Ronove

Uisura = Whistler

Her drives cancels haven't changed from CS1 to CS2, her pressure is safe even in CS1. You losing against other people has nothing to do with the charcter having "unsafe" pressure but it's rather likely due to your skill and knowledge of character and matchups not being good enough and most likely not having many clues on how and when to apply pressure. Also, avoid using D~B at all on block, specially if you do it as a way to end your blockstring, you're asking to be punished by your opponent. Using her mobility efficientely and applying pressure doesn't mean you have to be wild and do stuff like using D~B or charged C moves. Tao has low health and she's not a "comeback" kind of character either due to the nature of her combos not leading to okizeme, you don't want to screw up and give the opportunity to gain a health lead just because of some unnecessarily risky tactic.

I don't want to sound rude but I doubt you have any idea about how good her pressure is if you say that it's not "safe". Her ~A and ~C cancels not only are safe on block but they always position Tao at an optimal distance where in most matchups the opponent can do nothing to punish her. As for your point on using a full charged 5C, do realize that if you can hit the opponent then chances are that the opponent has a poke as well. I could understand if you could try charging that stuff from max range but again as I said all the opponent needs to do is to backdash away or dash->poke at you for a free counterhit (IN THEIR FAVOUR). Why would you want to give the opponent the opportunity to get away or even turn the momentum when Tao in CS2 has lot of tools to keep up the pressure while taking little to no risks at all?

She doesn't need to rely on that kind of gimmicks, why would you want to take such a risk when her pressure can be completely safe?

People can just backdash or jump away if they see Tao charing anything, and some characters can even dash and poke. It's not worth the risk considering that Tao cannot let the opponent gain any momentum. Besides Tao's gameplay doesn't rely on breaking primers. The only useful move for that purpose is Hexa Edge on an opponent that is left with two or one primers left after having used their bursts.

@Jourdal, small correction on the name of one of the players in the recent vids: it's wiki no hito, not "wiki no nin"

TBH I always interpreted "tachimawari" as the japanese way to talk about a character's neutral game and approach.

A-cho 3on3 tournament vids were full of nice stuff. Some really intense matches, and the final was actually surprising (props to Eki-chan for the comeback). Also Tsujikawa's Makoto is like... a walking wikipedia of information. I swear every match he plays there's new things to learn about Makoto and what she's able to do.

Sadly I am here to let you guys know that we italians won't be able to participate as we did in Cannes. Rennes isn't an easy place to reach for us and the flight is quite expensive (no less than 250€), maybe if we could have been informed about this specific event way earlier (right after the WGC in Cannes for instance) we might have been able to book our flights and plan the trip. :\ If you're going to repeat this event next year please be sure to inform us players early (just like it was done for Cannes)! Good luck to those who'll be partecipating and to the good friends of mine (Maho, Kyo, Abyss)

This rules and I would love to go but it falls exactly during a week when I'll be traveling to a completely different location. ^^; I knew Stunfest would be around that period but I was hoping it would be slightly later (a week) than that. I'll see if other players from my scene can go. By the way, on what platform is the BB tournament going to played? Xbox 360 or PS3?

They're all positive, IMO. A 4.5 isn't terrible, it only means there's a slight disadvantage. This could technically mean that she's able to fight on equal grounds with the strongest characters and have comfortable matchups as well.

