I’ve been using the SFxT pad since it was released, and have had pretty good results with it (I’m by no means good at fighting games, probably just above average). But if there’s one thing I know I can do better on stick it’s dashes, after using friends’ sticks for a little bit.
I’ll keep practicing that part though, both with the IAD and without it.
Fun tip if you don’t know yet: Stay near your trap most of the time. Yes it’s good to be mobile but remember that playing near your trap(s) limits your opponent’s approach and be sure to react accordingly to how they disarm it. Remember what I said earlier in this thread that a good Naoto should always have an appropriate answer to their opponent making their approach easy. Are they 2Aing your traps? 2C them. Jumping over them? j.A or airgrab them. etc.
Just thought I should make this clear again since after being on a P4A hiatus, I decided to play online again and played like three Naotos who just let me walk all over them. 
What other characters are yall using if any? Try to pick up other charactes but none of seem to click to me like Naoto did… been thinking Aigis or Mitsuri
Aigis and Elizabeth. Feels good to play characters with decent normals.
Any Naoto players on XBL wanna show me a couple things… im pretty profecient ain moving around and waiting for openings… hell even rushing down…
love getting people in the corner with 236b 236b jb jc jb jc 236236a and just continuing the onslaught until they escape lol
wouldnt mind learning more damaging naoto combos so yeah… MrOuijaII on XBL just add me and send me a message wqith like SRK or something
Shit, I really need to stop jumping and laying traps too much. It’s bad habit I’ve developed since the opponent can simply jump or airdash in and get an easy air grab or combo. Gotta learn how to recognize safe “moments” to lay traps and to mix up how I lay them.
And yes this is something you should take note of.
[media=youtube]4JfsIPFnR2Y[/media]
New footage of Denpa, our savior.
Naoto video covering 5D by yours truly:
And… Naololto video that Blargh found:
Not sure if I’ll be able to get a response since this subforum seems to be dead, but is all the stuff in the OP still a pretty solid guide? They haven’t patched out SMP or anything? The game is finally out in Europe and Naoto is the character I’m liking the most.
Kind of, the very basic statements about how she operates are still true, and the loop has not been patched, its actually been improved quits a bit with omb and burst safe starters. As a character she’s probably evolved more than anyone else in the game, a lot of the things you have to do with her are not readily apparent, and optimizing with her involves a lot of experience and being able to see where the match will end up rather than where it is at any given point. For combos, dustloop is much more up to date with that. The best thing you can do is watch japanese vids. There are definitely talented US naotos, but they’re not as visible. That, and a lot of training mode.
Send me a pm if you have questions about the character, I always have fun talking naoto.
Yeah I figured out the SMP loop in training mode shortly after I made that post. I can do it pretty reliably in training mode but I drop it a lot when I’m actually playing. I’m having more problem with the midscreen combos to be honest though. I’ve been watching a lot of the videos on this channel:
Naoto seems to be the least used character but sometimes one will appear and I don’t think my execution is good enough to do the midscreen combos with the instant airdashes that they’re doing. I can do a lot of damage in the corner but midscreen I find myself only doing super basic combos like 5AA > 5C > 236B~Cx5. Another problem I have is that I sometimes get too focused on the fate meter. How much of a priority should it be? It’s just kind of silly because I sometimes get fixated on reducing it to 0, but by the time I’ve managed it, they’re already close to death.
To be honest I actually haven’t went online with Naoto yet though, I’m not all that confident about winning. I’ve been spending most of my time in training mode to practice combos, and versus mode to try and get familiar with playing against each character.
You don’t get that much more damage off the 66 5c extension, but you do get a lot more corner carry, a knockdown, and more potential for super enders. Just practice it and you’ll get it in a week or two. It might help to manually cancel aim into dash just to give yourself a timing reference.
for the fate counter thing, thats part of what I meant by having to know where the match would go. Basically, smart players will almost exclusively use their burst for when you hit the loop, so you’ll be out 50 meter for almost no damage. At a really basic level, if they have their burst, fate counters are much more valuable, because they have to use their burst before you use your meter, so you still have the ability to do your IK. Other times, its just more efficient. If you’re not in a position to smp them, you might have a chance to do a high fate counter combo.
