Eshi

Yeah if that 236A nerf is true then she got hit HARD. She has no way to force crouching except 6B which she can't combo into on ground opponents... maybe if she has graviton out she can activate > 6B? her corner game is looking super bad now.

Dust? =P and a ground unblockable I guess. I can see why the comparison between Liz and ABA makes sense. Maybe one day Liz will actually be strong enough in awakening to compare to ABA. They could start with changing her DP to something that isn't shit.

They buffed Amane without changing how he actually plays, that's exactly what I was hoping for! It of course depends on how far they went on each but the changes to 2A, Hariken and reversal super are all great ways to alleviate his flaws. I really couldn't ask for more.

yeah 2D is ridiculously strong! I did some testing and there's 3 different outcomes from 2D: 1) If used really early (prediction), 2D and j2C clash 100% of the time. If Tager doesn't know about this then inputting a clash OS will counterhit him. I got it consistently with 5A, 6A might also work. 2) If used normally (reaction), 2D will straight up beat j2C. The best consistent confirm I got is 236A > jA > 7 > jA > jB > jC > j6C > j2C [1] > any zettou > j236C. It's only about 1.4k. If you have level 2 or 3 drill then you can do 236DD cancel > 5C > 6C > air combo for a lot more damage. 3) If used far too late, 2D won't become active and you'll get fatal countered. It's REALLY easy to react in time though. Tager's position matters a bit; if he's too far then 2D only hits like once and it's impossible to follow up. If he's any amount closer then it's completely guaranteed. If you can tell you won't get close enough to hit you, use A hariken as I said above. This should help A LOT with keeping Tager the hell away from Amane.

It's not really that I was nervous so much that I've played skeletal so much that I know exactly what I can't get away with. If I use C attacks normally, he counters everything on reaction for meter or yukikaze. if I go in too hard then I get countered, if I try to psychic hard bait counter then he might get a chance to start offense instead. I decided to approach the match-up by staying just outside of 3C range and baiting hakumen into whiffing pokes, getting level 3 drill whenever possible because it helps so much. I definitely did catch him doing kishuu with 3C sometimes. DerQ's right that I greatly underestimated the range on the Kishuu follow-up and kept getting hit out of backdash. I should've done 3C/2B more instead. Litchi is a huge ?????? to me, SG is the first strong one I've had long sets with and it feels like I have to be floaty as fuck and not get pinned down. But her tools in neutral are pretty strong too. I could've hard called out him jumping with 6C after blocked 5D's and such, it didn't occur to me. I try to AA her with jA over 6A because it seems to fail less often.

A local friend recorded matches from a recent tournament. The turnout was really disappointing but most of our best players were there and each set is 5 matches long. Me vs Skeletal Minion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrxWjLtALhE&feature=youtu.be Me vs SG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BgjU2cVuWA&feature=youtu.be I'm having a lot of trouble with the Litchi match-up. I need to get better at avoiding situations that let her get in and IB Barrier to get her out.

talking with people who don't play fighting games competitively (or at all) consistently reminds me that I am WAY better at these games than I give myself credit for =3

yeah, americans don't get close to how strong Japanese valk players are and he was the major problem of BBCP before Koko came out. hence Dora calling characters "fish" tier.

Yesterday I was watching Jiro play in online godsgarden pools, he's so good but choked SO FREAKING HARD on a Mu player. Just dropping everything and playing desperate for no clear reason. I'm noticing a trend, he'd be such a strong player otherwise.

CP is less balanced than Extend but 10000x more interesting and fun. Maybe it's just because I played Makoto though.

I don't perceive Amane as being that weak, just very unforgiving. The only buffs I'm crossing my fingers for are to ease of use as long as his major problem match-ups get a bit toned down (Taokaka, Hakumen, KOKONOE).

Apparently 6D can be followed up in the corner if it counter hits. Example of a setup into corner 6D and hitconfirming with 3C > 236C: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCtsYMoaBEM&t=5m01s I've done some experimenting on this and found a few key things. Firstly, the proration on 6D is HORRIBLE. 3C > 236C is all that can really be done to follow up and the most damage it will get is ~3k. The absolutely maximum number of 6D hits is 23 for 2.5k total and the whole hit confirm deals 3128 damage. If your timing is GODLIKE, then you can release 6D just before it gets disabled and still get the max number of hits. I highly recommend not trying this, especially since it increases the combo timer and makes 5A impossible to link after 236C. Just release once you have level 3. With 50 meter, one can do CH 6D > 3C > 236C > 5A > 632146C level 3 (~3.6k). Raw super can not be done, the opponent drops too fast. Literally nothing other than super can connect after the 5A because 6D's proration is terrible - note how Jiro goes for 5A > 2D in the video and the opponent techs early. I've found two other options that sacrifice damage for a decent setup though: 1) the 3C can be canceled into Hariken and characters without a DP/super answer can't escape. level 3 hariken deals ~15% chip damage without barrier block, if they neutral tech. Use A or B version depending on distance. 2) 6D > 3C > 236C > 5A > Gekiren. If they're holding air tech then Gekiren resets them no matter which direction they are holding. Unlike other gekiren reset setups, this leaves you with level 3 drill for a huge combo. The best, most consistent one I can find so far is Gekiren > 5B > 6B > j236A > jB [2] > j6D > 5A > 2D > Gekiren > 632146C (5845)