j.C and j.2B starters lead to more damage because their proration was buffed (P1 90 and P2 89), even her j.A has pretty good proration in CS2. It's pretty damn sweet because Tao often manages to score one of the two during her pressure/mixup, and it's going to make people respect her jump-ins (which could add an other layer of mindgames when going for hi-low mixups. vs Makoto looks even in CS2. She has good AA but Tao can still run around and pressure/mixup safely, has great jump-ins that lead to good damage, and she can crawl and generally bait and punish. Biggest problem vs Makoto remains her j.B and overall better abare and post-combo situations (corner oki, which Tao suffers a lot until she's got 50%). vs Jin and Rachel it feels like we're almost back to our CT matchups, I say almost because Tao is definetely better now, but these characters now have a strong corner game and that's still one of Tao's weak points. [edit] I just watched Seiji's match vs the Mu-12 player (Maguro), and boy I am amazed: - First off, the most impressive thing now is that Tao is able to deal 5K off j.A with 50% meter on a cornered opponent. This again is due to proration buff to all of her aerial moves. The combo that Seiji did was (on a cornered opponent) j.A > j.C > 5B > 3C > AB2 Ender , which is also not hard to pull off. - second off, and again corner related, Tao has a different combo route when the opponent is near the corner (almost midscreen): (j.C >) 5B > 3C > 236A > 5D~B > 5C > j.8D~A > land > j(9).236B > j.D~B > j.2D~C > j.236Bx5 , deals 3.2k damage. Cool thing about this combo is that it allows Tao to keep the opponent close to the ground meaning that after the j.236Bx5 she gets pseudo-knockdown and oki (crossup as shown in the video, but potentially even ground left-right mixup and crossunder with 2B). Again, this works only because when she's able to reach the corner after her 5C. This stuff is truly amazing and definetely makes Tao a hella lot more dangerous than she already is.

Surely you've got guts playing the portable version. I can't use a pad at all when I'm playing fighting games, let alone PSP's controls (though I do own one myself I certainly do not use it to play fighting games on it). Anyway, having translated Tao's frame data I found other subtle changes besides those that were already known... for example AB2 lasts longer than it used to in CS1. The most significant changes seem to be involve her drive moves (more hitstop) and slight damage/proration nerf compared to CS1 (but the damage nerf is compensated by the new j.8D~A loop). Or like, her 6A is a little bit slower (12 instead of 11) in startup but is barely safe on normal block (not on IB). Overall Tao has remained pretty much the same in terms of game plan and things that she's able to do (minus the taunt loop), if her matchups are going to change it won't be due to her changes but rather because of the other characters' changes instead.

You're not the only who's having barely any time to dedicate. I only managed to play a little of CS1 coin-op during the weekend and only had enough spare time to translate Tao's frame data. Anyway, the name of the Rachel player is too blurry to translate, the Makoto player is Roku, and the Hakumen player is 伊藤かな恵 (Ito Kanae) which is Chin's NESICA account p.s. What BLOOK did vs that Arakune was pure gold, haha.

Sorry for the lack of updates but I was away during the weekend, I am going to finish Tao's frame data by today, if I can't do Makoto by tomorrow then feel free to take over. [edit] Taokaka's frame data done. Since I'm going to be quite busy during the rest of this week KayEff can take care of Makoto's frame data in my place.

Heh well, it's a modded Round 2 TE stick. If I could have gotten my hands on a BB madcatz stick I would have brought that instead. ^^;

Speaking of autographs... I got my stick signed by Toshimichi Mori and Daisuke Ishiwatari at the World Game Cup in Cannes almost a month ago: autograph + drawing on the left was done by Mori, on the right by Ishiwatari's.

Tao just needs to push buttons against Noel, really. There's hardly anything that Tao should be afraid of when facing CS1 Noel, she can do pretty much whatever she wants. The only thing that used to be bothersome was her 2D back in CT, but it's not an overhead anymore plus any Tao should have learned to 6A that move on reaction anyway.

I can volounteer for translating atleast Taokaka's and Makoto's sections of the mook.

