Just got this game today, and it's actually my first time playing BlazBlue even though I've been meaning to give the series a try since Calamity Trigger's release. Really enjoying it so far, even though I'm pretty bad at fighting games and even worse at this one. I don't know how she is as a beginning character, but I've mostly been using Litchi so far.
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Blazblue Continuum Shift EXTEND |OT| - Now with New Hat
- Thread starter sixteen-bit
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No problem, I figured something happened. Don't feel bad you saved me from some losses.
Also Litchi in my opinion is more of a Medium/Advanced character, where the only advanced characters are Arakune and Carl.
not Hakumen? I swear, his combos make me feel like he's the hardest character in the game execution wise.
No Hakumen's definitely a medium difficulty character, execution wise included. Taokaka might be up there in advance just because those air juggles but that's my opinion it might not be others.
The only reason I put Carl and Arakune in "advance" character status is the fact that they are both highly complicated. Carl has to deal with Nirvana meter management and placement, along with IADs, Allecans, and reset options. Arakune has curse mode which involves getting them in it in the first place, combined with button holds and releases for big dmg combos.
Relius and Litchi both have drives that can act independently of themselves. However for the most part you can fish for hits and capitalize on damage without needing as much foresight as Carl and Arakune.
I should drop this game right now.
Prototype-03
Member
Rachel and Tao are up there too. Litchi also got much harder to use in BBCP.
You should.
Just kidding. Haku's main game is the spacing and patience. I suck at both those.
Hakumen's execution is about par for the course in BB, maybe above average if you discount extreme outliers like Noel and Ragna. His combos contain a lot of inputs and dashing, but they don't contain a lot of empty inputs that are hard to time nor are they particularly difficult to hit confirm due to his slow normals.
Having said that, since Hakumen has a tendency to be played defensively, I would consider his learning curve to be above average simply due to the fact that he requires matchup knowledge to win across the cast. For example, a player who does not know that koukushi can merely be countered repeatedly would probably think that Hakumen-Litchi is pretty unbalanced in his favor when, in fact, Hakumen actually has a minor edge over her.
Arakune isn't that hard to play. I think there are plenty of characters more difficult to play than him. Arakune wins a lot of rounds by Tager logic: A half-decent player, much like a half-decent Tager player, will be able to get tremendous damage from a curse, so we can ignore the fact that, like Tager, Arakune has a difficult to master style of play because he is rewarded immensely when he does it correctly. Many Arakune players in the mid skill range, as a result, will tend to either win quickly or lose horribly.
Let me first congratulate you on picking the right character. Litchi is the best. I've found that her unique penchant for irritating people makes the journey of learning hear very rewarding.
While Litchi's execution barrier has gone down a fair bit since CT/CS1 (where it was rather high), Litchi remains one of the more difficult characters to learn how to play, and the reason is simple: Litchi simply does not get rewarded for landing hits. To win as Litchi, you must land a relatively large amount of hits. This means that until you get all of your planning down solidly, you're going to be doing a lot of losing because Litchi's main midscreen bnb does a maximum of 2.5k damage and provides very little carry. Litchi also lacks some tools, such as an anti-air, that players of other characters may be expecting to have. She also has a very, very long list of normals that produce a truly staggering gatling table and staffles to staff combos that depend heavily on improvisation to not drop.
Having said that, landing hits as Litchi really isn't all that hard. Her neutral game is amazing and, once you get comfortable, you will find that there aren't really any characters that you can't go toe-to-toe with at midscreen. She also has absolutely insane oki if set up properly (here comes the learning curve again) and a truly frightening corner game. Her execution barrier is still pretty high due partially to the remnants of the itsuu loop that are still visible in her combos (You will see 66/44kote haku hatsu Ippatsu A Riichi A a lot, and you will also probably drop this a lot) and the necessity of negative edging in pressure and combos. However, her main corner BnB is now not too difficult to land and her staff midscreen hit BnB could not be easier.
Tl;dr: I started on Litchi and you can too. You're just not going to win any easy ones for awhile.
As an aside, if you are playing on pad, you may consider assigning D to a trigger. There will be many situations where you need to hold D down while pressing face buttons.
Litchi’s easiest and most frequently used combos are these two. You can start them on almost any hit. [m] means with the staff; 6C(1) and 5C[m](1) indicate that these moves hit twice and that you should perform whatever action after the first hit, not the second; j. means you should jump; CH means counter hit; IAD means instant air dash, which is an input of 96, or up-forward plus forward.