Tsubaki is worse than it's ever been too. It's no faster than it was in previous games AFAIK. For 3 stars it gets as much damage as a regular overhead combo, +2 to get the real damage with Hotaru. Comparing to characters like Jin & Hazama who need meter to combo from their overhead too, Hakumen's cost is front-loaded while the others can spend it on reaction - if his overhead gets read, Hakumen wastes 5 meter on nothing. Also then there's things like Tsubaki hitting an air opponent causing emergency tech so Hotaru misses.

Enma is super bad, it doesn't catch like normal counter does so it whiffs in a lot of situations where normal counter doesn't. Counter in general is way worse than ever. Super counter is great though.

Hakumen's Agito is ridiculously good but it also deals no damage without counterhit and many of his tools got huge nerfs. As is he seriously does need it.

If the charge nerf affects OD while in the air, then it will help stabilize his damage output by lowering his max damage from OD combos.

Yup, that's exactly what I meant. I agree with giving 5C/6C a bit less recovery. Enough to still be punishable with a bad read, but not enough that he immediately dies for guessing the wrong hit confirm. I'm okay with supers overheating drills, it makes the 632146C RC bug to get around disabling drill much more swag =3 Good post!

And on that bombshell: I honestly am not sure if I should even expect buffs for Amane. His biggest problem to me is difficult in hit confirmation, how it often requires him to commit to using normals that have huge recovery. I guess decrease the recovery on 2C/6C? But no matter what it's gonna be death on whiff. I like his design of only having one overhead (jA) so I wouldn't change j2B/jB in that way. It would be nice if jB's hurtbox got a buff. I just don't want him to get nerfed, I'll be 100% okay if he gets no changes. He doesn't have any unwinnable match-ups except for Kokonoe who is obviously getting nerfed.

because people can't block or make Ragna's DP whiff? the hit box isn't that huge. There's no such thing as losing on clash, it's a CLASH. if you're scared of clashing then OS into barrier and it's impossible to punish. You don't do it after blocking an overhead, you do it on reaction to an overhead instead of blocking (like Hakumen's old 6D). Well that's one situational trade-off for having the fastest (8 frame) meterless DP that can be hitconfirmed without meter on CH and is safe on air block. Overall it's still better. hurk, sorry, I fell for the mix-up...

this discussion is getting kinda ridiculous, Ragna's DP is really good but it's because he has a lot of other shortcomings as a character to balance it out. It will never be nerfed. I don't really want to compare apples and oranges but Kagura's DP is objectively better and he's a much worse character.

I didn't mean before the tournament, I meant after the tournament, and we're not going to get the patch on consoles the same day it comes out on arcades. Nothing is confirmed and we may have to deal with Kokonoe for quite a bit longer. We'll have at least one major before it comes around (Final Round). Also, Black Hole unblockables can be landed midscreen too albeit it's harder. The move is just degenerate and dumb, it would be MUCH more easily manageable to ban the whole move. It's not like people actually use it over Superball as a combo ender anyway.

Well, everyone unanimously agrees that Black Hole should be banned regardless of our feelings about the character. That's definitely the best compromise. If I were to go to, say, Jebailey with that proposal, would that be okay with everyone?

That wasn't the point. The point was that 7-3 match-ups are practically impossible to win tournaments with, therefore it's not viable. To target your specific statement: yes, Zangief has to counterpick Sagat. Now apply that to the majority of the cast and you have Kokonoe. The fact that it literally has to be the worst possible circumstance to be justified is not at all a sentiment I agree with. Especially in BBCP's unique situation where Kokonoe got released well into the game's life and turned the balance on its head. I would probably feel different if she was part of BBCP originally.

It's really not exaggerating. SFIV Zangief has never won a major pretty much entirely because of pocket Sagats, which is only 7-3. Well, of course it's not a matter of competition. BBCP will have strong competitors either way. The only difference is how many characters are no longer usable. Let's reverse this argument: what exactly do we gain by allowing Kokonoe, over banning her? That's not how probability works, let's not derail into this again...

Isn't... everyone? =P