New member // Help picking a main

Drathmar

Drathmar

[08] Mercenary
Hey, I am new here to the site, and wanted to say it is awesome I've been lurking for the past couple of days. I'll go into a little about how I got here... I've been a fan of the SC/SB series ever since I was a youngin and played soul blade on the PSX, loved it more than pretty much any other game. I've played every SC since then including SC 1 on the dreamcast.

What brought me here however as one of my friends I made about 8 months ago is really big into fighting games (though not so much SC V, he's more into blazblue and kof 13) and play competitively though not at a big tournament level though he plays in localized ones a lot. With EVO 2k12 being this past weekend we watched it and started talking about soul calibur V and a lot about the matches and such and I really want to learn to play competitively. I found this site as he told me to look at frame data and taught me how to read it.

Since then I've been lurking a bit here while waiting for matches I missed over the weekend to load and watching matches and also playing the game and trying to learn the combos with a few characters in training mode to get a feel for them before trying to decide on a main to play competitively and really get into learning them.

Which leads to my questions on picking a main, in the other SC games that I played casually, Siegfried was always my main (except for when he could only be played as nightmare then it was Ivy). However I have heard he is really bad in competitive play. I started looking into ZWEI then as he seemed really cool to me and somewhat similar to Sieg but with more combo potential due to EIN but looking around on the forums I saw some posts about how he is really bad competitively as well.

After watching some matches I am also really interested in Viola as she just seems like such an awesome character but is completely different from the other 2, and also Natsu seems fun. I am also looking at Xiba and Mitsurugi as Kilik and Mitsu were my secondaries in SC IV.

So, does anyone have any tips for choosing a main from this. I would prefer ZWEI honestly but not if he is really hard to use competitively due to him not being as good as other characters, especially since I am new.

Anyway, thanks for the time and any responses!

-Drathmar
 
To me you should pick one that is based around your playstyle. Sieg isn't bad, don't know who told you that, and it Zwei is honestly getting slept on to me. He is hard to use though and Sieg is only good if the player that is playing him had strong fundamentals. For building fundamentals and reflexes I would recommend playing Pat or Pyrrha for a bit.
 
Thanks for the response, I appre Playstyle wise I have never really thought about it much as I pretty much have only played fighting games casually before, and never really tried to play fast paced without button mashing to hell because of it. I do really enjoy fast paced characters who can hit fast like taki in older games, but I also sometimes play defensively and look to just zone/poke/punish people as well. My friend even told me I am weird because depending on mood/mindset sometimes I tend to try and be in your face (rushdown I think he said the style is called) and other times I try and play more zoning wise.

Not sure exactly what you meant about zwei being slept on, as in he's a sleeper who people think is bad but actually could be pretty good? I do really like him and in looking at a guide and playing for 3-4 hours on him yesterday I was able to actually execute most of his combos 85% of the time with only slight practice and no experience in actually trying to combo much in fighting games.

As for Sieg being bad my friend who is into 2d fighters suggested I look at tier lists to get an idea of who would be good to main and linked me to a couple and I found a couple and all of them had Sieg all alone at the bottom, which is where that idea came from. I would love if he was actually decent though as he has always been one of my favorite characters.
 
Hmm... I see. Also, where the hell did they get a tier list? Please don't say GameFaqs.
 
On the character that's right for you...Pyrrha sounds good. She's fairly versatile but also pretty good at punishment(guaranteed followups when a foe makes a mistake). She can do quite a lot of things decently and has some fun combos to boot(66bA+B+K ~ 22BAK!).


On SCV tier lists...They're forbidden here for a few reasons.

1: SCV very well-balanced. They're essentially moot, as the results of EVO this past weekend has shown with what many considered a low tier character winning the finals against what many believe is a top tier character.

2: It goes without saying, no one agrees with everyone else's tier lists and somehow that always leads to flamewars because we're all too childish to tolerate disagreements.

3: They're retarded. Play whatever character you wish, overcome their weaknesses, and kick ass with them. Whether it's Leixia's low damage, Aeon's overall mediocrity, Ezio's linearity, Nightmare's unsafety...Every caracter has weaknesses. The rule of thumb is that people that play characters based upon their tiering(be it for the character being high or low tier) are tools and you should ignore them.



