[CPEX] Azrael - Critique Thread

[zeth07]

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Critique Thread:

• Use this thread to post personal match videos and ask for advice on how to improve.
  
• As the player asking for advice: please be open-minded and accepting of other player's critiquing without making excuses, or else this thread serves no purpose.
  
• As the player giving advice: please be constructive with your advice.
  

[zeth07]

Critique:

Hi got some matches here;

LordSpectreX(AZ) vs Kiba (VK)

LordSpectreX(AZ) vs Kid (JI)

LordSpectreX(AZ) vs IxisNaugus (MU)

Advice for development would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Some things i picked up from the videos.

1. You probably should mixup more. You seemed to use a lot of 5B 5BB to 5D/5B. Depending on the opponent you might want to do more crossup dashes, 5B IAD jB crossups etc. And you probably don't want to use valiant as an mixup! You're gonna get blown up for that sooner or later! IF you have meter then sure but even then it's probably just waste of meter.

2. Work on your combos and hitconfirms. You missed many combo opportunities and missed some damage in your combos. Example, when you hit with UW 5D in corner do something like 5B 2C 2B TCL etc.

3. Work on your meter management. Few times you did TCL to BHS even though the opponent would not have died, which personally i find to be waste of meter. I think you should do something like TCL RC iad jC etc. instead. You can also use the meter to RC long range gustaf or 5C - gustaf to force a mixup (6D/3D/crossup). Counter assault is also an great option even though you do have growler as ghetto DP.

4. Try to get weakpoints whenever you can. This is more of an opinion though but i personally like to get UW whenever i can instead of using TCL midscreen. Like something to 2C 6D and so on. I mostly only use TCL midscreen if i have meter to RC for the IAD combo or if im doing combo which uses a weakpoint. But i guess this boils down to preference.

That's all i could think of atm. Hope it helps. Just keep at it!

[AMB Bakery]

Some things i picked up from the videos.

1. You probably should mixup more. You seemed to use a lot of 5B 5BB to 5D/5B. Depending on the opponent you might want to do more crossup dashes, 5B IAD jB crossups etc. And you probably don't want to use valiant as an mixup! You're gonna get blown up for that sooner or later! IF you have meter then sure but even then it's probably just waste of meter.

4. Try to get weakpoints whenever you can. This is more of an opinion though but i personally like to get UW whenever i can instead of using TCL midscreen. Like something to 2C 6D and so on. I mostly only use TCL midscreen if i have meter to RC for the IAD combo or if im doing combo which uses a weakpoint. But i guess this boils down to preference.

Both 1st and 2nd hit of rekkas cancel into hornet or valiant, so it's not completely out of the question as mix-up, but it's definitely a no-more-than-once-per-ten-matches type of gimmick.

Doing TCL if you have no weakpoints isn't so bad, especially if you're carrying them to the corner where they have less options.

Hi got some matches here;

LordSpectreX(AZ) vs Kiba (VK)

LordSpectreX(AZ) vs Kid (JI)

LordSpectreX(AZ) vs IxisNaugus (MU)

Advice for development would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Some things in neutral that you should avoid:

236A, especially after forward dash after you or your opponent have bursted. In the Jin matches this was pretty much every time whenever you were fullscreen. 236A can work as a functional long-range whiff punish because it is pretty fast, but if your opponent catches on, they'll just see you rushing towards them and hit you in the face for it. Jin can do a lot of stuff to you for free, 2D, 5C, hizansen, etc. Valk can just wolfdash sky high and not give a hoot.

Airdashing at mid-range. This just leaves you insanely vulnerable and asking to be anti-aired by literally anything. It's okay to do it fullscreen just to get into the mid-range, but using it to close the distance from mid-range to in their face will result in disaster versus anyone worth their salt. Though airdash j.2C is a gimmick that may be occasionally worth it just because of how funky the movement is and how much priority j.2C has.

Being backdash happy. It's a cool move, it's invincible, it can make a lot of stuff whiff. It's too bad it's 26 frames and leaves you with very little time to capitalize on them if they whiff anything and leaves you even more open to getting run up on than you were before if they didn't whiff something. Backdash > forward dash > backdash is just you accomplishing a whole lot of nothing and won't phase your opponent in the slightest.

[LordSpectreX]

Good advice guys. Thanks, I appreciate it. I'll work on it.

[LordSpectreX]

New Videos, there's a lot of footage not expecting anyone to go through it, but might as well post it anyway.

