The Count is ready to unleash the fury of the wulf
Ok, so, this thread is feelin’ a bit lonely. I can tell xD So I’ll try and spark up a conversation here, I know @Tonyathome will probably join in, at the very least =D
I think we can all agree that come season 3 wulf has become considerably easier to break, in terms of ground combos, when not in instinct. His hamstring and leaping slash linkers used to be a blessing and a curse, as they were both always subjected to a 50% chance of being broken if the opponent simply saw the animation and took a wild guess between each variation of the two, but to make up for that the strong versions were a bit faster than usual, with only two hits.
Now that we have 3 hitting hamstring, and 2/3 hitting leaping slash, I feel like these linkers are considerably easier to break as they have much more of a tell (hamstring is slow by itself, but with a difference between 1 and 3 hits, it’s actually realiably broken on reaction by a trained opponent, IMO). This leaves us with ragged edge linker which isn’t the greatest thing in the world xD
So, all of this not to whine, but instead to try and come up with solutions to an apparent dilemma. I usually go for short combos until I’m in instinct, and get most of my damage from resets, as we’ve been discussing in other threads, but that isn’t strictly always the best idea. We also need to mix it up with trying to force a guess break, confuse our opponent to get locked out, and then go ham on dmg. And, suffice it to say, we definitely need to make the best of our FC’s to change from a reset-heavy character to an impossible to reaction-break damage machine x’D
To do this, I’ll list some of the trickier manuals tech I’m using, and I’d like to know if you guys have some more input on this as well!
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First of all, I usually manual with c.LK, c.MK and c.HK, as I feel they tend to look kinda similar and throw off our opponent. s.LP, c.LP and c.MP and overpower I also use, but to a lesser extent, outside of instinct.
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s.MK I do use, since it gives us double manuals. Be it in the neutral as a meaty option, or after an opener or any heavy linker, you can get s.MK > c.MK or s.MK > c.MP or s.MK > c.LK as a double manual. This is really good to further confuse our opponent. Video below:
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Light ragged edge is an amazing opener. It allows any strength manual afterwards, you simply need to adjust to the distance, since it doesn’t close in as much. Medium and heavy ragged edge only allow for light or medium manuals.
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Both hamstring and leaping slash allow for any strength manual as well, but I don’t consider these regular openers, as they should be used strictly in setups, IMO. Far too unsafe and with a slower leaping slash if you go for it often, you’ll get blocked and punished.
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Overpower > leaping slash is, afaik, the only way to combo from a normal into leaping slash in the neutral now (except for s.HK, which you don’t really want to cancel into a special, IMO xD).
Feral Cancel links:
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Overpower > FC is probably wulf’s strongest tool once he’s in instinct. And this isn’t only in the neutral, where it gives us so much frame advantage that we can dash through our opponent and still be at + frames. Mid combo it has so much hitstun that it allows us to dash through and get a heavy manual in from the other side. This is stupidly tricky to break and baits out lockouts amazingly.
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c.MK > s.HK, overpower > s.HK, s.MK > s.HK, s.MP > s.HK are all amazing mid combo. A double manual that leads into more manuals.
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From s.HK mid combo, you can go for overpower again into a linker to continue with heavy damage, if you locked out your opponent.
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From s.HK mid combo, you can go for light or medium ragged edge as a manual. This means 50% guess for your opponent as it’s, IMO, impossible to distinguish, mid-combo, between ragged edge strengths. Even better, these ragged edges act as openers, in terms of hitstun properties, so you’ll get any strength manual after light ragged edge, and light/medium manual after medium ragged.
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After a manual’ed ragged edge in the situation referred above, you have your FC back, as the refresh time is already done! So, you can go manual > FC all over again, or any strength manual > light hamstring linker > FC > any strength manual, and so on.
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With all of this taken into consideration, combos like the ones below become possible:
Last but not least, we can use FC to extend and make our juggles even harder to break, turning every manual’ed eclipse into a 33% chance break as they’re virtually undestiguishable. On a confirmed lockout, we can recapture for huge damage. Unfortunately, my xbox is refusing to upload the juggles video, so I’ll have to update later >_>’’
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Great input on these advance techniques.
Im starting to get the hang of juggles. Im curious to what everyone is finding works better, cr. manuals or s.? Im finding cr. work better plus they help keep flipout ambiguous. It also seems catching a juggled manual with ragged edge is easier when you use a cr. vs a standing. Only exception for me is cr.HK. It seems the cancel window got screwed up on cr.HK since S3. Sometimes Run will work after cr.HK other times it wont.
Not finding much use for lp>mp>hp in juggles. doesnt seem to flow well and you end up dropping your juggle. Something they most likely need to fix.
As mentioned above, s.HK is a nasty reset option.
Keep it up @Skryba and @Tonyathome. I think we need to work on a matchup thread. :0
Unfortunately, now that this tech has been shared prepare for more wulf nerfs come next update!
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I use mostly crouching kicks to keep the breaking hard, but I also use s.LP to juggle sometimes. I haven’t had any trouble with c.HK at all, cancels just fine for me mid combo, and is still an amazing AA (even better now, with the added dmg and reset opportunity by canceling into light ragged edge for a juggle).
I only really use his TC’s for confirms. Don’t use it in combos at all as it’s a pretty obvious break, IMO.
Don’t think you need to worry about nerfs either ^^ I’m confident wulf has finally reached a really good balance point. He’s still very strong but he got away from the spotlight, IMO. Feels like a perfect build for him right now.