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The King Of Fighters XIII + Steam Edition |OT| Now on Steam with Improved Netcode!

BadWolf

Member
I see Athena as a far-range zoning character. Which in KOF is a really risky style as you have to earn your space. But when she gets going, she gets going. Not entirely sure why she has a command grab with that short range, but I am digging her teleport. Getting Athena cornered isn't hard. Keeping her there... is. Also just how powerful is Psycho Reflector? I bounced an EX projectile back at a Terry with a regular reflector. Can it bounce Supers?

Athena is actually a psuedo grappler imo. Her command grab is:

- 3 frames startup
- Completely invincible on startup
- Cancellable from her teleport
- Leads to full combos, including butt loops and HD combos

You can actually instill a fear into your opponent with the grab similar to that of Clark's (the one with the autoguard).

Her reflector is extremely useful since it can not only be used to bounce fireballs (and super fireballs) but can also act sort of like Yuri's Saifa where you can use it like a preemptive anti-air and shield like move. After reflecting something her recovering is extremely fast so you can easily follow the reflected fireball.

Here is Woo's Athena in action versus Mr. Kof (12:22):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uwe9Z7K4A4c#t=741
 

McNum

Member
So that's what high level Athena play looks like? I have a lot to learn.

Also, can't help but notice... "Butt loops"? That's the long air combo thing she did? Looks crazy... but(t) fun. How hard is it to do that?
 

BadWolf

Member
Bear in mind I'm still a the level where I'm practicing hopping instead of jumping. "Not too hard" is relative. But it is a great incentive to master hopping. First the hops, then the butts.

I'll keep that video in mind, though.

Yeah I wouldn't touch it yet, I meant for later.

Its very rare to see this combo in a real match tbh, that Woo match is actually the only example I can think of outside the first time it was shown (which was basically in an SNK exhibition match iirc).

For now look at players like Justin Wong, his Athena is very successful while going only on fundamentals.
 

McNum

Member
Yeah I wouldn't touch it yet, I meant for later.

Its very rare to see this combo in a real match tbh, that Woo match is actually the only example I can think of outside the first time it was shown (which was basically in an SNK exhibition match iirc).

For now look at players like Justin Wong, his Athena is very successful while going only on fundamentals.
Yeah, I should work on my basic 1-2-3-Special/Super combos for now. And getting hopping down. That seems important. Spacing and fundamentals can't be practiced in Practice Mode, only live opponents and bitter defeats will do there.

EDIT #1: Okay, that whole "getting hopping down" thing is proving more difficult than I thought. That's one sensitive input. If my stick hits the edge, then I've held Up for too long. I need to practice more, guess no online fights tonight. Got any tips for learning hops? I mean, most of the people playing this have probably had to learn that at some point. I'm using a modded arcade stick to play, by the way. Siemitsu stick and buttons in a MadCatz SE case.

EDIT #2: Heh, turns out I just had to complain about it to make it work. That and I needed to look at the hop input in another way. The motion in my mind not so much "Up" as it's "stick snapping back from Up". Just enough push that the stick moves, then let go. For sidehops, it's similar, except I have to keep pushing to the side. Does that make sense to any of you?
 

McNum

Member
Just practice doing down, up forward, down or down forward. That will get you the tap needed for the short hop
Isn't that a hyperhop? I think I got the normal hop mostly down now. Well, 80-90% success rate, at least. Of the four kinds of jumping, I think I just need to practice some hyperhopping now. And then figure out what to do with it. Hopping is a very nice height for kicking someone in the face, so that's probably a good place to start.
 

BadWolf

Member
A lot of ppl do hops by doing a reverse hyper jump.

So instead of quickly hitting a downward direction and then an upward one you do the reverse.

Its basically a trick to force yourself not to hit up for too long, thus resulting in a hop.

Also, a lot of characters with air moves (like Athena and Yuri) can do their's off of a back dash, very useful. Athena can use her air forward+B for example to speed up and extend the range of her back dash. She can also spam her air qcb+B off of a back dash (or if you tiger knee it) to build meter.
 

McNum

Member
Trying to learn some Drive Cancels for the characters I use. Drive Canceling is hard. Still practicing hops, this is just to spice it up a bit. Hopping for an hour gets boring. Besides, I have to learn a few of those at some point, don't I?

