It’s a good move, but everyone’s double-tap moves are great. Blaze’s might not be quite as strong, but it’s still very highly usable, and she has much more to her game.
Just my opinion I guess, this is all theory fighter… anyone got any high-level SoR2 vids to back their shit up? I’ll prolly do a Blaze vid soon.
Blaze’s blitz move sucks. Skate’s is ok. Max’s is good.
Grand Upper is just fucking beast.
It’s not theory really. Everything you said is true. Only problem is that stats don’t mean shit in this game and neither does reach or speed.
All that matters is damage output and abusable moves. Axel has this over Blaze.
I agree with the tiering of blitz moves, but “sucks” isnt fair. ALL the blitz moves are useful. You just have to be a bit more careful with Blaze’s.
Her sword/pipe swing, suplex and back-throw are all very powerful and abusable.
Grand upper is great and all, but y’know how you can power-up your moves in SoR3? I like Axel’s grand upper once it gains a bit more range. After that it starts getting silly, where he starts swinging around and it isnt really grand upper anymore, but I just feel in SoR2 it could have done with that bit more range, y’know? You say crowd control but if a fat fuck runs at you with the wrong speed fire-breath, I’d much rather be Blaze than Axel, Grand upper or no.
It’s interesting that you mention Axel in SoR3. Since he is ass in that game lol.
Blaze is far better then him in that game. But her normal blitz still sucks. Her upgraded Blitz are crazy though.
More careful with it? Dude, Axel can whore his blitz pretty much all day and it will rape. Blaze can’t, so this means she lacks a safe abusable move. This is what makes Axel good.
What isn’t fair? When talking about tier list you must compare everything to the best. Everything is in relative terms. Grand upper is the best blitz move by far. Somersault doesn’t compare to it at all. Half the time she gets knocked out of it and doesn’t have the same speed or power behind it. And it doesn’t have the same combo potential.
Also it has no invincibility frames which is VERY bad.
Also Axel can Grand Upper through the fat guys flame throwers. I do it alot. But honestly it’s better to just do a jump kick anyway. Also Blazes crazy jump height actually hurts her when starting combos. Since she jumps so high the A.I has more time to recognize that she is in the air and knock her out of the sky. Not a good thing at all.
Sounds to me like you’re expecting it to do the same thing Grand Upper does but, although they are both blitz moves, they are very different.
You don’t stand point-blank with an enemy, hit them with two jabs and then do the somersault. You’re either gonna go sailing over their head, or even a Donovan will have a decent chance of uppercutting you out of it.
If you’re gonna use it like that, you use it when the jabs are at full range. If it lands and hits twice, the damage will be about the same as Axel’s combo. If it hits once, you’re inside and can go to grapple. Sure, because it’s slower it’s not a real combo it might miss, but you’re much less likely to be punished throwing it out from longer range. Axel’s striking game is all about getting right inside, like the jab-jab-burnupper, or the punch flurry. But with Blaze you work further out with strikes and if you’re gonna go close, you just go straight to clinch and grapple.
But this is all besides the point because probably the best thing to do with somersault is just throw it out bare. Like when a group of enemies is getting up, make em stand up into it. It’ll do just like burnupper and take four or five back to ground. Of if a Barman is being a pain in the ass, throw this at him, it’ll go straight over his punch and his guard won’t be able to take it. It’s a solid, heavy move, it doesnt “suck”, I use it a lot.
He can, but if they’re going at the wrong speed (either really fast or really slow) it can prove very awkward. Then you’ve either got to jump-kick with his lower jump, or try to dodge it with his slower walk-speed. I highlighted this example because I think the somersault actually deals with these better, by getting up over the flames.
This is half-true: you can’t just go jumping around without a care. It’s highlighted best by the karate guys who WILL kick her out of the air if you jump straight at them.
But if you use her jump correctly you should have no problems. I think of it this way:
if you jump straight up, think height. If you jump forward, think distance.
Basically, if you’re jumping straight up you want to get up over an anti-air and attack on the way down. For example: knife punks. They have a wakeup attack. But if Blaze jumps straight up just as they stand, Blaze’ll get enough air-time to hang over their whiffed invincible wakeup/s. Then she can attack on the way down with a drop attack and go to a suplex.
