Moblin

Makes sense I suppose. I actually don't hate this change as much as I thought I did. It's going to force you to sit and block to get stars before you can do much damage, which is what I think of when I consider Hakumen's intended playstyle. Also makes sense to go for silly resets rather than use a hard-earned Mag on Agito now, as well.

Watch me almost get destroyed by a bottom tier and tell me what I could do better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE5ckEwIjhE I feel like I respected him way too much, but every time I'm at distance against Amane I feel vulnerable. Also I don't just turtle and Yukikaze because he was already looking out for that, but it might have still worked xD

Hotaru will hit Bang even when the super teleports him behind you?

Hakumen's drive is still very usable as a call-out or bait in CP. Overall, the ability to land a counter has been nerfed. They're able to be blocked and he can't frame 1 counter overheads without Yukikaze. However, the reward you get out of a counter has been buffed to an extreme. With just the simple Drive > Shippu super you get 4k, unburstable for 4 stars, 1 of which you obtain from the drive triggering. You can also use the new Enma follow up to get a Fatal Counter for huge damage, and with overdrive, 7k+ unburstable. Overall Hakumen's gameplay remains the same but he lost a lot of his "legit" ways to open up his opponent. Personally, I feel like I play my games a lot more as waiting for my opponent to make a mistake rather than forcing him into making one.

That's interesting. I like that we can still whiff Agito. I often airdash towards them and momentum cancel with Agito to see what they do in neutral so it's good that it's still in. No more easy pressure from IAD Agito though, which definitely sucks. But it's more true to Haku's character design anyway

Will the 200 damage on the first hit of Airgrab affect the damage/proration of RC > OD airgrab? I'll reserve my judgement for the new Haku until we see the extent of the overall damage nerfs.

What changes are suggesting that hop Agito is safe on block? Because that's one of the most fun things about CP Hakumen and if it's true he just got a lot more fun. Why didn't they just make it so he gains less meter while being hit, restricting his meter gain while in the air just makes no sense, unless they wanted to just restrict how Hakumens play.

What do you guys think of j.D > 5B > JC Hotaru?

Kinda mad about this actually. Besides maybe Valk and Koko this seems like one of the bigger nerfs for a specific character on this loketest. The method by which they might have fixed that problem could have been a lot better. Now he loses a ton of meter for attempting things like j.c zoning or simply jumping in the neutral game. Why not make it so that if he's in hitstun, his meter slows down? That would be fine and make a lot more sense than just it just stopping once his feet leave the ground. Right now, he's some kind of plant that draws magatama from the soil.

I watched a bit of it last night. The meter gain nerf looks really concerning. It almost stops when you're in the air. I'm not positive, but it seems like on the ground, meter gain was sped up to compensate. However, it might just have been the contrast between how slow it was in the air compared to the ground that created that illusion for me. Either way, it seems like kind of a huge nerf to meter gain. It might even change how some Hakumens play if this change stays how it is: Being in the air is so restrictive with that stoppage to meter gain that a more ground-oriented neutral game would be beneficial.

Good Azraels have wet dreams about 2a mashers and up-backers, I'm sure. Every time I've successfully got out of Azrael pressure, it's because I've weathered the storm and blocked everything until I saw an opening to jump out, or I've Yukikaze'd on a read. But mostly I get hit. What moves should Hakumen use in neutral? Is zoning in the neutral with j.C, 3c, and the like a good thing to do against Azrael? It seems to work reasonably well against my local Azrael and I often win the footsies war which leads to winning matches. Also in relation to the Kishuu under the Punch super during its super flash: If you're standing at neutral and buffer Kishuu during the super flash, I always get hit. Seems like you need to kishuu before he activates it to truly go under it. Edit: frame data says its low profile from frame 1 though, so I must be doing something wrong. Either way, Azrael won't throw this out willy-nilly unless he hits you with a poke and cancels into it or you have two weakpoints.

I'm gonna assume the momentum will allow it to catch moves that otherwise wouldn't even hit Hakumen. Might be useful for epic Yomi in matchups that have a lot of footsies or zoning. Or we could just wait for more info to come out and have it answered for us, but then what are forum discussions for?

Yeah, 6d fulfills a niche that 5d is better at in every single way. The changes to 6d's forward momentum in the Patch is an attempt at making it fill a unique role that other drives can't fill, to eliminate the redundancy of its existence. Definitely agree with your metaphor that now the risk-reward is completely topsy turvy from the previous iterations. I guess the middle ground is somewhere between those two extremes.

