Brother Mojo

Super late response but... I know I've done this a few times. I try to give people at least a couple games, but at the same time I'd like to have a sub character, rather than just a main and some characters I'd be interested in learning at some point. If I'd be getting better practice playing another character than playing more Tager, I'd like to be practicing one of the other guys. Meanwhile, it also bothers me when people complain about Tager being overpowered. It was worst back in CT when he was complete shit and people whined anyway, but he's never been great and so many people get mad anyway because he has command grabs.

More specifically (at least in that case), it refers to performing an aerial move that way even though it doesn't have to be. If you input 2147B as Hakumen, the 7 will make him jump backward, but the game will still read the 214...B as the input for Hotaru. This is generally the easiest/fastest way to perform aerial moves from a grounded position, since it will be performed immediately after you jump. If you do it too quickly, though, Hakumen won't have actually jumped yet and you'll get Renka instead. Press B a couple of frames after 2147 rather than immediately as you hit 7.

Well sure, Yuumura has always played a good Tager. Like all the other Tagers, though, he seems to be a bit spammy with the new 6A. It seems to me that people will get more used to it and all the Tagers who are really happy with their new toy will actually have to mix things up again. It does seem very useful, though. It's an excellent new tool we have at our disposal.

EDIT: Decided to not post stuff that everyone knows and post potentially useful stuff instead. On the note of IB->whatever, 360A requires a 3-frame gap, and IB advantage is 2 frames less, so I think all IB->360A points remain as at least IB -> 720 points, and the longer ones should remain as IB->360A points... basically anything that was only barely too short to safely IB->360B, i.e. 5 or 6 frames, will still be possible to IB->360A

Before asking yourself what you should have done, ask yourself what happened. The first step is learning how to analyze what exactly happened in a given situation. Next is to figure out what your options were. Figuring out what you should have done comes last. If you're thinking "I tried to hit him, but couldn't," you have to step back and figure out what was stopping you. Were your pokes getting stuffed? Were you unable to break through his pressure or zoning? Was he blocking and/or avoiding all of your attacks? What you'll need to do differently depends on why your attacks weren't working in the first place. And this is why replays really help... you can go through the match step by step and analyze things a lot more than you have time to during a match, especially while you're still learning. The less familiar you are with the character, the more time it takes, so you probably won't be able to do this sort of analysis on the fly just yet. Also, if you apply these ideas to other player's replays, like videos of pros, you'll learn a lot more than you would otherwise. Watching a player land a critical reversal or clever mixup that leads to them winning the match is impressive... but you won't really learn anything by just going "wow, cool." If you look at what both players could have done in that situation, and why what the winner did was correct, then you'll learn a lot more. In terms of breaking things up, there's a whole lot to consider, and it's pretty overwhelming. There's spacing and footsies, pressure and blockstrings (from both an offensive and defensive perspective), combos, okizeme, etc. However, in the long run, you have to learn everything, so focus either on what you find the most interesting or what is proving to be the biggest problem for you... probably actually a bit of both, since it's important to improve in the areas where you're weak, but practice should be fun, too. It is a game.

You're using Hell's Fang with the additional attack, while the OP was only referring to Hell's Fang by itself. In the frame data, we can see that the Hell's Fang followup can be started on the first frame of Hell's Fang's recovery. With some math, we find that if you IB Hell's Fang, even though you get the opportunity to act 9 frames before Ragna can do anything else, he can start the followup 24 frames (33 frames of recovery minus your 9 frames of advantage if he doesn't cancel to the followup) before you can do anything. Then, the followup only has 23 frames of startup... meaning even if you IB, if Ragna acts quickly enough the followup will hit you before you have a chance to do anything, even invincible moves like DPs. Disclaimer: I'm not totally sure about my frame data math here, things may be off by one frame or so, but I'm pretty sure it's airtight. So in a real situation, the game becomes a bit more complicated. If Ragna does Hell's Fang and you instant block, and you watch to see that he doesn't rapid cancel or perform the additional attack, then you can punish with any move that has less than 9 frames of startup, like Jin's 5A. If he quickly performs the additional attack, you won't be able to punish, since he'll hit you while you're still in blockstun. However, if you keep blocking, even without an instant block you'll be able to punish the followup with anything with less than 24 frames of startup, or less than 29 if you IB... though again, this is only if he doesn't RC. Also, if Ragna delays the followup at all (to watch and see if you're blocking, for example), then a gap opens during which you could use something fast or invincible to stuff the additional attack. In conclusion, check the frame data first, and don't try to practice IBing and punishing airtight blockstrings because you can't. Instead get the computer to do just the first part of Hell's Fang and punish with something fast, like 5A, since that's a situation that's more likely to crop up in a real match. If Ragna has heat, then he'll probably just rapid cancel anyway, which means he DEFINITELY recovers before you, whether he's hitting you with the first part or the followup. EDIT: Perhaps someone with more knowledge of how frame data works can help me here... if frame one of recovery is cancellable into the followup, and the followup has 23 frames of startup, does that mean that what would normally be the first frame of recovery is the first frame of the followup's startup, or does the first frame of recovery happen no matter what, and then startup of the followup begins if the command has been inputted? It's only a one-frame difference but it could be pretty important.

