[P4A] Elizabeth Q&A / FAQ Thread

[jo-p]

how does everyone get away with pressuring people with garu if (according to the wiki) its unsafe on block? are the frames different if u start from the air?

[TD]

c garu is very unsafe. d garu is between -2 and -6 (my estimate based on what i've seen in most matches). so some characters can flat out punish with 5a while others can't. because of it being unsafe but not punishable in some cases, liz can r action on landing which beats the foe's attempt to act aggresively, prompting them to bait the r action by jumping, backdashing, blocking, etc - in general, reacting defensively. of course once you have them expecting to punish the r action, you bust out the 2b, or a mixup (if they like trying to tech the r action).

i'm pretty sure d garu is punishable on ib, too, and it could very well be a lack of MU knowledge on the defending player's end.

[Synthesis]

c garu is very unsafe. d garu is between -2 and -6 (my estimate based on what i've seen in most matches). so some characters can flat out punish with 5a while others can't. because of it being unsafe but not punishable in some cases, liz can r action on landing which beats the foe's attempt to act aggresively, prompting them to bait the r action by jumping, backdashing, blocking, etc - in general, reacting defensively. of course once you have them expecting to punish the r action, you bust out the 2b, or a mixup (if they like trying to tech the r action).

i'm pretty sure d garu is punishable on ib, too, and it could very well be a lack of MU knowledge on the defending player's end.

I'm pretty sure with specific spacing it's still in her advantage to use it. If I end the Garu at the max range I can possibly hit with it, even though it's -2-6, it's almost completely safe. I don't think anything will punish it at that distance. The move they use has to be on the EXACT frame they recover, and it has to come out within 1-5 frames for it to punish you. And at that distance. Most normals won't be able to punish it. If they attempt to dash and poke you to punish, you're still safe. With dash startup taken into account now as well as move startup, the situation is essentially at neutral, if not in your favor for certain matchups. Since some characters (Chie, most notably) will have to dash at you to punish it, you can 5A to catch their dash/poke startup if they're even remotely off on their timing.

Granted, it's still not good to be in that situation all the time, but if you're using D.Garu as an approach tool, don't worry if they block it. Just space it at the very edge of the hitbox for a better advantage.

I'm going to say this now because I don't think a lot of players understand this concept: a blockstring can be minus but remain a strong blockstring depending on spacing. C-S.Akiha in MBAACC is a good example of this. Her 214A is -1-2 on block, but it's still a near air-tight string to reset into 5B. This is because the space at which she uses the move keeps her safe from retaliation, and if the opponent attempts to poke her afterwards, she gets a counterhit because of her spacing and the speed of which her poke comes out. I feel like D.Garu works this way in certain matchups.

[wuku]

Does anyone know how fast 5C is and how much invincibility 2C has?

[Diveman]

^ 2C doesnt have invincibility, it has 1 hit of super armor but not from frame 1 according to my exp, so it is possible to hit him before the super armor comes out.

[Zidart]

Hello everyone. I decided to go on the competitive scene with my Elizabeth, although I have done a few tournaments in Blazblue I yet to know much about the competitive scene in Persona 4 arena, I signed myself up for a tournament next week and quite frankly I am unsure on how to prepare my Elizabeth for it (I plan on just experiencing not really on winning) any tips are appreciated

[TD]

tournament in a nutshell: prepare to be upset. liz doesn't have much of anything (but sp. and damage.) most of her attacks are not good at what they are supposed to do and are situational, making her -extremely- matchup dependant - often with the matchups not being in her favor.

as a casual player though you may find that 5c, 5d, and 2c are your breads and butter for pressure/mixup. if a player cant deal with her 5d/2c combination then keep doing. learn big combos for these 3 moves!

also r action often because why not, its not like people can block/tech grabs.

as a casual liz against casual players her weaknesses wont be as apparent and she might even seem strong. other than have fun you should give this subforum a thorough reading.

[Zidart]

tournament in a nutshell: prepare to be upset. liz doesn't have much of anything (but sp. and damage.) most of her attacks are not good at what they are supposed to do and are situational, making her -extremely- matchup dependant - often with the matchups not being in her favor.

as a casual player though you may find that 5c, 5d, and 2c are your breads and butter for pressure/mixup. if a player cant deal with her 5d/2c combination then keep doing. learn big combos for these 3 moves!

also r action often because why not, its not like people can block/tech grabs.

as a casual liz against casual players her weaknesses wont be as apparent and she might even seem strong. other than have fun you should give this subforum a thorough reading.

Hmmm it is not the first time I am told this...perhaps I should reconsider, I can do decent with Chie and akihiko as well so which of the 2 do really well in tournaments? I mean is not like I really want to give up on liz since I've been playing her for so long....but if she is really useless in tournament play as you say, then I may have to give it a second thought.

