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General Gameplay Discussion

Uhhhhh

Why can't I DP or reaction super out of my oki c.lk if someone does a level 1 on wakeup out of a hard knockdown while they have undizzy then? I'm pretty sure you have something incorrect.

Like as a specific example, why can't Double cancel her oki c.lk into car in reaction to Filia doing wakeup Gregor if Filia's super has no hitstop?
you can

it's extremely tight timing to do that v. fenrir becaude it only has only 1f of post flash startup and then you're getting hit, so it's like hitting a 2f link, but you should find it easier to do to gregor at 4f postflash startup, and even easier to do to dynamo at 6f post flash startup
 
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In my opinion I see tech chasing to be most useful in the corner because 90% of people tech out of the corner so all you have to do is put yourself where they should be and dance around until they are up then just hit them with a low
 
But you really can't

like... really.

Skullgirls has a 3f reversal window. It's not a matter of timing to countersuper in that situation; it's not possible. Because the Gregor has hitstop.
 
tech chasing is also best in the corner because you only have to position for a forward tech, since if they tech back you don't get your setup but they're still in the corner so win-win (maybe this is what you were trying to say josh).
 
you can

it's extremely tight timing to do that v. fenrir becaude it only has only 1f of post flash startup and then you're getting hit, so it's like hitting a 2f link, but you should find it easier to do to gregor at 4f postflash startup, and even easier to do to dynamo at 6f post flash startup
No, it's not possible.
Even if the opponent has Undizzy or doesn't, you can't counter super someone at point blank.

The only thing Undizzy does is let you start blocking after the flash if you were able to block.
 
I searched and I see the patch note you are thinking of Merlock:

When the opponent has any amount of Drama, the super flash from level 1 Blockbusters will no longer force hitstop on the defending character. This makes many Blockbusters that are unblockable after the flash become blockable on reaction when used for a reset, as long as the opponent has not committed to any other action (attacks, dashes, etc). Level 3 and above Blockbusters are not affected by this change.

The "commited to any other action" includes the oki c.lk I was talking about. All that change does is make it so you can block in reaction to the super flash if you were at neutral when it started.
 
I searched and I see the patch note you are thinking of Merlock:



The "commited to any other action" includes the oki c.lk I was talking about. All that change does is make it so you can block in reaction to the super flash if you were at neutral when it started.
my mistake, I was confusing it with older preblock/prejump changes and forgot that jumping is no longer an action that prevents you from blocking post super flash

regardless, you can still safejump pretty much any reversal off of a sliding knockdown, but I can't find information on how many true recovery frames there are on landing

since you can safejump fenrir, there can't be more than 4f of true landing recovery even after touching a button but I'd be interested to know how much of that is an additional recovery period depending on whether you touched a button and how that was handled with hitstop
 
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Pretty sure any jumping normal that gets cancelled by landing gets 2f of true recovery during the landing animation, as in no blocking and no going into prejump. That's the moment you can do things like throw someone using MGR or USS as they land cancel a normal even if they're holding up. As far as I can tell SG doesn't have Street Fighter-style loss of trip guard for all whiffed air attacks - as long as you were recovered by the time you landed, you don't get the 2f of true recovery. It's only for actually land cancelling normals.
 
well in the case of a safe jump you're always land cancelling your recovery so I'm wondering if that just gives you 2f of true recovery as you say or if there are additional frames where you can block/tech but not take other actions if you press a button

if there are frames where you can block but not take other actions then that makes it easier to safejump lv1 supers when they have undizzy

you can option select your own reversal off of a safe jump either way, but not every reversal will beat every wakeup super

edit: the only source I was able to find is from 2014
- All characters have 2 landing recovery frames when touching the ground after a jump
- If the player did any attacks or other actions in the air other than jumping/air dashing, your landing recovery frames are totally vulnerable
- In this case you will not be able to block during your landing frames, nor will you be able to jump to avoid a throw. This is sometimes called Trip Guard (although the terminology is pretty ambiguous)
- If you did not attack during your jump, you will immediately be able to block or jump to avoid a throw

I assume that's still accurate but I don't know if the changes to how preblock/prejump is handled affected it at all, I suspect not though

I can't do it right now but I plan to test landing recovery later
 
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that's still accurate, if you attack while you're in the air even if you land after recovering from the air attack you are vulnerable when landing

edit: nope i'm wrong, read what obregon writes below me
 
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Go into training mode, put the slo-mo at 10%, turn on advanced hitboxes

Neutral jump, hold back. When you land, you will see you instantly transition to a blue stand blocking hitbox during the landing animation.

