Dustloop Matchup Chart Project

[lofo]

Holy shit that is insane. I don't know if this will work on missiles though. I watched Skeletal Minion test slashback on missiles and for some reason he still got hit even after successfully executing it AND still holding back. Missiles are weird.

Justice missiles are 4 hits and SB disables your block for a bit when used, so this sounds like the result of SBing one of the middle hits. The same thing can happen trying to SB something like Axl's rensen.

@Amadeous: It still uses up the burst though, right? Sounds pretty costly.

@this thread: Is this on hold for now? Seems like there's not much activity, but I guess we're all still figuring things out.

[Amadeous]

@Amadeous: It still uses up the burst though, right? Sounds pretty costly.

Hah.

Hahahaha.

No. If you fuck it up you DO get a gold burst, but if you do it right it's free invul for no cost other than the FD cancel.

[Phrekwenci]

vs. Zappa: ? - ?

Zappa is really fucking good but I'm not sure if it's 7-3. The only time it feels 7-3 to me is when he has sword. Ghost block strings are godlike but Justice can smack him out of zoning with her footsies and he loses the advantage. Dog is bad because of f.Slash. Raoh is worse than Sword. I play with Zoogstin and he's had less time with +R than me.

I don't have the game yet so what I say is hypothetical however, all of Zappa's summons except Raoh should beat Justice in +R. Sword for obvious reasons; ghost P toss and new command retrieval; new Dog retreat + lunge combination to go over Justice attacks. Also, killing dog allows for Zappa to summon a better option.

[Venussail91]

I'm not entirely sure that Sol and Testament are entirely even. Mind you, I think it may only be slight favor to Sol, so like 5.5/4.5 Sol. HS EXE Beast not coming out immediately hurts Testament a bit, especially when he's trying to stop Sol from gliding in and when he's trying to get some breathing room. I also think the damage difference between the two might play a factor, though I'm not entirely sure on that. Anyone else care to give their opinions on this?

[stickystaines]

I never got the point of #.5 scale. It's like when you see a game review that is like 8.6/10. Just seems so arbitrary. What kind of difference would make 5.5 to 5? Or 5.5 to 6? It makes even less sense when the disadvantage is greater. It's one thing to say that 'this doesn't feel even' and slap an arbitrary 5.5 on it, but how do you judge a 7 from a 7.5?

[Delrian]

As far as I can tell, matchup numbers are based on intuition...

"Man this matchup is ugly, it feels worse than a 6-4, but I've played enough 7-3 matchups to know it's not -that- bad... probably 6.5 then."

[BladeOfJustice7]

May I ask who said Ky vs Sol in ACR is advantageous to Ky and why? And also why Order Sol has a slight advantage over Ky now in ACR?

[Orrax]

I never got the point of #.5 scale. It's like when you see a game review that is like 8.6/10. Just seems so arbitrary. What kind of difference would make 5.5 to 5? Or 5.5 to 6? It makes even less sense when the disadvantage is greater. It's one thing to say that 'this doesn't feel even' and slap an arbitrary 5.5 on it, but how do you judge a 7 from a 7.5?

Well, it's supposed to be a statistical prediction, but nowadays I mostly see people using it simply to judge how hard a matchup feels. For the latter case, it does seem pretty arbitrary.

May I ask who said Ky vs Sol in ACR is advantageous to Ky and why?

I'm curious about this as well. I've played a fair amount of Sol vs Ky in +R and I think it's pretty even. Ky's got the advantage in zoning, but it's nothing Sol can't deal with, and Sol gets good reward for correct reads.

[Lynxfort]

Mmmm ..why Faust ranking is so high ?? is there major changes that made him so good??

[BladeOfJustice7]

I'm curious about this as well. I've played a fair amount of Sol vs Ky in +R and I think it's pretty even. Ky's got the advantage in zoning, but it's nothing Sol can't deal with, and Sol gets good reward for correct reads.

As do I, while Sol's pokes/neutral game got buffed to where it should be, what with meterless fafnir poke extensions into a possible 25% T.R, and FB sidewinder. He has more combo-ability better knockdown potential off combos and more more solid pokes that bleed into his pressure game.

Equally Ky has gotten the buffs he's needed, better ways of extending pressure; vacuum effect of lightning sphere, 3hs (ballerina slash), and lower minimum aerial requirements for j.d really help him maintain pressure on his opponents without becoming obvious and putting himself at risk. He also has increased damage potential thinks to easier hit confirms off lightning sphere since it pulls in the opponent, 3hs having AMAZING proration, and finally his new corner combos.