[TD]

chie

[Zidart]

I'll think about it, I really like Liz and I'd like to say I could do OK with her, I don't plan on winning just enjoying the tournament scene.

But back on the FAQ. What sort of match-ups should I look out for? so far online the only character I haven't really had a good fight against is Mitsuru and Naoto so I have not much experience against those.

[Eshi]

She's not useless in tournaments, but she does require extremely solid play. At a low-mid level she will utterly demolish *almost* everyone who doesn't know how to play the match-up. Once you start playing against the high level players who are in it to win it, it gets pretty tough. You have to completely change up your playstyle. If you don't care about getting 1st place then it doesn't matter, have fun looking at people's faces when they burst at wrong times.

match-ups you need to look out for... honestly, all of them. P4U is the type of game where match-up knowledge can drastically differ between characters and it's especially true for Liz. The ones you should pay the most attention to either become much easier with some experience or are extremely common.

* Naoto. She's 5-5 if you know it but she'll wreck you if you don't. Her F-Action completely shuts down all of Liz's persona mix-up and her projectile zoning works particularly well against Liz. You can not play this at far range AT ALL, everything gets beat by reaction F-Action or bullets. You must play at close-mid range with footsies and basic mix-up even for low level play, which is why she's unique. Fairly common for some reason.

* Mitsuru. Awful match-up, and a really common S tier pick. 5A and Coup Droit beat literally everything Liz has so you have to mix turtling extremely hard - baiting bad anti-airs and coup droits with Garu and chipping away with Zio - with rushing her down at point blank range. Liz's midrange tools are completely unusable, all you can do is block patiently.

* Kanji. Another extremely common pick, but extremely easy to beat if you footsie the shit out of him. Learn how to avoid his basic approaches and gimmicks so you don't get knocked down. This is the single match-up that Liz gets a huge break in, but it's way harder when he knocks Liz down.

* Labrys. Another extremely common pick because she's easy as shit to use. Learn her basic knockdown game first (hint - abuse roll). Then get used to avoiding her gigantic fucking jB (roll helps here too) in situations where 2B will whiff. This is another match-up you can straight up win just by knowing it and playing decently, before high level play.

* Yu. Main character so decently common. He's basically Chie's okizeme combined with Mitsuru's footsies, it's about as shitty as that sounds. Play mostly like mitsuru and get used to his oki, but it is a bit coin-flippy so don't feel bad for losing to it.

[Tecta1Eastside]

vs Labrys: all i can say is dont get hit. Dont abuse roll if labrys stays on the ground cuz labrys can time her 5c oki and CH you anyway the end of anyway evade steps. If they jump after the knock down then go ahead and evade step. At high level play, Labrys has retarded burst combos and retarded run it back factors with her green to red axe combos into super for 4.9k to even 7k+ I can only pray that Liz players dont run into labrys players that know her OP combos. Dont get hit ever and you'll live though. Each liz combo makes her axe level drop like crazy and puts labrys on the other side of the screen:(

vs Shadow Labrys: Do ppl play this character offline? She's rare but just block for your life and know the match-up. Learn how to deal with Asterios knockdowns and avoid that vertex. If they go for the command grab with asterios and do ja with s.labrys as you are getting up, try a wake up 2b and hit shadow labrys. If it doesnt work then idk. break asterios with your persona and you a watered down version of reg.labrys

Remember both labrys and shadow labrys dont have anyway true blockstrings when using only axe normals so just dp if they press too many buttons. IB always helps

@eshi I lol hard at the Labrys is easy as shit to use. I just like her retarded damage output and runback factor. oh and that axe range:)

[TD]

l dont think many people use slab period. as for labrys her pressure isnt particularly great to be worried about getting hit too much if youre attentive. her stronger mixup either require a much needed and situational resource (burst, 50 heat with none to spare - her strong combos need these too!), a setup, or specific spacing (jb crossup). her basic mixup l would say is below average because of how stale it tends to get.

[Zidart]

Thanks everyone, I really don't want to give up Elizabeth I want to at the very least try, I've been checking out some of the videos posted in this forum and I am getting an idea of what to do.

The match ups I am mostly familiar with thanks to on-line play are Yu, Kanji, Akihiko, and Labrys. I am fairly sure I know most of Labrys' animations so I know when her crazy stuff is about to begin, really the match-up I know literally nothing about is Aigis.

I also should check out a burst management guide, I keep treating the burst feature like blazblue and I am fairly sure its management works differently here.

[Elochai]

For Aigis, all you have to really do is make sure you block high after you block an orgia sweep, since j.B is her only follow-up option. J.B usually leads into 3.5k~, so if you get hit by it 2-3 times, you lose the game, lol. Most Aigis players like to use goddess shield on reaction to EX maragidyne, but goddess shield has guard point, so all you have to do is OMC and block, and then punish. Be careful with moves like 2B though, since it'll pretty much body Thanatos for free.

