Nakoruru Strategies and Matchups

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
21

A-Sakura

How do you all feel about this matchup? Whenever I fight the bitch it seems like I can enter the match in confidence. Outside her RC’s she’s not really the caliber of a character (even if played well) that can easily beat Nako provided that player’s also using her correctly, (a rarity).

Of course I attribute all that to the individual Sak players’ lack of knowledge on combating Nako.

Even still, general strats should’ve been enough in that bitches favor to tilt the matchups, especially when my own lack of knowledge in the matchup was similar.

I feel this one’s in favor of Nako. Now can we get it on paper?

22

****No takers
Fine I’ll start, editing this post and next as I go.

Firstly some basic system stuff

Crouchable moves
(Mostly from Buk’s Systems guide at Gamefaqs)
(If you haven’t read it yet, do so it’s a good read)

Crouching Height- 61-Both Sakura and Nakoruru

 **Nakoruru's close s.LP (height 62)**
        Sak can duck Nako's godly jabs, so no walking pressure LP's for this 
        matchup, though you could always go for a whiff over a crouching Sak
        then throw following any of Nako's moves that give her huge frame
        advantage, like df+HP, or RC bird hop fierce dismount.
        Very misleading.

  **Sakura's second hit of qcb+HK (height 77)**
        Good time to go from crouching to RC Bird Hop, HP mixups.

  **Sakura's far s.HK (Uncrouchable)**
         So it hits mid.  If Nako see's it coming all Nako needs is one slide to start
         her mixup game, and her slide's fast enough to catch the roundhouse 
         during its startup or recovery.  She could catch it when its hitting frames
         are out there also, but she'd have to be dancing just barely out of its
         reach for this to work.

  **Sakura's s.LP (height 66)**
        If Sakura wanted, she *could* whiff this over Nako's head to go for
        setting up a punchthrow crossup MK attempt...
        Maybe she could do this following her qcb+HK's, to
        stand her up, but that doubles the risk of Nako RC'ing 
        out of there due to the timing of the link and Nako
        could crouch BOTH moves

  **Sakura's far s.HP (height 62)
  Sakura's far s.MP (height 64)**
        These were in Buk's systems guide... But I doubt A-Sak would use them
         here.

LIFE
At R2 both have 13600. Doubt either would be R2
At R1 10880

ROLLS
Nakoruru 120 [27/2U/4R]
Sakura 112 [27/4R]
Both characters make effective use of their rolls with their respective mix-ups, Though Nako really doesn’t roll through attacks and Sakura won’t find too many opportunities to roll unless Nako’s CONSTANTLY abusing her birdhop firebird/dive moves.

DASH
Distance/height
Sakura FWD[88/11.3] BACK[88/11.3]
Nakoruru FWD[113/22.5] BACK[113/22.5]
Nako’s dash is good, ala Cammy’s.
It’s funny to note that while some moves cover more distance, there’s a distinctiveness of the speeds of each dash. Sak’s dash isn’t Kens for instance, it covers as much distance almost as Hibiki’s, but it’s "slower."
Still a dash and all dashes more or less are useful as most characters use them.

DIZZY TIME MODIFIERS
(60 stun for both)

Sakura No Modifiers 2/3/5 seconds base
Nakoruru adds a whole second:arazz:

If both are in A-Groove, a dizzy win’s the match.
Whoever’s mixups are stronger I’d imagine get’s the dizzy.
-OR-Whichever player successfully lands those mixups gets the
dizzy.
In which case whichever character’s mixups are easier
to setup. Complicated. Editing as I go.

GUARD BAR RECOVERY
Nakoruru-Fast Type
Sakura-Normal Type
This isn’t really too big a deal. Sakura’ll destroy so much of Nakoruru’s guard meter if Nako isn’t careful, and Nakoruru doesn’t really have moves that can effectively guard crush to boot outside of CC.
Good to know though that Nako shouldn’t be blocking too much shit from Sak

23

BnB
Nako (R1) d.LKx2, d.MP xx qcd+MP (23 stun) (1886 damage)
Sakura (R1) d.LKx2, s.LK xx dp+HP (24 stun) (1904 damage)

Random
Seems like Nako needs RC bird hop to qcb+HP to “reset” the match and escape most (but not all of)of Sakura’s setups following a knockdown.
Bird’s weakness is her strength. Go figure.

