BTW are there any benefits to pressing 214 and 236?
For the 3BB I press g3BB.
and for 8WR moves I double tap the directions. However 236 gives the appearance that you enter a forward stepping crouch before you do whatever 8WR move you're going to perform out of it.
There are absolutely benefits. 214 and 236 will cut down your total execution time on all FC or 8WR moves.
214 vs. [G ]2
214 can be buffered into the recovery of another move, and comes out
instantly. Using the [G ]2 method to crouch (that you would use with other characters) takes slightly longer to animate. The difference is only a few frames, but "a few frames" makes all the difference in the world. Alpha Patroklos' punish game is amongst the best in the game, but the moves he is only marginally able to punish with 2143a:B would not be punishable at all by simply holding guard to crouch.
This is a very, very important tool.
236 vs. 8WR
To do an 8WR move in SCV, your character must first spend a few frames actually animating the step. By using 236 to enter an 8WR move, Alpha Patroklos has the unique property of being able to bypass these first few step animation frames. This, again, is a
very important tool. To give you an example of how important these few frames can be, test the following combo: 66A+B, 22_88BA. Try doing this, and unless there's some crazy fast timing window I've never managed, you will NOT be able to get 22_88BA to combo after the 66A+B stun. However, now try inputting this combo as 66A+B, 2362BA. Bam, combo works. Why does this combo now work? Because Alpha is no longer spending time actually animating a sidestep (as with the 22_88BA method), he actually cuts a few frames out, and is able to make the 8WR move connect every time.
Really, you can think of 236 as a tool to allow you to i8WR, that also has a built in tech crouch at the beginning (however, to take advantage of the tech crouch, you're letting the 236 get further into the animation, negating some of the speed benefits you'd get by buffering it out of something else and doing an 8WR move ASAP).
236 also doesn't take you off axis, meaning a combo like CH 2363B, 6K, 8A+B etc... will connect fully, whereas if you instead execute the starting move as CH 33_99B, there's a chance it will hit too far off axis for the 6K to connect at all.
To summarize:
214 = Fastest possible way to enter FC state. Great way to duck under highs and throws, and fastest way to access Alpha's strong FC move set.
236 = Fastest possible way to perform 8WR moves. Use this to accelerate 8WR move start times; add some TC frames to the start of 8WR moves to go under highs/throws; or to prevent an 8WR moves from taking you off axis if you didn't want it to.
Hope this was helpful!