Each character has gotten the right tools to compete against the rest of the diverse cast better, and better tools to face each other. If one or the other didn't get these buffs, it wouldn't be even but, as it stands it's still dead even.

What are your thoughts Orrax, you seem very knowledgeable on Mr. Badguy.

[ehuangsan]

Some early impressions:

- I think Ky getting draw odds on Sol may be correct now because Sol does less damage on average than he did in AC and Ky does more damage on average than in AC, so it makes it a harder fight on the Sol side.

- I also don't understand why OS gets draw odds on Ky; this is one of my more commonly played matchups now and it seems like it's fairly bad for OS. Jump HS can now be stuffed by 6P, which is huge as OS is now forced to play the ground game at a disadvantage. My initial take would be 6-4 Ky.

- Zappa - Ky seems to be 6-4 Zappa, though I can accept that there may be tech out there that I don't know of that keeps it at 5.5-4.5. Zappa now has tools against Ky jump HS, which was one of the biggest reasons why Ky was even against Zappa, and corner sword katame is stupidly good against Ky's wide crouching hitbox.

- Ky - Baiken may be evenish now, as Baiken cannot refute 3HS with guard cancel so Ky gets meaningful oki against Baiken now and because Ky does more damage now. At least that was what keep the matchups evenish or even in Ky's favor in XX and #R.

[Orrax]

As do I, while Sol's pokes/neutral game got buffed to where it should be, what with meterless fafnir poke extensions into a possible 25% T.R, and FB sidewinder. He has more combo-ability better knockdown potential off combos and more more solid pokes that bleed into his pressure game.

Equally Ky has gotten the buffs he's needed, better ways of extending pressure; vacuum effect of lightning sphere, 3hs (ballerina slash), and lower minimum aerial requirements for j.d really help him maintain pressure on his opponents without becoming obvious and putting himself at risk. He also has increased damage potential thinks to easier hit confirms off lightning sphere since it pulls in the opponent, 3hs having AMAZING proration, and finally his new corner combos.

Each character has gotten the right tools to compete against the rest of the diverse cast better, and better tools to face each other. If one or the other didn't get these buffs, it wouldn't be even but, as it stands it's still dead even.

What are your thoughts Orrax, you seem very knowledgeable on Mr. Badguy.

I don't really consider myself an expert on the matchup, but I think you've already listed the main points. Ky's damage went up and he got 3H oki, which is pretty huge. Sol just converts damage a lot better now -- pretty much everything leads to fafnir for passable damage, 6P is just way better all around, j.D buff makes converting to air bandit revolver relaunches much easier, and force break sidewinder helps converting any random air hit to decent damage. That said, a lot of Sol's hit confirms don't actually lead to that much damage, and he still needs the right set ups for big damage.

Mostly, though, the matchup plays out like it always has. Ky zones and then pressures, Sol tries to get in and mix Ky up. 3H oki is probably the biggest "new" addition, and it helps Ky's already strong oki game. Sol's 6P changes are also pretty important; the move is actually worth fearing as an anti-air now. The reason I think it's even, though, is that each character can deal with the other character's stuff pretty well. Ky's got good zoning but it's not so good that he can reliably keep a good Sol player out all the time, and Sol has the tools to kill Ky pretty quickly with a few right guesses, but, again, Ky can be pretty good at making this hard for him.

I guess it just seems to me that both characters' tool kits are pretty close to equally effective in this matchup.

Some early impressions:

- I think Ky getting draw odds on Sol may be correct now because Sol does less damage on average than he did in AC and Ky does more damage on average than in AC, so it makes it a harder fight on the Sol side.

Actually, Sol doing less damage on average isn't really true. His max damage appears to have gone down, but the damage he can get from just random hit confirms has improved tremendously. Fafnir, FB fafnir, the 6P buffs, and FB sidewinder all let Sol convert many more starters to significant, though usually not big, damage. The apparent max damage drop is, imho, pretty well balanced by his added ability to convert to damage off of pretty much anything, which he couldn't do all that well before.

On the whole, Sol's average damage has probably gone up a little (adjusted for the health buff), not down. His max damage is going to seem lower as sidewinder loops do the same numerical damage as vanilla AC but less percent damage adjusted for the health buff.

