[Xrd] May Q&A/FAQ Thread

[RurouniLoneWolf]

Information

• Have a question regarding May in Xrd? Feel free to ask in this thread for an answer!
• This first post will be updated with a FAQ section once more info is available to help prevent redundant questions.
• Before asking a question, please see if you can find the answer in the below FAQ or on the Dustloop Xrd May Wiki.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

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[ChexGuy]

I'll bite! What exactly is the difference between the P and K versions of Don't Miss It! besides the additional 10 frames of recovery on the K version?

[BloodWolF]

The trajectory of the ball. K version goes in a longer arc farther back while the P version will land closer.

[AOW_Yomabuddy]

New to May and GG! I was trying the BnBs listed in the combo thread and for some reason I'm just horribly inept at doing OHK cl.S jump S because the hitstun runs out before my jump S connects with the opponent. How do I try to fix this? If I mash S I tend to get the cl.S far S gatling. Also in the meanwhile are there some baby combos from OHK for me?

 

Also, I have a bit of a Marvel background, and looking at how players like Ruu and Kazuki are using her dolphin calls, beach balls and beach ball YRC's, would it be wrong to think of them as sort of Marvel assists, like Dr Doom missiles? Of course they differ from Doom missiles in the sense that if I'm hit during startup or when the ball is coming down the ball doesn't come out, but in other senses like controlling space would they be similar?

Also how do I get people to stand there to let me summon dolphins and beach balls? Often times I just get airdashed on and killed when I do so. Is this just bad timings on my part or should I be using different versions?

One more question, can I convert off of a hit 5K far S into a knockdown? I don't have Xrd at the moment so I can't test myself.

[raisedbyfinches]

...snip...

One more question, can I convert off of a hit 5K far S into a knockdown? I don't have Xrd at the moment so I can't test myself.

The last question is basically a no. You can use it to set up a hoop or get closer (jump cancel). 

 

To set up hoops you basically need to either put them in blockstun/knocked down or use a yrc. Outside that its really not particularly safe. 

Without seeing how you're getting the combo wrong off OHK I don't think I can help too much - you might be doing the 5s too early and the hitbox of j.S not reaching, you could be over-running it or just plain pressing j.s way too late. You can 'babify' it by swapping out j.s for j.k and trying that. 

 

Hoops and balls aren't really like missiles, if you get hit at all whilst they're active they all disappear. The purpose of the ball is to let you close ground on your opponent when far or for extending pressure on their wakeup when they're knocked down. Hoops are far more versatile. They extend pressure and give you extra mobility options as well as allowing you to cover (a lot less) distance. 

[Ben Reed]

@AOW_Yomabuddy

If you're missing the jS after close S, it usually means you're doing the close S too soon. For an OHK combo, you want to run as deep as possible into the opponent before doing close S in order to connect the followups. As long as you're deep enough, the jS should be easy across the board.

Beach ball is good but really unsafe to call out without (1) a knockdown, (2) a YRC, or ideally (3) both. If you're really itching to call it out without YRCing, do it outside the range of the character's air dash, and ideally do it on reaction to a big full-screen whiff that you're not in range to whiff punish with something better (let's say full-screen a bad I-no throws an HCL to zone you and hits air, you can react to the whiff by calling a beach ball and she won't be able to dash in and punish before the ball spawns). Hoop dolphins are slightly safer to call at neutral without YRC, but like with beach ball, you want to treat them more like a whiff punish than something to spam when the opponent is waiting patiently. And you don't want to call them at their minimum range vs opponents with good ground mobility, otherwise they might just dash past the hoop before the dolphin spawns and whiff punish you.

The best way to condition people to let you summon more freely (besides knocking them down for safe calls) is to make better use of your normals to zone and poke people with. Normals like 5K, 5S, 2S, jS, jH are her go-to space control tools. They have short reach so the key to using them well is understanding May's mobility, which is pretty high for a character who hits as hard as she does. The general space you want to try and keep with May before you score a knockdown is about the maximum range of her forward air dash, giving you several options to figure out what your opponent's doing and act accordingly:
- If you think they won't react and anti-air, IAD in for pressure/attempt a combo. Mind your spacing so you don't get thrown & understand what ground normals will reach afterwards (pushback is high if you don't cross up, keep it short and sweet)
- Empty double jump/vertical jump trying to bait the opponent to run in, whiff a poke, and get counterpoked by a falling normal like jS
- Run up and pressure up close with 5P/5H, fishing for either a tick OHK or a counter hit combo into knockdown/charge dolphin RC > combo
- React if they run at you on the ground trying to bait a whiff poke and punish/force a block with moves like 5K, 5S, or [4]6S/H
- React if they IAD at you by either jumping back to escape an unfavorable situation or challenging really bad IADs with 6P or 2H > 2D (whiff) into air combo

Normals are what enable you to use summons safe-ish-ly. Focus on making better use of your pokes and tick grabs to make people more hesitant (or more frequently knocked down) so that you can summon more frequently.

