Tari

I haven't really been playing BB lately, so it may be best if other players chime in on this, but here're my thoughts: 1. I suppose you could say that she takes combos as they come, rather than hunts for them. I don't know if that's a good way of thinking about it, though. Every character in the game is a combo character, and it's important to know how to capitalize on any random hit for maximum effect. She is a zoning character, though, so her neutral game can be less confrontational than some other characters'. 2. Assuming you're already comfortable with her normals and their ranges, I'd say you should focus on getting used to using her zoning tools for defense and offense. It usually takes people a little bit of time before they get used to how the pumpkin, frog, and lobelias work. 3. Brkrdave is arguably the best US Rachel player at the moment, and one of the top NA Rachels, so it's reasonable to watch his play. I think he pops by the forums every now and then? For JP players, you'll probably want to just find videos of N-O. 4. You'll probably want to learn Rachel's 5BD > 6A > etc. combos, as well as her corner 5CC wallstick combos. Generally, the goal for Rachel is to corner-carry opponents (like everyone else) or knock them down so you can start your really strong oki game. 5. She's very strong. Very, very strong. However, she takes a considerable amount of effort to fully utilize, so be prepared to put in the effort to play her. I wouldn't say anyone in the game isn't tournament viable, though I suppose people could make arguments for Amane and Makoto on that point.

You can also burn a wind stock to do a level 2 j.2C after the 5C FC and combo from there. Gets you around an extra 300-400 damage over the dash 5B path, I believe.

To add to what Cosmic said, here's our notation thread: http://www.dustloop.com/forums/index.php?/topic/8311-fb-the-notation-thread/ Here are a couple more examples from the Nu Gundam wiki: This is 4/6BBB directly cancelled into CSa. BR >> 4/6BBB -> CSa This is 5BB, rainbow-step 5BBB. 5BB > 5BBB This is BR, a direct cancel (or optionally, a boost-cancel) into BZ, and then boost cancelled into another BR. BR ->(>>) BZ >> BR This is 5B, rainbow-step 5B8BB, and then a direct cancel into BZ. 5B > 5B8BB -> BZ

If you're really patient, you can test damage and proration values on everything by resetting a 2P match (with stopped bots) constantly. Damage scaling from guts won't kick in in the middle of a combo, so you can always do something like record the damage from Move X, then reset and record the damage from Move Y, and then reset and record the damage from Move X > Move Y, etc. You honestly probably don't even need to reset between the first couple tests, since guts doesn't kick in immediately, but it's pretty safe to just reset every time. You can test combo damage by doing the combo to a full health 2P suit and checking the damage it took. Obviously, you shouldn't been damaged or be in activate as the 1P suit, or your numbers will be way off. The alternative, of course, is to just look at the JP wiki, where they've already done this for almost every move in the game.

I believe we're no longer punishable on normal hit? Untech time was increased by a good size. The opponent floats less, too. Never really understood why it was punishable on normal hit, but at least they seem to have finally addressed that issue. Someone else can probably give you more deatiled info. :P

As mentioned in the first post, MEPE mode BC has shield frames on it. If you are attacked from the front during the startup of the move and the attack hits you, you automatically cancel out of the move and into a block. If that's not what happened to you, then I can only guess that whatever attack was thrown your way whiffed because you were in MEPE and it didn't track you through your movement.

From what I can recall, we don't actually fake the PS3s into thinking they're connected to PSN. We've talked about doing so before, but during the last EVO, I think we still had connection drop-outs caused by faulty internet? Not sure, though, haven't really talked to Fred about it since then. In any case, blue bar connections can be achieved as long as you have a central hub/router for internet that all the PS3s are physically wired to together. The linux code we had was only used to turn Fred's laptop into a router, if I recall correctly, so it could use the 4G connection while also accepting connections from the PS3s.

I don't remember which iteration of the game he did it in, but there was a period of time during which Xie ran some BB tutorial/etc. sessions on his twitch.tv stream (twitch.tv/xiei). I believe those included analysis of JP match vids. Not sure how easy it would be to find those videos, though, nor am I sure of how long he did it for.