Staff: 5B[m] 5C[m] 3C[m] 623D
Get this solid. You're going to be doing it a lot. Works on any starter; you can go j.A 5AAA and it'll still work. If your opponent is very far away, the Tsubame Gaeshi (623D) will whiff, so don't do it. If they are somewhat less far away, only the first hit of Tsubame Gaeshi will hit, so don't do it. If you are very very close to them (meaning you started the combo on 3C[m]) and you do the DP rather fast, you can do some fancy shit (6C(1) 6kote hatsu Riichi A Ippatsu A etc. works) for big damage, carry and meter. If you want to ensure that the tsubame gaeshi will hit, you can do 5B[m] 5C[m](1) 3C[m] and your opponent will be pushed back less; however, you need to plan this ahead as if you delay the 3C[m] even a little bit, this will drop.
There are variations of this that people will do for certain kinds of oki or to hitconfirm. All of them are pretty easy, so experiment with them.
5B[m] 2C[m] 5C[m] 623D does less damage but the tsubame gaeshi will pretty much always hit. You should do this against opponents that you hit that are very high up in the air or opponents that you want to land right in front of you. You will see some players do this EVERY time because it allows them more time to hitconfirm into a proper corner combo than the regular version does.
5B[m] 2C[m] 4D does even less damage but sends the opponent flying towards the corner. This is pretty much only used when Litchi is at risk of being cornered herself and wants to bring the game back to the middle.
5B[m] 2C[m] 6D does more damage than the above and is used for a couple of reasons. For starters, you should ALWAYS do this near the corner, as it is necessary to start a proper corner combo. The other reason to use it is that, with a rapid cancel, you can use this starter to get much more carry and much more damage. The oki you get from this is kind of bad, however, so I would avoid it unless you are near the corner or plan to RC.
5B[m] CH 6C[m] IAD wait j.B[m] stuff
This is done on CH. It is basically free damage and it allows you to then do a corner combo or another midscreen combo on top of it. This will drop if you don't CH though, so make sure you are 100% sure that that's going to happen. This is a rather daunting combo for beginners and I wouldn't worry too much about learning it at first; 6C[m] is rather difficult to use so you won't be using it much at first anyway.
Staffless: (5B) 6B 5C 2C 6C(1) short delay Chuun 2C 5C j.B dj.BC Hatsu Chuun
This is... quite a bit more difficult than the previous combo but it is still relatively easy. You can do this after almost any staffless hit. Note that this assumes that the staff is not currently in the air, because if it is, all of your normals will change and your combo will drop when you get the staff back. The 5B is necessary to land this if you are starting with j.B or j.C. You have to input most of this pretty quickly, so don't worry about slowing things down to time it except where noted. This actually won't work against some characters who are crouching when you hit them; do 6B 5C 2C 3C Haku Chuun Hatsu on them instead.
If you can't get the full combo that I posed above, do the crouching variant as it is much easier and still works on standing opponents. You will just, of course, get less meter, carry and damage.
This constitutes a significant percentage of the midscreen hits that you will get. The other kinds of midscreen hits you will get fall into one of three categories: 6B[m] hits, Itsuu hits, and Staffless-into-staff hits. All three of these demand a lot more attention and execution than Litchi's basics.
I only try to learn the game in anticipation for BBCP, so I will have some idea of what I'm doing. At the same time I sometimes think there's no point because I have no intention of playing any of the current cast when BBCP releases. I'm 100% going to main Azrael, with Izayoi as a side.
I would learn a really execution heavy character then. You'll be prepared for anything.
darkblade77
Member
My weakest areas in BB are dashes and jumping. Especially IADs, jump cancels and SJCs, these end up sticking in my craw no matter how many different combos or approaches I practice that involve them. I can dash and backdash/cancel consistently, but my motion for it feels slow and jerky--I know I'm essentially slamming the edges to get it to come out, but I'm otherwise not fast enough to do them. And since I'm using too much force, it gets hard on my wrist after a while--which is really no good since I main Makoto(although really, it's no good for anyone).
I've played the game on and off for a while, but I think this is probably the biggest barrier to improving my game, because my confirms and my neutral feel crippled when I need to do these--but either flub it, or am not confident enough to attempt it because the flub rate has gotten so high in a particular match.
