Spinzaku

I haven't found too many problems with the netplay.. and I'm playing from BC, Canada against friends on the east coast. Running Zero / Wesker / Sentinel right now. Ranked is a joke so far. 20-0 on day 2, most people can't even aerial rave, or connect anything but a medium from standing S. A lot of people haven't figured out any good frame traps or wake-up games yet either so you're way ahead of the pack if you have any of that in your arsenal. Sentinel w/ lv3 X-Factor is stupid. 820k damage from a 5-hit ground combo, or 1m from a 6 hit ground-to-air with HSF finisher. Wesker's basic BnB does about 600-650k depending on how you place your super at the end. Zero's pressure is crazy, and is probably one of the best assists in the game.

Damnit! This sucks. My group cancelled on me so I'm left without a way down to Bellevue. Oh well. Good luck guys!

I'm probably just going to share a hotel room with 2 of my friends.. if they actually want to stay. I'm hoping for a good (see: a lot) amount of casual matches post/pre-tournament as well. :3 Driving down from Canada and with the tournament starting at 7pm means it would probably be the best course of action anyhow.

They already slightly lowered the speed of his drive in the 1st loketest didn't they? I think Jayoku is fine the way it is. It's a combo starter (or close to it) instead of a combo ender which is what every other character has and do the same damage with. If you've got 70-75+ meter at the start of your Jayoku combo then it can lead into 6-7k in a perfect situation. I think the only thing the latter has over most other characters is that Hazama's is more practical?

I think Hazama has great throw options, and there are combos that start on a throw and lead to ~4k/6k relative to meter. Most other characters don't have an option like that without use of an RC. But you're still right either way, it's not the big picture for Hazama. I think they key to nerfing (as much as I hate this word) Hazama revolves around techable time and chains.. not killing his basic BnBs. :S

Oh wow. I was originally only planning to come down for Saturday's events but maybe I can widen my schedule a bit more to make time for chilling+casuals. It depends entirely on my friends, since we all have stupid work schedules.

+ 214D~C now makes the opponent spin in the air ^what's that supposed to mean? will it not be possible to land 5C>2C then? - cannot cancel throws into chain ^well there goes my throw game. they should buff his command throw if they're going to seriously do that.

If you're 15, how the heck are you getting down to Bellevue from Kelowna!? Then again, I'm 22 and I don't drive. Yay for being too poor to buy a car!

Some of the stat allocation totals on the new pokemon make no sense to me. A lot of them are going to be really good competitively though.

I was rooting for kaqn/dennou a bit just because of their team name being a tribute to Zakiyama. I started playing Hazama after watching all of his videos, but now I just watch all of buppa's stuff. I am sort of surprised he and Dio didn't make it further than they did, but they did manage to get into the top 8. Also, Jin in 2nd is pretty awesome.

I can bring my EVO monitor, 2-5 surge protectors, and a copy of GGXXAC+ (PS2) if it's needed. Unfortunately, I don't have a lagless w/ component. If some players from norcal are going to be coming up this is going to be quite interesting. I'm dying to play people at a really high level. :3 MMs ALL NIGHT

14 Bangs and 13 Litchis. WOO

Every time I look at the changes I remind myself that this is just the first loketest of many to come, so I'm confident that Arcsys will learn from their past mistakes and actually balance the game this time. They did pretty well with AC+. But yeah, Ragna and Litchi are looking pretty shitty right now.

I think that a lot of Hazama's non-zoning strengths come from his abare game anyways. Most hit confirms can lead into the standard j.214B# and random chain hits can land just about any combo you want, midscreen, corner, haz in corner, etc. With 50 heat, he's a character that is deserving of a lot of respect from the opponent else they'll eat a free 4.5k+ combo that builds nearly all the spent heat back. I don't think they'll completely destroy any character since they seemed to have learned their ways with Rachel.

Honestly it won't change Hazama's zoning game THAT much. In my eyes the only major problem is the 5B changes. No more hit confirming 5B into whatever the hell you want/any time you want. also keep in mind that this is only the first loketest blah blah blah

I can agree with that. Jabaki is fine as is. I guess with the whole "slower chains" bit I would expect that I can't [4D~A]x2>4D~D every time now. Or maybe we'll require a bit more adjustment mid-combo. That or no more 4 chain jayoku combos. They said it wasn't terribly noticeable but we still don't know a whole lot. :|

Assuming that is what we're left with, 5B>3C would become something like 5B>5C>3C or 5B>2C>3C ? They prorate the same if they're not the 1st hit of the combo (5C is 100/89, 2C is 90/89). Who am I kidding, that would still suck. 5B being +2 on block makes it just that good for hit confirming. If they're going to do that I hope they make 6A a little faster on startup.

It sure as hell seems that way after reading all the changes. It's kind of odd that they'd keep Hazama near the top of competitive play instead of just bringing the low tiers (Rachel, Tager, Noel, Tsubaki) up to A/B standards while taking a small amount of priority/range away from bang/litchi. Tighter execution on 5B>3C isn't a huge deal. Even if it became a 1-frame link it still wouldn't be.

I'll be going with the two friends I bought to Magic Stronghold yesterday. I believe all 3 of us will be entering the SSFIV and BBCS tournaments, and I'll also put out for GGAC+ and MBAA. I'm trying to find more people but being from the valley, players are scarce. Unfortunately we won't have extra space, since even fitting 3 people in my friend's truck is a hassle.

There was enough standing room for like 10 people to watch, but it was cramped if you wanted to be comfortable.. but IMO it wasn't a huge deal, there is a lot of seating space in the main area and next time we could just move it all there and play on monitors instead of the semi-laggy TV. I had a ton of fun, even though I played like crap. haha

Yeah, I remember you! Haha, good times. I look forward to playing all of you guys again in the future, I dropped a million and a half combos all night long but hopefully we'll all have that fixed for next time.

So how many people can we expect to be there at the tourney tonight? I'm not going to be expecting a lot but I'm hoping for a good time. I'll likely show up around 5:30-ish.

If the tournaments don't start until 7pm, I will definitely be there from early on in the day. It's only a 2/2.5 hour drive for me and I've got friends who will probably run off and check out the con itself, so I'd likely show up sometime before 2pm. Casuals and MMs will be fine as long as the latter is kept on the DL. :3

Oh alright. Either way it's probably similar to my 40" Samsung HDTV (lol game mode).. though I've recently started playing on an HD computer monitor. I'll probably come tomorrow, it's fairly close to the Royal Oak skytrain so getting there won't be a problem. Hopefully there will be some (post/pre-tournament) casuals too.

Wow, so there's gonna be a tournament tomorrow night in Burnaby.. that's very tempting. I haven't been practicing BBCS lately (GGAC+ lol) so I wonder if it's worth making the trip from Abbotsford. I know it's a bit short notice asking about equipment, but, are they going to be playing on a "huge HDTV" or will they actually have lagless monitors/CRTs and what not? I may come, depending on if I can find a reliable way around tomorrow. That in mind, I wish there was a larger BB community in the 604 area so I think that if we have plenty of people going it's a good start. I would say this is my only chance for a local tournament since I already have plans on visiting southwards next year.