Sorry I haven’t gotten around to answering all questions. I’ve had an UNUSUALLY hectic and long work week. So much so that I’ve been unable to even touch the game.
@ Arson: What Josh said. By you playing Lars, you completely remove yourself from any predicament of an odd pairing. Which no one should be worried about if they are playing who they actually like. You can make anyone work. With you playing Lars on point, you can pick up whoever. Few decent players truely like Lars as a character, they just run him as secondary because it’s like a Dr. Doom assist.
@ Graham: If you remember that Feng stuff I told you, it still applies though he’s way better. Three new moves:
1+4: (quick low spin to mid. Natural combo. Great move. It’s unseeable so they made the low launch punishable. Does good fast damage.)
3,3,4: (high, high, low string. The two highs are NC but the low can be blocked. Low knockdowns on hit, face down feet away.)
Qcf+2: (they changed his old qcf+2 “mini deathfist” and made it a class 5 launcher that’s taggable. Now he has even bigger payoff from monk dash(qcf) by having his mid be a huge launcher. Dunno how punishable it is, but I haven’t had it punished at all yet.
About Bob, you need to understand that Bob is one of those characters that you can never be “straight on”. Because he has everything. Even his “nerfs” in this game balance out because of new shit. So he’s still great, just SLIGHTLY not as aggravating as in T6. So to answer your question, there’s nothing you’ll be able to do unless you know how to punish the character. Idk how Richard plays or what he has been doing but, yea. It’s not hard to establish even a simple offense or pressure with him. If you’re catching strings and such I suggest you take the chara to practice mode and become familiar with stuff, or at least the junk that you know you are losing to. Sorry man, no easy answer. If you stop a Bob player from Bob shenanigans, if they are decent they can still just solid up. And then it’s just about outplaying them.
@ Jason: Zaf has all the tools, but she doesn’t possess generic stuff so some of it is either 1 frame slower than most or stance based. But her range and crushing ability, coupled with her movement and hitbox gives the tradeoff. Nina has probably THE MOST launchers in the damn game, but no true low launcher that gives full combo. But she is THE poking character of the game. Once you become accustomed to SS cancels, swaying, and dashing, she will effectively rush people down with just df+1s, jabs, and peck lows, picking when she wants to throw out launchers or even chain grabs. She’s well endowed with tools but her punishment game doesn’t include knockdowns except heavy moves. And this is only because she has always been designed as a pokey pressure character with options. If they gave her fast knockdowns too she’d be more broken than she was in older games.
Get used to staying inside with her, that’s what she was built for. If you’re ever just outside of range or hovering around, that’s where her launchers excel. With many of them even advancing her quickly and people are launched before they can react. That’s the typical, and preferred, Nina style. It won’t be uncommon to kill someone with only 2 or less knockdowns the entire round. That shit kills even more in TTT2, the damage from single strikes. And if you get the jab cancels down, you’ll be stuck on someone’s ass like glue unless they are familiar with the character. Basically safe pressure until YOU want to risk it, they escape, or die.
You are playing a poking pair, instead of a “launch happy” bunch(who although still need to turtle this game). But by you playing Nina/Zaf, you’ll learn the actual system and it’s fundamentals way more quicker than others. The neutral game is the most important thing. Certain characters force you to acquire the basics and get pretty sharp if you don’t want to die. Other charas can get you by for a bit, until it’s time to be solid and the over-reliance and comfort of certain go-to things, (which are now being blocked, punished, stepped, or crushed) makes it hella hard to adapt or recover. Stick with them. I’ll try to find some good korean vids of the pair if I dont go to sleep.
