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zeth07

[CPEX] Azrael - Critique Thread

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Hi guys, here's my latest matchvid

FT5 vs Hakumen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cshBWOdOMk4

Casuals vs Rachel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cOLDt7Jq6A

Personally I'm still having a hard time dealing with Hakumen, especially in neutral play since most of his moves beats me completely. Any comment/advice will be appreciated.

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I didn't watch the Rachel set, just the Hakumen one, but things from there:

You seem really random. I couldn't really see any particular gameplan or feeling out of opponent's habits or tendencies, you just kinda press buttons. This is especially obvious because of the lack of confirms. You get a fair amount of hits that should've lead to combos, but you didn't think they would so you just used those hits to go into a mix-up instead. Have to confirm those.

Speaking of confirms, gotta work on those too. You got a lot of crouching hits but never went into 3C > Sentinel Dump for more damage/better corner carry. You also missed a lot of opportunities to add a TCL into a combo, and instead went straight into a jumping string ender that could've been done after TCL for more damage. This one isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it wouldn't have added a significant amount of damage, but every bit helps. But there were a few occasions where this was done mid-screen, and if you want an answer to the Hakumen match-up, it's putting them in the corner, and the additional TCL would've done that.

You also kept trying to use 2C as an anti-air, when 90% of the time it just got cut and you got counter-hit, 9% of the time it just straight up whiffed, and I think I saw two actually hit when they threw out the normal way late. It's fine to test it a couple times to see if you can't figure out the timing, but this happened way more than it should've. Sometimes you just need to make a mental note to go test it in training mode and look for other options.

Blackhawk Stinger when it's not going to kill. Stop that. I could see a reason for it if you're using it for one last final push to reach the corner, but otherwise, you're basically doing the other person a favor. Azrael wants to be in that ass and stay in that ass. BHS sends them flying off full-screen to reset the neutral, which is where Hakumen wins. This is even worse. I'm 90% sure that a more extended combo, for instance TCL > 5B > 2C > 5B > BHS would have actually finished the job instead of going straight into BHS after the j.D.

You use Gustaf too much in neutral. It's a fine tool potentially, but that Hakumen spent most of the match jumping around, and really should've whiff punished every single one you threw out.

You also dash through too much. Again, fine tool potentially, but you never tiger knee'd Gustaf or TCL to catch mashing, or really did mix-up off it, it was almost exclusively dash through > 5A.

So, things to do:

- Work on your spacing. A lot. That was not a strong opponent, and any decent Hakumen would've been skipping through a field of daisies for weeks afterwards for the amount of whiff punishes you handed them on a silver platter. In conjunction with the spacing, your movement needs work too. Too much time standing still, the only instant air-dashes I can recall were after mid-screen TCL rapids to continue the combo. This is a tough one to give specific advice for, because your own movement should be entirely based around your opponent and what they tend to do, so that's just something you need to analyze so you can get in their face asap.

- IMO, not enough overheads. Usually it's the exact opposite with Azrael players (I'm guilty of almost never using lows and I know I need to fix that), but your opponent was almost always down-backing. This falls back into analyzing your opponent. Use and abuse any bad habit you see, and just keep hitting them with overheads. If they keep getting hit, throw any thoughts of mix-up out of the window. Keep doing it until they prove they've learned and will block it. Then you figure out if they've really learned, or if they've just switched to getting hit low instead.

- Confirms, confirms, confirms. You use double 5As a lot, which part of me says is bad, but that should be all the time in the world for you to confirm crouching or standing state to determine what you do after the 5B. Also need to be less focused on what you want to do so you can confirm stray hits that happen that you're not expecting, so that you don't end up giving up guaranteed damage on a mix-up that may or may not hit.

- Diversify your set-ups. Dash through and tiger-knee TCL , it's significantly faster than dash through 5A (or Gustaf instead if they're mashing for counter-hit combo). Jump cancel your 5As or 5Bs to do some air shenanigans, whether it just be a continuation of the blockstring, a dash through j.B > 2B, empty jump throw/low, etc. etc. I'm pretty sure you didn't use a single 2D in the entire set, and almost no 3Cs. Most of it was just 5A 5A 5B 5B and hope opponent is pressing buttons. More mix-up = more hits, and mix-up is scary shit. Bunch of mids isn't.

