Blade

If you're playing lots of rounds (5/9 versus 2/3 or 3/5), you tend to value Bursts more, Astrals are nice and all, but it's a waste if you don't use them when they're actually useful (i.e. guard breakable, or invincibility frames they have). Bursts are also part of what decides a match offensively and defensively, and worth a whole lot more than doing something fancy at the end of a round. The reason people get caught by it is because they're not used to seeing it (it was rare in CT in the first place). But if you really think about it, saving a burst just for an Astral may not be a good idea, depending on who you're fighting. Honestly I'd see an Astral happening more often during an Unlimited VS Unlimited match.

Aside from Rachel, is there anything worth doing from 5D? I can't seem to do anything.

I would if more intelligent people posted more often around here...I'm just posting based on my own personal experiences. @CakeWasBanned...I guess the person I saw using Tauntloop was using it wrong....? :8/:

My take on Instant Kills: : When can Bridget make people faint? Otherwise, he has better pokes with better advantages. :KY:: Second Fastest IK Startup, IMO, works perfect for faint combos if he landed enough 6Hs and counterhit Stun Edges. : Umm...strangely safe on block (she bounces backwards a bit)? Never found a practical use for it. : I've seen Slayer Pile Bunker into this, lol. Also can be dash primed and catches people in the air I think.... : Easiest character to faint and IK with...probably more broken than . : A valid low for mixups, and I think you can land it off 2H and faints. : An anti-air...sortof...useless otherwise, since Venom seldom ever faints people that I've seen. : Almost as broken as , fastest IK startup and launch, hits mid I think, works on Faint from almost anywhere. : Not useful except during faint I think. : Does NOT work on short characters unless they jump. : Her EX Bakumetsu is more effective than this... : Dumbest anti-air in the game, only works on half the cast. : Unsafe on block, works on Faints...maybe. : Same as Jams, but more effective since he can faint easier on counterhits. : I've seldom ever seen someone good with I-no actually use this. : Like Bridget's but not as safe I think. : Longest poke in the game except for :KY:'s...hits high I guess...useless on crouchers and small characters. : Best IK in the game due to his ridiculous hitbox for it, essentially makes him invincible unless they block it I guess? : The only reason his IK works so well is his friggan faint rating for 6P, otherwise he's no better than or . : Honestly, he's got the easiest-to-land IK in the game, due to the fact it can be combo'd in to via Dragon Install. : Most...pointless IK. In. The. Game. If someone actually hits you with it, they are trolling you for SURE. If you get hit by it...there is no doubt you suck at Guilty Gear. : Actually one of the better IKs in the game since it works from anywhere...I don't know if it combos very well though. : A decent frame trap if you're feeling pressured, but he can be hit out of it for some strange reason. : Unsafe on block, can be seen a mile away...so pretty much pointless. : A command throw but...about as useful as 's unless she manages to Faint someone. Compared to Astral Heats....Guilty Gear IKs are pretty much useless. At least Astral Heats can be combo'd in to...

