Ronove

Yeah, you need to wait Tao's victory pose and press 5B or do 22C when she turns her head towards the screen.

It's the first loke test, it's too early to panic.

Jump, evade and punish with j.C or j.D. He needs to take risks to properly punish Tao's jump-in attempts since she can jump cancel twice, you can also jump cancel and j.4D to get in on his whiff, crossup j.B. Once you get in you need to make him afraid/aware of your throw setups so that you can start punish any tech throw attempt with her 6B overhead or by jump-canceling. Tao doesn't have a solid enough hi/low mixup but she can setup nice mindgames to force the opponent to do the wrong thing, plus you can always play it safe everytime you reset your blockstring. But first and foremoest it's by moving around that you get to "defend" against Hakumen's air-to-ground approaches. Also don't forget that her 2B is often a free escape everytime you see a jump-in crossup above you.

No loop means huge damage nerf for her, if they don't tweak other aspects she's going to lose her status of glass cannon and just be a glass retarded kitty, heh

I play this match-up pretty often, but in my opinion is not that tough. Besides what XDest said, I'd like to add that you need to take advantage of Tao's tick throw setups to condition the Hakumen. 2B > Throw, 5A > Throw, even whiff 5A > throw, etc. 6B is really useful because it's a trap against his tech throw attempts, if you see he's switching to 5A just crawl and punish on whiff. You need to condition him mentally so that he always picks the wrong defensive option for what you are going to do. If you can't scare him like this it obviously becomes tougher to effectively open up a gap, but even then it's still an even match-up, Tao can still move around and force Hakumen on the offensive and get in on their whiffed attempt.

If you guys can link me to the source of the news I can translate them. That said, I really hope the changes to his wolf 5B aren't definitive, it's true that it's a godlike antiair but if they remove that how on earth is Valk supposed to deal with air-to-ground pressure? Unless they plan to use his movement as his primal option when it comes to dealing with that situation rather than just moving in and 5b'ing the opponent...

If you guys can link me the original source in japanese I can translate it correctly for you :o anyway, FC 6B is a great thing, even though it's not like Tao really needed it. I'm more interested in the changes to her drive.

That's good to know, thanks. Back to the lab!

Well I decided two weeks ago to learn Valk for good, I grew tired of Tao and while I was learning Makoto I didn't particularly find much satisfaction either. On the other hand I'm loving Valk! Feels like a 2.0 version of Tao with probably even better movement options and with a wonderful antiair ( w5B ). Anyway, straight-up question: I've been using that japanese tutorial vid to practice all the segments in Valk's combos and setups, and was practicing the [w]5B > [w]jB > 3C > [w]jA bit... and I noticed that in the japanese wiki that they usually include an IAD inbetween [w]5b and [w]jB. Is there a particular reason for doing this? The only one I could come up with is that Valk pushes the opponent further towards the corner increasing the chances to continue with the human 2C > 6C > dash/walk 2C > 6B > etc etc Also, is it normal that I'm having a tough time hitting Makoto during that string (during the part after [w]jA > 5D > 2C)? If I do 5B instead of 2C it's no problem but that obviously changes the combo route for the rest of the combo.

j.2B and j.C CH on an airborne opponent usually leave enough time for Tao to land and follow with 5C > j.8D~A loop

I still haven't decided who to main actually. I've been messing around with Makoto and while I like some aspects of her game I can't seem to get into it as much as I did with Tao. It also feels like Makoto is way less deep to play/understand. I'm trying Valk as well, he feels more like Tao 2.0 with cool tricks and with knockdown and with a lot of room for potential improvement. And I am not really dropping Tao, I still play with her it's just that likely I won't be using her anymore at tourneys :O, atleast in CS2.

I pretty much share the same thoughts as Rin does, which is why I am moving Tao from main status to sub while trying other characters who can potentially be fun to main and use. Tao CS2 is boring. She hasn't changed THAT much but the point is that her overall gameplay hasn't truly evolved. There purple airgrab resets were potentially interesting but they're more of a gimmick than anything involving a true mindgame/mixup. Also, I really really dislike the changes to her j.D, it feels stiff and I definetely don't like the way she falls down after that. She's still a strong character, it's just that it feels like instead of getting more entertaining and varied she's gotten kind of mono-dimensional.

This match-up pretty much sums up in: RTSD before she starts showering you with her bukkake of lasers, and NEVER ever eat a CH, they often lead to big damage+corner carry+oki. Her regular pressure is not too hard to block but at the same time you don't want to block far too long because she's going to rape your guard primers in no time. Try to save on your bursts for when you really have no other options to save your butt. Mu's counterhits hurt bad for every character in the game and hurt super bad for Tao who has no options to escape corner pressure in the earlier part of the match. Mu's probably the only zoner who can make Tao sweat. It's not a hard match-up but it's easy to understimate her and being severely punished for it, you have to rush her down since she sucks up close but you still need to respect her when it comes to play neutral and ground footsies. Don't treat her like Lambda. Also as it has already been noted, watch out for her 2C. That goddamn move even hits behind her, don't even try to do a j.2B crossup you're likely going to trade and it's NOT going to be in Tao's favor.