Azrael vs Hazama (1/3)

Azrael vs Hazama (2/3)

Azrael vs Hazama (3/3)

Did a lot of airdashing since it's Hazama and all but tried to keep it to full range mostly. Stopped doing TCL BHS except to kill. Tried to be more aggressive. Additional advice would be great.

[Lucalibur]

I didn't watch much of it yet but here are a few things I noticed right away:

You really need to change your pressure around. On the first match he was consistently 5Aing you out of IBed 5Bs. Not only that, but there were WAY too many Gustafs resets, many of which were IBed and should have been punished(your luck they didn't). I also barely saw any overheads during that whole thing. Honestly if that Hazama was Barrier IBing instead of normal IBing(or really just normal barrier blocking) your pressure strings would have sent you flying to the other side of the field because of all the autopiloting. More 5A and 5B JCs(5B into crossup J.B is really good IMO), less 5BBs, grabs, 2A>5D, crap like that.

Try to jump cancel Azrael's forward dash more often, but don't get too aggressive with it. You can slowly but consistently and safely cross distance by forward dashing and jump cancelling in the middle, then barrier blocking. That sort of slow but steady approach puts pressure on the enemy if you can keep yourself from getting hit, because most characters are scared of getting too close to Azrael.

Mash some more backdash. No, seriously. Azrael's backdash is really good, you really want to abuse it. Not braindeadly for the most part of course, but you can really get away from some nasty shit with it.

In a nutshell, vary your pressure a bit more, and get better used to Azrael's movement options. You should also optimize your combos a bit more but at least your execution is good for the stuff you did do.

[LordSpectreX]

I didn't watch much of it yet but here are a few things I noticed right away:

You really need to change your pressure around. On the first match he was consistently 5Aing you out of IBed 5Bs. Not only that, but there were WAY too many Gustafs resets, many of which were IBed and should have been punished(your luck they didn't). I also barely saw any overheads during that whole thing. Honestly if that Hazama was Barrier IBing instead of normal IBing(or really just normal barrier blocking) your pressure strings would have sent you flying to the other side of the field because of all the autopiloting. More 5A and 5B JCs(5B into crossup J.B is really good IMO), less 5BBs, grabs, 2A>5D, crap like that.

Try to jump cancel Azrael's forward dash more often, but don't get too aggressive with it. You can slowly but consistently and safely cross distance by forward dashing and jump cancelling in the middle, then barrier blocking. That sort of slow but steady approach puts pressure on the enemy if you can keep yourself from getting hit, because most characters are scared of getting too close to Azrael.

To be honest, while I appreciate the advice, jump canceling in pressure vs Hazama simply does not work. His 5A anti airs you as you are rising (yet alone falling with a j.b/j.a) and goes into 3.1k even without counterhit. Grab don't really work either since this guy pretty much always techs them. 2A>5D and such is legit, and I started doing that a lot later along with stuff like raw 5D on wakeup. Worked well. But yeah, I don't think you're wrong, but vs Hazama jcs just don't function.

[Lucalibur]

Obviously you can't be predictable with it. It's not like he will always know when you will AID out of the 5B and magically anti-air you out of it with 100% consistently. There are characters with better anti-air options you can still get away with doing that sort of shit against. Just saying it's an option you should not completely disregard just because the character has ways to beat if they see it coming, because they have to commit to such options.

[LordSpectreX]

Obviously you can't be predictable with it. It's not like he will always know when you will AID out of the 5B and magically anti-air you out of it with 100% consistently. There are characters with better anti-air options you can still get away with doing that sort of shit against. Just saying it's an option you should not completely disregard just because the character has ways to beat if they see it coming, because they have to commit to such options.

I strongly disagree. Hazama has the best anti air options, or is at least top 3. Even if he doesn't, he hits you with 5A while you are RISING yet alone doing it later. Not to mention he also has access to 5C, 2C and 214DB, all great anti airs that lead into incredible damage. Sure, I might get away with it occassionally, but most of the time, he's just gonna rapidfire 5A and hit me for 3.1k. The risk vs reward is nowhere near in Azrael's favour to warrant jump canceling. It's not like he has to interchange his moves. 5A acts as both the anti air and the punish. If I do jump, 5A, if i do 5BB, 5A, if I do 5D, 5A. Hence why I gustaf'd so much, to try and punish 5A after an insta blocked 5B.

I did find out later that doing rising j.Axn to punish the 5A might work, but it was kinda dodgy.

