GSMonkeyRobo

Not to mention if you just keep buffing the bottom tier every time the game's unbalanced it's just going to turn into who can pull off their ridiculous bullshit first and every character is going to play like a palette swap of Carl. edit: or it'll go the opposite direction, for example: "How do we get rid of Carl's clap loop?" "Well, four characters can already get out of it so lets just give everyone an ability to get out of it" Repeat with corner trap, Nu swords, etc. and of course anything added in those cases will likely be found useful in other situations and eventually the whole game becomes just pokes and BnBs with no possibilities for setups or strategy because everyone has too many defensive options.

I used to use the light blue one but I got too lazy to set the color every time so now I just use either the standard color or a random one.

I did that hotaru thing once. It won't always hit the shorter characters but the invuln frames are hella useful if you expect them to try and hit you with something big.

make sure you reset to neutral. 2C>529>j.2C.

He can also airdash or jump after a j.214B even if he already dashed before it. If you had them near a corner you could 623AA>j.2C>airdash>j.2C>j.214B>jc>j.2C>j.214C and look like a total badass asshole if it kills them. edit: but his options reset only if the j.214B hits, and he can only do it once each time he leaves the ground I think.

I can field this one. You you the arial property of the dash to make the 214B a j.214B. There's another thread on the specifics, but basically you can cancel the dash into j.214B and j.214C since the hop counts as being airborne. Also, his j.214B resets your air options so it can be jump canceled to get the double jump. The rest of that combo is just continuing on to a normal j.2C air combo. on the 236A thing it either might have to be a counter hit or you might be holding the 6C too long. It can be delayed for extra damage by holding the button but it's hard to see the difference so you might be delaying it without knowing.

I think I remember this working for me once (and only once) and I in no way recommend it or think it's a good idea, but if you're cursed and he's relatively close jump and burst. If you get lucky it'll clip him and he'll be all wtf and maybe you'll get a combo in. A couple times I've also jumped into the bugs on purpose to gain height since he doesn't really have anti air (just don't try it on the D bug) but this is an equally terrible idea and should only be used as a last resort if ever. Sometimes you just have to take some damage and hope for a lucky CH.

I put up a few of my matches from the study group on youtube, the quality of the vids are pretty terrible and my skill as a Hakumen isn't much better. I miss a ton of inputs and a couple of times I forget to Jump Cancel or mess up blocking low (I blame the 360 analog stick) but if you could give me some general criticism that'd be great. Also my reflexes are pretty terrible so I don't IB or counter much. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPODy1qP2Tg <-newest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ2xnDRLu10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqKaWqM13y0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW3g2J7sfoo <-oldest by a few weeks I only put up the ones with cool endings so far since that's the part everyone remembers (and also kinda to make Hakumen look cooler to the uninitiated).

If you're asking if it can be used in the middle of a combo or to start a combo I don't believe so. I think the only thing you can follow it with is a shippuu so it's pretty much always going to be the last or second to last hit of a combo. edit: though you may have some luck with a landing j.C(CH)>6C but 2C or 3C are safer for that.

On this topic, why are so many of the Hakumen combo vids (i.e. nearly all) just him chaining together every special in different orders or a mugen version thereof? It'd be nice to see more of actually practical combos though I guess that'd be mostly j.2C loops. Does anyone ever even use Mugen in a real match? it always seems a much better idea to just save the stars for real combos since mugen drains way too fast and the second you use it they turtle the fuck out of you.

Everything except projectiles. Any normals, throws, or even nirvana will set it off but optic barrel, ice swords, nu swords, etc. will not.

Tager hits like a tank, Hakumen hits more like an APC or RPG(since you use a combo once and they have to wait for your magatama to reload). The starless combo I've found to be the most useful is to land a j.C as close to the ground as possible since the landing cancels out the recovery and immediately do a 2C or 3C and if you timed it right it'll combo. 2C is better if they're in the air or you think they'll jump because it's air unblockable(has to be IB'ed or barriered) then you can go into the j.2C loop from it but if they're on the ground or you aren't sure about the timing the 3C will be better since it's faster and hits low (apparently people have a hard time block low immediately after jump attacks) and since j.C counts as an overhead it's a pretty good mix up. The highest damage combo he has would probably be the j.2C loop since any long series of specials would be only practical in Mugen (which you ruled out). He also has an airthrow loop but that's throws so you're likely not going to get much of any damage from it because they'll throw break after one rendition and it uses the same moves as the j.2C loop so you might as well do that instead for guaranteed (albeit lesser) damage. You could probably even extend the j.2C loop after the airdash and a j.2C with a j.214B since you can then jump up (it resets air options) and get in some more j.2Cs and a j.C or j.214C finish but that completely defeats the efficiency of the j.2C loops. I guess it all depends on how the 236A hits. If you get a counter hit yo can do pretty much anything, if you get a wall bounce the best bet is probably just 6C or 6C>shipuu, though I once saw a video where someone (I thin it was JackG himself) got the bounce near a corner and did a 5B to j.2C loop somehow.

I'm really confused as to how to get out of ground combos. The one I see most is I think 5A>some C>2C>3C, and if I block all of it I get pushed far enough away that I can't hit her with anything other than a C move which never seems to work. I've tried to block the first few and 6B the 2 or 3 C but I always seem to just get hit instead. I have equal trouble in the drive chains. According to the frame data I should be able to block and 5A after pretty much every attack since the safest one is supposed to be -15, but this definitely doesn't work. Plus if they finish with bloom trigger or some of the other normal attacks I'm too far away again and the only thing that can hit is a 6C which she often blocks. Are those numbers based on if it's the last attack in the chain? Are there places I can sneak in a D with or without IBs? I've pretty much given up on fighting her in the air at all so it seems the only option I have left is to predict and preempt all her attempts to close the distance which is pretty hard to do. I'm not a very good Hakumen player in general, but every level of Noels have been giving me as much trouble as Nu's.

I have the same problem. For now I've been just sitting in training with the opponent jumping trying to do just the 2C>j.2C loop part, but that's giving me trouble too. The biggest variable seems to be the height at which you j.C and as far as I know finding that just takes ridiculous amounts of practice. I guess my advice is just practice the j.C>2C part on a training dummy set to jump, since the 623AA is going to be the same every time. i've been playing Haku exclusively since console launch and can only get this part to work one of of maybe 20 times, so I'd like to think it's the hardest part of anything he has.

Based on a combination of experience and frame data I'm having a very hard time understanding how you guys are using 6A to knock Noel out of anything on the ground or blocking her mixups on reaction. Every time I'm blocking low I get hit by 2D or 6B and everything else of hers looks and sounds the same. Not to mention 3C is way too fast to block on reaction after she jumps in with anything and even hits behind her if I roll past. On the rare occasions I almost get a hit in she just does one of her supers and either the ground one eats my attacks with super armor or the air one pushes me all the way across the screen and she just starts over. on the topic of 6A every time I try it I just get hit out of the start up since every move in her drive combo is either Head and Body or Feet. Since all her shit looks Identical I can't 6B her drive sweep kick either. Aside from "get faster reaction times" are there any real things I can do to get out of her pressure? The second I eat anything anywhere she can go into any combo and there has to be a better option than blocking until they make a mistake because chances are I'll make one first. It probably doesn't help that the Noels I'm playing against are all really good, so I'm leaning towards just chalking it up to a combination of slow reflex times and tiers.