Maxi virgin in need of assistance

seneca_22

seneca_22

[09] Warrior
Maxi noob:
I'm totally new to Maxi. I have not played him in any other iterations, other than to button mash against people who don't know how to play. I've played competitively since SC2, and mained other characters as serious as I could, but never delved into what Maxi has to offer. Thus I have no reference to previous versions, combos, tech traps, etc. I don't know the stances.

I was messing around w/him and from what I could see, he had 5 different "stances" if you will. I saw he had some moves that went straight to a particular stance, and you can hold forward or backward to go into the other stances.

Seems like he can get caught in some strings that you have to wait to end. Again, this is all just my novice and initial testing with him. I used to play Talim and now I just need a new character, thought I'd give Maxi a serious try.

With that, I'm open to any advice the more experienced players can give. I'm familiar with the 1-9 notation and A, B, K, G etc. Would need explanation on stances, etc, anything you feel is helpful to a new maxi player. Thanks.
 
seneca!! Good to see you back around buddy. I do have some tips for you that I will get into when I get home from work. Just wanted to come in and at least say hi.

Maxi does indeed have 5 stances (he had 6 in sc4), they are as follows
Right outer
Left outer
Left inner
behind lower
right cross

of course all those stances have at least 3 options out of each, some have more.

You have your staple "starters" 1B, 4B, 6A, 6A+B, 22_88A etc. all of which lead to a different stance.
For example:

both 1B & 6A go into RO
4B goes into LO
3B no longer goes into stance
and 6A+B can go into LI so long as you got meter for the BE

22_88 A goes into LI as well.

I recommend getting into training mode and playing around with these starters. See what options come from each, see what you like versus all the vids that are up and come up with a style thats all your own.

all right, I gotta get back to work. But good luck. That should get you started. Ill be back later with any further help you may need

HRD
 
When I was learning Maxi, what helped me best was trying to learn all of his stances. Almost all of Maxi's attacks involve using stances (the other ones are just pokes like 1K). Learn what each stance looks like, and each move comes out of them. Try to look at what options they give for mix-ups.

For example, RC lets you use RC B, which is a TJing mid, lets you use RC A B, which is your faster mid and leads into more damage with the BE, and RC K is a TCing low (following K is a mid). This gives you options when you're in that stance and lets you predict what your opponent is going to do.

The things I think Maxi has best going for him is his mix-ups and his huge damage he gets from easy punishments.

Other than that, be sure to look at the combo section and learn the "bread and butter" ones. Some like 6A RO AK (ends in mid) vs. 6A RO A (slight pause for stance shift) BL KK (has a low with the first K) are pretty strong and keep the opponent guessing.

And be absolutely sure to practice using Maxi's 6A+B. It's really strong by itself, and TCs for almost the entire move. The BE version of this brings you into LI, and if the BE connects, the LI A is guaranteed, giving huge damage or a ring out. If they block that you can throw out a LI K (for frame advantage) or LI B (evasive mid). Try to get an idea of what moves can be punished with it. There's a thread just for this move's punishability.
 
HRD, thank you and it's good to be "semi" back. I don't have a lot of time to game these days, but the time I do spend, I'd like to at least be competent. Those are all some really good starters and seem very simple to test out. I'll explore his move list a little more too, but thanks for the initial breakdowns.

Also thanks to you too TG for helping me get started. I was going to just delve into the combo lists and other things, but I really need a basic starting point, being completely new to Maxi. This is pretty helpful, and he looks like he can be a lot of fun once you start to figure out his mixups and other things. I'll probably pick one more to main that I haven't ever tried before, just to mix things up this time around.
 
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Ok, just so I know I'm reading the chart correctly.

The blue arrows are the starters that lead into a stance. For instance, 88A will leave me in Left Inner, upon which I have 5 options or 5 attack strings out of it, right?

OR, I could do 88B which will put me in Right Cross, where I could do a B, and go into Left Outer and have 3 options to finish with out of that.

What does it mean with the Right Cross AA (AA is in red letters)? Does that mean I could do a A, A, and then go into those other strings coming out of it? Not in front of my tv to test it, just trying to see if I'm reading it right.
 
seneca_22 said:
Ok, just so I know I'm reading the chart correctly.

The blue arrows are the starters that lead into a stance. For instance, 88A will leave me in Left Inner, upon which I have 5 options or 5 attack strings out of it, right?

OR, I could do 88B which will put me in Right Cross, where I could do a B, and go into Left Outer and have 3 options to finish with out of that.

What does it mean with the Right Cross AA (AA is in red letters)? Does that mean I could do a A, A, and then go into those other strings coming out of it? Not in front of my tv to test it, just trying to see if I'm reading it right.
Click to expand...

In essence Seneca...Yes. The letters in RED indicate the fastest way to get into said stance. For example.

AA goes into RC
4A goes into BL
4B goes into LO etc.

but yes you have the right idea
 
Play 500 games as Maxi to get familiar with his stances internally. You don't want to be confused about your own options ever. Focus your game on his simple 50/50s from his loops and don't overextend or loop and you'll be straight.
 
