How much a distortion can get scale down is determined on a per-distortion basis - it’s a good idea to understand how much damage your distortions do at minimum, so that you can make educated guesses as to when it’s worth throwing one onto the end of a combo. Noel’s Fenrir still does nearly 1k damage at max scaling, so it can finish things when your opponent might otherwise squeak out with a bit of health at the end of a combo. Also, note that Distortions (and Astral Heats) disable bursts for the duration.
Well, Ragna is not my main and I’m a bit of a major noob myself at Blazblue so far, but I recently replayed this matchup and managed to win on my second try this time. (It took me who knows how many tries the first time around. :eek: )
Basically, I just killed George the XIII each time she brought him out and then spammed Ragna’s drive. It was very noobie, but it seemed to work.
I had not realised you could take out George. That one thing changed it from a seemingly impossible match into a difficult one. It took me three tries, but I got her in the end. The rest of the matches were braindead after that 
Thanks for the help!
I’m glad I could help. :tup: I actually didn’t realize you could take out George either until I did it by accident. (I thought he would have disappeared after shocking me once and was surprised when he didn’t go away. XD)
I was disappointed with that whole fight though, since I thought there was some way to throw out three lobelias at once as Rachel. I didn’t realize until later that it was just her unlimited version that could do that. 
I plan on getting CS alongside my new shiny 360. I would get EX but it seems the store I’ll be getting my 360 at doesn’t carry BB:CSEX, so my nearest (and cheapest option) is BB:CS.
My question is - despite BB:CSEX being out already (from the looks of things), can I still get matches in BB:CS, or has everyone moved to CSEX?
You’re probably going to have a pretty hard time getting matches on BB:CS, especially on 360. I would just buy EX from an online retailer.
Well damn. That effectively means I’ve got no use for the console right now.
Oh well, I’ll just ask again. This time I’ll specifically ask about the Extend version.
EDIT - FYI, you double posted.
Yeah; Matches in CS were basically dried up about a month ago when I was still messing around with it.
No chance of just ordering online? You shouldn’t be beholden to what some random retailer has heard of.
Actually, this might be subpar, but I got PS3+BB:CSEX for all that I had.
My PSN ID is renvalt32, for those who even care. Right now I’m deciding between Ragna and Jin. Probably gonna main Jin, since Hakumen feels incredibly difficult to play as (that, and out of everyone, I’ve gotten the most challenges done with him - arcade mode’s a different story).
It’s not the best, but given what I paid, I’d say I got my money’s worth (I went in with $270, to be fair. I got Limited Edition BB:CSEX and the console, and had $20 left over, which I spent on Devil May Cry 4 - my first DMC game ever, and then Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which I haven’t even opened yet).
Was looking for something I could slam together with DMC4, but… I didn’t see anything that caught my eye. So for now, this’ll have to do.
That’s not a bad deal, really. The PS3 is still like $250 most of the time, so getting more than that is pretty good.
Sorry about the PSN though. I’m XBL only until EX gets cheap enough used to buy a second copy.
Ah, no worries. Btw, it was a 160GB PS3, not a 320GB. And it was bought second-hand, which explains the pricing.
On the flip side, however, it does mean I officially own a current gen console, one of my goals for this decade. So, it’s not a total loss, financially speaking~
EDIT - Should mention that the BB:CSEX copy was new, but the console, DMC4, and ET:QW was not.
Well, yeah, if you want a 320GB one, you’re probably paying closer to $300. Honestly, I don’t see a lot of value in the added space unless you intend to like, store movies on your PS3 for some reason. (My 360 has a 60GB HD and it’s still not full, and I play TONS of downloadable games.)
But anyway, enjoy. PS3 is a solid system if you can get over the godawful online store interface.
I might not even use the interface. I’m satisfied enough with BB:CSEX and DMC4 as it is. Lord knows that anymore games, and I might just die of having so much fun on the PS3.
Same here, I greatly prefer playing on XBL but our local players tend to play on PS3 so I need to pick it up at some point. Airk let me know if you’d be interested in matches this week, I need a whole lot of schooling, I’ve spent wayyy too much time on other games. Also were you going to play SG?
