You might expect I would come back with a 15mb post about SSF4, but nope! Tatsunoko Vs Capcom! OK, the status of things is this: I think the last time I really talked about my plans was when I wanted to get Soki up to par. That’s mostly happened, I’m decent with him now. He’s still a 2nd choice for sure, but I’ve become pretty competent with him and can land his vanilla combo about 1/2 the time (the other half resulting in a smaller combo). I’m happy with that, I’ll continue to use him as an alternate, but my focus is now back to my real team. I’m in a state of wanting to branch out into new combos and techniques.

Ippatsuman – My main combo is pretty good now. I still drop it a lot, but a lot less. It’s pretty damaging when completed. I really want to add that last jump,medium into the end of it. The reason being I think, but I’m not positive, that it makes hitting the hyper grab afterwards a lot easier. Right now alert people can often avoid that last (and very important) step in the combo by double jumping or doing certain specials. I think adding the extra jump in my combo would eliminate that option. It’s hard, but occasionally I can land it. It’s strictly in training mode for the time being (and dummy-like opponents). Also, I’m working on a new sequence for him that could be brought into the main combo eventually, but can immediately be used to extend sliding kicks (which I’m a big fan of). It’s an extremely difficult sequence, but is quite extended if mastered (I believe it’s part of his ideal combos). As with most of these combos, if I can do the first 1/10th of it, then that’s 1/10th better than a sliding kick without combo, so it can be immediately put into use. Right now I’m quite poor at it. Details to follow (probably). And also, I’d like to get a better corner combo going. Right now I just use my regular one in the corner, which is not fully taking advantage of the situation. It’d be nice to find some long, hurtful combo including a Saki assist there. The sequence I was just talking about earlier would probably be an excellent fit there. It’s all a rich tapestry.

Saki – I’ve got a few new things cooking with Saki as well. Most simply, this really cheap tactic I haven’t talked about yet (I will sometime) I am working on making even cheaper. Adding another jump, shot, grenade, shot to her aerial assault. That’s vague, but I don’t feel like describing it right now. Anyway, this is fairly easy and I just need more practice to pull it off more often. I’m attempting this immediately in real games as well. The main thing I’m changing with her is that I’m going back to using more unblockable hyper shots when I can. Specifically, when I have 2 hyper gauges, I’m starting to spend one up for the unblockable load and then SAVE it. Then, when I block their combo attempts, instead of going into my usual 2A,2B,positron storm I can instead go into 2A,2B,3C,jump,B,B,jump,B,B, unleash unblockable, catch with positron storm, for a devastating combo. It’s fairly simple, but I do need more practice with it. I don’t think I’m timing the unblockable shot with perfect timing, allowing for a small gap for escape. Also, I’ve heard I can sneak a grenade throw in there as well :). Even without the combo, unblockable into positron is fantastic. The one major drawback is that holding the unblockable takes away my favorite toy, regular C shot. Still, I think it’s a good thing to develop.

So that’s what I’m working on right now. It might be a little bit much to take on all at one time, but maybe the variety of tasks will prevent me from becoming complacent in practice… maybe. To recap: With Saki I’ve got cheapness drills and jab->unblockable->positron combos to work on. With Ippatsuman I have to add an extra jumpkick to my standard combo and I have new kickslide-based combos and corner combos to work on.

Edit: Nothing like writing all about the combos to make me wanna go try them. Had a quick Saki training session that was very productive. Added the grenade as mentioned before and it seems to plug the gap in the attack string. It’s actually very easy to do. This combo does about 70% damage and it only requires Saki with an unblockable loaded and a free hyper. This might completely change the way I go about playing Saki. I might start taking a more aggressive approach, trying to land this, cause it’s really a devastator. This has to be my #1 focus in the immediate future.

P.S. That combo might still be a little bit off. But it’s damn close and variants on it should be easy as well. Just needs a little bit more playing around to figure out how to eliminates holes.

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