Neutral jump, land cancel a normal, hold back. When you land, you will see you have a green hitbox during the landing animation because you have the land cancel recovery.

Neutral jump, whiff a light early so you will have recovered by the time you land, hold back. You will see you instantly go to the blue stand block during the landing animation because there was no land cancel.
 
Except you're not?

Pick Filia against Parasoul.

Record Parasoul to do rising j.LP

Try to sweep her as she lands.

Edit: meant to be for Pickles not obregon >.<

Also knockdown Oki is legit, you all should do some of that.
 
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Hell, just this month we found parasoul knockdown tech at the KC monthly. I do a lot of knockdown oki in the corner instead of raw reset.
 
imo the biggest disadvantage of knockdown oki is usually that you can't cross up their inputs or threaten a crossup but having them in the corner and blocking is a big enough advantage to outweigh that downside

sometimes you can arrange a hard knockdown with them just outside of the corner so you can do something that crosses up inputs, but most characters don't have that option

as was pointed out earlier, if someone knows you're doing a safejump, they can also just pushblock it, but this opens up more options for you

if you have real safejump option selects, and your opponent knows you will use them, then you can start to do things like fake/early safejumps into a low to catch a pushblock or jump out attempt or empty jump low/throw which will also check wakeup reversals

since you have to pushblock immediately to take advantage of absolute guard v. fast high/low setups empty jumps with or without an assist call mixed with real safejumps can give you good knockdown pressure that's fairly reversal safe, and overall I'd rather have someone in the corner -- even if your mixup timing is more telegraphed your mixup doesn't have to be
 
huh how about that, yeah i'm completely wrong disregard what i said
 
While we're on the subject of knockdown oki, if Mike or anyone else is reading, can we please get a good answer for why different characters have different timings on their tech animation, stand up animation and crumple animation, other than "lol we want different characters to be different"?

EDIT: Or even "but Guilty Gear and VSav did it!"

EDIT2: if anyone wants numbers, I did the math like Haunts did :D http://pastebin.com/vKCmEast
 
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While we're on the subject of knockdown oki, if Mike or anyone else is reading, can we please get a good answer for why different characters have different timings on their tech animation, stand up animation and crumple animation, other than "lol we want different characters to be different"?

EDIT: Or even "but Guilty Gear and VSav did it!"
You're sorta asking this question like you're taking for granted that the answer is gonna be stupid
 
I think I'll ask this here instead of a new thread. I remember undizzy does something with hitstop but not sure what.
 
Makes it so that level 1 supers sans command grabs don't have hitstop if the opponent has undizzy accumulated. This is to stop mashing from being super powerful against resets. Supposedly still works if the opponent has a move stuck out... But... Yeah.


Isn't supposed to apply to level 3 and higher or command grab supers.
 
wrong.
It makes you able to guard versus a super if you were not commiting in any action.
You still can't counter super a wake up super, sorry.
 
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Right... What you said is what I said.

Unless you getting some form of semantical on here... But idk it does what I said it does.
The why is meaningless in this context.
 
the lack of hitstop if you weren't committed to another action also applies to all supers not just command grabs IIRC. And you can still jump out of a command grab if you have undizzy as long as you weren't committed to an action
 
having no hit stop would mean you can counter super since nothing is stopping you (crude and possibly technically incorrect but easiest way to think about it)

You are still in the same amount of hitstop, you are just allowed to modify your block type.
 
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ok then, was explained to me differently, but perhaps I just heard them differently or perhaps I read the patch notes incorrectly.

Bottom line after everything is:

"If your opponent has undizzy and does a reversal super then you can block post flash if you weren't committed to an attack"


Juries still out on level 3 and command grabs though. I will test when I get a chance later today
 
Lv3s do not allow you to do anything they would normally not allow you to do, regardless of undizzy.
 