What's a good way to get this kind of movement down pat? Just keep at doing related combos/pressure strings/approaches? Make 'reps' of each motion and keep doing them repeatedly? Play online and hope the muscle memory sorts itself out?
I've played the game on and off for a while, but I think this is probably the biggest barrier to improving my game, because my confirms and my neutral feel crippled when I need to do these--but either flub it, or am not confident enough to attempt it because the flub rate has gotten so high in a particular match.
What's a good way to get this kind of movement down pat? Just keep at doing related combos/pressure strings/approaches? Make 'reps' of each motion and keep doing them repeatedly? Play online and hope the muscle memory sorts itself out?
What I usually do when I have problems with execution for certain things in fighting games is to practice it on a dummy until it feels very comfortable to me, then practice on a dummy set to random, then practicing it on a cpu dummy set to the hardest difficulty, and then finally practicing it on a live opponent(player matches ideally)
Honestly you should just drop it because it isn't GG.
BB's major problem is that you have to pick a character, waste twenty+ hours on said character to find out that they aren't for you. If you could at least have a foundation with minor tweaks to the characters, it wouldn't be such a hurdle for most people.Thanks for the very detailed post! I had a feeling Litchi would be one of the more difficult characters to use, because for whatever reason I seem to gravitate towards low damage/non-noob friendly characters, but I think I'll stick with her. She seems like she'll be really fun to use once I'm actually decent at this game.
I'm trying out some of the combos you mentioned, and I am using a controller for now (strongly considering getting a stick in about a week), so I took your suggestion and switched D to R1.
BTW, even though I've seen Litchi before in matches on Youtube, I never realized that was her in your avatar. Getting my first match win with her and seeing that victory pose was a big, "Ooooohhhhhh" moment for me.
Prototype-03
Member
Are you using a stick or pad?
Also, I'm not sure if you're already doing this for IADs, but it helps if you do a diagonal jump forward, neutral, then forward. It will register the jump forward as a forward input as well.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Honestly you should just drop it because it isn't GG.
Dat casual player response.
and 95% wrong
I figured learning Hakumen would be the best because I would be forced to learn opponent playstyles and block a whole lot. That and his dash is somewhat similar to Azrael. I just can't get past his combo execution barrier. I thought learning 3s Yun GJ combos were hard, but this seems to take the cake. His combos are so odd in that you have a very wide open space to fuck it up, which I usually do(I still can't complete his basic BnB combo). It also makes watching videos to learn the timing even more difficult.
Honestly you should just drop it because it isn't GG.
Right now I'm only practicing GG and KOFXIII, though I go back to trying to learn this game once in a while. My practicing will probably amp up when BBCP nears release in October.
Is it odd that I actually find this game more complex in terms of system mechanics and such compared to GG? I know Arcsys said their goal was to make BB more accessible, but it feels like it's anything but.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Learn the challenge mode stuff first. It will greatly help with timings
It is more complex, it's been that way since cs1
darkblade77
Member
I'm using a stick. I used to be a keyboard warrior before SF4/BBCT, and I never had dash problems there; It's made me consider picking up a Hitbox, but I'd need one with a reverse layout since I used arrow keys to move.
But it's been years, so I suspect I'm probably better with the stick now than I was with the keyboard back then.
I do try to do that motion for IADs, but the motion(like with dashes) I have to put in too much force to get it out fast enough.
Also, I'm not sure how to put it, but up motions on stick have always been sort of like that(hard to isolate/overcompensate when doing them fast) since I've used it.
I've done about half of Hakumen's challenge mode stuff. I think it's challenge mode 6 or so that's the basis for one of his BnB's. My problem with the challenge mode section for Hakumen, is that almost every one starts with you having to D counter the dummy, and the dummy's are so damn slow to attack that it makes the process of just attempting the combo longer than it should be.
edit: ok, now I got BB fever again. Fuck Hakumen, Im learning that damn BnB combo by the end of this week.
Thought so. Fucking Arcsys.
They are adding holding a button to tech in BBCP though right?
There isn't really a way to practice jump cancelling other than by doing it a lot with the specific move that you're cancelling out of. Faster moves require no preparation and the input buffer will catch the jump cancel if you just input it right away; this is true of basically every air move and is how you should jc 5A.
A looooot of people struggle with IADs. The first thing to know is that actual IADs are rarely necessary, so a 966 will often do in place of a proper 96. This is especially true if you are jc IADing a move like Litchi does with 6C[m] as the input buffer will interpret both the same way. The best way I know to get these consistently is to exaggerate the hell out of the motion. It's more tiring but you're more likely to feel it if it's wrong.