[currentlemon]

What are May's best anti-air options?

[raisedbyfinches]

What are May's best anti-air options?

 

They're almost entirely situational. In front its either 6p or 6h [very occasionally 3k works better], above you 2h works, and can lead to a beefy combo, but not as well as j.d or air throw do.

In some situations you're entirely better off actually avoiding the jump in using your mobility options.

 

In what way are you failing and when? Some characters buttons are almost entirely win buttons [Chumkin j.s is basically just hitbox].

[currentlemon]

They're almost entirely situational. In front its either 6p or 6h [very occasionally 3k works better], above you 2h works, and can lead to a beefy combo, but not as well as j.d or air throw do.

In some situations you're entirely better off actually avoiding the jump in using your mobility options.

 

In what way are you failing and when? Some characters buttons are almost entirely win buttons [Chumkin j.s is basically just hitbox].

I haven't started playing May online yet.  I'm just practicing online.

[Devdan]

Someone tell me how to do May's challenge 32, it's driving me crazy. Every part up until the air dash, jumping s, jumping hs I can do, although I've screwed up each part aside from dolphin into dolphin probably 200 times. There seems to be no consistency at all as to whether or not hcf p comes out, I do the motion, I see that I did it correctly, but I just get an empty RC. More importantly, why can't I get the HS followup to the S after the air dash? I've only gotten that far maybe 8 times, but I thought that part would be smooth sailing.

 

Also, is this combo practical? Is it easy for people who have played GG for years? What about other new (to trying to play seriously) people? Because if this is an easy combo, I am not using May.

[Shadow Ninja 64]

If you're getting an RC without the dolphin coming out, you are either messing up the dolphin motion or are pressing RC too early and canceling the startup of the dolphin summon before it's actually summoned.  

 

For the airdash j.S H, if you're getting the S but the H is not coming out before May lands or is whiffing under the opponent, you need to do S a little earlier in the airdash.

 

The benefit of that combo besides the damage is that it travels corner to corner.  However, if you're May and you want an easier thing to do after OHK throws the opponent out of the corner, you can instead go for one of the side switch combos:

 

OHK, dash c.S 2H XX [2]8H (opponent crosses over May), (dash) c.S 2H XX [2]8H

OHK, dash c.S 2H XX [2]8H (opponent crosses over May), (dash) c.S jc j.D jc j.S H D XX 41236H

 

The second one is a bit harder but should also go a longer way toward pushing them back into the corner after OHK throws them out.  I don't remember if it is universal, though.  I'm sure the folks who've put in actual time with her besides just messing around with her combos will know the answer to that, though.

[Devdan]

Yeah, I've gotten the HS a few times since that post. I've yet to get the second jumping S though. It's been like 2 and a half hours, this shouldn't be this difficult, ug.

[raisedbyfinches]

It's a 'kedakombo' - as in 'combos made up on the fly by kedako'. This means it's probably (1) pretty hard and (2) pretty good.

I find it's not particularly hard do do this one [the full screen corner to corner variant is a bit more awkward] but I've played May for a couple of years now so I'm used to the kind of things involved.

I would say that it's much easier if you take advantage of 6[h] being fully charged (and giving you the ground bounce) long before the auto-release. This makes the bit after the dash j.h a bit easier.

Once you get it once it will get easier and easier to get it again and again. If you don't want to get it then you can always just do something easier instead and forsake the strength of the carry and damage.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Devdan]

Well, I was able to figure out the rc timing enough to do it a bunch of times in a row (and then not at all for like 10 minutes because that happens when you spend way way too long on one combo with no real breaks), but I still couldn't get the last jump s and HS. I don't understand how people discover combos like this. If you locked me in a room with nothing to do but play this game for 5 years, I'd have some basic gatling variations and that's it.  

[raisedbyfinches]

If you can't get the last j.s then either you're not running soon enough, running too far before jumping or both.

Good luck

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Devdan]

FINALLY, that had to be close to 4 hours total. On the bright side though, at least I figured out what I was doing wrong...for like 4 separate steps. If you don't have a background in May, it is a very strange one to figure out. First, you can the first 6HS to qcb instantly, but can't do the frc until he hits the ground. Could've probably shaved an hour off if I had known that first. Then, you have to hit the dash HS REALLY low. Probably 50% of the time, I'd try to do 6HS too fast, and just stand there FDing like a moron. After that, let go of the p.dolphin pretty much at the same time as you do the charge move. After that, you have to delay the jumping S, but if you delay it too much you can't get the HS. If you don't end it really low to the ground, you can't get the followup. The dash is so short it's barely even a thing.

