Ryd'

Looks more like what happens when you try to do j.H when you're not quite high enough off your dash for the attack to come out, results in a fake out of sorts. You can get a significant portion of the startup to animate without it going active. IIRC, I-No should be able to throw before appearing to touch down as well, but it's been a long time since I've messed with it. Pretty sure this has been in the series since forever.

If I'm remembering the changes right, assuming they stuck to what was advertised in the notes: - 85% proration on Drill Special - +1 second of Eddie recovery after Drill Special - summoning Eddie from a puddle consumes around a -P- worth of meter - opponents can hit puddles to remove them - 90% proration on j.K - retreating in Break the Law counts toward negative penalty + improved j.K hitbox + Dead Man's Hand (Eddie throw) does more damage when you have more Eddie meter, easier to follow up + something about the shark super that nobody really cared much about Break the Law YRC stall was kept in, the extra recovery on Eddie being killed was reverted. Lost some damage and the ability to loop unblockables, which nobody really did in actual matches anyway. He just got a slap on the hand as far as nerfs go.

I can't speak for the development team, but I imagine they kept Eddie's drill in because they still wanted Zato to have access to unblockables while shifting them away from being the core of his gameplay. Of his previous unblockable tools (Eddie's drill/puddle and overhead, HS drill FRC), the only one he has left is the one with the fewest setup options and requires heavy commitment; a well-timed burst hurts Zato more than other characters because you're removing Eddie from the picture for the duration of drill+recovery (also, wakeup backdash~YRC+FD). He seems to be balanced around it as well given that his damage tends to be a bit low most of the time, and many of his combo routes don't grant a knockdown unless he terminates them early or burns a chunk of meter. His ability to loop unblockables should be taken out though. That's just a little ridiculous for this game.

Counting from the explosion, of course; it would be less of an issue if the attack wasn't divided into two components that hit with a variable amount of time between them (more like Faust's bomb toss) or if there was some way to stop the grenade (like pretty much every other projectile). She wins traditional zoning bouts because her main projectile is a 2 for 1 deal that can be pulled and thrown while mobile, and can either go through or over incoming projectiles. Nobody's going to try to throw another projectile if that grenade is still bouncing toward them; the initial hitbox being spent doesn't matter if the remaining time/trajectory will place the explosion near you, and Elphelt is free to play around how you react unless you threw something fast and durable at it. There are other problems with her kit, but the grenade is going to catch a lot of flak because few characters have particularly good answers to it, which helps in raising her neutral game to being among the best - something you shouldn't have when you also have suffocating pressure, ridiculous damage, and unblockables without having any kind of resource management or real cooldown to balance it all out.

Difference being that when you tap Eddie/Dizzy's fish/etc., they go away and can't be resummoned immediately. Elphelt's grenade is going to win a fireball war and keep going, while also not having a forced cooldown between grenades. Its effective startup is also somewhat curbed in being broken up into two smaller components, which makes it easier to safely bring into play. It's a low-risk move with ridiculous potential reward that doesn't take a whole lot of thought to utilize, and gives a fair number of characters problems because of the manner in which it has to be respected. And it's not like she's a one-trick pony; the rest of her kit ranges from solid to phenomenal, and her damage potential is among the best in the game.

A/C: Charm B/D: Silence A+B: Confuse

Even less practical then. The damage you'd get off high/low proration looks like it'd be close to what you already get off 1-hit combos; no reason not to take the corner. I noticed that you stopped when the guard gauge bottomed out; does it drop there, or just become ridiculously tight? The string into BL is going to chew into the guard gauge a lot more than just straight BL, so how does that impact the overall damage/meter gain/reps? And how well does it work off throws? That'd be the primary instance I can see it being superior if it provides stronger meter gain than the current throw combos. Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I don't have time to test right now.

In general, probably not. If you can space it so that they end up in the corner, it becomes a little better, but you have to ask yourself how often do you throw out YOLO BL, and how often does it actually connect? The damage isn't too much more than what Testament usually gets with 1-hit loops, so you're probably better off focusing on corner carry and make them sit in Testy's scary corner game.

・JB's recovery frames have a fatal counter state Because it's not bad enough to whiff a fan and be stuck with someone in your face. I wonder if this applies to the 3 weeks of forced crouch landing recovery you get from the move alone.

