AC: General Q&A

[Digital Watches]

You can hit people from long range, but you can't fight at long range. Just like you can hit people at short range, but you can't fight at short range. Basically, Axl has a weird set of tools that operate mostly in mid-range and as anti-air. This lets him disregard a lot of people's zoning games, because the area control you can apply against other characters doesn't work against Axl's tools. Combined with having the silly dhalsim normals people get the idea that you're going to want to sit back and keep people out and play a zoning game from neutral. Of course, the problem is that that doesn't work. Your options at long range are very punishable and stuffable. Your options once they close the gap and put you in pressure are abysmal. Your job is not to keep people out, because the longer you trade damage for distance, the more chances they have to guess right and get their game started on you, and your tools force you to commit to your first guess. Except against like, Potemkin, you're not trying to keep your distance, you're waiting for an opening. Axl is what's called a "morphing" character, which means that you're not trying to force the game back to neutral (Where zoning characters excel), you're trying to get offensive momentum and keep it.

[Silmerion]

We're way past release by now, I suppose, but I have +R for the Vita if anyone less lucky would like anything tried out.

[Silmerion]

All right, so I've been playing around with this combo all morning:

(From starting positions in Training Mode) 5K, 3P, 2H, 2D, Rensen (FRC), 66, 6H, 5K, 2S, 623H 623H

This combo is totally sweet. You sacrifice relatively little damage and put your opponent straight into knockdown in the corner (and it knocks down on everyone.) It works on the whole cast, but against Jam, Baiken, I-No, Bridget, May, Millia, and Kliff (the floaties) you'll want to do the 6H earlier than usual so that the first hit of 623H will whiff.

[Horokei]

(From starting positions in Training Mode) 5K, 3P, 2H, 2D, Rensen (FRC), 66, 6H, 5K, 2S, 623H 623H

Is it ACR? If yes, you can add 5H before 6H to improve damage output.

[Silmerion]

Is it ACR? If yes, you can add 5H before 6H to improve damage output.

I'm having a lot of trouble with this. Can you link a video?

[Horokei]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwQ79x83xNc - 2:20

[Silmerion]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwQ79x83xNc - 2:20

All right! It's definitely a tight link, but it's doable.

So, one change to Axl that never really got brought up is that Kokuugeki no longer sends the opponent more or less vertically upward; it now shoots them off at something of a 45-degree angle. This is mostly irrelevant, but makes it harder to do gimmicky stuff such as midscreen non-CH Kokuu (FRC) -> ..., and basically makes it impossible to do combo into Kokuu (FRC) -> 66 -> j.D -> Kokuu outside of the corner (not that that was ever the optimal combo).

[Silmerion]

YOU GUYS.

5D -> Kokuu works in AC+R. If you do the Kokuu low enough to the ground, the opponent is unable to tech for a long time, generally either landing on the ground or teching just above it. I haven't tried any midscreen shenanigans yet, but in the corner this is another way for us to get tensionless Bomber loop reps.

EDIT: Just did 5D -> Kokuu -> 66 -> 5P -> 6K -> 2S -> sj.H -> sj.D -> Kokuu on Anji from training mode starting positions.

[Digital Watches]

Maaaan, do I have to go buy a vita? Stupid arc and their late patches.

Can you no longer get a simple 5D->j.D->j.D->TKB into the corner? I'm curious about whether 5D->Kokuu as a launch is more damage.

[Silmerion]

You can; actually, I happen to have been testing numbers earlier today, and 5D->j.D->j.D->Bomber->... still gets more damage. A regular old midscreen 5D->j.D->j.D->j.K->j.S->j.H->j.D->Kokuu also gets more damage than any tensionless 5D->Kokuu ID I've tried, which is on the whole pretty disappointing.

So far, the only practical thing to come out of this seems to be that 5D->Kokuu->66->5P->2S->623H 623H knocks down on mid-weights and above, which is pretty sweet. You have to sacrifice some damage, of course, but a tensionless 5D combo that knocks down from midscreen is nothing to sneeze at.

[bbq sauce]

up until benten H that sounds like it'd be relatively burst safe, at least.

[Silmerion]

up until benten H that sounds like it'd be relatively burst safe, at least.

True! So there's one reason you mught be willing to sacrifice damage and go with a 5D->Kokuu combo instead of a 5D->j.D->j.D combo.

[Silmerion]

So we all know about fishing for CHs with 3P, but what you might not know is that his confirm in AC+R is really, really easy at all but max range (where the second hit of 3P doesn't connect).

Did 3P hit normally or get blocked? Follow up with a 2H (or a f.S I suppose).

Did 3P net you a CH? Chain into 2S for an air combo.

The confirm off of max-range CH 3P is, at best, very, very difficult, but in any range where the second hit of 3P connects a monkey could react to it.

EDIT: Unrelated, but Bomber -> 2S j.D Bomber -> 2S j.D Bomber -> 2S j.D Bomber -> Rensen -> 2 does about 189 on Anji. For reference, it did ~245 on Anji in AC.

[Silmerion]

So this works now:

(From midscreen) TK Bomber -> 5P -> 6K -> sj.6P -> FB Bomber -> ...

I'm no expert on game balance, but I'll bet this is at least part of the reason Axl Bomber lost its overhead properties.

[Silmerion]

Ahahahahaha.

Okay, I should preface this by saying that I have yet to fight a Justice player.

That said, I have no idea how she starts N.B zoning against us.

If we're far away, we just counterzone her too hard. From many ranges, we can Rensen on reaction. From out of Rensen's range, we can punish her with Rashousen. If she tries to jump in, we just slip through wherever she didn't lay an N.B and/or go for anti-air. It's comical.

[Digital Watches]

Yeah, nothing I've seen in match videos discredits the idea that that matchup is stacked.