Inspired by the butt loop, I'm trying to pin down Psycho Sword xx EX Psycho Ball on Athena. Are they seriously expecting me to hit qcb+AC in the time it takes from hitting A in dp+A and the attack actually hitting? That's like... 4-5 frames. Which, admittedly, is enough frames to register all the directions, but... is there a simpler way? Some kind of input shortcut or something like that? Or a way to string it together in one motion?

Or is dp+A (DC) qcb+AC just too much for me at the moment? I actually got it to do it once, so I know it can be done, but... this is something people can do on reaction while playing?

I'm also looking for good DCs on Kula and Yuri. Got a really gimmicky one for Kula, but there are probably better ones. It's (point blank) qcf+A DC qcf+AC which combos Diamond Breath into EX Super for 350 damage. For two bars and half a drive gauge. That could be better. I'm open to suggestions.

For Yuri, I really have no idea. Unless you can Drive Cancel Chou Upper into the demon flip and airthrow. That might be fun. And the input would be funny. dp+A (DC) B, AC. You can pull off both dp moves with one dp motion if you're fast enough with the buttons, right?

Pure theorycrafting by someone who doesn't really know what he's doing, but just thinking out loud... Assuming that works, a combo could be hop+A xx df+B, cr. B, st. B, dp+A (DC), C, AC. Is that viable or have I misunderstood how the game works? More to the point... is it worth trying for? I'm probably getting ahead of myself again.

EDIT: I have to learn to wait 10 minutes before asking a question... there IS a simper way to do Athena's drive cancel. It's called "don't go back to neutral between moves." So it's f, d, df, d, db, b. In one motion. The left hand doesn't have to stop moving for the right to press buttons. Just worry about getting the motion right, pressing A and AC at the right times is the easy part. Getting the motion right is that hard one.
 
Inspired by the butt loop, I'm trying to pin down Psycho Sword xx EX Psycho Ball on Athena. Are they seriously expecting me to hit qcb+AC in the time it takes from hitting A in dp+A and the attack actually hitting? That's like... 4-5 frames. Which, admittedly, is enough frames to register all the directions, but... is there a simpler way? Some kind of input shortcut or something like that? Or a way to string it together in one motion?

You have to be a little quick, but more importantly you're not supposed to wait for the dp to come out before doing the motion for the EX fireball. Holding the buttons for the special you're cancelling into also helps.

Regarding Kula and her drive cancels, here is a combo video in which you should see what you're looking for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzGMUAPcYsM
 

McNum

Member
You have to be a little quick, but more importantly you're not supposed to wait for the dp to come out before doing the motion for the EX fireball. Holding the buttons for the special you're cancelling into also helps.

Regarding Kula and her drive cancels, here is a combo video in which you should see what you're looking for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzGMUAPcYsM
Oh, right. The button hold trick. Forgot that existed.

So, just to break the cancel down, it's f, d, A(hold), df (Psycho Sword!), d, db, AC(hold), b, (EX Psycho Ball!) and then there's an opponent suspended in a juggleable hit animation right at Athena's eye level for a second, if I've done it right. Even if I can't do the butt loop, there has to be something I can do with that. I have to be careful not to hold AC too soon, or I'll get a Psycho sword into EX Psycho Sword cancel... which seems rather useless.

And thanks for the Kula vid, I'll give it a look. Would be nice to have stuff to do with that pale green gauge for all three girls.

I think I might be starting to get this fighting game engine. It's different from Capcom's, but I like it. I should have bought this game for PS3 back when it was new-new. I hope the Steam version gets a decent pool of players when it officially launches.
 

shaowebb

Member
5 more days till KoF XIII Steam Edition and I am pumped!
Hows the latest netcode been coming along? So far it looks really playable and I'm looking forward to working on this game again vs real life opponents.It'd be hilarious if my first match was against King/Ralf/Kim again though...
 

Onemic

Member
5 more days till KoF XIII Steam Edition and I am pumped!
Hows the latest netcode been coming along? So far it looks really playable and I'm looking forward to working on this game again vs real life opponents.It'd be hilarious if my first match was against King/Ralf/Kim again though...

A lot of people have been saying its gotten much worse compared to v6, a lot of random slowdown and other things have popped up since v9. Hopefully it all gets sorted out tomorrow.
 

