88

Easily Spark. He’s monstrous, I can never figure out a good way to beat him in a fair matchup. I had a roughly even record against him in CS1, but even that went downhill as he continued to get better. I haven’t yet played him in CS2, but the Bang Haku matchup became more even, so…

89

At neutral, it’s really important not to get conditioned into eating some kind of 100% curse, so pay careful attention to things your opponent is doing to set up air grabs (easily recognizable super jump back clouds, for example) or fatal 2C’s (seemingly bad footsies or anything that forces you to dash poke).

On offense, use moves that abuse Ara’s terrible defensive options. Meaty d5A over his wakeup with good timing or meaty d6A can let you maintain pressure even if he backdashes, usually, because they recover so fast. Simultaneously they’re your best pressure starters, so use them often. They can really exploit his defensive flaws and force him to respect your pressure more than almost any character. After you make him respect your pressure, be willing to throw more mix options to make him want to disrespect, and alternate between constant frame traps/lows to catch backdashes or mashing and mix up to catch complacency.

Poison nail air dash will blow up his anti air, and he will have difficulties avoiding it if he’s already in the wrong spot.

you can link something like 6C jD to 5D if you need seals but don’t want to waste nails

90

I think the most important aspect of being a “top player” is to consistently notice your own flaws and to improve. Learning from your mistakes and developing as a player will eventually bring anyone into the realm of being a “top player”.

91

Serious question as well, Dacid what do you believe is the best way to nurture a scene, develop it or grow it, where I live we have numerous gamers in general but that crowd mostly plays SF4/MVC3. There are also some basement dwellers around who play BB on the regular in their homes, what would be the best way to get them out the house(I usually host CS2 bi-weekly at a venue) that or level them up. I post regularly on our FB group(which is where most everyone looks, as well as the event page noting that I’m setting up CS2)

92

Well, it takes a bit of knowledge of who you’re trying to reach, first. If you know what they like, even vaguely, you can connect to them. If you can throw some kind of gathering with incentive (Like free food or a tournament with free entry etc) with the right advertising to back it up (personal invitations or fliers in colleges etc), you might be able to get them to show up. After that, if you can make a strong first (or second) impression, and get people on board with you on your plans for the future of the scene, you have a foundation to begin. It’s pretty hard though, in general… if you can pull it off it only gets easier afterwards.

93

hey cool :angel:

94

so I’ve had the game for a while now but I’ve hardly played it. I really want to play but it just seems like I can’t get a decent hold on the game.

I want to play as Valk but I really don’t know what I’m doing. I looked up some of the combos on Dustloop but some of them seem out of date, and are hard to do without an accompanying video. I like Rachel too but she looks really hard to use.

Are there any decently written guides out there that show you the ropes of each character and how to play them?

95

This game is really really hard to understand, at first. For video references, I would recommend checking jourdal’s youtube account (http://www.youtube.com/user/jourdal?feature=chclk)for most of the highest level Japanese videos and looking til you find a strong (over 200 PSR) valkenhayn player, then talking to people on dustloop in the valkenhayn boards to understand what exactly they’re doing. You have an added disadvantage because Valkenhayn himself isn’t particularly easy as a first character.

96

There was intent to have a community produced video for each character at one point, but I don’t really know what’s become of that project. =/ And sadly the only Valkenhayn video tutorial I can find is what I’d call “intermediate” stuff rather than fundamentals (like how the heck to move around as the crazy guy).

I’m guessing your best bet is to ask around on in the Dustloop Valk forum to see how they’d suggest you get started. He’s not an easy one to make the jump to BB on though.

97

Also I know the Valkenhayn mod, he’s a talkative guy and willing to help. Contact “OrionXElite” for good 1 on 1.

You can tell him 1000dollasocks sent you, he’ll get a kick out of it.

98

Hey Dacidbro, I know you! Saw some of your matches at ReveLAtions and EVO 2011. You’re good, man!

I have to ask, what’s your opinion of the new BBCS Extend they’re coming out with? I haven’t played the game competitively for that long (just got it last month) and I think it really sucks that they’re coming out with crazy updates every few months. One thing I would be thankful for is some major nerfing of Makoto & Noel so people dont just spam with them or use a single BnB throughout the entire match. What’s your take on it?

99

I think it’s great they’re releasing large and primarily free or cheap updates so often. Since their game is not yet perfectly balanced and they realize it, they want to continue to compress the tier list for a really solid overall game where all of their characters are well integrated. I don’t know if there’s much more that could be asked for, really, from a game developer. Sure the combos can take a bit to re-learn, but the most difficult parts of fighting games to learn stay with you. Footsies and mix up and etc.