If, however, you’re jumping forward, you want to basically land on your opponent with the drop attack, busting straight through their anti-air if it’s weak like Donovan (you can actually hear the startup sound effect sometimes), or just avoiding it if it’s any good. Like with the karate guys: if you wait until they start their shitty long-range psychic punch, then you can jump it safely without worrying about their anti-air kick. Prolly best not to jump at a group of them though (this goes for Axel too).
So I can’t see Blaze’s higher and longer jump as anything other than an asset, to be honest.
Ah man, had a moment of panic during my last playthru. Lost the sword before the fight with Bear. Found out, however, that thanks to the long range on her jab, she can start her chain and actually beat out Bear’s chain with her own. VERY useful!
She does have answers to everything, they just don’t all end in “upper”! 
Axel has other answers too. But none of them are as good as Grand upper and nothing Blaze has can compare to the Grand Upper.
It’s a combo ender, good approach, great stand alone move, has invincibility frames and has crazy priority.
Honestly, Grand upper is the only thing Axel has on Blaze. But the difference that their blitz attacks makes in their gameplay is huge. The result is a gap between them in terms of character potential and utility.
I could go on and on about Axel’s good points. But I don’t have to.
Why?
Grand Upper > Everything else.
For serious.
SOR2: I feel Axel is tops in Very Hard, or at least I have an easier time beating Very Hard with Axel than Max. Does this change in Mania? I haven’t attempted Mania with anyone other than Axel. I know people love Max for his crowd control, and that would seem to be a godsend in Mania, but I can’t get over missing Grand Upper.
Exactly what I said on the other thread as well. That’s the AHVB of SoR2.
TBH the tier list should only be done on Mania since that’s when you can see truly what all the characters are capable of under the most difficult of conditions.
And yes Axel is a monster on Mania.
Axel + Max = Broken.
Blaze is definitely usable in 3 though. The SoR tiers have probably been done more times than the FF6 ones here 
I gotta use her jumping kick more, huge range on that. Anyway, somersault didnt look too shabby to me there. I don’t think it’s a tool-assisted run, asked him in the comments tho.
This guy is a beast of course.
Blaze still isn’t as good as Axel though. No one is saying she is trash. Just that Axel is godly.
But for you to say she is better then Axel or Max is just insane.
Axel and Max are ridiculous.
Also good stuff to that guy for his use of Vertical Slash a.k.a Somersault.
It’s still not as good or as safe as Grand upper.
That was an awesome video. I may have to rethink my stance on Blaze, but for now I’ll stick with 1. Axel 2. Max. Hard to say how much of that video was due to Blaze and how much was due to just that guy being ridiculous; I might have to try a Mania run with her sometime.
There was also a guy on GameFAQs if I remember correctly who said that Skate’s ceiling (on Mania) was second only to Max, which was a really interesting viewpoint. I consider Skate the worst character in the game, but if someone could find a video of a godly Skate…
I swear to god, i play as axel and with his over-reliance on grand upper, a part of me dies. (the part that frikkin loves SoR2 most likely).
Anyway, i have to admit that move is godly, I know what you dudes is saying. No doubt about it. But he still comes unstuck for me before Blaze does. I just prefer being creative with Blaze, and right now it translates into better results. Havent touched Max for a while though, might go back to him soon.
EDIT: gotta say I’m a bit embarrased right now to have been stumped by Abadebe. Grand upper is a fikkin joke vs him, he runs straight on to it, gotta work harder with Blaze but still easy.
That’s the thing. You gotta work harder with Blaze for generally less favorable results.
So what if Axel relies on Grand Upper? It’s his fuckin technique so why shouldn’t he be allowed to whore it if it’s good?
He can do other shit of course, but why? Grand Upper raped your mom and killed your father and he isn’t afraid of nothing.
Dead serious.
Also Grand upper is awesome. Whenever I use it I’m overjoyed. What makes me sick to my stomach is how unsafe Vertical Slash is and how it has no invincibility frames.