[BladeOfJustice7]

I wasn't aware Sol's max damage dropped off, but when I think about it both from match vids and personal experience I rarely saw Sol pull out 60% health combos in ACR. But like I said Sol's poking buffs really help him deal with Ky's tools. Sol's combos conversion, pressure, and tools are just overall more consistent and stable as opposed to his AC days in my opinion.

On the whole, Sol's average damage has probably gone up a little (adjusted for the health buff), not down. His max damage is going to seem lower as sidewinder loops do the same numerical damage as vanilla AC but less percent damage adjusted for the health buff.

Could you explain this easier for someone as mathematically inept as myself :/?

[Delrian]

I wasn't aware Sol's max damage dropped off, but when I think about it both from match vids and personal experience I rarely saw Sol pull out 60% health combos in ACR. But like I said Sol's poking buffs really help him deal with Ky's tools. Sol's combos conversion, pressure, and tools are just overall more consistent and stable as opposed to his AC days in my opinion.

Could you explain this easier for someone as mathematically inept as myself :/?

Max health went up from 420 to 460.

If a combo does 260 in both AC and +R, it will seem lower because 260/420 (62%) takes up more space on the lifebar than 260/460 (57%).

(The numbers I picked have nothing to do with Sol's damage, and assumes no changes in effects for guts and defense ratings, etc.)

[TheRealBobMan]

AC: Characters have 420 HP

+R: Characters have 460 HP

Sol does a damage-optimized combo that's character specific and only works off some unprorated counter-hit normal. It does 280 damage.

AC: 66% of their HP

+R: 60% of their HP

Maximum damage is "reduced". Yeah, you're doing the same damage, but if it used to take 2 combos to get the kill and now it takes 3 because they survived with 20 health, it's that many more mixups that Sol has to successfully run to get a win.

"...as Baiken cannot refute 3HS with guard cancel so Ky gets meaningful oki against Baiken now..."

Does 3H out range Sakura?

*Edit*

I took so long finishing my post that someone beat me to it.

[Orrax]

I wasn't aware Sol's max damage dropped off, but when I think about it both from match vids and personal experience I rarely saw Sol pull out 60% health combos in ACR. But like I said Sol's poking buffs really help him deal with Ky's tools. Sol's combos conversion, pressure, and tools are just overall more consistent and stable as opposed to his AC days in my opinion.

Could you explain this easier for someone as mathematically inept as myself :/?

What Delrian and the TheRealBobMan said. Sorry, I meant my phrasing to be precise but I think I sacrificed some readability.

And, for the sake of completeness, I think I should point out that Sol's max damage "appears" to have gone down because most people don't go for dustloop. In a lot of situations, dustloop has actually upped Sol's damage -- but he needs the right setup, the right starter, and dustloop is also pretty difficult in +R. The end result is that not many Sol players even go for dustloop. Thus, when you add together that sidewinder damage hasn't increased, that total health has gone up, and that dustloop is both difficult and often impractical, Sol's max damage output has effectively gone down.

[ehuangsan]

If Ky does the 3H oki right, he can block before any of the guard cancels, including Sakura, hits him.

[TheRealBobMan]

I get that the 2nd hit has very short recovery, and the move is listed as being jump cancelable so you could jump FD as soon as it's blocked, but Sakura starts on frame 10 now and Ky's 3H has 15 frames of block-pause. It's not even a frame-perfect endevour to guarantee Ky gets hit while he's unable to move because he's still in block-pause, assuming my understanding is correct. This would normally be somewhat balanced out by Baiken needing to go for the input with a little bit of prediction (thus opening herself up to high/low/throw mixup), but on Oki she has enough time to do it on reaction since the move starts on frame 23.

[Amadeous]

Does Sakura even have enough range to hit Ky out of a max range 3H?

[TheRealBobMan]

That's what I asked about 4 posts ago.

Best way to deal with her "theoretically OP" counters is to projectile whore or zone her out (max range 3H?), or have crazy mixup since she can't counter what she can't block.

Ugh, I should be testing this stuff, but instead I'm at work being a responsible adult.

Anyway, this probably isn't the best thread to talk about Baiken's guard counters (though I feel it's apt since they directly tie into her matchups!). I was asking because that part of the Ky vs Baiken analysis stuck out to me. I think most people don't realize how strong the buff to Sakura is. You can still oki her and attack her, but the dynamic of her matchups is going to be totally different once people get a feel for her new toolset. Stuff that looks safe right now isn't safe, or at least wont be for the reasons that people think.

[ehuangsan]

Sakura can hit Ky on max range 3H but that should only happen if Ky is doing it wrong.

