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[Chrome Homura]

Alrighty, this turned out to be a long post... but trust me, this is worth it. To be honest I've been sitting on this tech for a while, as I've been itching to get my hands on recording equipment in order to demonstrate the following in video form, but it looks like that's just not going to happen by this point. I've been wanting to generate some discussion anyway, so without further ado...

Do you find yourself getting confirms against crouching opponents at MF level 1 and wishing you could UNLEASH THE BEAST, but when you MSJH you end up right next to them, making certain followups impossible? Then have I got some smexiness for you! It's quite a simple piece of notation, and hella easy compared to learning MSDJH, never mind doing that consistently in matches... you know how at level 2/3 there's the 5H MC link into f.s > 6H? This is way easier, and nets you almost the same damage... sounds godlike, right? But this is real, Old Spice Man ain't got nothing on this shit.

Here it is... I proudly (very proudly, I must say) submit the following for the benefit of JO mains everywhere:

Confirm > MSJH > 5K (Delay)> f.s > 6H (xN)

Yes, that's right. Even at the closest possible range (such as after AD j.H into the corner) if it's against a crouching opponent, somehow his scrub-ness yours truly managed to randomly discover that 5K will stun long enough for you to literally wait to cancel it until the pushback gets you to f.s range, and f.s will still combo. At said range it's a tough "link" not unlike those wielded by GG's resident broken Vampire... but as I said above, it's far easier to execute than 5H MC (while netting you almost equal damage) and it works at any MF level.

There is literally only one downside to this setup... well a total of 6 downsides actually, those being the characters it doesn't work against whilst they're crouching. f.s whiffs against Chipp/Millia outside the max range, and completely misses the tiny hitboxes of May/Bridget and the odd ones of Zappa/Faust. That said, in +R it's possible none of these characters will low-profile their way out of this. Idk for sure, but even if they do, it's still going to work against a significant portion of the cast, so... yeah.

That's a lot of matchups where this setup can give you the breathing room to seriously mess up your opponent without needing to land a coin first, and with significantly less cause to worry about dropping your combo. If you time it early, you still get c.s, from which you can easily follow up with 2D/coin, or 5H > MSJH. The latter causes you to end up in f.s range, thus still allowing you to deal more of those deliciously juicy chunks of combo damage any GG player craves. Also if you're planning on spending the meter for another Jack, you can basically option select into it via holding 6 when inputting the S and the H, since c.S doesn't chain into 6H... thus making it easy as hell to confirm. If you input it too late, they can block... but even so, this isn't quite a 1-2 frame deal. In any case, you're still just canceling out of the last few frames of 5K's recovery as opposed to returning to neutral before the input, so it feels incredibly smooth compared to an SF combo or the like. As I said, not unlike Slayer's "links"... of course, Slayer drops the input entirely in the event you do it too early, an issue this setup has no trouble with.

...Sold yet? You'd better be, so unless you're still too new to Johnny or GG to confirm into your stuff, whip out your training mode and learn this chain. It shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes to get consistent at, and you won't believe how good it feels to do in a match. Slayer mains will seethe with jealousy at the sight of this setup, it's that good. I've even been doing this in online play, that should tell you how easy it is.

Try it or not, if you've got questions, praises and/or protests, by all means post them. Discussion of attempts and results are also more than welcome.

[qwerty]

I guess this might be useful in +R since the stagger on all Jackhounds increased, but for AC this is kind of whatever. I guess if you don't use it too much maybe the other guy won't stagger out of MSJ, but it's a pretty easy stagger to get out of. Not to mention the forced proration on MSJ is a bit higher than I'd like it to be.

[Chrome Homura]

...Forced proration? I could have sworn it was just first-hit style proration :/ Even so, you still get insane damage for the meter. Also, since when was MSJ's stagger considered easy to escape out of before you can land so much as a 5K? That makes the entire move sound completely worthless, which has certainly not been true to my experience with the game. Do you really play people who can proficiently mash that hard on reaction? Not saying I'm completely unwilling to believe it, it's just that I've never heard someone make JO's moveset sound so... suboptimal.

[Rhannmah]

You need at least lvl 2 mashing to get out of MSJ, so it's not that bad

[qwerty]

Oh, I thought it was forced proration. My bad.

Here's the thing about MSJ: While the stagger certainly isn't easy enough to lazily get out of (ie: starting to move the stick once Johnny's already in recovery), anyone who knows how to get out of it will be able to pretty easily (that is, to start moving the stick just before or as the move hits you). It is good for those situations where the momentum of a dash would place you way too far to follow up with anything (or if you're at Level 1 it's not bad either I guess), but I'd hesitate to call it a replacement for dash Jackhound under any other circumstances.