Qcb+k, qcf+LP Catches Sak’s roll’s and RC’s as she moves
forward to punish landing.
*Spacing required
This move if you ask me, next to Nako’s low jump Roundhouses is
probably her best bet for getting in on most characters. "Fireballs"
that knockdown are always good for that purpose.

HCB+P following a punchthrow forces Sakura to roll or RC out
(Can this be punished with a slide?)
*Roll-No
*RC’d moves-yes
*She could just block the bird

Sak’s MK crossup is useless vs Nako’s d.HP
(But this could presumably be mixed up with dive kicks)
*Same token, Sak’s crouching size and her hitbox while standing make it
almost impossible to cross her up without setting it up with a LP/MP slide

Sak safe falling vs Nako’s MP ground slide-
Looks easier to land a qcf+P and nail Sakura after the knockdown. I don’t like that move, trying to consistently get
repeated ground slides timing down to punish safe falls.
***Tested, **Nako can punish people who safe fall often with ground slides following her
BnB. However, the timing’s strict enough that you’d have to follow up with a slide
knowing the other person is going to safe fall.
*Very nice, but if Sak doesn’t safe fall she blocks the slide and lands her BnB/CC
*IF Sak likes safe falls and doesn’t have a CC yet it’s worth the risk.
Force her to stop and start the mixups from there.

***Sak can’t get away with d.MP xx qcb+HK here. **She’ll have to make due with qcb+MK
to get anywhere with it.

She (Sakura)has a good anti-air from close up (s.fierce/c.fierce) AND from far away (RC rh HK), a good long range poke (s.rh), a damaging BnB off of c.short that sets up crossup mixups with her dive kick, roll, AND j.forward, she has a good corner trap with her RC fireball, excellent air to air with j.strong
-Gunter-Buk’s Tips of the Day Thread

Un-techroll-able punch throw which seems to grab from ridiculous ranges at time is big too. She has the generic shoto 3 frame standing fierce AND 3 frame crouching fierce as a bonus. As for her light attacks, crouching jab yields +7(!) and crouching short gives +3. Up close, Sakura controls whether she wants you to move or not. She does crouching short, tick throw even better than the shoto’s do (shoto’s have +5 crouching short).
-kcxj-Buk’s Tips of the Day Thread

Both characters seem to have strong mixups off d.LK.
Both seems to have good patterns based on frame advantage close up.

Well, so far, it LOOKS do-able on paper.
The fact that I’ve done it means nothing 'cause they didn’t know better

I like this
Most c.short BnBs don’t even knockdown… and if they do, they don’t position the combo’er for an ambiguous crossup. And if they do, it’s only one KIND of crossup. Sakura has 3 different kinds of crossups to use. -Gunter-Buk’s Tips of The Day Thread
In this regard by itself A-Nako and Sak are even somewhat. Sak’s ability to work the guard meter like no tomorrow probably makes her superior besides.

Buk noted P/K Cammy does fine vs Sak so long as she keeps her out. (I thought the whole time she was supposed to get in?) Too bad Nako can’t really “keep her out” her whole point’s to get in. She’d be heavily dependant on using her frame advantage in this matchup mixed with throws and the like I figure.

24

Awesome analysis, too bad few people think about using Nakoruru. But if they do, Nak vs. Sak is a very viable matchup at the start. This stuff will help me out in casuals when i use my crappy S-Nak.

What do you think about P-Nak? She has both her dash and her low jump. But one of my fellow Nak users, RagingStormX, says that run is better for her. What do you think?