The problem is Sakura isn't strike invincible and it takes 10F to come out, so what you can do is time the 3HS so that the tail end of the animation(last 6-7 frames or so, dunno the actual numbers) hits Baiken on oki. If you do it right, the first and second hits of the 3HS will hit in very rapid succession instead of the normal slight pause in between both, or if you so choose, only the second hit attacks her. The timing is the similar to doing 3HS on Baiken as she's getting up and doing a wakeup super, where the 3HS completely whiffs through the invincibility of Baiken's wakeup super and allows Ky to block.

Baiken cannot sakura the first hit because the second hit will strike her and actually win if timed right. If she sakuras the second hit, Ky has <10 frames of recovery so he can block. People much sharper than I am will actually buffer a VT/RTL/gold burst through a second hit whiff to punish the ensuing whatever, as the whiff automatically implies that Baiken is doing something that doesn't involve blocking.

[TheRealBobMan]

Baiken can use her counters during hit/block-pause. That's why I brought it up. Are the block-pause values different from the listed hit-pause values in the wiki? That would be really important information to know considering Baiken's counters are fast enough to be guaranteed against even lvl1 moves if done frame perfect.

Since you're a very experienced Ky player (and wrote some damn good guides in the Ky section!), I'm assuming that either:

A) Baiken's counters have undergone other changes that we don't know about. Someone I'd consider equally as reputable as yourself pointed out (in the macro bug thread) that, yes, you can use Sakura to guarantee damage against lvl1 moves, so lvl 5's which has more hit/block pause should be easier to do this to. This person's testing method could have been wrong in some way (mistakes happen).

B) The people you're getting your experience with are doing the counter too late to make this apparent, or you're not getting accurate enough test results yourself for whatever other reason. I mean, you do have to be pretty close to frame perfect to make this work, so in practice most Baiken's wont get this consistently 100% because of the threat of not blocking high/low/throw properly when predictively buffering the command. It's just that on oki, if you're going for a frame 23 mid, odds are a Baiken player will be able to consistently pull this off. Or at least do it enough that you can't rely on just 3H as an oki tool.

Thankfully it's the weekend, so I should be able to finally get around to playing with this. I encourage other people to do the same. It'd be good news to find out that I'm wrong since I-No vs Baiken is hard enough for me as it is.

Or uh... I'll pick up a pocket Baiken and start wrecking unprepared people if I'm right.

[ehuangsan]

To be fair, I haven't tested this in training mode since I don't have the game and now that I think about this more, I don't know why this should work. I had just assumed it was the same again as it was in #R and XX where Ky can definitely gold burst immediately if Baiken tries to sakura out of the 3H but I just realized that #R and XX had slower Sakuras to which hitstop was not a factor.

It could be that people are just screwing up against me, but I have seen the second hit of the 3H hit Baiken out of her guard cancels and I have gold bursted through a guard cancel, thereby convincing all Baikens around here to stop guard canceling against the 3H. If they did frame perfect guard cancel on the second hit, then I don't know. Maybe each individual hit of Ky's 3H has wacky hit stop? Test it out and let me know because now I am curious.

[TheRealBobMan]

I plan to. : )

Except that I don't know how I can test hit-stop and block-pause without recording equipment. We're going to need someone else's help with this. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some wackiness. I didn't realize that counter-hits add hit-stop that doesn't apply to the attacker until I checked the +R wiki recently. I don't think that was mentioned in the AC data.

Unless the Baiken player expects 3H, then sees 3H start up, it's going to be really difficult to do a guaranteed Sakura. Mixing up your oki, which everyone should be doing already, will reduce her ability to react appropriately because of the risk of getting hit, like in your examples. It's just that where other characters have Slashback to do something similar, her guard cancels work without a restriction on wakeup and can be guaranteed damage. She's really scary in theory, but it's more of a sheathed sword strategy for beating someone that does mixups without mixing it up.

What if there's a way to OS something with an incredibly small vulnerability window to make it relatively safe? Like, she's holding 4, then does 12(S) > 1K. In the event that they whiffed or didn't attack intentionally to catch her pushing a button, I think she'd cancel the 2S with FD? Does that work, or are FD cancels move specific?

Ugh, I'm doing that thing again. Sorry to derail the thread. Let's make a new one to discuss this or something.

[SuperJ]

record 3H[1] and RC the 2nd hit with a dummy, baiken CHs the 2nd hit of 3H. record 3H[1] and RC immediately, baiken CHs the 1st of 3H