Oh, is that how the win compensation works online? In the old arcade cabs for Next, when that was enabled, it caused players who were on winstreaks to suffer from very literally handicapped defense values that would get worse according to how large the players' win streaks were. Unless something has changed in this game, or unless I'm greatly mistaken, guts is only related to your suits current health, not to whether your partner just died or not. If you fall to low health, guts kicks in.

Are we going to just say shield amekyans are necessarily slide amekyans, then? Because it's not like you actually need to be able to slide to be able to cancel your block into an amekyan.

The O's csB->Melee Followup doesn't need to be rainbow stepped to cancel into a melee string. It cancels directly into any pretty much any melee. You can do things like csB->Melee Followup->6B(1)->2B(mash) when in overheat, and the entire sequence is just a string of cancels. It's not all that uncommon to just see BR->csB->Melee Followup->2B(mash) at the end of an extended chase that leads to an overheat punish. csB is also useful for changing your falling momentum or adjusting your trajectory. I believe it also has low profile properties, in the sense that you can slide under opponent BRs with it similarly to Master Gundam's 8B. By the way, the wiki link in the OP has the right bracket ']' stuck in it right now, so the link isn't working properly. Down value doesn't restore over time. It resets after 3 seconds during which a player takes no damage. There's no gradual progression on that. The reason you'll see BR >> BR -> Sub not down people at long ranges is likely because you're so far away that the sub doesn't land all of its hits before disappearing. It needs to hit the opponent 3 times with its sword grind before they'll get downed. This can, if I recall correctly, also occur if your sub hits the opponent from a very awkward angle. Here's the basic info related to this: - Suits will yellow out if they accumulate 5+ down value. - BRs cause 2 down value per shot - Each hit from The O's sub causes 0.4 down value, up to a maximum of 3 hits for 1.2 down value

Back melee suits still tend to have some ranged options. There are a few suits that are almost completely dedicated to playing melee, but this is less applicable to the 2k cost range in this game. Melee back suits mostly play a close/mid-range poking game until they see an opportunity to land a punish on the opponents. At that point, they can move in, do a short combo, and get back out. It's a higher stress role to play, but the damage rewarded to the back melee suit for successfully taking an opportunity is typically much higher than the damage rewarded to a ranged back suit. In addition to the higher reward, they tend to have stronger oki games, so successfully knocking down an opposing player can create much more pressure on the opposing team. Back melee suits do tend to make their front player change the way they play a bit, though, and also cause the game to shift towards a double-front position when necessary (notably, when the back player capitalizes on an melee opportunity, they are very often immediately targeted for a cut, which creates an opportunity for the front player to do something). Back melee tends to have a more noticeable effect on enemy movement than back ranged, as well, when simply moving towards the opposing players. Even then, however, the back player should focus most on not taking too much damage and allowing the front player to comfortably use their first life to its fullest.

Your main has muzzle correction and startup time. It's not capable of green lock punishing landings, unfortunately, so if you've been having success with that, it's likely because the opponents are either not moving after landing or moving on your vector. B can be zunda'd, which is most commonly seen when you have no ammo on your main, but can also be combo'd into main with something like B(x3) >> A. Backflip B is useful because of it's positional displacement, but it is indeed not as useful as other options in most cases, and arguably has almost no use when compared to 2B > B, assuming you have enough time/space for the latter option and that you rainbow step backwards out of the melee counter. csB is similarly more useful for its movement than its ability to actually hit opponents. Notably, however, csB can still be combo'd directly into main if you just boost cancel out of the end of the move.