25

Run definitely. It helps her capitalize on any knockdown, however slight.
I like her in S, her dodge attacks are fast, although her dodge kick is hardly Cammy’s. I prefer her for my old N-Teams because I like having AC’s.

IMO if desperation mode had Alpha Counters as well as lvl 1’s it’d probably be up there in groove selection. Without something like that you’re forced to charge up for just 1 AC.

You’re forced to rely on dodge and tactical recovery, however both of those in conjunction are awesome vs A-Groove. IMO if you know how to play against A-Groove and bait CC’s you’d be able to hold your own. Characters who only activate when its a sure hit like Bison you’ll probably have a hard time baiting a random activation without rushing him down.

Dodge is ok though, you just need a character with good dodge attacks, and Nako at least has her dodge punch and a “quasi” fast dodge kick.

K-Nako is probably the best one, but I don’t like fighting against JD safe shit which you see a lot of. And I don’t like K-groove anything vs Sakura.

P-Nako is ok… Like P-Anything is ok… Sort of. Yeah she gets her shortjump, and Parries in addition to her quick pokes, Dash mixups.
IMO she plays like a ghetto P-Kyo without the high stun B&B’s.

So far as people using her, IMO they don’t because she “lacks good footsies” games because of a lack of a good Sakura style s.HK or whatever, in addition she has “low stun” and “hitpoints.”

Any dunce reading the all the above sees that there’s no difference picking Nako, Cammy or Sak.

Just pick your flavor of rushdown.

Hmmm… Maybe I should be running N-Iori, Nako, Hibiki (2)? Lol

26

My real problem with using her is getting that damn short, trip, super or any other variation of it. Also, using her seems really high risk. I’ve even seen OTK, so called Nakoruru GOD, fuck up her b&b once in awhile and lost a chunk of life because of it.

On the other hand, sometimes when you play her you just get into this zone where all of your mixups are working and before you know it, you’ve taken out the opponent’s first char and severely hurt the second. So whatever, fun char to use.

Ha im still surprised someone actually responds to me now on the CvS2 forum. Usually no one paid any attention to my questions. Hey man, have you been to any majors lately? Were you at Evo 2005 or Tx Showdown 5/6? I dunno if i’ve seen you before.

27

I’m in the service. Typically I don’t get to go to majors or anything because I’m out to sea or I will be out to sea so I don’t make plans like that, although I am stuck in the States on Land for 3 years now so maybe this year I might.

The B&B I use with Nako is d.LKx2, link d.MP xx qcd+MP (or LP)

Typically the link is the hardest part of the combo.
Whenever I can I’ll do a jab slide of two close s.LP’s (after a crossup)
Or a low jump roundhouse, s.LP xx slide.

Empty lowjump, “meaty” df+HP, link close s.LP xx slide
etc. etc.

Nako is better than people give her credit for. Having an Akuma-style fireball to control space that knocksdown is all the footsies she needs to get in (well that and that she can bird dive predictable opponents or just use the bird hop to bait things and drop to the ground), once she’s in you gotta mixup, switchup, etc. to kill fast. Lots of characters can’t roll through the bird anyway. Good RC’s like Rugal’s God Press beat that, but his pokes aren’t Sagat’s or Cammy’s so Nako can just run up in there and get some.
And Her B&B’s deal just as much if not more damage than Sak’s.

I understand what you mean about the “zoned” thing. Some people say she has bad matchups in the form of Eagle though I don’t see it. If they’re simply refering to his auto-guard move to absorb her fireballs that’s just stupid. You can bait things like that easy like by staying on the bird, wait for the counter to whiff and dive. Follow up on your knockdown with mixups. He’ll die shortly after.

28

QCB+k, aka Bird Hop

Ok the bird hop is awesome for obvious reasons (I hope)

Bird Hop, qcf+P
For one thing the angle the bird takes when you launch it is nice. You control alot of space with this move. Like Akuma back in the day with his not-so-tuned down air fireballs, you can wreck havoc with similarly angled ones that knockdown, and if your Nako has run, you’re in.