[Lucalibur]

He won't rapidfire 5A if you're not making it painfully clear you're gonna JC 5A\5B. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound rude, but you act like they will ALWAYS know what you're gonna do ahead of time and will always do the option that beats it. It goes back to what I said, you can't be predictable with that sort of stuff. Remember what I said about the first match? How he was consistently 5Aing you out of IBed 5Bs? It's because it was clear you were gonna go for 5BB. If you, say, had gone for Gustaf or Rekkas after 5B you could have CH him out of it instead(which I saw you doing it once and he was clearly CH out of it so props on that), and that would discourage his mashing. It's all about punishing the player for pressing buttons while you pressure so that you get away with shit that in theory, it doesn't look like you should get away with it.

Again, if you are doing your job right, he won't always pull out the best option to beat whatever you do regardless of the situation. IAD 5B into J.B crossup is good when you know they won't mash the fuck out of anti-airs the moment you JC. You stop that by punishing them for mashing buttons by doing crap that CHs them out of that first. Practically ALL mixup options are open in some way to mashing, hence why you train your enemy not to mash.

Also going back to your earlier post, something I forgot to address: Don't say grabs don't work, seriously. I'm sure you're hating me repeating myself just as much as I am, but you can't be predictable with that sort of stuff. If you KNOW they're gonna teching a grab, you can punish them for that. They can't mentally prepare for all options, they have to commit to one or two. So this person is expecting you to grab after 5A, he even notices a delay after 5A so that it doesn't end up purple, so he tries to tech. What happens if you JC 5A the moment he tries to tech the grab? Or if you grab right away after 5A, and it causes a TRM despite being purple? Or you 5A again and CH them out of the throw startup because they were trying to tech it?

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're aware of all of these concepts, but I failed to see you put them to use consistently and effectively. Your pressure and mixups are, IMO, from what I saw, one of the things that needs the most work out of your fundamentals. I went back and watched some of the matches I hadn't seen yet, saw you getting CH out of IBed 5B again because you tried going for 5BB. Saw the rare 2A>5D, it was nice, but otherwise your pressure was almost the exact same each time. You also don't know when to call it 'quits' and just backdash out of there. I saw you trying to to 2C after a blocked 3C and you just got Houtenjin CH out of that.

And just to make myself clear so you don't think I'm trying to boss you around or anything(I don't expect you to think this but I'm playing it safe here since I'm writing a really fat wall of text here), I'm not saying you MUST use those options THESE ways I mentioned and that they will ALWAYS work or anything like that. I'm just making you aware of crap I noticed and that I BELIEVE you should work on it. You CAN do these things, the enemy won't always know you will do X or Y option every time you do it unless you follow a really predictable, one dimensional mindset, which you obviously shouldn't do at any times so we can take that out of the equation.

Like, I'm not some sort of amazing Azrael master or any of that, I could easily be wrong about any of these things, but that is just my opinion from what I got to see. You can do what you will what all I've said, maybe I'm not really being any help at all(this would suck since I know I'm probably coming off as an asshole here but I really just want to help), but I DO ask that you at least look at what I said, look back at your own replays yourself and try to see where I'm coming from. Maybe you will figure ways to fix your own playstyle flaws by yourself after doing so, maybe not. I just -hope- I'm being useful in some form here and you're free to take all I've said in any way you want.

[LordSpectreX]

Just to be clear I agree with you on quite a few things...scratch that, pretty much all the things you've said and I do appreciate the time you taken to write this out. I just simply do not agree with jump canceling for pressure, and hell, even that is just for that matchup. That's really all. I'm only showing some skepticism towards one piece of advice only because I agree with the rest of it.

Even after all that however, I figured out doing rising J.D beats 5A clean, so I think I could make jump cancels more unpredictable if I do rising J.D more, forcing him to commit to slower moves instead of the one move he can use to counter everything.

[Lucalibur]

Well, jump cancelling is quite the commitment, and it really shouldn't be done often, so I understand the point you're trying to make. It's just that IAD J.B with Azrael is better than most air attacks during pressure, because his air dash is so short, so there is little time to react to it compared to other jump cancelled moves. It also goes into 2B>Rekkas, making it a staple combo. Regardless, it's an option and you're free to use it or not in any way you want, just making it clear it's better than most jump cancels during pressure(they're usually kind of shit so I get your skepticism).

Anyway at least I hope I could help with everything else. Sorry for making this longer than it should have been.