- The most important thing I can really say is that you need to play your opponent. A FT5 is a decent amount of time that can give a lot of insight on habits. I was expecting significantly more air-throws (or air to airs) later on because of how much time you both spent jumping around, but it fell back onto the random thing, just hitting buttons and hoping that the opponent would be there to get hit by it. You need a gameplan and knowledge of your spacing. The hardest part of a fighting game is knowing how to get those hits, and being able to read your opponent + having good spacing are the best places to start.

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So yeah it's been a bit of a while. We had a tournament recently. I wasn't going to originally place the videos here since my hitconfirms and optimal combos were dodgy due to not playing the game for a bit, but to be honest, I think I am improving. The problem is that I'm still having trouble on what kind of direction to take with Azrael. I notice obvious mistakes like using Valiant/Hornet on Low HP or autopiloting 2C>6D/3D. I do a lot of those. But I'm still a bit unsure about subtle stuff like how I should be improving my neutral and pressure game. If people have some general advice for me to go on for a while, that would be great.

Vs Litchi (Lol based thinking that 214D is Growler.)

Vs Bang (Get kinda done in. This is what I mean by not understand the neutral. Maybe it's just Bang Inexperience, but I feel like Bang is just able to make those sudden movements and stop me from pressing buttons, especially in the air.)

Vs Ragna

Vs Ragna/Jin (Kinda lost my nerves when he picked Jin, oh well.)

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You could try to incorporate something like 5A 5A to dash crossup or crossup dashes in general, like let's say jB to crossup dash Tiger magnum/5A etc. . You seem to rely heavily just on 5B and 5BB. Didn't see that many 5As or 2As. And lose those random valiants man, painful to watch! But i guess you already know this haha ^^.

Regarding pressure game. Once opponent starts to understand how azrael works, his pressure game becomes a lot less scary tbh. You just need to keep things fresh by doing 5A to 5A, 5A to 5D, 5A to 2A etcetc. Use gustaf once in a while (I autopilot gustaf too much atm!!!) if you think opponent isn't gonna mash, maybe throw out 6D or 3D, you have health, you can take few hits. 5B to iad jB to 5D etc. Tbh just throw out more 5Ds till your opponent starts to block them. You can use it from so many situations it's almost stupid. In corner you can do the fake cross up jB. I smile everytime i see ragna whiff 2C when using the setup. Also Gustaf RC to 6D/3D is fucking godlike.

Neutral: Poke with 5C, throw out 6Cs if you can get away with it. gustaf/dash tk gustaf. Maybe Throw out 2C if you think opponent is gonna air dash towards you.

All in all, you need to play Azrael like a bully. Sure he can rushdown like any other char if you just happen to make the right calls. I'm sure you do this already but maybe just sit down with few matches of dogura and try to take notes what he does. Just x-copy what he does and you are probably in the right direction.

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Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I do need to be a lot more creative and oppressive with my pressure. Usually what happens now is that people just DP inbetween 5B and 5BB and it's really hard to bait because of how it has long startup (which only connects because of high blockstun). Cool, I got it in my head, I'll work on that. Thanks, that's the kind of brain smack I needed.

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Azrael's pressure it actually full of holes where one can DP. Even more so if they IB shit. I also have this problem against more versed players. Was playing against HARA's ragna in a tourney and he just IB DP'd everything i did. In those cases just need to cut strings shorts, bait the DP and punish accordingly. Reacting to IB's is the key i think. I'm getting better noticing when my gustaf's get IBd but i still need to work on reacting to 5A, 2A and 5B IBs. At least in match ups where you need to keep DPs in mind.

But i'm glad i could help. I'm personally having a bit of a down perioid now. I feel that I really need someone to talk with and play matches offline. Getting good ones at Black eye with nemo, jiyuna and dora, but probably would need to talk and analyze the matches more.

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I'm not Kin but I'm gonna try to give my 2 cents as well.

It seems you haven't exactly grown used to Azrael's neutral yet. I don't see enough movement, not enough backdashes at neutral, not enoguh 5Cs or 6Cs. You just kind of stand there, move a little and let the enemy do their thing. You have to put pressure, try to find chances to get in. You really shouldn't be playing a defensive game like you did there because all that did was give the Kagura player more chances to get in and hurt you, which he did.

Also, you can just Growler his orbs. You don't need, and shouldn't have to block them. You can backdash after the recovery is over and get away with full phalanx stocks, which turns Azrael's neutral game a LOT more lethal. A lot of characters get scared to press buttons when they know you're sitting on 2\3 Phalanx stocks and can punish anything for 1K and knockdown regardless of screen position.