Long, long ago, I liked Samurai Shodown IV and Waku Waku 7. Played the hell out of them on emulators, got way too good at doing fighting game motions on a keyboard, thought they both were pretty damn sweet. Then, a friend of mine was into Guilty Gear, we played it a bit, and I loved it. But then when I tried to actually get good at it rather than throwing out random attacks trying to land the 2 or 3 combos I knew... it was just too hard. Also no new GGs were coming out and nobody around played it. Then BlazBlue showed up, was made by the same people, similar system... so I was thinking, "that's pretty cool." Then I played it and found out that the game is like slow-motion Guilty Gear so I can actually learn how to play, and I was hooked. Tried going back to GG lately. Still can't play that game worth crap, or even pull off BnBs in training. :/

I'm sort of confused about the hitstun properties of Hazama's drives. I first noticed this when I was playing one of his earlier missions... I think the second combo in mission 3? Whatever mission, the combo was (iirc) j.6D~D, 5C, 3C, 214D~C, 5C, 2C, 623D. When I would hit with that initial j.6D, sometimes the snake would bite down and Bang would be in hitstun for a long time, and other times the snake would just tap him and he would recover almost immediately... specifically too fast to do the combo. At first, I thought it had to do with the timing of pressing the D for the followup, but on further examination, even when I did only the initial j.6D attack it would vary between the two different levels of hit. What causes this?

Playing through challenges made me learn that I'm terrible at doing anything both quickly and accurately. I breezed through all the Tager challenges without too much trouble... and then had more trouble with the second combo in Hazama's mission #3 than I did with Tager's mission #9 or #10. Also, playing Hazama's challenges at all has made me realize that his snakes have some really weird property I need ask about on the Hazama forums...

Also, depending on what combo you've done up until that point, sometimes the untechable time becomes short enough that Bsledge to Gadget doesn't actually work and you have to use j.C whiff, lowest j.2C, gadget instead. Additionally, Bgadget just plain doesn't work against some characters, like Arakune and iirc Carl? For those guys you have to Egadget instead.

In 2D fighters, highs (aka overheads) need to be blocked standing, lows need to be blocked crouching, and mids can be blocked however you want. That makes the most sense so that's the terminology we'll use, k? Talking like mids can't be blocked crouching makes this sound like Soul Calibur. And if you're looking at the frame data on the site, H and L under "Guard" mean High and Low as described here. If you think you can block attacks with H crouching, you'll get hit in the face a lot. Also, people were talking about invulnerability earlier, and certain moves being invulnerable to high or low or whatever. Some moves have high or low guard point, or high or low auto-counter properties, but if something is invulnerable to certain other moves, that has to do with attribute, not how it hits. Tager's 2C, for example, has some head attribute invulnerability. That doesn't mean it's invulnerable to high attacks, it means it's invulnerable to attacks that only have Head attribute. For example, Tager's 6B hits high, but has Head/Body/Foot attribute, so Tager's 2C is vulnerable to it. Meanwhile, Carl's j.2C hits mid and thus can be blocked standing or crouching, but has only Head attribute and thus Tager's 2C is invulnerable to it (on certain frames). Most air attacks hit high and have only Head attribute. On the other hand, most ground overheads have Head/Body attribute or something similar rather than only Head. However, there are exceptions in each case.