According to Arcadia Magazine the game is still widely popular (only Gundam does better), in the popularity charts it's often even in front of SSF4AE as well. As others said, this year there are way less games, I guess the main reason is likely there's not as much support from sponsors as it used to be in the previous years.

I have played a good chunk of games vs a local player who uses her and this matchup feels about even. You have to play really aggressive but at the same time you need to play footsies properly because Mu can easily put you in the corner and deal sweet damage if she scores a CH off one her pokes. Her corner oki can be pretty damn annoying even for a character like Makoto who has a couple of defensive options at her disposal. Long story short: avoid eating any CH at any cost, the neutral phase is tough but once you get in you have to stay there and keep the momentum until you win the round. Also watch the hell out for her 2C, it's "slow" but it has a rediculously good hitbox (hits even behind her), this matchup is mostly played by staying on ground and jumping in when Mu doesn't have enough time to react to it.

Heh, I'm not dumbing down any combos, that's why I am practicing this in order to maximize the damage and meter return. :\ @Hiago: that's what I do but often I get a dash 6A instead of a dash orb. I am gradually suspecting that it's not related to the timing of when I actually input the first part of the motion but its speed. When I do 2366A in a neutral situation I seem to do it calmly and I get it correctly every time. When I do it after a j.D (j.B j.D) it feels like I need to rush it since I've got to properly continue the combo afterwards which might be why I probably miss the input or speed up too much somehow... I guess there's no other solution than keep practicing, heh. Kind of feels like the time I used to grind Tao's taunt loop back in CS1 until I could get it with eyes closed.

I know, but it's not like I can't ignore the remaining 30% either :O

Ok guys, I'm looking for some kind of execution advice: I've been practicing 2366A to get it consistently (near 100% of times), but I'm still encountering issues in pulling it off. What occurs is that when i do 2366A in a neutral situation I can easily get dash orb like 95% of the times, but if I'm executing it after a j.D (j.B > j.D) the success rate drops considerably, and pretty often I either get a dash 6A, or the orb comes out but without Makoto dashing. Input wise there aren't issues, it seems to be more like a matter of timing/speed, but again it doesn't feel like there's much of a difference between the times when the dash orb comes out correctly and when it doesn't. Do you guys have tips on how to practice this in order to properly improve on consistency? I've been training this also by doing a regular jump (neutral) and do a 2366A upon landing, and I do get it correctly more often than when I do j.B > j.D ... This is kind of irritating me because while I know I can use no-2366A combos I'd like to properly master anything that the character is able to do given how flexible Makoto's combos are.

Tried but it doesn't work. I also tried doing 214A~D > 6A > j.B > j.D but there's not enough time to connect the j.D. I could, on the other hand, do dash 2C > 214A~D at the end (after the j.D) but I need to experiment all the possible options that are available after that. It might be possible to setup a left/right orb oki, but needs more testing. The fun part of Makoto is that her combos are so modular that we don't really have to follow the textbook, we can just "improvise" and still find ways to connect all the pieces together.

Corner 2A > 5B > 5CC > 6B~C > 5D > 2C > 214B~D > 236A~D > 2C > 2D > j.D > 5D > orb oki can alternatively be ended with j.D > dash 2C > Particle Flare or j.D > dash 6C > Big Bang Smash (input of the last bit 66C3216D ) this combo deals slight less damage than her regular BnB but is easier to land (no 2366A~D required) and should work perfectly against all characters.

360 PS3

There is no official date yet, all we know is that they're going to host it in September. As for that rumour, I can't find anything about it on the jBBS tougeki thread but it wouldn't be weird if they actually hosted the finals during that week.

It's going to be hard for him to qualify, in block B there are only 3 spots left and the closest one (assuming he lives somewhere in Chiba) is at Tokyo City's B-6 qualifier at Shinjuku/Ikebukuro districts. Block B-6 is also going to be the last available spot for Kantou region, which means it'll be packed with tough players who couldn't yet qualify, given this year's format (single instead of team tourney). This reasoning sort of applies to other notorious names like Tsujikawa. Chubu and Kansai both have one spot left, if Tsujikawa is looking to qualify it's not going to be a walk in the park at all.

B-8 results have been officially confirmed, it's Goro (Makoto) who won the blue ticket.

Uisura = Whistler