You can anti-air with it…

Or just pressure with it. There’s an artform to this though, you can’t just Spam this move at will. If your opponent is capable of punishing you during the bird hop’s transition from the ground to the bird and they have super ready (Sagat) watch it. Some characters have no clear answer to the move though, feel free to let 'er rip on them.

Example on all characters-- Following knockdowns, qcb+k, qcf+LP. You either knockdown (reversal or not… except lvl 3’s or good reversal RC’s. Keep an eye on that meter) or they roll out into your 2 frame s.lp’s or 3 frame d.lk’s, your fast walk speed and throw, sweep or d.MP xx slide.

Whatever. Whenever it hits, run up there and capitalize on that knockdown.

Another great thing about the move
Bird Hop, qcb+P (a.k.a. Dive)

Mixed reviews about this move (Good, bad)
Can be punished if blocked (-8) But don’t let that stop you. This move is especially fast. Fast enough to combo during CC’s FYI…Fast enough that if you score a knockdown, say with d.HK (What else does she have???) qcb+k, qcb+P and nail that bastard’s safe fall (or block their mistimed reversal attempt when you whiff…'cause after all, the move’s not safe FUN!!!)
Keep in mind too that you can do this in response to mistimed/spaced fireballs and both score your knockdown as well as setting up your crossup j.LK
(if they safe fall that well I guess you just planted a deep, meaty j.LK in their grill. Link s.LP xx LP slide)

Then of course there’s
Bird Hop, HP (a.k.a. Spinning Blade dismount?)

A beautiful move. I’d recommend doing this in the corner vs
qcb+K, qcf+P just because of the frame advantage, hit or blocked
(qcf+P move leave’s you at -4 blocked, not too bad, but still)
+7 hit/+16 Block
That and you can control the direction, link combos easily off it if it connects
or move into generic walking counterhit s.LP/d.LK/throw patterns

29

Cornering Sagat (downhill from there)

Here’s something neat, testing against Sagat.

First, some general basic stuff. To refresh your memory.
DASH
Forward 113 pixels covered /22.5 pixel height
Back 113 pixels covered /22.5 pixel height

Both are pretty fast. Equal to Cammy’s. Data relevant only for Back Dash, since we’re using Run for “Rush Nako.”

SHORT JUMP
No real way to describe it based on Buk’s guide but to give you an idea, the speed of her low jump is basically equal to Vega’s, but the apex of the jump isn’t as high. Considering the distance covered by her j.HK, that makes it nigh equal to Vega’s j.HK if not better; Vega lost his charge.
Mai is more or less very close, but it’s twitchy. Basically with these fast characters whoever does it first wins.
Characters like Yamazaki’s low jumps are slower, but 2nd place because it’s so fucking low anyway.
Jumping straight up, animation is basically a hop I guess. Forward or back she’s spinning, similar to her Bird Mount.

Crouching Height (pixels)
61 Nako
77 Sagat

Some stuff Sagat’s got she can crouch, ripped from Buk’s Guide. Thanks Buk!:rofl:
Sagat 66 - standing jab
77 - standing fierce
*69 - flying portion of Tiger Raid super (hotfoot)
*77 - second hit of roundhouse Tiger Knee
*72 - second hit of short Tiger Knee

There’s more. I gotta test this and see but I’m guessing Nako’s pixel height when running is similar to Geese’s, and if so she’ll run under Standing Fierces and high tigers (If you bait them with enough bird hops or whatever and they’re not thinking straight, perhaps)

Nako’s close s.LP (height 62)
2/4/5 +8 hit/block
Sagat’s not crouching this like Sakura can. Go apeshit with it.
Just wanted to mention that.

Nako’s d.LK
3/4/6 +7 hit/blocked

Far s.MP
6/6/21 -1 hit/blocked
Yeah yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Hold on. I’ll get to this.