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the lack of hitstop if you weren't committed to another action also applies to all supers not just command grabs IIRC. And you can still jump out of a command grab if you have undizzy as long as you weren't committed to an action
Just tested this in training mode and I can't jump out of Bella command grab super (USS) post flash while Bella has full undizzy.

Tested by making Bella jump twice then doing a command grab USS when she lands while my double stands there in idle then press replay recording.

Using the same test I can block DD after the flash if Bella has undizzy, but I can't block after flash if Bella doesn't have undizzy.


So that's confirmation that bellas command grab super is unaffected by undizzy, at least in that way.
 
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Fenrir and Showstopper were instant after the super flash even before the addition of Hitstop, so it makes sense that they're not affected.
 
So what characters win the opening gambit?

so far I'm thinking Big Band, Eliza and Parasoul. Any others? Are those ones wrong?
 
Good round start...

Parasoul Peacock Robo Cerebella

maybe Beowulf?

Basically good hitboxes or Robo's angles do well
 
So what characters win the opening gambit?

so far I'm thinking Big Band, Eliza and Parasoul. Any others? Are those ones wrong?
Val has the best overall one so far probably. Super plus assist. Squigly probably has this as well. Bella round start is good. Some of the best normals in the game.

I don't think anyone really WINS it, just some are better than others. I think pw may be one of the weaker characters here and someone like val or filia or fortune are probably some of the stronger ones.

But then again it depends on whether we are just going for good starts that are generally safe, or include unsafe strats. For safe strats I think val might be the best. For unsafe stuff BB might be very high up there.
 
So what characters win the opening gambit?

so far I'm thinking Big Band, Eliza and Parasoul. Any others? Are those ones wrong?
I probably would have picked the exact same characters. Honorable mention to Fortune because of start of round Fiber, maybe.
 
REgarding starting round gambit, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Squigly and her Battle Opera Super. Immediate block stun to do whatever you want
 
REgarding starting round gambit, I'm surprised no one has mentioned Squigly and her Battle Opera Super. Immediate block stun to do whatever you want
Probably because everyone, or almost everyone, can beat that post flash and some can convert off of that.

Edit: Ms Fortune, Parasoul, Painwheel, Filia and Robo Fortune are the only ones who can't do anything, right? Squigly can also only trade with her own Opera. The rest of the cast at least gets a super worth of damage. Eliza does Khat and converts "meterless".
 
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I actually forgot about Squigly. But yeah like Ryin said it's kind of matchup specific. Even if you're not expecting it you can punish on reaction with gigantic arm/car/etc
 
To be honest, playing more Third Strike has made me realize that oki is a lot more about making reads and knowing your opponent's options than guaranteed setups. If you're fighting Ken in that game, his 3 F DP is amazing, it's meterless, and it will mess you up bad if you get hit by it. So let's say you throw Ken and are scared of his 3 frame DP. You could always just wait and block/parry the DP and punish it, but in doing so you're potentially giving up WAY more damage you'd get off of meaty cr.LK or cr.MK into super by being scared. So WHAT do you do off a knockdown? Do you keep going for meaties? Do you bait the DP and try to parry/block it? Do you throw? The answer is there isn't a guaranteed answer, it is all about testing your opponent and making reads! Yay!

This may be common sense to a lot of you, but I was having an existential crisis about oki recently that I was able to get over by just thinking about how to use hard knockdowns in this game after spending more time with other fighting games. I was telling myself before that "there's no reason to go for anything besides safejumps!" There's always risk trying to do a meaty c.LK or overhead setup on a rising opponent in Skullgirls, because it is a game where reversals are good and in certain situations you can even make them safe with full DHCs.

It didn't help that before Skullgirls I played SF4, which basically teaches you all the wrong lessons about oki in fighting games. This is probably why I went in thinking you should never ever go for oki ever unless it's a safe jump or unblockable.