100

What do you think Tager needs in order to be better than “mostly good”?

101

So today marks the third time I want to start playing blazblue.
I really like the game but don’t know where to start, I’m interested in maining Litchi and just going to her character forum in dustloop proves to be really confusing they use japanese names for moves when the game uses their english name and of top of that a lot of the information on that forum is outdated.
Also I still can’t get used to the way this game plays, everytime I run into pressure I don’t know how to get out of it and establish my own.
I would appreciate any pointers in how could I begin learning this amazing game.

Ps. Sometimes I press D whenever I get a hit confirm thinking this is mvc, I miss my preschool launchers.

102

I don’t know why, but the Litchi forums on Dustloop are completely useless - it’s bizarre considering how popular the character is. I’m not an expert in her myself, but here are a few things that might help:

[LIST]
[]In her move notations, you’ll see [m] and [e]; [m] stands for “mantenbo” which is the name of her staff and means “while holding the staff”, while [e] seems to stand for “empty-handed” or something and means “while not holding the staff”. And if you’re not familiar with the BB directional notation, the numbers correspond to the numbers on your numeric keypad, so 6 is right, 2 is down, 5 is ‘stick in neutral’ etc.
[]Consider going through the ingame tutorial for her - probably multiple times, because it’s a huge wall of text. The ingame tutorials are actually surprisingly smart advice.
[]If you’re a total newcomer to the game as it sounds like you are, play through the “generic” tutorial bits too - you’ll be using Ragna, but it’ll explain a lot of terminology and system stuff that’s not in other games. You can also look at the System Guide on Dustloop - it contains a TON of info on the mechanics of the game, from how many airdashes you can do, to what purple throws mean, the different blocks, to the different types of teching, etc.
[]It’s definitely worth doing at least the first 5 or so trials for Litchi - they’ll teach you what her moves look like, and a few basic BnB combos for different situations.
[]In terms of how to get out of pressure, you have a few options:
[LIST]
[]Litchi does have a frame 1 invulnerable DP, but only when she has her staff. 623D (Tsubame Gaeshi in the japanese, don’t have an english movelist in front of me) can be used as a reversal if there are holes in your opponent’s blockstrings, but of course, like most dragon punch style moves, it’s got some healthy recovery on it (though it’s actually a little harder to punish than many)
[]All characters have access to a move called a “counter assault”; To do this, you need 50 heat, then push towards+AB (6AB) while in blockstun. Your character will break out of blockstun and do an attack with some pretty serious invulnerability frames, but which does no damage. Litchi’s counterassault works like most (but not all of them) and knocks the opponent across the screen if it hits, so it gets you out of pressure for 50 heat. This can be baited, of course - it’s not unblockable, but it usually hits because your opponent is in mid attack when it comes out.
[]If you have a couple of frames of ‘breathing room’, you can jump and use barrier guard to eliminate high-low mixups, and then maybe airdash or double jump over your opponent if you’re in the corner, or backwards if you’re not. Careful about being predictable with this though, as your opponent can jump and air throw you (Though you can always tech that if you’re quick enough)
[*]All your normal fighting game tricks of backdashing or counterattacking as appropriate still apply.
[/LIST]
[/LIST]
Hopefully some of that is useful.

103

PLEASE post something like a tutorial on Hazama! I’m having issues with a few of his combos. Particularly the ones after Jayoku Houtenjin/Serpent’s Infernal Rapture hit, when you have to hit his drive 3 times and combo it into Jakou/Hungry Coils. Also, I’ve noticed that a person can also be launched into the air using 5B, 5C instead of 5C, 2C after Zaneiga/? hits, though I haven’t seen many people use it in combos. Maybe it’s because it changes the trajectory of the launch and you can’t really follow up with a lot of things unless you’ve got perfect spacing. Still, I think it should be put out there in case anyone wants to experiment.

104

What made you start using bang? Also do you know when the dustloop bang tutorial is coming out or if it is already out?

105

Sorry guys, been busy, will try to get some kind of comprehensive answer to questions soon. Going to sleep long night long day tomorrow :slight_smile:

106

How fast does the Wheel of Fate turn?

On a serious note, were you always a “good” player, or did you suck at first? Also, did you see yourself improving a lot, gradually, or was there just one day where everything had come together and you knew that you had significantly passed where you were before? The hardest part about fighting games is slogging through all those loses and getting frustrated at not seeing improvement on a regular basis.

107

Admittedly, my Hazama is rather weak in terms of combos. I can try to teach you something much, much more important than combos (Mix up, neutral), but not the combos themselves. dustloop.com has all the combos though, and probably better knowledge of neutral and mix up too, anyway