Yeah, I would've expected something like AC, AC whiff, 6B, 2C, AC, etc. rather than just AC, AC whiff, gadget.

Not EVO, AnimeExpo. Don't know about players though.

Good to know, thanks. I'd thought I was just getting caught by lows but I guess not. How many frames is jump startup, anyway? Or does it vary by character?

You do the kara cancel thing because indeed you can't cancel quick get up into barrier, but you can into a jab which can then be kara'd into a barrier. If you do it ideally, you only see the first frame of the 4A/B's startup, so generally you won't really see it at all.

That's quick rise. "Quicker" rise is more complicated. Step 1: Be knocked to the ground. Step 2: Hold down as you recover. Recover with A, B, or C. Step 3: ~13 frames after your character starts to recover, press and hold 4A. Step 4: 1 frame after that (or close to it), press B, then quickly release both A+B Step 5: Your character barrier blocks briefly, stopping incoming attacks earlier than would normally be possible with a quick rise, and if no attacks come, recovers faster overall than if you had just used a normal quick rise. (The order with which you press A and B may be reversed. Also, 1A/B may be used if you expect a low attack.) It's actually quite tricky.

Jump startup takes a few frames, and during that time you're still on the ground and thus for blocking purposes you need to appropriately block high or low. However, since you're pressing "up" to start jumping, you obviously aren't pressing "down + back" and thus are vulnerable to low attacks. There shouldn't be anything happening when you land, though, unless you're not appropriately pressing either back or down + back by the time you reach the ground.

Barrier prevents chip damage from specials/supers, and I don't think IB does, so you need to barrier if you want to survive stuff like Bang's nail rain super or Lambda's sword spam super when you only have a couple of pixels of lifebar. Also, occasionally a well-used barrier will push the opponent back enough to make the next hit in their blockstring whiff, which can more than make up for its extra guardstun, though this is really rare.

360A and 5A both beat B+C. 360A also beats 360A if you wait a bit so that you start your 360 after he does... hilarious when your opponent is like "What? My 360A should have won!" but not actually that useful. Jumping beats both of them, and so should backdashing except maybe if you're magnetized and he holds the 360A a bit? I'd have to check that one.

: 623C : j.623C Everyone else: ?????

No, it just means they use cards rather than tokens. There aren't BlazBlue cards for tracking stats or anything like that.

I just leave the stick neutral, mash A and B until I start neutral teching, start spinning the stick when I see the tech flash, then press "C" about when the tech ends. Neutral tech is invulnerable until it ends, and 720 is invulnerable from the first frame. If you want to get the jump on people, or you're playing a Tager/Bang/whoever who tends to throw you during your wakeup, it could be better to down tech and cancel to 720 since that's faster and throw invulnerable, but again I find it easiest to just twirl the stick after you see yourself starting to tech to make sure you don't accidentally roll.

In BB:CT, at least, Hotaru has body property. Unless they changed that, Hotaru will go right through Collider's invulnerability and own Tager's face off. A well timed 360A + hold beats most DPs, and iirc Hotaru is no exception. If you expect a DP, delay the 360 so you can invuln past its active frames, then hold the button until they land on the ground again/their invuln frames wear off. Works against Ragna's ID, Jin's, etc. 5A beating the jump startup animation, though, would make that a ridiculously good option against Hakumen, since that would mean 5A basically just owns anything Hakumen does. Beats any attack-based options and backdash, and puts Hakumen into a blockstring against block or jumping block. Hakumen's counters could theoretically cause problems though. Speaking of Hakumen's counters, is Hakumen's astral a reasonable option on Gadget wakeup? It doesn't have any vulnerable startup or anything, right? That'd mean it'd beat Tager's pokes and throws with instant death, which would be pretty seriously scary.

Does 22[D] grab at the first possible moment, like 360B/720, or only when you release the button, like 360A/AC? Gadget as an actual combo option? Sweet. Any sort of grasp on what the proration is like after Gadget Finger? Also, what's the untechable time like? Can you follow up that Collider with anything?

Nope, atomic collider. 720 is awesome and all, but there's nothing quite like watching Tager swinging the other characters around like an angry child abusing her dolls.