move in. Make good use of Eddie's IAD and jump -> dj.flight when at medium range - you can adjust your descent to avoid Dizzy's AAs altogether, and most of your jump-ins will beat Dizzy's AA (far 5S or 2S) if you space them properly. Once you're in close, apply general strings to get your shadow out safely (see the Beginner's Eddie Guide for more info). Against Dizzy particularly, quick strings such as 2P-2K, 2P-5H, or even a sole 2P canceled into shadow summon work best to keep you in range to begin your mixup. At farther ranges, expect Dizzy to try to run away and summon to force you to block, which will remove your Shadow. Your job is to not let this happen. In close, 2H in conjunction with -S- will force Dizzy to the ground. If you're in the air, j.S is very helpful to pin down a Dizzy that is trying to jump off the ground, due to its high vertical range. If Dizzy manages to get high in the air, unsummon the shadow and chase her down. Be patient, as she can and often does change her trajectory with her double AD. Once she lands, have a well placed 2H xx Summon ready, or stay at a close distance and get ready to shadow summon again. Once you land a hit on Dizzy, using maximum stun combos on her is recommended since she stuns easily. One mixup into a puddle unblockable -> 6P combo followup will often stun her, which most likely means the end of the round. Defense: Getting Around Dizzy's Summons Eddie's biggest strength without the shadow in this matchup is his ability to fly and easily manuever around Dizzy's summons. Use flight mode to evade spears and lasers, and once they clear out be ready to move back in. If you are a full screen away and you see Dizzy summoning stuff, running Far Drill FRC works well to knock her out of it and allows you to move in and stall/summon Shadow. For dealing with fish, you've got a few options. The first and most obvious is to evade via flight as mentioned above. You can also kill the fish early: Eddie's far 5S works great for this, as it comes out quickly, has a large hitbox in front for its first hit, is multiple hits in case Dizzy tries to rush you, and allows you to cancel into Shadow Summon, or Break the Law to reduce recovery. Staying put and blocking fish is an option that should be avoided whenever possible since that removes your shadow (if it was out) and allows Dizzy to move in for mixup. But being forced into blocking with a fish on top of you will happen at some point, and it is important that you remain patient and do not try to poke out when in this situation. Instead, watch for a throw and be ready with FD jump to escape when you sense it coming. Antiair: 2H is your main AA in this matchup, due to its great vertical range and good recovery. Once extended, this move is very tough, if not impossible, for Dizzy to beat out or trade with from the air. On connecting with an airborne Dizzy, 2H easily allows you to cancel into 236H -S- which combos on hit, and if they blocked you can then follow with -K- for mixup. 6P is your antiair against Dizzy's IAD j.2S or low AD j.2S. The upperbody invul on 6P can keep you safe from the j.2S if it is done higher, but may lose to it if Dizzy is low to the ground, so be careful of this. 6P also has other uses in close if your Dizzy is being too aggressive, but it is generally not used as an antiair outside of the above scenario. Conclusion: Eddie vs. Dizzy is all about breaking through Dizzy's runaway and forcing her to block so you can get off a summon. Since one successful mixup can lead to her death, the threat of shadow summon in this matchup is so great that Dizzy will want to avoid blockstun as much as possible. As far as damage output goes, Dizzy has to fight for a knockdown in order to work her big damage setups, all of which pale in comparison to Eddie's basic summon, -K-, mixup -> UB game. Dizzy does not deal nearly as much damage on Eddie and has to fulfill many conditions just to set up her mixups while Eddie simply has to summon at close range to shift the advantage to his favour. Dizzy also does not have any unique way of dealing with shadow blockstrings, as she is limited to basic escape options of IB, SB, backdash, and FD jump, all of which can be difficult and risky to use if you vary your shadow timing by even a slight amount. For these reasons, it is clear that Eddie holds a strong advantage in this matchup.