Seneca, If you're looking for a good starting point it's A,A->RC and 2A. Both of them punish and set up good advantage on hit, they're also two of Maxi's fastest attacks. I could go into a giant long winded dialouge about it. But it'd probably be easier to just play with ya.
 
Keldon_Creep said:
Seneca, If you're looking for a good starting point it's A,A->RC and 2A. Both of them punish and set up good advantage on hit, they're also two of Maxi's fastest attacks. I could go into a giant long winded dialouge about it. But it'd probably be easier to just play with ya.
Click to expand...

Well, A,A is good on hit, but really horrible on block and it's high... short range aswell... so it's good when you know that you are going to punish and you can't do more than A, A... but it's not very interesting to throw it randomly and see what happend next... it's not really good to punish a step aswell since you will just get the A, A and nothing more
I prefere to use 6A when I expect a step, it's a bit slower but if you catch a step you can combo with RO A, K for a knockdown and good damage (it's as unsafe as A,A though)

So... good for punishing move that are not too unsafe and not TC during the recover, more interesting than B,B I think, because RC is better than LO in my oppinion
The frame trap is safe and cannot be step here (I recommend not to throw the B of RC A B if the A has been blocked), the low is not too bad, and you have RC B which can be usefull
LO got a unsafe frame trap that can be stepped (more damaging though), and two low that are both not so crazy
 
7r17r1 said:
I prefere to use 6A when I expect a step, it's a bit slower but if you catch a step you can combo with RO A, K for a knockdown and good damage (it's as unsafe as A,A though)
Click to expand...

It's more unsafe than 6A...much more.
I wish that I can have a safe AA, really....REALLY wish I can have that, I like whoring AA
 
interesting, I tested it out
it appears that AA on guard can be punished with move at max i17
but 6A can only be punished by i13 move

that means that (if AA is really -2 on guard and RO -3 on guard) RO takes 10 frames to cancel to guard and RC takes 15 frames

some other tests : BL takes 10 frames
means 4A is i16 punishable, I thought it was worse, the move is still not very good but not that bad, I'll use it sometimes :D
also means that WR B+K is not safe on patsuka (and AA punishable by Natsu)

I didn't know that RC is taking more time to cancel to guard than other stance

tks for pointing that out
 
I can't really give any specific advice that hasn't already been said or mentioned. I can really only give you my opinionated advice. You'll learn your style with Maxi over time, but to speed that process and teach yourself what your bread and butter moves are/should be you can try and complete legendary souls with him. The PC will punish every mistake you make (most likely). You'll learn what works and what doesn't quick.
 
7r17r1 said:
interesting, I tested it out
it appears that AA on guard can be punished with move at max i17
but 6A can only be punished by i13 move

that means that (if AA is really -2 on guard and RO -3 on guard) RO takes 10 frames to cancel to guard and RC takes 15 frames

some other tests : BL takes 10 frames
means 4A is i16 punishable, I thought it was worse, the move is still not very good but not that bad, I'll use it sometimes :D
also means that WR B+K is not safe on patsuka (and AA punishable by Natsu)

I didn't know that RC is taking more time to cancel to guard than other stance

tks for pointing that out
Click to expand...

You could avoid Natsu's AA with BL A post WS B+K iirc.
 
I'm not getting it either. But honestly charts are great and everything, i don't want to diminish the work that's put into it. But truley understanding maxi's stances comes from muscle memory and repetition. If you memorize every move maxi has that goes into stance that's useful. And instead of doing the fastest move out of that given stance you learn what the first psl1 _2 lead you to, you'll have a better understanding of maxi than if you were to memorize the entire chart.

Getting a feel for it is in my eyes better than all of the paper and pen knowledge you could ask for. Because it becomes instinctual, where you can shift stances on the fly because you've been in this situation 1000 times before.

Playing online against someone for 1 round is not a great gauge to do learn these more interesting aspects of Maxi. Because online i see people who have one or two gimicky set ups, that crumble if you figure them out in time, or they flourish if you don't. A thinking player will crush these people in a best 2/3 or first to 10. And that's what a maxi player needs to be, gimmicky and a strong thinker. He's got lock down and high damage, and he's scary, but he's easy to deal with when you don't mix it up with PSL's or stance B+K. Or when getting blocked, cancelling your stance entirely.

I've thrown out 6A->RO A,[K ]. 4B,B,K and had all hits blocked and be able to fish for counter hits countless times, by not thinking and just tossing out simple strings after block stun, if someone wanted to attack, i'd 2A them and just continue with very simple mixups. But you will eventually find yourself in a match up where people know how to deal with both of those strings.

And honestly that's where the fun of maxi begins. Knowing you can shift into RO and sidestep something that's been shutting you down with CH RO B->LI sets up your standard Maxi combo. Hell even sometimes it's amusing to PSL1,g. And put someone into a 3b_throw mix up.
 
I agree and that's where I hope to get my skill level to. I'm more interested in it as a visual reference, as opposed to having to open the move list a hundred times.
 
well like i said, it all comes down to muscle memory. And obviously the more stance shifts you do, the more you know the stance via visual cues.
 
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