BBCF/Litchi Faye Ling/Strategy

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 Litchi Faye Ling



General Tactics

TL;DR (For Beginners)

Important Moves

  • 4B: Antiair, very limited horizontal range
  • 6A: Standing overhead
  • 6C[m]: Fatal Counter, and big punish tool.
  • 5B[m]: Great poke in Staffed Mode
  • 2B[e]: Good Staffless poke
  • 623D[m]: Litchi's DP.
  • 623D[e]/421D[e]: Moves the staff and changes its set
  • 632146C: Reversal Super/ Super ender

Litchi is a very strong character with plenty of complex tools. She can feel very overwhelming as you learn more and more about her tools. However, you can simplify her gameplan to a degree to make learning her easier.

In neutral, Litchi's plan is to stay within reach such that she can poke with a Staff normal (e.g 5B[m]), or launch the staff and use it start pressure. If she's not in range to start pressure, she can still launch it in whichever set to cover space. Generally speaking, she can sit at midrange until she finds an opening. WHile In pressure, Litchi's goal ultimately is to use both modes in order to run mixups and wait for her opponent to crack. While staffed, 6A is a solid button to threaten overheads from above. She can also use her other buttons to cut off escapes and condition opponents to sit still. Staffless, she has many mixups at her disposal. She can plant the staff near her (e.g with 6D[m]), and use it to either cover her mixups, or combo from them. Alternatively, she can move the staff for better positioning. On defense, Litchi can play keepaway with her staff normals, or use staff launches to cover space. Alternatively, she can use her mobility tools like 63214A in order to play for better positionings. Moves like j.D are especially great for backing off and making it hard for your opponent to land a hit.

Litchi leaves a huge amount of room for experimentation, so feel free to explore with different styles and gameplay ideas.

Drive Mechanics (In Depth)


OD usage

Litchi has one of the best OD's in the game for pressure for the following reasons:

  1. Litchi can cover herself with the staff without setting it. She can repeat this until she opens the opponent up. She also gains more angles to cover with the staff.
  2. Reverse Beats and staff open up new mixup and pressure ideas. Reverse gatling can also make Litchi's pressure much safer.
  3. It's somewhat easy to convert combos with.

During OD Pressure, if you have the opponent blocking, you want to use your new gatling routes and cover gaps with a 5D or 3D while you run mixups or even do something such as 3D > 421C > 5D in order to cross the opponent up while safely maintaining pressure. The staff is rather slow so you often need to move it preemptively. For those familiar with other game series like Under-Night or Melty Blood, Litchi's Reverse Beats essentially work the same way. For those unfamiliar, reverse beats mean that you can use normals with large blockstun (like C normals), and then cancel into an A normal. This reduces the total recovery for some attacks and can make Litchi plus in certain situations. You can mess around with cancelling into different normals to change up your mixup timing. For example, you can do 5A > 5B > 5C > 6A to catch someone completely by surprise.

During OD combos, Litchi's main goal is mainly use 6C[2] in her combos as much as possible (for proration) and use her Exceed Accel or All Terminals as an ender. In her more advanced combos, mostly those with longer OD durations, you want to combo from X > All Green > X > All Terminal/Exceed Accel for maximum damage.

One of the most notable weaknesses in the form, somewhat ironically, is the staff. She has a much harder time catching opponents because she can't cover space by launching the staff as normal nor using staff normals.

Blockstrings

Staffed

Litchi's blockstrings are much less complex in Staffed mode, but she can still frame trap opponents and call out certain moves.


5B[m] > 2C[m]

5B > 2C is one of the Litchi's few true blockstrings in Staffed mode.


2B[m] > 3C[m]/6A[m]

3C will catch opponents fuzzy jumping. Paired with 6A, and you also some form of High/Low mix


5B[m] > 5C[m] > 41236B

A useful frame trap to keep opponents from contesting. Still loses to 2A mash and most lows, however.

Staffless

While Blazblue is already quite freeform with blockstrings, Litchi can kick it up a notch in Staffless Mode. Depending on the staff's location, set/mode, and direction, Litchi can switch up her blockstrings greatly. Do NOT copy these exactly. It is up to the player to gauge positioning, their needs, and the overall game state to switch up blockstrings. These are meant to give ideas of how Litchi can structure pressure with a few common situations.

2A > 2A > 5B > 2B > 5C > 3C

A basic blockstring that'll push you out to keep you safe, but lacks mixup and won't let you keep up pressure.


(With staff set) 2A > 5B > 6A > D > (microdash) > 2B > 5B > 3C

A basic example of how launching the staff can cover your mixups.


(With staff set far away) 2A > 2A > 5B > 5C > 63214A

An example of using Reach/Riichi in order to jump away after a blockstring.


(With staff in delayed launch, set in Vertical/5D Mode) 5B[e] > 6A[e] > ]D[ (During 6A startup) > 2A[e] > delay 2A[e] > (Staff 2)

An example of covering 6A startup with staff launch. Vertical Mode's second hit is particularly good for keeping opponents trapped at midscreen.

Okizeme

Litchi often wants to end her combos with a staff set like 6D/623D in order to run her mixups. While very few (if any) of Litchi's oki options cover every tech, even her basic oki setups are very strong. On oki, you typically want to input [D] to start the delay launch. From there, you can run in and 2A to check opponents, or run basic mixups with 2B[e] and 6A[e]. You can also mix in throw. A particularly nice throw mixups is launching the staff, then throwing them right before or right after the staff hits. Depending on your timing, you can catch them off guard and throw them, or bait Throw OS and TRM them.

Tsubame Gaeshi (DP) oki

  • Leads to safe jump
  • Can start delay launch and 2A to check rolls

DP is a strong combo ender for Litchi as it grants her a knockdown and a Vertical/5D staff set. This lets her cover a variety of options through oki and makes many of her mixups safer (Video Example Here). You can also safe jump and j.B, catch delay techs, or start the delay launch and use it for pressure.

Video Resources

Tips and Tricks

  • Litchi has a ton of tech dumps out there. Some of the tech from the first list may be outdated, but they're both useful if you're looking for something to put in the back pocket
  • Try to memorize the staff's speed when it launches. This will make it easier to figure out when to release it in combos and pressure.
  • Litchi requires Negative Edge. If you're playing on pad, consider setting "D" to a bumper to make it easier to delay staff launches and move.
  • Try using Kote to reposition staff and change sets.
  • j.D[m] is great for air stalling and calling out anti-airs.
  • Use 63214X for mobility and throwing off your opponent!

Fighting Litchi

  • Watch the staff. As "obvious" as that may sound, it's complicated and necessary for defense and neutral
    • If the staff wiggles, it's adjusted it's direction.
    • Memorize Litchi's staff sets. It's helpful for figuring out what her oki will look like.
  • Litchi's staffed pressure is quite limited. Abuse that and escape! Characters with big reversals can challenge certain frame traps.
  • If the staff is far from Litchi, she can't make much use of it. Try and play aggressive!
  • Switch sides with the staff to force Litchi to adjust!
  • If Litchi activates OD, you can actually run away without much trouble.
  • Ways to Challenge Litchi staff placement (by Uri)

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