Issues with fundamentals

[Stellarcircle5]

Over the last month of me playing, some players that I get together with frequently made it known to me that while I'm not a bad player, my actual fighting game fundamentals are really lacking. Looking at my play, I can't help but agree with them. I play very offensive mixup based characters, and because of this I feel that my offensive play is the only thing I've got going for me. To be blunt, my neutral game is ass. Not once have I tried to actually learn a character of the shoto archetype since I find them mind numbingly boring. I attempted to learn Narukami in P4 and it lead nowhere. All I wanted to do was his absurd oki setups and sitting around in neutral pressing 5B and throwing fireballs didn't really feel all that fun. I'm having so much trouble finding a fundamental character across the 3 big ASW games that I actually enjoy.

So I ask all the folks on DL with actual fundamentals: Who is a character across BB, GG, and P4 (Blazblue in particular would be nice since its my main game) that teaches good fundamentals yet leaves room to go crazy and use a more wild playstyle? Apparently Valkenhayn and Millia have left me with a one track gameplan XD

[Airk]

I'm not sure entirely what you mean by 'a more wild playstyle', but maybe Litchi would suit. She's not so out there that she doesn't play the same game as everyone else (At least, in CP. In previous versions her gameplay revolved too much around her corner oki, IMHO) but she's got some interesting stuff going on too, with staff manipulation.

Otherwise, characters I think who teach 'fundamentals' in BB are:

Ragna (duh)

Jin

Tsubaki

Makoto

Platinum

Maybe Bullet, but I'm not really sure since it annoys me just to watch her.

You can probably take a spin through each of them and see who you like.

[mAc Chaos]

Hakumen.

The answer is always Hakumen.

[Lucalibur]

Did you ever try Bang out? He is a pretty mixups heavy character but his neutral game requires knowledge of resources management and proper usage of air options. He is not as offensive as Valk, but follows a similar mentality, so he should give you an idea of how something closer to the middle ground works.

If you plan on picking up P4U2, both Shos are also worthy candidates. They seem to have a passive offensive type of playstyle by design, but have a solid(albeit not godlike) neutral game with a fair amount of mobility that should teach you to learn your ranges, plus knife toss is a lot more fun than tossing out fireballs.

Other than that, I don't know what else could work. Good luck anyway, though.

[Magaki]

If you're looking for a new character in order to learn new ways to improve your overall game, you should follow Airk's list.

However, if you're trying to find a way to step up your neutral game, stick with Valk.

Valk really got all the tools you might need for a strong neutral game. Reason why you behaved this way with Narukami must probably be because you don't know what to typically do in neutral.

Try to add this in your neutral game:

-Changing your gameplan. Valk can get in and GTFO quite easily. Trying to mindlessly getting in will get you punished by anything random thrown at you. Just staying a bit in human mode and observing your opponent while waiting for a mistake is also a really efficient way to pown with Valk. Just look at Hima during Blazblue Revo to get how important it is.

-Anticipate what your opponent is doing. Self-explanatory. Besides, good reads are quite rewarding for Valk.

-Playing footsies. While it's not really used that much for Valk, he got amazing pokes. Throwing out some w5A, wjA or 5B sometimes can be quite good and isn't that easy to punish.

Anyway, while it is true that learning a character can help you learn a new way to play, I still consider you don't necessarily need it if you already play Valk.

[Airk]

That's a good point Magaki; I should have raised it myself.