BBCF/Carl Clover/Strategy

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 Carl Clover



General Tactics

There are several resources for Carl available:


The TL;DR (For Beginners)

Notable Moves

  • 5C: Large disjointed poke. Even better when microdashed.
  • 4D: Covers a good range and keeps the opponent in to keep up pressure. It's also one of the few ways you can stop them from harassing Nirvana. Loses to lows
  • Con Fuoco (41236D): A great move to cover ground approaches
  • Volante (421D): You can use this projectile to catch opponents off guard and steal your turn back, especially if Nirvana is off-screen
  • Con Brio (623D): Nirvana's anti-air. Great range.
  • 8D: Another anti air. Always untechable on hit
  • La Campanella (22D): Keeps Nirvana safe, or repositions her for oki.
  • Vivace (236A/B): This can escape certain pressure sequences, or set up crossup situations with Nirvana. Also good for dodging projectiles if you don't want to body block with Nirvana.


Carl is a puppet user who's game plan revolves around using Nirvana to create tricky mixups and pressure situations for his opponent. The best way to achieve this is to get good knockdown in the corner or sandwich your opponent between Carl and Nirvana. By activating Nirvana while your opponent is sandwiched, you can lock down opponents anywhere on the screen and severely limit their options. As of CF2, however, Nirvana's moves cost more meter to use. This means that you can't throw out doll moves recklessly, or else you'll drain Nirvana's health quickly. Moving Nirvana also drains her life bar slowly. Without Nirvana, Carl is a very frail character. Outside of system mechanics he has no reversal, his normals are small, and his mixups are severely limited. However, with Nirvana, Carl has an array of strong tools to pressure and mixup the opponent.

Blockstrings

Like most Blazblue characters, Carl's blockstrings are very freeform. With Nirvana, however, Carl has to juggle more at once. Nirvana's positioning vastly changes for Carl's pressure and blockstrings. Learning how to move Nirvana during blockstrings is critical. Without adjusting her positioning, it's very awkward for Carl to draw out some of his best mixups and pressure. These blockstrings will often force you to move Nirvana in order for 2D to connect properly:

5A > 2A > 2B > 5B > 2D > jc > X

Uses a jump cancel to keep Carl safe while 2D locks down the opponent. You can barrier after jumping to stay safe, or jump in with another attack.


X > 5C > 2D > 6C/6B

A similar setup, but uses 6B and 6C as a high/low mixup while Nirvana uses 2D to cover Carl or extend the combo.

Okizeme

These are adapted from the Carl Combo Beginner Tutorial:

Midscreen

Midscreen Fuoco is a strong oki option after j.C ender. Input fuoco, land, then 5C. The 5C will catch rolls and Fuoco will pick them up. If 5C is blocked you can cancel into 6C for an overhead, 6B/3C for a low, or special cancel into vivace to force a sandwhich on block. This setup loses to reversal DP, but you can B vivace through most of them. This creates a guessing game for your opponent between the following: holding the cross up, attemping to DP the meaty 5C, and/or dealing with the high/low mixup.

Corner

Allegreto ender

A very common ender in the corner. Leaves Carl in a good poking range. You can also combine it with delay 2D for more effectiveness.


2D

After most knockdowns like j.C, Carl can use 2D as a meaty in order to cover all tech options. When using Alegretto, delayed 2D will also let Carl jump in whilst OSing reversals. If you jump forward j.B and they delay tech the j.B will be a safe jump.


Volante

For both j.C and Allegretto ender, calling Volante while you’re falling down will shut down DP > RC attempts as they will RC and still have to block the fireball. This effectively makes them waste 50 meter while you've only spent doll meter for Volante.


Doll Move + Vivace

After many knockdowns Carl can use a Doll move to hit meaty while he uses Vivace to cross up. Using Vivace this way will also put the opponent in a sandwich situation.

Tips and Tricks

  • Learn to dash super jump. It makes some of the the harder match ups much more even because you can approach more safely.
  • You can opt to dash jump in some places. It's easier to execute and just as important.
  • If getting to the corner is for whatever reason not an option off a confirm, or you find yourself pressuring the opponent midscreen, most often getting the opponent in between you and Nirvana is your best bet
  • Use Volante when Nirvana is offscreen to surprise your opponent!
  • Sandwich your opponent between Nirvana and Carl.
  • Use Nirvana to cover angles that Carl alone can't.
  • If you're at a disadvantage, play defensively to regain doll meter for the next exchange.
  • Try out extended corner carry routes. The payoff comes in mixup potential in the corner.

-Bug: Often referred to as "Doll Kara", in certain situations it is possible to input a doll normal in the process of inputting a doll special (Ex: input 4123]d[6, 3d will begin to come out, but immediately correct itself to fuocco, effectively "Kara Cancelling" the doll special), where once the special comes out, both instances of Doll gauge will be expended, effectively doubling the cost of a move. You can mitigate this quite easily by simply not releasing D too early into using doll moves, though it is important to keep in mind if you ever find yourself with a little less doll meter than you thought you had.

To do the dash super jump, input 6269. The timing is relatively tight at first, but it makes Carl's approaches much safer, especially when Nirvana is down or far away.

Ways to use Nirvana's collision

Whenever Nirvana is active, she is solid to both Carl and his opponent, this has many implications and uses:

  • Nirvana can push and be pushed around by both players in the same way players push each other.
    • The resultant speed when pushed is the average of the speeds both players/Nirvana would be moving if they weren't being obstructed.
    • There is no concept of how "heavy" a character is to move in this way, For example, walking into her while she is stationary would result in both Nirvana and the player moving sideways at half of normal walking speed regardless of whether Carl or Tager was pushing Nirvana.
    • If Nirvana becomes active while overlapping either player, both are pushed sideways instantly however far it's needed to stop them overlapping.
  • This can be used in a few ways
    • Firstly, you can use this fact to simply put a barrier up between Carl and his opponent, slowing down their approach and basically preventing them from getting into jab range. Whilst in this scenario, it's possible to push Nirvana forwards (Since Carl's forward hop is faster than she is) to essentially advance with Nirvana shielding attacks that come his way.
    • Conversely, if Nirvana is behind them, this will stop them from backdashing away as quickly, or force them to jump backwards to get away, which is a massive risk given Nirvana's powerful Anti-air moves.
    • During combos, if Nirvana is behind Carl's opponent, she can be used to mitigate knockback by simply being in the way and active as Carl attacks, allowing certain combos that aren't possible otherwise.
    • While Nirvana is active and solid to her opponent, Carl himself can still use Vivace to pass through her as he would the opponent. Likewise Carl's opponent can use moves that pass through players to also pass through Nirvana.

Fighting Carl

There are several anti-Carl resources:

Here are some anti-Carl tips:

  • Forcing Carl to block will stop the startup of certain moves
  • Listen for Carl to shout "Volante" or listen for the static of the projectile to recognize offscreen Volante.
  • Vivace loses to lows, throws, and 2As.
  • Solo Carl is extremely weak, press the advantage if Nirvana is disabled.
  • Try not to hit Nirvana if Carl is close, he can jump in and take his turn anyway.
  • Hit Con Fuoco with low profile attacks.

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