Air or Ground if you don’t mind me asking?
I typically throw out a lot of air bon voyages, or make my way in carefully with M swoop and fireballs. Air bon voyage is so ridiculously safe, it’s fine to throw out there as your main way to get in. You just can’t get too predictable, or you might eat someone’s super. (Mags Shockwave for example)
Not gonna lie, I’m pretty psyched that Karsticles’ loop made the front page.
Yeah that looks pretty damn good :O. Also anyone notice any changes to FB after the patch?
I’m actually really intrigued by this guy. Would you say he’s underplayed? It looks like a modest showing out here in this sub-forum compared to some of the other new characters. I actually was not expecting to like him but he’s grown on me.
Starting this week I’m gonna me testing him out as well as Amaterasu. I hear they go well together.
He’s fairly underplayed, people are scared off by his lack of damage and health I think (His only weaknesses in my opinion). He’s also kind of hard to play online (at least for me, I drop everything online) so I think the majority of people who actually play him seriously are people who are the type to practice IRL instead of online. Him and Ammy do go well together, fairly easy to set up unblockables with Ammy assist.
IMO Firebrand gets in for free. Sorry for not representing you guys better, me and my friends drove there so I was down like 28 hours since sleeping or you’d see some better Firebrand stuff. ^.^ I’ll represent all you awesome folks better next time!
I heard you had a pretty brutal bracket, and performed well.
Air.
Very underplayed.
Makes me kind of nervous about a nerf. :-/
Is there any assist other than Tenderizer that can setup Firebrand’s unblockable after a snapback reliably? Tested Jam Session but couldn’t combo properly if the opponent got hit on purpose by it. Drones and Hidden Missiles seemed too slow, and most lockdown assists (Cold Star, Dark Hole, Hyakuretsu Kyaku…) hit too low, meaning the opponent can airdash or double jump away from it. Is Tenderizer really the only one that works perfectly?
I’ve been thinking about that too … strangely I kind of hope that there isn’t. If Firebrand is gonna have the ability to kill your entire team off of a single touch, he can’t be too good in the neutral position. Unfortunately, his character design dictates that he’s already pretty damn good there without help. Being forced to run two assists that don’t aid in getting in (i.e. Tenderizer and Dark Harmonizer) is a fair price to pay for the heavy punishment that they add to his game. Of course, if we can find other ways to do the loop without Skrull or Morrigan, then you’re probably looking at the best character in the game.
A rant from a Firebrand fan:
Firebrand’s a good character, but there was a lot more they could have done with him. Personally, I was hoping his unique system would be a series of self-buff hypers where he absorbs various crests. So, he would be like Frank or Phoenix Wright, where your goal is to “level” him up. The point of what follows isn’t to create a “balanced” character, but just to show how mediocre Firebrand is compared to what he could have been. Each crest should provide some slight visual to indicate what he is gaining, as per the game.
Check this page for visual references:
The crests: Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Time, Heaven, Infinity
Unlike Demon’s Crest, performing each “crest” hyper would ADD to Firebrand, and not fundamentally change him. These are all permanent buffs/changes. Each crest increases Dark Fire’s damage.
Dark Fire (qcf.AA): Same as it is in the game, but becomes stronger with more crests. Say, 30K more damage per crest before scaling.
Earth Crest (qcb.AC): Gain the ability to fire a quick, ground-traveling fireball which replaces qcf.L and causes stagger; gain a Gamma-Charge-like attack; damage increase.
Air Crest (qcb.AB): Gain the ability to swoop up while in the air. Firebrand’s aerial projectiles become notably larger, crest-shaped projectiles.
Water Crest (qcb.BC): No clue - maybe just a general 10% speed increase, or something. There’s no water in this game for this move to really do anything.
Fire Crest (rdp.AC): Your fireballs gain more projectile durability and recover faster.
Time Crest (rdp.AB): Requires all 4 elemental crests. Firebrand takes half damage and increases his speed. Fireballs now all cause stagger.
Heaven Crest (rdp.BC): Requires all 5 other crests. Firebrand gains the ability to charge any of his projectiles, which gives them medium priority.
Let’s also not forget that in Demon’s Crest, it’s shown that Firebrand knows how to use magic, and he can purchase the following spells:
* (Cost 10) Shadow – creates a barrier of darkness that surrounds you and protects you
* (Cost 20) Hold – holds enemies in place for a short time
* (Cost 25) Imp – summons an imp to help Firebrand fight, but slowly consumes his money
* (Cost 50) Shock – causes an earthquake that damages onscreen enemies
* (Cost 80) Death – causes heavy damage to all onscreen enemies (this spell is only available at the Wise Man shop in Area II)
Wouldn’t it have been awesome if that were incorporated somehow?
Firebrand also had talismans he could equip:
* Crown – causes enemies and destructible objects to drop more money
* Skull – causes enemies and destructible objects to drop more health pickups
* Armor – reduces the amount of damage Firebrand takes
* Fang – increases the amount of damage that Firebrand’s projectiles cause
* Hand – this is actually a pretty interesting item from a design standpoint, because it actually allows one additional projectile to be on the screen at a time. So for instance, the Flame Gargoyle can normally shoot a single projectile all the way across the screen. If you miss your target, you have to wait for the projectile to leave the screen before you can fire another. But with this Talisman, you can have 2 on the screen at once. This not only gives you a second chance to hit an enemy, but also allows you to fire at a much higher rate of speed, which is effective regardless of the gargoyle form you have selected.