Also here is the thing.
All 4 characters are pretty fucking godly to be honest. They can all rape face.
It’s just that Axel and Max rape harder with less effort.
Abadebe gets owned just by punch stall. Time your punches and you can leave him in stun without ever being injured.
The only difference in creativity is Blaze’s double stab. Max can hit both way’s with pipes, which I think is 10 times as useful. SoR2 focus more on damage ratio than technique, and in 3 it’s the other way around excluding hidden characters.
what about tiering bad guys then.
thai kickboxers are sick, they have just about everything and, as a blaze user, i hafta say the fact that tiger knee beats somersault is very annoying.
LOL!!
Wait, holy crap. Yeah, just punch infinite the wrestler dude.
No, one should have trouble vs that guy.
Somersault loses to that?
Wow. Interesting.
Grand Upper rapes it.
Kickboxers are the Fabio’s in 3. They block and all that so I’d rate them high, and they can kick you to the ground with one strike.
Ninja’s are kinda annoying, but they’re much worse in 3. The Japan guy can get off sometimes, but you can basically jump over their hadoken like atk and grapple him for punishment.
Everybody else seems like a punching bag to me. Excluding some bosses…
Truth.
In 2 everybody has something that they alone can rape with.
Blaze and her knife game. I can hit you twice with a single knife slash. And the damage multiplies when I hit enemies in a group. A sometime glitch. But when the random does happen, enemies seem to dirt nap quicker. Vertical Slash and the KiKouSho do work. And you the second fastest in the game. And not let us forget that Jump Kick you are so famous for.
Max and that nasty damage off of throws. I can do the same amount of damage off a grab and make any other enemies take the same damage as well. And do you know how to spell ATOMIC DROP? D-E-A-T-H! And he makes the Predator block to death by HUNDA!!!.
Skate and his dash. Yep, I said his dash. Skate’s dash is a rape move, but in the defensive mindset though. Can’t hit what isn’t there right. And the same distance he covers dashing, the rest of the cast has to jump or Max’s HUNDA that same distance. Or Blaze could use the Vertical Slash to try to make distance. But you don’t wanna do that though. And that makes Skate’s setup game very wicked. I try to hit the Dashing Headbutt to catch the enemy on wakeup to set up for the Overhead Throw or Da Bongo Drum grab. You can be hit out of Da Bongo Drum, but you get more damage out of it for your risk. But the Overhead throw is a little better even though it does less damage. And you can’t hit him out of it and it clears enemies if need be.
But Mr. Stone is a beast all his own. Grand Upper, Grand Upper Rewind, DA Dragon Smash, and the sorta Infinite. The Grand Upper, you know it so I don’t have to explain it. But the Grand Upper Rewinid is a great move even though its a glitch. Rewind’s only use to to clean up any accidents the Grand Upper may leave behind every now and again. What I mean by that is sometimes the Grand Upper may not knock everyone down in a group situation. But tacking the Rewind after a Grand Upper does three things. It finishes Grand Upper jobs, gives you breathing room if need be and you stay in motion. And the bonus is that you can do repeated Grand Uppers by doing Grand Upper --> Rewind repeatedly. This is harder than it sounds but it is there for your use. And da sorta Inf does work. It makes most boss fights and group encounters dissapear like that. But it doesn’t work on bosses that matter like Bear and Shiva. So it makes it a little less useful but it still rapes. And 2 Punches --> Dragon Smash equals rape as well.
And everyone’s Batman AKA Back Attacks rape. Max’s and Blaze’s hit front and back. Skate’s Batman moves him backwards. Also the best backpedal in the game. Can get ya ass to a corner quick as fuck. But this factor here keeps Axel grounded enough to still be a beast but not broken. His just hits backwards and nothing more.
But even with info like this and more that others have provided, it just seems 2 is just a hard game to tier. I think the one agreement most see eye to eye on is Skate isn’t top. And the rest of the cast seems to tiered based upon dependecy of the current situation or who’s the character I roll with. But things change everyday though. Somebody could find something mindblowing that truly puts tiers in place. Until then, let the debate continue to rage.