You should probably learn how to do crossup dash TCL\Gustaf, it really helps during pressure when you expect the enemy to mash buttons and the latter catches those trying to roll away on wakeup while being safe as hell. I saw a few situations where you crossup dashes while they were down but didn't really do anything. If you don't think you're at a high enough level to jump special cancel his forward dash, then something simpler like forward dash>jump cancel IAD crossup J.B works fine as well. Azrael has 4 way mixups that he can do a lot with and help make his game unpredictable, which you should always be trying to so since he depends on being unpredictable even more so than characters like Ragna.

One last thing, don't be scared to do more than just the first TCL rekka if you have meter. If you properly delay all hits then they're all very dangerous frame traps, and you can just RC the last hit for a pressure reset and a lot of chip damage. If they do mash buttons during any of the 2 second hits and get CH then you get a full combo due to their CH properties. I saw the Kagura pressing a lot of As during your pressure and getting away with it. Don't let him do it!

That is all I've noticed, but take it with a gran of salt anyway.

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What the previous guy said!

I guess you could have used more gustaf's in neutral. You probably could have gotten few Gustaf CHs here and there. If the opponent starts to jump around to bait out gustaf's, then just be more careful with them. What i noticed you might wanna work on hitconfirming 5C to BHS. You threw out atleast 2 on block so there's that i guess. You also seemed to push buttons after blocked 6D/3d few times. Worked there but might wanna keep in mind that on block you are -2.

You also seemed to delay tech a lot which is good! If at any point while delay teching you see kagura going for the crossup move, just DP him. More so in corner. The move is really slow so shouldn't be a problem to reacting to it. I'm not sure but you also might be able to just delay tech and 5B them on the recovery of the move also. Not enough match up exp on my part to say for sure.

On combos. Nothing major really, but i think you got few back throws to corner and i think you could have gotten more dmg. You should be able to do Back throw - TCL - 5B - 2C and so on in corner. If you have UW then just go straight to valiant. Also remember when you use 3C before valiant!! I saw you use it few times before valiant part of the combo and then use it again during valiant.

On crossups. Yeah maybe learn and think how you might be able to implement them more. Kagura is a special case where i would use them sparingly. Flash kick and all....If you get away with it go for it, but just something to keep in mind.

Know punishes. Might have happened more but i noticed that atleast once you punished blocked flash kick with just 5A. Could have used 5D or 5B. 5D is better if you have no weakpoints(i still just autopilot 5B :(). 3D is also a good choice if you can use it.

Antiairing. So ok this is more kagura specific tbh, but in this match up i would just give up on trying to use 2C or 6B as an antiair. I swear to god every kagura i've seen just does early jC and you just get CHd cos that move probably hits whole screen. Maybe just BD and see if you can tag him with 2C or 5C.

I might have missed stuff or typed funny stuff. 6am and all :3. I'm also totally stealing that jA to air throw reset!

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Thanks guys, as far as neutral outside of close range, I feel like az's 5c/6c is kind of dangerous to use against kagura with his 5c and 2c respectively. I could probably remedy that by trying to position myself a little better though. I didn't even think about using 5d to punish flash kick, so thanks for that. I was a complete idiot during some of the valiant combos lol, smp 3c, etc.

I'll definitely try and implement the other points you guys brought up, thanks again, kudos.

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http://www.twitch.tv/inputlag/b/501230434

Azrael matches starting at ~1hr 9min mark.

I know I was thinking during the matches that I did alright but in hindsight when looking at them I really feel terrible and I feel that I am alot better than presented here. Anyway I want my Azrael to be way better and putting myself out there will hopefully do me good.

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Gonna just write stuff down as I see it, so it might be disjointed

1st and 2nd rounds of you playing, you could've ended it with BHS both times, and you instead went a different way and did a regular combo ender instead. It wasn't too bad, since you did end up winning them both, but you were in a position where it could've easily gone the other player's way both rounds as well. You ended up astralling at the end of round 3, but that could've been done in the preceding combo as well and would've saved you getting thrown back into neutral by the burst. Just be more aware of your options. Man for realsies, why do you hate BHS you could've ended so many rounds by just doing 5BB BHS D: yaaaay you used one right at the end of the video