214 d hit, 5c iad j. A j.c 236b 236236b takes 9 and fears them.
there are alaso burst safe iks, like throw omc 236236c.
it just takes the foresight to know whats more efficient given the situation.
Oops, 214 d hit, 5c iad ja jc 5c 236b 236236b 8s what I meant.
Helpful post, thanks. One other problem I’m having (and maybe my biggest problem) is that I don’t really know what to do when I don’t have meter with Naoto. I feel a little lost at the start of each round, should I just be playing defensively, setting traps etc until I’ve got some meter to work with? I’ve noticed that the auto combo builds a lot of meter, but it feels like I’ve wasted an opportunity to do some damage.
The number one thing at the start of the round is to safely build meter since that’s where most of her damage and options come from. 5aaa (the first part of her autocombo that leads to wallbounce) is good because it does just that and sets up a safe jump, which is just forward jump j. C. It puts them in enough blockstun to start pressuring, and when they start to respect it you can fake it with a late air dash j.aa j.b, air dash AC crossup, empty jump sweep, or you can do 5d after the wallbounce depending on the matchup and the situation. You can also 5d after a midscreen throw in almost every situation. You have some options for doing meterless damage, 5aa 5c 236b starters, any trap hit, throws in the corner, fatal counter 236b, counter hit j. C/j. B, etc.
How you should play at the start of the round depends on the matchup. Some characters can hit you from round start position pretty easily, (Mitsuru, Teddie, Narukami), others can’t easily stop you from doing superjump 214D or otherwise getting your game going.
She has some very high damage omb only smp combos with good corner carry which are on the dustloop combo thread and are mainly used for when your opponent has no burst, and there are some new corner sb trap combos which do big damage for very little meter. She also has big meterless dp punishes, counter hit confirms, SB trap combos, big damage for fatal counter 236AB which is low invuln from frame one, etc. She’s a very combo/execution heavy character, and yes, you have to know all of them to win with this character, so start building your combo repretoire now.
Learn to hit confirm properly, learn to lay traps as a way of ending pressure since she has essentially no high/low mixup game midscreen and almost all of her normals cancel into 214 C and 214 D, learn to cross up properly with her traps (214D into AC after a knockdown or crossing over in the air), and learn how to use traps for okizeme. Her traps start up at different times; 214D starts up in seven frames, 214C starts up in three, so as an oki tool midscreen, 66 214D allows for more crossup opportunities, whereas in the corner where you can’t cross up, 214C prevents them from poking out, throwing or teching, jumping, and using an AC escape. 214D is still good since it allows you to throw, whereas 214C will cause a throw to whiff, but that’s better after 236236B when they can no longer tech.
Visit the combo thread on dustloop, and check the wiki page for basic SMP stuff. She has a loop starter for almost everything, and if you put in enough time with the character and understand her proration and hitstun, you’ll pretty much learn how to improvise them if you find a loose hit somewhere.
Well, got my second hand copy and was looking to learn Naoto but I seem to be hitting a few brick walls;
-I’d say Labrys is my main one, she just comes crashing seemingly safely through all my traps with that j.B and the combination of her winch and that air to ground drop make me hesitant to shoot too much.
-Yu, I just don’t have a clue here, C-trap works pretty nicely on the dumb ones who just slide into it, but Raging Lion seems to crash through everything again and once he’s in he’s IN.
-Chie, see Yu but with Rampage instead of Raging Lion (I’m wondering if there are any instant block punishs I can get away with after the footstomp which usually follows rampage)
-Akihiko, this match I’ll do fine in for a while, but once he’s got enough bar to do that invincible dash thing I tend to end up blocking and then dead, I’m guessing the road to victory here lies in making use on the range on Naoto’s 5B and 5C, but is there anything else I can be doing?