My take on Astrals: : as someone said before, she owns the corner with it, also, Wind can push airdashers into it. I don't think it's blockable....is it? Also seems to have super-armor too. : I think this is a valid anti-air, but not really good input to trigger it...he's better off using Infernal Rupture. : Valid Act Parser Throw, decent I guess. : Links into Chain Revolver EASILY...but can be done by itself for some mixup lols. : Does this still have that "off the pole glitch" that the CT version had? I know you can delay it, but I think it's unsafe when blocked. : Can be done on Throw, 6D Guardcrush, sometimes 236C mixup (if you get people to block it on the ground and it doesn't come out too soon). : Um....well, doesn't work on Projectile spam, but other than that, anyone crouching and guarding with Haku could do it...I dunno about buffering it from 5D anymore. Anyone worth his salt would be keeping an eye on Haku's gauge anyway, so it's hard to guess when to use it...besides that he can be thrown out of it I think (unless throw triggers it or it's a special property throw like Ragna's one move?) : Is this blockable? I don't think it is, but how does Carl maintain pressure by himself long enough to get someone to stay still? Not very viable. : Guessing Game...breaks guard regardless of primers, so it makes you have to dodge...unsafe if they manage to dodge it a few times and he reverts back. I forget what all inputs make him do what during this. : I think this only works as a TK off 2D but I'm not sure...works as a good air-to-air auto-guard move though. : This can actually grab people who are jumping...so it's not too bad. : Um....not all that useful, since it's not a throw and it is blockable as a low, isn't even that safe as far as I know. : I have no idea when this would be useful or safe to land, most Tao players won't bother with it anyway since they need the Heat for Taunt Loop. : Umm...I guess it lands off certain D moves if they fatal counter...hits people out of the air too. : Best invincible frames move in the game, unless blocked. Works off throw, back throw, 6C (delayed), BKed 6D, 3C, 2C FC and others I think...definitely viable. : Links with her other moves, so yes, viable... Keep in mind though, it's still a gamble...if you lose all your Heat and a Burst you're in trouble unless you have one Burst in reserve. Honestly I think Astrals are safer than Instant Kills because you don't lose HP over them or use of Tension (or in this case Heat)...if you missed IK in GG, you couldn't do Rapid Cancel or anything else for the rest of the match, not even Dead Angle (Counter Assault) or Faultless Defense (Barrier).

Like I've said before, I'm a lame duck and don't own a car, so if anyone wants to bring me anywhere, I don't care, I'll bring my shit with me...just give me two outlets and a TV to hook stuff up to and we're good.

It should be noted that there's some "suspended" belief involved with Sol's return from that altered timeline, when Raven called I-no back. First of all...you cannot go into the past and alter your past's future for the simple reason that your past's future (i.e. your present) is still occurring. What's more, you cannot go to the future and visit your future self, because your past future self (i.e. your present) has left the timeline of that particular sequence of events, like tearing a slide out of a video reel. In essence, your future self would no longer exist and your present self would BECOME your future self (this is Why Back to the Future II doesn't work). Likewise, there is some suspended belief regarding the point in time Sol left and returned. It is ASSUMED that Sol left and went into the past (2172) and returned to the present era (2181) and returned at the exact point in which he left...making it so that there is no gap in the timeline in which Sol does not exist or a point in time that "skips over" the point in which Sol left in the first place...making some kind of distorted Sol redundancy. And by "suspended belief" I mean...you pretty much have to believe everything is happening as it says on the tin so to speak. Any further speculation makes even MY head hurt. Lastly, regarding Axl Low: It is clear he goaded his past self into fighting himself so that he could trigger in Cable's words a "Time Flip", so that he could make another time jump, either to a better era, or some other means. Basically what that means is, whenever two powerful combatants clash, the vibrations could very well tear a hole in the time continuum. I have no idea if this applies to BlazBlue physics or not, however, even if it appears Haku-men is capable of cutting through time-space.

Online is all I can play. D: Lag spikes tend to hurt the most during air combos where timing is the most critical, so staying on the ground is actually SAFER online.

....how do you "learn to do links" then? D: I don't really know when are good times to start dashing in with said normals, and it's even harder with 6A and 6B normals where you have to hold 6+A after a brief dash. Sometimes only A or B come out. Or in Jin's case 6B comes out instead of the dash 5B I want. For the record I was never good with Slayer's links either.

I'm not sure if it really works but, jump-Barrier blocking has saved me from overheads on a few occaisions.

Once again I'm having trouble buffering dash inputs during recovery frames. What's the trick to it? Things like Jin's 623C >> 666B. Ragna's Carnage Scissors >> 666A. Lamda's Throw >> 666A. Mu's Fatal Counter: 6C > Sword of Decimation > 666B. I really don't know what the trick is to getting these out in time. I'm too slow it seems.