 

So yeah, thanks for your support. I did all of Ky and I-No's trials, and I don't think any of them took more than a half hour. I don't think I understand how May falls under the easy category, she is super weird. And moving forward, I still have no idea how to use her hoop dolphins, or beach balls as tools, but I guess I might as well mess around some more at least. It was smart of me to start with Ky, I learned my lesson after trying to start 3S with Akuma who is an easy character to play like a scrub, but crazily complicated to play well. Is that true of May as well, or am I just bad? Hoops and beach ball are not straightforward concepts at all.

[raisedbyfinches]

I think people class May as 'easy' because her motions are relatively simple to input and because she does heap big damage so you need to hit your opponent less - then at a low level she can be quite successful without an awful lot of effort. 

 

At higher levels she's far harder to play well and succeed with [especially compared to eg. Elphelt]. Her oki is pretty straightforward and you have a bunch of different options depending on the combo you did [iad vs low vs throw off of s-hd, hoop oki off of sweep etc.]. I definitely wouldn't say this is crazily complicated - you just need to know your setups and how to bypass most other people's midrange game [ky, venom, elphelt] to get close enough to score a knockdown to set it up. 

 

Probably not a very helpful post for you. GG is almost entirely about how strong your oki game is and how well you can read your opponent and outmanoeuvre them. The only real difficulty may come in terms of execution and that gets much easier with practice. 

[AOW_Yomabuddy]

Is OHK YRC extremely useful for May? I don't see it being used in match videos (though I mostly only watch Kazuki and Ruu so might be player based) but it seems like a very risk free (at the expense of a quarter meter) option to me.

[raisedbyfinches]

It is good. As good as it is for anyone else except you are banking on them jumping. If they don't jump and they're not in the corner then they're probably gonna be too far away to get anything but a single button [which for half the cast probably won't even be 2D]. You win in basically 2/3 scenarios so its not as good as for others.

 

 

You should watch Efute though. Still the best. 

[Volacide]

Hi guys,

 

Just been combing through the combo thread and trying to get a grasp on May in Xrd (having previously only played her in AC and +R). It seems to me that May's become much more about corner pressure/oki with hoops & beach balls, correct me if I'm wrong.

What I was wondering, is if there are any common setups after specific combo enders and what they are. The combo thread is lovely with an absolute wealth of stuff I can't wait to try in training mode, but I'm just wondering to do after the knockdowns. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Kyle]

Some basic oki options:

 

End your ground combo w/ 2D, 41236[P]. then run in with a 2K & you have loads of options afterward. OHK or chain to 6K or chain to a delayed 2D.

End your ground combo w/ 2D, 63214P, then run in with a 2K & you have loads of options afterwards. OHK or chain to 6K or chain to a delayed 2D.

 

End your air combo in a corner Ensenga?. As they awake do a late 41236[P], YRC. high damaging options are:

OHK

2D, HS-HD, Delay ]P[, IAD J.S, J.HS, land ender

6K, ]P[, HS-HD, LINK IAD J.P, J,K, J.HS, Land, ender

 

This OKI is strong b/c your YRC slowdown makes their actual wake-up frames hard to judge & reversals much less reliable execute.

[AOW_Yomabuddy]

Trying to learn my set-plays after sweep and try stuff vs wake up throws. Will meaty 6K and 5K avoid wake up throws? I've been trying it but either I get thrown or the move whiffs.

 

Also instead of doing 2P 2K 2D for my ground string is it better to just do 2K 2D? I often seem to miss my sweep if I go for 2P 2K 2D

[BloodWolF]

6K is throw invulnerable, however 5K is not. If you're getting thrown out of 6K, you're probably timing it incorrectly. I usually go for 2K > 2D, but I'm sure there is a situation where the 2P in the beginning would be beneficial.

[raisedbyfinches]

2p is better to use when attempting to interrupt strings because it's faster than 2k. 2p 2k might be better as a hit confirm/tick because of the extra hit.

There are a bunch of situations where 2p is a good starter instead of 2k. Find out where it is good to use that instead of just 2k 2d and then use both.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[raisedbyfinches]

@volacide

Basic combo routes into oki

[buttons] 2d

delayed forward jump into high/low/ohk [probably with a whiffed j.p at the start of the jump]. Can make the jump in too early so button whiffs and you can go into low.

[buttons] 2d [4]6s

Either iad j.s (whiffs) low/ohk or delayed iad j.s (hits) 2d [4]6s repeat.

These both work midscreen on everyone and the oki is very strong.

It's not just about hoops and balls and corner oki (but they are amazing if you do the 6h hoop oki or the hoop yrc).

We are now very much setup oriented and we have a lot of setups we can use.