[Tecta1Eastside]

@TD: I agree. labrys mix-ups are pretty below average. As far as the resources go for burst combos and/or meter, I can usually have the 50+ meter to end the match whenever since i save meter. With awakening mode if i can go into, i'll have close to 150 meter. The burst I keep as my trump card if i lose the first round. I'll save it for my 2nd match and squeeze out wins. I might start at axe level 1 aka gray axe but I can just play patient and labrys axe meter goes to gray back to green automatically. I'll just play really defensive. I'll let you zone me for free, block and wont run after you. I only use my meter if I need to end the round. If i know im going to lose 1 match against my opponent, i'll spend all my meter trying to hit my opponent with omc mix-ups and hope I land a combo to raise my axe level before I lose my 1st round. Either I'll have yellow or red axe next round, or I just play defensively since I couldnt raise my axe level and got blown up. Means I have gray or blue axe. I know its a weird playstyle, maybe even desperate perhaps, but its works me:)

@Zidart: when you burst, your burst gauge goes back up on his own automatically. You dont earn a burst when you lose though like BB

Elizabeths players shouldnt run into to many labrys players that know her combos with 75-100 meter or burst combos anyway online or offline but its all I feel that you can rely on with the labrys.

sorry if I said some extra stuff since this isnt the place for it.

[ZomB]

[quote=Tecta1Eastside;1413332

@Zidart: when you burst, your burst gauge goes back up on his own automatically. You dont earn a burst when you lose though like BB

[crimsonstardust]

Alright I got some questions on how to play this character cause I feel like I'm missing something with Liz.

Usually when I'm in a neutral game situation, I seem to screw myself over my trying to hope my 5B connects or hope that a random Maziodyne will catch. What should I be doing? I see a lot footage of players instant air dashing back and tossing jBs as a way to handle the neutral game situations, should I be doing that as my main form of zoning?

When using 5C as a zoning tool, what should you do to keep Thanatos safe or at least make the opponent scared to push buttons against it? Every time I've tried mixing it up with 5C (1 hit) 5D and 5C (2 hits), most people seem to either just tap him with 5A/2A or jump over the 5D attempt.

My last question is about 2C. Aside from being used in combos, I don't understand the utility behind this move, I do know that some moves that Thanatos does has a damage boost from it but I like I said I don't understand what it can be used for.

[UmaiCakes]

Alright I got some questions on how to play this character cause I feel like I'm missing something with Liz.

Usually when I'm in a neutral game situation, I seem to screw myself over my trying to hope my 5B connects or hope that a random Maziodyne will catch. What should I be doing? I see a lot footage of players instant air dashing back and tossing jBs as a way to handle the neutral game situations, should I be doing that as my main form of zoning?

j.B is better than 5B because you can cancel recovery by landing. 5B is like 20+ frames recovery on whiff

So yes j.B is her main approach. Also Garu when they start anti-airing j.B

When using 5C as a zoning tool, what should you do to keep Thanatos safe or at least make the opponent scared to push buttons against it? Every time I've tried mixing it up with 5C (1 hit) 5D and 5C (2 hits), most people seem to either just tap him with 5A/2A or jump over the 5D attempt.

My last question is about 2C. Aside from being used in combos, I don't understand the utility behind this move, I do know that some moves that Thanatos does has a damage boost from it but I like I said I don't understand what it can be used for.

5C isn't really a zoning tool, its very risky to just throw out... it gets Liz hit if they jump over it, or you lose a card. Stick to the j.B and well-spaced 5Bs. 2C is there to make opponents stop mashing against 5D because it has superarmor...that's her basic mixup and eventually players will just upback out of both options so you'll have to vary it up with Bufu or j.D

[crimsonstardust]

Well looks like I'm gonna have to go in the lab and start seeing what I can do with Anti air Bufu and j.D. Thanks.

[Elochai]

Just to be clear, bufu isn't much of an anti-air. It's more so along the lines of a "Hey, I don't want you to jump!" kind of thing.

[crimsonstardust]

Ok I'll remember that.

[Runyst]

wouldn't the bufu miss if they jump forward?

j. D is a lot more effective for preventing the jumps. Too bad some people can jump 5d on reaction >_<

[Elochai]

Yes. 214A reset does not work on upward tech (some characters, if not all), forwards tech, or backwards tech depending on spacing. It'll really only get people who neutral air tech.

[UmaiCakes]

B.Bufu catches back tech and up tech, but not neutral (they land too fast)

None of the Bufus catch forward tech...well this is when you do it as reset

When you do it off OMC 5C or 2C I'm pretty sure it catches all jumpouts