Far s.MK
?/?/? ?hit/block
Ok, Drunken Master’s list is incomplete and mine’s back at the barracks. Fuck. Will update tomorrow I guess, and some of his interpretations of the data is slightly misleading… Still, consider this for the same reason you will consider Far s.MP, which I will get to.

d.HK
6/8/24 -6 hit/blocked
Basically the only way Nako will ever Land her Super. You will have to master that if you want to use her, otherwise I recommend you drop her. You don’t have to, you can use mixups and such but you’ll be missing out.

d.HP
?/?/? ? hit/blocked
Drunken Master. :sad: May as well get my shit from the barracks, but I just ran 5 miles so fuck that.

Relevant frame data of Drunken Master’s considering the Bird Mount and the Fierce Punch Spinning Blade dismount and her qcf+LP aren’t really complete, and neither is bird mount and qcb+LP Bird Dive.

…
Well, I’ve dabbled about too much, time to get to it.
Nako is first off, to emphasize, pure offense. There’s only one way she’s going to get in, using her speed in reaction to whatever the other guy does. Unless he’s playing shitty characters or sucks. In that case, run up there and get some.
Best thing to do at the opening of the match is back off and play defense until they do something you can easily punish with either her Bird Mount, Bird Dive or her Bird Mount qcf+P (varies depending on distance but generally MP or HP due to range at first) Or her fast run d.HK to punish slow whiffs or real high stuff.
Etc. etc. This is Cornering Sagat, not How to Corner Sagat.
Learn that on your own. It’s not easy and you gotta earn it, and I’m too tired at present to explain it.

Playing defense does not mean let them in up on your grill and just block all day. Maintain your space about you.

Still working on this aspect of footsies because when I play I generally don’t think, just focus on defense, knockdown then I go apeshit. The time for thinking though, is when you’re on DEFENSE. However I did find some good stuff.

Testing what Nako’s got vs Sagat’s s.LK.
Never really allowed Sagat the time of day to use this move on me, so I was surprised at how slow it was when I tested it. Dear God, I thought seriously that the move would be something like… Nako’s faster Godly Jabs!
Shit, come on.
Anyway.
She’s faster, got a faster walking speed, almost like a pixie character without the long range pokes. If you’re in the center of the stage dancing about with the big lug, you should be able to space yourself out to use these two moves to your advantage:
far s.MP
far s.MK
Tested and approved, and too fast for Sagat to react to if you’re using these two moves vs a s.LK spam happy Sagat. If he’s using it properly, well, you probably won’t be using these two moves then. Just a tidbit of info. Will look for more. You want the blade only hitting Sagat’s foot/leg, or Nako’s foot to hit his leg, she kinda sorta clears his foot.

Will add more stuff tomorrow though.
edit: or some other day.

Cornered
Her back dash sets up a lot of shit. Use of all her moves are really dependant on which Sagat you’re facing, generally C or K. But then again, not really.
The distance covered by this move is barely greater than that of his s.LK.
In fact, you have to set it up properly for that distance to work.
Training Mode. Sagat stands in corner. Run up to him, dash back.
s.LK will hit you.
Combo a LP ground slide into him, dash back. IIRC, it doesn’t hit.
Superjump his s.LK so you land directly in front of him as he recovers, then dash back, this does work, done it quite a bit. Training only for distancing.
Also, her punch throw generally gives her more time to make this space by walking back compared to kick, and you want more time to do shit since that’s the idea here in maintaining pressure. I’m sure your kickthrow does that distance too, gotta test, forgot, but almost sure you both may come out even…He stands when you bird hop… Hmm…Not good.
Capitalize on that knockdown.
Anyway.

From the backdash distance…

The speed of her moves are such that you can literally knock Sagat’s ass down, back dash, bird mount, and qcf+LP in reaction to whatever the fuck he does or meaty it just in case depending. If he’s in C he’s kinda screwed without a lvl 2 or lvl 3 at the ready.
EVERYTHING else is nerfed by the ANGLE of the qcf+LP firebird, the ANGLE you take when you launch it, and the ANGLE/DISTANCE/SPACING involved. If it hits, knockdown. If blocked, well, you’re at -4, you can crouch his 2 frame normals, and you have handful of faster moves.