A lot of this is character-specific to matchups. You'd really have to know each character's basic guard strings, but there are a few things I can tell you to be aware of. --If you're standing and blocking, they're going for mids and lows to sweep you into combo. --If you're blocking low (most people do this instinctively), they will almost always shoot for an overhead or a combo that only works on crouchers (Jin, Tager, Ragna, Mu, Noel, etc, tend to use these alot...Hazama relies on overheads for chip damage if he can't combo off them). --If you're in the air, be prepared to barrier otherwise they're going to hit you with an air unblockable (Ragna's 6A, Inferno Divider, Jin's 6C, Rehhyou, several others). From Hazama, expect to see air-to-ground slashing (CCCC 5C etc). --During some guardstrings, characters like to cross you up with IAD or Okizeme maneauvers. (Jin's j.D, Ragna's j.B, Bang's j.4B) The way you guard these is to switch directional holding. So if you were holding Left, you quickly hold Right. In some cases you can counter this with a 6A or some other anti-air. If you guard a lot people may resort to throw mix-up, Jin is notorious for this, so keep an eye out. Some characters also use high-damage attacks to eat your Guard Primer, knowing which attacks do this will help you know when it's safer just to jump out of the way. A few examples are Deadspike, Ragna's 2D, Hakumen's 6C (charged), Haku's Shippu DD, Jin's 6D, and there are many others. Knowing what eats a primer and what can lead into eating a primer can become important to your defensive game. Also very important to remember, NO AMOUNT OF BARRIER WILL SAVE YOU FROM LOSING GUARD PRIMERS, and using Barrier to protect you from losing your last Primer often puts your HP in 1.5 dmg Danger state, so it most likely isn't a very good idea. But it should be noted that even if your guard breaks, any combo resulted off that is prorated, unless they break your guard and use Astral...:8/: Also don't forget that Jin's 623D is unblockable if held long enough (the ground thumps when he's about to let it out), same goes for Haku-men's Yukikaze. Other unblockables include Haku-men's fully-charged Shippuu, Arakune's Astral, Jin's Astral (if you don't jump in time, it's ground unblockable), Tager's Throws/Astral, Lamda's Astral (a throw), Ragna's Devoured by Darkness, Mu's fully-charged Sword of Decimation (which eats guard primers like crazy anyway), Tao's "Beat the Crap outta you" DD (can be ducked though).

Fun Fact: everyone has those diagonal spinny animations in nearly any game by Arc Sys since Guilty Gear's Dust Attack was created. So next time you get hit by Jin's B Fubuki, realize you were just DUSTED.

Instead of just volunteering, I think an audition might be in order, SD.

Something related, I set Training Dummy in Training Mode to Neutral Tech and Quick Roll, and if it Blue Beats, there are times they won't tech. Is there an explanation for that as well?

Well the points at which the game says I could've teched don't seem possible (I've deliberately tested a few to see). Especially during Fatal Counters. Is this a problem with my ability to tech or is this just the way the game reads everything?

Okay so, lately I'm somewhat confused as to what constitutes a successful combo anymore. If a combo turns Blue Beat, by nature I thought it was prorated and made easier to tech, but it appears this is wrong. Say you're doing a combo that normally hits (like one of Ragna's Belial Edge combos) and for one reason or another the timing of a single hit in the combo is a little off (happens often during lag spikes). The game registers it as a Blue Beat and says you should be able to tech at a certain point, however...I've seen lots of players end up with Blue Beat combos and no amount of mashing allowed me to tech until the combo was completely finished. This is extended further for Fatal Counter combos...making it so that even if something is Blue Beat (like Jin picking you off the floor with a late 2B), you still can't tech. Other things, like combos with throws in them (assuming a person doesn't predict the Purple !! throw) often the combo untechable time can be extended in weird ways and you can't really tech out of it. So what exactly are the rules once a combo goes into Blue Beat? Likewise, really long combos, no matter if they're red for so many reps and normally untechable, suddenly become pointlessly techable (and punishable for the tech) anyway. I'm a little confused. :8/:

What worries me is, don't her feet get sore wearing those anti-gravity thingies all the time?