I’m busy tonight, but could totally do some matches tomorrow after work. (like… 6:30 or 7:00pm Eastern time)
I haven’t had time to even check out the SG demo. x.x
Thursday’s one of the night’s I’m out at the arcade unfortunately. I’m on often, I’ll catch you one of these nights and toss out an invite.
Trying to ease my way into fighting games and just have a question about the characters. I know in regards to “Which one should I play” it’s basically a matter of trying them all out for myself, but are there are any characters in particular that I should stay away from until I have a better understanding of the fundamentals (i.e: someone told me to stay as far away from Carl as possible due to his unorthodox fighting style)?
Eh. It depends. Up to a certain point, it really doesn’t matter who you pick, because you’ll be learning a lot of generic stuff that applies to all characters. (Like, how to do special moves and basic combos). Then you start to get into character specific stuff for a while, as you learn the ins and outs of your character. And then it sortof heads back towards the general a bit towards the end of the learning curve.
It’s mostly going to depend on how much effort you intend to put in on a character before you decide to stick with them or move on. If you’re looking to pick a character, play the heck out of them (relatively) and then decide “Eh, this isn’t working for me, let’s try someone else” then I’d suggest you start with the less specialized characters first. If you’re just going to mess around for a while to find someone whose style and visuals and the like work for you (Note: This is an entirely viable way to choose a character) then it really doesn’t matter who you pick at all. And of course, if you already had a 90% sort of strong idea of who you wanted to play, you could just pick them and go.
If you want to learn how to play these games “properly”, then I suggest that you pick Jin or Litchi or maybe Bang. Or Platinum. I used to recommend Ragna for this, but he’s so braindead in Extend that he’s not going to teach you the basics as well because you have so much stuff you can just just rely on to easy your way out at lower levels of play. Jin, Litchi and Bang (and Platinum) are all good, solid characters who don’t have any super easy-mode strats or crutches. Tsubaki and Makoto are both also good learning characters, but since they’re considered relatively weak, they may be frustrating (though at the same time, that weakness might be instructive.). All that said, you don’t really need to learn how to play “right” because, frankly, it’s only ‘right’ for about half the cast anyway. Picking Arakune isn’t really going to use practically any of the same “fundamentals” that you would learn playing a more traditional character. And frankly, neither is Tao. Or Valk (well, maybe about half the time). And Lambda is a whole different ball of wax, and so on and so forth.
So yeah. If you’re completely new to fighting games, it might just be simpler to pick people who seem cool until you find someone you like.
[S]But how can I choose based on visuals when they all look awesome?[/S] Well, at least it’s nice to know that I don’t have to wet my feet with a ‘gateway’ character unless I really want to (though the amount of variety in the characters interests me about as much as it scares me, but I digress). I guess I’ll just have to see whichever one interests me the most and try to stick with them. Or play Platinum.
Cheers for the advice.
I’d go through the character specific tutorial sections for the characters who seem like fun (or maybe all of them. There aren’t really THAT many and the tutorials are short.). They’ll give you a brief overview of how the character is ‘supposed’ to play, along with an infodump of some basic techniques (that, if you’re anything like me when I started playing this game, will go in one ear and right out the other the first time you go through this stuff) and then give you a chance to screw around against a really easy opponent. But most importantly is the brief writeup on how the character is supposed to play, so that you can judge on what sounds like fun. Of course, since I have copious free time, I shall write my own brief synopses…though there’s also the Dustloop Wiki entry for each character, though that doesn’t always have a useful synopsis.
Arakune: One of the most nonstandard characters in the game, still. His gameplan depends on stalling for time and applying enough pressure to land moves that curse his opponent, rather than really worrying about doing any meaningful amount of damage. Once he curses his opponent, he’s quite capable of ending the round in a single big combo if his opponent can’t hold him off long enough.
Bang: A high mobility, close range character with some deceptive tricks. Bang has pretty good mixup with high/low, a command throw, and crossups, and he has a limited supply of nails that he can use to apply pressure/control space/set up mixups.
Carl: Another thoroughly nonstandard character, Carl is almost two characters in one, since the player controls his robotic ‘sister’ as well as well as Carl himself. Carl has low health and iffy pressure on his own, but if he can get an opponent trapped between himself and Nirvana, he has extremely punishing mixup (verging on the unblockable with the right setups) and brutal resets that can end a match quickly.