Edgeward

Member
I only get lad in a round of match today. Nothing else. Game was fine otherwise and matchmaking was real fast too, never even got into the practice room
 
Yeah, I've had issues but it seems like they were mostly related to refresh rate, if both players involved haven't sorted things out offline in the first place, I can see how it can make things really worse.

Something that does need to be fixed is the whole deterioration thing though.
 

Onemic

Member
Think I've finally found my third character in Takuma. Boy is his execution hard as hell though.

Anyone know of his BnB meterless combos? He has so many different enders for combos coming off c.B or s.C(both in the corner and midscreen) and I don't know which is best to work on.
 
Think I've finally found my third character in Takuma. Boy is his execution hard as hell though.

Anyone know of his BnB meterless combos? He has so many different enders for combos coming off c.B or s.C(both in the corner and midscreen) and I don't know which is best to work on.

cr.Bx2, st.B into Zanretsuken gives you that hard knockdown off which you can setup a cross-up. cr.Bx3 into db~f+B lets you push them towards the corner. Off st.C you'll want to have that f+B to db~f+D down or you'll really be leaving a lot of damage/meter build on the table.
 

Onemic

Member
cr.Bx2, st.B into Zanretsuken gives you that hard knockdown off which you can setup a cross-up. cr.Bx3 into db~f+B lets you push them towards the corner. Off st.C you'll want to have that f+B to db~f+D down or you'll really be leaving a lot of damage/meter build on the table.

For the s.C, f+B to db~f+D combo in the corner is it best to end with a Zanretsuken or a s.C for a reset?
 

Edgeward

Member
I pretty sure I found my 3rd in Robert, he's under represented anyway plus I love how much swag his combos looks for sure easy execution plus he's got the tools needed - command grab, fireball, crossup, divekick, dp. Plus I can do his simple neomax combo. Gonna have to put him at 3 and move Kula to 2. Might switch out Terry though, he's just too straightforward.
 

shaowebb

Member
I pretty sure I found my 3rd in Robert, he's under represented anyway plus I love how much swag his combos looks for sure easy execution plus he's got the tools needed - command grab, fireball, crossup, divekick, dp. Plus I can do his simple neomax combo. Gonna have to put him at 3 and move Kula to 2. Might switch out Terry though, he's just too straightforward.

But Terry is hype :C
 

McNum

Member
Will this thread be moved back in to the main gaming forum for the Steam release? There'll probably be some new players wanting to find it by then.

Fire Emblem: Awakening's OT was moved back when it was released in Europe, so it's not unprecedented.
 

BadWolf

Member
I pretty sure I found my 3rd in Robert, he's under represented anyway plus I love how much swag his combos looks for sure easy execution plus he's got the tools needed - command grab, fireball, crossup, divekick, dp. Plus I can do his simple neomax combo. Gonna have to put him at 3 and move Kula to 2. Might switch out Terry though, he's just too straightforward.

Regarding Robert's Neomax, if you do it in the air as QCF, HCB+BCD then you will HD bypass into it (which means you can do it for 2 power bars and HD instead of 3 power bars and HD).

Also don't forget to us his command cross up kick during back dashing (like Iori), this makes him one of the faster moving characters in the game (a good Robert can be pretty difficult to catch).
 

Onemic

Member
All this time I thought it was Takuma's f+B to db~f+D that would give me problems and it turns out that it's actually not that hard after an hour of practice. Rather it's his f,b,f + P that's hard as fuck for me. Any accidental input other than f,b,f makes the engine think you wanna do a super and that will come out instead :/
 
I still make that mistake every now and then, especially when resetting with cl.C in the corner. I guess a preventive technique is to gear yourself more towards up than down, since that way it won't trigger the super. To avoid accidental jumps always be sure to buffer quickly during hitstun and take advantage of the hold trick for when you tack on P for fbf+P.
 

Onemic

Member
I still make that mistake every now and then, especially when resetting with cl.C in the corner. I guess a preventive technique is to gear yourself more towards up than down, since that way it won't trigger the super. To avoid accidental jumps always be sure to buffer quickly during hitstun and take advantage of the hold trick for when you tack on P for fbf+P.

To cope I've been doing HCB,f+P instead. Only the super comes out this way, but of course this makes the motion harder, so I'm not nearly as consistent. I've been thinking about keeping it like this, because there are other supers in this game and others(GG/BB) that use this motion and getting good to the the point where I can do it effortlessly would help a ton with characters that have supers with the same input.

