Tari

Well, her playstyle hasn't changed too drastically, really, so I'd say 'yes.' We lost some of her more crazy air juggles (j.2c->j.c, oh how I'll miss you) and her easy mixups, but that's about it. Lost the easy 6B CH and pumpkin flight distance/hitstun, as well. Of all those, the only one that really confuses me is the pumpkin, but meh. I don't actually consider the nerf on George to be much of a nerf. The amount that he prorates things is absurb, mind you, but a slower movement isn't any trouble, nor is the fact that we can wind him around, now. Not sure the 2 second timer will allow for extended corner pressure the way I do it now, but we'll see. The loss of easy mixups and her crossup will change how she plays her rushdowns, but that's about it. Her lightning pole zoning got a bit stronger, she has a reversal (super, still waiting to see if people will use it a lot or not), and her aerial BBL is apparently more viable than it was before. I'm wondering if the aerial BBL can be comboed off of 6c9d (or 8d) j.c JC j.c, now, in fact.

This is pretty random, but I just realized that Rachel loses her crossup in CS. I don't use it much, so it's not a huge loss, but it's still worth noting. >< Unless there's a crossup that doesn't involve j.2c that I don't know about?

Timing the pumpkin in the corner is a bit of a guessing game. It's even more iffy when playing online and having to deal with lag. Very fun to land it, though. Haha, yeah, 3-round matches are somewhat tiring. Can be fun, though, if you're not really worried about winning/losing. And I only ever use 4b as a surprise against characters who're waiting for the 5cdc on block, since I have a horrible habit of just spamming that out. Getting hit by wakeup Daifunka sucks, but it's not any worse than me running into Ragna's wakeup ID every time I knock him down in a match. And oh God at that aerial BBL. That was hilarious. xD Astral~. xD

Behold me blatantly disregarding my own advice.

6a combos take a bit of time to get working. I still ocassionally mistime the first jump cancel when I'm tired. And it takes time to figure out how to actually insert combos into your game. Playing against the computer (at hell difficulty) and messing with combos in training mode helps, but doesn't really simulate how it feels to actually play a human. As for stopping rushdowns, learn to make use of Rachels' 6b. It's an amazingly annoying attack for the other player to deal with. If you land it, you'll either slow down their pressure game or get the counterhit, which puts them into a pretty long hitstun (from where you can initiate whatever you want, basically). The pumpkin is really useful for stopping rushdown as well. When you use your lightning, you can use the time they spend blocking/getting hit/waiting to pull out a pumpkin or a frog before you start firing off more bat seeds. A frog will usually make the other player think twice about rushing in, as a few succesful blocks on your part will get them hit by the frog. The pumpkin is a more active defense measure, as you can wind it into them if they try rushing you. You might want to look into 236a9d, as it fires a seed at a really nice angle for stopping ground rushdowns. Doesn't work at mid-screen if the other player is crouching, but then, crouching isn't really much of an attack that you have to worry about (unless the other character has a low slide move, ala Noel or Bang's 3c attacks). You can usually adjust for that by just not using 9d, anyway, as at that range, the normal 236a/b can hit them out of an attack, as long as they're not already sliding. In any case, frog + pumpkin + seeds = nice defense. Mix them up a bit. It'll force the other player to keep trying to find another way to attack. Make sure you're blocking low/high attacks correctly. Low attacks will go under a mid/high-block, while high attacks go over a low/mid-block. Block high attacks with 4 and low attacks with 1. If that's not the issue you're having, then... hm. Hopefully you're not doing the 147 thing I always do when switching from low to mid/high-blocking. If you ever hit 7 while trying to block, your guard will drop for however long it takes for your character to actually jump off the floor. This usually means you get hit. Escaping the corner as Rachel... if they give you a chance, counterhit them with a 6a or 6b. If not, block until you can jump out or you see an opening to reverse their momentum. Against some characters (like Arakune), your best option is often just taking a specific hit and escaping or winding yourself out with a winded jump. Heck, sometimes, instead of trying to escape, you can spend an opening dropping a frog before blocking again. It'll slow down whatever pressure game they have and often reverse the momentum if they decide to ignore it. This is not a good idea against all the characters, though, as some (notably Tager and Hakumen) can deal with the frog and effectively continue pressure all in one move. Learning to insta-block is also an awesome thing for reversing pressure, as you can respond to attacks faster than they can continue their pressure. Counter assault/dead angle is also very useful. When you're barrier guarding, if you hit 6 instead of 4, your character will toss out a counterattack. It won't do any damage, but it'll free you from corner pressure. Costs 50 heat, though. In Rachel's case, her counter assault attack is 4b, so it's definitely useful. Unfortunately, it's not an option that comes to my mind very often when I'm stuck in a corner and getting squished (especially against Tager and Hakumen), but it's always there, if you have enough heat. Yeah, I don't know any easy way to record matches on the same console other than stuff like Dazzle. You can record replays from the PSP, but that requires custom firmware, some tinkering on your part, and a bunch of effort (since the audio often needs to be recorded seperately and synched up in a video editor). I've heard about this USB adapter thingy that's supposed to be pretty good for recording (costs, like, $5-$10 USD), but I can't remember what it's called for the life of me. Edit: USB adapter is called "Easycap USB Recorder." Sample videos: Easycap BlazBlue PSP BlazBlue Edit 2: What is with the length of these posts? :8/:

Hm... you should totally play with some of the guys here and see if they can help point stuff out in game. It's hard to comment accurately on a replay like this. Anyhow, I'm fairly new myself, so take what I say with a grain of salt. That aside, the first thing you'll want to learn is Rachel's 5cdc. It knocks your opponent to the floor, and the majority of Rachel's frog combos start from there. After that, you'll want to learn how to toss a frog out after the 5cdc hit and knock the other player into it. There isn't too much variation on how that's done, but it doesn't work on every character, so there's a little bit of memorization needed. kro's guide is a good place to start, and has lots of juicy info about how to play Rachel well. Soniti's combo guide is a little less friendly in presentation, but has more things listed, including extra combos, flashy finishers, and expected damage values from each combo. There're air combos you'll want to learn at some point, as well (mostly starting from 6a 5b or 5cdc dash 2b 5b). Once you've got those, you'll find that the other stuff (block strings, counter-hits, etc.) all lead into them. I mean, eventually, you'll probably want to figure out how to continue Rachel's frog combos and force the other player into the frog again and again, but that's not really a basic mechanic for playing Rachel. ----- As for the replay... It's nice that you pull George out fairly often (more than I did when I started, definitely), as well as use the bat seeds to keep your opponent away from you. You'll want to work on bringing the pumpkin into play, though, or utilizing the wind for aiming those seeds. Without some sort of backup plan, the other player can often just run or slide (Noel) under one of your seeds while you're firing and land a counterhit on you. Having the pumpkin out will allow you to wind it into your opponent during their approach. If the pumpkin is winded along the ground, then the other player will have to jump, block, go into an invulnerable move, or take the hit. Basically all of those options are beneficial to you, since it stops or slows down their approach. Also, try not to 2c too much. It's really tempting to do it all over the place, because it autoguards, but it's not very safe. I spam it when I freak out, and almost every time I start doing that, I get destroyed. I'm not sure if you have a solid handle on using her wind, yet. It takes time to figure out how to use it without flying all over the screen, but it's worth it. xD Good tip: don't do what I do and spam 5a all the time. It tends to give the other player free counterhits. ----- The guides here are awesome, so definitely give them a look through when you get a chance. Most of the non-combo stuff you'll pick up from watching other Rachel players or from playing a bunch of matches and seeing what works and what doesn't work. There's not actually all that much to learn, as far as the basics are concerned. Two combos (the 5cdc knockdown and the 6a 5b JC j.b j.c JC j.b j.c j.236a air combo), a decent ability to guard (which I don't have, pfft), and a willingness to experiment will get you nice 'n' far~. /...whoa, long post. What the..... //apologies if I made any mistakes, I'm pretty tired right now ///hopefully, if I did, the other players will pick them out and correct me. xD

Yeah, it's looking nice as a reversal, but that's about its only use at the moment. We don't have damage values for any combos that use it, yet. Not sure it ever actually took all four wind to activate. The first loketest sounded sort of like a miscommunication, but then, I wasn't really paying attention until the second loketest, so meh. Whatever the case, I'm quite glad it only takes one, now. I wonder if you can combo it into itself, the way you can double-BBL right now? Seems like you can do a 4-wind to 3-wind version, since George will stun them for a while. It'd be sorta fun (and silly). Anyway, I have to agree about the air BBL. The only time I use it at the moment is when I fail to land before inputting it (usually only happens when I'm winding around), or tk it by accident.

I don't really care how it looks as long as it works. Not sure if it's that useful yet, though.