IADs are like, physically exhausting on a stick until you've done a lot of them because it's really necessary to push the stick to 9, let the stick return to neutral, and then slam it again into 6.
Litchi is a low damage character because she builds momentum at the speed of light. An easy example: After that staff combo, input 4kote immediately and launch the staff. This will hit anyone who roll techs, provided you time it correctly.Thanks for the very detailed post! I had a feeling Litchi would be one of the more difficult characters to use, because for whatever reason I seem to gravitate towards low damage/non-noob friendly characters, but I think I'll stick with her. She seems like she'll be really fun to use once I'm actually decent at this game.
I'm trying out some of the combos you mentioned, and I am using a controller for now (strongly considering getting a stick in about a week), so I took your suggestion and switched D to R1.
BTW, even though I've seen Litchi before in matches on Youtube, I never realized that was her in your avatar. Getting my first match win with her and seeing that victory pose was a big, "Ooooohhhhhh" moment for me.
Pad Litchi is hard but doable. Canada's best Litchi, Vice-Taicho plays on a pad. I would seriously consider the stick though. It was a huge improvement for me. Granted, I barely played on the pad at all.
If you feel like learning the real stuff, try this in the corner:
5B(m) 2C(m) 6D TK Hatsu Haku Chuun Haku Hatsu Riichi A Ippatsu A Ippatsu B 5D slight hold Chuun staff2 6D 6C(1) 4kote j.B dj.BCD falling j.c 66A
You are probably going to use this or a variant of it once a match, so get used to it now.
At the moment I'm looking at the Soul Calibur V stick, since it's not overly expensive, and got pretty good reviews (on Amazon, anyway).
Haha, I think that corner combo is out of my skill level for now, but I'll keep it in mind for later. Thanks again for the pointers.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
I believe so.
Edit: The whole reason people try to act like GG is harder is because of FRC's.
There are some things like jump installs and impossible dust and other mechanics that look super overwhelming at first but honestly taking things step by step in GG is really easy. I learned the freaking game inside and out when I was 15.
Prototype-03
Member
It could also be the way that you're holding it. I just flick my wrist which makes a bit easier to input fast movements but I know that not everyone holds it the way I do.
I had trouble doing Rachel's combos 'cause of the SJ cancels so I know how it feels. The best way to do is really just sitting down and learning it. Like Fugu said, IADs aren't THAT critical unless you're doing some of Tsubaki's CS2 combos.
Maybe it looks worse than it is because I don't know most of the attack names yet. I'll write the commands out for that combo later and give it a try.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Adding commas might help
Edit: If anyone want's to play tomorrow. I'll be starting back up seriously.
I think commas look hideous in combo notation.Adding commas might help
Edit: If anyone want's to play tomorrow. I'll be starting back up seriously.
Having said that, I made a mistake. There is an Ippatsu B after Ippatsu A.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Roe let's play today, I need to fight Relius more. *which should have been really obvious* xD
Yeah I can't do it. jCC lands but the 5C right after is always escapable.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Yay
Pick Relius/Lambda vs me
Ok sounds good.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
I really need to work on my stein set ups
Yeah you don't seem to set em up to explode to put that extra pressure on.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
Well the explosion ones are not that good minus a few things, but I'm just bad at placing them period right now.
Also I need to get my reversal timing down again x.x/
I really just can't like Relius right now after seeing the possibilities of combos with two added moves in CP, same with some of Carl's stuff. Don't get me wrong you can get complicated with some Relius stuff it's just I do basic stuff cause it's not really worth the damage trade off. I only lose like 300 dmg max per combo I don't make look cool.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
I know the feeling, I try to avoid watching Hyper Speed CP Mu for the same reason.
Thanks for the matches though.
Any tips for this combo? I've been trying for a while but can only get about half of it to work. I used the BlazBlue wiki's move list to fill out the rest and came up with this as the inputs list, which I think is right:
(5B), 6B, 5C, 2C, 6C (1), 236B, 2C, 5C, j.B, dj.BC, 236B, 236C
I can get to the first 236B after a delay in the 6C, so at that point it's a seven hit combo. However, the 236B knocks the enemy too far away to use the 2C. I'm assuming I'm supposed to dash cancel into the 2C? If that's the case, do you have any tips for how to time the dash cancel? Though if I do need to dash cancel and you don't have any tips for me, just knowing I'm on the right trail would be extremely helpful.