Since I obviously can't be assed to remember the specifics of frame data, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure all versions of Jackhound have longer staggers in +R. In which case, it'd make MSJ quite a bit better, even if the stagger's only extended by 5 frames or so.

[Rhannmah]

about +R, yes the stagger lasts longer, but isn't jackhound's recovery longer?

[Chrome Homura]

but I'd hesitate to call it a replacement for dash Jackhound under any other circumstances.

So would I. It's not my intent to imply I could take this shit to Japan, that Satou would benefit from it, or anything that extreme. The biggest selling point, the reason I'm advertising the 5K > f.s link/chain, is that for the damage you get it's incredibly easy to execute. Therefore, moderate/mid level players (such as myself) or even fresh players can learn to consistently perform it, but without spending nearly the kind of effort required for MSDJH. Besides, how many American GG players can properly mash out of JH at all the way you describe, let alone do it consistently? The AI never lets me properly do JH loops, but I can say with absolute conviction that even at any given major (let's say I go to EVO this July) I'm probably going to consistently execute this combo against the majority of my opponents, assuming I ever you know, confirm into MSJH on crouch hit with 50/75% meter. The likelyhood of my encountering an opponent who knows the JO matchup well? Moderate. The chance of them knowing that detail? Slim. The chance that they'll be able to properly anticipate the timing, mash hard enough, and actually block/beat my followup 5K even once? I'd say less than 1%. This is America damnit, any given char's 5D can catch even veteran players off-guard, so there's no shame in admitting that we'll never be on the same level as moonlanders.

I won't claim that it isn't worth the effort to learn MSDJH, but I still have trouble timing enkasu from corner throws properly on light characters, have yet to learn any MF combo that actually incorporates recoin while getting respectable damage (let alone ending in a corner enkasu) and will never be able to execute wavedash on pad. In fact, I can't even consistently FRC when I want to anymore. Considering the sad state of my execution level, I'd say not knowing MSDJH is literally the least of my GG-related worries.

TL;DR Do I believe people should rely on this setup and never learn MSDJH? No. But while I probably went overboard in the OP preaching to the choir about it's awesomeness, this isn't just a shady get-rich-quick scheme of a combo. It's an incredibly low-execution combo that IMO has a very high chance of a satisfactory success rate (not even taking the swag factor into account) In other words, it's a low-risk investment with substantial reward potential. Seriously, just give it a go next time you hit the lab. Qwerty, A3R, etc should probably learn this in half the time it would take any other JO outside JP to learn, and as I said that time period shouldn't be very long to begin with... you won't regret it, I promise.

[qwerty]

Hey man, we're all guilty of doing lazy ezmode shit at times. Even I do MSJ sometimes because I don't feel like risking fucking up the dash input. And when I do Divine Blade mixups, I usually don't JI it because, like you said, most people don't know the setup to begin with. :P

But, that doesn't mean it's something you shouldn't try to minimize. Stuff like this is essentially damage control; getting the most out of a situation as possible in spite of execution errors. While it is important in its own way, learning to do things the right way should be your first priority.

Plus, you're playing Johnny, dude. If you want a lower execution character, there's plenty to choose from.

[Chrome Homura]

Trust me, I'm plenty aware of my character's execution requirements. But just because I don't firmly believe I'll ever reach pro level on that front doesn't mean I'm going to drop the character. I chose to main JO because anime lulz, I see no reason to ever give that up. My combos would probably be better by now if I had never started practicing other characters, but 4 years with no consistent opportunities to play people kind of made it impossible to practice without losing my mind, so... *sigh*

Ironically enough I hit the lab after making that post and practiced throw enkasus against every character (save SO/OS/AN/JO) just to see how true my statement still was. They weren't impossible, but in the time I spent I couldn't reach the point of more than two successful enkasus in a row on any given character. It really made me wish there was an Ensenga FRC so that one could have an enkasu with close to universal timing without blowing all their meter. See, I have no issue altering my move choices for specific matchups, but using the same combo with different timing is like, heresy to my muscle memory. Like I said, it's by no means impossible... but it really rubs me the wrong way for some reason.

[4r5]

ensenga frc? MIXX UUPPPSSSSS!!!

[Chrome Homura]

I'm not that stupid, the FRC point would be right before the second hit comes out. It's purpose would be solely so you could enkasu without having to practice a shit-ton of timing variations on the same combo. I guess it would also give him midscreen stuff too, but balance is tricky so oh well.