Here's your weekend JoJo:
Diavolo VS Mista:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYlk1NsCf1A
This time, I think Ill talk about the characters a bit so that you guys can understand whats going on better.
Diavolo is considered by many to be the best character in the game. Hes a brass-tax type of character where if you know the basics of the game well, he has all the tools he needs to intimidate and punish the hell out of people. What makes him so unique is that its his defensive options that make him so good.
In Stand-Off, he has a counter that activates on frame 1. If hes hit by anything that isnt a throw or a super, the screen turns red and the opponent is stuck. Diavolo gets a few seconds to run in and do a free set up. This deleted time segment ends when Diavolo presses a button, and the opponent is free again. Its effectively impossible to zone out Diavolo or try and sneaky business with unbockable attacks or set-ups. This move effectively rips the momentum of the match out of the opponents hands and gives Diavolo full control. Whats even worse is that this move can be used as a combo breaker if you spend 2 bars of meter. On top of that, the combo breaker version recovers almost instantly, giving Diavolo a free whiff punish combo. Its not uncommon for a Diavolo player to wait until his opponent combos into ultra, uses the combo breaker to have the ultra whiff (making them waste 2 bars), then do a 30% or more punish.
His ultra is also a counter active on frame 1. This time he trades countering projectiles with being able to counter supers and ultras. Without rage it does a little over 40% health.
So you see, if Diavolo has 2 bars of meter, his opponent is walking on egg shells for the rest of the match. What really ties the whole thing together is that he has a meterless BnB combo that does 30% and builds a chunk of meter. So he doesnt have to sacrifice damage at all to build up for those crazy options. Furthermore, his main combos are from Stand-off. If he gets knocked down, he gets back up at his most threatening state. Other characters have to get up, find a way to get Stand-On, and then do their big combos.
Another thing of note is his super: Epitaph. Its a multi-buff fixed to a timer. It makes it so that Diavolo auto-parries all attacks except throws, so long as hes not pushing buttons or jumping. It also locks out the opponent form parrying. The third bonus is that his dash, which is a command mini-teleport with invincible frames, can be wave dashed and recovers super fast.
Combine all of this with great set of normals, and you have your top tier character. His S-On stance isnt as good because he loses his combo breaker and damage output, but his new moveset makes him a grappler. He has an anti-air throw, and a command throw with invincible frames that can be roman cancelled into a combo. He has nasty set-ups after taunts too. Maybe in the future Ill post a match-vid where the Diavolo player exploits this.
Mista, on the other hand doesnt have Stand-on/off stances. He uses the style button to charge up his gunshots or to place his stands around the stage as ricochet points. His big damage comes from loading his stands into each bullet to do big damage per shot. Youll see the Mista player do combos that look like cheap damage, but keep in mind hes pressing the style button 3 times before he shoots every time. To compensate for this, youll see character specific controller settings where the Mista player will set all the shoulder buttons to style. There are other characters optimised with button layouts, but thats for another time.