If he rolls, if you’re doing this smartly, the qcf+LP will nail him and knock him back in the corner.

If he RC’s, well, think about it. A fireball cancelling another out, sorta. And you recover faster. No point RC’ing DP’s almost, though I could see why you may want to maybe. Doesn’t matter the slow speed of qcf+LP done smartly will nail him and put him back in the corner.

From the backdash distance…

She can literally run up and sweep xx bird super on reaction to any whiffed laggy moves he throws out. The Bird WILL NOT change its flying pattern to the rushing type. It remains in hover mode. ALSO a factor in backdash, with immediate bird mount. I am finding lately that perhaps running, dashing, or setting up the d.HK with another move like a jumpin roundhouse or whatever are probably the best ways to land this. Everything else increases the odds no matter what your execution that you’ll end up throwing instead. Which is also good, but whatever.
**Edit:**After nailing them a number of times or once they’re scared, running up may prompt a response anyway.
For all intents and purposes sweep xx bird super is safe at +18 for lvl 1’s and above.
So always cancel it.

From the backdash distance…

Forward Low Jump Roundhouse, s.LP xx Ground Slide reaches, and if you’re doing plenty of bird mounts, this sequence LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A BIRD MOUNT.
…Except for the slight change in angle.
Anyway, it’s enough to stun their brain unless you fight this guy on a regular, and even then, they have to be ready for it, since her low jump is godly.
So it’s a win/win thing. They expect another bird mount, you nail them with
low jump roundhouse while they’re delaying their dp in response to the bird hop or whatever since you nailed them with it several times already, or whatever.
Edit: Of course you still have empty low jump games too. Works excellent witih her fast low jump in particular.

From the backdash distance…

You can d.HP anything he does if things go sour and he manages to jump in desperation. I don’t recommend this, keep your pressure up. But he can’t air block it so just so you know. In light of the fact that the ANGLE covered by
Bird Mount, Jab Firebird (sounds like a tai chi stance) solves this problem, among others, no point.
Unless you want to give them a glimmer of hope, you evil bastard.

sigh From the Back Dash Distance…

If they somehow manage to low jump or whatever, just df+HP them back into the corner immediately. Don’t wait to trade, you haven’t the hit points. If you do, well, you recover faster so try not to.
If you give them this much leeway to jump you’re risking more anyway.

yawn From the Back Dash Distance…

You can easily make quick time running up to them with counterhit (with b&b’s, yay)/throw setups once you’ve instilled in thy foe the Fear of God.

Ok, I’m tired, and there’s a thunderstorm outside, and I still got to run back to the barracks.
Class continues tomorrow, or some other time.

30

Hellion’s got some good stuff, read it up!

Also, if you’re fighting Vega (mask) all you need to do is j. short and Vega can’t do anything!!! Best option for Vega: He is forced to roll away, I.E, not attacking you! Nak molests Vega!

31

Not really, anyone that is half way decent with Vega will RC Ball as AA. Online on Xbox Live that strategy will work though. I find trying to carefully pressure Vega and force an air game is better. BTW I have been playing nako for like 4 years now, so I know the match up pretty well.

32

Nakoruru is my best character in CvS2, but that’s not saying much. I’m not that good in general.
Anyone think they can tell me the benefits of Roll Cancelling her slides?

33

I wouldn’t outside of RC’ing to go through fireballs midscreen or agaisnt people who are really just that predictable, but even then its dangerous if blocked.
Best use is in a combo or to nail safe falls, and for the latter the timing is still pretty strict.