You really need to evaluate risk/reward and your opponent options your opponent has before going for a mixup on knockdown. Hard knockdowns are good, and Skullgirls' oki works pretty much the same way every other game's oki does: safe jumps are guaranteed, oki setups that are lows/highs/meaties what have you are not if your opponent can reversal them, but they potentially give you a much better reward if you DO land them. So if you get a hard knockdown (and if you're a Big Band player, you will get a hard knockdown in neutral) you really need to be super aware of what your opponent can do. If it's a solo character that has no meter (and all their good reversals are metered ones) go ham! What's the worse they can do? On the flip side if they're sitting on enough bar to just reversal you in the face and DHC into Double you're just going to have to hold that shit. HOWEVER in this situation you might be able to find something to bait the reversal out and hit them out of it before they can DHC. On the super duper flip side, if you're Big Band and your opponent is Eliza with 3 or more bars....you can't safe jump anymore or really go for any type of oki without assuming HUGE risk. You just gotta bait. And as @mcpeanuts said, don't even bother safe jumping Bella, it's not worth it.

There's definitely a hierarchy of how good the "oki/setplay/whatever" is in Skullgirls, air resets generally are gonna give you your best options and are better and safer than techchasing and hard knockdown oki in almost all cases. However you aren't always in a situation where you have the opponent in a combo and can reset them whenever you want. You're going to get hard knockdowns sometimes, and you're going to land throws in neutral sometimes that you can't get full combos off of, it's good to have setups you can do off those.

To bring this all around and try to make my thought process clearer, Fortune has some good setups off of nom that probably cross into the realm off oki. She has an anti-reversal setup that can beat every option Bella has. This same setup will beat everything except Daisy Pusher against Squiggly, HOWEVER you can easily do another setup off nom that will beat everything Squiggly has. So I started messing around with nom setups to see what they would and wouldn't beat on different characters. Then I got around to thinking "I really should just do this with Big Band's hard knockdowns too".

I think this is the way I need to start approaching oki in this game. Just have setups for different situations against characters that are either in or against your favor. Once you have those setups, evaluate the risk/reward of using them based on your opponent's options and habits. Sometimes, all you can do is sit there and block to prevent risking dying, but that's not always going to be the case. Some categories of situations you would encounter (that are either IN or AGAINST your favor) would include:

IN your favor:
-Opponent does not have good reversals
-You've conditioned opponent not to mash on wakeup
-Opponent CAN reversal, but the reversal gives them nothing substantial if it hits (Double with no meter, etc)
-You have enough team life to potentially eat a reversal
-Your opponent's character cannot deal well with a particular type of setup off knockdown (low, rising jumping attack, command grab, throw). Peacock is a good example of this, throw will beat most of the things she wants to do after being knocked down
-Your opponent can't DHC if the reversal is blocked
-You have a specific setup to deal with that character's options

Against your favor:
-Opponent has strong, metered reversal that will beat your oki and they get a full combo off of
-Opponent has a metered reversal that cannot be safejumped
-Opponent has enough meter to reversal, super, safe DHC
-Opponent can reversal and call their assist at the same time to be safe
-Opponent is playing Cerebella and all your setups go out the window

You should have a way of dealing with every situation with both your team and your solo characters for oki. You're not always going to be able to an assist on knockdown, because sometimes your other character will be dead. "100% safe play" isn't always going to exist, so sometimes you're just going to have to consider your options versus the opponents options on knockdown which is how pretty much all fighting games work. You're at an advantage after knockdown, because you just did damage and now are in a situation that is 100% in your favor which is doing nothing and blocking. It's a safe option with potentially a lot of reward. You can attempt to take risks beyond that point for significantly greater reward, but you have to weigh your potential gain against the risk involved. Finally, sometimes you're in situations where if you get hit it is not the end of the world. If you're sitting on a full team with full life, you should probably not be THAT scared off Super Sonic Jazz. If Big Band hits you with it, so what? He can't get a full combo off it, he just got out of the corner, and you still are in a good situation. He now also no longer has the meter he needs to reversal again, so you're next oki setup will be that much stronger because you're not scared of reversal SSJ.