And welcome. Stay awhile. Your cell may get new padding if you stay long enough even!
 
Lol, no, we both know not to use gamefaqs for anything competitive. I can get the sites in an hour or so as htey are on my home computer (I am at work atm) saved in history.
 
Either way, tier lists are retarded. I can use Sieg as an example, as a paper tier he sucks balls, in practice he is decent. His "Tier" directly correlates the effectiveness of the one who is playing him. If your fundamentals are bad, you'll play Sieg bad and vice-versa.
 
That makes sense. I probably need to actually learn fundamentals before I really pick a main since I've neverp layed more than casually. Any suggestions or tips for that, or even what constitutes fundamentals in SC? I'm assuming just getting down the basic inputs (since most seem to be shared) as well as guard timings and such.

@Wandrian: Thanks for the info, and it does make sense. I've never been itno the competitive scene for fighting games before so I had no idea how they are viewed, as the only games I've been into competitively are LoL and Starcraft 2 and one tier lists are fairly accepted.

As for Pyrrha, I will try her, I know when I played her in story mode she seemed kind of meh and I just found her as a character uninteresting, same with Sophitia and Cassandra in the older games i never liked them much. I will definitely try her though maybe I will like her once I get a feel for her.

If you guys had to suggest one of the following though (these are the ones I find the most interesting in SC V) who would it be:

Xiba, Siegfried, ZWEI, Ivy, Voila, Natsu, Mitsurugi, Nighmare, Alpha Patroklos

Just curious if any of those even comes close to being variable like that. Also is there anywhere where it kind of gives a description for the playstyle of each or do they all have varied ones so that's not really possible?
 
Drathmar said:
That makes sense. I probably need to actually learn fundamentals before I really pick a main since I've neverp layed more than casually. Any suggestions or tips for that, or even what constitutes fundamentals in SC? I'm assuming just getting down the basic inputs (since most seem to be shared) as well as guard timings and such.
Click to expand...
To me fundamentals consist of learning what to do and when, making basic reads on your opponent, punishing unsafe moves, and maximizing your damage (practical combos). For more advanced stuff like baiting and frame trapping you'll have to be good at those first 2 first. To learn those try out Pyrrha or Patroklos for awhile.
 
8wayrun is very important, know the safety of your moves as well,try learn :2::3::6:, cuz the CE depends of it, try to learn the best moments for breve edge, and grample pretty important as well not so much but yet
 
Hikari said:
8wayrun is very important, know the safety of your moves as well,try learn :2::3::6:, cuz the CE depends of it, try to learn the best moments for breve edge, and grample pretty important as well not so much but yet
Click to expand...

I can actually pull of CE's really easily for some reason. I used Pats and A Pats a lot to get through the story mode and could generally pull them off whenever I wanted though not in combos as I didn't know his combos.

Also if anyone who responds wants to use fighting game notation I am quite use to it after this weekend and my friend talking in it and me picking it up as we watched matches.
 
Well if you're just not feeling that Pyrrha is right for you, try someone else. Even if you're inhumanly good with a character, if you despise them you just won't be enjoying the game---and why play a game if you're not enjoying it? :)

How do the other characters play?

Alpha Patroklos: Crazy high execution barrier, but his punishment game is insane...if you can perform all those just frames.

Aeon: Average at everything, has only one actual gimmick, simplest character in the game, excels at ring outs.

Algol: Linear, decent low/mid game, peerless damage with meter(but nothing that special without).

Astaroth: Slow and relatively unsafe, but has peerless per-hit damage(one of his non-meter moves even does over 100 damage) and can throw his foe in almost any situation.

Cervantes: Some of his attacks are on the slow side, he has a bit of an execution barrier, and he's very complex; but on the flip side he has a tool for almost any situation you can imagine.

Dampierre: Luck and trolling-based, he has 50% health meterless combos, his throws are humorous, and he's decent at whiff punishing.