Hakumen: A character for the patient, Hakumen consumes his ‘heat’ (‘super’) gauge with all his special moves, though it fills on its own over time. His normals control a lot of space and his drive is a counterattack mechanic that can be used to turn things around if you can predict your opponent. He’s somewhat lacking in mobility, however.
Hazama: A pretty unique character, with an unusual style of mobility; He’s bad at moving around via ‘normal’ methods, and his normals lack range, but he has extremely strong mobility and space control capabilities using his chains. He’s also an explosive character, because while his ‘general’ midscreen (and even corner) damage is forgettable, certain starters lead into a LOT of damage, and he can use 50 meter to turn almost any hit into a large combo.
Jin: Jin is well rounded and maybe the closest thing the game has to a ‘standard’ style character. He controls space very well at a number of different ranges and has a mean air game, but his mixup is a little weak, and he has to compensate by being tricky. Easy to play, hard to master.
Lambda-11: The one really dedicated zoning character in the game; Lambda can potentially hit almost anywhere on the screen at neutral, but you’ll need good reflexes and smart reads to make sure that your attacks go where your opponent does. Played well, she can keep most opponents from ever getting near enough to threaten her, closing in only for combo damage, and then backing away before they can recover.
Litchi: While a relative ‘standard’ character, Litchi switches between, essentially, two ‘stances’ depending on whether she is holding her staff or not, and her gameplay is dependant on being able to switch fluidly between them, and use the projectile properties of her staff to create openings. She also has some of the strongest corner ‘oki’ in the game, which can make it very hard for opponents to escape once she pins them down in the corner.
Makoto: A fairly straightforward rushdown character, with quick movement short range normals, and fairly strong mixup. Currently considered a little bit weak due to not really having anything on par with Bang’s mobility and nails.
Mu-12: A sort of half-zoning character, with long range normals and a variety of projectiles that work in unusual ways and can be used to apply pressure or set up approaches. Has huge damage potential, but relatively weak mixup.
Noel: Another relatively short ranged character, Noel has a number of attacks with strange invulnerability properties on them and applying those attacks to counter your opponent’s options is key to her game.
Platinum: A close to mid-range character whose playstyle changes based on what random item she has at any given time. Each item gives her a strong option, and being able adjust on the fly to take advantage of each one is crucial for her game.
Rachel: A weird combination of pressure and zoning, Rachel has the ability to put a lot of different…stuff on the screen to either keep her opponent out, or create an opening for herself to go in and do damage. She has the ability to enhance her mobility through the use of her drive as well, but using too much of her wind gauge moving around seriously decreases her ability to do damage, since many of her combos require wind.
Ragna: Ragna is a pretty basic character with good mid-range attacks, and strong defensive and mixup options. He gets a lot of damage off just about everything, and is pretty much the ‘flavor of the month’ for folks who want the best results for the least work.
Relius: Sortof a “character and a half” compared to Carl’s two. His ‘partner’ Ignis, moves around independantly of him as a result of many of his moves, and can be used to create a sort of tag-team pressure. Not as devastating as Carl, but a bit more consistant.
Tager: Tager is a grappler, so he’s got low mobility, and big damage. Very strong against some opponents, but struggles against characters that can ‘lame him out’ by getting a life lead and running away. Still pretty solid this time around though.
Taokaka: If Bang is “highly mobile” Tao takes it up to 11. Plays like pretty much no character ever, anywhere, with her ability to zoom around the screen and attack from all sorts of crazy angles. Not an easy character for most people to learn, but capable of really blowing people up in the right hands.
Tsubaki: Another relatively close range character, who charges a special guage to get access to ‘powered up’ versions of her special moves. Her mixup is kindof weak, however, and without charge her damage potential is kindof low. Needs to outplay her opponent to get the win and currently overshadowed by other ‘rushdown’ characters that don’t require as much resource management to be effective.
Valkenhayn: A high mobility/low mobility character - low mobility in human form, high mobility and strong mixup in a gauge-limited wolf form. Potentially very strong, but requires a good understanding of how to move around in wolf form and when to revert back to human to reach anything like his max potential.