I'll try the method you suggested when I'm in the lab.

EDIT: wow, that method lowers the rate of supers coming out by quite a bit. Instead of it coming out 80-90% of the time(on the right side, for some reason the super problem doesn't affect me on the left side) it only comes out around 5% of the time or slightly less(and perhaps another 5% of the time I get a hop a instead). Now I don't know which method to stick with. Your method makes it much easier to execute the move, although the super still comes out at rare times. The hcb,f method makes the super come out 0% of the time, but of course is much harder to execute constently. Decisions, decisions.....

Edit2: guess I'm gonna use your method Mezzo, the ease of execution compared to doing hcb,f+p is too much for me to resist. I'll just keep practicing it and hopefully my execution improves ot the point where the rare hop or super pretty much never comes out.
 

Edgeward

Member
Regarding Robert's Neomax, if you do it in the air as QCF, HCB+BCD then you will HD bypass into it (which means you can do it for 2 power bars and HD instead of 3 power bars and HD).

Also don't forget to us his command cross up kick during back dashing (like Iori), this makes him one of the faster moving characters in the game (a good Robert can be pretty difficult to catch).

Ah, I had no clue about HD bypass. Thanks.

I'm still getting used to combing off jump in attacks into combos. The windows seem smaller than other games
 
your links have to be super tight when you're comboing from jump-ins. More experienced players who have a better feel for the frames will be easily grabbing you out of your normals' startup on the ground if you mistime your attacks. If you don't realize it and tech out then it's free damage for them.

edit:

since you're a Robert player, you should never have that problem from the command crossup. The stun on both block and hit for that is huge.
 

Silky

Banned
I need more people to play this with, so feel free to add me on Steam if you want to get a few matches in!

Steam ID is firespin97

I've been trying to get a hang of Billy, now that the lag-free enviroment lets me perform more combos.
 
So I tried online beta today, my laptop was hooked up to the modem to minimize latency, and I...am pretty disappointed so far. Maybe it's because I'm too used to playing offline, but out of the 20 something games I've played, only 1 felt playable (and even that one felt like there are obvious delays). I noticed this bizarre issue where I can't special cancel to save my life, I would use the exact timing I had offline and the special cancel would come out too late and drop the combo. Don't know if anyone else has the same issue.

But yeah overall it still felt extremely underwater, the transition from offline to online here is just as jarring as sf4. Since I could transition almost seamlessly in games like persona, blazblue and skullgirls, I know it's not just my problem.
 
So I tried online beta today, my laptop was hooked up to the modem to minimize latency, and I...am pretty disappointed so far. Maybe it's because I'm too used to playing offline, but out of the 20 something games I've played, only 1 felt playable (and even that one felt like there are obvious delays). I noticed this bizarre issue where I can't special cancel to save my life, I would use the exact timing I had offline and the special cancel would come out too late and drop the combo. Don't know if anyone else has the same issue.

But yeah overall it still felt extremely underwater, the transition from offline to online here is just as jarring as sf4. Since I could transition almost seamlessly in games like persona, blazblue and skullgirls, I know it's not just my problem.

Game needs GGPO.

How many bars are you guys getting in matches?
 
How many bars are you guys getting in matches?

3 bars and very rarely 4 bars, 2 bars are pretty much unplayable which makes sense, but 3 bars is still rather janky, 4 bars is acceptable sometimes, but your timing definitely needs to be adjusted from offline. I think the lag is much more prominent in kof because it's such a fast game.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
This is the most beautiful thing that has ever been on my PC. Also I love the movement options in this game. Mindgame extreme.
 

Onemic

Member
I would make the steam OT, but I don't know how to make multiple posts without having the system not let me make consecutive posts within a short time frame since the OT is around 5 pages. All that really needs to be done is to copy and paste the OT.
 

TheSeks

Blinded by the luminous glory that is David Bowie's physical manifestation.
I would make the steam OT, but I don't know how to make multiple posts without having the system not let me make consecutive posts within a short time frame since the OT is around 5 pages. All that really needs to be done is to copy and paste the OT.

You have to talk to a mod, apparently there's a special thing they do for that.
 
my steam name is irfaanator if anybody wants to add me for some kof matches. I definitely need some more practice since Im always losing at my locals so any advice is greatly appreciated. I live in ohio just to know what kind of connection you guys will have w/ me. I do have decent internet though
 
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