It is also probably good to have setups to deal with specific things. When I played @Skarmand , he was doing reversal Napalm Pillar and calling Hornet Bomber at the same time off any hard knockdown I got with Big Band. I was safejumping it and blocked, but he got out for free every time. After the match, Skarmand pointed out that if I backedashed and did HK Giant Step, I would get BOTH characters and potentially even get a double snap! If I didn't get a double snap, I would at least hit both of them and could immediately go for a reset without worrying about assists. I think people need to figure out more stuff like this. Getting a hard knockdown against Bella with Big Band doesn't really put him in a situation where he can go for a safejump, but maybe there's another setup he could attempt to go for that would potentially get him something useful on hit and be relatively low risk on block/whiff. Once again, what Big Band could and should go for here depends on the opponents team composition and how much meter they have. I had never even thought of this. The only thing I had in my brain was "I just have to block and hold this" but realistically, I had another option with a HUGE amount of reward if it worked! There are probably dozens of other situations in the game that I think are helpless but I actually have options beyond just "wait and block".

Honestly I see hard knockdowns and techchasing no differently than reset points in combo routes. Every good player has that "super good reset point" that lets them go high, low, crossup, throw or wait and bait a reversal. Most players, when they get a hit, go for a reset that the opponent could reversal through if they know it's coming, so just like oki, in theory should you just always bait reversals after your reset point? Of course not!

While it may be true that it is easier to reset out of a hard knockdown than it is to escape an ambiguous reset, you're going to get hard knockdowns in neutral, and when you get hard knockdowns you DO have the same options you would have in a combo route. If you simply just safejump/bait off reversals every time out of the utmost respect for your opponent, then you're going to win a lot slower than you would otherwise, and possibly lose. The same applies for hard knockdown. It is all about knowing your opponent's options and what they will/won't get hit by.

Finally, I believe a good part of oki in this game is to condition your opponent NOT to mash first, or go for an initial test on knockdown to see if your opponent DOES mash. The former is a better idea than the latter, because this is a versus game and one hit could potentially be way worse than SF where you take a DP and are just out a bit of life. If you go for safe jumps/anti mash setups and they WORK, you get a counterhit combo and have now conditioned your opponent not to mash. Once this has happened, you could start going for proper oki because your opponent will be scared to reversal. The other option is to simply go for oki out the gate. Again, this is the riskier of the two options. But if they do mash, you get hit and you know to bait a reversal next time, which you will block and punish.

Hopefully I did a decent job gathering my thoughts on this topic. This is something I wanted to post in my training dairy for awhile, but we were talking about oki in here so eh. There was also a really inspirational movie quote (read: from a dumb action movie) that perfectly summarizes oki in fighting games, but I forget what it is. It was something along the lines of "sometimes you just gotta take risks" so keep that in mind I guess and pretend Keanu Reeves said it or something.
 
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Ms Fortune, Parasoul, Painwheel, Filia and Robo Fortune are the only ones who can't do anything, right?
Fortune can super-jump forward and punish with Feral Edge or j.LK on Squigly's SBO start. Against Eliza, Fortune can also super-jump forward with j.LK and beat everything Elizas start with besides jump-back Sehkmet call (but who does this at round start? Even then, the Fortune can just block in time.) Yes, this also beats DP at round start. Beowulf needs to toss out his chair or Gigantic Arm to stop Fortune from starting the round with s.HP. Against Valentine, s.HP > H Fiber Upper stops all her round starts besides supers.

....but then we add assists to the equation...

One of the things that I've managed to find to keep Fortune somewhat safe against round starts that (most likely) use assists when Fortune's in the middle of Fiber are assists that stay out there for awhile and cover a good amount of ground. H Drill, Butcher's Blade, Lock 'n Load, H Theonite Beam, H Brass Knuckles, sometimes H Bomber, sometimes H Hairball, sometimes L Chair Toss, sometimes Drag 'n Bite, and rarely M Buer.

There is no one unbeatable round start, there just simply isn't, it's up to the player to know what their opponent can, and might, do and having the presence of mind to know what your team can do to stop it.
 
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Knockdown is also what I'd call 'obvious' and that's far from a bad thing. The best way to see if your opponent is mashing is to let them know you want to hit them again, I mean, if you don't already know that they are.