Sol was gravely wounded to be sure, however, like I said before in a rather long explanation, the death of Order-Sol was the result of a beta timeline created by I-no the moment she sent herself and Sol into the past. Because Sol successfully denied the fact that this timeline had anything to do with him, he was sent back into the future, eventually having a conversation with Ky in regards to Dizzy. _______ Normal Timeline \_____ Diverging Timeline (After Sol's return): ___________ Normal Timeline \_____/ As a result this Beta Timeline no longer exists (so long as no one else tampers with it). Of course, there is a level of acceptance and denial involved. Here's another example: Ky was killed by a rampaging Megadeth class Gear in one of the drama CDs....it was later killed by Sol who had arrived too late. I-no was nowhere near the scene when this happened. In the "accepted" timeline, I-no uses her power to push the Megadeth Gear away sparing Ky the killing blow. She does this, but also erases Ky's memory of his encounters with her somehow, allowing him to accept the situation as unsolvable (saving I-no) just as Sol comes in to finish the Megadeth Gear off once more. As a result Ky does not recognize her when she places the false bounties on several people Ky has met as of GGXX. Her logic was to "put the people who should be in the spotlight on the stage", in other words to put more charismatic persons in the world in the forefront of influence in deciding humanity's fate. It is because Ky no longer remembers his first encounter with I-no that this timeline still continues to exist and progress, though Sol remembers, it appears this has no affect on him. Somewhat like an entropic effect (those who aren't involved can bear witness to events being altered, while those who are involved cannot).

In case anyone wants to know, Frost Faustings usually happens once a year near New Years and it's in Illonois down south of Chicago last I heard. It's quite a trip. I forget who runs it.

It wasn't entirely like I was "trying" to use 6C as an anti-air, I was initially using it for mixup and jump cancel option, but because they jumped, it hit... ...? So, even if something hits, so long as it does hit, I just want to capitalize on it. And yes, I do use TK Gauntlet Hades from time to time. Also I know it may/may not be safe from time to time, but counterhitting with Belial Edge at certain heights causes floor bounce, so I try to use that as well when I deem it useful/safer than usual (not VS Tager obviously).

Here's what I meant by catching people with 6C: Tager tries to throw out j.D or j.2C and somehow it hits, so I high-jump cancel into a combo. I have seen people use 2B to great effect to relaunch from long distance knockdown (from 2D). Meanwhile Tager's busy trying (and failing) to throw me because I'm just outside his range, and yet I can hit him with 5D/5C. Here's another situation: at match start, I can use 2C to Fatal Counter on the very tip of the hitbox...it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, I'm usually too far away to do any serious damage, or at least, I'm not aware of what kind of damage you can do to close the gap at that range.

I thought this would be something important to talk about especially with the recent Makoto player influx. Ragna is normally a close-to-mid-range fighter, so he doesn't zone like Lamda, Litchi, Jin, or Hazama, but at the same time, he's capable of hitting a few things at long range, either with the very tip of 5B, 5C, 5D, or if he's lucky the second half of Hell's Fang (hits Noel sometimes)/Gauntlet Hades (hits Arakune sometimes), or j.D. There've been a few instances where I've hit someone at max range and am limited to what combos I can do to follow through, such as counter-hitting a Tager with the second hit of 6C and trying to dash cancel that into the tip of 6A. Or hitting with the tip of 5D and dash cancelling (or double dash cancelling) into 5C>hjc combo or 5B>Inferno Divider. I'd like to maximize my combo range, instead of just simply knowing close-range combos and mixups, and also what moves are good at stuffing other moves and lead into a combo at the same time (or offsets). The basic idea is to capitalize on long-distance counter-hits or stuff that just happens to hit at the very tip of Ragna's hitboxes. I figure, if I can learn to do this, I can keep Makoto and Tsubaki off me, even a little bit, to prevent mixup problems.

I don't mind putting the piecemeal ones together myself if it's doable, and ideally I don't want the sides cropped, like I said.