34

Maybe everyone knows this already, but RC’ing the Bird Hop to knife dive is perhaps the best reversal move to turn the tide if you ever find yourself in the defensive against stuff like Blanka Electricities, RC Roll Claw, and RC Sak Hurricanes, or bullshit like Honda’s 50/50.
Vs any character, especially these charge character, use Nako’s speed to take their charge from them and always crossup, whether its a lowjump short, crossup dashes, whatever flavor of Nako you choose.
Learning those mixups vs Vega is a good idea, if you can force him to guess which side of him you’ll end up on with those ambiguous mixups he’ll be forced to hold on mashin RC Claws, and that quick moment buys you the time you need for counterhit/throw.
Varying the type or the timing of the low jump can make him hold off as well, having a charge does no good if he doesn’t know which direction to go, and her low jump is as quick as his.
Use that extra guess time to go for a throw.
All this guesswork though revolves around that window of opportunity for reversals.
Just standing there making your intentions apparent isn’t going to help you last the round against his like.

35

So I’m at like 75% at doing super after knockdown.

It’s just nailing it after c.lk, c.lk, c.fk that has me getting a little loopy.

Still not up to par with c.lk, c.lk, s.mp, 412+fp yet.

I’m getting more comfortable with her. I find starting out the match with 214+FP is a good idea as many people tend to jump up / foward, or just throw something out, and it keeps me safe where I’m at while stopping the other guy ;p.

36

Interesting.
Dunno I find her Blade of the Gods move fast enough to be used as a whiff punisher. It’s been toned down a lot though.
Safer because you’re kinda locked in position pointing your finger if they predicted it.

When you say 214 + FP I guess you mean the hcb + P move right?

37

God this game is all damned muscle memory to me at this point, so I’m like dumb as shit when it comes to notation.

Basically calling out flaming bird without getting on it.

:stuck_out_tongue:

38

214 is qcb.fp look at your number pad and you’ll see it.

39

Well aware of that, as well as the fact that Nako has no qcb+FP moves unless she’s mounted on the bird, or his notation refers to P2 Nako, in which case 214 would be qcf + FP, which could be what he meant as he was refering to jumping up or jumping in characters, but as that is highly unrecommended he must’ve meant the hcb + FP move, which I can see him using perhaps vs jump ins or jumping straight up as it’s safer, hence why I said that.

Personally I like doing the bird mount first and throwing the bird.
It almost always seems to hit when they jump in because they’re probably trying to preemptively strike Nako before she can do anything, not realizing there’s like 0 recovery to the bird mount itself; only startup on what she does following really.

40

Wake-Ups
I have to at least mention the wake-up qcf+HP (just not with opponent in corner). Do it a frame or few right in front of them as they get up, it’ll over-power most everything, and when they block you’re on the other side of the screen, and it’s generally not so punishable. Timed right, it goes through shouryukens. You will also escape most wake-up supers (it should be activated slightly before they get up.)

Birdie Mix-ups
I recommend just being as creative as possible. There are so many things you could do.

Some basic ones
c.lk x1-3,xx qcb+Kick,qcb+p (mix up with qcf+p for anti-DP, HP from bird has good air-to-air priority, and tap HK (bird release) on occasion followed up by c.hk for fun.

Anti-Air
For an anti-cross-up, and for most close-in anti-air, I actually prefer DF+HP.

qcf+HP is awesome against people from a distance. Don’t do it as a end-jump AA, but mostly as a starting-jump AA. It won’t be parried, JD’d, or anything silly like that. Her best AA is simply catching them as they begin the jump (from great distances away too).

(Qcf+HP is also her best reversal to a b/f-P Blanka Ball. Can be hard to connect on reaction though.)

I would have to say her best groove is K. I generally don’t try to use her punch super unless for some reason people have me in the corner and are jumping in (Idk why people do this so much at the arcade, but it happens enough I see myself connecting the super in this situation a lot). She’s a beast if you connect a few of her bnbs when you’re raged. I hardly ever see OTK do a super move when he’s raged, so I feel justified in not using one with Nak most the time. Her C.HKxx Super P is not something you can do on reaction. We all know it’s pre-determined so I would only go for it when you know it’s going to connect.

Does anyone have a link to some OTK Nak vids? I searched for them and didn’t pop up with anything.