orka

I shall read up on these. I pre-ordered the game a while ago but otherwise, pretty clueless.

Mmmm, Maori milk

Having played GG/BB/MB would definitely make it easier to pick up AH than those that haven't played those games, but it's still a different game of its own so I would approach it with a new attitude. The biggest learning curve, in my opinion, is how to effectively space and position yourself using homing. But this might actually not be as bad for AH3 since you get free homings from neutral state. The mind game involving clashing is pretty deep as well, since there are so many ways to initiate clashes as well as so many options to take after clashes. Also, on a vaguely related note, Valkenhayn's wolf cancels are somewhat similar to homing cancels in AH. At least for combo sequences like 236C > 9D and j.214B > 5D/9D. Yea, I actually kind of forgot about the jc'able 2E (I never mained anybody with Wind so forgive me). That is definitely great too, plus the quick fall and the boomerangs. Seems like it's the definitive Arcana for Schar, just like Kamui + Gier and Catherine + Wind. As for the Evil Arcana, the super teleport just doesn't seem to be as useful (or rather, cost-effective) in AH3 due to the fact that the Arcana guage and the Homing guage was consolidated into one. I still think it's great for characters that can incorporate 2[E] into their combos and the poison effect off EF for everybody, but I really dunno what to say about the super teleport either.

Saki was always about mix-ups. j.3c and Orna ([8]2x) give her great high-low and ambiguous cross-up options, while her ground charge kick has always been a great bait-and-punish move. In AH3, Shiro Aran often activates EF in middle of a block string for even crazier mix-ups. She literally looks like V.Akiha sometimes. She was always rather average on the damage scale, though. Also, Schar is definitely a strong character. She can keep a lot of characters at bay by poking all day long, and mix-up mines in there for additional threat. Wind is a amazing Arcana for her because not only does it make her a lot more mobile, push block helps her keep the opponents at the mid-range distance she exactly wants them to be at.

I only said it because most of videos in Niconico don't contain character tags, unless they are individual matches. You can search for character names if you want to, but that will only limit your results most of the times. It's better to simply search for Arcana Heart 3 vids and watch them through and see if they contain the characters you are looking for. There is actually a lot of Angelia footage out there, and same goes for Nazuna. It's not like we're talking about really unpopular characters like Dorothy.

Most match vids on Niconico don't contain character names in the tags, as surprising that may be. IMO, it's good to get exposed to many different characters anyway.

Another thing that should be noted that those 5[e]/2[e] that are true unblockables deal damage. While for other 5[e]/2[e], damage is not dealt on the initial guard crush, but is still taken into account for the combo damage scaling.