Something I'm wondering about, after playing around in training mode... Currently, Rachel can go 2b 5b 4b 2b 4b 5b 4b... and so on, though the 4b is really quite slow, and on block, it's necessary to do a 6d or 5d to stay in range. If 4b has been sped up by a small amount, would that become at all more viable? As it is, it's virtually useless to use (the only time right now that I can really say 4b comes into use is right after a j.3dc, since it comes out fast enough to catch people off guard who've gone to block low). Awesome. xD

Ah, no, no, I was just wondering if there'd been some hitstun nerf to 5b that I was unaware of, or if you'd typo'd, especially considering that Olympus had mentioned that 6c had potentially been nerfed on startup frames (which I still haven't seen any mention of). In any case, from what info we have, it simply seems like the typical 6b CH can't combo if you're required to dash in for the 5b/6b opening hit. At point blank, it should still work. That said, landing a 6b CH at point-blank is fairly... risky. The most common use at the moment is for matches against Tager, and, given the nerf, I'd opt for just engaging him normally as opposed to risking mis-judging the distance for my 6b and getting nailed by a hit. @Bohemian: I've seen nothing to indicate that 6a->6c will fail to combo in the new game. 6a->BBL still seems to work, from what I recall of the loketest videos, so 6a->6c should be alright, pending that neither move has been changed much.

You mention that 6b's hitstun was reduced? Did you happen to mean 5b? Just trying to figure out why 6b hitstun would affect 5b->6cd.

Ah, well. I guess we'll see. If there's virtually no hitstun, that's annoying, but it's definitely just something we have to play with for a bit.

Yeah, I remembered the reduced stun on 6b CH, and didn't recall any nerf on the 5b->6cd combo. Good to know that hasn't changed. If Air Iris (is that actually what it's called? ) is significantly faster than Sword Iris, you'll see it being tk'd a lot (as already seen in some of the loketest videos). I'm thinking it'd be a viable way to extend an air combo, if activated low enough, or as a more effective way to stop people from chasing you when you're backing away. She might have a better air-to-air game. It's a bit difficult to say for certain, though, as landing a hit in the air in CT can often lead to j.2dc->j.c combos, which deal 3-4k damage. I don't recall reading that 6c had a slower startup (though, to be fair, I don't really remember reading anything about 6c in specific, so...). As far as I can recall, the only thing that's become impossible (or insanely difficult) is the 6b CH -> 6b 6cd. It sounds like it's impossible to pull off even at point blank. Also, the nerf on the pumpkin hitsun is annoying, but I don't think any of us are really sure how much it's been nerfed. I'm curious whether or not 5cdc 214b 6d6 5b 5cdc will still combo, or if it'll black beat on the 214b 6dc.

I don't remember reading that 5b->6cd didn't work anymore. Any chance you could link me? It's somewhat difficult to find that info in the pile of news.

You know... that's a good question for people with the frame data. I don't really memorize that stuff, so perhaps I should say that it feels faster, quite possibly because it winds along the ground and most ground approaches get stalled by it. Apologies if I jumped the gun on that. Edit: Went and double-checked the frame data, and yes, 236a has less recovery and frames overall. If you thought I meant it was faster in CS than in CT... sorry. Ragna's 6b is the entire reason I think 4b is a viable mixup option. It's slow, but it still makes contact enough of the time, because it's fast enough. And hah, that just shows how awesome an avatar it is.

I feel like I might use the A lobelia a bit more than I do now, since it's got a faster recovery and a safer ground use than the other two. Her 4b is already a viable overhead, it's just... not as effective as her other options. I wish it had gotten notably faster, though.

Not sure if you'd be able to link to 5b, range-wise. 236a + pumpkin seems like it'd shove them a bit too far away? Though, I suppose this is testable in the current game, since you can cancel j.3dc into 236a in CT, anyway. I'm tempted to play around with 4b a bit, now, too. On an unrelated note, I keep getting confused when I see your and Olympus's avatars, haha.

It's not too difficult to combo into the super without frogging your opponent, so if George was the major source of the prorated damage, at least we can get around him. I've not landed a three-pole super on very many people, and it's pretty impractical to try to set one up. Two-pole supers with and without yourself standing next to them are fairly common, though. Takes a little more setup (often at the cost of a frog combo, personally), but does a nice bit of damage. My personal favourite is the pole BBL followed by 6a and a melee BBL (don't ask why I have a hundred meter lying around so often... ). Probably won't do any significant damage in the new game, though, if BBL's damage drops off that much when prorated.

As long as she doesn't fall to unplayable (which she pretty obviously won't), I'm still going to play as her. Can't... resist... loli-vampire powers.

Yeah, from the sounds of it, the combos that rely on j.2c level 3 -> frog are still in (though we may need to insert something inbetween, because of the frog timer). That's pretty nice. I don't use the level 2 j.2c launch very much, though. Guess I should get on that.

The only time I do stuff like that is when I know my opponent will die sometime during the spin (or we're just screwing around). xD It's so funny to pick people up out of a BBL or Sword Iris with that, though, and just spin your way into the sky.