If you're doing a safe jump correctly, you're doing a move that has active frames right before you touch the ground, at which point you have no landing recovery and instantly change to blocking. This causes you to whiff through moves with invulnerable startup (reversals, etc.) and allows you to block their attacks after their startup has ended. It also allows you to catch opponents who try to mash on wakeup, or force opponents to block if they don't attempt anything special. However, due to the fact that you're actually doing a move that has active frames on the opponent's wakeup, if they choose to do something that becomes active on frame 1 (or any frame before you touch the ground), it will be fast enough to catch you during your active frames. The only such moves that exist in this game are 1-frame counters, from what I can remember, and those counters will catch your active frames and counter you, unless the follow-up to the counter is itself slow or blockable. In the case of Terumi's super counter, it will counter you out of your safe jump j.C and deal massive damage. If you're getting hit by any other Terumi super out of your safe jump, you're likely mistiming it.

Did he do his counter super? Safe jumps will lose to frame 1 counters by the nature of how they work.

Never noticed that, haha. Makes sense, then.

Ah, I see. I misread the translation and thought it said ground D saber cancelled into Strike Fall. But yeah, we still need to see the actual cancel window on the ground D saber before we can determine anything. When it says "aerial version of Mirage Thruster" in the translation... does that mean we teleport as if we started in the air, or does it mean we teleport into the air? :/ Not quite sure I understand why it would involve being in the air either way, but it's a bit unclear. Here's to waiting for the patch to hit and vids to roll out.

I'm pretty late here, but does anyone know if GA 3C can be cancelled into 5D with the upcoming arcade patch? Unless I misread, it doesn't look like the old GA->Normal mode change combo will work anymore with the changes to D Sonic Sabre, so I'm curious if we just don't have any route for that anymore or if they introduced a new route, instead. edit: and I just realized I missed a page in this thread somehow, whoops. I see that the point was already brought up.

Blocking is dangerous because you can get forced into an unblockable setup. There's a short period after successfully blocking during which you cannot do anything. Once that period ends, you can move however you want. It's the EXVS equivalent of Smash Bros.' Final Destination stage. Tournament standard, most balanced, etc. If you want to play another map on ranked, feel free to choose it, just don't expect the majority of players to choose anything but Side 7.

The super armor kicks in pretty much as soon as you start a melee, and lasts through the end of your active frames or until you hit an opponent, whichever happens first. If you rainbow step out of a melee before it hits an opponent, you'll retain your csB charge, and your next melee will still have super armor. As soon as you actually hit an opponent, though, your csB charge will be spent. It would probably be good to update this thread with csB info and 2B, as well as change the "6AB" reference under the neutral AB info to "2AB".

The online pass restricts online play to the account the pass was purchased on. To play on multiple accounts, each account must have its own online pass.

I think they're done releasing variants for the PS3 version, but she has more in arcade, haha.

When you see players doing amekyans with a lot of momentum, there's a high chance it's a slide cancel amekyan. The input for that is pretty much just C > direction+AC.

Not sure when this came out, but we have new navis again. Navi list is just about filled out, at this point.

Strike Freedom was playing front in this match. Here are a few points that help to define what role he's playing: - At the start of the round, he moved directly into the center of the map, whereas Delta waited for a bit before moving sideways. - He contested the center of the map frequently, while Delta was more often fighting on the perimeters and retreating. - The majority of the time, he was moving forwards towards the opponents and firing at them. - He was fairly consistently moving to intercept any opponents trying to attack Delta. - Delta was, while taking aggressive actions, notably keeping his health at a reasonable level and not committing to any fights. Having said that, once Strike Freedom had died once and respawned, Delta moved forward and played much more aggressively until his first death, at which point he reverts back to a slightly more defensive role. In terms of creating opportunities, it's true that we generally say that it's the role of the front suit to do so, but that's mostly a generalization. There are many times where a front suit will opt to play a long neutral game, simply because he can easily out-neutral the opponents. There's no reason for a front suit to not simply go for opportunities given to him, after all. It's also worth noting that it's not like SF didn't create opportunities in this match. He's just a suit that's good at capitalizing on the opportunities he creates himself. It can be said that Delta helped to create engagements for SF in this game, but that's fine since he did so without taking too much damage, and since it was notably because the opponents decided to try chasing down Delta and ignoring SF.