Mixup isn't strictly limited to high/low, and there was plenty of mixup in P4A. S.Labrys, Yu, Chie, Mitsuru, Yukiko, and Aigis all have good high/low and/or crossup options. Teddie as well, I suppose, since that AOA crossup can be kinda dirty.

FD system. Whoever said it was missing mixup must've only played something like Labrys vs Liz.

Not noted on there: Fire levels go up to 9 now. The Maragi thing may mean that you can hit and hold the button down again after releasing to delay the pillar popping up while keeping the wave locked? If that's the case, that could be amazing for Yukiko's pressure and zoning. Edit: It could also mean that Maragi has been converted to Agi status, where you have to hold the button down to keep it from popping immediately instead of tapping the button to manually pop it.

To practice Fire Break-Maragi setups, just hit a training mode dummy with them, and set its recovery options appropriately. Depending on the setup, you'll either release Maragi perfectly timed/spaced to catch the opponent as they tech, or you'll manually detonate it so that they tech into the pillar. These setups are messed up by the opponent refusing to tech (they get hit by the Maragi as part of the previous combo, heavily scaled, and are able to tech before you can follow up); if you start getting those opponents, then you should work on the SB Agi unblockables, which can actually lead to a lot more damage in the corner if you know how to work them. Fire Boost isn't that essential. Yukiko has 2 brands of combos; those that don't utilize many fire attacks (most of her combos not involving a FC, antiair CH, or Maragi start), and those that do (anything into Maragi loops; significantly fewer starters, but much higher damage). Yukiko's smaller combos see little benefit from Fire Boost since there's so few fire attacks that go into them, and when they do, they're usually at the end of the combo, heavily scaled. Maragi loops hurt a lot more, involve a lot of fire attacks (noticeable impact by Fire Boost), and 2-3 of them is enough to KO most opponents. The time put into Fire Boost really isn't worth it when you consider that A) she gets a lot more openings for the smaller combos, B) the damage bonus isn't really palpable until you get to hit 4+, and C) few opponents will allow themselves to be sufficiently zoned to build fire levels quickly enough to matter. Assuming you're not constantly sacrificing momentum for the sake of building levels, by the time you get to a level where it'll make a difference, your opponent should be missing enough health that you won't see any great returns on the time put into Fire Boost. It'd be worth the time investment to build levels if even half of them were retained between rounds, but since everything's lost... It has its uses as a way to make an overly defensive opponent move, but Fire Break is a lot more effective at that.

C Maragi is a good tool, and serves a different purpose from the D variant; which you use depends on the situation and/or what you expect your opponent to do. If you elect to use Maragi as part of a blockstring after having a 5/2C blocked, some opponents may roll right after blocking your normals to avoid D Maragi, Agi, etc. and get in. C Maragi will generally catch them as they come out of it (results may vary depending on spacing; you can always activate it at the appropriate spacing to be sure), giving you one of Yukiko's best damaging starters. Catch someone with this once, and they'll generally think twice about (ab)using that option. It also works great if you can maintain ambiguous roll-crossup spacing in the corner (i.e. if they try to roll to behind you to escape the corner, they'll end up in front of you instead). Of course, you don't want to abuse it either, because if it's expected, you might eat a nasty hit. It can also work as a general zoning tool from long range if you have time to throw one out; the slower speed is nice for this purpose since it means it'll persist on the screen that much longer. If you knock someone back full screen, you can use Maragi to recall your persona after the usual B Agi xx 3D xx whatever setup (this would be one way to create the situation Ciddy described earlier); especially useful if you failed to drop your persona behind them, though using it in general as part of the setup regardless of where your persona landed isn't a bad idea if you're playing more of a zoning game. Varying your options means your opponent has that much more to think about, which can lead to hesitation, free hits, or both. There's a lot of theory in this, and things are seldom quite so neat and clean (I also haven't really played in months...). Ultimately, how you approach things depends on the matchup and the opponent that you're fighting. Playing Yukiko requires being able to read your opponent to a certain extent because of how weak she is on defense and how much it hurts to whiff her options, so you'll want to learn to pick up on any tendencies your opponent has (safe/cautious vs aggressive/risk-taking), and adjust your gameplan as needed.

Yukiko can use Dia during anything on the ground that can be special canceled to negate Liz's IK for free.