It depends on if you want to tag cancel the opponent grounded or airborne. Her best moves to tag cancel out of are Phoenix Talon, Flower Power, or Fortune Cookie because of the length of those respective moves. Usually, most people would tag her out during Phoenix Talon because that doesn’t connect into anything else, so it is more logical to tag cancel then unless you are in a really tight spot. Fortune Cookie can eventually combo into Phoenix Talon, and Flower Power can combo into LMH launcher, thus saving a bar.
Her best anti-airs are either her cr.:hk: or her Phoenix Talon. Cr.:hk: is self-explanatory how to do, but the timing is a bit weird I find since it’s hitbox is kind of low for an anti-air. As for Phoenix Talon, the best I can tell you is to do is press :d:+:p::p::p: and then start spamming any of the punches which it seems is what you do. Regardless if it feels sloppy, it will connect, and that is what matters.
So I did some messing around with Xiaoyu in the lab tonight. Some observations:
Any combo that ends with Xiaoyu still in Rain Dance potentially means you can mix them up on landing by doing California Roll as they’re getting up. This will quickly allow you to cross to the other side, potentially giving you a ground crossup opportunity to open them up with another combo.
I haven’t found a good way to combo into Flower Power (qcf+K during AOP).
f.st.MK (the forward moving knee) links into LP and MP. Might be a solid hit-confirm starter.
When spaced properly, Shooting Star (qcf+K) will hit the edge of your opponents hitbox, then put Xiaoyu back on the ground at neutral. If you do it shallow enough, Shooting Star only hits once (Xiaoyu doesn’t do the stomps that follow the dive kick) and ends up back on the ground allowing you to link other moves. If you do it slightly deeper Xiaoyu does the full followup but instead of back-flipping away, she just ends up back on the ground immediately. As far as I can see, no combo opportunities are possible after this.
If Shooting Star whiffs and you are not holding a direction, it leaves Xiaoyu in Rain Dance. This might set up openings for you to surprise them with EX California Roll into Cyclone Left (K during California Roll) since people will try to punish you on landing but EX California Roll is strike immune. If you ARE holding a direction when you land (again only if it whiffs) you will land in neutral, potentially allowing you to mixup with her overhead.
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I dont know if anyone found this out but J.HK,Cr.Hp,EXqcf+p,f+mk,cr.mk(cancel to phoenix),qcf+hk. Decent damage for one bar.
^^^I’m pretty sure they can tech after the f+MK in this combo.
Does anyone else use cr.HK instead of cr.HP to juggle into AOP qcf+HK? I find it’s so much easier to hit that combo since the sweep gives you a LOT more time to go into Phoenix and land all three hits of the Talon.
I’ve been using C.HP, but it’s not the best. I trade with the stronger jump in attacks, but so long as I time it right I seem to come out the victor the majority of the time. I’m not really happy with it but I’ve had more luck with it than C.HK so far.
I feel most of the Tekken cast have really weak ground anti airs. You simply need to air to air them to be most efficient. Unfortunately Xiaoyu has sub par air normals from my experience. The air normal that seems to work best is jumping light kick. Not the best anti air but its better than being constantly pressured by jump ins. The other option is to EX Mistrust. It has a little invulnerability from what I can tell but you still need to catch them early.
Just been playing with her online. The only anti air that I’ve been able to consistently use is Pheonix Talon (AOP > QCF + K). cr.HK’s hitbox isn’t that great. I’ve yet to try AOP > P as an anti air. Supposedly on the frame data, it has invincibility. However, it seems to whiff if the opponent is coming in at a narrow angle.
I was testing out Wave Crest as an anti air and if you do it late, it’s really good. I don’t think can reaction Phoenix stance wave crest but good if you’re already in the form I guess.
Against my Ryu dummy trying j. FP and j. HK, one move that seems to work as anti-air is Double Map Sweep, AOP > K. It ducks under the attack and catches them low as they land. Reminds me of Chun’s cr. MP from SF4, though I am purposely avoiding her here to avoid ruining my SF4 game…
Depends on the spacing, if you can hit with Xiaoyu’s feet rather than her legs on cr.HK, it’s a decent anti-air. Her ground game still needs more figuring out though. I’m pretty confident her best anti-air is Phoenix Talon, it’s just a matter of being able to execute it quickly enough on reaction.
Also, to add to some of my notes from last night, there is a particular spacing at which California Roll will end its animation on one side, but still place Xiaoyu on the other side of the opponent. It doesn’t recover fast enough to use this in a neutral ground mixup, but if you can do it on their wakeup as they’re standing up, I can see it being very dangerous.
I was working on hit-confirm combos last night… this is the most damaging zero-meter combo I could find off a hit confirm. Hitconfirm portion in brackets.
[cr.LP > cl.st.MP] xx qcf+P > P~P (down) > P > MP xx AOP > qcf+K
MP xx AOP can be substituted with cr.HP xx AOP if you’re in the corner.
A lot of the combos that have been listed so far start with a jump-in when that doesn’t seem practical to me, especially since anti-airs are so common, so I was more interested in combos that can be hit-confirmed and started from the ground.
You have to start the roll before they start getting up (it is 32 frames) which is important because wakeup animation is 30 frames meaning you can’t have the roll autocorrect and still be at a frame advantage if they forward roll on wakeup.
So do you think I should reorganize the OP or something? To be honest, a lot of the combos I’ve been adding in have been made obsolete by more damaging combos with the same cost to meter. I’m even thinking about changing it where certain combo parts are labeled as Combo #X or something to save space.
Oh no it’s fine, I was just mentioning it because the combo I listed doesn’t do as much damage (because it doesn’t start from j.HP which adds a lot of damage upfront) but imo is more practical.
I would put the one SnakeAes put under a grounded combo, but also keep that same combo that comes from the air under the air section. Overall, it seems like Xiaoyu doesn’t have many combos that are applicable considering it seems they all end in the same format and consist of doing RD to AOP, to P or Phoenix Talon something along those lines.