If you're fighting someone who thinks you're free to reversals every time you reset, you need to convince them that pressing buttons is bad. We all know this. Various ways of doing it.
But if you don't know what they want yet, say its the first 3-5 matches, and you really can't risk getting hit to find out because ITS SKULLGIRLS man you dead, what's the best way to go about it then yeah?

Now if you have a really nice anti mashy setup in the air with assist and hell yeah rock you I ain't got that. damn. crap.

So knockdown is cool because it puts stress on them to do/not do something. (Not doing something is doing something.)
Like, it's better than an obvious reset setup because it's obvious you're going for a hit again but it's not obvious what you're gonna do and your chances of baiting increase a lot vs other resets. (Sometimes I get hit out of Double crossunders because I left/right MYSELF for not making it tight and letting them hit buttons during my crossunder period. Using loose resets like the double crossunder, mindgamey, but bad vs buttons.) You also often have access to assist call and the ability to guarantee something on screen to help what you're doing (Para tears, Pea item drop/bombs, etc)

As Parasoul I HATE RESETTING SQUIGLY ON THE GROUND at least if she has one meter. Sniper shot > see what they do is kinda nice in that case, especially if I can go to the corner. (I can, please use Bike Egret. It combos on EVVERYONNEE NOWWW.)

I also actually hate resetting her in the air because of her divekicks and making tight air resets with Para is not something I'm good at tbh. Ideally I reset chargeless meterless Squigly on the ground. At least for me. Oh, you could also jump in vs knockdown and probably bait out the charge DP too, good situation to do it in, IMO.

etc etc

Like if I get Squiggo in the corner with Para/Something NICE Assist/Who Cares I might want to quake > sniper > back up out of grave range and call assist while doing cMP or tear tossing or doing nothing, she might get smart and do SBO on wakeup since it will reach me pressing buttons out of her range of daisy pusher, unless my assist stuffs SBO as it's coming out, situational stuffff. Cilia Slide would probably be nice, it hits low and it would go in where SBO can't touch it, then flings her at you for the combo.

Okay too much theory fighter now byyeee good post @FuLLBLeeD
 
It didn't help that before Skullgirls I played SF4, which basically teaches you all the wrong lessons about oki in fighting games. This is probably why I went in thinking you should never ever go for oki ever unless it's a safe jump or unblockable.

You really need to evaluate risk/reward and your opponent options your opponent has before going for a mixup on knockdown.

Good write up. I think this statement really sums up the core points here. The reason why there's so much emphasis on reversal-safe tools in SF4 is because Ultras give the losing player a large amount of damage to potentially make a comeback and a lot of the cast can convert into those from a reversal with meter.

In SG it really depends on the matchup, meter and potential DHCs. Like you said, Big Band with no DHC and 1 bar of meter is not a huge risk to gamble that he won't reversal because the situation you're in after being hit with SSJ is fine. Same with Val, wakeup EKG isn't anything that you need to seriously respect if you're in a winning position.

On the other hand Filia in the same situation is more dangerous since wakeup Updo into Gregor puts you in a situation where you could just lose the game straight up to Filia rushdown if you get hit by their reversal. On the extreme other end of things, just about anybody with a Cat Heads or Hatred Install DHC available really demands respect on wakeup.

he was doing reversal Napalm Pillar and calling Hornet Bomber at the same time

Doing this on wakeup actually loses to Meaties since you can't call assist and do a special move at the same time. Its pretty useful during gaps in blockstrings though, since you only need a 2 frame gap to squeeze in the assist call + pillar.

Fortune can super-jump forward and punish with Feral Edge or j.LK on Squigly's SBO start. Against Eliza, Fortune can also super-jump forward with j.LK

You can get out of SBO off of a read at round-start, sure, but Fortune can't get out of SBO on reaction after the super flash like Big Band or Valentine. That's what they were referring to, I think.
 
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Fortune can super-jump forward and punish with Feral Edge or j.LK on Squigly's SBO start.
Neat. I was talking about post-flash stuff, though.
 
for me playing fortune/bb,
roundstart assist call > reaction csf will beat sbo sometimes cause bb will take a hit while csf invuln kicks in or something. Basically just throw away the lives of your teammates to achieve success its really cool.
 
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