So, in short, there was a lot more they could have done with him beyond what happened. He could have been a much more interesting and fun character to use.
They hit too low if you just call them and try to lol an unblockable at them. Shoot an upwards fireball and force them to block or get hit on the way in. It changes their trajectory. Tag them with c.H + assist (Block or hit, doesnt matter.) when they hit the ground and cancel it into unblockable. Longer setup, but still reliable, and opens up possibilities if you dont want skrull. Works best with cold star. The other assists leave small gaps. Harddrive still gets out of it, but obviously you shouldn’t try to get this on sentinel unless hes got no meter.
As long as you start with 1 meter, and just loop a standard bnb, you don’t actually need morrigan anyway. You don’t quite build a full meter with it, but by starting with a full meter, you ensure you have enough to kill off 2, depending on their HP. Start with 2 meters and you’re golden for most of the cast. You don’t get infinite reps without morrigan, but then, you don’t NEED infinite reps do you? You only need enough to kill 3 characters.
Here are some rough numbers with zero substance, but kind of get my point across.
WARNING: EXTREMELY FLAWED MATHCRAFT AHEAD. (Half my numbers are bogus, but its the THEORY that counts)
Say 1 full meter has a value of 100. And say that your bnb + fireball + assist on the way in builds roughly 80% of a full meter. Obviously you need 100 meter after a combo to do a snapback.
X is the amount of meter you start with.
So, we could determine that if ((X+80) - 100) is greater than 0, we can guarantee a snapback at the end of our combo, as this means we can actually facilitate the -100 part, as that is where we spend the meter.
Start with 1 full meter and we get this:
((100+80) - 100) = 80
So after one bnb into a snapback, we end up with 80% of our meter left over. Repeat the equation.
((80+80) - 100) = 60
60 > 0, so we know we have a snapback.
If we begin with 1 meter, we can repeat this pattern 5 times, although on the last rep we end up with ((20+80) - 100) = 0, which still gets us a snapback, but it costs us exactly 1 meter.
5 reps for starting with 1 meter.
If each rep is giving you roughly 400k damage, then we get 2,000,000 damage for 5 reps, which means we get 2,000,000 damage for starting with one meter. Starting with 2 meters gives us double, 3 meters triple etc. Thats still a shit ton of damage. 2,000,000 will kill 2 characters on most teams. Which is pretty significant. Starting with 2 meters = 4,000,000 damage. That’s game son.
Now I know for a fact that some of my numbers are rough as hell. 80% meter gain is one. 400k for a bnb with no super is another. The latter i think is closer to 350k. But this is a good start point for figuring out how much meter you need to start the ‘loop’ and not need morrigan. The answer in most cases is 2, but you can still do some damage with 1.
Wow. Sorry if anyones brain hurts after reading my terrible maths. I’m pretty sure the worlds IQ dropped after reading this post. Like I say though, it’s more the theory than the numbers. You guys could work it out properly yourselves depending on your team/combo.
((X+Y) - 100) = Z
X = meter you start with
Y = % of meter gained
Z = meter you start with on the following rep.
if Z > 0, then your rep is successful. If Z = EXACTLY 0, you’re also ok.
With this you can judge how much meter you need to build before attempting to kill off the opponents team if you don’t want to use morrigan. Its pretty simple, but im sure I just made it obscenely confusing.
[media=youtube]sQS7w0x4PAs[/media]
at 0:57 of this video, Chris G does a firebrand loop that starts with launcher, into air string into command air dash M into relaunch. Is this something that can only be done in luminous body? that shit is dope.
Being able to kill 2 characters at the start of the match is still huge … I know I’m personally willing to trade Morrigan for another assist that helps me land that first hit.
Also, if you do want a meter building assist, remember the dog has one too.
can u elaborate on what you mean here? u mean the fact that skrull just sets up the unblockable on the second incoming character? you still have to deal lethal with the team…
I know, but it takes like ~210 frames to complete (up 50% from Dark Harmonizer) and is much more vulnerable (whereas DH is only vulnerable for 10 frames). I feel that it’s a suboptimal arrangement, even though Ammy > Morrigan in terms of overall viability as an anchor.
I meant that starting the match with 1 bar and no meter assist should still afford you several reps of the snap loop. ILL_BILL estimated that you might be able to kill 2 characters under such circumstances, and I think that’s still okay if it frees up an assist slot.
Tested stuff while ng and just like Firebrand/Viper dry tag tech you can get the same out of Firebrand with Zero, though Zero’s assists are way less useful for our favorite fiend.
Ooooh really? I used Zero in vanilla but axed him for Firebrand in Ultimate. Might be worth me picking up again since my viper is shitballs as.
You can do it outside of luminous body but it’s waaaay easier to do it while in luminous body. Sadly though it doesn’t really increase damage enough for it to be worth it outside of the regular bread and butter. You can actually loop it twice in a row outside of luminous body(launch, H twice, medium dive, H twice, repeat), but the timing on that one gets really tricky. You have to hit them with the H in the air as fast as you can when you launch them.
Also if you attempt it outside of luminous body, you have to keep your combo short, and use less normals on relaunches after dive kick and bon voyage if you decide to do both of them after the loop. They’ll flip out after bon voyage if you even attempt to go H,S, you can only use S at this point.