I seem to recall quite a few Hakumen players complaining about how little he got off his counters in previous versions. Well they fixed that. But now it's way too much and polarizing. I really like the added depth to Hakumen's drive with the enma followup tbh - a good compromise would let every counter be comboable again but remove the ridiculous damage to something more reasonable. His Drive, I thought, was to be able to turn the momentum of the match in his favor by reading his opponent's offense. Not to steal the entire match away completely. As epic as that is.

If worse comes to worst and Hakumen keeps going down the road of OD Overbearance, I will turtle very game until I have 8 stars, and play solely on Mugen combos. I think Fatal Counter Agito sounds hilarious though. Hakumens land a lot of j.D as it is.

Wondering how much the meter change will nerf OD combos. A lot of my OD combos barely work, as I usually just barely get the Mags for the staple zantetsu or crush trigger as it is needed in the combo. If the meter gain is reduced then we're not going to get easy OD combos with low star counts anymore. I'm betting Haku will need to have plenty of stars to work with at the start of OD for the combo to do acceptable OD damage. In this current version, I really like the fact that 8k is guaranteed if I can just land Tsubaki > Hotaru with just the 5 required stars and OD. With slower meter gain this might not be possible after the patch.

I assume the new airthrow combo will work like CH Agito does. AT > j.B > land 5c. If you want to OD from an airthrow, just rapid cancel it then. My question is why would you ever want to Agito after j.D? You get almost 3k meterless from a regular j.D. Agito would just rocket them down and net you far less damage. Unless you're sure it was a counter hit, I guess - and even then the average combo would still do about 3k or less. edit: oh god, unless they gave that version of Agito a massive proration bonus. That would be hysterical.

Assuming you're talking about normal hit 3c, you have to condition them to neutral tech first before you can hop closer to them on 3c knockdown. If they like to tech roll past you, just 2b after 3c and you'll get a BnB loop for about 2k and another knockdown every time. It gets trickier if they decide to tech roll away, but 2b --> airdash in on them as they tech is good. 2b hitconfirm on roll away is really hard. But if they do it every time, predict it with Gurren. Gurren will hit them every time and you can confirm that gurren > kishuu > 5c for big damage or 2c for loop.

Frame trapping/baiting jump outs is one of my favorite things to do with Hakumen pressure. Sometimes I'll get 60% of my opponent's HP from just calling their jump outs with 2b or 3c and resetting into knockdown. That being said, I think a lot of people's problem with this iteration of Hakumen is that when you get a hit, it is often a mistake/oversight on your opponent's part rather than an instance of you outplaying them. Even at top levels.

Ha, that hakumen change is pretty funny. I guess it just means that he will gain less stars back during combos, which he spends most of his time in the air during. The real question is will it also slow down the rate when he is in Overdrive.

If the hardest part for you is the link between j.2A and j.2C, with the double-jump cancel, it is probably in there. What you said about the j.2A might be your difficulty. If you double jump late, hakumen won't be able to hit the landing 5A even if you hit the following j.2C. Basically: Waiting for the j.2A to hit and then inputting 9 is probably too late. You need to have the 9 input buffered as you hit them with j.2A. after that it's just a matter of getting the timing down on the j.2C. edit: oops, I didn't even realize you're not the same person that asked the question. If waiting to hit the j.2A gives you a good, consistent BnB performance then it doesn't matter what the optimal way is. But if you're not consistent at this part of the combo, it might be the j.2A > jc that is the weak link.

Keep practicing, Hakumen's BnB loop is actually really difficult. Try delaying the J.2a after the 2C, OR Make sure you are jump cancelling the j.2A immediately. If you jump cancel it late it will mess up the combo. First frame jump cancel is ideal - input j.2a and immediately hold "9" or up/forwards before the j.2a even comes out to cancel it on the first frame. Good luck

Can't wait to into a huge tizzy about it, and someone finally asks him and he's like, "oh I dunno, looks cooler"

It looks cool and it makes extra smacking sounds at the end. lol Maybe it's just his way of looking unique. Also the 6a > 6d thing is kind of cool. I'm not sure what the point is of that either

Agreeing with Mac, the only reason Hakumen's damage is ridiculous right now is his OD combos. Without it, I usually count myself lucky to get about 5k with an 6-8 star combo and a good starter. Using the optimal combo routes of course. I have had complaints about Tsubaki > Hotaru overhead though. That's 3.2k that is dealt in a split second, unable to be bursted.