Not really having much trouble with anyone else that I can’t iron out myself, but these guys just seem to completely obliterate my Naoto and I’m not quite sure what to do as abandoning her zoneing makes me wonder why I’m even playing her, but the zoning feels so risky there I’m not sure if I should be trying it.
One last thing would be anti airs, I feel like I am missing a major trick here since outside of having a C-trap above my head which certain characters don’t care about and shooting as a really early anti air, I’m not really sure what to do here.
Also on a separate note, since I am mainly looking for zoning which can transition into pressure (like Rachel/Vanilla Seth/Nazuna), am I barking up the right tree with Naoto or would I be better off with Yukio? I’m liking the ability to superjump D trap and lay multiple traps with Naoto, not to mention curse gauge shenanigans, delayed bullet mindgames and 5D-D into pressure but Yukiko’s agi doesn’t dissapear when someone sneezes on it and Yukiko seems to be able to IAD j.a combo off fans and do basic high low pressure full screen.
Well, thanks for any help.
Re; anti-air, If you’re really on point, you can 2B certain things or careless air dashes, but in general her 2B is worthless outside of a corner reset. If you have a D-trap in range and read something, you get ~4k off an air throw meterless if you air throw them into the trap. (air throw into trap, 2[c], 5c, IAD j. a, j. c, 5c, 236B, 66, 5c, IAD j. a, j. c, 5c, 236a).
The bottom line about the character is she has an above average ability to control space with traps, but she’s not a zoner. If you try and play her like guile you’ll get counter-hit all day.
Three of the match-ups you listed (labrys, Narukami, Chie) are probably the ones where you’re most likely to get screwed for that play style because they have good character specific movements for pretty much completely ignoring traps. Movement with naoto is really important, and at the end of the day her lack of a real high means that you have to either have godlike tick throw setups, or you just have to win neutral.
Labrys - you just have to respect j. b, and pretty much all of her buttons since they have huge hitboxes and outstanding priority. Exploit the fact that she has a terrible DP and try to stay on her.
Narukami - A raging lion is minus on block, so just start attacking. Just keep an eye on their meter, as they might one more cancel it. the B one is plus on block, but it’s really slow, you can just avoid it in neutral. If you really see them coming in a block string you can DP them. I’ve seen a video showing you could 2B and air throw them out of raging lion in a block string, but I couldn’t get it to work.
Also this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sZYnD1_A9E
Chie - Rampage is one of the few moves you can actually 2B, especially the B version. alternatively you can just use one of her other buttons to counterhit them out of it in neutral. I think I’ve seen more clashes with rampage than any other move in the game, so just be ready to hit more buttons. If they use it in a blockstring, just take it.
And skull cracker is super minus on block, the A and B versions are both punishable.
Akihiko - check out the Denpa v. Domi top 8 arc revo match. He plays the match-up better than anyone I’ve ever seen. You have to move a lot. The whole thing is that once he has you in blockstun you’re stuck playing the guessing game. Learn how kill rush and the follow ups work, it’s really the only way to figure out what’s going on. Basically if he does kill rush, he can do one of the follow-ups before he has to reset, which have different priorities, like kill rush sweep has different properties than sweep, his overhead gets new properties, etc.
The big mixup other than just high/low if command dash into throw, or command dash into something else. If you see the dash, just mash 5a; kill rush sweep is punishable, especially on instant block unless they’re at a high cyclone level.
Also stay at least sweep distance behind your traps, since the hitbox for EX corkscrew extends beyond his feet, so if you’re right behind your traps he can just sway into raw EX corkscrew and punch you in the dome. Even if it trades it’s hugely in his favor.
If you want a character than can zone to set up pressure, play Aigis.
Wow thanks, that post seems to answer a lot of my Naoto troubles lol, been trying Aigis on the side for a bit as well anyway so I guess putting a bit more time into her as well as Naoto won’t hurt either.
Naoto iAD combos…
The struggle. ;-;
I try to do the loop outside of Training, but the target keeps breaking free after the second 236B.
So, uh… what’s up with that?