Devil Jin: Banned from most tournies(including the online tournies here), but has great mid/low mixups, a few crazy juggle combos, and very high attack speed.

Edge Master: Each round he randomly switches between all styles(except Algol/Devil Jin/Ezio). His height makes some combos for default characters impossible for him and allows some combos default characters can't perform, so a few tourneys do ban him(as well as the other mimics). If you haven't purchased Dampierre, Edge Master won't use his style.

Elysium: Each round randomly switches between one of the seven female character styles, but has a unique CE that can combo out of many things(the value of which is questionable due to it's crzy damage scaling).

Ezio: Not much for combos(he has exactly two combos---the in-game movelist is a lie! but no really he has few combos) but he's big on counterhit damage and has many good vertical attacks. He suffers against well-timed sidesteps more than other characters since he doesn't have many good horizontals.

Hilde: A character that requires a higher level of mindgames and great execution, but has nice payoffs with juggles and against a competent player her mindgames truly shine. Is she charging up an attack or just messing with your head? THE SUSPENSE WILL KILL YOU!

Ivy: She dominates movement with horizontals and command throws that make sidestepping less effective, but her longer-reaching attacks are pretty unsafe.

Kilik: Randomly switches between all the male charaters' styles each round(except Algol/Devil Jin/Ezio).

Leixia: Fast, safe, lots of guard pressure, a crapload of mixups & cancels, but low damage.

Maxi: Accused of being a button masher's friend by scrubs, in truth he's one of the most complex characters with seven different stances and crazy mixup possibilities. His weaknesses are that his stance transitions(which happen frequently) are vulnerable to any who recognize them and his range as well as safety aren't very good.

Mitsurugi: Above average in almost everything, no actual weaknesses.

Natsu: Crazy fast, powerful, and a counterhit machine but lacks range.

Nightmare: The token scrub killer. Great range and damage, but unsafety requires attacking wisely(chiefly as punishment).

Patroklos: He's the in-your-face type. Mixups, great moves out of 8way run, et cetera.

Pyrrha Omega: Like regular, only greater guard pressure, more damage, less mixups, and a bit less safe.

Raphael: The master of poking and fast verticals. That's all he has, basically.

Whifffried Siegfried: Good damage, lots of stance mixups. Infamous for his moves not doing damage seemingly at random, an annoying though overrated issue.

Tira: No mixups whatsoever(JS 44AA/JS 44A2A is too crappy to even bother with), random persona shifts that switch her between a mostly-crappy and mostly-godlike moveset, and respectable speed/damage.

Viola: The combo and juggle queen. Her per-hit damage isn't that good, but she can do insane juggles any time she stuns/launches/knocks down her victim.

Voldo: A lot like Siegfried, only with confusing animations to boot.

Xiba: Good lows and his 3B mixup is godly.

Yoshimitsu: A lot like Cervantes, but with a higher execution barrier and requires relying on a *TON* of gimmicks.

Zwei: Guard pressure game is crazy good, but he's reliant on making far more good reads and has a hard time regaining the upper hand.
 
You should goes for instinct , i mean i chose Sophie just by this and worke up pretty well for me, like Wandrian said there no meaning playing if you dont enjoy
 
Well instinct is pointing me toward Viola at this point so... I will start learning her

Anyone have any tips for learning Viola?
 
Me XD, 9A+B A+B(is good have a button for this) until you oponents die =P joking, you need to learn quik inputs, the orbless 3B AAB combo starte is very important, her lows kiks are good , orbless 6A+K is a great distractor you can do 1k and you oponent will have a hard time to defend , some new players may fall for 66 AAB and even some more adivanced ,but for more information , players more talented than me can help you in Viola forum
 
I actually don't bother with a button for A+B because my friend gave me one of his old fightsticks so its easy to hit both on that at the same time. I did a little practice with her combos earlier for about an hour and a half and found they flowed well for me on the couple I tried.

Thanks for the info though I will definitely work on those
 
Thanks! I plan on sticking around, especially trolling and maybe asking some questions in the Viola forum. Nice to meet you as well.
 
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