In Slash, the Shadow Gallery 'loop' is just ending a SG knockdown combo with a Shadow P link into another SG, for like 20 extra damage (much more in #R depending on how jacked their guard gauge is). This goes into the Mine UB, which is done by just setting a mine right after the SG knocks the opponent down. The whole combo looks like: (string to Shadow S) j.H-D, 41236 (hold S), release S to make Shadow S hit, 2nd hit of SG hits. Then you relaunch with Shadow P then TKSG (412369S), which hits immediately after, then you set the mine. Follow this with a regular rj.S or whatever to guardbreak. Alternatively, if you didn't do the relaunch part, you'll need to followup with something like the following due to the slight delay on mine-set: (land from SG), Backdash, 22H FRC, rj.K, dj.S-H to guardbreak, then go into either SG from the air for knockdown, or land and 6P into aircombo. Anyway, the relaunch/loop part of the combo isn't really worth it at all in Slash, because not only is the SG hard to synchronize with the Shadow P, but the damage is pretty terrible. You can relaunch into the second SG by using a Shadow S instead of Shadow P, but that takes like all of your meter and is very, very unlikely to happen in actual play. And in either case, you generally won't have enough Shadow Gauge to hit with the relaunch and go into mine UB, unless you landed a hit with your first shadow attack... so I'd suggest to just stick to a combo to SG + mine UB.

Right, Millia's throw = techable. What I meant by dropping his knockdowns was not ending up with knockdown after his followup combo to throw. Knockdown from throw is possible, just a bit tricky depending on the character. With the post-throw combo being the way it is (inconsistent knockdown), I'd much rather take an in-close knockdown à la #Reload in some cases. Particularly when nearing the corner where the turnaround bug comes into play as well, some crazy mixups are possible with that.

horribly. Very nonthreatening, with weird strings like 2K-2S-Slash Disc, and he dropped all of his knockdowns from throw. Seems like he was just messing around, anyway. ^ You mean the ugly one where she's got brown hair? Now Matsu, that guy used a good colour. #R All-black was also great, but somehow that didn't make it in.

The landing 6H after the second H Pin is just timing, so the only advice I can give you there. It's actually fairly easy to get off consistently once you put some time into it in Training mode, so don't give up! On a side note, for heavier characters like Pot, Robot, Hoss, and Johnny, it's probably best to use the sj. S Pin ender on the third rep. Not that the regular ender is difficult, but there is a rare occurence where they can fall 'between the cracks' so to speak, where neither the S Pin or H Pin will be able to hit properly after a j.S-H.

If you're missing the j.H due to the opponent being too low, here's my advice: For consistency, use j.S-H after 2H relaunch. Does about the same damage, and you will never, ever miss a j.S after a 2H on all but the lightest characters. Much easier to goto knockdown as well, with your choice of either doing j.S-H, H Pin as an ender, or relaunch 2H, sj. S Pin.

Not a problem, Diablo. 01/02/07 AC Millia joybox vids: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XP0YB3IE

The latest set of three vids didn't have a skilled Millia like the first vid, but rather someone who looked to be still trying to figure out how to make her new airdash cancels work. The new Tandem Top (Disc) Force Break was used a fair bit, and it seems to carry a lot of mixup potential. Anyway, some more observations from the latest vids follow: j.H now floats opponent on grounded hit(!) This is very good, as it may allow Millia to go directly into corner dustloop / j.H loop after a successful mixup, much like Sol in #Reload with his dustloop. So I'm thinking Millia may be able to do a j.H, 2H directly into corner combo, as a high variation on the j.S ADC mixup. Force Break Disc holds opponent in place for the duration of all three hits This effectively means that it is possible to followup after a successful mixup from midscreen using this FB. The crossup setup shown in the first vid (Iron Saviour FRC, immediate FB Disc) definitely looks like it will be able to be followed up with a B&B aircombo. Additionally, you can probably lay a FB Disc after knockdown, land a 6K at midscreen, and follow that up with a B&B combo - something that used to cost 50% tension to attempt. This looks to be a very, very useful addition to Millia's mixups, since she now appears to be a real threat at midscreen.