ABA has the potential to be downright terrifying. A homunculus who spent most of her developing years literally trapped in the darkness, she fights with a giant key named Paracelcus who happens to be her "husband" and is also voiced by the guy who directs BlazBlue.
ABA is a pure Risk/Reward character who switches between two modes: one which might be the worst character in the game, and one which is probably the best. She starts in Normal Mode, as slow, plodding, and generally incapable. When she lands a Keygrab or consumes a bloodpack while in this mode, however, she enters Moroha mode. Wherein, she gains a massive shift in the strength of her attacks, her overall speed, her pressure and ability to crank the guard bar, and several other bonuses which turn her from listless to livid, making her extremely frightening to deal with. ABA is generally uncommon enough a character that many players have trouble dealing with her overwhelming options.
This comes at a cost, however. In Moroha, ABA's attacks will drain her own health whenever they contact an opponent, on hit or block. She also has an active Moroha meter, which will slowly drain towards empty, and will lose about 30% every time she is knocked down and goes into a wakeup animation. When the meter empties, she exits Moroha mode in a very vulnerable stance, making her quite susceptible to eating a full combo or being Instant Killed, more than any other character. She can avoid this vulnerabilty, and regain some of her self-inflicted damage, by exiting Moroha manually by: landing another keygrab, consuming a bloodpack, or entering Goku Moroha, one of the greatest install supers ever designed which buffs her into an extremely powered up version of regular Moroha. With this many options, ABA can be fairly obtuse to learn, and despite her relatively low execution barrier, she can be crippled by inexperienced hands, but crippling under those who fully understand her risk/reward game.
Strengths
- Obscene offense in Moroha Mode with high mobility, powerful pressure, decent pokes, and solid damage.
- Decent utility in her overall moveset.
- Combos with Keygrab lead to proper mode management.
- Learning to switch well between modes can allow her to retain her life lead very well.
- Very high defense rating, allowing her to take a ton of punishment.
- Good meterless conversion, and justified meter use.
- Goku Moroha makes her even stronger and can save her from leaving Moroha mode automatically.
- Has Danzai
Weaknesses
- Essentially requires learning more than one character, thus she is not easy to pick up.
- Starts in Normal Mode, which is stuck with bad mobility.
- Moroha Mode can cripple her life lead if not managed properly enough.
- Loses the ability to manually enter Moroha without proper Bloodpack management.
- Somewhat meter-reliant for more damage/better setups.
- Very susceptible to being Instant Killed if played improperly.
- Named after ABBA
Notable Moves
- 5P, 5H, 6H, 2S, 2H (M), j.S
- Keygrab/Bonding, Bloodpack/[Injecting/Displacement], Danzai/Judgment (FB), Konzetsu/Eradication, Dragging (FB), Goku Moroha/Altercation
Most of the info in this wiki has been adapted from Skeletal Minion's guide, found here: http://www.dustloop.com/forums/index.php?/forums/topic/7002-r-aba-complete-guide/