[Kinkuli]

I get away with a lot of 5B IAD jB in japan tbh. Even in Hazama matchup. If you just don't do it everytime it's ok. This actually reminds me of talking with my friend and saying that with bang it totally okay to do something like 2C to 5B times. If you look videos, dora does it "all the time".

You need to make people fear pushing buttons. Azrael has a lot tools to do that. Most notable are canceling to gustaf or tiger magnum.

And again like i already said earlier you do a lot of 5B to 5BB to stuff. It gets predictable fast and people can and WILL disrespect you because they can do that if you don't make them fear your other options. I would say that your biggest problem currently is not mixing up. I might be wrong here but for example i saw 0 5Ds from 5A/2A/2B. Everytime you did it was from 5BB. 5BB to something is a good tool, but tbh you are using it too much. Also using 2D and 6D sometimes in pressure is also okay. Dogura gets away with it, i get away with it and so on. Main point it, you must instill fear in your opponent. Azrael hurts like hell. Random mashing against him get you in early grave if he just makes the good reads.

I wouldnt personally use rising jD. Like i said you have good grounded tools to deal with mashing. Should probably use those instead.

All in all if opponent is rapid firing something, then im sorry to say he just has you downloaded =/. I might just be saying the same thing i said earlier but yeah.

[LordSpectreX]

You need to make people fear pushing buttons. Azrael has a lot tools to do that. Most notable are canceling to gustaf or tiger magnum.

Out of curiosity why would you tiger magnum instead of gustaf?

[Kinkuli]

To throw your opponent off. Gustaf is better in terms of safety and should probably be your go to tool against mashing. If i'm not going senile i think dogura uses something > tiger magnum randomly sometimes. Might just be during casuals but yeah.

EDIT: Basicly my logic behind this is that to me doing Tiger is somewhat similar to Fei Long's rekkas. In Azrael's case of course it not the "best" tool, but it there for you to make your opponent think about your other options too. If it doesn't work for you, then you don't need to do it. I sometimes check my opponents reactions what do they do if i just go to Tiger few times. If it's no good then it goes back in to the toolbox for another day.

[Ice Cube]

http://youtu.be/Z0-KUg6Dv2Y

Cut this out of the stream replay myself since we don't usually upload footage here in Singapore. 3 matches, 5 mins. And yes that's me in the blue polo. Appreciate some harsh comments!

(Note: the audio in the last match is desync'd for some reason)

[Kinkuli]

http://www.twitch.tv/central804/b/485581516 team tournament should be there. Starts around 1h5mins. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out which azrael i was D:.

Some notes. Felt pretty nervous for some reason. On top of my head i think i did too many random dives, ate stuff randomly because i was being dumb (few plat bubbles for example) and was a bit too buster happy in neutral i think. Also need to work on blocking skills in general, improve neutral game and get more matchup experience. Against the rachel player i didn't adapt and didn't tag the rolls, buster would probably have been a good counter.

@Ice cube: Looked through briefly and saw you used dive "a lot". You got away with it so i guess it's ok.

[Ice Cube]

@Kinkuli your dive kicks look okay to me, you definitely did it less than me (I was kinda disrespecting my opponent though, except the last match against Jin). I should take a note of each situation where I dive kick'd.

Some stuff I noticed from your matches (only seen till the 17-dan Noel one)

You were pressing buttons after negative on block moves (saw a lot of 6D > 5A and one 6A > 5A). I would just backdash out, people with matchup experience will definitely punish your buttons (except Growler but it's not worth the risk)

There was one point against Plat where after your aircombo she backroll'd. Could definitely 2A to blue beat pick up that.

After blocking Ragna's DP, you can punish harder than 5B, 5D is the easiest one but 3D is possible as well. Even if they burst you still get a weakpoint.

A bit too backdash happy on wake up as well, Ragna punishes easily with 5B while Rachel in corner can press whatever button, since she usually 5A oki anyway.

There was a few combo drop / not optimal combos, but that you just have to train so no big deal I guess.

[Kinkuli]

Yeah made a lot of combo drop and sub-optimal combos. On the ragna DP i was waiting to see if opponent was going to RC. He ofc didn't have meter so that was totally my miss. The following jB that i did, i actually have no idea what i was thinking x).

On the 6D -> 5A. Yeah you're right. Should cut that one out. Somewhat bad habit from online. A lot of people just like to upback all the time there =/. For the 6A -> 5A do you mean the situation in the corner against ragna? On that one i was banking on the 6A either going trough ID and if he was blocking, hitting on the last few active frames to get frame advantage.