You also try to pre-empt a lot of things, mostly spark bolts, and you had around a 10% success rate. Honestly, that Tager should've brutalized you for every one (aside from the full-screen ones cause lolTager). It's really not bad since you got away with it most of the time, but a stronger player would take your lunch money for it. (which leads into my next point)

That Tager is either new to the game or to the character, because their neutral game was very meh. They also should've been abusing backdash as much as you were for punishes on a lot of what you were doing, you got away with murder there. I can't say this 100%, but I feel like every single 6C should've been a free backdash > 360B punish. Just seems extremely dangerous to be doing. They also should've been blowing you up a lot with 2C, since that would've reached you even when you tried to mess up their 2A timing with j.2C. It's difficult to do online, and I have no idea how lively Europe's BB scene is, but grinding it out with stronger players is far more advantageous if you're looking to improve than people who let you get away with so many things you shouldn't.

Confirms, confirms, confirms. Also execution. I cry every time I see a dropped TCL, and I didn't see you confirm a fatal 6C bounce once. There were also a few crouching combos that should've lead into 3C. Maximizing damage is vital, especially against Tager when it's so dangerous to be getting into range for you to hit in the first place.

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Thanks for the input. I thought I was gonna get alot harscher critique (it might still come though ^^)

As it's online casuals I really go for Astral alot, that's just a personal thing and I indeed suck at realizing when I can take the round with BHS.

As for pre-empt spark bolts I do it alot against Tager cause I have yet to play anyone to call me out on it so yeah... I just get away with it. If I didn't I would immediately stop obviously.

As for 6C I realize it's a move that I should step away from and rely alot more on 5C atleast for this match-up when I looked back at these matches.

EU BB scene is somewhat meh tbh but I try to reach out to the stronger players since I obviously realize that getting blown up for sh1t is going to make me a better player in the end.

I have really sloppy inputs that are really shown in TCL but I am training at this specifcly looking in training mode why I'm failing. It's better then it used to be ^^ As for 6C fatal I've sat down in training looking at what to do. I don't have any muscle memory for when this hits airborne yet so I get frozen when it happens. I'm also trying to work on the crouch confirm to 22C, 2C, 2B, TCL midscreen.

Thanks for giving me a second set of eyes looking it over. You really get blind by your own thing alot of times.

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What i noticed was why no mixups!? Even if it's tager you should use your 5D more. Most of the time you just went to either 5A 5B IAD crossup or 5A 5B 5BB. Saw few 5Ds but you probably should mixup with like 5A 2A or 5A 5D, 5A 2A 5A etc.

But yeah confirms, execution, mixups for starters. There are some players in Finland so if you happen to know Blodwig then he might be able to help you reach them. Lanruisen is probably the best one there atm. Not sure how active they are but....

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Hah I cought myself never using 5D against the end and when I tried to pull out one I got CH'd out of it by 5A... happens way to much against Tager's for me :(

Also I'm quite afraid of the 360A/720C spinning so I really tend to go for alot of jump cancels.

Yeah we the Swedish community has no contact with Finland over BB afaik. Blodwig doesn't play BB and I thought Lazze stop playing all together several years ago. Haven't heard anyone mention his name for atleast 6 years.

I'll try to do better and be more focused and hopefully I'll bring out better play with my next batch.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUnoj7N0Gdk&list=UUSWFwW7yDCCwwajY97IaZ3w

My buddy is currently learning Azrael and needs advice as I'm currently learning Litchi as my third. Please help him kindly since I don't know how to give proper advice on him.

I watched all the matches, I'd say tell your friend to just play with Azrael more. His arcade mode, his challenges, Score Attack, spend time in training to test his revolver action and basic combos, watch Azrael matches from YT etc. At this stage I don't think it's necessary to list specific things that need improving.

I really do not want to sound rude, but it's just obvious (from watching the matches) that your friend isn't really familiar with Azrael yet. Mashing B, lots of missed confirms, overuse of Valiant and crossup dashing are all "beginner traits" which I remember myself abusing too when I was starting out with Az.

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It's time for...

Kiba (Tsubaki) vs LordSpectreX (Azrael) - Timestamped Twitch

I won't bother showing the other matches as one is me trolling and the other is me just getting massed DP by Kagura while I try and figure out the matchup. :P. But it's at 1h32m22s if you wish to see it. D:

20 minutes on Youtube of resident mod Kiba vs me.

Tried to improve on what was told to me before (no raw Valiants, use more 5A/2A, mixup more often etc). Any more advice would be wonderful. Thank you very much.

