What can you hit Athena if you block a LK Phoenix Arrow? I’ve been grabbed before as Athena,but from what I understand is that both players recover around the same time? Anyone got any technical information on this?
Also, I’ve noticed that characters are airborne during backdashes and have been trying out various air moves. Any good uses for this?
Well, depends. Normal throws in this game have 3 frames of start-up. You can punish Kyo for doing Shiki-Kai as long as he does a move that’s not 2 frames or faster (Or something odd like his EX DP, but that’s different). If someone like Terry or K’ can’t hit her with a d.B, that means it’s probably -2 or 3 frames of recovery. If you got thrown, that’s probably the case.
What you can do with Athena to test this theory is set your dummy to do phoenix arrow into dp. You block it and then try to throw her. If she DPs you, that means it’s -2. If she can’t DP you and she gets thrown, it’s -3. Reason being is her DP is 4 frames of start-up (If it didn’t get faster than in arcade, which I doubt). If it’s -3 recovery, the opponent has 1 frame of wiggle room to grab you before he gets DPed. If it’s -2, you’ll go into your start-up animation for your DP which puts you in the air and unable to be grabbed.
Give it a shot!
EDIT: So I tried it myself. I can grab her the second she lands, but I can’t hit her with st.C or d.B with Terry, which I know has 4 frames of start-up. So, I’m fairly certain it’s -3 on recovery. That’s not good or bad, really. For most people, they won’t be able to poke you out of it. You can also TK it really close off the ground for a poke. Even if it’s -3, that just means it’s throwable. The window to throw Athena is kinda wonky because the time she lands is covered in pink sparkles. Unless someone has some knowledge of when they can throw, they won’t really know to throw you. Even then, you now know the only thing that can stop you are 1-3 frame command grabs, throws, and moves so you’ll know not to throw it out against people like Daimon, Maxima, Benimaru, Clark, etc, but also that if you mash a C DP, block and hold back C, or backdash, you could catch them 
Play with it a little. I hope to see you bring more ideas for your characters to the table!
EDIT EDIT: It doesn’t combo, but because it’s a pretty safe move with a very odd timing, you can make people scared to press buttons and do some sort of mix up. For example, you can’t combo B Phoenix Arrow, but the recovery’s so short that you can teleport or do her command grab if someone’s afraid to poke you. You could land and throw out a CD, cancel it, and throw a fireball to keep pressuring your opponent. Since it’s -3, you can also teleport and gain some distance for hit and run tactics. Use your imagination!
k this is starting to piss me off a bit, what do u do against people that mash c.Bs with K’, Kula or anyone else that has BS speed of light rapid fire c.B?
and I’m not talking online here.
Who are you playing? You can often trade with far C or crouch D, or if you have a dude with guard point, that’s always an option. Unless they have reactions of a god and you get DP’d every time.
if you know they’re just mashing it during a blockstring or something, then [S]hit em in the dome with trijump L[/S] go for a hop and do your best punisher
The best you’ll get if you aren’t good at hitconfirming is lights into st.B st.D target combo. This actually becomes MUCH more threatening if you have a full bar of HD and the opponent is at least1/3rd a way from the corner or so. Otherwise you can get cr.Bs into st.A xx hcf+B, cr.B cr.A cr.C xx whatever (Note that you really need to be up in their shit for the cr.C to link) and cr.C hitconfirmed into hcf+K or whatever. There’s also cl.C/D xx ex qcb+P hcf+D, but note that you need to be in very close range for the hcf+D to connect. Unless they’re in the corner or you’ve got a full HD bar Mai isn’t going to get much combo-wise.
Basically, aside from instant command throws if it’s relatively deep they get a guaranteed grab attempt, outside of that range anything goes since she’s only very slightly -. I used to think it was unsafe against some extremely fast moves, but that’s only because I somehow managed to make a mistake with record lol, so I don’t believe there’s anything else that is guaranteed. Just note that there’s no “Did she or did she not” mixup with that move and j qcb+D, since the latter is completely airtight when blocked (Meaning they can just mash and won’t get hit).
Many characters can increase the movement of their backdashes by inputting their command air normals during them (Most notably Athena). Others don’t get much out of it besides building meter safely or deterring pursuit by attacking.
Aside from what was already mentioned, moves like Kyo stand D should reliably beat them.
http://www.gamespot.com/best-of-2011-awards/genre-awards/index.html?page=3
Congrats Kof
14,5K viewers on stream at SCR
Nice, sure it’s only Gamespot, but Nice.
And I always thought people doing the backdash command kick with Iori were just trolling.
Stream monsters thought me using cr.C with King at STA ranbats was trolling. Seriously, what’s with people these days.
Laban I heard you skipped SCR to go to FR and play DG FT10 cause you knew he wasn’t going to SCR and he has confirmed his going to FR. Laban vs DG FT10 shit is going to be mad hyped!
Anybody glance at the front page patch notes from Atlus?
Supposed to be adding a filtering system to ranked so you can try to avoid playing ass connections:tup: and they’re supposed to improve the connection evaluations:tup:
Alas, NESTS Kyo on PSN delayed til 1/10/12:tdown:
Wait is it just me that realizes that adding a filter that should’ve been in there from beginning and improving the connection evaluations** IS NOT** improving the netcode itself?
So the notes on the patch for the netcode arent very promising.
So far I haven’t heard anything that’s worth improvement netcodewise. I’m just hearing a few fixes to compensate for the horrible matches we find.
Though everything as of now is just words like when they kept hyping the netcode before release. So i’m still skeptical until the patch is out for everyone to play.
Nope. Thank god it’s a blast offline haha.
But yeah for the online warriors that does suck 
Hell yeah, KoF was hype at SCR. Wish it would have been at least top 8 on the second day rather than top 4, ended too quickly. :-p
Hopefully the “in addition to a number of other improvements” holds some water…maybe these are just a couple of things they were pointing out…but hey, even adding a filtering system is a further step than Capcom is willing to go…so fingers crossed anyways.
Gamespot gave this game the best fighter for 2011. Now that really isn’t saying much cause LoL review sites… but I kind of giving them props for pointing out this game has good balance and dept over the other fighters.