And yeah. Backdashing is cool. Need to stop being cool so i don't get blownup . Appreciate the feedback! The tournament was a lot of fun. Gonna go there again next time also.

[Ice Cube]

Hmm, just checked the 6A frame data. Theory fighting follows.

If you want to meaty it to get frame neutral/advantage you need to do 6A early to coincide your opponent's first wake up frame with your active frame 5~9, but then it's no longer invincible.

If you want to go through (not clash) Ragna's DP you need to do 6A late to coincide all of his DP's active frames within your 6A's invincible start-up frames. In frame terms, coincide your 6A startup frame 1 with Ragna's wake up frame 4. The window is easier if you're at further range, where his DP's first hit will whiff anyway, so you can coincide your 6A startup frame 1 with Ragna's wake up frame 4~9. If you're aiming for a clash then the window is pretty loose.

So you can either meaty 6A then frame trap with 5A, or you can use it to bait DP. These effects require different 6A timing however, and won't happen at the same time.

[Verimeloni]

Trying to meaty characters with good DP isn't a really good idea, you'd be better just crossup-dashing and getting a free CH combo.

@Ice Cube: Very solid matches must say, only things that bothered me was the BHS in the first match, there you could've RC'd to aerial (since they still had "too much" HP left for BHS to finish them) and since you had so much heat (41% after BHS) you could have done a double RC combo to finish them right away (RC > IAD > j.5C > hj.c > Aerial (delayed j.5D) RC > j.5C > 2C or whatever), but that's just my opinion. The second thing, other than dominating the Mu match, you could've stayed back to gain a few stocks couple of times. Nitpicking aside, great playing!

[LordSpectreX]

To throw your opponent off. Gustaf is better in terms of safety and should probably be your go to tool against mashing. If i'm not going senile i think dogura uses something > tiger magnum randomly sometimes. Might just be during casuals but yeah.

EDIT: Basicly my logic behind this is that to me doing Tiger is somewhat similar to Fei Long's rekkas. In Azrael's case of course it not the "best" tool, but it there for you to make your opponent think about your other options too. If it doesn't work for you, then you don't need to do it. I sometimes check my opponents reactions what do they do if i just go to Tiger few times. If it's no good then it goes back in to the toolbox for another day.

Yeah that makes sense, especially since it's important to make Gustaf as un-IBable as possible.

[Kinkuli]

So you can either meaty 6A then frame trap with 5A, or you can use it to bait DP. These effects require different 6A timing however, and won't happen at the same time.

Yeah, tried it out in training mode myself last night also. You sir are correct.

Trying to meaty characters with good DP isn't a really good idea, you'd be better just crossup-dashing and getting a free CH combo.

Well like you can see from the ragna matches, even crossup-dashes can be blown up so~. Yeah i can get behind that you need to respect opponents with good DPs, but in the end it's all about reading your opponent.

[Verimeloni]

Well like you can see from the ragna matches, even crossup-dashes can be blown up so~. Yeah i can get behind that you need to respect opponents with good DPs, but in the end it's all about reading your opponent.

Yeah, it really works only if you hit them with midscreen rekkas. In the Ragna match I didn't really spot anything that I would've done differently, with Rachel I think you could've "Growlered" at least a couple of her fullscreen projectiles.

Other than that, great matches! Out of curiosity (off-topic), how many people in your area main Azrael? Is there any (one) character which people tend to play the most?

[Kinkuli]

Yeah, it really works only if you hit them with midscreen rekkas. In the Ragna match I didn't really spot anything that I would've done differently, with Rachel I think you could've "Growlered" at least a couple of her fullscreen projectiles.

Other than that, great matches! Out of curiosity (off-topic), how many people in your area main Azrael? Is there any (one) character which people tend to play the most?

Yeah probably. Played some casuals with the rachel before hand and growler got me into trouble so i guess i just opted not to use it subconsciously :3.

So far i've seen like maybe 3 azrael's beside me, i have no idea about if he's their main or not. Mostly seen Jin, noel or ragna. other than that pretty balanced i think. No kunes, amanes or carls. Makes it really hard not to get nervous if you see one. No idea how they work . I don't think i have won a single match against carl when i've seen one. No idea how to block him.

Sidenote: hungry for more tournaments. I had like month hiatus from arcades due spending too much on other shit. Need to get back to the habit of going few times a week (and attending every tourney i can!).