Platinum player is Masayan, white Tao is Whistler (been a long time since we've seen video footage of him!), Pink/Brown Tao is Satsuo, and usual Pink/Black is Izayoi Matoi

Thought I'd post my comment and shoutous here as well. First off, shoutouts to Maho, Frionel and all the staff at WGC for making this happen. We were able to show a solid european community for this game even though we kind of missed players from a couple of countries (where were you brits? D: ) and I think the overall level of skill was real good! Me and my team mate placed top 5, got knocked out by Abyss' arakune. I was actually doing pretty well in round 2 against him and had a good health lead until I got trapped in the corner and was forced to eat the curse before I could get away with a counterassault... game over. Until then I think I did really well doing an OCV and playing well against Gallian/Tyzen's team. The solo tournament that took place the day after began with a little of a mess since sadly we only had one console that had two unlocked characters and my group had a Makoto and Valk and there was no console with Valk hence we had to wait a while until Zero brought his own 360 so that we could play. But I am not going to blame the organization for this, likely they didn't even know about the DLC characters which is why this occurred in first place. Anyway, missed the playoffs by a little, against Kyo's Makoto I was definetely too nervous and afraid of eating a j.B and ended up dropping a lot of stuff I shouldn't have, so props to him for having mantained the calm during that match. If I have one regret for this tournament was that the group stage matches weren't best of 3, afterall we had plenty of consoles available and it would have been possible to do that in order to lessen the chances of being "randomed out". Next time the tournament organization should definetely consider this option, afterall everybody agreed to add a loser bracket so why not making bo3 during the group phase as well? As for the shoutouts: Maho - we played a bit in freeplay and you are one solid player! I think I played my best games against you, everytime I'm up against someone who has a solid defense like yours I can't help but getting fired up, hehe. Your work in managing the tournament was really admirable, and thanks a lot for letting me commentate some of the matches! Fidoskin - It was nice to know you, and dude your Bang is a murderer! I think no one was expecting you to be this good, you definetely surprised everyone. Kyo, Abyss - jeez guys, I swear I'll have my revenge on you next time! It was fun playing with both of you! Kekken, Champion and the rest of the Slovenian crew - you guys are the BEST, period. To me and the rest of the italian community you are like the badass cousins that you'd like to always hang around with. Champion has the sickest defense I've ever seen offline, and Kekken as much as you try to act "low profile" by playing Tager you just have to remind everyone why you always make it atleast top 4 or top 3 at every tournament, haha. My regret was that I didn't really get to play you at all, but I guess we'll have other occasions especially if you guys decide to visit us at one of our ranbats in Milan. RcR and Bakanoobsama - it was nice meeting you guys, and it's cool to see there's also people playing BB in the Netherlands as well, you guys should try and contact my former sparring partner offline (Galrod), since he's moved from Italy to Utrecht to study. He could join you for a couple of games! The French community and all the other players - Tritri, Gallian, Tyzen and the others, it was a pleasure knowing you and playing against you. I definetely have learned a lot from this experience (being also the very first international tournament I attend to), and I am definetely looking forward to partecipate again next year and possibly improve my performance from top 5 to atleast top 3 :3

Don't know if it was already mentioned somewhere else (not in this thread though), Tao is able to go into her TL from 5B > 3C at any range against Valk, no matter where you are. Valk's hitbox when falling in the air seems to be big enough that she can reach with her taunt without having to hitconfirm really close to the opponent. This means that any hitconfirmed 5B leads to 4.3k damage anywhere on the screen. It's a useful thing to know considering that it's important to get a good life lead in this matchup since Valk can be pretty damn annoying once he manages to start his pressure game when Tao doesn't have 50% meter to use yet.

It works, it's just that the timing is super strict compared to the other characters. But it does work, I can confirm this.

Actually you can chain 3C after 5C, so on paper you could say that using that option "once" could serve as a purpose to warn the opponent in case they think they can keep blocking high after a 5C. Though using 3C in CS1 is still risky given that it can be easily IB'ed, in CS2 it'll become a more viable option due to both the IB nerf and due to the fact that CS2 Tao seems to be able to combo from a farther range thanks to her new BnBs plus the fact that 3C will be special cancelable. It's a little bonus that adds one little more mindgame at the very end of her blockstrings.

pools BB 1v1: http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/8646/bbcssolo.png pools BB 2v2: http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6759/bbcsteam.png I've booked my hotel, see you all guys in Cannes, I hope to get to play and talk to everyone there.