Sorry for the hideous commas.
QisTopTier
XisBannedTier
I can't believe how ass Makoto is in EX though. Now I know how proto felt in CS1
SolarPowered
Member
Rachel was so bad. CS honestly made me feel most for Rachel, Tager and Tsubaki players.
I thought Tager was good in CS? Or at least he was in a better position than what he was in CT.
You are dropping this because the combo, as notated, is impossible. That's a 236C after 6C(1).Any tips for this combo? I've been trying for a while but can only get about half of it to work. I used the BlazBlue wiki's move list to fill out the rest and came up with this as the inputs list, which I think is right:
(5B), 6B, 5C, 2C, 6C (1), 236B, 2C, 5C, j.B, dj.BC, 236B, 236C
I can get to the first 236B after a delay in the 6C, so at that point it's a seven hit combo. However, the 236B knocks the enemy too far away to use the 2C. I'm assuming I'm supposed to dash cancel into the 2C? If that's the case, do you have any tips for how to time the dash cancel? Though if I do need to dash cancel and you don't have any tips for me, just knowing I'm on the right trail would be extremely helpful.
Sorry for the hideous commas.
Thanks, though I've actually tried changing the 236B into a 236C but haven't been able to get it to work. I'll give it another try later though. I put more effort into the 236B version than the 236C.
I've also been trying this one that I found online which looks pretty similar, and haven't had much luck either:
-2A 5B 6B 2C 6C(1) > delay 236C > dash 5B 5C (or 6C(1) > 421D) > jB > dj jBC > j236B j236C
For whatever reason the 236C is giving me issues for now, I guess.
236C dash 5B is much more difficult to do than 236C 2C; it also does less damage and builds less meter. This combo is done by some people anyway because it works on everyone standing, whereas 236C 2C has some consistency issues towards the corner. For what it's worth I never use it because 236C dash 5B is somewhat difficult to time and it's not a particularly efficient combo.
6C(1) 4kote does even less damage and builds even less meter but is probably the easiest variation for experienced Litchis because after a couple of months of playing her, you will have done 6C(1) 4kote so many times that this will be second nature to you. However, you can get more damage out of this combo than listed if you use 6C(1) 4kote without losing any consistency:
5B 6B 2C 5C 6C(1) 4kote 6B 5C j.B dj.BC Hatsu Chuun
This should work on everybody standing all the time; you can drop the second 5C if you want to make the combo a little easier. Again, none of these combos work on crouching opponents unless they have large crouching hitboxes, like Tager or Hakumen.
As for the original combo, the 6C(1) Chuun takes a little bit of practice but once you get it, it's really not hard. What you want to do is insert a very small amount of delay between 6C(1) and chuun, but not enough that the opponent is too far down to get hit by chuun or gets hit by chuun at an odd angle.
However, something is confusing me. You said you're getting seven hits, which means that you're letting both hits of 6C land. If that's the case, there's your problem: You have to insert Chuun BEFORE the second hit comes out. 6C consists of two kicks, and the first one is special cancellable.
What you may try doing is using Tager as a training dummy and doing 6C(1) chuun with no delay, as no delay is necessary against Tager. Against smaller opponents, however, doing the combo with no delay will cause either 2C or 5C to whiff.
People have made a lot of headway with Makoto in the last few months. She's not "I've got a bottom tier to myself" tier, although she is still likely the worst character in the game.
Tager was somewhat better in CS1 than he was in CT (due largely to the death of the clap loop and the 9-1 Carl matchup) but he still faced an uphill battle against pretty much every character in the game due to a lack of meter building and pressure in addition to the obvious Tager weaknesses.
Prototype-03
Member
Tager was better than Tsubaki and Rachel in CS1, which automatically places him higher than CT.
You think Tager was better than Tsubaki in CS1? What did Tager have? I literally cannot think of anything. Gadget finger was CS2, right?
Prototype-03
Member
For sure, 1 on 1 matchup, Tsubaki loses pretty badly. She needs to be up close to deal any damage so Tager will eat her alive. Also, she can't use any of her gimmicks because of his command grabs. Tsubaki has NO favorable matchups and is only better than Rachel by default.
I believe Tager's favorable matchups are Tsubaki, Noel and Rachel. Rachel doesn't even make sense because she should destroy him, but that just shows how bad she was in CS1.