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Yay for improvement!

What i noticed is that at some point you autopiloted 5B 5BB 2A gustaf. You also did crossups now which is good. I saw you doing tiger and 5B but i personally like doing 5a and tiger.

I don't think i saw any 5Ds though. People plz it's the god overhead! Use it! If you are getting DPd or mashed out then you probably need to few things. Use frametraps to discourage mashing, anything to gustaf works out pretty good. Bait DP's now and then and punish (captain obvious i know). Also it helps if you can react to IBs. You seemed to recognize the situations where gustaf got IBd so this shouldn't be a problem. Also try to look for patterns how people like to react to different situations. Sometimes you have to make a hard reads sure but if you play enough you should get a hunch how people usually like to react.

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I did use it a few times, though I did use it less and less as the matches went on. I did eventually stop using it at all.

But yeah, I was afraid of that. Trying to figure out the way people play each game with only two/three matches to do it in is such a pain. It's like that online too. I will just get completely mashed out in the first couple of games against everybody before I start winning. I'm pretty certain now with your input and others that I'm just too impatient and try to jump on every opportunity far too much. I'll just have to work on it. Thanks!

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Youtube link.

My recent matches at a Singapore tourney. The awkward moments (empty throws, empty cross-up) in the Terumi match was caused by stick problem, so please ignore those. Otherwise, I do appreciate brutal comments.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIlkjccS0As&t=11m07s

 

I gotta be honest right now, I don't think any Azrael in the West can beat Kiba. I'm not expecting a clear technical answer on how to win this, but I would appreciate an objective pair of eyes to look at these matches and tell me what they think and what I should try to do more/less of. Thanks! :3

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Don't be too hasty on getting in. Turtle more. Most of the time you're getting hit in neutral is due to trying to get in and get punished. Valk does have advantage in fullscreen neutral, but not much. His fullscreen approach carry risk as well (get 5B/j.B/2C punch/rock in the face), unlike zoners whose fullscreen stuff are very low risk forcing Azrael to get in. So play neutral more slowly, learn how to counter his approaches (jump around and j.B/a few dive kicks to zone, anti-air with 5B, etc.). Dash/air dash j.B/Gustaf aren't the only options in neutral, as you evidently did.

Disrespect his oki more. I don't know whether Valk's max range 5B (wolf) will trade with Growler on wake up, test that out. Trading is much better than blocking Valk's mix-up. If trading not possible though, Counter Assault on the first chance you get. The wolf cannot block so Valk cannot bait CA even with rapid. I saw a total of zero CAs.

Backdash is pretty terrible against wolf oki, or even wolf neutral, since he walks so fast and has so little recovery on his attacks. Doubly so when you're in corner, backdash is literally the worst option, wolf dash j.A > 5B/C will hit every single time. So don't. (against human is fine though) In neutral, jump more, backdash less.

2C is good on reaction, but not to throw out randomly due to long recovery and how fast wolf Valk can punish stuff.

Some unoptimized combos. Saw a 5D corner combo where you got <3k with no weakpoints, which is horrible.

Saw some TCL rapid mix-up. I haven't been doing it that much these days since 1)it can be mashed out of and 2)it's very telegraphed due to Leopard's long animation on block. Try Tiger RC mix-up or Cobra RC mix-up, they are much less telegraphed.

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Disrespect his oki more. I don't know whether Valk's max range 5B (wolf) will trade with Growler on wake up, test that out. Trading is much better than blocking Valk's mix-up. If trading not possible though, Counter Assault on the first chance you get. The wolf cannot block so Valk cannot bait CA even with rapid. I saw a total of zero CAs.

 

Sadly Azrael can't do much about w5C oki, Growler will whiff if the oki is spaced is done correctly, I wouldn't recommend to try him because the punish will hurt and he will get a lot of wolf meter wth this. Scud will beat it, but if the Valk didn't commit, he'll be able to escape with a 7D and punish afterwards, backdash is possible midscreen but of course will expose you to a 6D~A.

CAs are probably the best way to get out of wolf pressure but he can bait those the same way he baits bursts with 4/7D, he just need to adjust the timing a bit, so you have to avoid getting previsible with those.

 

I find the wolf extremly hard to AA on reaction due to 4/7D fakeouts, like LordSpectreX I find the neutral hard against Valk, to counter his approches, you have to commit to a read most of times but can't punish his whiffs as well as he can punish yours.:/

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